Ellen clenched and felt herself blush, the heat and the colour coming from shame, defiance and anger. When she found her voice she said, ‘That won’t be necessary, sir.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ her boss said, turning briskly and striding out of the station to address the cameras. He loved the cameras and believed sincerely that they loved him.
Ellen stared gloomily at the wall. Presently she got a call from a technician at ForenZics. His name was Riggs; the voice was the kind that sniffed disapprovingly. ‘That toy you sent us. We found prints and partials from the child and the mother, no one else.’
Ellen sighed. ‘Thank you.’
Riggs said, ‘Hours. The state lab sometimes takes days to furnish results.’
Was he after praise? ‘Thank you.’
‘At your service,’ Riggs said, closing the connection with a brisk click.
Ellen stared at the wall again, then picked up her desk phone and dialled.
Fielding occasional calls from journalists, and referring them to the media office, she worked until 10 pm. Without the benefit of daylight or fresh leads, there was no point in hanging on later than that. She’d be of more use to Katie Blasko tomorrow morning, with a clear head, and so she clattered swiftly down the stairs and out into the car park at the rear of the police station. More than once on the drive along the moonlit back roads did she think about turning back and doing an all-nighter at the station. She wanted to be in her office, not in Hal Challis’s unfamiliar bath, kitchen or bed, when the body was found.
For she was sure there’d be a body, crammed into a culvert somewhere, or tossed onto waste ground. Katie Blasko would be torn and bruised, internally and externally. Ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, maybe her neck. Things organic and inorganic would have been inserted into her. She’d have been photographed and videoed by the creep or creeps who abducted her, the images transferred onto compact disc and sold overseas or stored on computers and e-mailed all over the world, catering to a range of perverts: those who liked pre-pubescent girls posed in their cottontails, those with rape and incest fantasies, sodomites, all the way up to those who got a kick out of killing children or seeing it done.
Challis’s house was dark, her footsteps a lonely series of slaps on his floorboards. It was a house to her, not a home. Without Challis there, it was just a house she’d be living in for the next few weeks. None of the angles were friendly, even with all of the lights on.
She’d collected Challis’s mail and rolled copy of the Age from the letterbox at the foot of his driveway. Now she poured herself a gin-and-tonic and tried to free the Age of the plastic film that wrapped it, but couldn’t find the join. Frustrated, she got one of Challis’s kitchen knives and cut and sawed at the plastic, tearing the paper here and there. She could cry.
Instead she did a stupid thing and picked up the phone.
‘Al? It’s me,’ she said in a small voice.
Her husband didn’t know how to read it. ‘Oh, hi,’ he said neutrally.
He was renting a flat in Frankston now. She didn’t know what his life was like. ‘How are you?’
‘All right.’ He was wary. ‘Is everything okay, Ells?’
He hadn’t wanted her to leave him. She heard from his voice that he was a little encouraged that she’d called. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured him hastily.
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘No, honestly, I’m fine.’
‘I heard on the news they acquitted Nick Jarrett.’
‘Yes.’
‘Bad luck.’
Ellen tried to detect satisfaction in her husband’s voice. Like her, he was a cop, but he was also liable to be pleased by any reversal that came her way. She changed the subject. ‘I saw Larrayne while I was in the city.’
‘She told me.’
‘Oh. She had a boy with her.’
‘Travis.’
‘So you know him. You could have told me. Are they living together?’
‘Why don’t you ask her? She’s your daughter.’
‘No,’ said Ellen, feeling hurt and nasty, ‘she’s her dad’s daughter.’
They were silent. The past and the present sat heavily. Ellen sipped her drink and said, ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be home.’
He was attached to the accident investigation squad. He rarely had Friday nights free. ‘Meeting up with a friend later,’ he said.
Code for a female friend, a lover? Ellen wondered if he was telling the truth. It hadn’t occurred to her to think about his love life, for she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him again. Now she felt a faint twinge of something she hoped wasn’t jealousy. Was it jealousy because he had a love life, or jealousy because he had a love life and she didn’t? There was a world of difference between the two.
‘Oh yeah? Who?’
‘Are you jealous, Ells? Lover boy’s gone away and you’re all on your lonesome?’
‘Go to hell.’
She almost cut the connection, but found herself telling him about Katie Blasko. There had been a time, long ago, when they’d talked over their day’s work, the hassles and triumphs. That was before she’d become a sergeant and he’d failed the sergeant’s exam. That was before he’d decided she was sleeping with Challis.
‘I might be able to help there,’ he said, when she’d finished.
She sipped her gin-and-tonic. Challis’s sitting room began to take on warmer configurations. She liked its plain furniture and simplicity, the mix of wood and leather, the CD collection under the rows of books along one wall. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know, Ellen,’ he said impatiently, as though she’d doubted his abilities. ‘Check speed cameras in the area, infringement notices, stolen vehicle reports.’
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, oddly touched.
‘Yeah, well…’
Into the pause that followed, she said, ‘Don’t be late for your date.’
‘Oh, okay,’ he said mutedly, and she didn’t know if he’d been hinting for an excuse to break his date, or keeping up a pretence to make her jealous. She felt about sixteen again.
As she was getting ready for bed the phone rang, and Hal Challis said, ‘Burnt my house down yet?’
Relief flooded her. There was no cluttered history, he was rock solid and he’d be able to help her. Then, just as instantaneously, complications took shape in her mind. Her boss was a thousand kilometres away. He had troubles of his own. He’d left her in charge.
She cleared her throat, trying to rally. ‘Burnt the toast,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘How’s the grass?’
‘Long, getting longer.’
He said apologetically, ‘Get someone in to mow it for you. I’ll pay you back.’
They were far apart in the night, the staticky murmurs of the atmosphere sounding on the line between them. ‘Bad news,’ she said. ‘Nick Jarrett was acquitted.’
‘Hell.’
‘Tell me about it. McQuarrie’s steaming.’
‘I’ll bet. Look, don’t beat yourself up about it. We’ll get Jarrett on something else.’
‘Yeah, something minor, no jail time.’
They were silent, acknowledging the frustrations of the job. ‘Hal, there’s something else,’ Ellen said, and told him all about it: Katie Blasko, Katie’s home life, the delay, the indifference of van Alphen, McQuarrie’s grandstanding, and, more than anything, her doubts and fears.
‘You’re right to treat it as a worst-case scenario,’ Challis assured her. ‘When it’s a kid, you can’t afford to
