Second World War, now crammed with walking sticks and umbrellas.
And continued when he saw Rob Minchin on the doorstep.
‘Hal, old son.’
‘Rob.’
They shook hands, then embraced awkwardly. ‘How’s my patient?’
‘Cranky.’
‘Unchanged, in other words.’
Like Challis, Minchin had gone away, trained, and returned to the town. Unlike Challis, he’d stayed. He was the only doctor in the district, run ragged by surgery consultations, hospital rounds and house calls. He travelled huge distances, attending home births on remote farms, talking through the anxieties of lonely widows, taking the temperatures of sick children, pronouncing death when stockmen ran their mustering bikes into gullies and broke their necks. He was also the on-call pathologist for the region.
And Challis’s one-time friend. Time and distance had weakened the friendship, and fine distinctions in ambition and personality had become marked disparities, but, still, history always counts for something, and Challis and Minchin grinned at each other now.
‘Wish the circumstances were better,’ the doctor said.
Shorter than Challis, Minchin had grown solid over the years. He was fair-skinned and had always looked a little pink from sunburn or embarrassment. His hair was straight, reddish, limp and needed cutting. He’d been married, but his wife had run away with his partner in the little practice he’d inherited from his father.
‘It’s a waiting game,’ Challis murmured.
They went into the sitting room, where the old man was slumped in his chair. Minchin hurried to his side, but then a ripping snore stopped him.
Challis laughed. ‘Kept me awake last night.’
Minchin nodded. ‘Might as well let him sleep. I’m just checking in. No scares?’
He meant the series of minor strokes. Everyone was waiting for the big one. ‘No,’ said Challis. ‘Offer you a drink?’
‘Better make it coffee.’
‘If you can call it that,’ Challis said, leading the way to the kitchen.
When it was poured, Minchin asked, ‘How’s Meg holding up?’
The guy’s still in love with her, Challis thought. He saw how he could use that. ‘Not too bad, given all she’s had to deal with in the past few years.’
‘Yes.’
‘Gavin running out on her like that.’
‘Yeah,’ said Minchin flatly.
‘Rob,’ said Challis after a considering pause, ‘without breaching patient confidentiality, what sort of state was he in before he disappeared?’
‘You asked me that at the time.’
‘I didn’t take it in.’
Minchin leaned forward across the kitchen table, dropping his voice in case the old man was listening. ‘Gavin was veering from one extreme to the other. I prescribed medication to level him out, but I don’t know if he ever took it.’ He paused. ‘He hit Meg a couple of times, you know.’
Challis nodded sagely, but he hadn’t known. Just then, Minchin slapped at his solid thigh, leaned to one side and fetched a mobile phone from his side pocket. ‘Minchin. Yep. Yep. Oh, Christ, be right there.’
He pocketed his phone again and looked at Challis. ‘Do you know Ted Anderson?’
‘No.’
‘Wife died of cancer five years ago, leaving him with a baby to bring up. He’s gone off the Pass.’
‘Gone off the Pass’. Everyone knew what that meant. ‘Killed?’
Minchin nodded. ‘The kid’s okay, but trapped in the car.’
‘You’d better go, Rob.’
‘Tell your old man I’ll look in again when I can.’
‘Will do.’
Small-town tragedies, Challis thought, watching Minchin drive away. Next week it might be an ambulance officer coming upon his own wife in a burning car. Last year five teenagers had been killed when they failed to beat a train over a level crossing. When he was growing up, a bride-to-be from the next town was killed on her way to her wedding. As a young constable in Mawson’s Bluff, he’d attended when a jack-knifing semi-trailer had wiped out a family of five. There was never an end to it.
He was drawn back into the house by the ringing of the phone. ‘Hal?’
‘Ells,’ he said.
And she told him about Katie Blasko.
21
The atmosphere crackled on Tuesday morning, affecting everyone in the Waterloo police station, uniformed officers, detectives and civilian staff alike. It was most evident at the briefing, the mood heightened and expectant as Ellen began to talk. Ellen herself was fierce, dynamic, showing sorrow, disgust and anger. Those seated close to her saw that her eyes were damp as she described the house, the room, the small, abused body.
Then, unwinding, she got down to business. ‘As you can see, there are fewer of us today.’
She didn’t need to explain why. Word always got around the station quickly. Now that Katie Blasko had been found alive, Superintendent McQuarrie wanted those uniformed constables who had been on the search detail back on regular duties, and was allowing Ellen only a small team to investigate the abduction. Van Alphen and Kellock were not obliged to attend, but had offered their services, arguing that they knew the case and could allocate uniformed assistance from time to time.
‘Let’s start with the house,’ she said. ‘Our man was taking a chance, using the shire’s emergency housing.’
She looked around the room, inviting reasons for that. It was van Alphen who answered. ‘Those houses are sometimes empty for days, weeks,’ he said. ‘People move on without informing their social workers, parole officers or the shire.’
‘You’re saying that many people could have known about that particular house, and that it would be empty for a while?’
‘Yes.’
Scobie supplied another detail. ‘I spoke to the shire housing officer. There’s been a sudden increase in demand. The order to clean De Soto Lane came in yesterday morning. Clearly our man wasn’t expecting that.’
John Tankard stirred as if making a vital point. ‘Meaning he could come back.’
Kellock smiled at him without much humour. ‘Unlikely. Have you seen the publicity? But I’m sure we can roster you to watch the place.’
‘Senior Sergeant,’ Tankard muttered, going red.
‘What scenario are we looking at here?’ demanded Ellen. ‘They keep her prisoner for a few days, dress her up in school uniforms, frilly underwear, nighties, film each other having sex with her, then let her go?’
‘Or kill and dump her,’ Scobie said.
Ellen made a brief, bitter gesture. ‘Meanwhile the neighbours can’t tell us a thing.’
She’d examined the house last night and again early that morning. It was well chosen, for there were no neighbours to speak of. The builder erecting the market gardener’s new house had recently gone bankrupt and so no one had been working at the site. The few workers employed in the timber yard and the market garden had seen nothing, owing to trees, shrubbery and high fences. The elderly couple living in the little house opposite were used to seeing cars come and go at 24 De Soto Lane, and had paid no attention to recent activities there. ‘So long as they aren’t noisy and aren’t going to murder us in our beds, we leave them be,’ the old woman had told Ellen.
