if Lisa had been behind that. Rex Joyce’s parents had seemed old and frail twenty years ago. As Lisa said, they must barely be hanging on now.
‘How is Rex?’
Lisa told him. He scarcely took it in, finding attractive-all over again-her fine, animated features and gestures. She was very alive there, on the other side of the little table. Their knees touched, and their shoes, once or twice. But he did take in the fact that Lisa was disgruntled. Rex Joyce was a drinker. He remembered that Meg had told him that.
‘And you?’ she asked. She gave him a lopsided look. ‘Are you over all that…business?’
She meant the fact that Angela, his late wife, had tried to have him killed. Lisa’s voice and manner suggested that despite everything else she had or might have done to him, she would never have wanted to kill him. He nodded, feeling tired suddenly. It was as if he was being confronted by past mistakes-mistakes in matters of the heart, first with Lisa and then with Angela. He said bluntly, ‘It would never have worked, you and me.’
She wasn’t disconcerted. She patted his wrist. ‘In fact, it didn’t work. But it was fun.’
He grinned. She returned it, and said lightly, ‘Involved with anyone at the moment?’
Her gaze was direct, amused but merciless. He met it, thinking rapidly. Lisa was acting on him; the old chemistry was still there. But old instincts were kicking in, too. He remembered that Lisa Acres was not someone you confided in. If she listened it was to store information that she might use one day-against you, or to her advantage, or both.
‘Cat got your tongue, Hal?’
That tugged at his memory, too. He’d often been mute with her, back when he was eighteen, mainly out of simple astonishment: he’d never met anyone so vain, unreliable, bored and easily distracted. All those careless, shrugging explanations for missed appointments and unreturned phone calls. Reproaches never worked because she was unaccommodating, unconcerned about hurting him and unable to make concessions. But her sauntering walk, sleepy smile and softly rounded, flawless brown skin had made up for all of that, over and over again.
She saw all of this passing across his face and a brief, peevish expression flickered on hers, as if she was like everyone else and wanted to be loved. Her gaze slipped to the table.
He sipped his coffee and said inanely, ‘How’s the drought affecting you and Rex?’
‘The drought? For God’s sake.’
The tightness persisted between them. Presently Lisa said, ‘I see Eve in here sometimes. A whole gang of them. Nice kids.’
‘Yes,’ said Challis, relieved.
‘I feel sorry for her.’
‘Eve’s okay.’
Lisa reached across and placed her hand over his and it felt hot and alive there. ‘On the surface, maybe.’
He withdrew his hand. ‘Did you know Gavin?’
Lisa sipped her coffee. ‘This is all froth. Gavin? Not really. He was not someone you got close to.’
Challis had to acknowledge the truth of that.
‘Well, I’d better go,’ Lisa said, getting to her feet and bending over to kiss him. She swept out of the place as though she owned it, as she’d always done.
He sat for a while, reluctant to return to his father, and checked his phone, which had been turned off. One message. He dialled, mood lightening, and said, ‘Only me, returning your call.’
Last night Ellen had been elated: Katie Blasko had been found alive. Today the elation was still apparent in her voice, but Challis also heard resolve. She now knew what sort of crime and criminals she was investigating. ‘Hang on,’ he told her, ‘I’m in the local cafй, and I don’t want to upset the natives.’
Smiling thanks as he passed the front counter, he stepped outside. ‘I’m back,’ he said.
They talked for a while about the possibility that a paedophile ring operated on the Peninsula. Like her, he’d heard the rumours. ‘Or it was an isolated incident,’ he said.
‘Which makes it harder to investigate,’ Ellen said. She paused. ‘Such a brave little kid. I hated interviewing her, making her dredge it all up.’
‘I know.’
Challis did know. Sad, broken and fearful children walked through his dreams sometimes. In many cases he’d avenged the harm done to them, but not nearly often enough.
He walked, listened, made suggestions. Talking like this, about work, and its logical steps, was a blessing, an antidote to the fog he was feeling here in the Bluff. ‘You’re a tonic,’ he said, after she’d kidded him about something.
There was a pause. ‘Am I?’
Then, as he was beginning to think he’d gone too far, she said, ‘You are, too, Hal.’
24
Operation Calling Card.
While Ellen Destry had been interviewing Katie Blasko, van Alphen and Kellock found their ambush site, a house behind the fitness centre. It belonged to Kellock’s wife’s cousin, who worked on a Bass Strait oil rig and was therefore away for several days at a time. They fed the details to Ivan Henniker, and he fed them to Nick Jarrett. To cover themselves, van Alphen and Kellock obtained three other addresses, of people who were genuinely away on holiday, and arranged for each location to be staked out that night. Ivan Henniker was not told those addresses. ‘We might get lucky and catch Nick Jarrett in the act,’ van Alphen and Kellock told the stakeout teams in one of the little briefing rooms behind the canteen, later that afternoon, ‘or we might sit on our arses all night. It could be weeks before we trap the bastard.’
‘So Jarrett’s been fed four potential locations to burgle?’ asked John Tankard, who was highly motivated. He’d spent a fruitless morning in De Soto Lane with Scobie Sutton, and still cringed inside at the memory of his fear last Saturday night, encountering the Jarretts on that back road behind Waterloo.
‘Yes,’ lied van Alphen. He glanced at his watch. ‘Take the rest of the afternoon off. Meet you back here at eight tonight.’
John Tankard hurried out of the station. Four o’clock. He was anxious to grab this small window of opportunity to do something about his new car. He’d shown it to a few mates at work, and their reactions had ranged from envy to ridicule (which Tank read as envy), but he’d not had a chick in the passenger seat yet-not counting his little sister- and the Northern Territory registration would run out soon.
And so he drove around to Waterloo Motors and booked it in for a roadworthy test. He wouldn’t be able to register the car in Victoria without it.
‘I can fit you in early next week,’ the head mechanic said, flipping through the grimy pages of his desk diary.
‘But the rego runs out on Friday,’ Tank said. He cursed that he’d changed out of his uniform. The uniform gave him authority. In jeans and a T-shirt he was merely bulky.
He’d had a shower though.
The mechanic made tsk sounds and ruminated on the problem. ‘Get it privately, did you?’
‘A dealer,’ Tank said.
‘Dealers are supposed to provide a roadworthy certificate.’
‘The car’s from Darwin, just traded in, not much registration left, so the guy discounted the price if I’d buy it as it is,’ said Tank in a defensive rush.
The mechanic said nothing but was unimpressed. Electric tools whirred and clattered beyond the door that led to the workshop area. Someone whistled, another dropped a spanner, and the air was laden with the odours of oil and grease. Everything was satisfying to John Tankard, except this hitch regarding the mechanic’s busy
