‘I’m not related by blood,’ said Clode.
‘How old was Grace when you married her mother?’
Clode thought about it. ‘Early teens.’
‘How old is her daughter?’
‘About seven.’
‘An address, please, Mr Clode.’
‘Why? You haven’t told me what this is about.’
‘Whose white van did you borrow last Thursday?’
Clode was ready. ‘I didn’t borrow a white van. I didn’t rent a white van. I don’t own a white van. I don’t know anyone who owns or drives a white van.’
Ellen sneezed and her eyes itched. She fished a damp tissue from her pocket, feeling obscurely undermined by her hayfever.
‘Satisfied?’ said Clode. ‘I get beaten up and you lot treat me like I’m a suspect in some crime.’
‘We were thinking the assault on you might have been personal,’ Ellen said. ‘I understand they also trashed your house pretty badly.’
The signs were still apparent in the sitting room: the remains of a chair in the corner and a crooked print on the wall. Clode shook his head. ‘They would have been high on drugs. They stole a digital camera and a coin collection.’
Scobie frowned. ‘You told me they hadn’t taken anything.’
‘I’ve had time for a proper look since then,’ Clode said. ‘This is just a junkie burglary.’
‘More than that, Mr Clode,’ Scobie said. ‘You were beaten up pretty badly.’
Ellen was watching Clode, and saw him go very still. ‘I’m fine. I don’t want to make a fuss,’ he said. ‘It hardly seems worth bothering about.’
Now, why is that? Ellen wondered. Muttering about briefings and deadlines, she nodded goodbye to Clode and hurried Scobie out to the car. ‘So, what do you think?’
Scobie swung his mournful face toward her. ‘About what?’
‘Scobie, wake up. What did you make of Clode?’
He seemed to make an effort. ‘Er, it’s hard to tell.’
His head was all over the place. ‘Forget it,’ Ellen said. Hal Challis had always been her sounding board, but he wasn’t here.
28
This was his routine now, to leave the house for a couple of hours in the afternoon while his father napped. Meg was usually sitting with the old man when Challis returned. A freelance bookkeeper who worked from home, she had the freedom to come and go.
That Wednesday Challis made for the little library, briefly pausing on the footpath for a road-train as it headed north with huge bales of hay to where the drought was most acute. He crossed the road and went in. The library opened on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, and he was the only borrower. He selected three talking books for his father and took them to the desk.
‘How’s your dad doing?’ the librarian asked.
Retired now, she’d been Challis’s English teacher twenty-five years ago. ‘Fine, Mrs Traill.’
She sighed. ‘And Meg? I bet she needed the break.’
Did Mrs Traill know how demanding the old man could be? Challis smiled neutrally. Nothing was sacred or secret in the Bluff.
Arms went around him from behind and his first thought was: Lisa. Even the words were the same. ‘Guess who!’
More exuberant than Lisa. He turned and kissed his niece. ‘You wagging school?’
‘As if I’d come here-no offence, Mrs Traill.’
‘None taken, dear.’
Eve wasn’t in school uniform, a liberty allowed the senior students, Challis supposed. She was returning a couple of books. ‘Research?’
‘Exams soon, Uncle Hal.’
‘Have you seen Mark?’
Eve nodded. ‘They gave him a ticking off, made him pay for petrol.’ She paused. ‘Sorry I overreacted on Sunday.’
‘You were sticking up for your friend,’ Challis said. ‘That’s important.’
She gave him a brief hug. ‘Thanks. Wurfel’s okay, I suppose. A bit law and order, friends with the local gentry.’ She beamed at him challengingly.
Challis glanced at Mrs Traill, who was seventy years old, round, comfortable and powdered, an old grandmother who had a perspective on everything and a sense of humour. She gave them both an enigmatic smile, as though she understood many of the things that happened in the town but kept them to herself. ‘Let me take those books from you, dear.’
Eve handed them over. ‘How’s Gramps?’
‘The same,’ said Challis.
‘Tell him I’ll try to pop in later.’
‘I will.’
‘Have to go,’ she said, looking at her watch.
Challis glanced through the window. An old car, two girls and a boy in it, bopping to music. ‘See ya,’ he said.
‘See ya,’ and she was through the door and into the car.
Mrs Traill smiled fondly after her. ‘She’s often in here. She studies hard, that girl.’
Challis nodded.
‘A tragedy.’
Challis gazed at her. ‘Did you know Gavin very well?’
‘He wasn’t from around here.’
Challis gave her a half smile. ‘But did you know him?’
‘I was one of your mother’s best friends. She told me about the strange mail Meg was getting.’
‘Mum and Meg didn’t tell Dad about any of that.’
‘Who can blame them? A lovely man, your father, but some things are best kept quiet.’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else?’
It suddenly occurred to Challis: the weekly Northern Herald would have covered Gavin’s disappearance. Unfortunately it was based in another town. ‘Do you keep back issues of the local paper?’
‘Of course.’
‘Going back five years?’
‘Gavin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Stay there.’
She was gone for some time. After a while, he strolled idly around the shelves, peering at book titles, and then heard the main door open and close. He peered through a gap in the books and saw a woman enter shyly, scurry to one of the little tables, remove a book from her cane basket and begin to read, all of her movements painfully slow and defeatist.
‘You can use the back room,’ said Mrs Traill behind him.
He jumped. ‘Thanks.’
She led him behind her desk to a storeroom, where she’d dumped dusty bound copies of the Northern Herald
