on a table. ‘That woman who came in,’ he said.
‘Alice Finucane, married to Paddy. She’s here every Wednesday and Friday, her only escape.’
Challis remembered a story that Meg had told him, of how Paddy had been reported to the RSPCA for mistreating his dogs. Gavin had investigated and been kicked and punched off the property.
‘Poor thing,’ said Mrs Traill.
Challis smiled non-committally and sat at the table. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Mrs Traill reluctantly.
When she was gone, Challis began to read. Gavin’s disappearance had been covered in fair detail, but there were no hard facts beyond the abandoned car and a faint hint that Gavin Hurst’s job had been ‘demanding’, which Challis read as meaning Gavin had been unpopular. He wiped dust from his hands, thanked Mrs Traill and left the building.
The library was next door to the shire offices. Parked outside it was a dusty new Range Rover with tinted windows. One window whirred down and Lisa said, from the front passenger seat, ‘Afternoon, handsome.’
Challis glanced automatically at the heavy glass doors of the shire offices. ‘Rex is in there making a nuisance of himself,’ Lisa said.
‘What about?’
‘Council rates. It happens every year.’
Challis stood by her door for a while and they chatted. Life had slowed right down, to this, gentle walks around the town and idle conversation. He half liked it. At the same time, he missed the Peninsula, and catching killers.
Rex came out, looking angry. He wore the uniform of the successful grazier who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty: tan, elastic-sided R. M. Williams riding boots, R. M. Williams moleskin pants, Country Road shirt, even a wool-symbol tie. Then Challis could smell the man: a heavy aftershave, tinged with alcoholic perspiration. Blurry red eyes, heightened red capillaries in his cheeks, dampness under the arms.
Rex edged between Challis and the passenger door of his Range Rover. He placed a pale soft hand on his wife’s forearm, which rested on the windowsill. Everything about him said: I got the girl. The girl chose me, not you.
‘Sorry to hear about your father, Hal,’ he said, probably not meaning it.
Challis nodded. ‘Well, mustn’t keep you.’
Challis nodded again and stepped away from the Range Rover, which sped away soon afterwards, voices muffled inside it.
29
That same Wednesday afternoon, John Tankard sloped off work to pick up his car. He intended to take it to the VicRoads office in Waterloo, wave the roadworthy certificate under their noses, and pay for a year’s registration. But the head mechanic at Waterloo Motors said, ‘Bad news, pal.’
‘What?’
‘I’m pretty sure your car was a grey import that was subject to rebirthing.’
‘Explain,’ Tank demanded.
‘Your car was never sold in Australia. It came in as a grey import and was fitted with compliance plates and VIN number from a written-off vehicle. There’s no way it complies with Australian design rules. Even if you did spend the thousands and thousands of dollars necessary to make it compliant, there are no parts available locally, and service costs would be high.’
Tank snarled, ‘I’m a police officer.’
‘I can see that,’ the guy said, taking in Tank’s uniform. ‘As a policeman you know we have to abide by the regulations. Your car is missing many of the items necessary for registration here: side intrusion bars, child restraint mounting points, for example.’ He was reading from a list. ‘The seatbelts don’t pass, the cooling system is insufficient for Australian conditions, the speedo is only graduated to one hundred and eighty kilometres per hour, the exterior mirror on the driver’s side is convex…I could go on.’
Tears of rage and disappointment pricked Tank’s eyes. He felt a black cloud hovering. ‘You’re just loving this.’
The mechanic was unmoved. He handed Tank the keys. ‘There’s no charge. I could see immediately what was wrong.’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘Busy,’ said the mechanic.
‘I’m going to see what VicRoads has to say about this.’
‘I’ve already informed them. Sorry.’
‘You’re not sorry.’
Tank shot around to the VicRoads office in High Street and asked what could be done. He was hot and blustery and it did him no good at all. ‘I’m afraid we’ve already black-flagged your car,’ sniffed the guy behind the counter, the sniff owing a little to hayfever and a lot to superciliousness. He had very red lips, dampish eyes and nose. John Tankard wanted to thump him.
‘What do you mean, black-flagged?’
Tank had slipped away from work for five minutes. He could see that he’d need five hours.
‘Just what I said. You can’t register that car in Victoria, or anywhere in Australia. We’ve black-flagged it.’
‘But I bought the car from a dealer fair and square.’
‘But not with a roadworthy certificate, apparently. That should have alerted you.’
‘You’re saying it’s my fault?’
‘Sorry, sir, but you’re a policeman. Go back to the dealer and get him to return your money.’
The dealer, then the finance company, thought Tank miserably, and neither one is going to want to know me.
Evening, the light outside setting toward full darkness as Ellen sat with a scotch in one of Challis’s armchairs. The fact that it wasn’t her own armchair, glass or scotch served to underline her estrangement from her old life. She’d had foundations back then-her own house, family life-and now she was living alone in temporary accommodation. She took a gulp of scotch: seeing her situation in those terms was too depressing for words. For a start, it rendered Hal Challis as some kind of remote landlord who might turf her out at any moment. She needed to hear his voice. That would banish the image.
She called him. No answer.
She immediately called Larrayne. ‘Everything okay, babe?’
‘Yes, for the ninetieth time.’
Larrayne’s voice was muffled, her tone distracted, as though she was engaged in some other activity, like painting her nails, taking notes from a textbook or fondling her boyfriend. Ellen didn’t know. Larrayne had a new life now, new daily habits.
‘Just checking.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Larrayne said, and Ellen wanted to slap her.
‘Mum,’ said Larrayne suddenly, her tone focussing, ‘are you working on this paedophile thing?’
‘Yes,’ Ellen said. Maybe she’d get some respect, some acknowledgement.
But Larrayne failed to follow through. Ellen heard chewing. ‘It’s a nasty one,’ she went on.
‘Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,’ Larrayne said, Ellen sensing a shudder of distaste in her daughter. A creature cried in the night. Maybe a fox, maybe after the ducklings.
The call finished, Ellen turned to ‘Evening Update’, which told her that Katie Blasko had been abused and kept dosed with Temazepam. Now, that information could have been leaked by a hospital worker, but just as easily by a member of her team. Shit, shit, shit.
