he found the will. The old man had no shares and only a few thousand dollars in the bank. He’d left his house to his children and his car to Eve.
At 3.30, Challis parked the old station wagon in the street outside Meg’s house. He checked in with her, then returned to the car, tied a purple ribbon around it, and waited on the verandah for Eve to come home from school. She appeared at 3.45, shuffling, head down, all of her striding, knockabout humour gone. She spotted the car, and froze. Challis called out to her.
She turned, shaded her eyes as he crossed the lawn toward her. ‘Uncle Hal.’
He kissed her. ‘As you can see, I come bearing gifts.’
Her eyes filled with tears. She tried to hide it by turning wry and scoffing. ‘You expect me to drive that? I’ll lose all street cred.’
Challis drew himself up. ‘I’d be proud to be seen in this car.’
Eve was sniffing, blinking her eyes, trying to smile. ‘Mum said you lost your virginity in it.’
Challis’s jaw dropped comically. Suddenly Eve was wailing, crumpling. Challis held her tight for a while. ‘Hush,’ he murmured.
‘I know he could be mean to you and Mum, but he was great to me.’
‘I know.’
They stood like that. Eve sighed raggedly. ‘The Murray Challis memorial station wagon.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
They went inside. Meg was on the sofa, making a list of hymns for the funeral. ‘How about “Abide With Me”?’ she said.
They both shuddered. ‘No thanks.’
They discussed the will. ‘I don’t want the house,’ Challis said. ‘You can have my share. Maybe you can live there.’
Mother and daughter were seated together on the sofa. They turned to each other in silent communication and then kissed. It was as if they had settled all doubts, and Challis, on the edges of their lives here, realised that they were going to be all right. They faced him resolutely. Meg smiled and said, ‘We’re happy here.’
‘Then we’ll sell the house and you can have my share.’
‘No, Hal. Equal shares.’
‘I had a word with the real estate agent. It’s worth about $175,000, but he said potential buyers are thin on the ground. People are leaving the district, not flocking into it.’
‘We might have better luck finding tenants,’ Meg said. ‘The married housing on the sheep stations around here is pretty basic.’
Challis remembered Meg’s words when Lisa Joyce came to see him late afternoon. He ushered her through to the kitchen, saying, ‘You and Rex don’t want to buy this place for your stud manager, do you?’
Lisa gazed around her. He began to see how shabby everything was. ‘Not right now, Hal,’ she said, smiling kindly as though he’d made a brave joke. ‘I was really sorry to hear about your dad. He was a lovely guy.’
Challis doubted that Lisa had spent more than five minutes with Murray Challis in her life, but he appreciated the compliment. ‘Thanks.’
She said, with a hint of stronger feelings, ‘I suppose you’ll go back to Victoria pretty soon.’
How to answer that? He was feeling the little disturbances he’d always felt when he was around her. ‘There’s a lot to do,’ he said lamely.
Her fingers lingered on his wrist as she went out. It was affection, commiseration and the gesture of a woman who had an unconscious excess of sexual energy.
He was bucked up to hear Ellen Destry’s voice that evening, the kindness and affection flowing from her, but shocked to hear that Kees van Alphen had been shot dead. ‘I should come back,’ he said.
‘You can’t, Hal. Bury your father.’
‘But-’
‘You’re better off out of it. It’s become a feeding frenzy for the media. McQuarrie keeps popping up in front of the cameras. And any minute now, we’re going to have a team from Melbourne down here, crawling all over us. Stay away, Hal-not that I don’t wish you were here.’
‘I wish I was there, too.’
The pause was awkward. It rang with implications.
49
On Wednesday morning Pete Duyker was released on police bail. Ellen had charged him with fraud, knowing nothing else would stick. She didn’t like it, and, with Scobie Sutton, stood outside the police station, watching Sam Lock usher Duyker into his car. Lock gave them a complicated smile. Complicated, Ellen thought, because the lawyer side of him had not seen more serious charges laid against his client, and the father-of-young-children side of him was afraid that he was aiding a paedophile.
Meanwhile, van Alphen’s will-o-the-wisp evidence had been thoroughly discredited. She sighed and turned away, overwhelmed. She wanted to find van Alphen’s killer, she wanted to put Duyker away, and she wanted to console Hal Chains.
Scobie Sutton was saying something, one hand shading his eyes against the sun. Masses of rain yesterday, masses of sunshine today. She forced herself to concentrate, and heard him say, ‘Everything’s clean, including his computer.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t involved in the abduction,’ Ellen replied, ‘or someone else borrowed his van, but I bet he was at the house, I bet he made videos or took photos.’
Scobie nodded. They stood there glumly, the spring air mild and scented, imagining how the case would have played out if Katie hadn’t been found but killed by Duyker and her body disposed of.
‘Back to work,’ Ellen said, and they re-entered the station. ‘Talk to the vice squad and missing persons. We might be able to match faces in recent kiddie porn with those of children who have gone missing or been abducted or found murdered in recent years. We might also find visual clues that help identify the men involved, men like Clode and Duyker.’
‘But they’d sell that stuff to Asia, Europe or the States.’
‘It’s global, Scobie.’
They passed the Victim Suite. The door was open, the room empty. ‘Think we’ll see Billy again?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘He’s long gone. He’s either on the other side of the continent, running scared, or he’s been paid off, or he’s dead.’
‘Has he got a record?’
Ellen had searched the databases. ‘No.’
They continued on to CIU. ‘Have the shooting board officers finished with you, Scobie?’
He gave her a hunted look. ‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘It will go on my record, failure to follow correct procedure.’
‘What will their report say? They can’t do anything about van Alphen now, but will take action against Kellock?’
Scobie said irritably, ‘I don’t know, Ellen, all right? I’m not privy to their findings.’
‘Scobie, I don’t want any messing up of forensics in regard to the Blasko investigation.’
‘You don’t have to talk to me like that,’ Scobie said chokingly, and he stalked off. When she reached CIU, he was muttering covertly on the telephone.
