Challis was going through the motions. He’d fantasised that Sadler was the killer, over the past few days, but now, facing the man, no longer believed it. ‘Gavin’s camera?’
‘What about it?’
‘When did you take those photos of Paddy’s place?’
‘The only time I was at his place was days later, and I had my own camera.’
Challis pulled a chair up to the desk. He sat, and was less intimidating. ‘When was Gavin’s camera passed back to you?’
Sadler, relieved but still jumpy and indignant, said, ‘Weeks later. They were going to give it to Meg, but all the photos on it were work related, so it came to me.’
‘Who else did Gavin have a history with?’
The question was unwelcome. ‘He did his job. He prosecuted several people over the years. Fair and square.’
‘But was he fair and square in the last few weeks and months?’
Sadler looked away. ‘Not always.’
‘Spit it out. I’m tired of this.’
Sadler shrugged. ‘He might have had a couple of arguments with Rex Joyce.’
‘Joyce? About what?’
‘Mistreating a horse.’
‘What action was taken?’
‘None.’
‘Why not?’
‘Can you see Rex Joyce mistreating a horse? I don’t think so.’
‘I can, actually,’ Challis said. ‘He has a bad temper.’
Sadler looked hurt and astounded, as though Challis had insulted the Queen.
‘Who reported him?’
‘No one.’
‘So how did Gavin know to investigate?’
‘For your information,’ Sadler said, ‘Gavin Hurst liked to sneak around. He claimed he just happened to be driving past Mr Joyce’s property and saw him whipping one of his horses with a length of barbed wire.’
‘Can I see his report?’
‘You may not. I destroyed it, as it happens.’
‘Why the hell would you do that?’
‘No merit.’
‘Did Gavin tell you he was going to prosecute?’
‘Like I said, the case had no merit.’
‘Are you friends with Joyce?’
Sadler blinked at the shift, and stumbled. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You were at boarding school with him, perhaps? Belong to the same Liberal Party branch? Play golf with him?’
‘Now you’re being offensive.’
‘He’s rich, right? Local gentry? Long pedigree? Therefore he can do no wrong?’
‘Get out.’
‘What did your pal Joyce say when Gavin charged him?’
Sadler looked hunted.
‘Come on, Sadler,’ snarled Challis, ‘you’ll be asked this in court by Paddy’s barrister, so it’s in your interests to tell me now, and tell me the truth.’
Sadler rubbed at a mark on his spotless desk. ‘He might have said that Gavin would get his one day.’
‘His just deserts, do you mean? Is that how you understood his remark?’
‘How would I know? It was just talk. Rex can sound off sometimes.’
‘So you do know him.’
‘A bit.’
‘He has a temper. He drinks.’
‘I wouldn’t go as far as that.’
‘Wouldn’t you? Did you tell Nixon and Stormare any of this?’
‘No need.’
‘Why not?’
Sadler looked for ways out and found only a couple of mealy-mouthed replies. ‘I’ve already said too much. Nothing to do with me. Plus it seems clear this Finucane character did it. Rex Joyce does not strike me as the kind of person to…’
Do anything quite so grubby as murder another person. Challis left and buckled himself into his car, thinking that Sadler pretty well summed up the Australian national character, which was not fine and egalitarian but grovelled at the feet of men who’d gone to a private school or could kick a football or had become billionaires by being allowed to evade tax.
On his way back over Isolation Pass, Challis scraped the guardrail. He was speeding a little, distracted by tense speculations about how he should approach Lisa and Rex Joyce, eyes screwed up against the setting sun, and failed to slow for a bend called the Devil’s Elbow. The car rocked and screeched in protest and he fought to get it back under control. His heart racing, he pulled into the next lookout and surveyed the damage. The chrome bumper had been torn off, one headlight mangled, the quarter panel dented and gouged. He crouched to view the passenger side front wheel. It was scraping against metal and the wire spokes and spinner were chopped about. He searched around for a fallen branch and levered the damaged panel away from the tyre. The rubber itself looked sound. He got back into his seat and drove sedately down the mountain, aware of his mortality but ready for anything.
Lisa and Rex lived in a huge stone house that dated from the 1890s. It, and the huge woolshed and stables on the grounds of the property, were on the National Trust register. There were railing yards behind the stables, the rails vivid white in the last of the sun’s rays. Lawns surrounded the house itself, which looked cool and composed on a slight rise, with tall gum trees, cypress hedges and fruit trees casting long shadows and completing the general air of a long, stately history. Challis had been on the place only once before, when he was ten years old and all fifty-seven kids at the local primary school had been carted here in two old yellow buses for a tour and a talk about pioneering endeavour in the district. He could remember the occasion, not the talk. No doubt the Joyces were the heroes in the story. But there had been one enduring benefit: there was an airstrip on the property, with a Tiger Moth stored in an adjacent barn. Challis had slipped away from the group and was found two hours later, sitting in the cockpit. That had been the start of his love affair with old aeroplanes.
He thought about that now, as he crept up the gravel driveway, the Triumph clattering miserably. He was restoring a 1930s Dragon Rapide at the little aerodrome near Waterloo, but various things had happened in his life and the Dragon was mouldering away in a hangar there. He felt guilty about that. His father, who’d valued hard work and finishing the tasks you set for yourself, would have been badly disappointed. Challis could hear the old man’s voice in his head and he wished he’d brought his inhaler with him.
He followed the driveway around. There were no vehicles parked near the house. No sign of life, either, until he’d parked at the bottom of the verandah steps and got out, when the huge front door swung inwards and Lisa appeared behind the outer screen door. She stood waiting for him, a hazy shape behind the fine wire mesh.
‘Hal?’
Challis climbed the steps warily. ‘Lisa.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Is Rex here?’
‘He’s away. Why?’
Challis let some silence build. ‘I think you know why.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Did Sadler call you?’
