Challis - 01 - Dragon Man (10 page)

Challis turned to the body. It lay
on a patch of mud at the waters edge. He wondered about the absence of grass.
People regularly stood there, he decided. Birdwatchers, Peninsula Water
engineers, kids skipping stones across the sluggish water, blackberry pickers
later on in the new year. People fishing. Anyone at all, really.

The body had been face down. Now it
lay on its back. The pathologist had bagged both hands; shed examine them
later for skin samples, traces of fabric, anything that might point to the
killer. Shed also take swabs of the mouth, the vagina and the anus for
evidence of saliva, sperm or acid phosphatase, the cardinal signs of sexual
assault. If its the same killer, Challis thought, shell find signs of latex
condom lubricant and not much else. The legs, from the bare, bruised pubis area
to the Nike runners, looked grey and mottled. The upper body was clothed in a
T-shirt, torn at the neck. Challis peered. Bite marks. There were also early
signs of decomposition. The face was contradictoryswollen as a result of
strangulation, yet curiously slack. Even so, it was clearly Jane Gideon.

Where was the lower clothing?

Find a skirt, pants, underpants,
anything like that?

No, boss.

Just like Kymbly Abbott.

Ellen Destry joined them. Were
running out of daylight, boss.

I know, but were almost wrapped up
here. Just make sure the wider scene is sealed off tonight so we can resume the
search in the morning.

Will do. She nodded at the body. Raped,
Freya?

Freya Berg said, Looks like it, but
you know I cant say till Ive had a proper look at her.

What can you say?

She was abducted at midnight on the
seventeenth, right? Id say she was killed and then dumped here soon after
that. Over forty-eight hours ago, in the hot sun for a lot of that time, so theres
some decomposition. The cause of death was strangulation, but shes also had a
blow to the head.

Unlike Kymbly Abbott, Challis
thought. Then again, Kymbly Abbott had been drunk and half doped and therefore
malleable. Jane Gideon had been fit and healthy and wide awake. Either she
struggled or the killer thought she might, and so hed struck her. What kind
of blow? The old blunt instrument?

Theres blunt and theres blunt,
Hal. This one had a rounded edge.

Like a rock, or narrower than that?

Narrower. More defined. A metal bar
of some kind, or a lump of wood.

He brooded. A tool handle. A tyre
iron. It didnt happen here in the mud. Anything you can tell me about where
it might have happened?

That depends on what your forensic
people find on her. Meanwhile Ill need a closer look at her on the table
before I can say anything definite.

Challis nodded gloomily. Jane Gideon
could have been raped and strangled inside the killers vehicle, or taken
somewhere. Either way, it would have been somewhere away from the highway, for
Jane Gideon had made a phone call and the killer would have been expecting
someone to come for her.

He wanted her to be found, Challis
said, just like he wanted Kymbly Abbott to be found.

That was all he knew. That, and to
expect another body.

* * * *

Tessa
Kane was at the jetty, waiting for Challis. Six oclock, her shadow long on the
water, the day winding down. Shed bought two rockling fillets for dinner that
night, and while she waited she watched the fishmonger toss the days fishheads
and entrails to the gulls and the pelicans. She gasped and said, My God, a
seal.

The fishmonger pointed across
Westernport Bay to the Nobbies, the seal colony at the western end of Phillip
Island. He been coming in for a feed last four, five days, missus. He pretty
old, I think. See the scars? Cant look after himself so good no more.

She watched in awe. The seal
thrashed in the water. Whole fish torsos disappeared. The wind was up. Sail
rigging pinged against the masts of the yachts moored in the marina. She
breathed the air. It was laden with sea salt and mangrove swamp, that living
stew of muddied roots, cloudy water, swamp gas and crawling sea life.

Good to be alive?

It was Challis. She rested her palm
briefly against his chest. You said you had something for me?

Challis told her about the body and
its discovery. He confirmed that it was Jane Gideon and detailed the
comparisons with Kymbly Abbotts murder.

She scribbled in her notebook,
sensing his calm eyes upon her. Just dont arrest anyone before midnight,
okay? Or Ill miss tomorrows issue.

Tess, what do you intend to do
about the letter?

Well see.

I think it would be a mistake to
publish it.

She shrugged. What else can you
tell me? I need colour, Hal. I need the broad picture.

The broad pictures clear enough.
Theres a killer out there and women would be mad to go out alone at night.
They shouldnt drive alone, they shouldnt hitchhike.

I can quote you on that?

Yep.

It might shut him down.

Thats the general idea.

Meaning you wont have anything to
work on except what youve got already.

Tess, I cant believe you said
that. You want more abductions, bodies dumped at the side of the road?

No, of course not. I was trying to
see it from a police point of view.

Dont try to double guess us,
Challis said.

Ill be reaching for links between
the victims.

Reach away.

She closed her notebook. Youve
never liked what I do. You like me but not what I do. Thats what this
hostility is about.

As though it were an ongoing thing
between them. In fact, Challis scarcely thought about Tessa Kane from one day
to the next. But when he did, and when he saw her, something always shifted a
little inside him, and it wasnt always unpleasant.

Ill keep you posted.

Im not finished, she said. Theres
community concern about two of the uniformed police, John Tankard and Kees van
Alphen.

Nothing to do with me. Ask Senior
Sergeant Kellock or Superintendent McQuarrie.

McQuarrie. Now theres a fund of
straight information. Is it true Ethical Standards might be called in?

McQuarrie.

Bugger McQuarrie, she said.

No thanks, Challis said. He rubbed
his face tiredly. Tess, do me a favour? Jane Gideons parents still havent
been told. Theyve still to identify the body. Please wait a couple of days
before you speak to them.

What do you take me for?

They both looked up at the sound of
an aero engine. She saw the lowering sun flash on the fuselage. Challis shaded
his eyes. Desoutter II, three seater high-wing monoplane, he said automatically.
Found in a playground in Tasmania four years ago.

Is that a fact.

He grinned shyly, as if caught out
in something. I helped to restore it.

Her gaze settled on him.

* * * *

When
Ellen got back to the station car park, she checked that her initials, and
those of the forensic technician, were etched into the plaster tyre and
footprint casts, and was unloading them from the rear of the forensic van when
Rhys Hartnett said, behind her, Sergeant Destry?

She pulled bin liners over the casts
hastily and turned around to face him. He was standing there, the setting sun
behind him, coiling electrical flex between elbow and hand. It was an automatic
but neatly articulated process, and it got under her skin. There was something
about men who worked with their hands. She seemed to float on her toes. Call
me Ellen.

He bobbed his neat head shyly. Call
me Rhys. Look, I could come to inspect your house on Saturday, if you like.

Are you sure? Thats only two days
before Christmas.

Im sure. Im working right
through, apart from Christmas Day and New Years Day. I take my summer break in
February, when the schools go back.

Wise man, Ellen said. How about
late morning, around twelve?

Fine.

* * * *

Danny
Holsinger waited until seven-thirty in the evening before going to the police
station. The chick whod arrested him said she was on duty until eight, and he
didnt want to talk to anyone else about Boyd Jolic. She was nice. But first he
had a pizza, extra thick, in Pizza Hut, sitting in the window where he could
watch the cops come and go on the other side of the roundabout. He felt jumpy.
After that Nunn bitch had taken him home earlier, calling him a moron, hed
gone straight around to Megans place and given her the backpack. Sort of
getting rid of evidence, even though the backpack hadnt been lifted from the
old ladys house but from a house hed robbed last week. Happy birthday, Meeg,
hed said.

Sorry its so late, and shed
smelt the leather and gone all soppy over him and theyd had a quick one on her
bed, so that was all right.

But then hed gone home again and
Boyd Jolic had rung, reminding him that his help was expected on a
break-and-enter soon. I dont want you forgetting, Danny, or pissing off on
me. Dannys position now was, he needed help of his own.

He gathered himself, walked across
the road, reached the door and chickened out. Boyd Jolic had a longer reach
than the law did. Even if the law put Jolic away, he had mates who knew where
Danny lived.

* * * *

Seven

he
next morning, Challis read the
Progress
while Scobie Sutton drove. Tessa
Kane had splashed the killers letter all over the front page. Soon the
metropolitan dailies would pick up the story, and meanwhile McQuarrie had left
messages, asking for an explanation. All this on top of a bad night for
Challis, the image of Jane Gideons parents staying with him through the long
hours. Better to spend the morning away from the station. She says to me, Eat
your munch, Daddy. Sit up prop-ly and eat your munch.

Challis worked a smile onto his
face. Munch. I like that.

But where did she get it from,
boss? Not me and Beth. Childcare, thats where.

I expect youre right.

I mean, theyre like a sponge, that
age. Absorb everything. Scobie fell gloomy. The good and the bad.

I suppose its up to the parents to
provide most of the good and counteract the bad, Challis said, for something
to say, but wondering if he believed it. Look at his own wife. Fine, upright
family background, and look what happens. She falls in
lust
her
explanation. Hal, I fell in lust, I couldnt help it, I had to have him and he
had to have me. Sure, but you didnt have to kill me to achieve it.

Which way, boss?

Challis blinked. Quite a way yet.
Up near where I live.

How long you been there now?

A few years. Youve got a place in
Mornington, right?

Sutton nodded. But thinking of
moving. With all the new housing, you know, house-and-land packages, cheap
deals, newlyweds and welfare cheats and what have you living in each others
pockets, the place is changing. No way Ill send my kid to the local primary
schools. You dont know of any Montessori schools?

Sorry, no.

I forgot, you didnt have kids,
Sutton said, then fell silent, embarrassed.

Hes heard the stories, Challis
thought. Hows your daughter coping with crche? Still kicking up a fuss in
the mornings?

Sutton shrugged. So-so. But
tomorrows the last day for the year, and theyre having a party at the Centre,
so shes looking forward to that.

The days were sweeping by. Tomorrow
was the twenty-second. Christmas day was Monday. Challis squirmed in his seat.
He wasnt ready.

He spotted the turn off. Next left,
then follow the road for about two ks.

Sutton took them on to a badly
corrugated dirt road, then over a one-lane wooden bridge. Sheepwash Creek, he
read aloud. God, the names.

Challis was fond of the old names.
They were a map of the Peninsula in the nineteenth century. Blacks Camp Road.
Tarpot Corner. He said, They washed sheep here in the old days, to prepare
them for shearing.

No kidding, Sutton said absently,
and Challis knew that the man was thinking of his daughter again. It was as if
having a child destroyed your sense of times continuum. Time was reduced to
the present and nothing else.

Somewhere along here, he said. Look
for the name Saltmarsh on a mailbox or fence railing.