Challis - 02 - Kittyhawk Down (21 page)

She learnt little but the tea was refreshing and the woman bright, wry company.

'He worked at the detention centre, you know.'

Tessa stiffened inwardly. 'Yes.'

'My husband thinks those escapees shot Mr Pearce and his wife.'

'I see.'

The woman cocked her head and examined Tessa. Tessa waited, expecting a tirade of nasty opinions, but the woman said, 'Absolute nonsense, of course.' She leant forward across the little kitchen table and clasped Tessa's wrist. 'You keep up the good work, dear. We're a community of narrow minds and empty hearts and shallow pockets where the asylum seekers are concerned.'

Tessa went away thinking that the world wasn't all bad and what a great line that was about minds, hearts and pockets, she should use it, a way of acknowledging and thanking the woman with the grey hair.

On Wednesday the Displan—Disaster Plan—room had been commandeered for the Munro manhunt, so on Thursday morning Challis met Scobie, Ellen and a couple of other CIB detectives in a small conference room. No extra computers, phone lines or staff.

'So it's just us,' he said. 'But we've been offered
in principle
support from the uniforms.'

He exchanged a lopsided grin with them. They could picture Kellock's disobliging, by-the-book response to Challis's request.

'Meanwhile,' he went on, 'we have three people shot-gunned to death at two separate locations: a lawyer named Seigert who was apparently shot in his sleep in the early hours of yesterday morning, and a married couple, Mostyn and Karen Pearce, gunned down sometime later.'

He sighed and touched his fingers to his temple in a sudden gesture of fatigue. 'Both cases are complicated by the fact of the hunt for Ian Munro. Seigert was once his lawyer, the Pearces were his neighbours, and there's evidence to suggest that Pearce reported him to the RSPCA for the condition of some sheep. The RSPCA inspector who investigated the report was threatened by Munro and so two constables paid him a visit. Now, this is a man who has a short fuse, is chronically in debt, and apparently has been growing marijuana, so when he gets
another
visit by the police on the same day, this time with a search warrant, he flips out.'

Challis paused, gathering the strands of his account. 'It's natural to assume that he then set out to settle old scores— first the lawyer—'

'Why him, boss?' one of the detectives said.

'He represented Munro against the banks and the shire a couple of years ago. Munro accused him of caving in to them.'

The detective nodded, satisfied.

'Then Munro apparently went after Pearce, who may have been a thorn in his side for years, reporting him to the authorities over all kinds of matters. We've discovered that Pearce was notorious for doing that.

'Also,' Challis went on, 'Munro owns two shotguns and a rifle that we know about, and fired a shotgun at us when we called with the search warrant. All in all, Ian Munro is in the frame for all three murders.'

'However,' said Ellen Destry dryly.

'However,' Challis agreed. He paused, thinking how best to frame his next remarks. 'I spoke to Superintendent McQuarrie this morning and told him of my concerns, that there are sufficient differences between the two murder scenes to suggest two killers. I'll come to that in a minute. Basically the super gave good, solid, standard detective-school advice: why look for a complicated explanation when there's a perfectly simple and logical one available?'

Challis glanced around at them one by one. 'But
I'm
saying keep an open mind. That should be the first rule of police work. We gather the evidence, analyse it and follow where it leads us.

'Now, the differences between the two murders. The lawyer was asleep in his bed at about four in the morning when someone came in and shot him at point-blank range. The only other occupant was a small child, who presumably was deeply asleep, but may not have heard much anyway, given that the shooting was muffled and she slept at the other end of the house.'

He paused. 'Let's suppose it was Munro. After a gap of several hours he walks in on the Pearces who live just a kilometre or so from where he lives and where he'd taken a potshot at police the previous afternoon—and where police are conducting an ongoing search for evidence that he was growing marijuana, incidentally. They're alone, their kid's at school. Munro takes them into the sitting room and conks the husband on the head.'

Scobie Sutton broke in. 'You know that for a fact?'

'The pathologist confirmed it. She found skull fragments showing an indentation consistent with a heavy blow from something like a fireplace poker.'

Ellen frowned. 'What's the wife doing all this time?'

Challis shrugged. 'Paralysed by fear? Had a gun aimed at her? In any event, she's made to sit on the sofa and the killer then goes around behind her and shoots her in the back of the head—with Mostyn Pearce's own shotgun, incidentally, as we've now confirmed. Finally he shoots the husband, hoping the pellets will obliterate any sign of his being bashed by the poker, and then stages it to look like a suicide, finally calling it in as a murder-suicide.'

Challis stopped and leaned forward so that his palms were on the table. 'An awful lot of trouble to go to for a man who's on a mission of revenge and had earlier walked in and calmly shotgunned someone in his bed without any elaboration. Why should he care about covering up the murder of the Pearces?'

'And what was he doing between four and ten in the morning?' Ellen said.

'Exactly,' Challis said.

He straightened his back, moved away from the table and began to pace. 'And so we're treating these as separate killings, and acting as if Ian Munro doesn't exist. If we find evidence linking him to either or both killings—an eyewitness would be nice; a fingerprint; a confession—well and good, but meanwhile I want you to keep open minds, do more door-knocking in both areas, check bank accounts, go through their desks and computers, find out if they had any enemies or shady acquaintances. Pearce worked at the detention centre. If he was a bully, maybe an escapee did him in. You know what to do.'

'There
is
someone else,' Ellen said. 'A long shot.'

Challis cocked his head at her.

'Dwayne Venn,' she said. 'He's vicious enough.'

'Explain.'

'Venn and the Tully sisters apparently dumped some rubbish at the side of Five Furlong Road, up near the estate where the Pearces lived. Someone—presumably Pearce— found the rubbish, sorted through it and discovered a letter addressed to Dwayne Venn and Donna Tully. The shire was notified, they investigated, and Venn was fined for dumping rubbish. He threatened to kill the shire officer who served the notice on him.'

'But how would Venn have known it was Pearce?' Sutton asked. 'For that matter, how would
Ian Munro
have known that Pearce dobbed him in to the RSPCA?'

Challis smiled broadly at him. 'Exactly. Maybe he didn't know. Maybe Pearce rubbed someone else up the wrong way.'

They sat moodily for a while. Ellen said, 'And there's the matter of Janet Casement.'

Challis put his hands up, as if to tell her to back off. 'Let's put that on the back burner for the moment.'

'She's been warned that Munro's on the loose?' Scobie asked.

'Yes. We've warned everyone we can think of. Now, updating the Floater. Scobie, you took a call from a jeweller for me?'

Sutton glanced at his notebook. 'The Rolex was serviced by a firm called Timepiece, on Collins Street, up in the city.'

Challis nodded. 'I'll pay them a visit sometime.'

'One other thing, boss. The anchor that weighed down the body's gone missing from the property room.'

Someone had light fingers, or someone had been careless. 'Terrific,' Challis said. 'You know the drill—put the word out at trash-and-treasure markets, second-hand dealers…'

'Boss.'

Later that morning, Challis went to see Seigert's widow. She was red-eyed, her grief raw. Ostensibly he was there to ask her some gentle questions, but he learnt nothing new and hadn't expected to; visiting and comforting the bereaved was the other side of a murder investigation. Waves of misery and anger can spread from a single act of homicide and swamp a family and its friends. Challis represented order. Where things were falling apart for the bereaved, he was competent, professional, focused, and familiar with a bewildering system. Sometimes his relationships with bereaved families and individuals lasted years. His was a shoulder to cry on; he was a link to the beloved victim; he represented the investigation itself and so offered hope and justice. He'd provide his phone number and find himself talking calmly, patiently, at the darkest hours of the night, and visiting from time to time, and taking people who'd almost lost heart into the squad room and showing them the desks, the computers, the photo arrays— the sense of justice at work. It often meant a lot and the flow was two-way, for as the bereaved felt valued and encouraged, so did he.

Afterwards he returned to Waterloo and read interview statements. Privately, he was certain that Munro had shot Seigert and a person or persons unknown had shot the Meddler and his wife. That was as far as he'd got when a civilian clerk came around with a message slip and a fax that caused him to mutter, 'Blast from the past.'

'Sorry?' the clerk said.

He smiled at her. 'Nothing. Thinking aloud, that's all.'

She went out. The fax was from the Home Office in London. The
holmes
computer had failed to find any link between the Flinders Floater and anyone known to the authorities in Great Britain.

The message slip was from Tessa Kane. She was writing about the murders for the next edition of the paper and wanted to interview him. She could come to him or he to her, or they could meet on neutral ground, whatever would suit him best.

Challis called her. 'Meet me here.'

'Here' was a small conference room next to the front desk. The double-glazed window looked over a gum tree with scaly bark, and they were seated at a solid metal table, sipping coffee, not bothering with the chipped plate of stale biscuits.

'Fire away,' Challis said.

Tessa pounded her small fists on the table and said, 'Hal.'

'What?' he said—though he knew. She'd put the Easter walk fiasco behind her, wanted warmth between them again, and here he was being clipped, professional.

'Chill out,' she said.

He gazed at her, not wanting to be unkind but finding that the old configuration of Tessa Kane was gone. There had been a time—it seemed like years ago—when she'd step unbidden into his mind and he'd feel himself stir, wanting her badly. He'd picture her naked and replay their lovemaking. Now she was sitting opposite him like a vaguely familiar stranger and he didn't want her.

Why? Because he could never have her while his mad wife continued to step between them? Because Kitty Casement now filled his head?

'Sorry,' he said, bringing warmth into his voice and face and in fact
feeling
real warmth for Tessa. He saw her respond, a flash of gratitude and longing. Was it that easy? Was he fickle? Did his affections and desires mean anything, or had they been warped by what his wife had done to him?