And Challis’s one-time friend. Time and distance had weakened the friendship, and fine distinctions in ambition and personality had become marked disparities, but, still, history always counts for something, and Challis and Minchin grinned at each other now.
‘Wish the circumstances were better,’ the doctor said.
Shorter than Challis, Minchin had grown solid over the years. He was fair-skinned and had always looked a little pink from sunburn or embarrassment. His hair was straight, reddish, limp and needed cutting. He’d been married, but his wife had run away with his partner in the little practice he’d inherited from his father.
‘It’s a waiting game,’ Challis murmured.
They went into the sitting room, where the old man was slumped in his chair. Minchin hurried to his side, but then a ripping snore stopped him.
Challis laughed. ‘Kept me awake last night.’
Minchin nodded. ‘Might as well let him sleep. I’m just checking in. No scares?’
He meant the series of minor strokes. Everyone was waiting for the big one. ‘No,’ said Challis. ‘Offer you a drink?’
‘Better make it coffee.’
‘If you can call it that,’ Challis said, leading the way to the kitchen.
When it was poured, Minchin asked, ‘How’s Meg holding up?’
The guy’s still in love with her, Challis thought. He saw how he could use that. ‘Not too bad, given all she’s had to deal with in the past few years.’
‘Yes.’
‘Gavin running out on her like that.’
‘Yeah,’ said Minchin flatly.
‘Rob,’ said Challis after a considering pause, ‘without breaching patient confidentiality, what sort of state was he in before he disappeared?’
‘You asked me that at the time.’
‘I didn’t take it in.’
Minchin leaned forward across the kitchen table, dropping his voice in case the old man was listening. ‘Gavin was veering from one extreme to the other. I prescribed medication to level him out, but I don’t know if he ever took it.’ He paused. ‘He hit Meg a couple of times, you know.’
Challis nodded sagely, but he hadn’t known. Just then, Minchin slapped at his solid thigh, leaned to one side and fetched a mobile phone from his side pocket. ‘Minchin. Yep. Yep. Oh, Christ, be right there.’
He pocketed his phone again and looked at Challis. ‘Do you know Ted Anderson?’
‘No.’
‘Wife died of cancer five years ago, leaving him with a baby to bring up. He’s gone off the Pass.’
‘Gone off the Pass’. Everyone knew what that meant. ‘Killed?’
Minchin nodded. ‘The kid’s okay, but trapped in the car.’
‘You’d better go, Rob.’
‘Tell your old man I’ll look in again when I can.’
‘Will do.’
Small-town tragedies, Challis thought, watching Minchin drive away. Next week it might be an ambulance officer coming upon his own wife in a burning car. Last year five teenagers had been killed when they failed to beat a train over a level crossing. When he was growing up, a bride-to-be from the next town was killed on her way to her wedding. As a young constable in Mawson’s Bluff, he’d attended when a jack-knifing semi-trailer had wiped out a family of five. There was never an end to it.
He was drawn back into the house by the ringing of the phone. ‘Hal?’
‘Ells,’ he said.
And she told him about Katie Blasko.
21
The atmosphere crackled on Tuesday morning, affecting everyone in the Waterloo police station, uniformed officers, detectives and civilian staff alike. It was most evident at the briefing, the mood heightened and expectant as Ellen began to talk. Ellen herself was fierce, dynamic, showing sorrow, disgust and anger. Those seated close to her saw that her eyes were damp as she described the house, the room, the small, abused body.
Then, unwinding, she got down to business. ‘As you can see, there are fewer of us today.’
She didn’t need to explain why. Word always got around the station quickly. Now that Katie Blasko had been found alive, Superintendent McQuarrie wanted those uniformed constables who had been on the search detail back on regular duties, and was allowing Ellen only a small team to investigate the abduction. Van Alphen and Kellock were not obliged to attend, but had offered their services, arguing that they knew the case and could allocate uniformed assistance from time to time.
‘Let’s start with the house,’ she said. ‘Our man was taking a chance, using the shire’s emergency housing.’
She looked around the room, inviting reasons for that. It was van Alphen who answered. ‘Those houses are sometimes empty for days, weeks,’ he said. ‘People move on without informing their social workers, parole officers or the shire.’
‘You’re saying that many people could have known about that particular house, and that it would be empty for a while?’
‘Yes.’
Scobie supplied another detail. ‘I spoke to the shire housing officer. There’s been a sudden increase in demand. The order to clean De Soto Lane came in yesterday morning. Clearly our man wasn’t expecting that.’
John Tankard stirred as if making a vital point. ‘Meaning he could come back.’
Kellock smiled at him without much humour. ‘Unlikely. Have you seen the publicity? But I’m sure we can roster you to watch the place.’
‘Senior Sergeant,’ Tankard muttered, going red.
‘What scenario are we looking at here?’ demanded Ellen. ‘They keep her prisoner for a few days, dress her up in school uniforms, frilly underwear, nighties, film each other having sex with her, then let her go?’
‘Or kill and dump her,’ Scobie said.
Ellen made a brief, bitter gesture. ‘Meanwhile the neighbours can’t tell us a thing.’
She’d examined the house last night and again early that morning. It was well chosen, for there were no neighbours to speak of. The builder erecting the market gardener’s new house had recently gone bankrupt and so no one had been working at the site. The few workers employed in the timber yard and the market garden had seen nothing, owing to trees, shrubbery and high fences. The elderly couple living in the little house opposite were used to seeing cars come and go at 24 De Soto Lane, and had paid no attention to recent activities there. ‘So long as they aren’t noisy and aren’t going to murder us in our beds, we leave them be,’ the old woman had told Ellen.
‘But didn’t they think about what they were seeing?’ Scobie Sutton demanded now. ‘Didn’t they hear anything?’
Because of his height, he sometimes sprawled like an arrangement of twigs, but this morning he sat stiffly upright, as if too distressed to concentrate. Ellen didn’t want that. ‘Scobie, take Constable Tankard and question everyone again. Are there surveillance cameras on the timber yard or the packing shed? Did the mailman deliver to the house late last week and again yesterday? Track down anyone who bought timber or fruit and vegetables in De Soto Lane over the past several days-go back prior to the day Katie was abducted. Did the old couple have visitors during the past few days? All right?’
Scobie stared at the coffee rings on the incident room table. He gave a shuddering sigh.
‘Scobie!’
He blinked and jerked. ‘Yep. Sure.’
Ellen saw Kellock and van Alphen watching her appraisingly, the former built like a wrestler, the latter slender and hawkish and surprisingly like Hal Challis. Then van Alphen dropped his scrutiny, the narrow planes of his face relaxing into a slight, commiserative smile. ‘Forensics, Ellen?’
She shook her head bleakly. ‘Not as much as I’d hoped for. We’ve got a handful of prints and partials, but most of those will match people who have recently lived in the house, some of whom will be in the system for a range of unrelated offences-mothers jailed for dealing, kids for burglary, etcetera, etcetera. But all will have to be eliminated, which will take time. On the other hand, the cleaners do a pretty good job between tenants, and the last tenant, a battered wife, says she cleaned pretty thoroughly after herself, so we might pick up fresh prints.’