Police work had made Hal Challis an infinitely sympathetic man. That didn’t mean he condoned, necessarily, just that he understood, and now he turned his patient, sorrowing gaze toward the Jeep and Lisa Joyce, even as a hole appeared in the window beside him, glass chips sprayed over his face and chest, and a slipstream plucked at the hairs on his head.
56
While Challis was being shot at, Ellen Destry and Pam Murphy were attending Kees van Alphen’s funeral. They were surprised by the turnout: his wife, daughter and extended family, friends from Waterloo and other Peninsula police stations, McQuarrie and other top brass, and even a handful of snitches and hard men who’d remade their lives.
Back in the CIU incident room they worked the abduction of Katie Blasko and a backlog of minor crimes, using them as cover for more specific actions. Pam searched, without luck, for the missing files mentioned in Kees van Alphen’s notes, and checked, and confirmed, some of his other statements. Ellen drove to the forensic science lab with all of the soft drink cans from the Victim Suite refrigerator, stopping along the way to show photographs of Duyker, Clode and Kellock to Andrew Retallick. He neither confirmed nor denied that they’d abused him, but he did flinch and look distressed.
At lunchtime they met in the lounge of the Fiddler’s Creek pub, taking a corner table where they could not be heard. They ordered meals-fish and chips for Pam, chicken salad for Ellen-and compared notes. Mostly the two women were ignored, but drinkers from the Seaview Park estate were in the main bar, those with criminal records casting occasional glances at them through the archway, curling their lips to keep in training. There was a background cover of shouted conversations, jukebox music and punters at the slot machines.
‘We can’t go after Kellock yet,’ Ellen said.
‘Why not?’
Ellen drained her glass, mineral water with chunks of ice floating in it. ‘There’s no hard evidence. Let’s look at his lack of action back when Alysha Jarrett lodged her complaint: he comes across as insensitive, that’s all, not a paedo protecting other paedos. And is he the only one in the police? I don’t think so, do you? Is he the only one at the Waterloo station? That’s a harder question to answer. What if Sutton or McQuarrie are in on it?’
‘Scobie? God no.’
‘I agree, it doesn’t seem likely, but Scobie’s easily intimidated. He’s very trusting-he probably shouldn’t even be a copper. If we bring him in on this, he might inadvertently reveal the details to the wrong person.’
Their meals were delivered. When the waiter was gone, Pam said flatly, ‘I can believe it of McQuarrie.’
‘It doesn’t matter who, at this stage. The thing is, Kellock is untouchable for the moment. We can’t arrest him, can’t get a warrant for his house or car. We can’t seize his clothing. We can’t trust anyone else. It’s us, Pam.’
Pam brooded. She toyed with her food, popped a chip into her mouth and chewed it. Then she said determinedly, ‘We go after Clode and Duyker, and hope one of them turns on Kellock, and we try to find Billy DaCosta.’
‘The real and the fake.’
‘Yes.’
Ellen looked at the younger woman as if for the first time. Pam Murphy was no longer the uniformed constable who showed initiative but a fellow detective. For a while Ellen had been her mentor, coaxing her into plain-clothed work, letting her find her potential, but now they were colleagues. Not equals-if you counted age and rank-but a kind of friendship linked them. And Ellen badly needed friends now.
‘Everything all right, Sarge?’
‘Just thinking. I wish Hal was here.’
Pam said, a little sternly, ‘Well, Sarge, he’s not.’
57
Challis risked a peek. Lisa was shooting at him from behind the driver’s door of the Jeep. A semi-automatic rifle with a small clip. He guessed that it had been stowed behind or under the seats. There was a crack and a bullet punctured the tyre beside his foot. She fired again, the bullet punching through the open door. He ran around to the front of the big four-wheel-drive, glad of its bulk. His relief was short-lived: a bullet pinged off a nearby stone. He felt terribly exposed. Lisa Joyce would cripple him and then shoot him where he lay.
Then he heard her call his name.
‘What?’ he shouted.
‘I phoned Wurfel when I saw you arrive.’
She’ll present Wurfel with a self-defence story, he thought. He couldn’t see any point in negotiating, or waiting, and slithered on his belly and elbows toward the shepherd’s hut, using the Range Rover for cover. Lisa fired again, the bullet whining away and dust and stone chips flying.
Just then the sheep, made skittish by the cracks and echoes in the still air, broke away and charged toward the hut, passing close to Challis. He rolled to his feet and ran with them in all of their fear and exultation. Dust rose and pebbles flew and the sheep kicked and bucked. Lisa fired, a desultory shot that went nowhere.
Challis huddled behind a ruined wall. Lisa had the advantage in this engagement, while he had nothing but the hut and small deceptions in the sparsely grassed soil of the plateau. He glanced hurriedly about: only heaped stones and a length of wood, possibly a lintel or part of a window frame. He grabbed it like a club, alerting Lisa, who got off a shot that sent a stone chip into his face. Blood coursed down his forehead, blurring his right eye. He swiped at it with his forearm and another shot smacked numbingly through the wooden club. He lay afraid and very still, and then began to retreat again. If he could reach the far rim of the plateau, he might be able to try an outflanking manoeuvre.
The next shot creased his ear and he pissed his pants. None of his nerve endings would let him alone. He trembled, tics developing in his face, and the blood dripped onto the dust, balling there. He supposed he was sobbing aloud, he didn’t know, but retreated in a mad scramble from the hut until he found a stone refuge, where the rocks were grey and licheny, weathered and streaked with bird shit. It was a good place. He huddled there and, in his visions, Lisa Joyce appeared above him and shot him like a fish in a barrel.
Dimly then he heard a starter motor grinding. He risked a look: Lisa was in the Jeep. That galvanised Challis. He charged forward, making for the Range Rover and Rex Joyce’s hunting rifle.
Instantly Lisa stepped out of the Jeep. Challis was barely halfway to the Range Rover. He ducked and swerved, but she merely stood with her arms wide to the world. ‘I haven’t got any bullets left.’
Challis halted tensely. ‘Then drop the rifle.’
‘I haven’t got any bullets left.’
‘So put the rifle down.’
‘It was all Rex’s fault.’
‘Lisa, drop the rifle.’
Challis advanced, and Lisa stood there with the rifle outstretched.
‘Drop it, okay?’
‘None of it was my idea.’
Still Challis advanced. He reached the Range Rover, leaned in and retrieved the hunting rifle from between Rex Joyce’s legs. He jacked a round into the breech, then emerged from the shelter of the vehicle, blinking furiously to clear his bloodied eye, the rifle to his shoulder. ‘Lisa, I’m warning you.’
‘I suddenly said to myself, what am I doing, shooting at Hal?’
Challis stopped, the rifle aimed squarely at her, and said quietly, ‘Lisa, are you listening to me? Do you understand what I’m saying? Please put the rifle down.’
Lisa grinned and deftly slapped the rifle from one hand to the other and up to her shoulder. Challis shot her legs out from under her.
She screamed and rolled in the dirt. ‘Ow! You shot me!’
‘Yes.’
She tossed in agony, raging at him. Challis retrieved her rifle, ejected the magazine and checked the breech. She’d had one bullet left.