‘I didn’t think you’d shoot me!’
‘In a heartbeat,’ Challis said.
She began to cry and swear and deride him. He found a handkerchief and wiped the blood from his eye, then crouched beside her. ‘Shut up,’ he said, tearing off one of his sleeves.
‘It hurts!’
‘You’ll live.’
He bound her leg and then sat, depleted, not thinking about anything at all but feeling the weariest he’d ever felt. And then a surprising contentment settled in him. He tilted his face to the sun and adjusted his body to the pebbly dust as if he were part of the landscape. Finally Sergeant Wurfel’s Land Cruiser appeared over the rim of the plateau like a breaching whale.
58
Ellen pushed her food away, barely touched. ‘Let’s go back and see if we have a result on Billy’s prints.’
They returned to the station, taking the back stairs to CIU, checking the incident room first. Only John Tankard was there, pecking at a computer keyboard. He didn’t see them.
Ellen closed her office door carefully and called the lab. ‘What?’ said Pam afterwards, seeing the expression on her face.
‘The fake Billy is in the system. The prints we lifted from the drink cans in the Victim Suite belong to a Kenneth Lloyd.’
She logged on to her computer. She knew what she was about to do would generate an electronic record, but would Kellock be checking for that? Had he flagged Lloyd’s name? She had to risk it.
She typed, her hands flying over the keys. Soon Lloyd’s face and record filled the screen. ‘That’s him, all right,’ said Ellen. ‘The false Billy DaCosta.’
She scrolled down. ‘Charged with inappropriate sexual behaviour when he was fifteen. Two arrests for soliciting last year.’ She stopped, then looked up at Pam, who was peering over her shoulder. ‘Arresting officer, Senior Sergeant Kellock.’ She peered at the screen again. ‘Charges were reduced. Rap over the knuckles.’
‘Kellock’s influence?’
‘Probably.’
There was an address for Lloyd. Ellen tapped her finger on the screen. ‘I know this place. Gideon House. It’s a kind of shelter for homeless kids. Let’s see if our boy’s at home.’
Pam shuddered. ‘I don’t hold much hope of that, Sarge. Either Kellock has topped him or given him a thousand bucks to make himself scarce.’
‘We have to try.’
Ellen used her office phone, for its number was blocked. She heard it ring, and then a voice came on. ‘Gideon House.’
‘Please, I’m going out of my mind,’ said Ellen, her voice whiny and adolescent. ‘I’m tryin’ a find me brother. He’s run off
Behind her, Pam snorted. The voice said, ‘I’m afraid we can’t give out the names of our clients.’
‘I’m really, really worried about him. Mum’s desperate. His name’s Ken Lloyd. We call him Kenny.’
There was an assessing silence. ‘Well, I guess it’s all right. He was here, but he left.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘Look,’ said the voice, ‘I’ll put Mrs Kellock on the line. She’s the supervisor here. Please hold.’
Ellen hurriedly cut the connection. Pam saw the tightening of her face. ‘Sarge?’
Shaken, Ellen looked up at Pam and said, ‘I was asked to hold for the supervisor-whose name is Mrs Kellock.’
Pam sat, her face etched in a kind of fierce concentration. ‘Hell, Sarge.’
‘It could be a coincidence,’ Ellen said, ‘another Mrs Kellock entirely. Or she doesn’t know what her husband’s been up to.’
‘Come on, Sarge, it all holds together. That’s how these guys get their victims.’
Ellen’s desk phone rang. She stared at it in consternation, then answered it. ‘Hello?’
A familiar voice said, ‘Sergeant Destry. I was hoping you’d be in.’
‘Mr Riggs, my favourite forensic tech,’ said Ellen, trying not to let her tension show, and failing.
‘No need to be snide.’
‘Good news, or bad?’ said Ellen. ‘Maybe you’re ringing to tell me you’ve sacked all of your incompetents and our DNA evidence is solid after all?’
The silence was hurt and sulky. ‘Well, if you don’t want to hear this…’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Ellen, meaning it. ‘A long day.’
‘Ditto,’ said Riggs.
Ellen sighed. ‘What have you got?’
‘That blood on the dog collar.’
Ellen had completely forgotten about it. ‘You have a match?’
‘Kind of
‘Let me guess, Neville Clode’s, and we can’t use it because you already have his victim sample.’
‘Not Clode’s,’ said Riggs, ‘but yes, it does match with a victim sample.’
‘Who?’
‘One of your officers. He was stabbed in the forearm in an altercation with a burglar.’
‘Senior Sergeant Kellock.’
‘Yes, for what it’s worth,’ said Riggs.
There were heavy footsteps in the corridor. Ellen froze. But it was only John Tankard. ‘Can I knock off now, Sarge? Got some car business to take care of.’
‘Of course, John.’
‘Thanks, Sarge.’
Tank walked around to Korean Salvage on the industrial estate, and there was his rebirthed Mazda. ‘She’ll pass scrutiny?’ he demanded, one sausagy hand thumping the gleaming roof.
Under the bluster he felt jumpy, uncertain. Something was going on at work and he didn’t know what it was. Maybe Destry was onto him. He wanted one constant in his life-his car.
‘Yep,’ said the proprietor of Korean Salvage, wiping his hands on a rag.
‘I mean the design and safety regulations. She’ll pass any test?’
‘Yep.’
The sun was streaming through the garage doors, lighting oil spills, car bodies and parts, chrome tools and Tank’s Mazda. On the outside, this was the car he’d fallen in love with, sleek and red, a real head-turner, but on the inside she was a different car. He saw no irony in the fact that he was pinning all of his hopes for fulfilment on an object of false provenance.
‘I don’t want to take her in for a roadworthy and have the guy say she’s iffy.’
‘Not going to happen.’
To be doubly sure, Tank vowed to take his car to a different roadworthy tester next time. He began to feel uncomfortable. Several ethnics were standing around in the shadows, mechanics, car strippers and thieves, watching him inscrutably, some holding wrenches. He played ‘Spot the Aussie’ and scored only two, himself and the boss. ‘Mate,’ he said, hurriedly, ‘I don’t know what you did and I don’t want to know, but I’m pumped, a very happy boy.’
The proprietor of Korean Salvage was not happy. He didn’t like it that a cop had something over him. Sure, he had something over the cop, but he preferred it when it had just been him, his mechanics and the Jarrett kids who stole cars for them.
‘The paperwork’s solid, okay?’ he said sourly. ‘VIN number, engine number, chassis number, it all belongs to a legit car. It all checks out.’
‘Cool,’ said Tank.
It wasn’t cool, but that was the price of doing business in this town, apparently. The proprietor of Korean Salvage watched the beefy young cop get behind the wheel of the Mazda and peel out of the shed. Burning a bit of oil. Maybe the engine was knackered. He took some comfort from that.
Ellen worked until late evening. She drove home under a scudding moon, the shadows tricky, especially when she came to the tree canopy over Challis’s rain-slicked road. But she’d driven this road at this time of the night ever since the Katie Blasko kidnapping, and was familiar with the bends, the contours, the gaps between the roadside trees- particularly the gap where a stock gate had been set in Challis’s front fence. The gate, never used now, dated from an earlier era, when the house had been part of a working farm. She liked to glance through the gap: Challis’s house was set on a gentle slope, and she found it reassuring to look up and see the floor lamps glowing behind the sitting-room curtains, lights that she’d left on that morning to welcome herself home.