Kittyhawk Down

'Yes?' Ellen prompted.

'It was a promotion thing.'

'A promotion?' Scobie said.

'You know, I was looking for business,' Kitty said. 'I spent a few days flying over the Peninsula-select areas like Red Hill, Merricks North, Flinders-taking photographs. Some were generic coastline shots at a medium altitude, others were low-level shots of individual properties, houses, gardens, nearby paddocks, that kind of thing. I remember I numbered each shot on a topographical map so I'd be able to match them to specific addresses, then I went knocking on doors trying to sell photos.'

'And?'

'Did quite well. People were intrigued, flattered. I showed them examples of frame sizes, matt or glossy finishes, and took orders. Or I sold them the sample photos on the spot.'

They gazed at her. Challis was inclined to believe her and so, he sensed, were the others. Ellen indicated the photograph in Kitty's hand and said, 'Perhaps you could search your records and tell us which part of the Peninsula is depicted here.'

At once Kitty lifted the photograph and examined it intently. 'Why? What's it show?'

Challis wondered how Ellen would respond to that. There were good reasons why she shouldn't reveal too much, but he was pleased when she replied, 'It shows a marijuana crop.'

Now all three were watching Kitty closely, gauging her reaction.

'God. Where?'

Ellen pointed. 'Here.'

Kitty peered at it doubtfully. 'It could be anything as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't know a marijuana plant if I fell over it.'

'If you could just search your records…?'

Kitty turned to her filing cabinet, four drawers of greasy, dented grey metal, pulled out a chart and spread it over her workbench. Challis could see names and numbers pencilled along the coastline. He heard Kitty murmur to herself and then snap her forefinger onto the chart.

'Here.'

They looked. A farm along Five Furlong Road, just before the costly houses of Upper Penzance, and a scrawled name: Ian Munro.

Ellen gave Challis a brief, unobtrusive nod, and he stepped forward. 'Do you remember visiting the Munro farm?'

'No. But I would have gone there.'

'So you don't recall anything? Was there anyone at home? Did you have to call back? Did you see Munro himself or someone else who lives there? Did they buy the photo? If not, how come you have a copy?'

She cocked her head at him. 'An awful lot of questions. I'll have to check, it's all here somewhere. But the reason I have another copy is that I sometimes took several of the one area. Sometimes there'd be a cloud shadow or a sunburst at the wrong moment. Or a car entering the shot.'

He nodded.

She looked troubled as she returned to her filing cabinet and took out another file. 'I keep a record,' she said, 'of where and when I take each photo, and when I went knocking on doors last year I made a note of visits and return visits and who bought what. Here we are. I spoke to Ian and Aileen Munro. They bought two shots: a close-up of their house and a larger area shot like this one. Oh,' she said, concern filling her face, 'his cheque bounced.'

Challis went tense. 'Did you chase it up?'

Kitty shook her head. 'There was no point. I hate aggravation and I didn't have the time or the resources to do anything about it. I just paid the bank fee and forgot about it. The photos only came to fifty dollars, not worth the hassle. Besides, it was all done on spec anyway. Only about thirty per cent of people I doorknocked actually bought anything, so it wasn't as if I really lost out.'

Ellen said, 'You didn't follow it up at all? Didn't offer to take more photos at other times of the year? Didn't discuss aspects of the photo itself with the Munros?'

'Not that I recall.' She went pale. 'You don't think it was him, do you? In the Land Rover?'

Challis gazed at her evenly and said, 'That's what we intend to find out.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Pam Murphy was driving this time, but only because she'd beaten Tank to the keys and the driver's door. There was a corner-admittedly a pretty wide corner-of John Tankard that didn't hold with women drivers or women's driving ability. She kept her eyes on the road while beside her he stamped on an imaginary brake and braced his meaty hands against the padded dash. She edged up the speed a little, threw the van around the curves that would take them toward the Waterloo hospital. He must have forgotten that she'd driven pursuit cars at her last station and passed all of the advanced driving courses they'd thrown at her.

Then they were off the main road and on streets too narrow and curved to risk putting the wind up John Tankard, so she settled into a gentler pace and rhythm. She felt him begin to relax. Then his overheated gaze settled on her.

'You've got your pointy bra on today.'

'Careful you don't impale yourself on it,' she said.

Impale. He didn't like it. He knew what it meant but it wasn't an everyday word and she knew he took it as a subtle put-down of his intellect. 'Get off my case,' he said.

They drove on in silence. She had a sense of his mind working overtime, trying for a way to flatter and charm her, put her onside. To steer him away from that she said, 'Do you think Kellock's right?'

'About what?'

She resisted saying about what he was talking to us about not five minutes ago, and said, 'Do the bad guys self-select?'

'Sounded like bullshit to me.'

'I think he had a point,' Pam said.

There was a primary school on one side of the road, a church on the other. She slowed for a speed hump and the school crossing. 'I mean,' she went on, 'if you pull someone over for a broken brake light, ten-to-one he's also drunk or doped to the eyeballs or hasn't got a licence or his car's unroadworthy or he hasn't paid a swag of parking fines. As far as he's concerned, things like speed limits and working lights don't apply to him.'

'Yeah,' Tankard said. 'He's stupid.'

'I think it's more than that,' Pam said, but before she could expand on it, Tankard stretched elaborately and managed to drape his arm along the top of her seat. The next best thing to embracing her. She could feel his arm there, a pinkish hairy slab, millimetres from her neck and shoulders.

She said dangerously, 'Don't.'

'What?' he said, full of false innocence, but removed his arm anyway, turning the gesture into one long, getting-comfortable pantomime.

'That's better.'

'What is?'

She changed the subject. 'Know anything about this Munro character?'

He shrugged. 'Nup.'

She could never be sure how much John Tankard took in during the briefings at the start of every shift. According to Sergeant van Alphen, an RSPCA inspector had been investigating a report of distressed sheep on a farm up near Upper Penzance. There was a suspicion that the farmer, Ian Munro, had assaulted the inspector and put him in hospital.

'Check out the inspector's story,' van Alphen had said, 'see if he wants to press charges, then have a word with Munro.'

There hadn't been time to run Munro's name through the computer, but one or two of the other uniforms in the briefing room clearly knew Munro, and had said to Pam, their voices full of mock direness, 'Well, good luck,' as though she was going to need more than luck on her side.

'A thankless job,' she said now.

'Being a cop?'

'Well, that too, but I meant it'd be thankless being an RSPCA inspector.'

'How come?'

Why did John Tankard never engage with a topic? Why wasn't he musing over her remark right now and responding to it one way or the other? She wanted to say think about it, but they had reached the entrance to the hospital and she was forced to brake for an old man in an elderly Holden, nothing showing but his hat and his hands clutching the wheel as he contemplated his next move in the exact centre of the gate pillars.

'Dozy old bugger,' she said, intending Tankard to see himself as ending up like that dozy old bugger one day.

He said nothing. Then, as if to assert his masculinity, said, 'Footie season starts next Saturday.'