'Cup of tea?'
In fact, a cup of tea was just what she wanted. 'Thanks. Weak black.'
It was one pm by the clock on the electric oven, and a grey-haired man shuffled into the kitchen, looked in bewilderment at her and then in faint irritation at his wife, and said querulously, 'What's for lunch?'
The woman, reaching for teabags in an overhead cupboard, threw Tessa a look and turned to her husband. 'Water,' she said, pointing at the tap over the sink.
Then at the bread crock: 'White sliced bread.'
And the refrigerator: 'Cheese, sliced ham, gherkins, tomatoes.'
His face went sulky. He wore slippers, a white business shirt and the trousers of a grey suit.
'And while you're at it,' the woman went on, 'make me a sandwich too. And if our young visitor…?'
Tessa smiled. 'No thanks.'
'Or,' the woman said to her husband, 'you could take me somewhere nice for lunch.'
Grumbling, he wandered off to another part of the house. 'He retired recently,' the woman explained, 'and he doesn't know what to do with his time. Never had to do anything for himself. He'll be dead within five years,' she added, in exasperation and not a little sadness.
Tessa found herself thinking about Hal Challis and what he'd be like when he retired. God, that was twenty-five years away. Would she still be in the picture? At least he knew how to fend for himself domestically and he had outside interests, his bloody aeroplane. Obscurely reassured, and quite unable to see Challis as old or frail but forever young and lithe in her mind's eye, she began to ask the woman about the couple who lived across the way, their awful deaths.
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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
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.'