Kittyhawk Down

Aileen took them through to the sitting room, the carpet and upholstery oppressively floral in styles that had disappeared from every corner of the world except backroad farmhouses. A wedge of grimy sunlight illuminated one corner of the floor; otherwise the light was dim. But there were incongruous touches here and there: a massive entertainment unit in one corner housed a flatscreen television set, VCR and sound system, and the torso of a Barbie doll peeked from beneath the nest of tables under the window. A CD case cracked faintly behind a cushion when Challis sank into the sofa. He fished it out. Strawberry Kisses by Nikki Webster. It meant nothing to him beyond the fact of the Munro children reaching for life beyond this lifeless house.

Aileen Munro sat heavily in an armchair opposite Challis. Scobie Sutton sat beside him. Challis didn't like the arrangement, for it reinforced a sense of two ranged against one, but it was too late to change that now. He relaxed, tried to look unobtrusive, and let Sutton begin.

'First, Aileen, I'm really sorry this has happened.'

Aileen Munro's gaze darted from Sutton to Challis and back again. She opened and closed her mouth as though to moisten it. 'Thank you,' she muttered.

'It must he hard for you.'

'Yes.' Barely a whisper.

'Remember, if there's anything I can do…'

A tinge of hysteria this time. 'You can get those reporters off my back!'

John Tankard had been at the front gate when Challis and Sutton arrived. He was there to keep the media away from the house and looked sour about it. 'They'll lose interest after a while,' Sutton assured her.

Tessa Kane hadn't been in the media pack, or not that Challis could see. She hadn't contacted him for another follow-up, but would do so. She'd have Munro's photo by now, one taken when he was arrested for assault two years ago, and passed out to the media by the public relations clerk.

'Meanwhile, I'm afraid we have to ask you some questions,' Sutton said gently.

A curt nod.

'First, have you had a chance to think of likely places where your husband might be?'

'No.'

'Any buildings or scrubland on the Peninsula that he knew well, or once owned, or was fond of visiting?'

Her voice when it came was shrill. 'You say he shot three people dead. Do you really think he'd just hang around the district? He's long gone.'

'But where, Mrs Munro?' Challis interrupted. His voice was low and calm but Aileen Munro was still agitated.

'How should I know? We never went anywhere. We always stayed at home-or I did, anyway. How should I know where he's gone?'

Challis nodded. Sutton said, 'As you know, we think Ian was growing marijuana over in the far corner of the farm last year. There's no crop there now, and we've found nothing in any of the sheds to suggest he was cultivating it-no plants drying, no packets of dried leaf-but perhaps you could tell us who he-'

She brought her fists down hard on her lap. 'I don't know anything about that. Why don't you listen?'

Challis believed her. She looked genuinely perplexed. He said, 'Did Ian have anything to do with the Pearces, Aileen?'

'No. Far as I know, he never knew them, never talked to them.'

'He didn't say anything about getting even with Pearce for reporting him to the RSPCA?'

Aileen Munro gasped. 'It was him?'

'We have reason to believe he called them anonymously.'

'But how would Ian know it was Pearce who dobbed him in if it was anonymous?'

Good point, Challis thought.

'And the lawyer?' he asked gently.

Aileen scowled and looked away. 'Ian had business with him in the past. Hated his guts. He used to talk about getting even with him for letting him down.'

They were silent. Challis noticed for the first time that Aileen Munro's cardigan was buttoned crookedly, the buttons themselves a mismatched array of shapes and colours.

Scobie cleared his throat. 'Anyone else your husband disliked, Aileen?'

She looked at him with contempt-contempt for the situation, not Sutton himself-and said, 'Give me a name, any name. Ten-to-one my husband had something against him. He was a good hater. Is a good hater.'

'Getting back to the marijuana, Aileen, I-'

'I told you, I don't know anything about that. I wouldn't know a marijuana bush if I fell over one.'

'I believe you,' Challis said. 'But presumably your husband harvested the crop and sold it. Who did he get the seeds or seedlings from? Who bought the crop? Were there any unusual visitors at any time? Phone calls? Letters? Mysterious trips away?'

She shrugged. 'No one visits.' Her voice grew hollow. 'People used to visit us once upon a time. Not anymore.' She glanced in the direction of the front gate and the reporters gathered there. 'Now we've got hundreds of visitors, only not the kind you'd want. Bloody vultures, I can't hack it anymore.'

Challis grew aware of the ticking silence of the house. 'Mrs Munro, where are your children?'

She looked at him in surprise. 'In their rooms. The kids at school…' She grew hard. 'You're not asking them questions. No way.'

'No, no,' Challis said. He paused. 'Do they know what's happened?'

'Leave them alone.'

'They're very quiet,' Challis said, and a stillness settled in him. He glanced at Sutton, got up, and swiftly left the room.

He heard Aileen wail behind him, 'Where's he going?'

'He'll be back in a moment, Aileen,' Sutton said soothingly.

Challis found the children in a large room, three beds against the walls. The older two were playing a computer game in furious silence, only their breathing and the clack of keys betraying them. The youngest was sitting quietly, drawing. But she glanced up cringingly when Challis stepped through the door. Who beat her, disciplined her? Challis wondered. Had she thought for a moment that it was her father filling the doorway?

Conscious of his size, Challis crossed to the little girl, sat on the bed and tried a smile. 'Hello. My name's Hal. Do you know Mr Sutton? Scobie? He's Roslyn's dad. Roslyn's in your class at school, I think.'

She nodded. 'I see him in the mornings,' she said in a high, thin voice.

'That's right. He's here with me at the moment. We're talking to your mum.'

The girl sorted through her crayons. Most were greasy stubs, and several bore bite marks. She selected one and unconvincingly ran it back and forth across the page of her sketchbook. Challis said, 'Is your dad home today?'

After a moment, the child shook her head. She stopped drawing, her chin dropped to her chest, and Challis sensed shame and bewilderment. One more question: 'Has your dad been home to see you?'

The girl said, 'He runded away.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Tankard wasn't going to quit. Maybe if he made her a bit jealous? So he told her a story that was half true about a party he'd gone to back when he was in the police academy.

'I crack on to this chick, things hot up, I take her home, she goes, "Lose the threads," so I start getting my gear off, and then she goes-'

'Stop the car!'

Startled, he braked sharply. They were patrolling at the bottom end of High Street. The shops were sparser here. There was a bank, a pub, a real estate agency, an anonymous two-storey building with Lister Financial Services painted on the window. Even though it was Friday there was almost no one around.

'What?' Tankard said, glancing up and down, looking for the problem.

Nothing that he could see. 'What's got your bloomers in a twist? Or do you call them knickers? Scanties?'

'I need to see someone,' Pam said.

'Who?'

'Just someone,' she said irritably. 'I'll only be five minutes.'

And she got out, leaving him double-parked. He watched her dart across the road and into Lister Financial Services.

Tankard sank back into his seat. Tattered, sun-faded Christmas decorations still clung to a power pole. A gritty wind was gusting. The manhunt for Ian Munro was three days old but no one in Waterloo seemed bothered about it. An old man pedalled by on a bicycle hung with string bags crammed full of plastic shopping bags. Two teenagers were slumped, smoking, on a bench outside a struggling record shop, a sign saying 'This Business For Sale Inquire Within' pasted to the glass. A little red Golf drove carefully around the police van, an elderly woman at the wheel, disabled-parking sticker on her windscreen. He saw her brake in the street ahead of him and look with apparent longing at the disabled-parking bay outside the bank.