It was occupied.
'Stiff titty, love,' Tankard murmured, and he began to crack his knuckles for want of anything better to do.
Something niggled at him, somewhere in the back corner of his consciousness…
He turned toward the bank again. The vehicle parked in the disabled-parking bay was a chunky-looking Ford pickup. Nothing immediately remarkable about it except it didn't feel right, for some reason. Then he knew: your disabled person usually drove something a bit easier and tamer, like your little Jap job, or your Golf. For your average disabled person, driving an F100 would be like driving a truck.
Check out the disabled-parking spots, Kellock had said, and John Tankard, who had scoffed at the time, now thought there was something in the senior sergeant's theory of the self-selecting crim.
He backed up, waited for another parked car to leave, and swung the police van in next to the F100.
That had been a mistake, he realised later. A lot of grief might have been saved if he'd had the brains to pull in behind the F100 and block it in.
He got out, sauntered toward the rear of the big pickup, and noted the numberplate. Then he wandered around to the front, checked out the windscreen.
No disabled-parking sticker.
'Right, I'll have you, mate,' he muttered with satisfaction, returning to the van to call it in.
That's when he noticed a movement in the pickup. He paused, turned toward it for a closer look, and saw what he hadn't seen earlier, owing to the high sides of the vehicle's cab: a man stretched out along the seat, apparently reaching down for something in the passenger-side footwell. The window was partly open. Tankard came closer and tapped on the glass.
'Sir? Excuse me, sir?'
The man stiffened. What the hell was he doing? His back, his reaching arm, the bulky overhang of the dashboard, Tankard couldn't see clearly.
Maybe he was handicapped. Maybe his walking stick had fallen off the seat.
'Sir, my name is Constable Tankard and I'd like to talk to you about-'
That's when he saw a metallic gleam, some stray beam of autumn sunlight reflecting coldly off the twin barrels of a shotgun.
Tankard gasped, stepped back, trying to think. He couldn't think. He'd been trained to think in these sorts of situations, he'd learnt how to advance on an armed suspect, draw his weapon, fire two rounds, and reholster. He'd been taught to walk backwards, kneel, turn and fire without sighting, first with the right hand, then with the left.
He'd learnt how to aim at the largest body mass: trunk, shoulders, head. Your first shot could be your last, so make it count. Out at the shooting range, Tankard had regularly hit twenty-seven or twenty-eight targets out of thirty. Not very many officers could beat that kind of shooting.
He'd also been taught to at least take his revolver out of its holster…
God. Seconds were passing and his hands and mind weren't working. His mouth felt dry. He wondered if he should shout a warning. Finally his hand did find its way to the leather strap that held his revolver in its holster.
His fingers refused to find it, fumbling so that he had to look away to see what he was doing. By the time his nerveless hand was around the butt and he'd returned his gaze to the man in the F100, the open mouths of the shotgun were trained on his face and he was looking into the steady eyes of Ian Munro.
Hadn't even unsnapped his own gun.
'Take it out,' Munro said.
'What?' Tankard's voice was dry, a croak. He tried again. 'What?'
'Your gun. Take it out, two fingers, give it to me.'
Tankard swallowed. He complied, dropping his gun through the open window as if it were a dead mouse.
'Keys.'
'What?'
'Walk backwards to your van, reach in, take the keys out of the ignition or I'll blow your fucking head off.'
Tankard did as he was told. He had no choice but to obey the man's contemptuous, whipping voice. He felt sick to his stomach and knew that he was going to die now.
'Give them to me,' Munro said. He was actually snapping his fingers.
A kind of petulance came over Tankard. 'No,' he said, and he dropped the keys through a stormwater grate.
Munro laughed. 'I wasn't going to steal the van, you stupid prick.'
He laughed again and started the F100, slamming it into reverse. The tyres squealed briefly and he was gone.
Tankard supposed that the pickup was stolen but it took him some minutes to call it in and find out for sure, and meanwhile he had to run across to the men's room in the pub and sit there for a while, and when Pam Murphy reappeared he couldn't get the words out. It was she who went into the bank, expecting to find blood. There was none: Munro had had dealings with the manager there, but Tankard had apparently interrupted him before he could go in shooting. And it was Pam who asked Tankard where his service revolver was. That's when the shame really began to settle through him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Special Operations police had questioned John Tankard first, meaning that by the time Challis had talked to him, the afternoon was almost gone. Challis drove home and, feeling unsettled in the dwindling light, began to rake leaves. His liquidambar wore a beautiful canopy of green in spring and summer, and was no less beautiful when hung with red and gold in autumn, but now the leaves were beginning to fall, forming a dull yellow mat on the grass, and he had a month of raking ahead of him.
First he circled the tree clockwise on his ride-on mower, letting the blades rake the leaves for him, pushing them in toward the trunk until he was at risk of jamming the blades, and then he resorted to raking the leaves into discrete piles. Finally he wheelbarrowed the leaves to the compost heap in the back yard, cursing when the top layers slithered off the barrow and marked his progress across the lawn and gravelled driveway.
Then an idea crept into his head: ask Kitty Casement to come to the opening of the footie season with him tomorrow, the Tigers versus the West Coast Eagles at the MCG. She'd once said that her husband rarely took her anywhere, he was always glued to his screen. Then, almost immediately, he abandoned the notion. She'd never say yes. She'd wonder why he'd asked, his intentions would look naked and obvious, the husband's first thought would be what's going on?
Ask Tessa instead. The way he was going, he would lose her.
And then he thought of the long drive and the traffic. And asked himself did he really want to go to the football? There'd been a time when your roots meant something. You barracked for the Tigers because you had direct links to Tigerland and so did the players. Not anymore. The players followed the money and you barracked for hybrid teams.
Plus, Challis knew that he was never good company at a football match. Partly it was his hatred of the herd instinct, but mainly his mind would drift and he'd lose himself in old or current murder cases. He'd even solved one or two in that dreamy state, but he was hardly a cheery companion.
Faintly he heard the telephone on his kitchen wall ring five times and cut out for the answering machine. He didn't follow it up but waited, and sure enough, a minute later his mobile vibrated in his pocket.
'Challis.'
'Hal? It's Marg.'
Marg Quinlan, his mother-in-law. 'Hello, Marg,' he said cautiously.
'It's about Angela.'
'I thought it might be.'
'She's not well.'
He said nothing, knowing he was making it difficult for his mother-in-law, who didn't deserve that, but unable to help himself.