Kittyhawk Down

'Blast!' Challis said.

He ran back to the police car, remembered the keys too late, was about to look for Pam Murphy, double-checked the ignition, saw she'd left the keys there.

He got in, fired up the motor, chased after the departing ground staff. They'd left the airfield itself and were driving in single file on the dirt road that led to the main road. Challis gunned the motor and swung out onto the grass to pass them, sideswiping a tree along the avenue of gumtrees before veering across the nose of the first car and braking, effectively cutting them all off.

Piling out with his service revolver held in two hands up next to his head where it could be seen, Challis then motioned for the cars to stop, the drivers to get out. A woman slipped out of the first car, very jittery and, following Challis's gestures, ran for the shelter of the gums. Then a man got out of the second car and scurried away in a half-crouch, and two men got out of a little Daihatsu, but the driver of a Land Rover just sat there staring at Challis, hands fixed tightly to the wheel.

When the other drivers and passengers were free of their cars, Challis advanced on the Land Rover, down the left flank so that the abandoned cars gave him some cover.

He approached until he was behind a Holden a few metres away from the Land Rover and saw that the driver was the head mechanic and that he was trembling. Challis paused, called out: 'Is Casement there with you?'

The man nodded.

'In the back seat?'

Another nod.

'Armed?'

A final nod, the mechanic clenched tight with fear, and it was then that Challis saw the shotgun emerge between the gaps in the seats and press upwards into the hinge of the mechanic's jaw.

'Casement? Can you hear me?'

The window went down, the twin barrels swung away from the driver, and Challis's answer was a blast from the shotgun. He ducked and heard the pellets humming over his head and slamming into the flank of the Holden.

There was no second shot until he raised his head. This time the blast was better aimed, the shot flying low, peppering a rear tyre and zipping about his feet, branding his right shin bone and calf.

Challis ran before the pain could set in, ran before the blood slopped in the bottom of his shoe, ran before Casement could reload or prove to him that he had a magazine full of shells.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

In the middle of the questioning, the paperwork, his patching-up visits to the hospital over the next three days, Challis's wife killed herself, and his first thought was: I'm tired of all the dying.

Succeeded in killing herself, to be precise, sleeping pills this time, stolen and accumulated when she was recuperating in the prison hospital, the pills succeeding where sharpened plastic and half-hearted cutting motions had failed to work.

She left a note blaming him but he didn't feel any responsibility and went to the funeral and stared at the coffin, feeling nothing but pity for Bob and Marg, who clung to his arms and said how sorry they were.

Sorry for their daughter, sorry he'd been shot, holding his arms as much in need of support as to offer support and sympathy to him, with his bandaged leg and hospital crutch.

But that was on the third day. Hours of fruitless questioning had come before that, Challis with a temporary hospital patch-up on the first evening, so that he wouldn't lose the momentum with Casement, then a session in surgery while they removed the pellets, then back for another swipe at Casement.

Who'd had a lawyer right from the start, an overweight, heavily suited, idly contemptuous-looking man who slumped precariously in the plastic interview room chair. 'My client freely admits to attempted abduction and various weapons charges, but he denies killing anyone.'

'Ian Munro shot my wife,' Casement said, looking relaxed. 'For all I know, he also shot the Pearces. As for Trevor Hubble, I don't know anything about that.'

'You admit to knowing him, though.'

'Years ago.'

'Two years, in fact. You were business partners, you took over the business when he returned to England, but then he came back last October and you killed him because you'd taken over his identity and he was a threat to that.'

'It was easier for my client to leave the paperwork in Mr Hubble's name, that's all,' the lawyer said. 'He paid his taxes, he doesn't owe anybody anything.'

But the next day Challis was able to tell the lawyer: 'We sent your client's prints to Interpol and Scotland Yard. His real name is Michael Trigg and he's wanted for theft, fraud and money laundering. We intend to send him back to England as soon as he's served his sentence here.'

'My client will challenge any charge the English police try to pin on him. Meanwhile I doubt he'll serve much time for attempted abduction and firearms charges in this country.'

'You're forgetting murder,' Challis said. 'Four counts.'

'On what evidence?'

They didn't have any. Challis stuck with what he knew. 'According to Scotland Yard your client defrauded a circle of business acquaintances of three or four million pounds. He laundered that money through dozens of bank accounts. He disappeared before his trial and has remained at large by adopting a series of false identities.'

It was easier to say 'your client' than 'Casement', 'Billings' or 'Trigg', yet, in Challis's head, Trigg was Casement.

'As I said, my client is confident that-'

'Does your client have anything to say for himself?' Challis demanded. He was in pain, uncomfortable, irritable.

'I can only repeat what my lawyer has so ably said,' Casement replied levelly. He seemed to be enjoying himself and Challis guessed that he was entirely unmoved by the things that normally move us.

Challis went on: 'We know that you took the identity of at least two of your victims: Billings and Casement. Stripped a million quid from each of them, apparently.'

Casement shrugged.

'Did you use Hubble's carpet-cleaning business to launder the money you stole?'

No reply.

'Now it's safer and easier to sink your stolen money into Internet share trading, is that it?'

No reply.

'We found oil paintings, gold bars, cash and a selection of identity documents hidden in your house.'

This time Casement shrugged.

Challis went on: 'What did you do with your yacht?'

'What yacht?'

'According to Louise Cook, Hubble's girlfriend, when you were known as Billings you owned a yacht.'

'Do I look like a yachtsman to you?'

Casement could have owned the yacht under an alias the police were yet to trace, Challis thought. 'Where is the yacht moored now?'

'My client didn't own a yacht. Please don't harp on it, Inspector.'

'We'll find it,' Challis said. 'We'll match the anchor to it, we'll take a reading from the global positioning unit, we'll probably find your client's prints on it along with Trevor Hubble's.'

There was a flicker in Casement, a tiny shift, but the lawyer stepped in saying, 'I understand you don't have the anchor, Inspector. That it's gone missing.'

'These things always turn up,' Challis said.

And it did, in a second-hand chandlery store along the beachfront at Rosebud. No, the owner couldn't remember where he'd got the anchor.

And then the yacht was found. Casement had tucked it away down a drainage channel near Tooradin, some distance away, where it might never have come to anyone's attention if it hadn't dragged its anchor chain and damaged someone's dinghy. Crime scene technicians found Casement's prints, Hubble's prints.

'So I owned a yacht? So what?'

'So you lied to us.'

'My client is understandably nervous about these murder charges, Inspector Challis. As a result he's forgetful but also inclined to be self-protective. You can understand that.'

'Oh, I quite understand,' Challis said. 'He's trying desperately to save his neck. But that doesn't change the fact that we have your client's prints and his victim's prints on a boat he denies owning.'

'The correct term is yacht, not boat,' said Casement automatically.

'Terribly sorry. But as I said-'

'And there's an innocent explanation,' Casement said. 'I expect Trev's prints have been there for ages, from back when we went sailing on weekends, before he flew to London.'

'So who killed him and why a death at sea?'

'Why not ask Louise Cook about that? She wanted him dead, I heard her say so often enough when she came back to Australia without him. "I hate his guts," she'd say. "I'd happily shoot him." That's where you should be looking.'

Challis made a mental note to do just that, and said, 'The global positioning system puts you off Flinders at the time of the murder.'

'But that's not proof that my client was on the boat at the time or that he killed Trevor Hubble or that Hubble was on the yacht at the time. Other people may have taken the boat out.'

'Yacht,' Casement said.

'Why did you kill the Pearces? What did Pearce have on you?'

'My client has already denied-'

'Did Pearce discover your true identity? Did he see you kill Hubble? Was he sniffing around, asking uncomfortable questions?'

'Didn't know the chappie, sorry,' Casement said languidly.

'Why did you kill your wife?' Challis went on. 'Was she onto you? Did Pearce approach her separately, telling her who you were? Or did she already know and you had a falling out? Or was she bringing unwanted police attention to herself, so you felt threatened? Was it money? I understand there is some cash and property and an insurance policy for half a million dollars.'

'My client has already denied-'

Stalemate.