Tankard shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say. They reckon it started in the kitchen.’
A short time later, as they turned into Quarterhorse Lane, Pam leaned forward to stare and said, ‘What’s going on?’
At least a dozen cars were parked along the fenceline on both sides of Quarterhorse Lane, restricting traffic to one narrow strip of corrugated, potholed dirt.
‘Gawkers,’ said Tankard contemptuously. ‘Ghouls.’
As they approached the ruin, they saw people with cameras. Twice, at least, Pam thought, their van was photographed as it passed along the avenue of cars and turned into the driveway of the burnt house. Tankard wound down his window and shouted, ‘Haven’t you people got anything better to do?’
‘It’s a free country.’
Pam wound down her window. ‘Move along please, or you’ll be arrested for obstruction.’
‘Police harassment.’
‘Yeah, I love you too,’ Pam muttered, following the driveway between small scorched cypress bushes. ‘God, they’re in here, too.’
Two women were aiming their cameras at a CFA volunteer, who was wearing his full fire-fighting kit. He was grinning, his overalls a streak of vivid yellow against the charred beams and blackened roofing iron.
A man wearing fireproof boots, grey trousers, a white shirt and a hardhat stepped out of the ruin. He was carrying a clipboard. ‘It’s like the Bourke Street Mall here.’ He cast a contemptuous look at the CFA volunteer. ‘Bloody cowboys.’
Pam read the ID clipped to the man’s belt. He was a fire brigade inspector. ‘We’ll clear everyone away, sir.’
‘Thanks. I actually caught someone nicking souvenirs earlier. This woman, could be your old granny, nicking ceramic dolls from out of the ashes.’
‘Sir, did you find anything to tell us who the victim was? Any papers, deed box, wall safe, anything at all?’
‘Not a thing,’ the fire inspector said.
Going home from work on his trailbike, bumping down Quarterhorse Lane at two o’clock in the arvo for a quick gawk at the house that got burnt, gave Danny an idea. All those cars, all those people with nothing better to do, people he knew… Well, if they were here, looking at the burnt house, they weren’t home in their own houses, now, were they?
‘Was that young Danny Holsinger?’
‘It was.’
‘Up to no good.’
‘Bet on it,’ Pam said.
‘I’ll radio it in, ask the others to keep an eye open.’
Pam turned right, away from the cars of the gawkers, and drove for one third of a kilometre to the next driveway, which took them to a large wooden structure shaped like a pergola. A sign said, ‘Tasting Room.’
‘Good wine here,’ Tankard said.
Pam stared at him. Had he liked the wine or had he simply liked the drinking? A woman came around the side of the building. She wore overalls and carried a small stepladder.
‘You’ve come about the fire?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s not much I can tell you. We decided to evacuate, just in case. Didn’t come back till this morning.’
‘Actually, we’re after information about the householder,’ Pam said.
‘You mean Clara?’
‘Yes.’
‘Poor woman. What a dreadful thing. Was it an accident?’
‘We believe so. What can you tell us about her?’
‘Not much. In her late twenties, New Zealander. I don’t think I ever knew what her surname was, or I’ve forgotten it if I did know.’
‘Friends? Relatives? Anything like that?’
‘Can’t help you, sorry. She kept to herself.’
The next driveway, at the top of the hill, took them to a large house with a view across Waterloo to the refinery point on the bay. The curtains were drawn in all of the windows and no-one answered when they knocked at the front and back doors. Pam peered through a gap in the lockup garage and saw a newish-looking Mercedes.
Then they heard a tin clatter in the gardening shed and came upon an elderly man pouring petrol into a ride-on mower.
‘God, you nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Do you live here, sir?’
‘Me? No. I pop in now and then, do the mowing, watering, check on things. Why? What’s up?’
Pam got out her notebook. ‘Can you tell me who does live here?’
‘Stella Riggs. She’s away for a few days.’
Pam noted the details, including a reminder to come back and question Riggs. ‘Sir, do you know anything about the fire down the road?’
‘Me? Nothing. Should I?’
‘A woman called Clara died in it. We’re anxious to trace her relatives.’
‘Don’t know a thing about her.’
‘Do you live locally, sir?’
‘No.’
Pam looked around pointedly. ‘I don’t see a vehicle.’
The old man indicated a rusty bicycle. ‘What do you think that is?’
Danny had been seen going over the fence. He was also seen coming back, this time by Sergeant van Alphen and a constable in a divisional van.
‘Danny, my son.’
‘Shit.’
‘Now look what you’ve gone and done. Perfectly good VCR, and you have to drop it in the dirt.’
‘I can explain. The heads need cleaning and I was just taking it around to-’
Van Alphen punched him, not hard, but enough to make him reconsider his position. ‘What was that, Danny? I didn’t quite catch that.’
Tears came unbidden to Danny’s eyes and he saw it was true, what they said about van Alphen. ‘Don’t hit me no more. I want to see Constable Murphy.’
‘What do you want to see her for?’
‘She’ll give me immunity.’
‘That’s a big word for a squidgy little shit like you. And I doubt it, somehow.’
They took Danny to the station and charged him. But the Pam Murphy chick wasn’t in the station, so Danny said, ‘I want to call my lawyer.’
Nunn was quick off the mark. There in ten minutes. Danny couldn’t believe it. She demanded time alone with him, and as soon as the door was shut she said, ‘You’re a fuckup, aren’t you, Danny, eh?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Danny looked at her hotly. Thinks she’s so good, all dolled up in her tight skirt and jacket, briefcase, hair looking like its been washed and brushed for hours, smelling like a bottle of perfume’s fallen all over her, nasty superior look on her face. ‘You got no right to call me names.’
‘I’ve got every right. As your lawyer, I’ve got every right. What did you think you were doing? Broad daylight. You’ve got a good job. Can’t you be satisfied with that? I can’t go spending all my time bailing you out of trouble.’
Fucking stuck-up bitch. Who did she think she was? ‘So, am I getting out or aren’t I?’
‘Mate,’ Marion Nunn said, ‘quite frankly I can’t get you out of here quick enough. You can’t be trusted to keep your gob shut.’
Now, what was that supposed to mean? Still, better out than in.
Challis picked up the ringing phone and snapped off his name. It was six o’clock and he wanted to go home. ‘Challis.’
‘It’s Freya. Got a minute?’
Challis sat back in his office chair and stared at the ceiling. ‘This sounds like bad news.’
‘It is.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘The lungs. Fresh and pink inside.’
Challis put his feet up on the edge of his desk. ‘You’re saying she’d stopped breathing before the fire started.’
‘I am.’
‘Heart?’
‘The heart was fine. But you know those bone fractures, and the bleeding?’
‘How will I ever forget.’
‘Well, most were due to the extreme heat, but not all. She’d been bashed around first. Beaten to death, in other words.’
Challis said goodbye and stared at the wall. After a while, he called the Progress and told Tessa Kane, ‘You might want to stop the presses.’
And wondered at his motives.
Twenty
Ellen was late on Thursday morning. Challis’s Triumph was already in the car park, Scobie Sutton’s station wagon, cars she recognised as belonging to the seconded officers from Rosebud and Mornington.