He gave Wilmot the kind of grin that means nothing at all.
‘Don’t fly Virgin Blue, by the way.’
Hostility rose in Wilmot and he ignored the hand. ‘I don’t give a rat’s arse who you are or how you got here. Why you’re here and what I’m going to do about it is another matter.’
Towne creased his face good-naturedly but the eyes stayed flat. He struck Wilmot as someone on whom everything had an equal impact: small children, chaos, a visit to the dentist, blood letting.
‘Mate? You hear me? How about you piss off and let me do my job.’
Slipping a slender hand into an inside pocket, Towne waved identification at Wilmot, still wearing the smile. Wilmot saw a likeness of Towne and the words ‘National Crime Commission’ before the ID was secreted again.
Wilmot flushed. ‘Whoopy do.’ He felt inept and tongue-tangled. Andrew Towne, he sensed, had summed him up at first sight as a time-server. Or the cunt treated everyone with barely concealed contempt.
Wilmot looked away. The Derwent River had been flat and grey under the morning fog, then glinted briefly when the sun banded it. But the afternoon was drawing to a close now, the sun losing the fight to the mountains and a new fog shroud.
He turned to Towne again. ‘Mate, all I’m looking at is a couple of simple burglaries. What makes it federal?’
Towne looked bored. ‘We’ve been tracking this bitch for the past two years. She operates all over the country, always where the money is-Noosa, Port Douglas, North Shore, Adelaide Hills.’ He nodded. ‘Here in Sandy Bay.’
Wilmot absorbed that. ‘You got here pretty quick.’
Towne offered one of his arid smiles. ‘Our intel is good.’
Any information system could be programmed to raise a red flag, Wilmot knew. Depending on the parameters. ‘She work alone?’
‘Let’s just say she’s part of something loose and shadowy,’ Towne said. ‘ATM skimming, credit cards, identity theft, burglary to order, shoplifting raids.’
‘Foreign gang?’ said Wilmot.
Towne bared his teeth.
Wilmot snapped. ‘So what do I do now?’ Irritated. ‘Kiss your sweet arse and go home?’
Towne crinkled his eyes again, but they remained as flat and fogged as the river.
12
In the Chicory Kiln that evening, seated at a window overlooking vineyards on Myers Road, Pam Murphy read from the boxed paragraph on the front of the menu:
‘“The Chicory Kiln-so called because there was once a chicory kiln where the bistro now stands-offers the ultimate in relaxed dining on the Peninsula, and…”’
She glanced at Challis. ‘Boss? Know what a chicory kiln is? Or chicory, for that matter?’
‘Edible plant,’ said Challis, his face dark and hawkish in the candlelight.
‘And?’
‘Rarely grown anymore.’
She cocked her head.
‘Edible in what way?’
‘Salad leaves and coffee.’
‘Aha. Coffee. Hence your interest.’
The only coffee that Challis trusted was the coffee that he made. Wouldn’t touch the canteen coffee. Always asked for tea if a doorknock witness offered coffee.
He smiled at her blithely. ‘They used to roast and grind the roots. During the Second World War, it was added to coffee or used as a substitute.’
‘Fascinating.’
Challis was unmoved. ‘Early in my career I was posted to Phillip Island. Chicory kilns everywhere.’
Then she saw his face shut down, as if a shadow from his past had crept in. She’d heard the whispers over the years. He’d met his wife on the island and she’d gone with him from one rural posting to another as he rose in the ranks. Then, somewhere in central Victoria, she’d started sleeping with one of his colleagues and she’d conspired with her lover to kill Challis. Something about an anonymous call and a lonely bush track. The wife was dead now. Suicide in jail. The lover was due for parole in a year or so.
Pam thought about these things as she tore off a hunk of coarse bread and dunked it in a small bowl of olive oil. Local olive oil, according to the menu. She chewed the pungent bread, wiped her mouth and fingers.
‘Have you ever drunk chicory coffee?’
Challis shuddered. ‘God, no.’
Pam grinned, then glanced around the Chicory Kiln’s interior, which evoked Tuscan villa, New England barn and Bedouin fort in roughly equal parts: gnarled posts and beams, terracotta floor tiles, vaulted ceiling, whitewashed earthen walls. The diners sat at heavy wooden tables, cooled by ceiling fans in summer and warmed by an enormous stone fireplace in winter.
The diners, this Friday evening, were a mix of locals and weekender tourists. Young, middle-aged, old. Kids on a first date, a hen’s party of shire office workers, the Waterloo postmaster and his wife, a family singing Happy Birthday to an ancient crone.
And Murphy and Challis, who’d come to question the staff and stayed for dinner.
Eva-German backpacker, twenty-six years old, charged with washing the Chicory Kiln’s dishes, making the salads, sometimes clearing the tables-had talked to them during a cigarette break in the stinking air beside the bins in the rear courtyard, smoke dribbling from her mouth. ‘I am not knowing this girl Chloe so much. I am here three weeks only. I make the oranges from the trees on the river, I serve the food in Sydney, I cleaning houses in Byron Bay. That is all who I am. I know nothing. I hope you catches this man. You see my visa if you want.’
That was at 5.30. Over the next hour, as other staff arrived for work, Murphy and Challis had taken them aside and asked them the same questions. How well do you know Chloe Holst? Did anyone ever visit her at the restaurant, take her home, meet her in the car park after work or during a work break? Are you aware of any confrontations between Chloe and a stranger, a customer or another member of staff? When did you last see her? Where? What was she doing at that time?
The other waitresses, Kelly and Gabi, grew frightened and tearful. Kelly was in Year 12 at Westernport Secondary College, Gabi was on a gap year between school and university. Neither knew much about the world beyond home, school, the Peninsula and the Chicory Kiln. They’d been vaguely aware that something had happened to Chloe, but snatched ? Raped? She was just so nice, always friendly and cheerful. They looked out over the car park with dark eyes and wrapped themselves inside their arms. Pam asked how they were getting home.
‘Dad,’ said Kelly.
‘My boyfriend,’ said Gabi.
‘Did anyone ever pick Chloe up after work?’
‘She’s got a car,’ they said, forgetting Chloe briefly, thinking about what a car would mean for them.
The boys who flicked around the kitchen, darting from cutting board to frying pan, freshly washed plate and pinned-up dinner orders, said they barely knew Chloe. ‘Take a look around. We’re flat out. We’d divvy up the tips at the end of the night, say goodbye and that was that.’
Poor Chloe.
We barely knew her.
She hadn’t been working here that long.
She was nice. A fun person.
She kept to herself a bit but she wasn’t, you know, a snob or anything.
It’s so dark out there at night. The car park and that.
Myers Road is always a bit creepy at night.
Yeah, you get your perverts. They, like, put their hand on your hip while you’re telling them the specials, even when their wife is sitting right there.
Look down your top and that.
Ask what time you get off work.
Complaints? Sure. Sometimes. You know, this fork’s dirty, my meal’s cold, this hasn’t been cooked properly, if you think I’m giving you a tip you’ve got another think coming-that kind of thing. No big deal.
Not enough to stalk and abduct and rape a girl over.
The owner-manager lived on the premises. She and her husbandretired accountant, liked to grow the Chicory Kiln’s herbs and vegetables and manage the wine cellar-would clean up when everyone had gone, then unwind in front of the television, and last night had been no different. Skype conversation with their daughter in Salzburg. Studying violin.