He was in the car park now. Tossing the CIU car keys to Greener, he said, ‘Dromana, flat out all the way.’
‘You got it.’
When they were streaking out of Waterloo, Challis used the car’s radio to report a home invasion at Ellen’s address. Then he sat back to wait, the line to Larrayne Destry still open, trying to picture the interior of the house. Were the university friends still there? If so, where? In the sitting room with the men? He pictured the corridor between it and the kitchen, the two doors along it, one to the bathroom, the other to the toilet. Plasterboard walls, meaning that sounds carried, whispers, too.
Larrayne’s voice crackled in his ear. ‘Hal?’
‘Still here, Larrayne.’
‘Are you coming?’
‘On the way, and I’ve called it in.’
Challis glanced at the instrument panel. Greener was doing 130 km/h, sometimes 140. Even so, they were fifteen minutes out, at least.
‘I’m scared.’
Challis pictured Larrayne in Ellen’s vast white dressing gown. If she were naked under it, or dressed in flimsy nightwear, her sense of fear and vulnerability would be greater than usual, probably paralysing. ‘I know you are,’ he said gently. ‘You’ve a right to be. But don’t let these guys see it.’
There were sniffles and he thought about her remaining phone credit, his own phone credit and battery life. ‘Are your friends still in the house?’
‘They’re tied up. They’ve got tape around their arms and legs and across their mouths.’
Challis was puzzled. Overkill, he thought. Students, a modest, slightly run-down house, why a home invasion?
Pretty soon Greener had them barrelling past the glassblower at the Red Hill turn-off and down the hill towards the coast, a pretty drive, a slow, winding drive, but Challis, blind to the charms, was pressing a ghost accelerator with his right foot. ‘Larrayne, is it a robbery?’
‘No,’ she whispered.
Sexual assault? He was looking for a way to ask it when she went on, ‘They came bursting in saying we stole their girlfriends’ marijuana plants. They’re acting crazy.’
‘What girlfriends?’
‘Next door.’
Challis pictured the house with the two women with bikie boyfriends. The timing made sense when you realised that students and junkies-and students who were junkies-tended to sleep until noon. ‘Did you steal their plants?’
‘ No. We-’
‘ Get your arse out here, bitch.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Larrayne, don’t let them-’
‘ Now, bitch.’
Challis heard Larrayne Destry call out to the man on the other side of the door, ‘You’re scaring me. You just made me sick over everything.’
‘ Well, make it quick.’
Challis waited. She’d done well, lodging a word picture in the bikie’s head: human waste and odours and messiness.
Then her voice was in his ear again. ‘He’s gone but I don’t have much time.’
‘We’ll be there in a few minutes.’
There were crackles in the atmosphere and no reception bars on his phone. ‘Fucking black spot,’ he muttered.
‘Sir?’ Greener said, not looking at him, accelerating the CIU car down the long hill to the flat paddocks at the bottom, whisking it right then left onto the road into Dromana. Past the drive-in theatre, Challis pointing Greener towards the freeway entrance, holding the phone close to his face, waiting for reception.
One bar, two, then three, and Larrayne’s panicky whisper, ‘What happened?’
‘I lost reception. Look, hold on, we’re almost there.’
‘I can hear them yelling at the others. Hitting them. Give us back the plants or we’ll cut her tits off, cut your dicks and your ears off , stuff like that. I’m so scared.’
‘You’re doing really well,’ said Challis feelingly. ‘You’re using your brain, you’re strong and you’re going to be okay.’ He thought and said, ‘Is it possible one of the others stole the plants without your knowledge?’
A pause. Too late, he saw the misstep. ‘My life’s in danger and you turn cop on me? That is so typical.’
Probably a good thing, the old Larrayne showing itself. Outrage was better than panic and fear. But then Challis could hear thumping sounds in the background, tearing wood, a snarclass="underline" ‘ Get your fucking arse out here, right now.’
And the line went dead and Challis dumbly pointed the way for Greener, up onto the on-ramp, up the hill to an exit that looped down and under the freeway. His heart was beating hard.
Realising his phone was on, he broke the connection. It rang immediately. ‘Inspector Challis? Rosebud cars are on the way.’
‘Thank you.’
Challis pocketed the phone. It rang again; he checked the screen, saw it was McQuarrie calling and let it go to voicemail. They were on a paved street now, and then dirt side streets, the car bottoming out on potholes. He pointed again and Greener pulled into Ellen’s driveway, right up to the rear bumper of the green Hyundai. The sun was breaking through, the wind dropping, sprinklers ticking on a nearby lawn. They got out, Challis glancing across at the house where the marijuana growers lived. A curtain twitched and he imagined a hurried mobile phone call.
He said to Greener, ‘Go around the back. If they come out, try to stop them, but no heroics. We’ll find them again, the stupid fucks.’
‘Got it.’
Challis climbed onto the deck and looked through the glass. In the dimness there was chaos, almost too much to take in, but then his crime scene management priorities kicked in, a habit so ingrained he’d never shake it: preserve life, preserve the crime scene, secure evidence, identify the victim or victims, identify the suspect or suspects.
Chairs upended, plates broken, the coffee table leaning on a broken leg. One of the boys was strapped to a fallen chair, the girl still upright, hands bound behind her back, legs bare under black knickers, T-shirt torn from neck to hem, spilling her breasts. The second boy was in another upright chair, bleeding from the mouth and nose. A strange stillness, as if it were all over. But then Challis shifted his gaze, attracted by movement. A man in greasy jeans and a sleeveless black T-shirt had a mobile phone to his ear, shouting, beckoning to the other man, who was similarly dressed and struggling with Larrayne Destry. They’d seen Challis, a shadow against the glass, and began to pantomime doubt, confusion, belligerence and fury.
He slid open the glass door and saw the men vanish towards the rear of Ellen’s house, and heard the squeak of the back door, screams of ‘ Drop it, copper ’ and ‘I’ll do you, you fucking dog ’.
Larrayne was bent over, gasping. Challis put an arm around her shoulder, bent his head to her cheek. ‘You okay?’
She bucked immediately, striking him with her fists, then was holding on for dear life, crying hard. After a moment, he disentangled himself. ‘Help your friends, okay? I’ll be right back.’
‘Please!’
‘I have a man in trouble,’ he said, communicating reluctance and urgency.
She heaved a wobbly sigh. ‘Sorry. I’m okay, honest.’
Challis hurtled out of the room, through the kitchen and into the back yard. He found Greener standing alone on the strip of dust beneath Ellen’s rotary clothesline holding a handkerchief to a bloodied lip.
‘Sir.’
Challis dropped an arm across his shoulders. ‘Thought you were a goner.’
For a brief moment, Greener relaxed against the contact, then muttered that he was okay and moved away. ‘I considered shooting them, but think of the paperwork.’
‘Exactly.’
Shrieks and bellows were coming from the next house. Heavy bikes firing up.
Sirens in the distance.
‘Not the Hollywood ending I was after,’ Greener said.
‘True,’ said Challis, who’d never known real life to be anything other than messy, with a little bravery and commonsense thrown in if you were lucky. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘A pleasure,’ said Greener, bending to tug at his trousers, which were torn and bloody at the knee.