He clambered to safety, leaving the bag for the forensics team, and returned with Sutton to the car. Pam Murphy was peering at the soil beside the passenger side door.
‘Blood here.’
Challis peered, confirmed it, and took both of his officers back behind the tape.
‘Okay, Scobie, how do you read it?’
Sutton considered the sky gloomily. ‘More questions than answers,’ he said at last.
‘Such as?’
‘Has he got the time for a leisurely cup of coffee? Where did he buy it? If the woman was with him, what was she doing in the meantime? Dead in the boot? Alive and in cahoots with him? Bound and gagged in the back seat? If she’s dead, where’s her body?’ He stared gloomily at the channel. ‘In there?’
Pam Murphy said, ‘Maybe it’s his blood. Maybe she put him in the channel.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘We’d better check stolen car reports.’
‘Or we have a third person involved, an accomplice with a car.’
‘Or we have another hostage situation in some out-of-the-way farmhouse,’ Pam said, gesturing at the flat empty world all around them.
Challis smiled tiredly. ‘We need DNA from the blood and the cup, see if they match. We need prints from the car and the shoulder bag. We need a search of the drain.’
‘I’ll see if the bank has a clearer image of her face,’ Murphy said.
Just then her phone rang. She covered one ear against the wind and turned away. Challis heard the fragments of her conversation:
‘She give you an address?
‘…Cash? I thought you’d require a credit card?
‘…You’re sure about the name? Not Grace or Anita or any variation?
‘Have you been watching the news?…The hostage-is it the woman who rented the Commodore from you?’
Then she listened for a while before pocketing the phone and rejoining the men. ‘That was the car rental firm in Rosebud. It seems they rented the Commodore to a woman calling herself Nina Signature Illegible yesterday morning, payment in cash, not credit card. It also seems that they forgot to take down her driver’s licence details. But they’re pretty sure it was the woman we know as Mrs Grace. I suggest we show her photo around all the motels in and around Rosebud.’
Challis nodded, thinking through the stages. The wind blew; the clouds were wispy streaks high above their heads. A white van appeared in the landscape, small and far away. Forensics, he guessed, and said to the others, as if coming out of a trance: ‘We need to open her safe-deposit box.’
51
They raced back to Waterloo, Challis sprawled across the rear seats again, working his phone this time, first arranging a warrant to open the safe-deposit box, and then calling the bank and asking to speak to Ely.
Joy answered. ‘He’s with a federal policeman, Mr Challis.’
Federal? Given that the shotgun bandit had been operating in two states, and possibly three, perhaps the AFP was involved, but no one had informed Challis. And did he want to work with one of the more inept and morally bankrupt of Australia’s police forces? He didn’t have time to think more about it and said, ‘Shouldn’t you be at home watching daytime TV or selling your story to Channel 9?’
She laughed. ‘Roadworks outside my house; and I only watch the ABC. I’m better off at work.’
‘Fair enough. Look can you do me a favour?’
‘Personal loan? Second mortgage?’
‘Being held hostage clearly agrees with you,’ Challis said. ‘Could you look up Mrs Grace’s records, please?’
Joy said automatically, ‘I’m not sure that I have the authority-’
Challis was no longer inclined to be breezy. ‘Joy, the woman’s still missing. Many questions still need answers. I fear for her life. If she’s dead, we’ll need to inform her family. She might be lying injured somewhere. She might even be at home, recovering. We need to send someone to her house immediately.’
‘Just a moment.’
Challis heard fingers fly over a keyboard, then a more regular click click click.
‘Susan Grace, Peninsula Fine Arts, 35 Rigby Cutting Road, Red Hill. That’s her home and her work address.’
Challis knew the area. Ellen had bought him a book of day and half-day walks in Victoria, and together they’d tried some of the Peninsula walks. He knew Rigby Cutting Road as an access track from Arthurs Seat Road to a small segment of the state park. There were no galleries along it, no buildings at all.
She’d named an area that was local but unlikely to be known to many of the locals, such as bank tellers. ‘Did your statements ever come back marked “Return to Sender”?’
‘There were no statements. She rented a box from us, that’s all. Paid for five years in advance, and asked that all correspondence be e-mailed because she often travelled overseas.’
‘What ID did she show you?’
More keyboard tapping. ‘Driver’s licence, passport, credit card, voter registration.’
None of that meant anything. Challis said, ‘Please advise Mr Ely that I’ll be there late morning with a warrant to search her safe-deposit box,’ Challis said, and closed the connection.
He leaned into the gap between the front seats. ‘Murph, tell me again about the encounter you had with the Grace woman.’
Pam turned her head to him slightly but held her gaze to the road. ‘High Street, not far from the bank, a man raising his voice to a woman who had her back to him. I saw him grab her by the arm and spin her around, but she gave every appearance of not knowing him. That seemed to piss him off. He called her “Anita”. Her accent was vaguely foreign but a bit all over the place.’ She paused. ‘She looked different that day. Different hair, different clothing, but the same woman.’
‘And the man?’
Pam snaked a hand into the inside pocket of her jacket and fished around for her notebook. ‘It’s all in there.’
Challis found her notes, a Friday in early September, the name ‘Corso’ and New South Wales number plates. He took out his phone again and called the station with the details. ‘Contact police and motor vehicles in New South Wales for anything you can get on him: addresses, phone numbers, criminal record. If he has a record, a list of known associates.’
Pam Murphy’s phone was in the dashboard cradle. It rang and she removed it, held it to her ear without looking away from the unwinding road. Challis watched and listened as she said, ‘Okay’, ‘Yeah’ and ‘Thanks. E-mail the results, I’m coming back to the station now.’
She rehoused the phone. ‘That was the lab. They’ve found something that ties Darren Muschamp to the Rice murder.’
‘You want to re-interview him?’
‘Yes.’
‘This morning?’
‘Boss, I’d love to be there when you open the box, but I need to see this through.’
Challis could see the tension in her.
A short time later, he was standing inside the VineTrust Bank, saying, ‘Christ almighty, Rowan, please tell me you didn’t leave him alone with the box.’
Ely shifted about awkwardly. ‘It was federal police business, Hal. I had no choice.’
‘Did he take anything away with him?’
‘He asked to use the photocopier.’
‘I hope he was wearing gloves.’
‘He was.’
‘And he didn’t show you a warrant?’
Rowan Ely said, ‘He was a very forceful individual, Hal, and I’m still a bit, you know, dazed.’
‘What name did he give?’
‘Towne. Inspector Towne. I don’t know his first name.’
Challis rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. ‘He showed ID?’
Ely drew himself up. ‘Give me credit. Naturally I asked him to show me ID. It looked real to me. He had the manner, the language, if you know what I mean.’
‘I hope to Christ he didn’t remove anything that might lead us to your client.’
Ely said, ‘He told me he was going to see you. I thought you knew all about it.’
You’ve only just thought it, Challis said to himself. ‘I assume you have him on camera.’