Chain of Evidence

15

‘Thank you for coming in,’ said Ellen Destry, late morning. ‘I know it’s Sunday, and you’ve all clocked up a lot of overtime, but we can’t afford to drop the ball.’

They shrugged good-naturedly, all except John Tankard, who looked tired and edgy, and Superintendent McQuarrie, who glanced at his watch and said, ‘Let’s get on with it, Sergeant.’

Why was he here? Ellen could sense his impatience. Maybe he was supposed to be meeting his pals on a golf course somewhere. ‘Yes, sir.’

He’d always treated Challis with impatience, too. McQuarrie was a pen-pusher, a man who resented the competence and usefulness of street cops, for they made the kinds of decisions and intuitive leaps that left him bewildered-and so he took it out on them. More so, if a female officer was calling the shots. He was the kind of man who’d want her to fail so that he, or a male appointee, could step in. Sure, he probably wanted Katie Blasko found, but a corner of him didn’t want Ellen to do it. Meanwhile the other men in the briefing room, particularly Kellock and van Alphen, were reserving judgement. If she revealed emotions or doubts, they’d roll their eyes, put their arms around her bracingly, and tell her how things should be done.

So she acted hard and fast, assigning tasks to the CIU detectives and to the uniforms. ‘We’ve interviewed many of these people before,’ she said, ‘but I want you to do it again, and given that it’s a Sunday, you should be able to catch up on those who were not at home yesterday or on Friday. Teachers, shopkeepers, neighbours, school friends, enemies. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. The Show finishes today, everyone’s packing up and moving on to another town, so I want ticket sellers, roustabouts, drivers and hangers-on interviewed and checked before they disappear into the never-never. Search their vehicles.’ She paused. ‘Public transport. Did Katie take a train to the city? Dump her bike and hail a taxi? Go into a shop, accompanied by someone, a friend or a stranger? Check security camera footage again. Re-interview everyone on the sex offenders’ register. And don’t rule out other children: check Children’s Services for local kids who have a record of violence and inappropriate sexual behaviour.’

The acknowledgement, ‘Boss,’ went raggedly around the room.

‘Justin Pedder. So far he checks out, but keep an open mind. All of the open land in and around Waterloo has now been searched, without result, but broadening the perimeter is not warranted yet, there’s just too much of it on the Peninsula. It’s eyewitnesses we want. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon’s bike re-enactment will help.’

‘Boss.’

‘Has Katie turned up in Sydney or Brisbane or Adelaide, giving a false name? Is she sleeping rough somewhere? Is she in a homeless shelter? Check empty and condemned buildings. Make sure every detail is entered in the computer for cross-checking.’

She let her gaze settle on each of them in turn, encouraging but firm. McQuarrie stirred, looking irritable. ‘I hope you realise how much all this is costing, Sergeant Destry.’

Ellen flushed. He had no right to carp and criticise her in front of her colleagues. ‘I think a missing child warrants it, sir.’

He seemed to realise that he might make enemies here rather than be admired for leadership qualities. ‘Very good, carry on.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

They all began to file out. McQuarrie went first, John Tankard last. She stopped him. ‘Everything all right, John?’

His eyes were bloodshot. He’d shaved badly. When he answered, she caught a whiff of negligence and carelessness in his life: ‘Just a bit tired, Sarge. I was on patrol last night.’

Ellen regarded him carefully, then smiled. ‘Why don’t you help Scobie manage the incident room today? Let others do the door-to-door.’

He managed a smile. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’

With a nod, Ellen gathered her notes and returned to her office. The phone rang immediately; a reporter from the local newspaper was in the foyer. Ellen trudged down the stairs and out through the security door beside the front desk. The reporter was aged about thirty, jittery looking, hectically dressed in a swirling peasant skirt, purple singlet top, ropes of coloured beads and clanging bangles. Her smile was vivid. ‘Hi! Thanks for seeing me!’

Ellen nodded non-committally and took her through to an interview room. The Progress was pretty much a weekly broadsheet of advertising, sporting results and flower-show photographs, but it couldn’t afford to ignore a big local story. ‘I have a child of my own,’ the reporter said, when they were seated. ‘I’ve been walking around the town, listening to what people are saying. There’s a lot of concern out there, a lot of fear.’

Into the expectant pause, Ellen said, ‘The police are doing everything possible. Search parties…’

‘The word is, she was taken by a paedophile.’

‘We have no evidence of that.’

‘Come on, give me a decent quote.’

‘The police are doing everything possible and welcome any information the public can give us,’ said Ellen flatly.

The reporter rolled her eyes.

‘You’ll be at our re-enactment tomorrow?’ Ellen asked.

‘For what good it will do.’

They went to and fro for several more minutes, and then Ellen showed the woman out. Donna Blasko was there, sitting forlornly in the foyer. The reporter leapt on her. ‘A quick word, Mrs Blasko?’

‘Leave her alone, please,’ Ellen said. ‘Have some decency.’ She happened to glance through the glass doors to the street outside. ‘Look, there’s Superintendent McQuarrie. He’ll give you a statement.’

The reporter hurried out with small cries. Ellen turned to Donna, who was wringing her hands, and said gently, ‘Donna, can I help you?’

‘Any news?’

‘Not yet, but we’re hopeful.’

‘I feel I should be doing something.’

You’re doing more than enough, spreading alarm about abductions and paedophile gangs. Ellen took her to a quiet corner of the canteen. They sipped the awful coffee. ‘The best thing you can do is maintain things at home, Donna. For your sake and your other daughter’s. And Justin’s,’ she added. ‘I understand why you wanted to come in for an update, but we all need you to be strong, at home.’

‘It’s hard,’ Donna Blasko said.

In an office just along the corridor, van Alphen and Kellock were looking out at Superintendent McQuarrie, who was standing on the forecourt of the police station, talking to a reporter. A photographer was snapping away discreetly. Kellock exchanged a wry grin with van Alphen and returned to his seat. ‘Close the door,’ Kellock said.

Van Alphen complied and sat too, resting his heels on the edge of Kellock’s desk, ‘Destry got what it takes, you reckon?’

Kellock shrugged. ‘She’s all right. Covering all the bases.’ It was almost lunch time. They had a few minutes before getting back to Katie Blasko. ‘I saw Nick Jarrett in the street yesterday,’ van Alphen said.

Kellock gazed at him bleakly. ‘And?’

‘The prick grinned at me.’

They thought back to Jarrett in the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon, the crime that had put him there, the fact that he was a killer and roaming free again. ‘I wanted to wipe it off him,’ van Alphen continued.

Kellock nodded. He and van Alphen went back a long way. ‘The Jarrett name cropped up last night. John Tankard ran a plate number.’

Van Alphen stared at him. ‘The Jarretts were out and about, committing burglaries.’

‘Probably.’

‘Let’s get Tank’s version.’

John Tankard had almost fallen asleep over a pile of folders when Senior Sergeant Kellock called him. He made his way downstairs to Kellock’s office, the bad feelings of last night’s creepy encounter on the back roads still on his mind. Kellock’s door was wide open, Sergeant van Alphen sprawled in the office chair across from him. Tank could tell from the way their faces shut down that they were cooking up something.

Kellock spotted him. ‘Come in, John.’

‘Sir?’

‘You were on duty last night?’

Where was this going? Tank hadn’t made a formal report of his encounter with the Jarrett clan. He darted his gaze from Kellock to van Alphen and back again. ‘Sir.’

‘Anything out of the usual happen?’

‘Not really, sir.’

They watched him, expressionless but fully disbelieving and barely civil, a cop’s gaze. After a while, Kellock said, ‘The collators have been looking at a spate of recent burglaries.’

Tank nodded. The civilian collators charted chronologies, friendship networks, incident patterns. He knew where this was going. ‘Sir?’

Van Alphen spoke for the first time. ‘Look, John, don’t fuck us around, all right?’

Tank went wobbly inside. Of course his numberplate requests last night had been noted by Kellock and van Alphen. ‘Sir, the Jarretts.’

‘That’s better,’ Kellock said. ‘Where?’

Tank told them. ‘They weren’t doing anything at the time.’

‘That’s because they’d just done it,’ said van Alphen, ‘an aggravated burglary a couple of kilometres from where you saw them.’

‘Oh.’

‘It was only a matter of time,’ Kellock said. ‘The occupant was home, and they beat the shit out of him, older bloke, put him in hospital.’ He paused. ‘Was Nick Jarrett among these guys you encountered?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Van Alphen gave his sharkish smile. ‘You didn’t log it in.’

‘Sir, there was no crime being committed and-’

‘Our collators depend on that kind of intelligence gathering, John.’

‘Sorry, sir, won’t happen again.’

There was a pause, and then something happened, a silent communication between Kellock and van Alphen that John Tankard couldn’t decipher.

‘That will be all, constable,’ said Kellock. ‘Go home, put your feet up. Big day tomorrow.’