Chain of Evidence

2

Friday was Sergeant Ellen Destry’s first morning stretched out in Inspector Hal Challis’s bed. Challis wasn’t in the bed, but she lay there convinced that some trace or imprint of him lingered.

Six o’clock, according to the bedside clock, and sufficiently light outside for her customary walk, but to hell with that. She closed her eyes, giving herself up to daydreams and fugitive sensations, and the real world retreated. Challis’s house was an old-style Californian bungalow on two acres of grass along a dirt back road a few kilometres inland of Waterloo, and he’d asked her to mow the grass while he was away, for the spring growth was particularly rampant this year, but the mowing could wait. The final summations in the Supreme Court trial of Nick Jarrett were expected later, but not until early afternoon. And so Ellen Destry lay there, barely moving.

The next thing she knew it was 8.30 and she was awakening from a dream-filled, stupefying sleep. Her limbs were heavy, head dense, and surroundings alien. She groaned. When she moved it was sluggishly, and she couldn’t figure out how to adjust the shower temperature. She dozed under the stream of water, and then remembered that Challis’s house ran on rainwater, not mains water, so she cut the shower short. ‘Stop the world, I want to get off,’ she said to the misted mirror. Her neck wound looked raw and nasty, even though it had happened months ago, a graze from a hired killer’s 9 mm Browning.

Her first breakfast in Challis’s house was scarcely any easier. The coffee came too weak from his famous machine and she couldn’t make sense of how he’d arranged his cupboards and drawers. Finally, as she spooned up her muesli-organic, from High Street Health, two hundred metres down from the police station in Waterloo-she realised that she missed the sounds of human habitation. She’d had neighbours when she’d lived in Penzance Beach, the next town around from Waterloo. She’d lived with her husband and daughter, for God’s sake. They’d created a comforting background murmur of voices, slammed doors and morning radio. But that house was sold now, she was estranged from her family, and reduced to this, housesitting for her boss.

Standing in for him at work, too. Challis, head of Peninsula East’s Crime Investigation Unit, was away for a month, maybe longer. Family business. He seemed to think that she was perfectly capable of coping until he got back, but, in her worst moments, Ellen found herself biting her bottom lip. She felt an ever-present, low-level anxiety. Her everyday work as a CIU detective often involved up to a dozen cases at a time: some small, some middling, none very large, but the point was that she managed. But as temporary head of CIU, the job seemed enormous. She just knew that her male colleagues expected her to fail. Maybe I’m depressed, she thought. She should speak to the naturopath who gave free consultations in High Street Health, go on a course of St John’s wort.

She glanced at Challis’s wall calendar, hanging next to a cork pin board, hoping that its rows of unmarked days might give her a sense of security. False security. She moved her gaze to the photos pinned to the board. They showed Challis with the old aeroplane he was restoring. A weird hobby. Still, it was a hobby. What interests did she have, outside of work?

Sometimes it’s the little things that set the world right again. She moved her breakfast things out onto the deck, where the morning sun drenched her. Presently the wood ducks wandered into view, a male, a female and seven ducklings-down from ten ducklings, owing to a fox, according to Hal. They paid her no mind but foraged through the flowering grasses that passed for a lawn out here, far from town.

Another reason not to do the mowing yet. She stretched, wondering if Challis liked to breakfast in the sun. She tried to picture it. She saw toast, coffee and a newspaper. Curiously, she didn’t see a woman. There had been women, but he sat alone, and she was thinking about that when the phone rang. It was Scobie Sutton, one of the detective constables under her command. ‘Ellen? We’ve got a missing child.’

Ellen wanted to say, ‘So?’ Kids went missing every day. It was a job for uniform, not CIU. Instead she said, ‘How bad is it?’

‘Katie Blasko, ten years old, missing since yesterday.’

‘Yesterday? When were we notified?’

‘Uniform were notified an hour ago.’

Ellen closed her eyes. She would never fathom how careless, vicious or stupid some parents could be. ‘Be there as soon as I can.’

Katie Blasko lived in a house on Trevally Street in Waterloo, a few blocks from the mangrove flats and the yacht basin. The house was small, a yellowish brick veneer structure with a tiled roof and rotting eaves. Ellen met Scobie at the front gate. The detective was wearing one of the funereal suits that exaggerated his earnestness and awkward, stick figure shape. Two uniformed constables, Pam Murphy and John Tankard, were doorknocking in the distance.

‘What can you tell me?’ Ellen said.

Scobie flipped open his notebook and began a long, sonorous account of his findings. Katie Blasko had attended her primary school the previous day, but hadn’t been seen after that. ‘There was some mix up. She was supposed to stay at a friend’s house last night.’

Ellen copied the relevant names, addresses and phone numbers. She glanced at her watch. ‘Head over to the school, check with her teachers and classmates. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I’ve finished here.’

‘Sure.’

Ellen stepped through a little gate and up to the front door. The woman who answered was thin, nervy, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She looked wrung out and pleaded, ‘Have you found her?’

Ellen shook her head. ‘Not yet, but you mustn’t worry, it’s only a matter of time. Why don’t we go inside and you can fill me in.’

‘I already told the police everything. A guy called Scobie.’

Her voice was peevish and distraught, not that Ellen was blaming her, exactly. ‘If you could just go over it again, Mrs Blasko,’ she said gently.

Like, why did you wait so long before reporting your daughter missing?

Donna Blasko’s sitting room was a pokey space dominated by a puffed-up sofa and a wide-screen TV. A six-year-old girl sprawled on the floor, stretching tiny, rubbery dresses and pants over the unresponsive plastic limbs of Polly Pocket dolls, alternately humming and talking to them. A cat twitched its tail on the carpet under a chunky coffee table. And, as Scobie had said, there was also a man, Donna Blasko’s de facto, Justin Pedder. Ellen wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that he was stocky, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with a shaven head to complete the picture. If you’re a blue-collar male aged between twenty and forty in Australia, that’s how you cloned yourself. You had no imagination at all. Nor did your parents, who named you Justin, Darren or Brad.

God I’m in a sour mood today, Ellen thought.

Donna sat beside Pedder, saying gracelessly, ‘This is Justin.’

Ellen nodded. She’d be running his name through the databases as soon as she got back to the station. As if he saw that in her eyes and wanted to deflect her, he scowled. ‘You should be out there looking for Katie instead of questioning us again.’

He might have been expected to say that. It was in the script. Ellen stared at a yellow lava lamp on an empty shelf and said, ‘I have constables doorknocking the area at this very moment. Now, according to Constable Sutton, you were both up in the city yesterday afternoon, correct?’

‘Spring carnival,’ said Pedder.

Horse racing. ‘Back any winners?’

Pedder gave her a humourless smile. ‘You want to see our betting slips, right? To prove we were there?’

Ellen went on. ‘Katie has her own key?’

‘We work, except for Thursdays,’ Pedder said. ‘Katie always lets herself in.’

‘She makes herself a snack,’ said Donna, ‘does her homework and watches TV until we get home. The TV goes off then. She’s not allowed to watch it after dinner. She’s a good girl.’

And we’re good parents, thought Ellen. ‘And last night?’

‘Me and Donna like to do stuff together on Thursdays,’ said Pedder. ‘Shopping up at Southland. A movie. The races. If we’re going to be late, we arrange for Katie to stay at a friend’s house. It’s like her second home.’

Gets more love there than here, thought Ellen. She referred to her notes. ‘The friend’s name is Sarah Benton?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s what you’d arranged for last night?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What time did you get home from the races?’

‘About seven.’

‘Seven in the evening. And you didn’t call to see that she was all right?’

They shrugged as if to say: Why would we?

‘But you did call this morning?’

‘Yes,’ said Donna, suddenly wailing, her face damp and ravaged. ‘Sarah’s mum said Katie wasn’t there and hadn’t been there and she didn’t know anything about it.’

‘But I thought you’d arranged it?’

Donna squirmed. ‘Katie was supposed to ask Sarah if she could stay. She must of forgot to.’

Ellen liked to change tack swiftly. ‘Do you live here, Mr Pedder?’

‘Me?’

Ellen gazed about the room for other Mr Pedders. ‘Yes.’

‘Sure.’

‘But this is Donna’s house?’

He gazed at her bleakly. ‘I get where you’re coming from. Yeah, I’ve got a place of my own that no one knows about and I took Katie there and did her in.’

‘Justin!’ wailed Donna.

‘Aw, sorry, love, but it’s so fucking typical. Blame the bloke.’

‘We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t examine every avenue, Mr Pedder.’

‘I know, I know, sorry I said what I said. Look, I was renting a flat until I met Donna.’

‘You always spend your nights here?’

‘You interested in my sex life now?’

‘Answer the question, Mr Pedder.’

‘He lives here,’ asserted Donna. ‘He’s here every night.’

Ellen turned her gaze to Donna. ‘Did that bother Katie?’

‘No. Why should it? Justin’s good to Katie, aren’t you, Jus? Never hits her or anything. No funny business, if that’s what you’re on about.’

They were both staring at her hotly now. ‘We have to ask these questions,’ Ellen said.

According to Scobie Sutton’s brief preliminary investigation, the neighbours considered Donna to be a reasonably good mother, but there had been a few boyfriends over the years. The police had been called to noisy parties a couple of times. Sarah Benton’s mother claimed there was no point in trying to phone the Blasko household after about seven in the evening, for Donna and Justin were probably getting quietly stoned and never answered the phone. You’d leave messages but they’d never be returned. It was a common picture, in Ellen’s experience. No real cruelty, just ignorance and benign neglect- and mothers putting their partners first, ahead of their children, afraid of being single again.

‘Maybe Katie’s little sister knows something?’

‘Shelly?’ said Donna, amazed. ‘Shelly was next door, weren’t you, love?’

The child continued to play. Ellen said, ‘Next door?’

‘Mrs Lucas. She likes to baby-sit Shell, but Katie can’t stand her.’

Ellen was watching Pedder. Apparently struck by the cuteness of the child playing on the floor, he reached out a flash running shoe and poked her tiny waist. The child battered his foot away absently. No fear or submission, Ellen noted. The child hadn’t been introduced to her. Ellen had always introduced her own daughter, even when she was a toddler. It was good manners. Had she been taught good manners by her own parents? She couldn’t recall. Then again, good manners were a matter of commonsense, surely.

I am sour today. She said pointedly, ‘When you realised that Katie hadn’t slept at Sarah’s last night, what did you do?’

‘Made a couple of calls.’

‘Who did you call?’

‘My mum,’ said Donna. ‘She lives up in Frankston.’

‘You thought Katie was there? Why?’

Pedder exchanged a glance with Donna. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘she sometimes runs away, all right?’

‘Ah.’

‘She always comes back.’

‘She runs away from you?’ Ellen demanded.

‘No,’ said Pedder stiffly.

‘We usually track her down to me mum’s or another of her friend’s, but this time no one’s seen her,’ said Donna, tearing up swiftly and dabbing her eyes with a damp, crumpled tissue. There was a box of them beside her, a cheap, yellow, no-name brand from the supermarket.

‘And so you called the police?’

‘Yeah,’ Pedder said.

‘How many times has Katie run away before?’

‘Not many. A few.’

‘Do you fight with her? Argue? Smack her when she’s naughty?’

‘We’ve never smacked her.’

‘Fights? Arguments?’

‘No more than any other family.’

‘How about Wednesday night, Thursday morning?’

‘Nothing happened.’

‘Does she ever spend time on the Internet?’

‘When she’s got a school project and that,’ said Donna.

Pedder was quicker. ‘Are you asking did she spend time in chat rooms? You think she met a paedo, a paedo’s got her?’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘I’m asking you.’

‘We’ll need to look at any computers you have,’ Ellen said. ‘We’ll give you a receipt.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Donna.

‘We’ll also need a list of all Katie’s friends and acquaintances.’

Donna was sobbing now. ‘You think she met some pervert on the Internet, don’t you?’

‘Very unlikely,’ said Ellen soothingly. ‘Has she ever wandered off before?’

‘We already told you she does.’

‘I don’t mean running away; I mean is she a dreamer? Maybe she likes to explore creeks, the beach, farmland, deserted houses.’

‘Not really.’

‘Not the beach? I know I did when I was a kid.’

She hadn’t done anything of the kind. She’d grown up in the hills. She meant that her own daughter had liked to explore the beach, back when she was little, back when Ellen and her husband and Larrayne had been a happy family.

‘Maybe with her friends of a weekend, but she has to ask permission first,’ said Donna, the responsible mother.

‘You think she drowned?’ said Pedder.

Donna moaned. Ellen gave Pedder a look that made him go pale. ‘What about the area between here and the highway?’

‘Katie’s scared of snakes,’ said Donna.

Larrayne had been, too.

They’d all run out of things to say. Ellen gathered her notes together and got to her feet.

‘What do you think happened to my baby?’ whispered Donna.

That was in the script, too: the words and the whispered voice. ‘Kids go missing every day,’ said Ellen warmly. ‘They always turn up again.’

She glanced at Justin Pedder as she said it, warning him not to say the obvious.