Chain of Evidence

28

This was his routine now, to leave the house for a couple of hours in the afternoon while his father napped. Meg was usually sitting with the old man when Challis returned. A freelance bookkeeper who worked from home, she had the freedom to come and go.

That Wednesday Challis made for the little library, briefly pausing on the footpath for a road-train as it headed north with huge bales of hay to where the drought was most acute. He crossed the road and went in. The library opened on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, and he was the only borrower. He selected three talking books for his father and took them to the desk.

‘How’s your dad doing?’ the librarian asked.

Retired now, she’d been Challis’s English teacher twenty-five years ago. ‘Fine, Mrs Traill.’

She sighed. ‘And Meg? I bet she needed the break.’

Did Mrs Traill know how demanding the old man could be? Challis smiled neutrally. Nothing was sacred or secret in the Bluff.

Arms went around him from behind and his first thought was: Lisa. Even the words were the same. ‘Guess who!’

More exuberant than Lisa. He turned and kissed his niece. ‘You wagging school?’

‘As if I’d come here-no offence, Mrs Traill.’

‘None taken, dear.’

Eve wasn’t in school uniform, a liberty allowed the senior students, Challis supposed. She was returning a couple of books. ‘Research?’

‘Exams soon, Uncle Hal.’

‘Have you seen Mark?’

Eve nodded. ‘They gave him a ticking off, made him pay for petrol.’ She paused. ‘Sorry I overreacted on Sunday.’

‘You were sticking up for your friend,’ Challis said. ‘That’s important.’

She gave him a brief hug. ‘Thanks. Wurfel’s okay, I suppose. A bit law and order, friends with the local gentry.’ She beamed at him challengingly.

Challis glanced at Mrs Traill, who was seventy years old, round, comfortable and powdered, an old grandmother who had a perspective on everything and a sense of humour. She gave them both an enigmatic smile, as though she understood many of the things that happened in the town but kept them to herself. ‘Let me take those books from you, dear.’

Eve handed them over. ‘How’s Gramps?’

‘The same,’ said Challis.

‘Tell him I’ll try to pop in later.’

‘I will.’

‘Have to go,’ she said, looking at her watch.

Challis glanced through the window. An old car, two girls and a boy in it, bopping to music. ‘See ya,’ he said.

‘See ya,’ and she was through the door and into the car.

Mrs Traill smiled fondly after her. ‘She’s often in here. She studies hard, that girl.’

Challis nodded.

‘A tragedy.’

Challis gazed at her. ‘Did you know Gavin very well?’

‘He wasn’t from around here.’

Challis gave her a half smile. ‘But did you know him?’

‘I was one of your mother’s best friends. She told me about the strange mail Meg was getting.’

‘Mum and Meg didn’t tell Dad about any of that.’

‘Who can blame them? A lovely man, your father, but some things are best kept quiet.’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything else?’

It suddenly occurred to Challis: the weekly Northern Herald would have covered Gavin’s disappearance. Unfortunately it was based in another town. ‘Do you keep back issues of the local paper?’

‘Of course.’

‘Going back five years?’

‘Gavin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Stay there.’

She was gone for some time. After a while, he strolled idly around the shelves, peering at book titles, and then heard the main door open and close. He peered through a gap in the books and saw a woman enter shyly, scurry to one of the little tables, remove a book from her cane basket and begin to read, all of her movements painfully slow and defeatist.

‘You can use the back room,’ said Mrs Traill behind him.

He jumped. ‘Thanks.’

She led him behind her desk to a storeroom, where she’d dumped dusty bound copies of the Northern Herald on a table. ‘That woman who came in,’ he said.

‘Alice Finucane, married to Paddy. She’s here every Wednesday and Friday, her only escape.’

Challis remembered a story that Meg had told him, of how Paddy had been reported to the RSPCA for mistreating his dogs. Gavin had investigated and been kicked and punched off the property.

‘Poor thing,’ said Mrs Traill.

Challis smiled non-committally and sat at the table. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Mrs Traill reluctantly.

When she was gone, Challis began to read. Gavin’s disappearance had been covered in fair detail, but there were no hard facts beyond the abandoned car and a faint hint that Gavin Hurst’s job had been ‘demanding’, which Challis read as meaning Gavin had been unpopular. He wiped dust from his hands, thanked Mrs Traill and left the building.

The library was next door to the shire offices. Parked outside it was a dusty new Range Rover with tinted windows. One window whirred down and Lisa said, from the front passenger seat, ‘Afternoon, handsome.’

Challis glanced automatically at the heavy glass doors of the shire offices. ‘Rex is in there making a nuisance of himself,’ Lisa said.

‘What about?’

‘Council rates. It happens every year.’

Challis stood by her door for a while and they chatted. Life had slowed right down, to this, gentle walks around the town and idle conversation. He half liked it. At the same time, he missed the Peninsula, and catching killers.

Rex came out, looking angry. He wore the uniform of the successful grazier who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty: tan, elastic-sided R. M. Williams riding boots, R. M. Williams moleskin pants, Country Road shirt, even a wool-symbol tie. Then Challis could smell the man: a heavy aftershave, tinged with alcoholic perspiration. Blurry red eyes, heightened red capillaries in his cheeks, dampness under the arms.

Rex edged between Challis and the passenger door of his Range Rover. He placed a pale soft hand on his wife’s forearm, which rested on the windowsill. Everything about him said: I got the girl. The girl chose me, not you.

‘Sorry to hear about your father, Hal,’ he said, probably not meaning it.

Challis nodded. ‘Well, mustn’t keep you.’

Challis nodded again and stepped away from the Range Rover, which sped away soon afterwards, voices muffled inside it.