Chain of Evidence

40

It had been a long week for Hal Challis, too. First there were the mundane tasks associated with arranging his brother-in-law’s funeral. Until the state lab released the body, the family couldn’t even nominate a date, and had to be content with sounding out a firm of undertakers and the local Uniting Church minister.

Then there was the old man’s health. On Monday morning Challis found his father twitching on the sunroom floor, eyes badly frightened, the left side of his face and body entirely slack. He rang for an ambulance, and then for Rob Minchin, and finally for Meg.

The doctor beat the ambulance by a couple of minutes. He bent over Challis’s father, his fingers nimble. ‘I don’t think it’s a stroke, but we’ll take him in for observation.’

Later, in the hospital, Meg and Challis were obliged to wait. They were finally shown to their father’s bedside that afternoon. He looked weak, diminished, but gave them his old mulish, critical, combative glare. ‘Stop fussing. Rob said I can go home in a couple of days.’

‘But Dad-’

He lifted his frail hand but there was no frailty in it for Challis and Meg, who saw only his old sternness and lack of compromise.

On Wednesday, the old man back in his sunroom chair, Challis finally heard from Freya Berg, the Victorian pathologist, who gave him the name of her South Australian counterpart. ‘He’s a by-the-book kind of guy, Hal. Don’t expect much joy. But I did get a bit of information out of him. The techs didn’t find any prints or useful traces anywhere: the garbage bag, the body or the grave.’

‘Ballistics?’

‘Inconclusive. A couple of fragments, consistent with a projectile, but it must have been powerful, went straight through the skull.’

‘Thanks. I’ll give him a call.’

But the South Australian pathologist refused to answer questions or speculate. ‘I have released the body for burial. Kindly speak to the police if you want answers.’

Challis called the Homicide Squad’s office at police headquarters in Adelaide. Nixon returned his call that afternoon-from Mawson’s Bluff. ‘We’ve just taken your mate into custody.’

For a wild moment, Challis thought he meant Rob Minchin. ‘My mate?’

‘One Patrick Finucane.’

Challis was silent. He said, ‘How solid is your case?’

‘Probably less solid than if you hadn’t been sniffing around. Sir.’

Challis’s final calls of the day were to the undertaker and the Uniting Church minister. After some to and fro, they settled on Saturday morning for the funeral.

Ellen called him on Friday night. ‘Sorry it’s been a few days, Hal.’

She explained that she’d been working a lot of unpaid overtime, following one of her suspects. ‘But that’s not all.’

She told him about Serena Hanlon. He listened to her voice, far away, and sitting in one of his armchairs. He was listening to the meaning of her words, and listening for a sense of her face and body and personality. But the name Serena Hanlon seeped through. ‘Ferny Creek? Ten or so years ago? I worked that case. It was huge at the time.’

‘We think Duyker did it.’

‘He was in the area?’

‘Yes.’

They talked on, a kind of closeness building, and an antidote to the bad shadows of the night. She told him that McQuarrie had been ranting and raving to her about an ‘Evening Update’ story which had linked the Katie Blasko abduction with the Ferny Creek case.

‘He doesn’t strike me as an “Evening Update” kind of guy.’ Challis said.

‘Oh, sure. “Big Brother”, “Australian Idol”.’

‘At one with the common people?’

‘Of course.’

‘Couple of jars in the pub after work?’

Ellen snorted, as if registering the image of Superintendent McQuarrie in a crowd of beer drinkers. ‘Thanks, Hal, you’re a tonic’

He smiled at that.

‘But you do have a leak to the media, Ells.’

‘I know I do. What about you? Found your killer yet?’

‘The locals think they have. They arrested a guy I went to school with, Paddy Finucane.’

‘And…?’

‘I don’t think he did it.’

Saturday morning was like all of the other mornings that spring: mild to hot, a little dusty, the gum trees still and apt to creak as the temperature rose, the galahs and cockatoos wheeling and screeching. But the church was cool, dimly lit, with comforting gleams from the gold crosses and the stained glass. Challis was surprised to see that the pews were full, then realised that it wasn’t Gavin that people had come for necessarily but sympathy for the family, dismay at the kind of death suffered by Gavin, and a break from the long, monochrome days out here at the edge of the rain shadow.

That impression was reinforced at the graveside. Everyone was aware that Gavin had been found there; the freshly turned earth was suggestive of his original resting place, not his final one.

And while the minister said his final words and the coffin was lowered into the ground, Challis for a short time did what a good detective will do. He was standing with Eve, Meg and his father on one side of the grave, and from this position had a commanding view of the other mourners, who had spread out on the opposite side. His gaze roamed among their faces, which were serious, curious, blank, dutiful. Only two faces gave away more than that: Paddy Finucane’s wife, who stood at the margins of the mourners, and the RSPCA boss, Sadler. Mrs Finucane caught Challis’s eye, flushed sadly and when he looked again later, she’d disappeared, but Sadler was staring intently at Meg and Eve, almost as if he wanted to rush to their aid. Then he grew aware of Challis and the expression vanished. Challis didn’t see him again.

The little family was obliged to linger. Lisa Joyce was one of the last to approach them. She wore a sombre dress and shoes, her hair in a French bun, her face almost devoid of makeup, and to Challis looked the more beautiful for it. She clasped Meg’s hands, then Eve’s, and finally Challis’s. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She was frankly sad, all of her sensuality muted, and continued to grasp him, her slender fingers fierce. She was full of unexpressed emotions. He found himself searching her face, almost as if twenty years hadn’t passed and he was young again, wanting to know who she really was.

Then she released him, stepped away and crossed the parched dirt reluctantly to the black Range Rover, where Rex Joyce waited. Joyce looked clean and crisp in a white shirt and dark suit, only his eyes giving his privations away.

Challis felt exhausted suddenly. A week had passed, marked by tedium, frustration and banality, but overlying all of it, for Challis, was a sense of being watched and judged and found wanting.