Chain of Evidence

45

Then Duyker’s lawyer arrived and advised Duyker to say nothing more. ‘Nothing more?’ echoed Duyker. ‘I haven’t said anything to begin with.’

‘How long will you be holding my client, Sergeant Destry, assuming you don’t charge and remand him?’

‘The full twenty-four hours.’

‘Is that necessary?’

‘It’s necessary,’ said Ellen flatly.

The door closed on Duyker and the lawyer. In the corridor outside the interview room, Scobie began to apologise. ‘I’m sorry, Ellen. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘No, you weren’t, were you? We still don’t know if the DNA found on Duyker’s skin mags-which might belong to someone else, incidentally-can be matched to the DNA found in De Soto Lane, or to the degraded DNA found on Serena Hanlon.’

‘I thought I’d throw a scare into him.’

‘Well you didn’t,’ Ellen said.

Perhaps she was being unfair. The truth was, she was finding it hard to get Hal Challis out of her head this morning. He’d phoned her with the news about his father, and she could still hear the desolation in his voice, the particular timbre of his grief and sadness. A hint of longing and loneliness, too? She thought so. She wanted to be with him, but could hardly do that, for he’d be too distracted, she didn’t know his family, and she had important investigations to run. And so he resided in her mind.

She made for her office. Maybe DNA evidence would help solve this case, but the lab was dragging its heels, and who knew what appalling errors of procedure it was making. She cast back in her mind, Duyker sitting comfortably across from her in the interview room. No bite marks on his fingers or forearms. Maybe Sasha had bitten him on the leg.

She was leafing desultorily through paperwork in her in-tray when the lab called. ‘That paint chip,’ one of the technicians-not Riggs- said.

‘Yes?’

‘We traced it to a line of children’s bicycles manufactured by Malvern Star between 2003 and 2005.’

‘Yes!’ said Ellen.

‘We aim to please.’

Ellen pressed the disconnect button of her desk phone and sat like that for a while. She should have made a more concerted effort, sooner, to find the bike. Everything that had happened, especially finding Katie alive, had blinded her to obvious matters. She released the button and called the media office, arranging for a wide circulation of descriptions and photographs of the bike. She was in a kind of trance now. She was stepping inside Duyker’s skin, not Duyker the paedophile-she ‘knew’ that side of him-but Duyker with an unwanted child’s bike on his hands.

This Duyker would have left the bike, helmet and schoolbag in his van after taking Katie Blasko to the empty house, but he wouldn’t have wanted to keep them for long. There were remote places he could dump everything, but what if he were seen by someone. Also, a newish bicycle found in the middle of nowhere is going to raise questions, especially if the police have been saying they’re looking for one just like it (here Ellen squirmed in her seat). Dumping the stuff at sea would require a boat. No, she could see Duyker leaving the bike in a public place, where children played-the sort of community where claiming an abandoned bike as your own was not a matter of dishonesty but of keeping your trap shut and thanking your lucky stars. The helmet and schoolbag he could have dumped anywhere.

Her only hope now was a firm ID from van Alphen’s street kid, Billy DaCosta. She went downstairs. Van Alphen was not in his office, or Kellock’s. According to the front desk, he hadn’t checked in yet. She made for the sergeants’ lounge. Kellock was there, flipping through a newspaper, turning the pages in typical style, as if to tear them out. He looked up at her with barely controlled patience. ‘Kel,’ she murmured, turning to go out.

‘Sergeant Destry,’ Kellock roared.

She turned back.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m looking for Van.’

‘Maybe I can help you.’

She tried not to show her frustration. ‘I need a statement from his witness. I need to take it myself, face to face. I can’t take Van’s word for it that this kid of his can identify Clode and Duyker.’

‘Kid?’

‘A street kid called Billy DaCosta. Van Alphen found him and was supposed to be bringing him in this morning.’

Kellock tossed the newspaper aside and lumbered across the room to her. He spoke, a gust of coffee breath: ‘Look, Van’s one of the good guys, but this shooting board investigation of the Jarrett shooting has got him worried. I’m worried. He could lose the plot, crack under the pressure. Go easy on him. Give him time.’

‘He’s running around finding witnesses and collecting evidence,’ said Ellen exasperatedly. ‘If it’s useful, great. But I can’t afford to waste time on red herrings, or fail to act because he cries wolf once too often.’

‘Leave it to me.’

‘He could run into some nasty people, doing what he’s doing.’

‘I know that.’

Ellen cocked her head. ‘Unless he’s protecting them.’

She hadn’t meant to say it. You always divided the officers you worked with into those who made you uncomfortable and those who didn’t. You did it every time you were posted to a new station or squad. It didn’t mean the men or women who made you feel uncomfortable were dishonest in the strictly legal sense, or unlikely to watch your back in a tricky situation, but you knew to be wary of them. You didn’t offer them anything of yourself. Kees van Alphen had always made Ellen feel uncomfortable. Hal Challis had always said, ‘Be careful of that guy.’

Now Kellock had his head on one side. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’

Ellen blushed and to defuse the moment said, ‘It’s all a bit too murky for me, Kel, this case.’

‘Leave it to me. I’ll track him down and reel him in.’

‘Thanks.’

She returned to her office and found Duyker’s lawyer waiting in the corridor. Sam Lock was short, damply overweight in a heavy suit, the knot of his yellow tie a fat delta under his soft chins. In all other respects he was hard and sharp. ‘A quick word, Ellen?’

She led him into her office. He looked around it amusedly. ‘Hal Challis’s office, if I’m not mistaken. How is the good inspector?’

‘Get on with it, Sam.’

‘I want you to let my client go. Fraud charges? A few hundred dollars here and there? Resides locally?’

‘Resides all over Australia, Sam. Sure, he owns a place in Safety Beach, but he likes to travel, stay a while, rip off star-struck mothers of young children-amongst other things more serious-and move on again.’

Lock examined his fingernails. Like all lawyers, he was full of little diversions that masked or delayed his real intent. Police officers did it, too. Ellen waited.

‘You think he abducted Katie Blasko?’

Ellen gazed at him, wondering how much to reveal. Sam Lock would battle furiously on behalf of a client but he also had small children, two boys and a girl. ‘He had something to do with it, even if not directly. He was there in that house with her. We also suspect him of the rape and murder of a child back in 1995, and are currently matching his movements nationwide with unsolved rapes and abductions of young girls.’

‘He said you have DNA.’

‘Yes,’ Ellen said neutrally.

‘But is it his? You don’t have strong enough grounds to compel a sample from him, and his DNA is not on file anywhere. I wouldn’t get your hopes up even if you had a sample, and matched it, because your forensic science lab is prone to stuffups. Witness the Neville Clode debacle.’

Ellen watched him carefully. ‘Who told you about that?’

Lock shrugged.

‘You do know that Clode’s late wife was Duyker’s sister?’

‘That was mentioned.’

‘Doesn’t it bother you? Sure, the lab has admitted instances of cross contamination, but what if there wasn’t any contamination in this instance?’

‘It all goes to reasonable doubt, Ellen. You’ll need something stronger if you’re going to charge my client with Blasko. Meanwhile he’s going to walk on that chickenshit charge you brought him in on.’

‘Meanwhile you keep your children where you can see them,’ Ellen snapped.

Lock’s eyes flared, then he was impassive again, and Ellen watched him walk away. Moments later, her mobile rang, Kellock asking her to meet him on the Seaview Park estate.