Chain of Evidence

52

Challis was at RSPCA regional headquarters. He’d buried his father on Saturday; now it was time to finish this last thing. Sadler was in his office and not pleased to see him.

‘I hear they arrested Paddy Finucane,’ he said bluntly.

‘Yes.’

‘So why do you want to see me?’

Challis checked the outer office. It was almost 5 pm and they were alone.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Sadler. ‘I think you’d better leave.’

Challis closed the office door soundlessly and crossed the room, leaning both hands on Sadler’s desk, towering over the man. ‘Where were you?’ he murmured.

‘What?’

‘Gavin Hurst was a liability. Mood swings. Antagonising people, including his work colleagues.’

‘You can’t…I wasn’t…Paddy Finucane…’

‘Paddy Finucane didn’t kill him, no matter what those hotshots from Adelaide think. I know it and you know it.’

‘If the police think he did it, that’s good enough for me.’

‘That anonymous call: you invented it. There was no call.’

‘No! Check with the receptionist. She logged it. The police took a copy with them.’

‘You got someone outside this office to make the call.’

‘I wasn’t even here that day!’

‘Exactly. You were in the Bluff, shooting Gavin in the head.’

‘No!’

Sadler was looking wildly past Challis, hoping for deliverance. The world outside was ticking over benignly, slowed by the springtime sun. ‘You can’t do this.’

‘I’ll ask it again, where were you?’

‘Down in Adelaide.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Yes! Dozens of witnesses. My daughter’s nursing graduation.’

‘You got someone to do your dirty work for you, then.’

‘No!’

Challis was going through the motions. He’d fantasised that Sadler was the killer, over the past few days, but now, facing the man, no longer believed it. ‘Gavin’s camera?’

‘What about it?’

‘When did you take those photos of Paddy’s place?’

‘The only time I was at his place was days later, and I had my own camera.’

Challis pulled a chair up to the desk. He sat, and was less intimidating. ‘When was Gavin’s camera passed back to you?’

Sadler, relieved but still jumpy and indignant, said, ‘Weeks later. They were going to give it to Meg, but all the photos on it were work related, so it came to me.’

‘Who else did Gavin have a history with?’

The question was unwelcome. ‘He did his job. He prosecuted several people over the years. Fair and square.’

‘But was he fair and square in the last few weeks and months?’

Sadler looked away. ‘Not always.’

‘Spit it out. I’m tired of this.’

Sadler shrugged. ‘He might have had a couple of arguments with Rex Joyce.’

‘Joyce? About what?’

‘Mistreating a horse.’

‘What action was taken?’

‘None.’

‘Why not?’

‘Can you see Rex Joyce mistreating a horse? I don’t think so.’

‘I can, actually,’ Challis said. ‘He has a bad temper.’

Sadler looked hurt and astounded, as though Challis had insulted the Queen.

‘Who reported him?’

‘No one.’

‘So how did Gavin know to investigate?’

‘For your information,’ Sadler said, ‘Gavin Hurst liked to sneak around. He claimed he just happened to be driving past Mr Joyce’s property and saw him whipping one of his horses with a length of barbed wire.’

‘Can I see his report?’

‘You may not. I destroyed it, as it happens.’

‘Why the hell would you do that?’

‘No merit.’

‘Did Gavin tell you he was going to prosecute?’

‘Like I said, the case had no merit.’

‘Are you friends with Joyce?’

Sadler blinked at the shift, and stumbled. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You were at boarding school with him, perhaps? Belong to the same Liberal Party branch? Play golf with him?’

‘Now you’re being offensive.’

‘He’s rich, right? Local gentry? Long pedigree? Therefore he can do no wrong?’

‘Get out.’

‘What did your pal Joyce say when Gavin charged him?’

Sadler looked hunted.

‘Come on, Sadler,’ snarled Challis, ‘you’ll be asked this in court by Paddy’s barrister, so it’s in your interests to tell me now, and tell me the truth.’

Sadler rubbed at a mark on his spotless desk. ‘He might have said that Gavin would get his one day.’

‘His just deserts, do you mean? Is that how you understood his remark?’

‘How would I know? It was just talk. Rex can sound off sometimes.’

‘So you do know him.’

‘A bit.’

‘He has a temper. He drinks.’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as that.’

‘Wouldn’t you? Did you tell Nixon and Stormare any of this?’

‘No need.’

‘Why not?’

Sadler looked for ways out and found only a couple of mealy-mouthed replies. ‘I’ve already said too much. Nothing to do with me. Plus it seems clear this Finucane character did it. Rex Joyce does not strike me as the kind of person to…’

Do anything quite so grubby as murder another person. Challis left and buckled himself into his car, thinking that Sadler pretty well summed up the Australian national character, which was not fine and egalitarian but grovelled at the feet of men who’d gone to a private school or could kick a football or had become billionaires by being allowed to evade tax.

On his way back over Isolation Pass, Challis scraped the guardrail. He was speeding a little, distracted by tense speculations about how he should approach Lisa and Rex Joyce, eyes screwed up against the setting sun, and failed to slow for a bend called the Devil’s Elbow. The car rocked and screeched in protest and he fought to get it back under control. His heart racing, he pulled into the next lookout and surveyed the damage. The chrome bumper had been torn off, one headlight mangled, the quarter panel dented and gouged. He crouched to view the passenger side front wheel. It was scraping against metal and the wire spokes and spinner were chopped about. He searched around for a fallen branch and levered the damaged panel away from the tyre. The rubber itself looked sound. He got back into his seat and drove sedately down the mountain, aware of his mortality but ready for anything.

Lisa and Rex lived in a huge stone house that dated from the 1890s. It, and the huge woolshed and stables on the grounds of the property, were on the National Trust register. There were railing yards behind the stables, the rails vivid white in the last of the sun’s rays. Lawns surrounded the house itself, which looked cool and composed on a slight rise, with tall gum trees, cypress hedges and fruit trees casting long shadows and completing the general air of a long, stately history. Challis had been on the place only once before, when he was ten years old and all fifty-seven kids at the local primary school had been carted here in two old yellow buses for a tour and a talk about pioneering endeavour in the district. He could remember the occasion, not the talk. No doubt the Joyces were the heroes in the story. But there had been one enduring benefit: there was an airstrip on the property, with a Tiger Moth stored in an adjacent barn. Challis had slipped away from the group and was found two hours later, sitting in the cockpit. That had been the start of his love affair with old aeroplanes.

He thought about that now, as he crept up the gravel driveway, the Triumph clattering miserably. He was restoring a 1930s Dragon Rapide at the little aerodrome near Waterloo, but various things had happened in his life and the Dragon was mouldering away in a hangar there. He felt guilty about that. His father, who’d valued hard work and finishing the tasks you set for yourself, would have been badly disappointed. Challis could hear the old man’s voice in his head and he wished he’d brought his inhaler with him.

He followed the driveway around. There were no vehicles parked near the house. No sign of life, either, until he’d parked at the bottom of the verandah steps and got out, when the huge front door swung inwards and Lisa appeared behind the outer screen door. She stood waiting for him, a hazy shape behind the fine wire mesh.

‘Hal?’

Challis climbed the steps warily. ‘Lisa.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Is Rex here?’

‘He’s away. Why?’

Challis let some silence build. ‘I think you know why.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Did Sadler call you?’

She didn’t say ‘Who’s Sadler?’ but frowned. ‘No. Why? What’s going on?’

‘I’ve just come from him. He claims that Gavin intended to prosecute Rex for cruelty to a horse. I think Rex killed Gavin, not Paddy.’

She looked astounded. ‘What?’

‘Lisa, those Homicide detectives will be back eventually.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about’

‘Let’s talk. Tell me what happened. Did Gavin push too hard? Did Rex snap? You can’t go on protecting him.’

‘Stop it, Hal.’

He took a step closer. She took a step back. He stayed where he was. ‘Let’s sit down and talk,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can make me a cup of tea. I almost crashed on the Pass and I feel a bit shaken.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Pity you didn’t go over the edge.’

He considered the words and her mood, and realised that things had gone beyond her control and she was merely striking out to deflect her guilt or misery. ‘Lisa,’ he said gently, approaching the screen door and extending one hand to the knob. The hinges squeaked as he opened it, and then he could see her clearly. She was dressed in spotless riding boots, jeans and shirt, as if about to exercise her horse, but her hair was awry and her eyes red and darting.

‘Hal, don’t.’

He entered a cool, echoing hallway as she retreated. At the end of the hallway he glimpsed a white door, sufficiently ajar to reveal a huge black enamel kitchen range. ‘Let’s sit at the kitchen table and talk. Please?’

She looked sour, thwarted, but stood back to let him pass, and then followed him. They sat at a long wooden table. Lisa watched him tensely, and then her face cleared. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, placing her hand on his. ‘I’m sorry about your father, I really am.’

Challis withdrew his hand. ‘Where’s Rex?’

‘Away on business.’

That irritated Challis. ‘Did you make that anonymous call to the RSPCA all those years ago, Lisa? Did you set up Paddy Finucane?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Did Rex mean to kill Gavin? I bet he didn’t. There was a struggle and he went too far and when he realised what he’d done he came to you for help.’

She said sharply, ‘Hal, stop it. You’re making a fool of yourself. You’re being offensive. Just go, all right?’

‘Rex was relying on you to get him out of trouble, just as he’s always relied on you.’

She gestured curtly. ‘This only involves Rex in the sense that your precious brother-in-law was a pig to everyone.’

‘You’re right, he was, toward the end.’

He said it gently, to encourage an admission, but Lisa said, in her hard, emphatic way, ‘So why are you coming after us? Gavin harassed a number of people.’

‘But only one person killed him.’

‘People are saying your sister killed him. I can’t say I blame her. Now, shut the door on your way out.’

She showed her cutting profile, as if Challis were a tradesman with grubby hands. He looked at her consideringly. ‘You’ve always had to cover for Rex, haven’t you. He’s a drunk. Does he hit you, Lisa?’

As a way of turning her, giving her a way out, it failed. ‘The door’s behind you.’

‘Was it Rex’s idea to make that phone call to the RSPCA? I bet he took the photos on Gavin’s camera, too. Did he also drive Gavin’s car out east and make you pick him up?’

‘Hal, I’ll call the police if you don’t leave me alone.’

‘Whose idea was it to bury him in Glenda Anderson’s grave? You’d been to her funeral, is that it? You knew the ground was soft?’

‘Hal,’ said Lisa, frowning and reaching for him across the table, ‘we were lovers, now we’re friends, but you’re spoiling everything. Please stop.’

He jerked back, his spine rigid. ‘Why did you send Meg those letters? Misdirection? You’ve always been good at that.’

‘What letters?’

‘You know very well what letters. It was cruel, Lisa.’

Her face tightened. ‘That’s it. That’s enough. You’re frightening me. Please leave.’

She was unwavering. He didn’t know what would make her break. He didn’t let himself think that he was wrong about her. ‘Where’s Rex?’

‘Why? Want a quick shag before he comes back?’

‘When Sadler phoned, did Rex take the call, or did you?’

‘What call?’

‘Probably no more than an hour ago, as soon as I left Sadler. Rex took a call, heard something he didn’t want to hear, and ran, am I right? Saved his own skin and left you behind?’

Her gaze went involuntarily to the window. Challis stood, looked out. The darkening blue ranges that sheltered Mawson’s Bluff seemed to stretch forever, into the stony saltbush country where people died or disappeared. The sun was barely a fingernail on the horizon now. ‘Is he running? Hiding?’

She joined him, her hip touching his thigh. She was quite small, he realised. She packed a lot into it. ‘You seem determined to make yourself miserable, Hal. All this jealousy. It’s unbecoming. I’m married. Get that through your skull.’

Challis pointed. ‘Is he out there somewhere?’

She bumped his hip and with a low chuckle said, ‘What’s out there is a little plateau, with a ruined shepherd’s hut, just a couple of walls and a chimney. That’s where Rex and I had our first screw.’

It was intended to wound him, on several levels, but what it did was convince him of her guilt. Wondering what he’d ever seen in her, Challis said coldly, ‘I want you to come with me. I’m taking you in. You’ll make a statement to Sergeant Wurfel.’

‘You’re pathetic, you know that?’

He tried to grab her. She was quick, lithe, shrugging him off, almost as if they were young again and it was a Saturday night and she was rebuffing his advances in the back seat of his father’s station wagon. She darted down the hallway and into one of the rooms along it. Fear grabbed him then. He was paralysed, his mouth dry. There would be firearms on the place, for shooting vermin and putting injured animals out of their misery. He called, ‘Lisa, don’t.’

She emerged with a shotgun and motioned with it. ‘Out,’ she said, ‘or I swear to God…’

Challis tried to hold himself upright but his spine tingled as he passed her in the long hallway and on down to the front door and out into the gathering darkness.