Chain of Evidence

53

Meanwhile Scobie Sutton had arrived home and found Beth getting ready to go out. She was small, round, unfashionable and always did her duty as a wife and a Christian. With a pang, he compared her to Grace Duyker, who seemed to him the kind of woman who’d admit some risk and improvisation into her life. Risk and improvisation like him, in fact. If he dared make the move. If she let him.

‘Anything wrong, Scobe?’

He pushed the fingers of both hands back through his sparse hair tiredly. ‘The van Alphen shooting.’

It was a good diversion, and close to the truth. The Fab Four-Ellen Destry’s term, but entirely apt-had questioned him again, this time concentrating on van Alphen’s role in the Nick Jarrett shooting. ‘Pretty sketchy, these notes of yours, DC Sutton,’ they said, and ‘Perhaps you were steered by Kellock and van Alphen,’ and ‘It would appear that a culture of protection and containment exists in this police station.’ They asked questions that the shooting board officers had asked: Why had he failed to test for gunshot residue on the hands of Kellock and van Alphen? Why had he bundled items of clothing from both men together with the victim? Why had he let them move the body, or at least before he photographed it? Why had he failed to have the blood on the carpet tested, and allowed the carpet to be steam-cleaned?

Scobie was a wreck.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked his wife now.

‘The Community House on the estate.’

‘Why?’

Beth gave him her mild, reproving smile. ‘Sweetheart, I told you, the public meeting. The petition.’

Scobie remembered. The locals were trying again to have the Jarretts kicked out. Five hundred signatures from residents and local shopkeepers. Officials from Community Services and the Housing Commission would be there, together with Children’s Services welfare workers and a senior officer from Superintendent McQuarrie’s HQ.

‘Good luck,’ said Scobie tiredly, looking around the kitchen absently to see if she’d prepared something for his dinner. He could see Grace Duyker coming up with something rare and subtle, a vaguely French sauce over tender veal, a fragrant Middle Eastern dish.

‘I hate to see families broken up,’ Beth was saying worriedly, ‘kids taken away. In my opinion this kind of pressure is only going to lead the Jarretts to more crime, not less.’

Scobie thought approvingly of Grace Duyker’s toughness and scorn, and found himself snarling at his wife: ‘The Jarretts continue to commit crime because they’re evil, and because gullible people like you believe they can be saved.’

Beth stood stock still, her face white and shocked. ‘Is that how you see me? Gullible?’

Scobie swallowed. ‘I think you try to do good where it sometimes isn’t warranted, where it won’t work.’

Her hand went to her throat. ‘Oh, Scobie, I thought I knew you.’

‘Forget I said it. I’m sorry.’

‘I cant.’

Scobie touched her upper arm, his voice gentle. ‘Go to your meeting, love.’

Beth said stoutly, ‘I might just vote to let the Jarretts stay.’

Scobie, punch-drunk with tiredness and strange emotions, said, ‘Do what you like.’

Suddenly he was bawling. Beth, with a brave little face, said, ‘You work out what’s wrong and we’ll talk about it when I get back. For dinner you could zap last night’s leftovers in the microwave.’

Detective Constable (provisional) Pam Murphy still had to sit a Police Board interview, but she’d passed all of her core subjects and been assigned to work with Ellen Destry in Waterloo CIU, so life was looking pretty good by Monday evening.

She didn’t miss the physical training, the theory or the gruelling tests. She didn’t miss the Academy at Glen Waverley or the classrooms at Command headquarters, where each day she’d had to pass through the foyer with its glass cabinets displaying guns and other murder weapons. Instead, she was feeling thankful that it was all over. Sure, she’d be obliged to take a million training courses in the coming years, but none of the really gruelling stuff. God, last week she’d run into a group of guys who’d enrolled for Special Operations Group training: of the sixty candidates, only nine had survived.

Seven o’clock, clouds across the moon, so it was pretty dark out, especially at the Penzance Beach yacht club. Uniform had checked it out: a burglary, meaning it was now a CIU case. Sergeant Destry, looking edgy and distracted, had told her John Tankard had called it in. ‘Apparently the manager’s on the premises, waiting to give you a statement.’

The wind rose on the water, moaning through the ti-trees, and soon there was a lonely metallic pinging. Sail rigging, Pam realised, slapping against the masts of the yachts parked in the yard behind the clubhouse. She approached the building and found a door open but almost pitch black inside. She went in, one hand patting the wall for a light switch. She’d left her torch in the CIU Falcon. It occurred to her that she still had a lot to learn.

‘Police!’ she called.

Maybe the burglars had come back and beaten the manager over the head, tied and gagged him.

The door slammed behind her.

She spun around, thoroughly spooked now, and felt for the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge. She was locked in. She looked up and around, trying to find the patches of lighter darkness that indicated the windows.

They were clerestory windows, up high, far out of reach.

She tried to swallow and her heart was hammering. She fumbled for her radio, badly panicked, the weeks of training counting for nothing.

Stay cool, she told herself, releasing the call button of her radio, her mind racing. Think.

Her thoughts didn’t take her in the direction of burglars and burglary. They took her in the direction of rookies, probationary cops, who are always good for a laugh. It was entirely probable that everyone at the Waterloo police station was waiting to hear how she coped tonight. They wanted fear, loss of control, booming through the public address system. They’d preserve her shame on tape, burn it onto a CD, for the world to enjoy over and over again.

‘DC Pam Murphy, requesting urgent assistance,’ she said, pressing the transmit button.

The radio crackled in delight, ‘Go ahead, DC Murphy.’

Pam gave her location. ‘I’m with Constable John Tankard,’ she continued. ‘I’m afraid he’s soiled his trousers-fear, or a dodgy lasagne at lunchtime. Please send assistance and a spare nappy. The smell is awful.’

The dispatcher snorted. ‘Will do.’

‘I got a peek when he cleaned himself up,’ Pam said. ‘I know there’s a height requirement for the Victoria Police, but shouldn’t there also be a length requirement?’

Behind her the door was flung open and a teary, angry voice beseeched her to shut the hell up.