Kittyhawk Down

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Special Operations police and their tracker dogs were searching open ground near both crime scenes, uniforms from Waterloo were doorknocking the neighbours, and Scobie Sutton had returned to the Munro farm. That left Upper Penzance for Challis and Ellen. The residents would have to be advised. They might also have seen something or somebody. After all, the miserable estate where the Pearces had been shot lay less than two kilometres downhill from Upper Penzance.

Ellen drove. As they approached Upper Penzance she said, 'Larrayne's been going out with a boy who lives up here.'

Challis shifted in his seat. This was small talk and required a response. 'How's she been since…'

He meant to say since her experience at the hands of that abductor last year, but found his voice trailing away. Ellen knew what he meant. She said, 'Fine, thanks. A lot quieter, though: more serious about things.'

Challis heard doubt in Ellen's voice and chided himself for thinking that she was engaged in small talk. There were things she needed to air, and so he prompted her. 'Except…?'

Ellen flashed him a glance, then returned her gaze to the twisting road. 'The boy she's been seeing is called Skip Lister, though his actual name is Simon. His father's name is Carl.'

Her tone was interrogative. Challis shook his head. 'The name doesn't ring a bell.'

'There's nothing on him,' Ellen said, meaning that she'd checked the national computer and asked around without result.

'But your antenna's up,' Challis said.

'My antenna is up.'

Challis watched her and waited. Gravel pinged against the underside of the car and Ellen braked once or twice for pigeons that flew into her path from the bracken at the sides of the road. She was a good driver, mindful of the possibility of oncoming vehicles beyond the blind corners, eyes flicking from the rear-view mirror to the road ahead and rarely glancing his way.

Eventually she said: 'For a start, Carl Lister is a bully. I don't mean physically, I mean in manner. He doesn't seem to care much what Skip gets up to. At Larrayne's party last weekend we discovered Skip passed out in the back yard. He could have choked to death on his own vomit if we hadn't found him. I rang his father, who implied that it wasn't his problem.' She went silent.

'Anything else?' Challis said, knowing there would be. Ahead of them was the first driveway, a stone outer wall with a locked gate and intercom grille on a brick pillar beside it. Ellen slowed the car and turned off the road, saying, 'He's the kind of man, you ask what he does for a living, he says "business". You ask what kind, he says "this and that" or "buying and selling". You never get a straight answer, so naturally you ask why not.'

'You think he's bent.'

'In a word.'

Ellen put the car into neutral and climbed out to announce herself through the intercom system. When there was no response she fished for a card, scribbled on the back of it and slotted it in the gate where it could be seen. She got behind the wheel again and buckled herself in, sighing, 'The joys of doorknocking. If it's not a weekender and therefore uninhabited, it's going to be empty because the owners are at work.'

Challis nodded. 'Maybe this Lister character will be home, so I can give him the once-over for you.'

'Your famous instincts at work.'

'Exactly.'

There was no answer at the next two houses, and then they came to a set of brick pillars and the name 'Costa del Sol' picked out on a board in chips of coloured glass and pottery, and Ellen said, 'The home of the Listers, father and son.'

'The mother?'

'Doesn't live with them anymore.'

Ellen got out and spoke into the intercom. Challis heard a crackling voice and a few minutes later a kid emerged from the distant house and came down the driveway toward them.

Ellen turned to Challis from her position near the gate and mouthed the word, 'Skip.'

Challis got out and stood to one side, intending to watch and listen. The afternoon sun had some autumn heat in it now, and as he stood there a sea breeze sprang up, stirring the leaves and chasing away some of the odours that subconsciously he'd been trying to identify: rotting vegetation, blood-and-bone mix from a nearby farm or garden, and something slighter and more fleeting, now gone even as he almost had it pinned down.

'Hello, Skip.'

'Mrs Destry.'

The boy was thin, nervous, untidy, unshaven, and therefore no different from a hundred thousand other male students in their late teens. Cargo pants, square-toed shoes and short-sleeved shirt worn loose, all in black. Chopped-about short hair with blonde tips. Nicotine on his fingers. Hollow cheeks, a hint of facial sores, restless: maybe genes, maybe the effects of long-term ecstasy use. Or maybe he's simply freaking out about his university work, Challis thought. And he remembered his own late teens, the mutual wariness and sizing-up between himself and the parents of the young women he dated.

It would have been worse if any of those parents had been coppers. Poor Skip Lister had a pair of coppers to contend with, so a little edginess was excusable.

'Anything wrong?' Challis heard him say.

'I'm afraid so,' Ellen replied, and the boy froze.

'Nothing to do with you,' Ellen hastened to add. 'Is your dad home?'

That seemed to make it worse. Skip Lister swallowed and glanced back along the driveway to the big house. 'Er, no, he's at work.'

So Ellen told Skip about Ian Munro. 'Call your father and let him know,' she went on. 'I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but don't let anyone in, and call the police if you see anyone roaming around or signs that anyone's broken into one of the outbuildings. Better keep your doors locked at all times.'

Skip Lister's face cleared, as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders rather than dropped onto them. 'No dramas,' he said. 'We've been careful anyway-you know, those escapees from the detention centre.' And then he was backing away from her, waving and turning to hurry back to his house.

'He's a nice enough kid,' Ellen said a moment later as she strapped herself in. 'He comes around a couple of times a week, often stays for a meal. Lonely, I'd say.' She sat there, one hand poised to turn the ignition key. 'Pearce worked at the detention centre. Do we know how he treated the inmates?'

'A bully, you mean? This was a revenge killing?'

Ellen nodded.

Challis said, 'We have to check it out, obviously, but it doesn't seem likely, surely?'

'I agree. But once the media starts to put two and two together-Pearce's job, two escapees from the detention centre still at large-they'll start to speculate and everyone will go into a panic.'

Challis knew she didn't mean Tessa Kane. 'I'll have a word with our public relations people,' he said.

The next two properties were unoccupied, and then they came to a driveway with the name 'Casement' stencilled on a milk-churn mailbox. No wall or locked gate or intercom system this time. 'Kitty's place,' Ellen said, glancing at Challis and stopping the car.

He nodded.

'You don't want her to be mixed up in anything,' Ellen went on. It was a statement, not a query.

'Are you questioning my judgement?'

Ellen smiled and shook her head. She seemed reluctant to drive in but kept the motor idling. Then she said offhandedly, 'Have you met the husband?'

'Yes.'

Challis read many things into the question and tone of voice. Ellen Destry had a normal curiosity about his love life-or lack of it-but also cared enough to want him to be happy. The unspoken questions were: do you fancy Kitty Casement? Is that because you've fallen out with Tessa Kane? Is your mad wife keeping you from committing yourself? Are you falling for Kitty Casement because it's a safe thing to do, because she's married and therefore unattainable, yet you're incapable of committing yourself to her anyway?

He saw Ellen shift in her seat. They exchanged a long, complicated glance that asked and evaded all of these questions. She sighed and accelerated slowly along the driveway. 'Hal, we're going to have to push a little harder on her connection with Munro.'

'Yes.'

'You don't mind?'

'It's our job,' Challis said.

The Casements lived in an old but well-kept weatherboard farmhouse-one of the original houses along the ridge above Penzance Beach, Challis guessed. It was painted a vivid white and set amongst weeping willows, umbrella trees and small flowering gums. They parked behind Kitty's Mercedes and got out. A winding stone-chip path lined with herbs and lavender led them to a glossy blue front door and a gleaming brass knocker.

Kitty answered. She seemed puzzled and mildly flustered to see them but stepped back with a smile to usher them into a huge kitchen. It had been renovated: stainless steel benchtops and appliances, waxed hardwood floor, an old freestanding chopping block, copper-bottomed pots and pans on hooks. The late-afternoon sun streamed in and lit the room and Kitty's hair, and the hair on her forearms, and for a moment Challis felt an appalling need to reach out and stroke her bare skin.

'Tea? Coffee? Something stronger? Beer? Gin and tonic?'

The atmosphere in that bright kitchen was friendly and Challis, smiling disarmingly, said, 'I think we could manage a small gin and tonic.'

Ellen shot him an amused look and said, 'Sounds lovely.'

Kitty went out and came back with her husband and a bottle of gin. Rex Casement looked sleepy and dazed, and stretched hugely before shaking their hands and joining them around the table. He wore a tracksuit and Nike running shoes but was otherwise neat and trim where another man might not have bothered to shave or comb his hair if he shut himself at home in front of a computer screen all day.

'Been on the Net,' he said. 'Sometimes I forget what hour it is.'

'What day it is,' Kitty said.

'That too.'

Challis was watching Kitty carefully. Her face and manner were flat and neutral: there was not the indulgent smile of the put-upon but loving wife, nor the scowl of the neglected one. He glanced away.

When the drinks were poured, Kitty said, 'I don't think I can add anything to what I've already told you.'

Ellen glanced at Challis. He nodded for her to start.

'Actually, that's only partly why we're here,' she said, and briefly told Kitty and her husband about the murders and the incident at Munro's farm.

Challis was watching, and saw Kitty's eyes widen in alarm, her hands go to her face. 'Oh no.'

Rex Casement swallowed, looked stricken. He turned to Kitty and rubbed her back, his palm audible against the fabric of her shirt. 'It's all right, sweetie,' he said lamely.

'Is he coming after me?'

Ellen cocked her head. 'Do you think he might be?'

All of Kitty's gestures were extravagant. She flung out her hands. 'How should I know? I only met the man once. I've had nothing to do with him since. Did you question him about the marijuana crop?'

'Yes.'

'Marijuana crop?' her husband said.

She glanced at him apologetically. 'It's complicated. You were on-line so I didn't get around to telling you.'

'Telling me what?'

She placed her hand over his in a manner that was warm but firm. 'I'll tell you in a moment,' she said, then glanced at Challis. 'Does Munro think I told you about the marijuana? Is he going to come after me?'

'We don't know. He's heavily armed and he did fire a shotgun at us.'

'Shotgun,' Rex Casement said, staring at the table in bafflement and shaking his head.

After a day on the Internet, a healthy dose of reality is what you need, Challis thought. It was a small and churlish thought, but he didn't retract it.

'So keep your doors locked and eyes open,' Ellen said.

'Sweetheart, what marijuana crop?' Casement asked.

Kitty told him.

'Oh.' He thought about it, then took in Challis and Ellen with a glance around the table. 'You think this guy first tried to silence her by ramming her plane, and now might try to shoot her because he thinks she went to the police?'

Challis shrugged. 'We're keeping an open mind. We don't know what he's thinking or what he's got planned.'

Casement sat there, shaking his head.