Kittyhawk Down

CHAPTER THIRTY

Special Operations police had questioned John Tankard first, meaning that by the time Challis had talked to him, the afternoon was almost gone. Challis drove home and, feeling unsettled in the dwindling light, began to rake leaves. His liquidambar wore a beautiful canopy of green in spring and summer, and was no less beautiful when hung with red and gold in autumn, but now the leaves were beginning to fall, forming a dull yellow mat on the grass, and he had a month of raking ahead of him.

First he circled the tree clockwise on his ride-on mower, letting the blades rake the leaves for him, pushing them in toward the trunk until he was at risk of jamming the blades, and then he resorted to raking the leaves into discrete piles. Finally he wheelbarrowed the leaves to the compost heap in the back yard, cursing when the top layers slithered off the barrow and marked his progress across the lawn and gravelled driveway.

Then an idea crept into his head: ask Kitty Casement to come to the opening of the footie season with him tomorrow, the Tigers versus the West Coast Eagles at the MCG. She'd once said that her husband rarely took her anywhere, he was always glued to his screen. Then, almost immediately, he abandoned the notion. She'd never say yes. She'd wonder why he'd asked, his intentions would look naked and obvious, the husband's first thought would be what's going on?

Ask Tessa instead. The way he was going, he would lose her.

And then he thought of the long drive and the traffic. And asked himself did he really want to go to the football? There'd been a time when your roots meant something. You barracked for the Tigers because you had direct links to Tigerland and so did the players. Not anymore. The players followed the money and you barracked for hybrid teams.

Plus, Challis knew that he was never good company at a football match. Partly it was his hatred of the herd instinct, but mainly his mind would drift and he'd lose himself in old or current murder cases. He'd even solved one or two in that dreamy state, but he was hardly a cheery companion.

Faintly he heard the telephone on his kitchen wall ring five times and cut out for the answering machine. He didn't follow it up but waited, and sure enough, a minute later his mobile vibrated in his pocket.

'Challis.'

'Hal? It's Marg.'

Marg Quinlan, his mother-in-law. 'Hello, Marg,' he said cautiously.

'It's about Angela.'

'I thought it might be.'

'She's not well.'

He said nothing, knowing he was making it difficult for his mother-in-law, who didn't deserve that, but unable to help himself.

'I think,' Marg said desperately, 'a visit from you would cheer her up.'

Challis said bleakly, 'All right,' as he always did.

'Oh, Hal, thank you, I know how hard it is but Bob and I do appreciate it.'

'It's all right, Marg.'

'We could meet you there.'

She was expecting him to say no, he'd go alone, but Challis disappointed her. 'Thanks, I'd appreciate that.'

'Oh. Well, would tomorrow suit you?'

'The afternoon.'

'The afternoon. Yes. Good. About two?'

And so at two o'clock the next day, about the time that the Tigers/West Coast Eagles game was starting, Challis met his parents-in-law in the waiting room of the women's prison on the outskirts of the city. The place depressed him. The few husbands or boyfriends there had the look of men stuck with children and responsibilities they would soon shed. As usual, there were also young women waiting outside- sisters, friends, partners of the inmates. One or two older people, grandparents perhaps. And several couples like Marg and Bob, aged in their fifties and sixties, who were parents of the inmates.

Not much cheer. A lot of hopelessness. And it seemed that everyone knew who he was, or smelt 'cop' on him.

Marg hugged and kissed him. She was a tall, large-boned woman with odd-looking hair. It had always looked to Challis like an untidy nest, as though Marg deliberately kept it that way and thought it fine. She wore slacks and a cardigan over a blouse, the collar faintly smudged with makeup beneath one ear. She looked unkempt but was rock-solid and full of love and kindness.

Bob matched her in size, shape and homeliness. He was losing his hair and his hearing, and tended to stand back, looking on pleasantly, whenever people conversed around him. Now and then he'd cup his ear and say, 'What was that?' In the early years of his daughter's incarceration he'd refused to visit her, but he'd softened over time. As he shook Challis's hand now, he turned it into an emotional gesture, trapping Challis's fingers for an eternity before letting go.

They loved him and they loved their daughter and were wracked with guilt.

Then children and young women were squealing hellos. The inmates were filing into the room.

To Challis's eye, his wife had declined since Good Friday. She had her parents' height and large bones, but the bones had become bowed and fleshless in the intervening time and so she looked smaller, hollower, sadder. She stood numbly as they kissed her one by one, but then as Challis pulled back from her she clasped him fiercely.

'Come on, Ange,' he said gently, 'let's sit down.'

Sometimes there was violence, and so the tables and chairs were plastic. Challis heard the chairs groan under the heavy frames of his parents-in-law. And the first thing his wife said was, 'I only wanted Hal,' her lip curling sulkily.

Marg and Bob jerked and twitched in the face of it. 'Well, dear…' they said.

Angela folded her arms. 'All right, I'm not saying anything then.'

She was as stubborn as a child, and perhaps her parents were reminded of the child she'd once been, for they sighed in unison and after some hemming and hawing, left the room.

'What do you want, Ange?'

'Don't be like that, all cold.'

'Look, I've come a long way to be here.'

In a ghastly show of demureness and coquettishness, Challis's wife wiggled forward in her chair and reached her hands under the table, finding his upper thigh. 'Hal, you don't know how much I miss it, locked up in here. God, just to touch you, I'm getting all wet.'

He said, 'Don't.'

She cocked her head and grinned and narrowed her eyes, testing him, and he saw how unhinged she was. He said, 'Don't,' a second time, his voice and face prohibitive this time, a chilling wind from a high plateau, and it was like a slap in the face for her.

She crumbled, put her hands over her face, and began to keen. Challis watched her for a time. The fear that he was five per cent responsible for her being here still sat in him like a stone and until he could rid himself of it he'd continue to be a decent man and listen to her, and help her cure herself, and serve out her punishment. But he didn't love her or want her back, and it was entirely possible that she would kill herself in here. He didn't want that to happen but if it did, would he experience guilt, or relief?

He came out feeling tense and jittery and the cure was not the long drive home. Instead, he drove into the city, to a multi-level carpark in Flinders Lane, a short walk from the top end of Collins Street.

'Timepiece' was a glass and gleaming brass shopfront between a bookshop and a clothing boutique. The ground shaking beneath him from a passing tram, Challis pushed open the heavy door and went in just as a grandfather clock struck four. All around him clocks were ticking, whirring, whispering.

'May I help you?'

A man with a cadaverous face watched disobligingly as Challis crossed the floor, reaching into an inside pocket for his CIB card. 'Detective Inspector Challis. Are you Mr Jelbart?'

'I am.'

'You'll remember that one of my detectives, DC Sutton, called you in regard to-'

'I remember. As I said at the time, I'd need something more than someone's word over the phone.'

'You've seen my ID now,' Challis said with irritation.

Sniff. 'That's hardly the same thing as a warrant.'

'Sir, forgive me, but there's been a murder. I'll not be looking at any of your other files or activities, I'm only interested in the Rolex found on the victim.'

Jelbart stared at him and Challis wanted to slap him about the face.

'Very well.'

'Thank you.'

Jelbart snapped his fingers impatiently. 'Details.'

Challis stared at the man. 'They were faxed to you.'

'I can't possibly keep track of everything that comes across my desk.'

Challis thought it likely that Jelbart did keep track of everything, but sighed and flipped through his notebook and recited the serial number found on the Rolex.

'Wait here.'

'Will this take long?'

'I have it on computer, 'Jelbart said, as if Challis lived in the stone age.

Challis waited, hating the sounds of the clocks, and five minutes later Jelbart came back with a slip of paper.

'Found it.'

'Great,' Challis said, feeling relief. He looked at the name that Jelbart had scrawled for him. 'I was sure this was a wild goose chase.'

Jelbart glided back into the shadows between his clocks and Challis left the shop, wondering why, if Trevor Hubble of St Kilda was the Flinders Floater, his name had never shown up on the missing persons sheet.