Snapshot

10

They signed out an unmarked Falcon from the motor pool and drove to Mornington in intermittent sunshine that was hard and bright on the wetness all around. Above them a high, scudding wind blew scraps of cloud across the sky. Normally they chatted when they were together, settling quickly into comfortable patterns with each other, but Ellen was withdrawn, a heavy presence in the passenger seat. ‘Anything wrong?’ said Challis.

‘Nup.’

He wondered if it was her husband again, remembering the man’s brusqueness on the phone that morning. Ellen was loyal and private by nature, but had revealed enough over the years to indicate that the marriage was under strain. Challis had never liked Alan Destry. The man was chronically surly, and so tightly wound that he might one day do something violent. We’re a fine pair, he thought, me morose about my wife this morning, Ellen about her husband now.

‘Everything okay at home?’

‘Peachy,’ said Ellen, her eyes fixed on the road.

Time to change the subject. ‘So this Dominic O’Brien character is going to be obstructive?’

Ellen seemed to bristle at the wheel. ‘What happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force?’

He grinned. He’d always liked looking at her, a woman full of coiled energy and every muscle expressive, her beautiful eyes now taking on their familiar tuck of suspicion and anticipation. She was ready for business.

‘Uh oh,’ she said presently. ‘We’ve got company.’

They’d reached a hilly street behind the Esplanade in Mornington. No fog on this side of the Peninsula, but a rainsquall had come in across Port Phillip Bay, causing movement in a huddle of reporters and camera crews camped on a nearby nature strip. ‘Be friendly,’ Challis said.

Shouted questions reached them through the windows of the car, but Ellen didn’t stop, easing the CIU Falcon off the street, onto a gravelled driveway and past dense shrubbery and slender gum trees, to park nose-up to a railway sleeper barrier. They got out, locked the car and Challis followed Ellen down the steps to the front door, careful on the slicks of moss.

McQuarrie greeted them, holding his granddaughter’s hand. She’d been crying, but glanced up at them solemnly, as if shy but also aware that she was at the centre of something momentous. She wore jeans, a pink long-sleeved top, pink socks, pink clips holding back unruly blonde hair. Her grandfather looked faintly lost, a slightly built senior policeman who’d seen the underside only from behind a desk. He didn’t make introductions but stood back, saying, ‘Come in, come in,’ before glancing at their feet. ‘Would you mind…’

There were shoes and gumboots heaped on both sides of the door. Challis and Ellen slipped off their shoes, curling their toes on the cold concrete of the verandah, waiting for McQuarrie to stop dithering on the doorstep.

Finally they were in a hallway, pale green carpet expensively thick beneath their feet, a phone off the hook on an antique hallstand. McQuarrie led them to a sitting room: a red leather sofa and armchairs, massive antique sideboards, two small Turkish rugs. A huge window looked out onto a barbecue pit, a brick courtyard, a rose arbour and shrubs in bulky terracotta pots. McQuarrie’s wife Barbara-often called Mrs Super-stood beside an open fire, as neatly put together as her husband but snootier, more readily offended. Challis tried a commiserative nod and smile and got a scowl in return. He introduced Ellen, who earned only a flickering glance.

‘Have you found out who did this?’

McQuarrie said hastily, ‘It’s too soon, dear. Hal is here for information.’

Barbara McQuarrie came forward a few centimetres, the strain apparent in her face. ‘I don’t want you upsetting Georgia.’

‘Some tea, love, we could all do with a cup of tea.’

‘I’ll help you,’ Ellen said, expertly shepherding McQuarrie’s wife out of the room, piling on admiring comments about the decor, the house, the landscaping. Challis and McQuarrie watched them go, Challis appreciating her tact and her instincts.

McQuarrie said, ‘Hal, this is Georgia. Georgia, this is Inspector Challis.’

Challis put out his hand and the child shook with him gravely, her palm moist, her bones like a tiny bird’s inside his grip. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’

Challis didn’t know what McQuarrie had said to his granddaughter. He’d hoped to be briefed before meeting and questioning her. Did Georgia know that her mother was dead? If so, what did she, a six-year-old, understand that to mean? ‘Perhaps we should all sit down,’ he said.

‘Grampa, can I have a hot chocolate?’

‘Of course you can. Run and ask Nana.’

Relieved, Challis watched her leave the room, and then turned to McQuarrie. ‘Sir, are you okay with this, my questioning her?’

‘I am. My wife’s not.’

‘Does Georgia know her mother’s dead?’

Some of McQuarrie’s brisk superintendent’s manner had come back. ‘Yes. Died and gone to heaven.’

‘She’s remarkably poised.’

‘She’s incredible. She’s finished her crying for now. Even so, we’ll see that she gets proper counselling.’ He paused. ‘If your questioning upsets her I’m putting a halt to it, Hal.’

‘Sir.’

McQuarrie was the only super in Challis’s experience who expected to be called ‘sir’ by the more senior of his officers. Most preferred ‘boss’ or even first names and affectionate nicknames. McQuarrie insisted on ‘sir’ and Challis believed that it was a measure of the man’s insecurity-compounded today by the fact that he was grieving.

There was the distant ping of a microwave oven, and moments later Georgia appeared with a mug of hot chocolate, a frothy moustache on her upper Up. Ellen Destry came in behind her with a teapot and sugar bowl on a tray, Barbara McQuarrie with plain Ikea mugs and shortbread biscuits in a bowl, her disapproval obvious. She wanted Challis and his sergeant out of her house.

When they were settled-Georgia perched on her grandfather’s knees-Challis glanced at Ellen, who leaned forward and said, ‘Georgia, we want to catch the bad men who hurt your mother.’

Georgia, small and tawny, shrank into McQuarrie’s lap, hot chocolate splashing on his tie. ‘I want my dad. Where’s Daddy?’

‘He’s on his way, sweetheart,’ McQuarrie said, rocking her. ‘His plane’s already landed.’

‘What if they shoot him, too?’

‘Hush, hush,’ McQuarrie said, out of his depth.

‘We’re stopping this right now,’ his wife said.

Challis signalled to Ellen and they got to their feet, but Georgia seemed panicked by this. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To catch the bad men,’ Ellen said.

‘Where?’

‘We’ll look for them everywhere.’

Challis was wondering if Ellen’s answer would add to Georgia’s fears, make her housebound, when Georgia said, ‘But you don’t know what they look like.’

Barbara McQuarrie said, ‘It’s all right, Georgia. Let the man and the lady go off and do their job.’

‘I know what they look like,’ Georgia insisted, recovered now. She climbed out of her grandfather’s lap and left the room, returning moments later with several drawings. She aligned the edges awkwardly, shoving them at Challis. ‘Here.’

Challis glanced inquiringly at McQuarrie, who said, ‘The crime-scene people arrived before I did, and Georgia watched them sketching the scene. She came home and wanted to do her own sketches.’

Challis swallowed. ‘Thank you, Georgia. These will be very helpful’

He examined the top drawing: a bird’s eye view of the area, showing both cars and her mother’s body. There was a border of trees and a curious smudge amongst them. ‘Is this…?’ he asked, indicating it to her.

‘That’s me hiding from the man who wanted to shoot me.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Ellen came to stand beside him. There were three other drawings, and Georgia identified them one by one. ‘That’s the man who shot Mummy, that’s the other man in the car, that’s Mummy.’

Mummy from before the murder, a woman with long hair and a big smile.

‘These are terrific,’ Ellen said. ‘Have you remembered anything else about the car? Maybe you remember some of the letters and numbers on the numberplate.’

‘It was just an old car.’

‘Well, that’s helpful. Now, shall we sit and talk some more about what happened this morning?’

‘Okay.’

Ellen guided Georgia to the sofa and sat with her. Challis sat in a nearby armchair and watched and listened.

‘You didn’t have to go to school today,’ Ellen said, ‘is that right? No lessons?’

‘Mummy had to take me to work with her.’

‘Was she meeting someone before going to the clinic?’

‘I think so.’

‘Do you know who?’

Georgia shrugged, a child’s quick, jerking shrug.

‘Did your mum notice a car behind you at any stage?’

Shrug.

‘Did she say anything to you about being lost?’

Head shake.

‘You came to a house and your mum stopped the car,’ Ellen said, briefly stroking Georgia’s forearm. ‘Then what happened?’

Afterwards Challis was to remark on how fiercely Georgia had concentrated. There were two men, she said. One stayed in the car and she hadn’t seen him clearly, except that he wore dark glasses and had a kind of round face. The man who’d shot her mother wore a beanie and a jacket with the collar up, so she couldn’t give a clear description, except that she thought his face was thin. The jacket was blue, no, black, no, blue. The car was kind of white.

The gun was a little one, not a rifle, but it had something stuck on the end of it, and the man carrying it had chased her mother around and around the car. She’d undone her seatbelt to fetch something from her Hi-5 backpack by that stage, and so she was able to move about inside the car and follow the action. Then her mother had made a break for it and she saw the man point the gun and her mother fell to the ground.

‘Did you hear the gun?’

‘It made a kind oiphht sound.’

Challis exchanged a glance with Ellen: probably an automatic and fitted with a suppressor.

‘I wanted to go to her but I was scared and he turned around and looked at me.’

That was when she darted out of the car and ran towards the other car. ‘I thought he would help me, but he didn’t.’

‘You mean the man driving?’

‘Yes. He just waved me away, so I ran into the trees. I tried to hide but it wasn’t a very good hiding place and the man with the gun could see me, but when he tried to shoot me nothing happened and he said something bad and looked at his gun and went back to the car.’

McQuarrie murmured, ‘Any ballistics, Hal?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Automatic pistol, do you think? It jammed on him?’

‘Possibly. What did you do then, Georgia?’

When she heard the white car start up she raised her head and watched it leave. It made a lot of smoke. Yes, a white car. A kind of old car, she thought, with a funny door.

‘Funny door?’

‘Not the same colour. Kind of a yellow. Look,’ she said, pointing to one of the drawings. An off-white car with a pale yellow door and the driver inside, his arm out of the window, presumably waving her away.

‘If the original door was rusted or damaged,’ Ellen murmured to Challis, ‘it may have been replaced by one from a wrecking yard.’

Challis nodded. It was a job for Scobie.

‘Do you think you could look at some photographs for us, Georgia?’

That quick shrug again. ‘Don’t know.’

‘Pictures of men’s faces, sweetheart,’ her grandfather said. ‘You might recognise the men who hurt Mummy.’

‘Okay.’

‘If you do,’ he said, ‘we’ll catch them and have an identity parade. Do you know what that is?’

Challis let the super prattle on. Identity parades were only useful to back up solid evidence. A failed lineup was like manna from heaven to a defence lawyer. And the idea of putting Georgia McQuarrie through an identity parade was galling to him. He’d tried, and failed, to observe a distance with regard to the child. The job swamped you if you didn’t learn to see the blood and the damaged flesh and lives as outcomes or problems to solve. But you couldn’t go on thinking like that without giving the pressure some kind of outlet. Humour-of the blackest kind-was a common outlet; booze; a hobby; the exclusive company of other cops. Without an outlet, your heart would fracture. That little girl with her wintry face…Challis didn’t have children but Ellen and Scobie did. What went through their minds every day? Did they ever stop worrying about their kids? Abused kids, bloodied kids, orphaned kids.

‘Is there anything else you remember about the two men, Georgia?’

‘What colour was their skin?’ Barbara McQuarrie wanted to know.

‘Dear, please,’ McQuarrie said.

‘Same as mine,’ Georgia said.

Challis rested his forearms on his knees. ‘You couldn’t see their faces very clearly.’

‘No. The man with the gun had a beanie on. It was all pulled down and his collar was turned up.’

‘Was he fat? Thin?’

‘Medium.’

‘Tall? Short?’

‘Medium.’

‘What about the way they spoke?’ Barbara McQuarrie asked. ‘Did they speak English?’

‘Love, please,’ McQuarrie said.

‘It’s a fair enough question.’

Ellen broke in. ‘What about the other man, Georgia, the driver of the car. Was he wearing a beanie, too?’

‘No.’

‘What colour was his hair?’

‘He was kind of bald.’

‘Bald, or had he shaved his hair off?’

‘I think shaved.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘He just waved at me to go away.’

‘Anything else about his face that you can remember?’

‘He was kind of a bit younger than the other one.’

‘As old as your dad?’

Georgia screwed up her face assessingly. ‘Younger.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Sort of a round face, a bit fat,’ Georgia said.

Then she went alert in McQuarrie’s arms as a door opened in the hallway and a voice called, ‘Mum? Dad? Georgia?’

She hurled herself out of the room.

Snapshot