Snapshot

26

Using her office phone in the Progress building, Tessa Kane posed as an insurance agent selling life cover. Having established that Charlie Mead was at work, she drove across the Peninsula to Rosebud and knocked on the front door of his house. ‘Mrs Mead? Lottie Mead?’

A wary ‘Yes.’

‘My name is Tessa Kane, from the Progress.’

Tessa waited, wondering if she’d be recognised. Lottie Mead was slender and unsmiling, her gaze passing expressionlessly across Tessa’s face and examining the street. ‘What do you want?’

‘I won’t lie to you, Mrs Mead. My paper has been running a series of critical articles about asylum seekers and your husband’s management of the Waterloo detention centre. I think it’s time for a personal perspective, and would like to interview you. Perhaps we could start with your lives together in South Africa, and move on from there. Would that be possible, do you think?’

She waited. The house was a grim grey fortress on a slope overlooking the bay. Finally Lottie Mead said, ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ and began to close the door.

‘Wait! Did your husband tell you not to speak to reporters? Does he have something to hide, do you think?’

‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me,’ said the woman distinctly, shutting the door with a brisk click.

Ellen was in Upper Penzance, half relieved and half chagrined to be working with Scobie Sutton instead of Challis. Their interview with Connie Rinehart completed, she got behind the wheel of the CIU Falcon, flipped open her mobile phone and reported in. ‘Hal? Rinehart never met Janine-it was all arranged by her doctor.’

‘What can you tell me about her?’

‘Thirty-four, suffers from agoraphobia, has scarcely left her house for the past five years. When Janine didn’t arrive, she supposed she’d made a mistake with the date or the time, but hadn’t got around to checking with the clinic or her doctor. She’s very timid and withdrawn.’

‘Does she live anywhere near Mrs Humphreys?’

‘Several kilometres away.’

‘Does she know her?’

‘No.’

‘Does she know Christina Traynor?’

‘No.’

There was a pause, and Challis said, ‘That leaves us with Janine’s phobia about making right-hand turns. Yesterday she was obliged to visit Rinehart at home, so she mapped out a route that would avoid turning right, and found herself in an unfamiliar area and stopped to check her street directory. I’ve been looking at the map: someone driving from Mount Eliza to Upper Penzance without making right turns would probably pass through Penzance North. She was the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got herself shot.’

‘It’s a theory,’ Ellen said. ‘See you back at the ranch.’

She started the car. Scobie promptly settled into yarning mode. ‘Remember I was talking about Natalie Cobb yesterday?’

Ellen had been cooped up with him for hours, and forced herself to mutter, ‘Yes.’

‘Well, Beth went to see the Cobbs after work yesterday. She told me something interesting. She arrived just as Natalie was slipping her mother some money. She said it was clear Natalie hadn’t been to school all day. I myself saw her being picked up outside the courthouse by her boyfriend, and I guess she spent the day with him.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Ellen said, and then thought she should make an effort. ‘Doing what with the boyfriend?’

‘Well, that’s the question.’

‘Is the boyfriend known to us?’

‘Don’t know. Don’t know who he is.’

‘Be worth finding out.’

‘True.’

There was a blessed silence and then he said, ‘Today was mad hair day.’

Ellen’s mind raced, but not for long. He’s talking about his bloody daughter again.

‘If it’s mad hair day, or wear-what-you-like day, we have to get Ros up at least half an hour earlier than usual. She gets in a real knot about it, poor little thing. “Do I look stupid in this?” “Are you sure it’s mad hair day?” “You’re doing it all wrong.” And so on and so forth.’

The Suttons’ only child was a pale, wispy eight-year-old. ‘Uh-huh,’ said Ellen.

‘Maths, that’s another thing that makes her anxious.’

I should be so lucky, Ellen thought. To break up the litany, she said, ‘You spoke to the super’s wife?’

Scobie groaned. ‘Oh god.’

‘Bad, huh?’

‘She had plenty to say, but nothing to say, if you know what I mean.’

Ellen nodded. ‘Janine was married to her son, and was therefore a paragon of virtue.’

‘That about covers it,’ Scobie said.

Meanwhile Andy Asche was driving past the secondary college in Waterloo. Lunchtime, and Natalie, hanging around the front gate, gave him a nod, their signal that she was still intending to slip away from school during an afternoon lesson break and meet him around the corner.

This afternoon they were hitting a house in Penzance Beach. Andy had a head full of potential targets. He worked part-time for the shire, in a job that took him all over the Peninsula. Last month, for example, he’d spent two days delivering the new-style recycling bins to every house in Penzance Beach. At other times he might accompany the property valuation surveyor, going around to every property noting improvements and taking measurements for the next hike in shire rates. Or he drove around back roads, marking for attention ditches and culverts that were clogged with sand, twigs and pine needles.

Whatever, he had a lot of facts at his fingertips. Such and such a house is always empty during the day. Another is only occupied on weekends, a third only in summer. This street’s no good: there’s always some busybody in her garden or staring out of her window. That street is full of barking dogs. There’s a top-of-the-range security system in this house; there’s no security system in that house, despite the sticker in the window.

Penzance Beach was always a good earner. A few locals lived there permanently, but mostly it consisted of beach shacks, which looked humble but were owned by wealthy city people who liked to come down on weekends or school holidays and maintain the level of comfort they’d grown accustomed to in the city: top quality TVs, VCRs, DVDs, microwaves, sports equipment, clothes, even mobile phones, cash and Walkmans left lying around in kids’ bedrooms. Wealth made teenagers indifferent to wealth. Andy Asche’s mother would have tanned his hide if he’d been as careless with his possessions.