Snapshot

37

That Thursday afternoon it was Tank’s turn to drive. As he steered the little Mazda through Somerville and headed on down Eramosa Road to the Coolstores, Pam Murphy gazed out at the roadside verges, noting how widespread pittosporum was on the Peninsula. She’d begun to see the place with new eyes, now that she belonged to the Bushrats. ‘Did you know,’ she said, ‘that pittosporum is considered a weed?’

Tank seemed to shake himself awake. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

He glowered at the road ahead. ‘That woman in the Passat. Do you know if she’s reported us?’

So that was what he’d been brooding about. ‘Lottie Mead? No. And I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.’

They neared the roundabout on the highway, stopping behind a build-up of traffic. Pam glanced at her watch: another two hours before they could knock off work. Then she happened to glance across at the Coolstores carpark, where a Toyota van with tinted windows was about to dart into an empty slot. It had the right of way but at the last minute stopped, the driver gesturing graciously to an elderly, panicked-looking woman driving an ancient Morris Minor. With a thankful wave and relieved smile, the old woman steered jerkily into the vacant spot. The van paused, idling, the driver casting about for another parking place.

‘What do you reckon?’ she asked Tankard. ‘We haven’t been exactly overwhelmed with courteous drivers this week. Give the guy a showbag?’

Tankard was rubbing his knee, releasing a powerful odour of athletes’ liniment. He’d injured himself coaching football, and seemed obsessed with it. ‘What? Didn’t see it.’

The old Tankard, who’d liked to brush against her breasts and comment on the up-lift qualities of her bras, was almost better than this defeated slug. ‘Wake up, Tank, you’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you,’ Pam said, reaching across and gently tugging on the steering wheel.

‘Don’t get you knickers in a knot,’ he said, flicking the turning indicator and steering into the carpark.

‘Pull up beside that van,’ Pam said, pointing to where the Toyota had parked outside the caravan owned by the community FM radio station. The other buildings housed a showbiz museum, craft shops, a restaurant and a cafe. The driver was opening his door when Pam’s passenger door slid into view beside him. A young guy, clean cut, wearing sunglasses, and barely out of school, Pam thought, quickly sizing him up, and she reflected that it was almost comical the way everyone’s first reaction to meeting the police was apprehension, tinged with panic and resignation, as if they’d all broken the law and the police had caught up with them at last.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said, winding down her window.

And the young guy slammed his door, gunned the engine and reversed with a raw squeal of tyres, shooting out of the carpark onto Eramosa Road. ‘Jesus!’ Tankard said, and then as Pam glanced inquiringly at him, he looked at his hands, which were beginning to tremble. She knew it: the slightest pressure and he would crumble. She didn’t trust him in a high-speed pursuit, and screamed ‘Swap places!’ at him as she leapt from the car and hurried around to the driver’s door and practically dragged him out from behind the wheel. She was already reversing as he hopped and skipped to get into the passenger seat.

The Toyota van had not entered the highway, where it could be tracked easily by helicopter, chased by pursuit cars or stopped by roadblocks, but had headed back towards farmland. Pam followed, now almost twenty seconds behind. A moment later, the van turned right onto a narrow sealed road that ran between flat, sodden paddocks and was lined by trees and bracken. She followed for three kilometres, the van reaching speeds of 120 kmh and snaking a little, the smaller sports car skittish and volatile on the uneven surface.

Tankard slammed his meaty hand on the dashboard. ‘You’ll never catch the prick if you drive like a girl.’

What a time for the old Tankard to show himself. Pam steered grimly, telling herself to ignore him and do this by the book. She ordered him to call it in: make, colour and registration number of the van, current position, direction, road conditions and other factors.

The radio dispatcher’s voice was calm and unhurried. ‘That vehicle was reported stolen yesterday. Description of the driver?’

Tankard looked to Pam, who muttered, ‘Young male, late teens or early twenties, short dark hair, sunglasses, jeans and black football jumper.’

Tankard relayed the information. He glanced inquiringly at Pam again when the dispatcher asked, ‘Passengers?’

She shrugged.

‘Unconfirmed at this stage,’ Tankard said.

‘I’m sending pursuit cars to take over the chase,’ the dispatcher said. ‘Maintain visual contact of the suspect vehicle but don’t spook him. You know the drill.’

‘Easier said than done,’ Pam muttered. She wanted to catch the driver of the van, but didn’t want to be the target of an internal witch hunt, senior police displeased by another High Speed Police Pursuit Ends in Fatality story on the six o’clock news.

The Toyota shot through the intersection in the little settlement of Moorooduc, barely missing an LPG tanker, and Tankard radioed in that the van was driving riskily, at high speed. ‘Request intercept cars from Waterloo and Mornington,’ he said.

‘Maintain position and report,’ the dispatcher replied, as if ignoring him. ‘Do not chase.’

The van was winding up to at least 130 kmh as it left the primary school and fire station behind. Pam followed, passing between open paddocks and a market garden. Around a bend, into a fold in the landscape, past vineyards, cattle standing in muddy grass, a conference retreat behind a stand of poplars. Kilometre after kilometre, with no sign of a helicopter, let alone other police vehicles. ‘We’re alone, Tank.’

He grunted, ‘Why don’t we just head the prick off?’

The Toyota seemed to be taking them in a wide skirting path, gradually heading southwest around Waterloo, which was several kilometres to their left. The grey rain was lifting; a weak, lowering sun lit the world of the empty backroads and slanted into Pam’s eyes.

‘What’s that on the road?’ Tankard said, pointing ahead.

She steered deftly around a deep pothole and a tangle of blackened pipes beyond it. ‘He’s torn off his exhaust system.’

Tankard shook his head. ‘What the fuck’s keeping the others? They should have headed him off by now. Go on, put your foot down.’

Pam bit her lip. The driver of the van had eased back on the accelerator, she was managing to keep him in sight, and that was all that was required of her officially. But she badly wanted to catch the guy. She’d driven pursuit cars at her last station; she had the training and the experience to chase the van rather than simply shadow it. But there were other police vehicles in the area: she could hear them trying to find the van from other directions. ‘The post office says I live in Bittern,’ one pursuit driver was saying, ‘the shire says I live in Balnarring, the Electoral Commission says it’s Merricks North, and they expect me to know where I am?’

‘Strict radio procedure, please,’ the dispatcher said.

‘Stolen van,’ Tankard muttered. ‘That’s why the guy ran.’

‘Did you get a good look at him?’

‘Didn’t see him at all,’ Tankard said, and in a fit of rage thumped the back of his fist against the removable hardtop of the Mazda. ‘Can’t see a fucking thing out of this sardine can.’ Then: ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said, his voice choking.

Pam saw it, too. A woman on horseback, the speeding van, the narrowness of the tree-lined road. The woman pulled back on the reins, trying to coax her horse onto a grassy gap between the trees, but the horse was spooked by the eruption of speed and noisy exhaust behind it. The Toyota clipped horse and rider and fishtailed, brake lights flaring too late, and shot between trees and through a wire fence. It could not sustain the high speed, the terrain or the shift in direction, and a hundred metres in from the fence it began to roll, then flipped onto its roof. Pam stopped, but whether for the horse, the rider or to give chase to the driver, now climbing from the overturned van, she couldn’t say.