Snapshot

44

The weekend arrived, and winter seemed to deepen suddenly, promising short, still, silent grey days, with little wind or rain, but dank and cold.

Challis held an informal briefing with Ellen and Scobie first thing on Saturday morning, mainly to tell them about the taxi driver. Scobie Sutton responded first, his expression mournful, a skinny man slumped in his chair like an arrangement of twigs. He was dressed for Janine McQuarrie’s funeral in a dark suit, white shirt and black tie. ‘How come we didn’t find this guy earlier?’

A fair question. After all, they’d found everyone else who’d had cause to drive past Mrs Humphreys’s house on the morning of the murder: neighbours, the guy who delivered the Age and the Herald Sun, a woman distributing leaflets for her yoga and massage clinic, a farrier, United Energy and Telstra linesmen, various tradesmen, delivery drivers, a vanload of Cambodian people-wearing conical straw hats-who’d been hired to prune the vines at a nearby winery. Even other taxi drivers.

But not Joseph Ovens.

‘He took someone to the airport last Tuesday,’ Challis said, ‘and just kept heading north, fishing gear in the boot of his car. Didn’t listen to the news all week, didn’t read the papers. Came back yesterday, learnt about the murder, and realised what he’d seen.’

He explained about Joe Ovens’s visit to the Progress. ‘And the editor contacted me,’ he added.

The editor, he said, to emphasise that his relationship with Tessa Kane was formal now, and had been for some time. Nevertheless, Ellen was gazing at him with an unreadable but complicated expression, and he felt himself colour a little. She looked tired, edgy, faintly crumpled in her slim-line jacket and trousers, her hair a little untamed. He searched for another reassurance, but she cut in, some of her old sharpness returning. ‘How does this help us if his memories are hazy?’

‘We use a hypnotist,’ Challis said.

They all gave him pie-in-the-sky looks. ‘You’re joking, right?’

‘No.’

‘For when?’

‘Monday morning was the earliest it could be arranged.’

Ellen cocked her head. ‘That will blow the budget. How did you get the super to agree to it?’

Challis gave her a wintry smile. ‘I haven’t told him yet.’

Ellen watched him. ‘Let me guess: Tessa Kane-or rather, her newspaper-is paying.’

‘Correct,’ said Challis a little heatedly, ‘but before you all start scoffing, I want to point out that we’ve found a hypnotist who has worked successfully with the police before, and Ms Kane has agreed not to publish any details that might compromise the investigation. But she does get exclusive rights to a story in Tuesday’s edition about a witness coming forward and undergoing hypnosis.’

Ellen gave him a mutinous scowl. Meanwhile Scobie Sutton was shifting in his seat, as if trying to find room for his long, restless legs, but Challis read the discomfort as psychological. He felt fed up with both of them.

‘Boss,’ Scobie said, ‘what if that puts the taxi driver’s life in danger?’

‘Ms Kane won’t name him, or what he does for a living.’

‘No offence, but I think we have to think twice about what we reveal to the press from now on,’ Scobie said, folding his arms with an air of finality. ‘That’s what I think.’

‘Ellen?’ Challis said.

Ellen had been watching them with a cold smile. ‘Is Ms Kane going to be sitting in?’

They don’t trust her, Challis thought. They think she’ll publish everything that Joe Ovens reveals under hypnosis and the police can go jump in the lake.

They think I’m still involved with her.

He said tensely, ‘Ms Kane has a right to sit in. She’s paying for it, and has given me assurances.’

Ellen shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. See you on Monday.’

Challis clenched, wanting to have it out with the pair of them, but told himself to count to ten, and barely acknowledged them as they made their way out of the incident room.

The funeral was at eleven. Scobie Sutton took fifty photographs with CIU’s digital camera, then returned to the station and logged them in. Finally, tired of working on the McQuarrie murder, he went in search of Natalie Cobb.

‘Andrew Asche?’ he said, outside a flat in Salmon Street.

‘Er, yep.’ said, the kid in the doorway.

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘I’m Andy Asche,’ the kid said.

Scobie did what he always did, tried to read the body language, tried to pick up early-warning signals that Andy Asche was lying or feeling guilty. Ellen had the gift, Challis had it, but somehow it had passed by Scobie. He got his results from doggedness and the rulebook. Still, he suspected that he could train himself if he kept trying.

All he got was a neatly-put-together young guy who was understandably nervous about finding a policeman on his doorstep. That could be said of ninety-nine point nine per cent of the population, guilty and innocent alike. It’s when you met an individual who wasn’t that you took a step back, got out your gun, and called for backup.

‘Natalie Cobb,’ Scobie said.

A flicker in the kid’s eyes. ‘What about her?’

‘You’re her boyfriend?’

A non-committal shrug. ‘Not really. We used to hang out a bit. What’s she done?’

‘I don’t know that she’s done anything,’ Scobie said. It was chilly out here on the porch. ‘Can we go inside?’

Asche thought about it, then gave in. ‘If you like.’

Scobie followed him through to a sitting room in which everything was mismatched and second hand. Photographs of flash cars on the wall.

‘You like cars.’

Andy shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

‘And a computer buff, I see.’

The kid really looked nervous now. He’s been looking at porn, Scobie decided. There were sheets of screwed up printer paper in a cane wastepaper basket under a table against one wall, an impressive-looking computer on top of the table. A different sort of copper would tighten the screws about now, just for the hell of it-search what was on the computer, go through drawers and the waste paper.

Andy Asche said, ‘Has Nat been hurt or something?’

‘I don’t know. Has she?’

‘I’m asking you,’ Asche said, getting some of his nerve back.

And fair enough, too, Scobie thought. I’m no good at rattling cages. ‘Her mother hasn’t see her since Thursday.’

‘Thursday,’ the kid said flatly.

‘Correct. Have you seen her since then?’

‘We’re not that close.’

‘But have you seen her?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘When did you see her last?’

Scobie watched Asche carefully. He was a good-looking kid; fit, neat, an earring, that’s all. Was he going to lie?

‘Haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks.’

Yes, he was going to lie.

‘So that wasn’t you who picked Natalie up outside the Frankston Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday?’

Slowly dawning comprehension. ‘Oh, yeah, that’s right, I forgot.’

‘Where did you take her that day?’

‘Back to school.’

‘And have you seen her since then?’

Andy Asche was adamant that he hadn’t seen Natalie Cobb since that day. ‘She’s been kind of moody,’ he offered. ‘All that crap about her mother getting arrested, stuff at school, you know.’

Scobie tried again to get the measure of Asche. ‘If she contacts you, ask her to call home, and ask her to call me, can you do that, please?’

‘Sure, no problem.’

Sunday was another still, grey day. It should have been a day of rest for Pam Murphy-’rest’, in her case, meaning an opportunity to train for the triathlon-but she’d received official notification that she was to present herself for a formal interrogation on Monday, and spent the day going over her notes and trying to contact Tank, who wasn’t at home or answering his phone.

She couldn’t call the sarge. She couldn’t call anyone. It was a miserable Sunday.

It turned miserable for Vyner, too.

When the text message came, he’d been writing in his journal, Let there be one constant in all of your fine dreams-you own your own destiny. Not original-it had been spouted at an own-your-own-life seminar he’d attended when he got out of the Navy-but what you did was adapt to or move on from what has already occurred. Then the message came, Got another job 4 U, and he was suddenly well and truly obliged to own his own destiny.

Vyner shot a message back. OK.

And back came the details.

30 thou, Vyner replied, upping his price, half up front.