Snapshot

46

Ellen was impressed by the session, despite herself, but Tessa Kane had been cool towards her, and afterwards, as they were all filing out of the victim suite, she’d overheard Challis ask Kane out to dinner, to say thank you. Yeah, right.

She hadn’t heard Kane’s reply, but the image of the pair of them seated in a restaurant burned inside her. So now, back in the incident room, she was sharp with Challis. ‘Did this Joe character remember correct letters and numbers? Are they in the correct sequence? What if the O was a Q, or the T was a J or an I? What if the plates were stolen from another vehicle, or are from another state?’

Challis was defensive. ‘What you say is true,’ he said, ‘and so we try all combinations. We also check the stolen car register and ask them to cross-reference to reports of stolen plates.’

‘You’d think they’d have dumped or torched the car afterwards, but there have been no reports.’

‘But earlier in the week we didn’t know what make and model of car we were looking for,’ said Challis impatiently, ‘and we only checked locally for abandoned or torched vehicles.’

‘They could still be driving around in it.’

‘Then issue a general be-on-the-lookout to all stations,’ he said heatedly.

‘Keep your shirt on. The description of the driver might get us somewhere.’

They glanced across to the corner of the big room, where Scobie Sutton was seated with Joe Ovens before a laptop screen. Earlier in the year, Scobie had attended a training course aimed at helping the police generate computer likenesses based on witness descriptions. This was his first opportunity to use it.

‘Georgia’s certain about the missing finger?’

Challis nodded firmly. ‘Absolutely certain.’

‘She’s just a kid, Hal,’ Ellen said, still stroppy, but also aware of the irony: playing devil’s advocate was often what she did when they were working together, and working well.

Challis eyed her warily. ‘She shows the missing finger in several of the drawings. She was adamant, and I didn’t have to prompt or lead her.’

There was an awkward pause. ‘What are you doing now?’ she asked.

Challis began to head towards his office, saying over his shoulder, ‘Transcribing the hypnosis tape onto my laptop. Then when Scobie and Joe have agreed on a likeness, I’ll install that, too.’

‘And not let the laptop out of your sight?’

‘And not let it out of my sight,’ he said.

Ellen returned to her desk and began to search the databases. Plenty of crims with missing fingers but none who matched the other search parameters, none associated with the Peninsula, organised hits or getaway drivers. Even so, she thought, easing the kinks in her back, it was lucky that Joe Ovens had driven past Joy Humphreys’s house at the moment the killers were leaving. Anyone else might have driven past and even glanced down the driveway, but the old taxi driver knew the elderly woman who lived there, and that she was in hospital. We lay personal maps over standard maps, Ellen thought. A taxi driver mentally maps the terrain with details about clients and traffic hazards, a police officer with the locations of unforgettable arrests, criminals, victims and crimes, and burglars with getaway routes, sensor alarms and guard dogs.

It took Scobie an hour to create a face that satisfied Joseph Ovens, after which he’d fed the details into the data base, and now he was scrolling through photographs of convicted crims whose features matched the computer-generated likeness, Ovens saying, ‘They all look the same after a while.’

Scobie knew what Ovens meant. There was a certain sameness in the endless cascade of faces. Objectively speaking, these burglars, con-men, rapists, junkies, armed robbers and murderers possessed an endless variety of noses, chins, scars, eyes, lips and hairlines, but they all had something in common: a deadness, a soullessness, behind the eyes.

Half an hour later, Challis took Joseph Ovens’s description of the Commodore and his photofit of the driver to the media liaison officer, who would release both to all of the newspapers and TV and radio stations. Then he attended to his in-tray for a while: minutes of meetings he could barely remember; agendas for meetings he intended to avoid; amendments to standing orders; organisational flow charts-the term ‘information cascades’ catching his eye; risk assessment papers; Ministry feedback on service performance indicators-whatever that meant; strategy papers on paedophilia and cyber porn; a report into the rise of secretive right-wing organisations with names like Australia First and The Borderers…

Then his door opened and McQuarrie barked, ‘Inspector? A word.’

The man looked apoplectic. Challis followed, not hurrying, murmuring to Ellen as he passed her desk, ‘I bet his spies have told him about the hypnosis session.’

She gave him a rueful smile and whispered, ‘Good luck.’

He found McQuarrie opening the door to a conference room and barking ‘Out,’ at a clutch of probationers, who were cramming for a test.

Challis followed him in and closed the door. McQuarrie went to the window, and swung around, hands behind his erect back, lifting a little onto his toes and down again.

‘Sir?’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but Senior Sergeant Kellock informs me that you had someone hypnotised this morning? And your girlfriend attended?’

Challis counted to ten. ‘That’s correct.’

‘Why a hypnotist?’

‘To help the witness remember what he’d seen.’

‘I warned you,’ McQuarrie said tightly, ‘to keep a lid on the more delicate aspects of the investigation. I don’t want my son’s photo plastered all over the media. I don’t want his involvement in these blasted sex parties made public. And you go and hire a hypnotist with the connivance of Tessa Kane?’

It occurred to Challis that McQuarrie was blustering because he was afraid. Too much was happening, too quickly, and he couldn’t control the fallout. ‘You’re well informed, sir.’

McQuarrie stepped abruptly away from the window, knocking a plastic cup of coffee or tea to the floor. Industrial grade carpet, a tufted, nightmarish brown-grey, and unlikely to register a stain. ‘What’s the trade-off?’

‘Trade-off, sir?’

‘Your girlfriend gets to publish all the details ahead of the metropolitan press? A scoop, in other words?’

‘Ms Kane is not my girlfriend. And the witness approached her first. She has promised not to compromise the investigation in any way. She’s agreed to describe the hypnosis session as a mood piece only. Meanwhile I’ve released a photofit image of the driver, and a description of the car, to all of the media outlets.’

‘Which will drive the killers deeper underground. Look what happened after that anonymous tip-off story: a reverberating silence.’

‘This time we have more concrete information, which should stir memories.’

‘Do you trust Ms Kane? Trust the press in general? Don’t be naive, son.’

McQuarrie was suddenly Challis’s kindly uncle. Challis went very still.

‘Anyway,’ McQuarrie said, drawing out a chair and indicating for Challis to follow suit, ‘what do hypnotists, psychologists and clairvoyants have to do with proper police work?’

‘They have their place.’

There was silence. McQuarrie brushed lint from his sleeve. ‘What transpired?’

‘We have the make and model of the car, a partial numberplate, and a description of the driver.’

‘Does it tally with what my granddaughter told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose that’s something.’

Challis waited.

‘You’re treating this information seriously?’

‘I’m treating it as having potential, sir,’ said Challis carefully. ‘I’ll submit it to standard investigative procedures, as I would any information.’

That last sentence sounded clumsy in his mouth, as if he’d swallowed one of McQuarrie’s memos.

‘Good. Anything else makes us look inept, as if we’re clutching at straws.’ McQuarrie paused. ‘But getting back to this rag of yours.’

‘Rag?’

‘The Progress. There have been rumblings.’

When McQuarrie failed to elaborate, Challis said, ‘What rumblings, sir, and what do they have to do with me?’

McQuarrie sat back in his chair and touched his fingertips together. Everything about the man is staged, a clichй, Challis thought, as McQuarrie said, ‘It’s felt, in certain quarters, that Ms Kane has been overstepping the mark.’

McQuarrie paused, but this time Challis didn’t fill the silence. He gazed at the superintendent, forcing the man to elaborate.

‘The material she chooses to publish is divisive, and potentially libellous.’

McQuarrie stopped. Challis said, ‘Since when is that a police matter, sir? Has there been a formal complaint of actual wrongdoing?’

‘It’s a police matter,’ McQuarrie snarled, ‘when a senior officer has an affair with the editor and passes sensitive information to her.’

Challis felt a pulse of anger, quick and hot, and it must have shown in his eyes, for McQuarrie swallowed and braced himself in his chair.

‘Don’t do anything you’ll later regret, Hal.’

Challis’s voice, when he found it, was a low, dangerous rasp. ‘My private life is no one’s concern but my own. As for police matters, I would never jeopardise an investigation. Never.’

‘But she’s your girlfriend. You pass things on to her.’

‘No,’ said Challis. ‘Sir, what’s this about?’

‘The Progress hasn’t always been a friend of the police,’ McQuarrie said, ‘but we’ll leave that aside.’ He seemed to search for the words. ‘I was wondering if you could have a quiet word with Ms Kane.’

Something about McQuarrie’s wet mouth and eyes then said nudge nudge, wink wink, as if he were offering Challis a blokey endorsement for having sex with Tessa, for what might be said in bed before, during and after love play.

Challis stood. ‘With respect, sir, you’re not listening to me, and I have better things to do.’

His head was pounding when he reached the foyer of the police station. He felt enraged, fretful, impotent, and didn’t trust himself to remain in the building. He hadn’t eaten and his blood sugar was low. He threaded blindly through the people waiting for service at the front desk, intending to make his way to Cafй Laconic and its coffee and focaccias, when he heard footsteps and felt a tug on his sleeve.

‘Hal,’ beseeched the super, ‘I need your help.’