Snapshot

53

Ellen appeared in the incident room just after lunch on Wednesday, a plaster on her neck, moving stiffly, all of her loose-limbed grace vanished, fatigue lines and pallor marking her face. But she was cheerful and itching to work-and itching to know how Challis was. She couldn’t read him; he put her with Scobie Sutton, checking the public’s responses to Joe Ovens’s descriptions of the Commodore and the driver. Before very long she was sighing. It was soon clear that-as usually happened when photofits and vehicle descriptions were released by the media-the investigation had moved from a position of no help from the public to too much.

‘Here’s a good one,’ she said, reading from a message slip. ‘To quote: “Hypnosis takes the subject into another dimension, and so anything Mr Ovens saw relates to a different time and place.”‘

Scobie grunted. Like her, he’d divided the message slips that had come in since Monday evening into two piles: ‘immediate attention’ and ‘maybe’. All would be checked, however: even the crazy and the greedy tell the truth sometimes. ‘Half of these want to know if there’s a reward,’ he said.

‘And the other half want to do the dirty on their husbands, brothers or ex-boyfriends,’ Ellen said. She paused. ‘Here’s another, female caller, wouldn’t give her name: “The man in the picture is a well-known al Qaeda operative. He is wearing white face paint to disguise his dark skin.’” She caught Scobie’s eye, hoping for a chortle, but Scobie merely looked sad, as if he wanted to help all the crazy, lonely people in the world. She wished she were doing this with Challis. With Challis you could have a giggle. She put the woman’s message slip on the maybe pile, muttering, ‘Your TV is talking to you again, love.’

She glanced across the room to Challis’s partitioned office. The door was ajar; he was going through a list of numberplate combinations and matching them to 1980s Holdens. He looked drawn.

She kept sorting, then stopped. ‘Ah,’ she murmured.

Scobie looked up. ‘Another sad creature?’

She ignored him, went straight to Challis, knocking and pulling the spare chair up to his desk. He was on the phone, saying, ‘I deny that. She was good at her job,’ and hanging up. ‘The super,’ he said.

Ellen understood. ‘He read Tessa’s profile of Janine.’

Challis nodded tiredly. ‘What’s up?’

‘Something promising. A call early this morning from a mechanic in Safety Beach. Until about six months ago he used to service a 1983 Commodore, off-white in colour, one pale yellow door. In fact, he sourced the door for the owner from a wrecked car.’

‘Owner’s name?’

‘Nora Gent, an address in Safety Beach,’ Ellen said.

She watched Challis scan a list, and was relieved to see his mood lighten. ‘Here it is, Nora Gent, registered owner of a 1983 Holden Commodore, QQP-359.’ He paused. ‘Registration has lapsed. It was due for renewal four months ago.’

‘She sold it? Dumped it? It was stolen?’

‘Who knows? But we have to talk to her.’ He reached for the telephone directory and leafed through it, muttering, ‘Gent, Gent, Gent. Not listed.’

‘She moved away? Got married and changed her name?’

‘Useless to speculate,’ Challis said. ‘I’ll take Scobie and have a word with her.’

‘No,’ Ellen said.

‘No?’

‘Take me.’

‘Your neck…’

‘I’m fine.’

He shrugged. ‘Grab your coat.’

Challis drove, headlights on, heading towards the other side of the Peninsula. It was mid afternoon on a day that would struggle to reach 13 degrees. Another sea fret, the fog mostly burnt away but hanging in dismal patches here and there over the highway and in the hollows of sodden paddocks. Ellen hunched deeper into her coat, wishing Challis would say something. The recent past seemed to fill the space between his seat and hers like an intrusive backseat passenger. It was made up of guilt, embarrassment and desire that she knew was reciprocated but could not-and should not-play itself out.

I have to grow up, she told herself. I’m married. I have responsibilities. And workplace romances are tawdry and clichйd.

No, this one wouldn’t have been, she amended a moment later. This one would have been special. Wrong, but special.

Not feeling very much better about the situation, she coughed and said, ‘Hal, I’m sorry about Tessa.’

He nodded. ‘You did your best. I’m sorry you got shot.’

She wondered how to put it. ‘You must feel bad.’

‘Of course I do. No one deserves to die like that. She was leaving the job, you know.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘Ellen,’ he said, ‘to put it plainly, I was fond of her, I’ll miss her, but there was no future for us.’

And none for us, Ellen told herself.

Twenty minutes later, they were in Safety Beach. Here the wind blew cruelly off the bay, and the mechanic took them into his office, wiping his hands with an oily rag. Greasy thumbprints everywhere, on invoice books, work sheets, the Progress, out-of-date calendars, spare-parts brochures. Ellen was careful not to sit, but she didn’t mind the grime or the odours of oil, grease and petrol. There was something solid and dependable about the mechanic and his garage.

‘I went back through the paperwork,’ he told them. ‘Nora Gent, lives right here in Safety Beach.’

‘What can you tell us about her?’

‘Cheerful, not that old-about thirty?-and always paid her bill on time.’

‘You fitted a yellow door to her car?’

‘That’s right. Hers had rusted through, a cop magnet-no offence-so I found her another door from a wreck.’

‘Which door?’

The mechanic stared at the ceiling and back through the months. ‘Driver’s door,’ he said finally.

‘What else can you tell us about her?’

‘Like what? I can’t see her shooting someone, if that’s what you mean. Lovely girl.’

‘Her job,’ Challis said patiently, ‘boyfriend, brother, husband.’

‘She worked for a travel agent, I know that much, always trying to get me to book a holiday. “I’ll get you a good deal,” she’d say.’

‘Family and friends?’

‘Don’t know, sorry.’

‘You say she stopped coming to you about six months ago. Do you know why?’

‘Wouldn’t have a clue. I have short-term customers and long-term customers. They don’t always tell me what their plans are. But if you want me to hazard a guess, she sold the car and moved away.’

‘Or moved away and took the car with her?’

The mechanic shook his head emphatically. ‘The car’s still around, only she’s no longer driving it.’

Ellen stiffened. ‘Still around?’

‘Yeah. I see it here and there, off and on.’

‘Driving by? Stopping off for fuel?’

‘Just here and there.’

‘Who’s driving it?’

‘Some guy.’

‘Name? Address?’

‘Wouldn’t have a clue, sorry.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Let me see now… Not that old, shaved head, a bit scruffy and overweight.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’

‘That’s about it, sorry.’

‘You’ve been a great help,’ Challis said.

And they drove around to Nora Gent’s address, where a tall Ethiopian woman showed them a small white card on a hallstand inside the front door. On it, in a bold purple hand, was the name Nora Gent and an address in New Zealand.