Snapshot

61

By late afternoon they had an address for Vyner, search warrants and an arrest warrant. Four Armed Response officers would go in first. Challis supposed they were necessary, but they made him nervous. The country had almost zero gun ownership, so what did they do from one day to the next but train and fantasise? Over-trained and under-experienced, they had nothing to model their behaviour on but American movies. He watched their swagger in the foyer of Vyner’s building, young, trigger-happy men dressed in the latest street combat gear. They knew who Challis was: the cuckold whose wife set him up to be murdered by a fellow cop. They knew who Ellen was: the cop-the female cop-who’d let herself get shot. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to them, their gum-chewing jaws seemed to be saying.

Challis was almost glad that Vyner’s flat was empty. He’d asked for a watch on the place while the warrants were being sworn, and nobody had been spotted going in or out, but that hadn’t meant Vyner wasn’t there, prepared to shoot it out to the death. He stepped through the splintered doorframe-management had made a key available, but that wasn’t the Armed Response team’s style-and quickly prowled through the four spare, unloved Ikea rooms. He guessed that Vyner carried the habits of teenage detention, Navy life and prison with him, and had little room or need for possessions.

‘You can go now,’ he said, tired of edging around big men who were armed to the teeth.

‘What if he comes back?’

‘Post two officers in the corridor and two in the foyer,’ Challis said.

They filed out, their uniforms and equipment creaking and clinking. Challis stood at the window and looked out over the acres of new apartment buildings that had reclaimed some of the old factory districts beside the river. He’d lost touch with the city. He’d walked along Southbank with Ellen just now and wondered who the people were, eating in the outdoor cafes, walking along the river path and watching the jugglers. He guessed there was a lot of disposable income around nowadays. You didn’t see it in Waterloo.

‘Hal,’ said Ellen, coming up beside him. The setting sun was warm through the glass, bringing on a drowsy kind of desire in him, and he almost put his arm around her.

‘Find something?’

‘These,’ Ellen said.

She showed him a couple of notebooks. Challis flipped through them, stopping at key phrases here and there. ‘Some kind of anti-government, fundamentalist, Aryan survivalist nutcase?’ he surmised.

Ellen grinned. ‘Can you be more specific?’

‘Doesn’t make him any less dangerous.’

‘No.’

‘Here you are,’ said a voice.

They turned. McQuarrie stood there, brisk, overcoated, slapping fine leather gloves against one palm. Off to a Rotary dinner, guessed Challis sourly.

‘Sir.’

‘I understand you’ve identified the man who shot Janine?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Ellen, stepping forward as if to forestall criticisms the man might want to make. She began to lay it out for him, Vyner’s past and the possible importance of the Navy connection, but he was soon nodding impatiently and finally cut her off. ‘I expect this means my son is now in the clear.’

It was issued as a challenge, not a question. Ellen looked to Challis for guidance, but Challis felt a surge of anger, which went unrecognised by McQuarrie, who went on, ‘You were way off beam there, Hal, admit it. Wasted man-hours, unnecessary-’

The anger built in Challis, the product of weeks of frustration and grief. It was hot and blinding. He had to blink. He said tightly, ‘No one’s in the clear, least of all your son. He was, and is, a logical suspect.’

‘Logical? You dislike my son. There’s no logic involved.’

Ellen coughed. ‘I’ll continue searching,’ she said, and slipped out of the room. The men ignored her. They were facing off rigidly.

‘What have you got against Robert? Is it that he’s successful at what he does?’

Challis felt goaded. He fought it. ‘Identify and eliminate,’ he said. ‘That’s what we do. You know that.’

McQuarrie flushed. He curled his lip. ‘The politics of envy, Hal. My son explained it to me. It’s insidious, spread by people like Tessa Kane, but I have to say I didn’t expect that you would ascribe to-’

Too late he realised that he’d gone too far. ‘No offence,’ he said, taking a step back.

Challis advanced on him, stabbed a forefinger against the man’s softly padded breastbone. ‘She was a better person than you or your son will ever be.’

‘Take it easy.’

‘I will not take it easy. You’ve interfered in this case every step of the way. I’m sick of it. Back off.’

‘All right, all right, you’ve made your point.’

They’d gone well past admitting to a difference in rank, but they’d also talked out their fury. Their chests heaving, they stared at each other. They swallowed. Finally McQuarrie nodded curtly, left, and Challis stood for a while, willing himself to be fully calm again. Then Ellen was there, comfortingly close. ‘Pissing contest over?’ she said, nudging him.

He laughed, and it was a great release. ‘Let’s bring Lowry in again.’

It was late, dark and cold in Waterloo. ‘They were ex-Navy, Ray, just like you,’ Challis said, his voice clipped, in a little interview room along the corridor from Kellock’s office.

Ellen took that as her cue to remove photographs from the file in front of her and slide them across the table. ‘Nathan Gent and Trevor Vyner.’

‘Never heard of them. Never met them,’ Lowry said.

‘At one stage, all three of you were serving at the Navy base in Townsville.’

‘So? It’s a huge base.’

‘On duty, off duty, you had plenty of opportunities to meet them.’

Lowry’s legal aid lawyer, who looked about eighteen, gained sufficient nerve to say, ‘My client has answered your question, Sergeant Destry.’

Ellen ignored him. She tapped the photos. ‘They murdered Janine McQuarrie. Gent was the driver, Vyner the shooter. Then Vyner shot Gent, fearing he was a loose cannon, and later still he shot Tessa Kane.’ She looked up. ‘You had a beef with both women, Ray.’

Lowry’s lawyer said, ‘Unless you have hard evidence that my client knew these men, or conspired with them to kill anyone, then I suggest you let him go.’

‘Trevor Vyner,’ Challis said. ‘Ex-Navy, served two terms for fraud and burglary in New South Wales in 2003.’

‘So?’

‘Some Browning pistols went missing from the Navy armoury. The armourer was your mate. Did Vyner get those pistols direct from him or did you broker the deal?’

‘My client doesn’t know anything about missing guns or these murders,’ the lawyer said. ‘He left the Navy some time ago and is now a respected businessman.’

Challis said nothing but simply stared at Lowry. They had Vyner’s print on the car and he’d sent a pair of Vyner’s walking shoes to the lab, hoping the traces of vegetable matter in the treads would link Vyner to the shallow grave in Myers Reserve. But proving that Lowry had hired Vyner was not going to be so easy. There were no e-mails or phone records to link the three men to each other. Then again, Lowry had a shop full of mobile phones.

That’s when a uniformed sergeant entered the little room and motioned Challis to join him in the corridor. ‘Sorry, Hal, but we’ve got a woman at the front desk who claims her husband ordered the McQuarrie and Kane murders.’