The Dragon Man

Thirteen

On Boxing Day the Age and the Herald Sun carried stories about the missing girl. At 8 a.m., Tessa Kane came to the station and told Challis that she was bringing out an issue between Christmas and the New Year after all. ‘We received another letter. It was hand-delivered to the box we have next to the main entrance.’

Challis spread it out inside its clear plastic slip case and read: Like you, my eyes are everywhere. But mine know what to look for. Do yours?

‘Fancies himself,’ Challis said. ‘Well, that’s true to form.’ He sighed. ‘You’ve taken a copy?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll send this to the lab.’

‘We go to press tomorrow night.’

‘Tess, you’re inflaming the situation.’

‘Try and stop me, Hal. I’ve had legal advice.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Challis said. ‘You’re scaring people, and in danger of attracting crackpots, not to mention copycats.’

‘That doesn’t negate the fact that there’s been two murders and a possible third.’

‘At this stage it’s an abduction.’

‘Hal, come on.’

Challis said, ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t publish, that’s all.’

Ellen parked her car. Rhys was waiting for her again. Working on Boxing Day? Talk about keen. He crossed to where she was standing and handed her an envelope. ‘Your quote.’

She opened it, saying, ‘Rhys, this is the season to be jolly. It’s also the season to get the phone bill, the gas bill, the electricity bill…’

She said it with a grin, but there was a flash of irritation and he said, ‘I thought you were serious. I kept the costs down as much as possible.’ He turned toward the shrubbery border to cross into the grounds of the courthouse.

‘Rhys, wait.’

She caught up to him and said, ‘Look, I didn’t mean to offend you. You must be wondering what you’ve got yourself into with my family.’

He was still prickly. ‘I got the distinct impression the other day that your husband doesn’t want aircon fitted.’

Ellen said, keeping it light, ‘Oh, he’ll come around eventually.’

‘He didn’t seem to like me much. That I can do without.’

There was no point in avoiding what had happened. Rhys had stayed for a barbecue lunch, but it had been a disaster. ‘Alan gets like that sometimes. It’s not a pleasant job he’s got, he sees terrible road accidents.’ She grinned. ‘But yeah, I don’t think another barbecue is a good idea just now.’

She saw the tightness go out of him a little. He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get back to work. Why don’t you look over the quote and I’ll catch up with you later in the week.’

She said, ‘A drink would be nice.’

He hesitated. She seemed to wait for a long time for him to smile and say, ‘Good idea.’

Challis briefed them at eight-thirty, saying: ‘Unger, curiously, was snatched at dawn, when she’d gone for an early morning jog. But what does that tell us? Not much. Does our man prowl up and down the highway for hours every night, to see what he can find? Was he coming home when he saw Unger, or on his way somewhere, to work perhaps? Was it opportunistic, or had he seen her jogging before?

‘Which brings us to his psychological make-up. A loner, according to one of our shrinks. Probably smart, in his thirties, a normally functioning citizen on the surface. You’d live next door to him for years and not know he liked to rape and kill young women. Probably some trouble in his childhood. Drunken, abusive father, unhealthy attachment to his mother. Unable now to relate easily to women, beyond surface pleasantries. We’ve heard it all before, there’s no point knowing these things unless to have them proven after the fact. The point is, he looks, and behaves, like the man next door, he has no work, family or other link to his victims, and so we’ll simply have to rely on luck and chance along with good old-fashioned detective work.

‘I won’t kid you, things have stalled. Not much forensic joy from the bodies, and nothing on the letter sent to the Progress. The paper comes from laser printer paper available at any newsagent and many supermarkets. The printer was a Canon, and they’re a dime a dozen, found in businesses and homes all over the country. The envelope was post office issue. There are prints on the envelope, but they’re smudged and likely to be from mail-sorters and posties. We’re checking that now.’

He paused. ‘Since then, another letter has come.’

‘Any more on the vehicle, boss?’

It was one of the Rosebud detectives. So far there was no sign that Ellen Destry’s crew, or the reinforcements arranged by McQuarrie, were losing faith in him. ‘No. And once you ask yourself who on the Peninsula uses a four-wheel drive, you want to have a Bex and a good lie down.’

He started numbering his fingers. ‘First, any farmer, orchardist, winegrower or stock breeder. Then we have your ordinary suburban cowboy, who’s never taken his pride and joy off the sealed roads. After that, your average house painter, electrician and handyman.’ He stopped numbering. ‘Not to mention mobile mechanics, courier drivers, shire council workers, power-line inspectors, food transporters.’

He gazed at them. ‘The link we need could come by accident. We have to be alert, and read the daily crime reports. Maybe our man is known to us, or will become known to us, for a quite different offence. Maybe his vehicle’s been involved in something-Yes, Scobie?’

Scobie Sutton was half way out of his chair. ‘Boss, while we’re on that subject, I’ve got one possibility.’

‘Go on.’

‘On Saturday I went out to Tidal River to question a gypsy woman for theft. She was camped there with three blokes and at least one kid. Two camper homes, one caravan, a couple of Holden Jackaroos. The thing is, she came to the station last week more or less saying she’d had a vision of where we could find the body. Near water, she said. I thought she was a crank. Sorry, boss.’

Challis was angry but tried not to show it. ‘You’d better get out there straight away.’

‘Yes, boss.’

Kees van Alphen delivered a second freezer bag. ‘You’re really getting through this stuff, Clara. Hadn’t you better cut down a bit?’

He felt her arms go around his neck. ‘Gives me an appetite. Haven’t you noticed?’

‘I’ll say.’

‘Then what’s your problem?’

‘Supply, that’s my problem. Getting found out. Going to gaol. How’s that for starters?’

‘Then you’d better bust a few dealers, hadn’t you? Restock the evidence cupboard and deal direct.’

He’d thought of that. He could do it, but didn’t feel good about it.

Afterwards, on her patterned carpet, lit by the curtained window light, he traced her nipple and said, ‘I have to go.’

‘So soon?’

‘The neighbours are going to wonder why there’s always a police car in your driveway.’

‘Them? They scarcely know I exist.’

Scobie Sutton asked for two vans, a police car and two probationary constables. Pam found herself driving him. She’d had a call earlier to say that her mother had fallen, not badly, but enough to bruise her poor, ropey arm. Pam had been ironing her uniform when the call came, listening to a new CD, a compilation of ‘60s surfing songs: ‘Wipeout’, ‘Pipeline’, ‘Apache’, a couple of Beach Boys hits. Ginger had once told her you could hear, in the beat and the guitar of ‘60s surfing instrumentals, the shudder in the wall of a breaking wave, so she’d been listening hard, as she ironed her uniform shirt and longed for him.

Sutton broke in. ‘You know how my kid pronounces “quickly”? “Trickly.” To get her to go to the loo when she wakes in the morning we have to pretend her teddy needs a wee. So she rushes off to the loo on her little legs, saying, “Trickly, Blue Ted, trickly, hold it in, hold it in.”‘

His bony face was wreathed in smiles. ‘Huh,’ Pam said, trying to work up some good humour.

‘And vegemite sandwiches? She calls them sammymites.’

‘Cute.’

She sensed that Sutton had turned his protuberant eyes upon her, gauging her remark. After a while, he looked away again.

Five days until New Year’s Eve. She had time off, and thought about Ginger and the parties he was bound to be going to.

They entered the Tidal River caravan park, skirted the central reserve, and made their way to a dismal, unsheltered corner by the main road.

Sutton groaned. ‘They’ve legged it.’

Hard-baked, grassless earth, spotted with oil, but no sign of any gypsies. Pam watched Sutton get out of the Commodore and peer at the ground, as if searching for tyre tracks. He looked livid. Then he crossed to a rubbish bin and began hauling out food scraps, takeaway containers and bottles. At the bottom was what looked to Pam like a wad of black cloth. Then Sutton shook it out, and she saw straps and buckles, and realised that he was looking at a backpack. It was a mess. Sutton shoved it back into the bin.