Whispering Death

13

Challis lived on a dirt road inland of Waterloo and woke on Saturday morning to find an SMS from Ellen Destry: Arrvd Spore Yerp 2moro XXX.

Arrived Singapore, Europe tomorrow, kisses. His spirits galvanised, he walked with vigour in the dawn light and planned his weekend. Doorknock the back roads where Chloe Holst was found this morning, talk to the aircraft broker this afternoon, do some odd jobs on Ellen’s house tomorrow.

By 8.30 he was in his old Triumph, heading for the nature reserve where Chloe Holst had been dumped and thinking about a new car. The Triumph was a rustbucket, rattly and unreliable. Distinctive to look at and almost fun with the top down, but unreliable. He should sell it. Sell it and the plane, he could afford to buy a decent one. He’d miss the Triumph’s dampish winds, though, its sensitivity to the Braille of every road surface.

There was a crime-scene van at the reserve, two officers picking around the outskirts. There’d be others inside the reserve itself. He drove on until he’d reached the end of the road and turned into the first driveway.

A small kit house hung with potted plants, a handful of goats in a pen behind it. A young woman, vaguely hippie in a long skirt and leather sandals, with grimy ankles, answered his knock. She was sweetly effete, incense hanging in the fibres of her clothing, and she hadn’t seen or heard anything.

The next house, half a kilometre along, was a severe arrangement of corrugated iron cubes that advertised itself as ‘The Wellness Centre’. No one answered his knock.

No one at home at the next stop, either, a weatherboard house in a yard choked with trail bikes and dogs, the dogs all teeth, ribs, drool and rusty chains. Then he came to a small brick house set in several hectares of unloved apple trees, where a raw-boned woman said viciously: ‘Someone pinched our ride-on mower last month and it took you lot a week to come out and have a bloody look. So no, I didn’t see anybloodything on Thursday night, all right?’

The last house before the T-intersection with the Dandenong-Waterloo road was announced by a rotting gate. A rotting mailbox, a weedy driveway that disappeared betweens the trunks of the highest pine trees Challis had ever seen. He opened the gate, drove through, closed it and bounced the Triumph over ruts to a small fibro farmhouse so deep in the shadows that the walls wore moss. It looked diseased. Weeds spouted in the gutters. Thin hens pecked desultorily and an old dog lifted and dropped its tail. There must be little houses like this all over the world, he thought. Rural America, rural Norway. It’s where the old and the poor and the forgotten go to hide, in the only space they can navigate.

He got out and approached the house. Reaching the front step, he turned to get his bearings. The road was clearly visible: he simply felt like he was buried in the woods. He knocked, and after some time an old man opened the door a crack, revealing one eye and a whiskery cheek. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ Challis said, holding up his ID and saying he was from the police.

He didn’t get a chance to say why. The old man disappeared into the gloom, returning a moment later with a spiral-bound notebook. ‘What day?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Night time? Day time?’

He’d scribbled vehicle make and registration numbers in his notebook, together with times and dates. ‘Thursday night,’ Challis said.

‘Thursday, Thursday. Sorry, I was at me daughter’s.’

It didn’t matter, Chloe Holst had been driven to the reserve in her own car. But her rapist might have scouted around in the days and weeks before snatching her, so Challis said: ‘Your notebook could be very useful to the police. May we borrow it? I’ll make a photocopy and return it on Monday.’

He was expecting resistance, but the man stuck out his chest and firmed his chin. ‘Happy to help, happy to help.’

Challis took the proffered notebook, flipped through the pages, frowned and looked more closely at the scribbled information. ‘These are all trucks and vans, not cars.’

‘Well, obviously.’

‘I don’t follow.’

The old man couldn’t believe Challis’s ignorance. ‘You don’t think them people smugglers come into Western Port Bay with just one or two people aboard, do you?’