Whispering Death

17

Eight a.m. Monday, Challis checking his pigeonhole for mail. A shift was going off duty, another coming on, so the main corridor was hectic, uniformed and plainclothed police and civilian staff shouldering in and out of doors, balancing files, equipment belts, canteen tea and coffee. Since Friday he’d received several memos and a handful of flyers, most of which he tossed into the recycle bin before heading upstairs. An officer from the sex crimes squad was due, but she was coming down from the city and Challis had no idea when she’d arrive.

As always, he brewed coffee in the tea room, making enough for Scobie Sutton and Pam Murphy, who were not in yet. After that he sat, thinking, in his corner office.

The Triumph had been difficult to start that morning, and the idea of selling had grown firmer in his mind. There was bound to be a Triumph nut somewhere in Australia, willing to fork out for an elderly TR4-but the car was probably worth very little, and if, like the Niekirks, he wasn’t allowed to sell his plane, he’d never be able to afford a new car.

Challis sipped his coffee and swivelled in his chair, using his feet on the open bottom drawer of his desk as leverage. The outer offices were quiet. He checked his watch, idled a while, then jerked forward and typed ‘Trading Post’ into Google, waited five years for the site to load, and made an Australia-wide search of TR4 prices.

Christ. One car in the whole country, fully restored, low mileage on a new motor, new everything, asking price $35,000. Surely his old bomb would fetch at least twenty?

He continued to idle, listening to voices and footsteps. Pam Murphy arrived, stuck her head around his door, grinned and chatted. They never ran their tongues for long. She disappeared into the tea room, and then Sutton was knocking, saying, ‘Someone from sex crimes at the front desk.’

‘Thanks. You and Murph wait in the briefing room.’

Challis headed downstairs, pausing for a moment to gauge the visitor on the other side of the glass before he stepped through to the foyer. He saw a young woman with long black hair and stylish black-rimmed glasses, dressed in a cotton jacket over tight jeans and a T-shirt. She also wore the fatigue of long hours, but that vanished when Challis was buzzed through. She seemed to spark with energy, sticking out her hand, giving her name as Jeannie Schiff, sergeant. And she stared at Challis, a sizing-up.

‘Thanks for coming down,’ Challis said. ‘As I said on the phone, our sexual offences team isn’t in place yet, so we could do with some help.’

‘Well, yeah,’ drawled Schiff. ‘Abduction and rape? A bit different from some sad bloke waving his penis at schoolgirls.’

Her voice was raspy, low, not unpleasant, but sharp underneath. Challis shrugged mentally and said, ‘My team’s upstairs.’

She followed him. He paused outside the briefing room. ‘Tea? Coffee? Proper coffee.’

‘You wouldn’t have green tea?’

Challis wouldn’t have had green tea before Pam Murphy joined CIU. Now the teabag jar was crammed with exotic brews. ‘No problem.’

The tea made, he introduced her to Sutton and Murphy and stepped back to prop up one of the side walls. The morning sun striped the long briefing room table. On the other side of the window he could see the treetops that marked the rear of the car park.

Schiff took command of the room, standing at the head of the table. All that had been tense, uncertain or vigilant about her had disappeared, replaced by an air of calm authority, a routine determination. She’d been through this before and knew how it would play out.

‘We’ll work this on several fronts,’ she announced, without preamble. ‘Witnesses, if any, local sex offenders, forensics, victimology.’

The morning sun was coming in hard behind her. She was a hazy shape, and, seeing his officers wince and shade their eyes, Challis stepped behind her and released the venetian blind. It fell with a clatter.

Schiff ignored him. He leaned his shoulder against the wall again.

‘I’m due in court this afternoon,’ Schiff said, glancing at her watch, ‘so this will be a racing visit, to get you started. I’ll be back tomorrow and then I can give you until the end of the week, okay?’ She didn’t pause to find out. ‘Right. Three main areas to action. First, do we have a list of local sex offenders? We need to start knocking on doors tomorrow.’

She cast an interrogative look at Challis, who said, ‘Constable Murphy will do that.’

Schiff flashed Pam a smile. ‘Next, the cop angle bothers me. Why would a police member announce himself? Did he hope to intimidate? Well, it did intimidate, but did he think Ms Holst would be too scared to tell police that she’d been raped by a police officer? I need someone to run a nationwide search of similar cases, cross-referenced against police who have been arrested, charged, jailed or suspected of sex offences, and against police officers whose ID or uniforms have been stolen recently.’

Scobie Sutton raised his hand. ‘I’ll do that.’

‘Good, thank you. Next, Ms Holst herself. Her movements last Thursday night, workmates, family, friends, old and current and wannabe boyfriends…I want to know who she is, in other words. Look at Facebook and Twitter to see if anyone had it in for her. Any altercations at work, pissed-off workmates and customers.’

Challis uncoiled from the wall. ‘Constable Murphy and I have been working on that.’

Schiff gave a vivid smile. ‘Terrific. Maybe we’ll get a result sooner than expected. Meanwhile, forensics. Early days yet, I imagine.’

Scobie Sutton stirred. ‘Preliminary results are in. Plenty of fibres and prints in and on the victim’s car, but no way of knowing whose.’

‘No hits in Crimtrac?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Anything at the scene?’

‘Ice-cream wrappers, plastic bags, Coke bottles, the usual.’

‘Anything on the victim?’

Here Sutton squirmed. ‘He cleaned her up, unfortunately. He used a condom, popular brand, according to the spermicide.’

He coughed to clear his throat. His words had conjured images that Sutton, who had been a detective for twelve years, couldn’t cope with.

‘Thank you, constable. I wonder about the cleaning up he did. A policeman? Someone who watches CSI on TV?’

They didn’t have an answer for her.

Pam Murphy seemed about to add to the discussion, but slumped in her seat again. The morning was deepening outside the police station.