"The Dragon Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disher Garry)

Nineteen

D

aybreak, Wednesday, 3 January. Challis hadn’t been long at the burnt house before the fire inspector arrived and talked him through it.

‘It’s my belief the seat of the fire is here, at the kitchen stove. A hot, dry night, hot northerly wind outside, plenty of natural accelerants like cooking oil, cardboard food packets, wooden wall cabinets. Then weatherboard external walls, wooden roofing beams.’

He pointed. ‘See that? Open window, creating a draught.’

Challis said, ‘How do you know it’s the stove?’

‘Look.’

Challis looked. The stove top was as black and twisted as anything else in the ruin.

‘See that? That’s the remains of a saucepan, a chip fryer. That’s the seat of your fire.’

Challis went away wondering why the victim had been cooking on such a hot night, and why she’d been cooking so late at night.

Ellen Destry made it a point always to switch off when she was at work. Switch off the things that had happened earlier, at home, in the bedroom or around the kitchen table.

She rang the post office. The dead woman was called Clara Macris. Originally from New Zealand, the postmaster thought, judging by the accent.

That’s as far as Ellen got. She could feel the badness creeping up on her: the abductions, the woman burning to death. She looked out of the incident room window and there was Rhys Hartnett, effortlessly lifting and measuring, whistling even, as he worked, while at home she had a husband who was getting fat because he drank and sat in a Traffic Division car all day, jealous because he sensed that she felt something for Rhys, who’d been around to the house three times now, measuring and planning, and resentful because she earned more than he did.

She’d said, as she’d headed out to her car after breakfast, ‘I’ll be late tonight. I’ll get myself something to eat.’

The kitchen door opened on to the carport. In the early days, Alan would have walked her to it and kissed her goodbye. Now he couldn’t even be bothered to look up at her. ‘Whatever.’

Morning light streamed into the kitchen, giving the room a falsely homely look. Larrayne was still in bed. Alan was reading the Herald Sun and forking eggs and bacon into his mouth. His moustache glistened. After each mouthful he patted it dry. Ellen stood in the doorway, watching for a moment, jingling her keys. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He looked up. ‘What’s what supposed to mean?’

‘You said “whatever”. What do you mean by that?’

He shrugged, went back to his breakfast. ‘Doesn’t mean anything. You’ll be late tonight, you’ll get yourself something to eat, me and Larrayne will have to fare for ourselves again, so what’s new? The story of this marriage.’

She almost went back to the chair opposite his. ‘The story of every police marriage. We knew that when we started. Mature adults know how to work around that.’

He belched, a deliberate liquid sound of contempt. ‘Mature? What a joke.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You go around this house like you’re on heat, like you’re a teenager whose tits have been squeezed for the first time.’

‘Well, if someone’s squeezing them, it sure as hell isn’t you,’ she’d said, and she’d slammed out of the house.

Now she picked up the phone. A long shot, but she was calling the New Zealand police. It would be different if Alan had something concrete to be jealous about, but her lunch with Rhys Hartnett hadn’t developed into anything. Rhys himself had seemed-not evasive, exactly, but conscious of the proprieties of getting involved with a married woman, especially one who was a cop. The dial tone went on and on. As for Larrayne, her judgment of Rhys was brief and to the point. ‘He’s a creep, mum, and a sleazebag.’

‘Hal, I’m cutting at eleven,’ the pathologist said.

‘Beautifully put, Freya.’

‘You know me.’

‘Eleven o’clock. I’ll be there.’

The region’s autopsies were carried out in a small room attached to Peninsula General Hospital in Mornington. When Challis arrived, Freya Berg had a student with her in the autopsy room, a young woman. Challis stood back, a handkerchief smeared with Vicks under his nose, and observed.

White tiles, pipes, hoses, a constant trickle of water. The pathologist and her assistant wore green rubber aprons and overshoes, and goggles waiting around their necks to protect their eyes against the bone chips and blood thrown up by the electric saw. The table had a perforated, channelled stainless-steel top, pipes at each corner running down to drains in the industrial-grade linoleum floor. A hose dribbled water as Freya Berg cut into the body. Above her, dazzle-free lamps. Extractor fans hummed in the ceiling, ready to take away the stupefying odour of the stomach contents and internal organs.

Freya said:

‘Most fire victims die of smoke inhalation. Their bodies will be intact and recognisable, although some may reveal surface burns, particularly to the hands and face. In these instances the evidence is all there in the lungs. If there is little smoke residue in the lungs, then look for another obvious cause, such as failure of the heart. The most surprising subjects may succumb to heart failure under extreme stress. But this-this one’s, shall we say, been cooked.’

Together Freya and her assistant began to turn the body on the cutting table. Two patches of oily white colour in the blackness of the upper arm and the hip stopped them.

The assistant photographed the black flank of the body, and then Freya teased the fabric away with tweezers. ‘Ah. Cotton, I believe. A nightdress? T-shirt? She was lying on her side when the flames finally reached her.’

They completed turning the body over. Freya began to cut.

The student assistant grew agitated. ‘Epidural haemorrhage, Dr Berg,’ she said. ‘Bone fractures. Like she’s been beaten up.’

The pathologist smiled tolerantly. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it? But don’t jump to conclusions. Haemorrhaging and bone fractures are one result of extreme heat.’

Challis stepped forward, still holding the Vicks under his nose. ‘So you’re saying she simply burnt to death.’

‘Preliminary finding only, Hal. I haven’t finished yet.’

‘I have,’ Challis said, and he pushed through the door to where the air was breathable.

Boyd had come to her in the early hours of the morning, smelling of soot and sweat and smoke, with a kind of snarling hunger for her body. ‘We fucked like rabbits.’ It was a phrase from twenty years ago, when she was a student, and each new affair started like that, hot and greedy, so you barely paused for breath. She hadn’t thought she’d ever find that level of intensity again.

But now it was lunchtime and she had clients to see. Boyd lay sprawled on his stomach. He looked beautiful-if streaked with soot. A nice neat backside, nice legs and a tapering back, but God, the smell-stale sweat, smoke and cum and her own contribution. She’d had to scrub herself in the shower. He’d be gone when she got back tonight. She’d have to wash the sheets and pillowcases and air the house. She had a beautiful house, and the clash between it and what Boyd Jolic represented never failed to puzzle and excite her.

Pam Murphy found the Tank in the canteen. ‘I’ve just seen van Alphen. He wants us to doorknock Quarterhorse Lane. Seems no-one knows anything about the woman who got burnt last night.’

Tankard forked rice into his mouth and chewed consideringly. ‘But Van knows her.’

‘Does he?’

‘Yeah. He went round there a few times. Her mailbox got burnt. He knows her.’

‘There’s knowing and there’s knowing.’

‘Oh, very deep, Murph. You must come from a family of brains or something.’

‘Look, the fact that van Alphen saw her when her mailbox got burnt doesn’t mean he knows where she came from or who her family is. That’s what we have to find out.’

Tankard scraped up the dregs from his plate. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

Pam drove. Beside her, Tankard was racked with yawns.

‘I was directing traffic last night. Didn’t even go home. Showered and changed at the station. God I’m buggered.’

And I’m not, Pam thought. I worked through the night too, but that doesn’t count. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘Was it accidental?’

Tankard shrugged. ‘Couldn’t say. They reckon it started in the kitchen.’

A short time later, as they turned into Quarterhorse Lane, Pam leaned forward to stare and said, ‘What’s going on?’

At least a dozen cars were parked along the fenceline on both sides of Quarterhorse Lane, restricting traffic to one narrow strip of corrugated, potholed dirt.

‘Gawkers,’ said Tankard contemptuously. ‘Ghouls.’

As they approached the ruin, they saw people with cameras. Twice, at least, Pam thought, their van was photographed as it passed along the avenue of cars and turned into the driveway of the burnt house. Tankard wound down his window and shouted, ‘Haven’t you people got anything better to do?’

‘It’s a free country.’

Pam wound down her window. ‘Move along please, or you’ll be arrested for obstruction.’

‘Police harassment.’

‘Yeah, I love you too,’ Pam muttered, following the driveway between small scorched cypress bushes. ‘God, they’re in here, too.’

Two women were aiming their cameras at a CFA volunteer, who was wearing his full fire-fighting kit. He was grinning, his overalls a streak of vivid yellow against the charred beams and blackened roofing iron.

A man wearing fireproof boots, grey trousers, a white shirt and a hardhat stepped out of the ruin. He was carrying a clipboard. ‘It’s like the Bourke Street Mall here.’ He cast a contemptuous look at the CFA volunteer. ‘Bloody cowboys.’

Pam read the ID clipped to the man’s belt. He was a fire brigade inspector. ‘We’ll clear everyone away, sir.’

‘Thanks. I actually caught someone nicking souvenirs earlier. This woman, could be your old granny, nicking ceramic dolls from out of the ashes.’

‘Sir, did you find anything to tell us who the victim was? Any papers, deed box, wall safe, anything at all?’

‘Not a thing,’ the fire inspector said.

Going home from work on his trailbike, bumping down Quarterhorse Lane at two o’clock in the arvo for a quick gawk at the house that got burnt, gave Danny an idea. All those cars, all those people with nothing better to do, people he knew… Well, if they were here, looking at the burnt house, they weren’t home in their own houses, now, were they?

‘Was that young Danny Holsinger?’

‘It was.’

‘Up to no good.’

‘Bet on it,’ Pam said.

‘I’ll radio it in, ask the others to keep an eye open.’

Pam turned right, away from the cars of the gawkers, and drove for one third of a kilometre to the next driveway, which took them to a large wooden structure shaped like a pergola. A sign said, ‘Tasting Room.’

‘Good wine here,’ Tankard said.

Pam stared at him. Had he liked the wine or had he simply liked the drinking? A woman came around the side of the building. She wore overalls and carried a small stepladder.

‘You’ve come about the fire?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s not much I can tell you. We decided to evacuate, just in case. Didn’t come back till this morning.’

‘Actually, we’re after information about the householder,’ Pam said.

‘You mean Clara?’

‘Yes.’

‘Poor woman. What a dreadful thing. Was it an accident?’

‘We believe so. What can you tell us about her?’

‘Not much. In her late twenties, New Zealander. I don’t think I ever knew what her surname was, or I’ve forgotten it if I did know.’

‘Friends? Relatives? Anything like that?’

‘Can’t help you, sorry. She kept to herself.’

The next driveway, at the top of the hill, took them to a large house with a view across Waterloo to the refinery point on the bay. The curtains were drawn in all of the windows and no-one answered when they knocked at the front and back doors. Pam peered through a gap in the lockup garage and saw a newish-looking Mercedes.

Then they heard a tin clatter in the gardening shed and came upon an elderly man pouring petrol into a ride-on mower.

‘God, you nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘Do you live here, sir?’

‘Me? No. I pop in now and then, do the mowing, watering, check on things. Why? What’s up?’

Pam got out her notebook. ‘Can you tell me who does live here?’

‘Stella Riggs. She’s away for a few days.’

Pam noted the details, including a reminder to come back and question Riggs. ‘Sir, do you know anything about the fire down the road?’

‘Me? Nothing. Should I?’

‘A woman called Clara died in it. We’re anxious to trace her relatives.’

‘Don’t know a thing about her.’

‘Do you live locally, sir?’

‘No.’

Pam looked around pointedly. ‘I don’t see a vehicle.’

The old man indicated a rusty bicycle. ‘What do you think that is?’

Danny had been seen going over the fence. He was also seen coming back, this time by Sergeant van Alphen and a constable in a divisional van.

‘Danny, my son.’

‘Shit.’

‘Now look what you’ve gone and done. Perfectly good VCR, and you have to drop it in the dirt.’

‘I can explain. The heads need cleaning and I was just taking it around to-’

Van Alphen punched him, not hard, but enough to make him reconsider his position. ‘What was that, Danny? I didn’t quite catch that.’

Tears came unbidden to Danny’s eyes and he saw it was true, what they said about van Alphen. ‘Don’t hit me no more. I want to see Constable Murphy.’

‘What do you want to see her for?’

‘She’ll give me immunity.’

‘That’s a big word for a squidgy little shit like you. And I doubt it, somehow.’

They took Danny to the station and charged him. But the Pam Murphy chick wasn’t in the station, so Danny said, ‘I want to call my lawyer.’

Nunn was quick off the mark. There in ten minutes. Danny couldn’t believe it. She demanded time alone with him, and as soon as the door was shut she said, ‘You’re a fuckup, aren’t you, Danny, eh?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Danny looked at her hotly. Thinks she’s so good, all dolled up in her tight skirt and jacket, briefcase, hair looking like its been washed and brushed for hours, smelling like a bottle of perfume’s fallen all over her, nasty superior look on her face. ‘You got no right to call me names.’

‘I’ve got every right. As your lawyer, I’ve got every right. What did you think you were doing? Broad daylight. You’ve got a good job. Can’t you be satisfied with that? I can’t go spending all my time bailing you out of trouble.’

Fucking stuck-up bitch. Who did she think she was? ‘So, am I getting out or aren’t I?’

‘Mate,’ Marion Nunn said, ‘quite frankly I can’t get you out of here quick enough. You can’t be trusted to keep your gob shut.’

Now, what was that supposed to mean? Still, better out than in.

Challis picked up the ringing phone and snapped off his name. It was six o’clock and he wanted to go home. ‘Challis.’

‘It’s Freya. Got a minute?’

Challis sat back in his office chair and stared at the ceiling. ‘This sounds like bad news.’

‘It is.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘The lungs. Fresh and pink inside.’

Challis put his feet up on the edge of his desk. ‘You’re saying she’d stopped breathing before the fire started.’

‘I am.’

‘Heart?’

‘The heart was fine. But you know those bone fractures, and the bleeding?’

‘How will I ever forget.’

‘Well, most were due to the extreme heat, but not all. She’d been bashed around first. Beaten to death, in other words.’

Challis said goodbye and stared at the wall. After a while, he called the Progress and told Tessa Kane, ‘You might want to stop the presses.’

And wondered at his motives.