Challis got in the drinks and then Ellen told them the story of Zara Selkirk and the chaplain of Landseer.
‘Punishment?’ said Pam Murphy.
‘Yes.’
Challis set down his glass. ‘The stepsister told you this?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you haven’t confirmed it with this Zara kid yet.’
‘Hal,’ Ellen said, ‘she wasn’t home.’
They were in the little side bar of a pub called the Two Bays, down from the yacht club and next to a maritime museum that consisted of a couple of anchors and a fishing net. The Two Bays was the main watering hole of the Waterloo police because it was favoured by yachting types and not the kinds of men, women and adolescents they’d arrested over the years-which didn’t mean that the yachting types were not criminals, just that they were less likely to have a criminal record and break a beer bottle or billiard cue over the head of a police officer who’d wandered in for a quiet drink.
Challis was drinking Cascade lager, Ellen gin-and-tonic, Murph lemon squash. He’d stop at one drink. The others would, too. They’d all had experience of long drinking sessions when they were young, in which everyone was expected to buy a round of drinks and the fallout might be a breath test or an accident on the way home and the loss of a career. Or the breakdown of a marriage. Or poor job performance and a spreading waistline. Challis thought back to an early posting, a rural station where he was a sergeant and had lost his wife’s regard to one of his colleagues. They’d all been heavy drinkers. It got incestuous. Eventually his wife and the colleague had lured him to a lonely back road to kill him. He’d been an impediment to their love or their lust and it was as if killing him was their only solution. If it hadn’t been a drinking culture, would they have taken more civilised measures? The pair of them had been jailed. The guy was still behind bars. Challis’s wife had taken her own life there.
He shook off the memory and said, too sharply, ‘When will you question her?’
A flicker of emotion in Ellen’s face. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, after a pause.
Oh, hell, thought Challis. ‘Sorry,’ he said, drawing his palms down his cheeks. ‘I had McQuarrie and Hindmarsh on my back this afternoon.’
‘Hindmarsh?’ asked Ellen, appalled.
‘Sooner you than me, boss,’ Murphy said.
Ellen gazed at him sympathetically. Behind her a large tinted window looked on to a little inlet and wharf where the fishing boats tied up. She said, ‘Did you tell him about the e-mail and the blog?’
‘You betcha.’
‘Did it shut him up?’
‘Yep.’
Pam Murphy was following the conversation with bewilderment. Challis showed her the printouts, watched her read them. ‘Could be motive lurking here, boss.’
‘Don’t I know it. But let’s go back to the Landseer connection first. Ells, could you go through it again?’
Ellen took a deep breath. ‘A Year 11 kid called Zara Selkirk was Lachlan Roe’s only appointment yesterday. When I learned that she wasn’t at school today I went around to her house. Her stepsister, Chelsea, answered the door. She was alone: father in London on business, Zara and stepmother in town.’ Ellen paused and looked at her colleagues with a bright, empty grin. ‘Apparently Chelsea is often alone. We’re talking about serious wealth and non-serious parenting here.’
Challis nodded. In his twenty years of police work he’d seen that the very wealthy were just as likely to overlook their kids as the very poor. At least the poor had reasons. He’d noticed something arid in the neglectful rich, even as they believed they had a creative side because they attended opera openings, a spiritual side because they were fond of their children, and an emotional side because they were always infuriated by someone or something. ‘You’ll need to confirm that Zara and her mother were up in the city last night.’
Ellen looked at him levelly and said, ‘Of course.’
Challis winced again. ‘Go on.’
‘It’s a long shot, but they might have wanted harm to come to the chaplain. Apparently Zara and two of her friends developed a hatred for the school librarian, Merle Richardson, and thought they’d try a little cyber bullying. They set up a fake Facebook site for Mrs Richardson in which she outlines her sexual fantasies and supplies a phone number and e-mail address. The poor woman had a breakdown.’
‘The kids were found out?’ Pam asked.
Ellen nodded. ‘But not reported to police. They weren’t even expelled or suspended.’
Challis wasn’t surprised. The school wouldn’t have wanted the publicity-and nor would the victim-and although cyber bullying was rife in schools and other institutions, the regulations and legal actions and penalties lagged far behind.
‘Apparently young Zara is pretty bright,’ Ellen continued, ‘and did a couple of Year 12 exams this year. When it seemed that the school might take action against her, the mother charged down to the school and threatened to sue if Zara’s exam performance suffered.’
‘And they backed down,’ Pam said.
‘In a heartbeat. To hell with the reputation and mental and physical health of a member of staff-a wealthy parent always comes first. Bastards.’
They all felt the disgust, but Challis had to move on. ‘How does the chaplain fit into all this?’
‘It was decided that Zara would apologise to Mrs Richardson and he’d be the mediator.’
‘All three were present?’
Ellen shook her head. ‘Mrs Richardson took legal advice and didn’t attend.’
‘Good for her,’ Challis said. He paused. ‘But that raises the question: did she harm Roe? I can’t see any of these people having a strong enough motive.’
‘True,’ Ellen said, draining her gin-and-tonic. ‘The headmaster would make a better target.’
Challis nodded. ‘See if he’ll talk to you. Murph, your turn.’
‘Nothing to report, boss. I’ve been showing Roe’s photo to the schoolies, but no one recognises him. I’ll keep doing it tonight.’ Then she gazed at Challis and said pointedly, ‘Has Scobie come up with anything?’
Challis gave her a wry look. She was wondering why Sutton wasn’t at the briefing. ‘I’ve taken him off the case.’
He outlined his reasons, backed up by the printouts of the e-mail and Dirk Roe’s blog, which lay on the table between them.
‘Let’s see,’ said Ellen.
She pored over the material. He liked the way her brow knotted when she concentrated, liked the shapeliness of her hands. His gaze swung to Pam Murphy’s hands: stubbier, more squared off. He said, ‘I questioned Dirk at the hospital this afternoon. He said he’d removed the blog from the Web.’
Ellen shook her head wearily. ‘What is it about blogs? Why do people do it?’
Pam said, ‘You old timers, you don’t understand.’
‘I understand they add to the meanness in the world,’ Ellen said. ‘They give inadequate people like Dirk Roe a chance to indulge their worst and weakest instincts. A thought pops into their heads and they think it’s valid simply because they had it. Furthermore, blogs are free and don’t require face-to-face contact with a fellow human being.’
Finding Pam staring at her, head on one side, Ellen went on hotly, ‘If you knew what those Landseer girls did to that poor woman…’
Pam nodded. ‘Fair enough, Sarge.’
Ellen cocked her head at Challis. ‘Could Dirk have hurt his brother?’
‘Not directly. His alibi checks out.’
‘Paid someone to do it?’
‘Anything’s possible,’ Challis said.
He told them about his afternoon, digging into the backgrounds of Lachlan and Dirk Roe. ‘Raised in a fundamentalist church, a strict upbringing, spare the rod and spoil the child, plenty of guilt and repression, a familiar story.’
‘Maybe,’ said Ellen, ‘but how did this one play out in particular?’
Challis told them about a conversation he’d had with an aunt. ‘She was a member of the same church, married to the younger brother of Lachlan and Dirk’s father. After she’d had a couple of kids she started to question things-and was kicked out. They won’t even let her see her kids.’ He held up his hands as if to forestall objections. ‘True, she has an axe to grind, but one of the things that bothered her was the behaviour of Lachlan and Dirk, especially when they played with her children, who were younger. It was unhealthy, she said. Wrestling games, fondling and touching. She called them strange and repressed.’
They all absorbed that. Pam began to sift through the printouts of the Roe Report. ‘Look at all these user-names: how are we going to track them all? Do we have to track them all, boss?’
‘If necessary.’
‘I thought CIU would be more glamorous, somehow.’
‘What do you call this?’ said Challis expansively.
‘I call it pressure from above,’ Pam said. ‘Sir.’
Challis gave a mock glower. ‘One good thing about pressure: I asked Hindmarsh to pressure the lab for a quick DNA result on that mucus on Lachlan Roe’s sleeve.’