Friday morning.
Challis checked the overnight incident log as soon as he arrived at work, and buried in Thursday night’s litany of burglaries, car theft and assault were two items of immediate interest to him: Ludmilla Wishart’s handbag had been handed in at the front desk, and there’d been a break-in at Planning East.
He clattered down the stairs. It was 7.45 and a handful of the keener 8 a.m. starters were drifting into work, cluttering up the corridors and yarning with the duty sergeant. Challis edged through them and asked for the handbag. ‘Why wasn’t I told?’
‘Sorry, sir. One of the probationers handled it, logged it as missing property handed in by a member of the public’
Challis checked the log. The handbag had been spotted by an elderly woman walking her dog on the beach below the cliffs at Shoreham at six o’clock on Thursday morning. She had handed it in at Waterloo that evening, after a Probus class. Challis sighed. Someone from the police would have to talk to her, a necessary part of covering all the bases, but it didn’t seem likely that she had anything to do with the killing. He signed for the handbag, hooked a ballpoint pen under the strap and carried it upstairs, where he spread the contents out on the incident room table. He peered at it with the others, separating the items with the same ballpoint pen.
‘On the surface,’ Ellen said, ‘it looks like a simple mugging.’
Challis nodded. Wallet, hairbrush, a packet of tissues, lipstick, Lifesavers, a diary and an address book-both small, bound with thin black leather-ballpoint pens, lint, tampons and crumpled parking receipts. He flipped open the wallet. ‘No cash or cards,’ he said. ‘Medicare card, library card, that’s it.’
‘What about her mobile phone?’ asked Sutton, staring gloomily at the bag and contents.
‘There should be an MP3 player too,’ Ellen said.
‘If she was murdered, they’d both have been tossed into the sea,’ said Challis. ‘If she was mugged, they’ve been sold or kept. I tried phoning her mobile and got a recorded message, saying it’s switched off or out of range.’
He placed everything into individual brown paper evidence bags. ‘These can go to the lab. Meanwhile, Scobie, I want you with me.’ He glanced at Ellen, unwilling to give her a direct order. ‘Ellen?’
She gave him an unreadable look. ‘Pam and I will speak to the demolition contractor.’
‘That leaves Hugh Ebeling, who ordered the demolition,’ Challis told her. ‘Later this morning, you and I will drive up to the city and see what he has to say for himself
‘Yes.’
When he got to the yard with Sutton five minutes later, Challis saw that both CIU cars had been signed out. ‘We’ll take your car,’ he muttered to Sutton, hoping the man didn’t want to talk. He wanted time to think about Ellen: Ellen distant last night and this morning, sometimes watching him with great apprehension and intensity. ‘Nothing,’ she’d said, when he’d asked what was eating her.
But Sutton, driving the elderly Volvo inexpertly and inattentively, did talk, prattling on about his daughter, the way she was always altering the ring tone on his mobile phone or altering the desktop display on the family computer. ‘Kids and their gadgets,’ he said.
‘Huh,’ grunted Challis.
There was a pause, then Sutton rattled out the words, ‘Boss, I think I’ve done something stupid.’
Challis grunted again. Sutton, approaching a school crossing, braked erratically, jerking Challis out of his reverie. ‘What stupid thing?’
‘Sorry, boss. I have to get it off my chest.’
Challis waited, Sutton waited, as the children crossed the road, the crossing guard returned to the footpath and the world turned over. Someone tooted and Sutton trundled on again. Challis was irritated with the man’s abject proprieties. ‘I’m not getting any younger, Scobie.’
‘Sorry. It’s this business with the wife.’
‘Her involvement with that crackpot church?’ prompted Challis.
‘Uh huh,’ Sutton said, and closed his mouth with a click. His Volvo swerved to avoid a double-parked car, found its lane again and a moment later gave every indication of passing a school bus on a blind corner. If Challis hadn’t been so lost in thought since last night, he’d not have let Sutton drive. Ellen had warned him often enough. The side street for the planning office came into view and at the last minute Sutton steered into it.
‘They were at my place last night,’ he said.
‘Who were?’
‘On my doorstep. I think they want to lure her away from me. What if they go after Ros? Kids are so impressionable.’
There was a police car outside the planning office, John Tankard taking a statement from Athol Groot. Tank looked sour about something. His partner, Andrew Cree, was photographing a glass-panelled door at the side of the building. A couple of schoolkids stood nearby, bored rather than curious. A glazier waited to measure and replace the broken glass. Challis noted all of these things as Sutton glided toward the kerb and executed a perfect park.
‘Speak now or forever hold your peace,’ he said.
In a rush, Sutton said, ‘Yesterday I leaked the Roe Report to Channel Seven.’
Challis stiffened. He turned to Sutton. Then he began to laugh.
‘I thought you’d be angry.’
‘You’ve done us a good turn, Scobie.’
They got out and crossed the road to the planning office. ‘I hope you showed the blog to your wife,’ Challis said.
Sutton shook his head unequivocally. ‘Oh no, unpleasant things upset her.’
‘Fuck that,’ snarled Challis. ‘She needs to know what these people are like. Morning,’ he said to Tankard, Cree and the chief planner.
‘Sir, Scobie,’ Tankard said.
‘What have we got?’
Cree jumped in, all bushytailed. ‘The side door was jimmied open sometime last night. Discovered by a cleaner at five this morning.’
‘Yeah, thanks, Andy,’ Tankard said.
Whatever their beef was, Challis couldn’t be bothered with it. ‘Anything taken?’
‘They stole a laptop and a printer,’ said Groot agitatedly. The early morning air was cool, but he looked plumply flushed and moist inside his suit coat.
‘That all?’ Challis asked, stepping through the breached door. The forensic team had been and gone, leaving the frame powder-brushed for prints. More powder on interior doorjambs, desks and filing cabinets.
‘Don’t think so. Haven’t had a close look yet,’ the planner said.
‘Whose computer?’
‘Mine.’
‘The only laptop in the building?’
‘Yes. As you can see, the other members of staff have PCs.’
With state-of-the-art widescreen LCD monitors, noted Challis. Why hadn’t the thieves taken those? ‘Where was the printer?’
‘Here,’ Groot said, pointing to a desk against one wall.
‘Networked?’
‘Yes.’
Challis gazed around at the wall charts, cabinets, blueprints, folders and desk clutter. Why not the slimline cordless phones? The portable hard drive on one of the desks? The wireless router?
Maybe the thieves had been in a hurry.
‘Is there a box for petty cash?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘My bottom drawer.’
‘Let’s see.’
The cashbox was there and intact. The drawer would have been easier to jimmy open than the outside door. Trailed by Groot and Sutton, Challis went from one filing cabinet, work station and office cubicle to the next, running his gaze along each cabinet and desk drawer. Only one desk drawer showed signs of damage-very faint.
He pointed to it. ‘Mrs Wishart’s desk, correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s been tampered with.’
‘Oh.’
‘When did that happen? Before last night?’
Groot blinked. ‘Don’t really know.’
‘Perhaps she lost her key one day? Needed to force it open?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Or her husband came around to collect her things after the murder and needed to force the lock?’
‘It’s possible,’ said the planner doubtfully, staring back down the weeks and months. ‘It’s possible her husband came to collect her things.’ He warmed to this theory, saying, ‘He was always hanging around, you know.’
‘Or whoever broke into the office last night also broke into her desk.’
‘I really couldn’t say.’
Then one of the office staff arrived and he seemed to swell and go rigid. He ducked away from Challis and hissed at the woman, ‘You’re late.’
She paled. ‘Sorry, sorry, my kids are sick.’
‘Even so,’ Groot said.