There is a point in a journey when the varying landscape seems unvarying and the motions and sounds of your passage lull you into a dreaming state. That happened to Challis somewhere behind Chelsea, on the Frankston Freeway. He was driving, Ellen was his passenger, and this journey up to the city they’d made many times before, separately and together. The temperatures inside and outside the car were mild, thin cloud had reduced the glare, and the traffic was sparse. He should have been concentrating furiously on the immediate concerns of his life. In no particular order, these were the need to break Adrian Wishart’s alibi, help Ellen feel better about herself and decide what should happen between them. But Challis’s mind strayed and drifted and he couldn’t hold on to any of his serious thoughts for more than a few seconds.
Except one: that as far as he was concerned, nothing much had changed. He felt comfortable driving along with Ellen Destry beside him. He felt comfortable living with her. He felt comfortable being her lover. Did it matter that she had itchy fingers? Was he so perfect?
But her silence and demeanour suggested that she was judging herself, and he tried to hang on to that thought and work through it. Ellen Destry wondered what he was thinking. He was silent and preoccupied, but then, that was his natural state. She wasn’t someone who had a desperate need to fill all silences, but what was this silence about? She’d confessed something momentous to him last night: was he weighing it all up? Was he going to say it was over and kick her out? She half wanted him to, for that would save her from taking the first step. The silence grew and she thought her head would burst and she put her hand on his thigh.
A faint spasm transmitted itself through his clothing to her fingers. She snatched her hand away.
He said hoarsely, ‘Put it back. Please.’
She did. ‘Hal,’ she said, and felt like crying.
‘We’ll work it out,’ he said, and he sounded pretty definite about it.
They decided to hit the uncle hard. They barged into Wishart Electronics, Ellen badging a customer and telling him to leave, Challis shutting the street door and turning the sign from open to closed. ‘Hey!’ Terry Wishart said, from behind the counter.
And, just as abruptly, they turned good-cop, all smiles, friendliness and good humour. After announcing that this was merely a follow-up visit, double-checking some matters left over from Constable Sutton’s visit earlier in the week, Challis gazed about with frank admiration. ‘Nice little business you’ve got here. Doing well?’
‘Okay,’ said Wishart warily.
‘I should clone you and install you at my place or in the cop shop. The equipment’s always breaking down.’
Wishart laughed a little desperately.
‘Hey,’ said Ellen, gazing at one of Wishart’s photographs, Wishart leaning nonchalantly against the tracks of an army tank, ‘were you in Vietnam by any chance? So was my dad. I don’t know what he did there: he’ll never talk about it.’
This was the right approach, Challis realised, watching Terry Wishart closely. It would reassure the guy and enable him to maintain his lie without having to elaborate on it. He saw Wishart’s soft chest swell, and heard him say authoritatively, ‘Some of what we did there was hush-hush. We’re not allowed to talk about it.’
‘Sort of like secret missions and stuff?’ said Ellen.
Wishart’s face grew enigmatic. ‘That’s correct.’
‘You must have been scared. You must have been brave,’ Ellen said. She clasped herself as if she felt cold. ‘I know I could never do it.’
‘Well,’ Terry Wishart said modestly.
Then Challis and Ellen both turned and looked at him, and waited, and beamed big smiles at him. Presently Challis said, ‘It’s all bullshit, isn’t it, Terry?’
‘Pardon?’
‘You’re no more an Army veteran than I am,’ Ellen said.
Wishart spluttered, ‘Don’t know what you mean.’
‘You were no closer to South-East Asia than your TV set,’ Challis said.
‘We checked,’ said Ellen.
‘You’ve been telling lies,’ Challis said.
‘All those guys at the RSL club, all those genuine vets…’
‘What are they going to think when they find out?’
‘You’ll be a laughing stock.’
‘You’ll have to sell up and move to Outer Woop Woop.’
‘After they come around here and beat the shit out of you.’
‘After the Herald-Sun and “Today Tonight” demolish you in public.’
Wishart’s gaze flicked from one to the other. He grew sweaty, greasy with it, and seemed smaller suddenly. He collapsed onto the stool behind the counter. ‘Please. Leave me alone.’
‘Who should we inform first, Sergeant Destry?’ said Challis. ‘The newspapers? His mates?’
‘I think we should tell everyone,’ said Ellen, but she was swallowing a little, her heart no longer in it. Who didn’t have pathetic little secrets?
In his delicate way, Challis seemed to read her. He said, in a gravely courteous voice, ‘Mr Wishart, you provided the police with an alibi for your nephew’s movements on Wednesday, the eighteenth of November. Would you care to revise that statement?’
‘All right!’ screeched Wishart. Then, subsiding, he muttered it: ‘All right.’
‘Adrian was here, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘You had lunch together?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he didn’t stay with you for the whole afternoon, did he?’
‘No.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘Back to check on Mill.’
‘In his car?’
Terry shook his head. ‘Too distinctive. He took my car.’
‘What time was this?’
‘He left around two-thirty.’
‘Half past two on the afternoon of Wednesday the eighteenth of November?’
‘Yes.’
‘What car do you drive?’
‘Falcon station wagon.’
And there were millions of them on the road, thought Challis. ‘What time did he return?’
‘Almost seven o’clock.’
‘Early evening, not seven the next morning?’
‘Correct.’
‘Did he say why he wanted to check on his wife?’
‘She was having an affair.’
‘He wanted to catch her meeting her lover?’
‘Yeah. He knew he’d be spotted if he drove the Citroen.’
‘What was his state when he returned?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Dress, manner. Was he dirty? Any blood on his clothes? Was he excited, depressed, tearful, agitated?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, he’d just murdered his wife.’
‘No way. Uh, uh, no way,’ said Wishart emphatically.
‘He’d cleaned off the blood?’
‘There was no blood!’
‘Did he ask you to get rid of his clothing? The tyre lever? Did you provide him with a change of clothing? Have you checked to see if he replaced the tyre lever from your car?’
The questions were coming thick and fast, and Terry Wishart backed away, saying, ‘He didn’t kill her! He’d never do that! He followed her, that’s all.’
‘We have to arrest you for providing a false statement to the police, providing a false alibi for a suspect,’ said Ellen gently. Mainly she didn’t want Terry to warn his nephew.
‘No, please.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Challis smoothly, ‘you’ll be out in no time.’
‘Just,’ said Terry Wishart helplessly, ‘just don’t tell anyone about the Army stuff. Please?’