Challis - 01 - Dragon Man (20 page)

There were smaller copies pasted on
to the nearby power poles and to the sides of the phone box. Mrs Gideon also
kept a bundle in her car and patiently through the long days she handed them to
anyone who stopped at Foursquare.

Challis asked what hed asked every
day since Boxing Day: Any nibbles?

Mrs Gideon smiled tiredly. She hadnt
washed her hair. She was overweight, a heavy breather, which seemed to
intensify the desperation that she was showing to the world. People are very
kind. They always look closely, and they listen, but they always shake their
heads.

Youre doing your best.

But are the police, Mr Challis?
she chided gently. It strikes me as unusual that there have been no
developments.

Its baffling, Challis said. He
never liked to hedge or lie. By telling Mrs Gideon that the police were
baffled, he was stressing their commonality with her and the man and woman in
the street.

* * * *

Fifteen

t
midday that same day, Danny Holsinger and Boyd Jolic were in a stolen Fairmont,
approaching a secluded dirt road behind the Waterloo racecourse. Quiet Saturday
lunch-time, no-one around, everyone on holiday.

Here we are, Jolic said.

A big house set back from the road.
Plenty of trees, acres of close-cropped lawns, white railing fences for hundreds
of metres, holding yards in the same white railing, a stable block, sheds, dam,
fruit trees. A forthcoming auction sign had been bolted next to the driveway
entrance. It all spelt money. Well, so it should. Last years Caulfield Cup
winner had been bred and trained there.

But as Jolic slowed to turn in, the
engine cut out. Fuels vaporising, hed said, the first time it had happened,
and now here it was, happening again. Piece of shit, he said, grinding the
starter, pumping the pedal. The Fairmont coughed and shook and they steered
their shuddering way up a clean white gravelled drive to the side of the house.

And just as they were getting out, a
woman stepped through a screen door and said, Are you the new farrier?

Unoccupied, Jolic had said. He had a
plan of the house and assurances that the owners were holidaying in Bali until
mid-January. A manager to feed and water the horses and a gardener two or three
times a week, but thats all, and no-one around on a Saturday afternoon.

So, who the fuck was this? Danny
turned to Jolic, Jesus, Joll, and Jolic elbowed him hard, in the chest. Want
to give the bitch our fucking names?

Next thing, Jolic was out of the car
and running straight at the woman, one arm concealing his face from her, reaching
her and spinning her around and clamping a hand over her mouth. Shut up and
you wont get hurt.

He caught Dannys eye, jerked it at
the screen door. Danny, also concealing his face, ran with a crush and scrape
across the gravel and opened the door.

They bundled the woman inside. They
were in the kitchen: copper pots on hooks, a huge Aga oven, a bench as long and
broad as a couple of single beds end to end, stained wooden floors and inbuilt
cupboards. Searching frantically, Jolic snatched a cast-iron frying pan from a
wall hook and slammed it against the side of the womans head.

She dropped like a stone.

They were panting. Danny thought
they might have been yelling.

Who else was on the property?

Had he said it aloud? Yes, he was
shouting it, and it was accusatory, telling Jolic he was acting on piss-poor
information, doing over an empty house. Now it was an aggravated burglary,
and, for all Danny knew, from the way the woman had fallen and now just lay
there like a rag doll, murder.

You arsehole, who else is here?

Hed never called Jolic that before,
not to his face.

Well why dont you go and fucking
look, Dan.

Not me.

Well both do it.

They ran through the house, room to
room, and saw no-one. So they calmed a little. Jolic bent over the woman,
removed the plain gold necklace from around her neck, gave it to Danny. Sorry,
mate. Give this to your sheila.

Mollified, Danny said, Ta.

Jolic took out his floorplan. Hed
marked it with red crossesa crystal cabinet here, solid silver cutlery there;
here an antique clock, there some china figurines and a top-of-the-range sound
system. They wrapped the delicate stuff in bubble wrap and stuffed everything
into garbage bags.

There was a man in the kitchen
corridor. He had his back to them and had clearly just stepped in from working
outside: dusty, sweaty, smelling of horses, a weary hand in the small of his
back. Water darkened his hair and collar, as though hed come in via the
laundry, freshening himself up a little first. Late lunch, Danny thought. Just
fucking bloody perfect.

Yelling, charging like he was
playing American football, Jolic took the man down in a low tackle. The man
flipped back at the waist and Danny saw his head smack the wall before he
crumpled to the floor.

Two down. How many more to go?

Jolic was like a cornered tiger now,
stepping from foot to foot and swinging his head about, searching for his
pursuers. Danny saw why some women might be attracted to him. He was fierce,
reckless, arrogant, quick and light on his feet, his eyes alight. But he was
also mad and dangerous, and snarled at Danny, Help me get em out.

Out?

Out on the fucking lawn, dickbrain.
Now.

The woman, then the man, letting
their heads bump like potatoes in a sack down the back step and over a border
of white-painted stones and on to the cool cropped grass.

Well away from the house, Jolic
said.

What for?

Weve left evidence behind, moron.

The woman coming out of the house
like that had distracted them. Theyd failed to remember the latex gloves in
their pockets. It meant going through and wiping everything. Unless

Joll, no, youre what was the
word? escalating it.

Escalating my arse, and Danny
trailed behind him, into the workshop, where there was plenty in the way of
rags and tins marked flammable. Then back to the kitchen and the other rooms,
splashing it about, chucking matches as they retreated, kitchen last, then out
the side door and into the Fairmont.

Which wouldnt start. They heard it
grinding away, tireder and tireder. Fuck! Jolic slammed his palms on the
wheel.

Jol, look.

A Falcon ute, hot lilac paint job,
chrome roll bar, fat tyres, smoky glass all round, towing a covered trailer in
the same paint job, marked
Steve Pickhaven, Farrier.
By now there was
smoke leaking from the house, and flames behind the glass as the curtains went
up. They saw the guy get out, his bottom jaw dropping in disbelief as he put
two and two together. Then he was digging in his top pocket for a mobile phone
and punching at the keys.

Jolic was calm now, thinking, a
dangerous condition in him. Got a hankie? Quick wipe of the car, dashboard,
door handle, window, everything. Forget the stereo, well take the smaller
stuff with us.

On foot?

Got a better idea?

Within one minute they were through
the railing fence and cutting across a paddock, past a horse trough and
skirting a dam and losing themselves in a small wooded area on top of a rise.
Here they had a view of the approach roads. Danny groaned. He went behind a
tree and lowered his jeans and jockeys and felt it slide out of him, quick,
soothing and perfectly formed. He fastened his jeans again, spat on his hands
and rubbed them on his shirt, and felt unclean, the stink of defeat sticking to
him.

But Jolic was more intent on their
predicament. Didnt take the bastards long. Look.

Pursuit cars, red and blue lights
flashing, a distant wail of sirens. They were coming in on the house from both
directions. And now a fire engine. It was doubtful, Danny thought, that he and
Jolic would have made it even if the Fairmont hadnt given up the ghost.
Roadblocks, the police helicopter, theyd have been caught like rats in a trap.

Jolic watched avidly. He looks like
he wants to be there, Danny thought, fighting the fire from the back of the
Waterloo CFA truck. After a while, Jolic backed away, turned, began to cut
through the trees, the garbage bag of stolen items bouncing over his shoulder.
He didnt say anything to Danny. What was Danny supposed to do? What was their
plan? Was Jolic abandoning him? He ran, hard at Jolics heels.

Where we going?

Jolic panted, We pinch a car,
right?

Around the edge of the Waterloo
racecourse, to a roundabout, then along the side of a housing estate, new
houses cheek to jowl behind a high wooden fence. In at the first entrance, then
along a couple of winding side streets, to a maroon Mitsubishi Pajero, sitting
in the driveway of a house, dripping water on to the forecourt, keys in the
ignition.

Sirens in the distance.

* * * *

There
had been a flurry when Jane Gideons body was found, but the investigation had
stalled, so an aggravated burglary was good for sweeping the cobwebs away.

Ellen Destry parked the white
Commodore off the gravel drive. The ambulance and the fire trucks and most of
the police cars had come and gone. It was up to CIB now, and the fire
inspectors, and the forensic crew dusting the Fairmont for traces of the
burglars.

According to the farrier, the owners
of the property had been called back early from holidaying in Bali. The stud
manager had been worried about the condition of a pair of three-year-old mares,
potential champions, particularly given that a January heatwave was expected.

The wife: severe concussion. The
husband: groggy, but able to say that two men were involved, which was backed
up by the farrier. Basically, they were looking for a small skinny guy and a
tall, athletic guy.

Ellen wandered through the house. An
odour of wet ash and dampened carpets, scorch marks on the walls and ceilings,
some quite major fire damage in the front room, a sitting room, which had been
torched first. Check it out, Challis had said. We havent got the resources
for a major investigation. Bring in the arson squad if it looks big.

Big meant over two hundred grands
worth of damage, and this wasnt two hundred grands worth. But it was messy.
Arson, aggravated burglary, theft of a motor vehicle
two
motor vehicles,
if the Pajero reported stolen over in the housing estate was involved, and
Scobie Sutton and Pam Murphy had been sent to investigate that. Ellen pulled on
latex gloves and began to go through the house room by room.

She was standing in the study, doing
what Challis often suggested, thinking her way into the case, when she saw a
heat-buckled cashbox in the charred remains of the desk. She poked at the lid
with a ballpoint pen. Five hundred dollars, in a paper band from the
Commonwealth Bank, and it fitted as slim as a wallet into the inside pocket of
her jacket.

* * * *

At
the same time, but some distance away, a horn sounded behind Stella Riggs
again, but she refused to slow down, accelerate or pull over. Really, Coolart
Road was the worst road on the Peninsula for incidents of bad driving: cutting
in, overtaking on blind stretches, tailgating, speeding, impertinence and just
plain anger. And a worse class of driver in respects other than manners. They
were rougher to look at. They drove wrecks. And the number of times shed had
to brake for the oncoming garbage truck as it veered across in front of her,
collecting the rubbish from both sides of the road. Why couldnt it simply go
up one side of Coolart and back down the other? Because those men wanted to
work the shortest day possible for the same wage, thats why. Rough,
blue-singleted, jeering men.

She glanced again in the rear-view
mirror. That idiot was still trying to pass, sitting just metres from her rear
bumper, and she was going a hundred! What if she had to brake suddenly? The
fellow was a fool. Look at him, darting out, seeing that it wasnt clear,
darting back again.

She began to organise her thoughts,
to write a report in her head, if ever one was needed. The incident had begun
where Coolart Road crosses the Waterloo Road. Shed been driving home in her
Mercedes, turning left into Coolart, and a Mitsubishi Pajero had approached the
intersection at the same time, from the direction of Waterloo. The time had
been two oclock in the afternoon. She had the right of way, and had begun her
turn when she noticed that the Pajero was also turning, no indicators on, threatening
to cut her off. On snap consideration, she had accelerated, so as to complete
the turn first. She had the right of way, after all, not the other fellow, and
that needed to be demonstrated clearly to him. Besides, there were other cars
behind her. It would have caused unnecessary alarm if shed braked suddenly.
So, she sailed through, completing her turn with inches to spare.

The look on that mans face!

Description. More of an impression,
really, for the side glass was tinted. He looked lean and tough, with
close-cropped hair and the suggestion of tattoos. Aged in his late twenties?
The other fellow, the passenger, well, he looked to be full of alarm. He was
much smaller in build, with quite long fair hair. Also in his twenties. Neither
man looked to be particularly intelligent. Blue collar, shed say.