Challis - 02 - Kittyhawk Down (36 page)

'Cleaning carpets?'

'I suppose.'

'Did he tell Billings to expect him?'

She shrugged. 'I suppose so.'

'What about you? Didn't you want to be part of the business again?'

'It wasn't like I'd put money into it. Plus Trevor and I were finished, and the chemicals used to give me a rash, and I'd met someone else.' She seemed to incline her head toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. 'We live together. He's at work now. He's never met Trevor or Billings, in case you want to question him.'

Challis shook his head. He leaned forward. 'So it's probable that Trevor told Billings he was returning to Australia.'

She barely shrugged.

'Have you got a photo of Trevor Hubble?'

'Somewhere.'

'And anything he might have handled, like a photo album, a book…'

She frowned. 'I'll have a look, but what's this about? What's he done?'

'Nothing that we know of.'

'But it sounds like you need his fingerprints. That plus a photo…'

'Identification purposes,' Scobie said.

She stared at him and finally said, 'You found a body.'

Challis said gently, 'Yes. In the bay.'

She got excited now, jerking in her chair, coughing, which left her red-faced and gasping. 'Billings had a boat.'

'Did he now?'

'Go and arrest the bastard.'

'Do you know where he is?'

'No.'

'Can you tell us anything about him? Movements, habits… any photographs?'

She was thinking glumly, holding her chest and wheezing a little. She glanced up. 'I've got a mobile phone number somewhere.'

In the end it was Sutton who got up and went into the kitchen for her, coming back with a buttery address book. He looked up 'Billings' and wrote the number in his notebook.

'Try it,' Challis said.

'He's probably changed the number by now, people do that, they chop and change companies.'

'These days you can keep your number even if you change companies,' Louise Cook said, watching them with brightening eyes. She's enjoying this, Challis thought.

'Let me try it,' he said, fishing for his mobile phone.

Scobie read him the number, he dialled, and a calm English voice crackled in his ear immediately: 'Rex Casement.'

Back in the Displan room in Waterloo, Challis called Ellen at home, saying he needed her for an urgent briefing, and when they were all gathered he took them through the Casement story as he saw it. 'So,' he concluded, 'we got him because he kept his old mobile phone number.'

They shook their heads. They'd seen it time and time again. This was a variation on Kellock's illegal parking theory. Ellen said, 'He simply announced his name?'

'Yes.'

'How does he keep track of who he's supposed to be?'

'This guy is focused. He has to be.'

'Except he kept his old phone number.'

'Except for that.'

'What did he say?'

'Very cagey. Wanted to know how I'd got his number. I'd thought of hanging up, saying wrong number, but I thought that would look more suspicious.'

And so Challis had improvised, telling Casement that he was simply doing his job, that he was sitting in a call centre full of similar operators, going down a list of mobile phone numbers on behalf of a charity. Who gave you the list of numbers? Casement had demanded. Challis had said he didn't know, he was just doing his job, but maybe the phone company itself had sold the list. 'Bastards,' Casement had said.

'So I apologised and got off the phone quickly.'

'He didn't recognise your voice?'

'Don't think so. Not in that context.'

'So who is he?'

'I've contacted Scotland Yard, asked them to look into the names Casement and Billings. Given that he used original documents to pass himself off as both names, it's possible they're actual people—who might or might not be dead now.'

'So we're looking at him for killing his wife?'

'And Trevor Hubble,' Challis said, perching on the table next to the whiteboard. 'Let's deal with Hubble first. Suppose Casement is on the run. He comes to Australia using the name Billings, meets Hubble, and takes on Hubble's identity when Hubble gets homesick and returns to England. But then Hubble gets restless again and returns to Australia, so Casement/ Billings feels threatened. He takes Hubble out on his boat, kills him, leaves the St Kilda house and moves down to the Peninsula. He meets Kitty and they get married. Being married was good cover and gave him some badly needed legitimacy.'

He paused. 'We need hard evidence. His boat, for starters. We know from Louise Cook that he had one. Does he still have it? Where is it moored? Can we get a warrant to search it? Hubble's fingerprints would be nice.'

'Global positioning system,' Scobie said suddenly.

'What's that when it's at home?' asked van Alphen, who was there on loan from Kellock.

'Something to do with navigation. It can tell us where the yacht has been, and when.'

Challis pointed to van Alphen. 'Van, I want you to find the yacht and get a warrant to search it and examine its global positioning gizmo. There's also the matter of the anchor used to weigh down Hubble's body. Has it turned up yet?'

They shook their heads, unsurprised by the world. Cops stole or misplaced or borrowed evidence all the time. Who would miss an anchor? Why would it ever be needed again?

'Next, Janet, his wife,' Challis went on. 'It's possible that she got too nosy, or twigged to who he was, or maybe she'd been in on the deal from the start and had become a liability. Either way, it was an opportunistic killing because it could be blamed on Munro.'

'Maybe she was bringing unwanted police attention home with her,' Ellen said. 'First when Lister rammed her plane, then when we found the photograph.'

Van Alphen scoffed. 'So why kill her and
guarantee
police attention?'

'Sympathy, not suspicion,' Challis said. 'And it could be that he stands to gain in other ways. Scobie, I want you to look into their finances. Does Casement have money of his own? Did Kitty? Does Casement inherit? How much? Did he take out any insurance policies on her life lately? And so on.'

Scobie and the others made to close their folders and go, but Challis held up his hand. 'Not yet. There's the matter of the Meddler and his wife.'

He could see sceptical faces watching him. 'Bear with me. Lister told us that he didn't shoot them or order them shot, and I believe him. He also said that Munro talked of killing the lawyer, but not of killing the Meddler and his wife. Why be coy about them? He also said nothing to Lister about shooting Janet Casement. I think Rex Casement goes to the top of the list for the Meddler shootings as well.'

'Motive?'

'This is the Meddler we're talking about. He got up people's noses. He dobbed them in or threatened to. What if he found out who Casement really was?'

'If he did, why didn't he report him to the police?'

'Frustration?' Challis said. 'Greed? Perhaps he thought he could profit from it in some way, try a bit of blackmail. He's not going to try blackmailing someone who dumps rubbish or doesn't feed his sheep, but Casement was a different kettle offish. If he's living under assumed names then it's probably for something big, like fraud—something worth blackmailing for.'

'So we need to hear back from Scotland Yard?'

'And we need to go back and search the Pearce house again,' Challis said. 'Ellen, you come with me. The rest of you, you know what to do.'

They were crossing the carpark when his mobile phone rang.

'Inspector Challis? You gave me your number just in case.'

'Who's talking?'

'Louise Cook.'

'Yes, Louise.'

'Um, I think I did something stupid. But I was that mad.'

Challis clenched inside, knowing what to expect. 'What did you do?'

'I rang that mobile phone number I gave you. Billings answered and it definitely
was
him, even though he gave a different name.'

'And?'

'And I got mad at him. Told him I knew he killed Trevor.'

'Christ.'

'Look, I'm really sorry. It's just I felt—'

'When?'

'What?'

'When the bloody hell did you call him?'

'There's no need to be like that. I did the right thing, I called you straightaway, soon as I realised it was him.'

'But you warned him, and now he'll run and now your own life is in danger. Christ.'

'What? What do you mean?'

Challis forced himself to be calm. 'I hope you didn't tell him where you live. Tell him you wanted money in return for silence.'

'If that's the thanks I get for—'

'Goodbye,' Challis said, snapping his phone into his pocket and telling Ellen,
run
.