Challis - 05 - Blood Moon (8 page)

Please.

Please what?

I can explain.

Dirk was young, soft-looking, still
unformed. As if he had no character traits, only impulses. So, explain, said
Challis.

It doesnt mean anything. Its only
a joke.

Not everyone would think so.

I shut down the blog this morning,
honest.

How long has it been running?

Only a month.

Long enough to offend people.

Roe tried to muster principles and
dignity in the antiseptic air. Look, I was expressing a few home truths, thats
allnothing wrong with that.

Did you receive any threats in
return?

No.

Angry posts to your blog, phone
calls, letters, knocks on the door?

Nothing like that.

How involved was Lachlan?

They both looked at the blanched,
wasted face of the brother. Not very.

I saw at least one post from him on
your blog.

Dirk shrugged his soft, round
shoulders. Now and then, when he had something important to add.

Important, said Challis, his face,
voice and eyes as flat and hard as stones. This e-mail

I didnt write it! It was sent to
me!

But you forwarded it to dozens of
others.

Roe slumped. His face under the
gelled spikes was pink and rounded, like a boys. Sweat beaded his upper lip
and forehead. Leave me alone. I didnt do anything.

Where were you last night?

Kaos, in Frankston, ask anybody.

Kaos was a club where
twenty-somethings like Dirk Roe ruined their livers and eardrums. It also had
excellent camera surveillance of the dance floors, bars and inner and outer
doors. What time did you get home?

Dirk shifted. I went home with
someone, stayed the night.

Ill need name, address and phone
number.

Whatever.

Your parents. They were strict,
werent they? said Challis, guessing.

Dirks jaw dropped. How did you
know?

Strict, devout, everything
regimented...

Roe shifted in his seat. I dont
see what...

Did your father beat you and your
brother?

Challis saw from Roes face that it
was true. What about your mother?

They were strict, so what?

What did you and your brother fall
out over?

Fall out? Who told you that? Over
what?

Challis shrugged. His new church.
The fact that he had a following. The fact that hes older and more successful.

Im successful.

Challis always looked for the chinks
and opened them up. Youre a jumped-up office manager.

Yeahfor the Leader of the
Opposition, who gave you a hard time on the phone this morning.

Who would sack you in a heartbeat
if he knew about your blog.

At least, Challis hoped that were
true. There were men and women in Hindmarshs party who would probably like to
adopt it as the official party position.

Please, I closed it down.

Challis shook his head wearily. You
didnt think, did you? he said as he left the room and returned to the
station.

* * * *

11

Tankards
and Crees first call-out after the Lachlan Roe assault scene was a suspicious
car in Somerville. The Hoon Hotline called it in, said the dispatcher.

Wow, said Cree. A car parked
across some old biddys driveway, driver and passenger asleep inside. I mean,
can I stand the excitement?

They could be casing the joint,
Tank said, replacing the handset and settling back in the passenger seat of the
divisional van.

Whats this Hoon Hotline anyway?

Tank decided not to let Cree get to
him. The guys in Traffic Management set it up. We had hoons running riot every
night. Speeding, drag racing, burnouts, generally terrorising everyone. Now all
the locals have to do is call the hotline. We show up and lay down the law,
on-the-spot fines, driving charges. Confiscate the car sometimes, he said. It
works.

The Somerville address was a
cul-de-sac. They found a red Holden SS Crewman parked across the driveway of
number 7, the tattooed and shaven-headed driver and passenger asleep or stoned.
Tank called in the plate number, listened, and beamed at Cree. The vehicle was
stolen.

The cameras, mobile phones and
laptops inside it proved to be stolen, too. You have to laugh sometimes,
thought Tank as he made the arrests. In his experience, most criminals were
like the guys in the red Crewman: complete morons. They thought they could lose
the police helicopter if they drove faster. Theyd cruise around with a broken
taillight, and a dead body or a kilo of heroin in the boot. Theyd assume the
police surrounding their house at 5 a.m. would go away if they ignored the
doorbell. They didnt seem to understand that there were good reasons why the
family next door owned a plasma TV and they didnt; or that actions had consequences.

I wonder how their minds work
sometimes, he said, as he and Cree returned to Waterloo and booked the
hungover duo.

Cree gave him a cryptic look and
smile. Exactly.

Stopping for coffee in the canteen
they saw Pam Murphy in the distance, sitting with other female officers. Cree
said over the steam from his cup, You ever noticed how this joints crawling
with women?

Not really.

How to get ahead in the Victoria
Police, Cree said, watching him. Grow a pair of tits.

Suspecting a trap, Tankard ignored
the remark. He knew he could be a bit of a dinosaur, but the women he worked
withhis old partner Murph, bosses like Ellen Destrytheyd earned some respect
over the years.

Maybe all Cree saw was the dinosaur?
Tank sighed. The day stretched miserably ahead. At least Im not scared of the
dark, he thought.

They were scarcely out of the
station, Cree driving again, when the dispatcher directed them to a disturbance
at the Benton Square shopping centre on the other side of the Peninsula.

Yeah, that makes sense, Cree said,
sending Waterloo cops to fight crime in Mornington. The Mornington boys are
sent to Waterloo, I suppose.

Tank continued to ignore him, but
the guy had a point. Police resources hadnt kept pace with change on the Peninsula.
The population levels had soared, but not police staffing levels or budgets.
The result was abysmal response times, with some minor crimes like burglaries
attended to days late or not at all, and no money to buy, maintain or upgrade
equipment. You couldnt even go to the supply room and expect to find a
ballpoint pen or a set of batteries for a crime scene camera. The twelve
detectives stationed at Rosebud and Mornington had the use of only two unmarked
cars between them, complicated by the fact that each shift employed four or
five detectives, each working his or her own caseload, or needing to attend
court. No wonder follow-up visits, surveillance and evidence-gathering
suffered. Tank, eyes closed, let the mild spring sunshine warm him through the
glass.

But Cree never shut up for long. Mickey
Mouse policing.

Tank opened his eyes. In profile,
Crees features were perfectly proportioned, probably heart-stopping to the
women. Not like the big city, right?

You said it.

Tank slumped gloomily against his
door, missing Pam Murphy. But it was early days. Maybe Crees larrikin grin
would grow on him. Maybe the guy would pull his finger out. Not that Tank
himself was the kind of copper to go above and beyond the call of duty, but at
ten minutes to knockoff yesterday afternoon Cree had refused to book a guy for
public drunkenness, saying the paperwork would eat into their leisure time.
Tank didnt want to get into the habit of letting his new partner take
shortcuts like that.

He directed Cree off the Peninsula
freeway and east toward Mount Martha, through farmland that was being gobbled
up by housing estates, all of the new houses breathing over each other, robbing
the air, breeding domestic misery and truancy. Like the kids who terrorised
shoppers at Benton Square. This wasnt the first time Tank had encountered
them. They roamed in packs and liked to surround drivers attempting to enter or
leave the carpark. Anyone who remonstrated was punched and abused or had their
headlights smashed.

Tank wound his window down as Cree
steered into the shopping centre. He could hear shouting. There, he said,
pointing.

A clump of people, some of them
shaking fists and pushing and shoving each other near a car that had stalled at
an awkward angle, one wheel up on the kerb outside the plate glass window of a
bakery. An elderly man sat on the kerb nearby, holding his head in his hands.

Cree braked sharply and piled out,
pushing through, sending bystanders reeling. Tank followed; he was a big man,
overweight, and getting in and out of the divisional van always slowed him
down. He elbowed his way to where two men held a teenage boy to the ground, one
on his legs, the other on his shoulders.

Okay, Cree shouted, what gives?

His right hand was on the holster of
his .38 revolver. His mobile phone was in his left. Jesus, Tank thought, and
nudged him aside.

Thank you, gentlemen, well take it
from here.

The little bastard almost caused an
accident, said one of the men. We made a citizens arrest.

Yeah, said the other man.

The people milling about them
shouted, Doing your job for you, amongst other things.

Then a woman came barrelling
through, screaming, Ill have the lot of you up for assaulting my boy.

Tank closed his eyes. The paperwork
when all of this was sorted would take hours. With any luck, no one would press
charges. With any luck, the boy would get a fright, start attending school
again, become a model citizen.

And so the morning progressed. Next
up was a broken shop window back in Waterloo. Apparently a nineteen-year-old
had been ejected from the Waterloo Arms the previous night and taken it out on
the neighbouring hairdressing salon. Go figure, Tank murmured. The
hairdresser was less sanguine. This is the third time in eighteen months, four
grand each time to replace the glass, whos going to insure me now? Why the
hell cant you patrol High Street regularly? Why cant you install CCTV?

Good point, Tank thought, scribbling
in his notebook while Cree chatted up a young redhead who was cutting an old
womans hair.

After that, a burglary in Penzance
Beach, no signs of forced entry. It has me baffled, the homeowner said. She
was old, trembly, distressed.

It didnt baffle Tank for long. He
took one look at the doga huge, ancient Labrador, and another at the big dog
flap on the back door and informed Cree that the man they wanted was Ricky
DaSilva.

How do you know?

Youll see.

Ricky DaSilva was tiny, no bigger
than a child. They found him in the pub with the old womans purse in his pocket.
But was Cree impressed with Tanks deductive powers? All Cree said was,
It
has me quite baffled.

Instinct told Tank to bite his
tongue. He knew that envy was making him exaggerate Andy Crees faults. Envy,
jealousy,
sexual
jealousy...

After lunch they were called to a
domestic in the Seaview housing estate. They found a woman with a black eye and
a bruised torso, revealed when she lifted the edge of her T-shirt. Me
ex-husband done this, she said. Coupla days ago. I want the bastard charged.

There was a code of practice for
these kinds of assaults. First they took the woman back to the station, where a
doctor examined her. The next stage was a photographic record of her injuries,
ideally in the presence of a senior female officer, but Destry and Murph were
out, and no one else was availablesame old story, the general and chronic
shortage of staff at Waterloo. So they roped in a young female constable from
Traffic and took the battered woman into the victim suite, where Cree set up a
camera. We need to photograph your injuries, Tank explained.

The woman gulped, nodded, and
removed her T-shirt, revealing pillowy breasts inside a grimy bra and a pattern
of old and new bruises. Not your usual look? joked Cree, snapping away with
the camera.

The young cop giggled. Cree grinned
at her. The woman blushed and looked away. Oh, fuck, thought Tank, grabbing the
camera. Andy, maybe you could take a coffee break, start the paperwork or
something?

Whatever.

When Cree had left the room, Tank
took the young Traffic constable out into the corridor. Shes a
victim,
okay?
Shes vulnerable. Its taken her a lot of courage to report this.

Those words had been said to him,
once upon a time. The constable looked at the floor. Sorry, Tank.

Enough said.

They went back in and finished the
job. Afterwards he told Cree: Look, pal, if you and I are going to spend time
together, you might want to rethink your attitude.