The Silent Inheritance (27 page)

There wasn’t a lot left of that once cocky kid who’d looked like Han Solo. He used to wear his hair like the movie star’s and he’d spent more time combing it than he had at school. He didn’t need a comb these days.

Ross led the way to his car, where he opened his passenger door.

‘Talk here if you want to talk,’ Shane said.

‘I’m partial to a McDonald’s breakfast. How about you, Shane?’

Shane leaned on the car. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘How long have you been married?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘I was wondering how many of those kids are yours.’

‘What if they are?’

‘You were seen eyeing off a couple of twelve-year-old girls, ten minutes before one of them disappeared,’ Ross said.

‘You copper bastard! You’re talking about that Danni Lane chick! You’re not pinning that shit on me. I never went near her,’ Shane said, and he turned to the house, to his woman, now standing on the porch, listening to what she could. To annoy her, Ross stepped closer to Shane and lowered his voice.

‘At four twenty-three on the fifteenth of March, we can put you on the upper level at the Forest Hill shopping centre, very near her, Shane, within a metre or two of her, Shane.’

His woman’s hearing was acute. ‘Who seen him there?’ she yelled.

‘Get in the car, Shane.’

‘Who seen me there?’

‘A couple of security cameras. You still like ’em young, eh?’

Shane got in the car and slammed the door. Ross walked around to his door and got in beside him.

‘I been with her for five years and those last two kids are mine, and I was eighteen bloody years old, and Willy Wilson’s bitch of a sister only yelled rape because her mother caught us going at it. And that’s a bloody fact, and no bastard would ever believe me.’

‘She was still twelve years old, Shane. I take it that your missus doesn’t know about it?’

‘No she bloody doesn’t, and you keep your mouth shut about it—’

Ross bought him a McDonald’s breakfast in Canterbury Road, and over coffee and bacon and egg McMuffins with hash browns, he told his guest what the security camera had witnessed.

‘We’ve got you eyeing off Danni and her girlfriend as you walked by to the escalators, then she cuts away from her friend to follow you. It looks suspicious.’

‘I wasn’t eyeing anyone off. I was bloody walking on air, that’s what I was doing. I’d put five bucks into one of those thieving machines while my missus did the shopping, and the bastard finally paid up.’

‘Pokies?’

‘There’s no law against them yet, is there?’

‘Should be – when you’re playing with the taxpayer’s five bucks.’

‘Try looking for a job at our age.’

‘I’ve got one. How much did you win?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘The bastards see me coming and start laughing before I drop in my first coin,’ Ross said.

‘I took two hundred and seventy-five bucks from it – and I never got closer to that girl than on the escalator. I got on it before her, but she was in a hell of a hurry to get somewhere. She goes running past me and gets stopped by that old bird you’ve been looking for. She stopped, the old bird, and when the escalator got down to the bottom, that chick bloody near knocked her over. The old bird’s shopping went flying.’

‘You helped pick it up, I dare say?’

‘Yeah, right. I went out to the bus stop to tell my missus what I won, that’s what I did, and all I bloody did too.’

Ross drove him into the station when their coffee mugs were empty. Constable Whiz-kid typed up Shane’s statement.

Crime Stoppers had taken a lot of calls, most in response to the enhanced shots of Granny Plaid Skirt. He was a doctor from Harvey Bay, an ex-prisoner from Perth, a preacher from Dubbo. He was a Benalla banker, a Doncaster schoolteacher, podiatrist, shoe salesman, you name it. They had a list of names, some familiar. Melvin Sloan was on it, and Indiana Jones.

Ross might have enjoyed interviewing Melvin Sloan, the bastard who’d cut down the avocado tree, but he had pigs’ eyes and was as fat as a pig – and Ross was pretty certain who had made that call to Crime Stoppers. Les, his favourite newshound, had been fond of avocados. The bugger had nicked a few.

Crime Stoppers received a second rush of calls after Danni’s grandfather’s five minutes of fame. He commanded that every viewer do his or her duty. Born to command, at seventy-five, out of uniform, but he raised a battalion of callers, one of which was a Mrs Andria Hall. She’d been in the Forest Hill car park the day Danni was abducted and had given them the possible colour and make of the vehicle Granny Plaid Skirt had been driving.

A Janet Willmot, who’d never been to Forest Hill in her life but was a regular shopper at Chadstone, had given them a statement the same day.

Crime Stoppers had taken a call from a male who’d identified himself as Ian. He’d used his mobile, which was currently being tracked. They’d recorded the phone call.

Ross hadn’t worked on the Yang case. Clair, the older of the two females on Johnson’s team, had, and Ross picked her brains for information.

‘Most of our enquiries were centred around the Asian community,’ she said. ‘After Nancy was found, and that note found in her mouth, we started looking further afield. It sounded like payback.
Blessed are they that keep judgement and he that doeth righteousness at all times.
’

Ross had read it. It rang of a sins of the father sermon. ‘You looked into the father’s history.’

‘With a fine-toothed comb, for a connection to drugs, initially. Other than losing his licence for twelve months, he and his wife were clean.’

‘Licence?’

‘He entered Chadstone Freeway from the off ramp, caused half a dozen cars to run up each other’s backsides. No serious injuries. After Nancy’s body was released for burial, he and his wife took it home to China. I don’t know if they came back.’

‘Find out,’ Ross said.

*

The schoolkids on holiday, there was a mass exodus from the city at Easter time, the weather still warm enough to go bush or beach. To Ross that exodus meant little more than accidents on country roads but less traffic in the city, and fewer people at shopping centres. He shopped when he had to, bought in bulk and stuffed most of what he bought into his freezer.

He looked at calendars, at long-term weather forecasts; he counted the days Danni had been missing and he told himself he had until around the end of May to find her.

On Wednesday evening, Mrs Cindy Thompson walked into her local police station and told the duty constable she was feeling guilty about not wanting to get involved, but she’d seen that elderly woman drive out of the Forest Hill car park at around four forty-five the Friday Danni Lane was abducted, and she was having nightmares about that girl.

S
he was alone, alone with her dog. He caught them in his headlights as he made the turn into his drive. He considered backing up, driving back the way he’d come, but he’d had a long day, so he got the gate unlocked and drove on through. Contemplated driving straight up to the shed, but the last thing he needed tonight was that bloody dog following him, and her following the dog, so he parked a few metres in, where scrub grew close to the drive, turned the lights off and walked back to lock the gate.

‘Good evening,’ she called from a distance. Her dog, off its lead and faster on its feet, came to the gate to bark.

Attack always the best means of defence, he attacked. ‘Your dog is a wanderer and a pest, madam, and his barking at all hours is becoming intolerable.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Sit down, Herod, and behave yourself.’ She clipped a lead to its collar then attempted to haul the brute back from the gate. ‘He’s been a city dog. He’s not used to having so much space and wildlife around him. Sit, Herod. Sit!’ she yelled.