Whispering Death (15 page)

‘Statistically,' Laughlin said, ‘there has been no change in crime rates, no matter what
you
say. Some minor crimes are up, but that is attributable to the current economic climate; namely, the rising price of petrol. Motorists are driving off without paying, and stealing number plates to fool the CCTV cameras at service stations.'

‘Sir, with respect, we won't get far quoting statistics at each other. My argument is that we are seriously under resourced, and if the government were able to prioritise—'

‘You were quoted as saying crime figures are up, as though we are losing the fight.'

‘I was saying that we can't win the fight if we don't have sufficient manpower or resource funding. Waterloo is fourteen officers
fewer
than it should be. If you look at last month's roster, we fell well below the recommended guidelines of one sergeant and four junior officers per shift.'

Challis's mouth was dry, the topic was dry. He didn't feel angry or intimidated or anxious or defensive, just a little bored. He wasn't going to win anything here, not more money or trained officers or even respect. He wanted to go out and do his job, not sit here.

‘Hal,' said Superintendent McQuarrie chummily, trying to reassert himself and put Challis on side, ‘arguments about resourcing across a Division are irrelevant, given the changing nature of police work and the influence of the new technologies, some of which we are yet to discover.'

Challis tried to see the substance of the man's argument and failed. Given that a question hadn't been posed, he remained silent. It was a tactic he used in interrogations: hold back, use silence.

‘Can we trust you, Inspector Challis?' said Laughlin.

Well, that was a clear enough question, but not one that Challis intended to answer.

‘After all, you have seriously compromised the Force,' Laughlin said, arms folded, staring like a fierce prophet. ‘What is essentially an internal matter was made political when you brought the State Government into it.'

Challis said innocently, ‘Sir?'

‘That nonsense about the Grand Prix race costing fifty million a year, money that could be spent on supplying police stations with torch batteries, for God's sake.'

‘And vehicles, radios, extra staff,' Challis said.

‘It must be very stressful, your job,' said Laughlin, trying for an understanding smile and transforming himself into an awful parody of a counsellor or doctor, a man with Challis's best interests at heart. Challis said nothing.

‘Many officers of your rank burn out. Nothing to be ashamed of.'

It was clear that Laughlin thought it was shameful. Challis continued to stare.

‘Many officers find it beneficial to take stress leave—supported by Work Cover, so they're not out of pocket. They come back refreshed— even find new careers.'

Laughlin waited for a response. When it didn't come he dropped the smarm and leafed through a file. ‘I see that three months' long service leave is owed to you.'

And McQuarrie butted in, saying, ‘Your girlfriend is on an overseas junket at the moment, I believe? By herself?'

You bastards, leave Ellen out of it, Challis thought, as his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.

‘I need to take this,' he said.

As they gaped, he left the room, flipping open his phone. The screen revealed no name, only a number he didn't recognise. And he could scarcely hear the voice, it was so soft and distraught.

23

‘Larrayne?'

That terrible sobbing whisper again. ‘Please, you've got to come.'

‘I can barely hear you. Use the landline.'

‘I can't, they're in the sitting room.'

‘Who is? Where are you?'

If a whisper could be a shriek, that's what Challis heard. ‘
Mum's
. These awful men came barging in. Please, you've got to help me.'

‘Are you hiding?'

‘They let me go to the loo.'

‘They didn't take your phone away?'

‘I'm in Mum's dressing gown. I had the phone in the pocket.'

‘Switch to vibrate and I'll call you back.'

‘
No
. Please.'

It was as if she feared losing contact. Challis ducked into the canteen. Spotting Jeff Greener there he beckoned, miming urgency, and led the way down the corridor at a run, the phone pressed to his ear. ‘Did you call triple zero?'

She said, in a wobbly, frustrated voice, ‘I don't know where I am. I mean, I can find my way here in the car, but I sort of don't know the name of the street or the house number.'

Well, Ellen's move to Dromana was recent. And Larrayne had never struck him as being very organised. ‘I'll do that.'

He was in the car park now. Tossing the CIU car keys to Greener, he said, ‘Dromana, flat out all the way.'

‘You got it.'

When they were streaking out of Waterloo, Challis used the car's radio to report a home invasion at Ellen's address. Then he sat back to wait, the line to Larrayne Destry still open, trying to picture the interior of the house. Were the university friends still there? If so, where? In the sitting room with the men? He pictured the corridor between it and the kitchen, the two doors along it, one to the bathroom, the other to the toilet. Plasterboard walls, meaning that sounds carried, whispers, too.

Larrayne's voice crackled in his ear. ‘Hal?'

‘Still here, Larrayne.'

‘Are you coming?'

‘On the way, and I've called it in.'

Challis glanced at the instrument panel. Greener was doing 130 km/h, sometimes 140. Even so, they were fifteen minutes out, at least.

‘I'm scared.'

Challis pictured Larrayne in Ellen's vast white dressing gown. If she were naked under it, or dressed in flimsy nightwear, her sense of fear and vulnerability would be greater than usual, probably paralysing. ‘I know you are,' he said gently. ‘You've a right to be. But don't let these guys see it.'

There were sniffles and he thought about her remaining phone credit, his own phone credit and battery life. ‘Are your friends still in the house?'

‘They're tied up. They've got tape around their arms and legs and across their mouths.'

Challis was puzzled. Overkill, he thought. Students, a modest, slightly run-down house, why a home invasion?

Pretty soon Greener had them barrelling past the glassblower at the Red Hill turn-off and down the hill towards the coast, a pretty drive, a slow, winding drive, but Challis, blind to the charms, was pressing a ghost accelerator with his right foot. ‘Larrayne, is it a robbery?'

‘No,' she whispered.

Sexual assault? He was looking for a way to ask it when she went on, ‘They came bursting in saying we stole their girlfriends' marijuana plants. They're acting crazy.'

‘What girlfriends?'

‘Next door.'

Challis pictured the house with the two women with bikie boyfriends. The timing made sense when you realised that students and junkies—and students who were junkies—tended to sleep until noon. ‘Did you steal their plants?'

‘
No
. We—'

‘
Get your arse out here, bitch
.'

‘Oh God.'

‘Larrayne, don't let them—'

‘
Now, bitch
.'

Challis heard Larrayne Destry call out to the man on the other side of the door, ‘You're scaring me. You just made me sick over everything.'

‘
Well, make it quick
.'

Challis waited. She'd done well, lodging a word picture in the bikie's head: human waste and odours and messiness.

Then her voice was in his ear again. ‘He's gone but I don't have much time.'

‘We'll be there in a few minutes.'

There were crackles in the atmosphere and no reception bars on his phone. ‘Fucking black spot,' he muttered.

‘Sir?' Greener said, not looking at him, accelerating the CIU car down the long hill to the flat paddocks at the bottom, whisking it right then left onto the road into Dromana. Past the drive-in theatre, Challis pointing Greener towards the freeway entrance, holding the phone close to his face, waiting for reception.

One bar, two, then three, and Larrayne's panicky whisper, ‘What happened?'

‘I lost reception. Look, hold on, we're almost there.'

‘I can hear them yelling at the others. Hitting them.
Give us back
the plants or we'll cut her tits off, cut your dicks and your ears off
, stuff like that. I'm so scared.'

‘You're doing really well,' said Challis feelingly. ‘You're using your brain, you're strong and you're going to be okay.' He thought and said, ‘Is it possible one of the others stole the plants without your knowledge?'

A pause. Too late, he saw the misstep. ‘My life's in danger and you turn cop on me? That is so typical.'

Probably a good thing, the old Larrayne showing itself. Outrage was better than panic and fear. But then Challis could hear thumping sounds in the background, tearing wood, a snarl: ‘
Get your fucking arse
out here, right now
.'

And the line went dead and Challis dumbly pointed the way for Greener, up onto the on-ramp, up the hill to an exit that looped down and under the freeway. His heart was beating hard.

Realising his phone was on, he broke the connection. It rang immediately. ‘Inspector Challis? Rosebud cars are on the way.'

‘Thank you.'

Challis pocketed the phone. It rang again; he checked the screen, saw it was McQuarrie calling and let it go to voicemail. They were on a paved street now, and then dirt side streets, the car bottoming out on potholes. He pointed again and Greener pulled into Ellen's driveway, right up to the rear bumper of the green Hyundai. The sun was breaking through, the wind dropping, sprinklers ticking on a nearby lawn. They got out, Challis glancing across at the house where the marijuana growers lived. A curtain twitched and he imagined a hurried mobile phone call.

He said to Greener, ‘Go around the back. If they come out, try to stop them, but no heroics. We'll find them again, the stupid fucks.'

‘Got it.'

Challis climbed onto the deck and looked through the glass. In the dimness there was chaos, almost too much to take in, but then his crime scene management priorities kicked in, a habit so ingrained he'd never shake it: preserve life, preserve the crime scene, secure evidence, identify the victim or victims, identify the suspect or suspects.

Chairs upended, plates broken, the coffee table leaning on a broken leg. One of the boys was strapped to a fallen chair, the girl still upright, hands bound behind her back, legs bare under black knickers, T-shirt torn from neck to hem, spilling her breasts. The second boy was in another upright chair, bleeding from the mouth and nose. A strange stillness, as if it were all over. But then Challis shifted his gaze, attracted by movement. A man in greasy jeans and a sleeveless black T-shirt had a mobile phone to his ear, shouting, beckoning to the other man, who was similarly dressed and struggling with Larrayne Destry. They'd seen Challis, a shadow against the glass, and began to pantomime doubt, confusion, belligerence and fury.

He slid open the glass door and saw the men vanish towards the rear of Ellen's house, and heard the squeak of the back door, screams of ‘
Drop it, copper
' and
‘I'll do you, you fucking dog
'.

Larrayne was bent over, gasping. Challis put an arm around her shoulder, bent his head to her cheek. ‘You okay?'

She bucked immediately, striking him with her fists, then was holding on for dear life, crying hard. After a moment, he disentangled himself. ‘Help your friends, okay? I'll be right back.'

‘Please!'

‘I have a man in trouble,' he said, communicating reluctance and urgency.

She heaved a wobbly sigh. ‘Sorry. I'm okay, honest.'

Challis hurtled out of the room, through the kitchen and into the back yard. He found Greener standing alone on the strip of dust beneath Ellen's rotary clothesline holding a handkerchief to a bloodied lip.

‘Sir.'

Challis dropped an arm across his shoulders. ‘Thought you were a goner.'

For a brief moment, Greener relaxed against the contact, then muttered that he was okay and moved away. ‘I considered shooting them, but think of the paperwork.'

‘Exactly.'

Shrieks and bellows were coming from the next house. Heavy bikes firing up.

Sirens in the distance.

‘Not the Hollywood ending I was after,' Greener said.

‘True,' said Challis, who'd never known real life to be anything other than messy, with a little bravery and commonsense thrown in if you were lucky. ‘Thanks for your help.'

‘A pleasure,' said Greener, bending to tug at his trousers, which were torn and bloody at the knee.

‘I guess we need to buy you a new uniform.'

Greener looked at him. ‘That would be good, sir,' he said slowly, ‘but I couldn't, in good conscience, put a strain on the police budget.'

Challis laughed. He called for an ambulance and re-entered Ellen's house just as four uniforms were pouring in. He sent one pair to the neighbouring house, telling them to call Rosebud CIU and issue a description of the attackers, then helped the other pair to free and tend to Larrayne's friends.

And as he was murmuring encouragement, cutting duct tape, dabbing the blood from shallow cuts, he was looking for hidden truths, revealed in a glance, a mannerism, a flicker of emotion.

It came quickly. As soon as he'd ungagged the other girl, Nikki, she launched herself at her boyfriend, scoring his cheek with her nails, ‘You arsehole. You stupid, stupid—'

‘I'm sorry. Really, really sorry.'

‘It was you?' said Larrayne. Before Challis could stop her, she whacked him, too.

He sulked. ‘Yeah, well, it was Mark's idea.'