After leaving the Villanova apartments, Challis drove to the hospital. A forensic science officer, carrying several brown paper sample bags, was trudging purposefully across the carpark as though holding strong emotions in check. She stopped when she saw Challis. ‘A nasty beating, sir.’
Challis nodded. ‘More than one person involved?’
‘Hard to say. Nothing much under the victim’s fingernails. Lots of blood on his hands, face and clothing-probably all his, but we’ll check.’ She rattled the paper sample bags at him. ‘The good news is I found what looks like mucus on the elbow of his jacket. We’ll check the DNA against his DNA.’
Challis thanked her, went in and tracked down the doctor who’d treated Roe. A Russian, Challis guessed. About fifty, exhausted-looking and very thin, with a bony, hooked nose. ‘He is lucky he is found before it is too late, I think,’ the doctor said, escorting Challis down a corridor, the white walls and green linoleum streaked here and there, the black spoor of rubber soles and tyres. ‘The coma continues. Impossible to say when he will regain consciousness.’
Lachlan Roe had sustained cracked ribs, a broken nose, a broken ring finger on his right hand-possibly sustained when he tried to ward off his attacker-and severe swelling of the brain. ‘In my opinion this man was punched quite viciously and then kicked when he was on the ground. Is possible his brain has sustained some damage.’
They entered a small ward, where the doctor pulled back a curtain, revealing the chaplain of the Landseer School lying beneath a window overlooking the rear of the Waterloo Fitness Centre. Roe breathed shallowly out of a badly bruised and swollen face. Broad white bandaging was wound tightly around his head and Challis glimpsed a bandage striped across his chest.
Dirk Roe, plumply miserable, sat in a chair pulled close to his brother’s bed, muttering into the telephone on the bedside table. Glancing around sulkily when Challis and the doctor entered, his face immediately cleared. ‘Speak of the devil,’ he said into the phone. ‘The cop in charge just walked in…Yes, sir…I’ll put him on.’ He thrust the phone at Challis, the gesture somehow dismissive and contemptuous. ‘My boss wants a word.’
Oh, hell, thought Challis. He took the phone, said his name crisply.
Ollie Hindmarsh’s reply filled his ear, the voice deep-chested, hectoring and familiar from numerous television and radio interviews. ‘You know who I am?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is a nasty business,’ the politician said, ‘very nasty.’
Challis said nothing.
‘Made an arrest?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Any suspects?’
‘Too soon to say.’
Hindmarsh grunted. After a pause he said, ‘At least you have rank. I don’t want this fobbed off onto a sergeant or a constable.’
Challis said nothing.
‘Did you hear me? I want you to stay on top of this, Inspector.’
‘It will be treated seriously; as seriously as we treat all violent crime,’ Challis said, feeling like a public relations flak.
‘Hardly reassuring,’ barked Hindmarsh. ‘Mr Roe has done enormous good in the local community and I want his attacker brought to justice.’
I’m not Channel 9, thought Challis. I’m not the Herald-Sun. He said, ‘If that will be all…?’
‘Who’s your superintendent?
Oh, Christ, Challis thought, and told him.
‘McQuarrie? Played golf with him once. Based in Frankston?’
‘Yes.’
There was no good-bye, just a click in Challis’s ear. He gave the handset to Dirk Roe, who smirked. To wipe it off his face, Challis said, ‘I will need to question you later in the day.’ He gave Roe his card. ‘Meanwhile if you think of anything pertinent, or if your brother wakes up, give me a call.’
‘Whatever.’
Challis shook his head and left the hospital. Back in CIU he found Ellen Destry at her computer. He told her about the phone call. ‘He’s going to sic McQuarrie on to me.’
‘What a jerk.’
‘At least we’ve got nothing else on of any great seriousness, so all stops out.’
She mock saluted him. ‘Right you are, boss.’
‘I’ll bust you back to uniform if you’re not careful.’
‘I look good in a uniform,’ she said.
Challis walked away shaking his head. In his office he stared at his in-tray for a while, at the paperwork that swamped his days and gave him a permanent, low-level sense of anxiety and aggravation. The memos and reports induced dreaminess, and soon he was staring out of his window at the sky-blue, even and featureless. He got up and stood at the glass, staring down at the carpark beneath his office. It was nothing to look at-cramped, potholed, fringed with peeling gum trees-but more interesting than the sky, with the cops and civilian employees always clocking on and off. Among the vehicles were big four-wheel-drives, humble family sedans, a snappy little European cabriolet, and a couple of boy-racer V8s, all glossy paintwork and testosterone. Not for the first time, he reflected on the police station as a microcosm of the wider community.
Then he saw Scobie Sutton arrive. Sutton circled the area before parking inexpertly beside a rubbish skip that had been rusting away in the far corner since renovation work two years earlier. He was followed by Pam Murphy, who parked her little Hyundai briskly and strode past Sutton in her take-no-prisoners way, Sutton trudging like a wind-whipped scarecrow across the yard.
Challis grinned, left his office and walked down the corridor to the tearoom, where he spooned coffee grounds into the espresso machine. This was the morning ritual in CIU: he made the coffee, the others took turns to provide pastries from the bakery in High Street-unless it was Scobie’s turn, in which case he brought scones, cupcakes or muffins baked by his wife. Challis preferred the pastries.
When the coffee was ready he loaded the coffee pot, four mugs and a jug of microwaved milk onto a tray and carried them to the briefing room, where the others were already waiting, Ellen arranging almond croissants on a plate in the centre. She knew what he liked.
Challis always stood during briefing sessions. It allowed him to move between whiteboards with a pointer during complex cases, or otherwise simply prop up a wall while everyone tossed around ideas. This morning there was only one matter of any urgency, the attack on Lachlan Roe.
‘I’ve just been to the hospital,’ he said. ‘Roe is still unconscious. It was a pretty frenzied attack, we could be looking at brain damage. And it didn’t help that he was lying in the open all night.’
Ellen licked icing sugar from her fingers. ‘Forensics?’
‘Plenty of blood, mostly from Roe presumably. A possible mucus smear on his elbow that might be from his attacker. We won’t know until the DNA results come in. There might also be some fibre evidence from his clothing.’
He turned to the others. ‘Scobie? Pam? Any witnesses?’
Sutton stirred in his seat. He looked tense. ‘No CCTV, sorry.’
‘Murph?’
Pam Murphy was new to CIU, persuaded to make the switch from uniformed work by Ellen Destry, who’d noticed her aptitude for detection. She was thirty, with the taut, neatly put together look of an athlete, her hair short and layered. Like Ellen, she was dressed unremarkably. She swallowed some coffee and checked her notebook.
‘We managed to question most of the neighbours before they left for work. The woman who found the victim said she heard shouting last night, around midnight. She didn’t do anything about it because she assumed it was the schoolies from the tents across the road. They’ve been partying hard every night since Friday. Another witness saw a young man in a hoodie running away from the area late last night. Didn’t see his face. We still need to follow up on a couple of shift workers who’d already left this morning.’
‘No one saw anything earlier in the evening? Someone hanging around, an unfamiliar car on the street?’
Scobie threw his hands up. ‘It’s Schoolies Week. The joint’s full of strangers and strange cars.’
Challis uncoiled from the wall, nodding philosophically. ‘If the attack was random,’ he said, pulling out a chair and helping himself to a croissant, ‘and there’s no DNA evidence, no witnesses, we’re stuck. But Lachlan Roe might have pissed someone off, so let’s look closer at him. Standard victimology: where he works, who his associates are, finances, hobbies, interests, last known movements, the usual drill. In particular, the brother and the school.’
He paused, looking hard at Sutton. ‘Scobie, this morning you gave Dirk Roe permission to collect personal items for the victim?’
Scobie wouldn’t look at him. ‘Correct.’
‘How did Dirk know that his brother had been attacked?’
Scobie coughed, shifted about in his seat. ‘I phoned him.’
‘You know these men?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
Sutton looked hunted and tried to find a place for his hands. ‘My wife…through the church.’
‘You thought you’d do the right thing,’ said Challis flatly.
‘Yes.’
‘Scobie, the brother could be our assailant.’
Sutton swallowed. ‘I doubt it. They were close.’
‘Perhaps you should recuse yourself,’ Challis said.
In fact, that was the last thing he wanted, if only because he couldn’t afford to lose the manpower. But he needed to know that Scobie Sutton wouldn’t try second-guessing any aspect of the investigation.
‘I’m fine, boss. Honest.’
‘Even so, I don’t want you talking to Dirk-or his brother, if and when he regains consciousness. Finish the doorknock, okay?’
‘Boss.’
‘Ellen, if you could check out the school angle?’
‘Will do.’
Challis turned again to Pam Murphy. ‘Murph, you’ll continue to liaise with the schoolies.’
She’d been sitting quietly, taking everything in. ‘Sir.’
‘But keep your ear close to the ground. Maybe they saw something last night. Maybe Lachlan had made himself unpopular, told them to keep the noise down; maybe he made unwelcome advances and they beat him up for it.’
‘Boss.’
‘Meanwhile, there’s bound to be some media attention in the next few hours. Some influential people send their kids to Landseer, and the victim’s brother works in Ollie Hindmarsh’s electoral office on High Street.’
He allowed that to sink in. ‘Any questions?’
Headshakes and murmurs.
‘Okay, see you late afternoon for a further briefing.’
They gathered their folders, coffee mugs and plates and began to file out, but Pam Murphy said, ‘Sir, there is one thing,’ squirming in her seat, looking embarrassed.
‘What?’
‘The eclipse.’
‘The what?’
‘Wednesday’s eclipse.’
She squirmed again in the face of his amused scrutiny, but soon Challis began to glimpse where she was going with her reference to the eclipse. At present the moon was almost full, sitting high over the land at night, agitating the crazy people. Like all police officers, he knew about a full moon. But Wednesday night promised extra craziness, for the earth was due to pass directly between the sun and the moon, and the latter, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, would glow eerily red for some time.
He began to nod. ‘You think it’ll set off the schoolies?’
With relief she said, ‘They’re saying it’s going to be the ultimate high.’
‘Uh huh.’
Ellen was amused. ‘Unless it’s a cloudy night.’
Pam turned to her seriously and said, ‘In which case they’ll be disappointed, Sarge, and looking for other diversions.’
Ellen rubbed her hands together briskly. ‘Fair enough. I’ll speak to the duty sergeant for you. Some extra uniforms should do the trick.’
‘Thanks, Sarge.’