Garry Disher - Chain of Evidence

‘Who are you?’

‘Constable Tankard, ma am. You called the station?’

‘I can’t go out.’

She was about sixty, fierce and aggrieved on the other side of her screen door. ‘Sorry?’ said Tank.

She came out and pointed. ‘Look.’

He followed her finger, which was quivering at the booze bus and the constables flitting about in the misty evening light. ‘What?’

‘Don’t say “what”. Where are your manners? Why do they have to set up so close?’

He understood finally. ‘Have you been drinking, madam?’ he asked, trying hard to keep the grin out of his voice.

‘How dare you. I’m teetotal.’

‘Then you have nothing to worry about from a breath test.’

‘My car,’ the woman said.

There was a new Corolla in the driveway. ‘Are you sure it’s unroadworthy? Looks new to me.’

‘Not fair,’ sulked the woman.

Tank pushed back his uniform cap. ‘Tyres?’

‘That’s a new car. It’s not fair.’

‘You have nothing to worry about.’

‘But I love to drive down to the Show. Too far for me to walk.’

‘Then drive,’ said Tank irritably.

‘But they’ll make me unroadworthy.’

John Tankard made the necessary leap and nodded slowly. ‘It’s not their job to make you drunk or unroadworthy. If you’re neither then they’ll let you through.’

She was sceptical. ‘What if there’s a quota?’

‘Doesn’t happen,’ said Tank emphatically. He cocked his head. ‘I think that’s my car radio. Sounds urgent.’

He peeled out of Bream Street, reporting to base that he’d resolved the matter. On through the night he roamed, a lone ranger and liking it, issuing warnings, taking in the occasional abusive drunk or cokehead. He always checked them for concealed weapons or drugs before bundling them into the divisional van, always checked the cage for discarded drugs afterwards. At one point he answered a call to Blockbuster Video and nabbed a guy well known to the Waterloo police for a string of offences proven and suspected. The guy had four new-release DVDs stuck inside his underdaks, and, enjoying himself hugely, began admitting to all kinds of shit-rape, assault, burglary- before Tank could read him his rights. Tank knew how it would go: once in the interview room and cautioned, he’d clam up, not even admit to his name or even to being in a police station.

And Joe Public thinks we’re corrupt or incompetent? Fuck Joe Public.

Finally there were the pull-overs. Typically you had kids in a lowered or hotted up Falcon or Holden, driving erratically, going too fast, not wearing seatbelts, music too loud, tossing a can or a butt out on the street, busted tail light, etcetera, etcetera. Some of the Waterloo police cars were fitted with an MDT, a moving data terminal, meaning you could get a rapid readout of a vehicle owner’s address, licence status and criminal history, but Tank’s divvy van was your basic model, cracked and faded plastics, stained upholstery and an odour suggestive of takeaway food, sweat and poor digestion, and so he was supposed to radio in the registration details and wait for a response before approaching a driver. But radio traffic was heavy that night, so he compromised, radioing in the registration request and approaching the driver before the answer came back. He usually had an answer in less than four minutes.

There was always plenty of movement in a pulled-over vehicle. It was as if the occupants were in a dark street, fucking in the back seat, but when it was a pull-over you could be sure they were getting rid of evidence, tucking joints, speed or ecstasy under the seat cushions. Or pulling out a weapon. John Tankard always had butterflies in his stomach, waiting for that to happen. That’s why you approached from the rear, your hand on the butt of your.38. You didn’t want to see a back window winding down. You didn’t want a door opening. You didn’t want a driver getting out.

And then, at about 1 am-the Showgrounds, the video joint and the restaurants long since closed, little kids and their mums and dads tucked up in their beds, High Street deserted, just an occasional bleary car making its way homewards-John Tankard took a last call from the dispatcher: unknown suspects had been seen climbing over a back fence, not on Seaview Park estate itself but one of the leafy crescents across the road from the estate, there where the outskirts of Waterloo faced farmland, there where no streetlights burned. Rain clouds had built up, shredding the moon; shards of glass glittered in the roadside grasses; the wind came in low from the distant mudflats. A road junction, broad, dark, and empty but for a black WRX idling on the verge, brake lights hard and red in the night. Tank could see the little Subaru throbbing. It was a popular car with your boy racers and drug dealers. He pulled in hard behind it, called in the plate number, and got out. He could smell the sea, and the Subaru’s exhaust. Suddenly the driver cut the engine and now Tank heard the moaning empty wind, a ticking engine block, the faint static of the radio in the van far behind him as he approached the car, static speaking no doubt of crimes and misery in far-off corners of the lonely stretches of the night.

He reached the rear passenger door, leaned forward and tapped on the driver’s window, straightened again. The window whined down a crack. ‘Your licence and registration papers, please, sir,’ said Tank.

‘Why?’

A hoon’s voice, pumped up, sour and uncooperative. ‘Why?’ repeated Tank. He could think of a million reasons why. Because you’re out here in the middle of nowhere. Because you’re a young dickhead yet you can afford this car. Because Pam Murphy gets to be a detective and I’m stuck driving a stinking divvy van. Because causing people grief is about the only thing that makes me feel better. He didn’t hear the other car until it was too late.

The tyres alerted him, gently crunching the gravel at the side of the road. He swung around: a silver Mercedes, not new, running only on sidelights, came purring in from the intersecting road. Lowered, alloy wheels, smoky glass all around. It stopped and waited, and then Tank wasn’t surprised when all of the doors opened. He began to back away from the Subaru. He backed right up to the divvy van and sped away from there, trying to swallow. Sometimes there was weird shit going on at night and he was better off out of it.

The dispatcher’s voice cut in then. ‘The registered owner of the Subaru is a Trent Jarrett of Seaview Park estate.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ muttered Tank.

And the guy driving the Merc had been the killer, Nick Jarrett.

John Tankard went home and didn’t sleep.

One thousand kilometres northwest of Waterloo, Hal Challis had spent a long Saturday caring for his father. He felt inadequate to the task. At the same time, he couldn’t concentrate fully. Being ‘home’ again had put him into a dreamlike state, brought on by old familiar objects-like his mother’s jacket.

It was heavy cotton, faded navy, with a cracked leather collar, still hanging on a peg by the back door, and, in his mind’s eye, Challis could see his mother on one of her solitary rambles. He’d quite forgotten that she liked to do that, yet she had always done it, right through his childhood and adolescence. He’d taken it for granted back then. It had simply been his mother out walking. Now he wondered if it had signified more than that. She’d been a big-city girl. Had she been lonely out here? Had she yearned for more? People had always said that Challis resembled her-olive colouring, dark hair, narrow face-but had they also meant character? His mother tended to be silent, watchful and withholding. She’d tolerated Gavin for Meg’s sake. She’d adored Eve. She hadn’t judged or prodded Challis. She’d stood up to the old man’s nonsense. The coat brought a lump to his throat.