Garry Disher - The Dragon Man

She was paired with John Tankard for the day. She drove. Their first job was to investigate reports of theft from two panel vans belonging to surfers at Myers Point. She found that her heart and stomach were doing funny things. She wondered if she’d see Ginger. Just knowing he was nearby was setting her off.

John Tankard had the Age in his lap. ‘Charges reinstated. That’s what I like to hear. Whaddya reckon, Murph?’

‘Blood oath,’ she said, sticking her lower jaw out, deepening her voice, grabbing the wheel as if she were going into battle.

He flushed. ‘Aren’t you a sweetheart.’

On the other side of the Peninsula, Challis was shaping a new airframe strut. He lost himself in the crisp bite of the wood plane, Lucky Oceans on Radio National and a letter that had come from an old man in Darwin:

‘With reference to your request for information regarding A33-8. This was an air force serial number, applied to nonmilitary Dragons that were impressed into service with the RAAF during the war. I had the pleasure of flying A33-8 in early 1942, just before the fall of Java. I was stationed in Broome, and made a dozen trips in her, ferrying Dutch refugees to Port Hedland. I do know that your aeroplane started life working for the Vacuum Oil Company, flying geologists about the north-west, but what became of her after the war, I really couldn’t say. If it’s not too much trouble, perhaps you could send me a snap of her.’

On the five o’clock news there was a report of human remains found caught in bullrushes at the bend of a creek on the other side of the Peninsula. Challis swept his wood shavings into a bin, bundled his overalls into the Triumph and drove home over the bone-jarring back roads. He walked inside, his footsteps booming in the hollows of the house. The red light was flashing on his answering machine. Three calls. He pressed the play button. ID confirmed on the body in the creek; then his wife; and before the third caller spoke, he discovered, with a tiny shift in his equilibrium, that he was waiting for a low, slow-burning voice.