Garry Disher - Blood Moon
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- Название:Blood Moon
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Blood Moon: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация
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But if Lachlan Roe’s assailant was somehow linked to the White Pride e-mail, or Dirk Roe’s blog, the list of people to be investigated was huge. And what approach would work? A knock on the door, an invitation to come into the station for a chat? Or quiet infiltration, to tease out the embittered, the jaded, the jealous, the crazy, the wronged and the aggrieved?
Challis marked Scobie Sutton’s e-mail address with a green highlighter, then picked up the phone. ‘Scobie? I need to see you. Now, please.’
8
Ellen Destry drove to the Landseer School in the car pool’s new Camry, not wanting to spend another minute in one of its tired, uncomfortable, plasticky, poorly engineered and odiferous Falcons. She glided across the Peninsula, passing boutique vineyards, shrinking orchards, riding stables and paddocks that had been pegged out for new housing or landscaped to death with stone walls, ponds, terraced gardens and the vast mansions of local plumbers and Melbourne embezzlers.
All that money, she thought angrily, and no taste at all. As a copper, of course, you had to approach things with an open mind. But that didn’t alter the fact that some people were bad and evil, others ugly, stupid and tasteless, full stop.
Finally the road went up and over a line of hills, offering a sweeping view of Port Phillip Bay before delivering her to the Nepean Highway and then to a stretch of vines between the highway and the bay. Two stone pillars announced The Landseer School, and inside the fenced vines was a further sign, Landseer School Viticulture Program. Ellen followed a well-kept dirt road between arching pines, coming to a mock castle and a scattering of other school buildings in a setting of manicured lawns and garden beds.
She glanced at her watch: 10.30 a.m. A couple of gardeners were about, but no kids, not even on the playing fields, which were vividly green, contrasting with the brilliant white of the goalposts, hurdles, line markers and fence rails. There was money here, too. And maybe even some intellect.
Ellen parked between a black BMW and a white Land Rover and climbed the worn stone steps of the main building, where she crossed a tiled verandah and pushed through heavy wooden doors to the reception desk. At one time the area would have been open and cavernous, but was now divided and subdivided into corridors and offices with low ceilings. There was still plenty of old wood panelling about, however, and the air smelt pleasantly of furniture polish. One wall was dense with photographs: the school in 1913, the first Landseer Pinot Noir bottling in 1985, the Year 12 Debating Championship team in 1962. A couple of past headmasters.
Then a woman with a professional smile spoke from behind a waist-high counter. ‘May I help you?’
Two minutes later, Ellen had signed the visitors’ book, clipped a name tag to her lapel, and was being escorted through a wing of the building to a massive oak door, a discreet sign on it reading ‘Headmaster’. Not ‘Principal’. What happens if they employ a woman? Ellen wondered. Perhaps the Landseer School wouldn’t dream of employing a woman to head it. Her suspicions were oddly confirmed when the headmaster greeted her in an English accent slightly plummier than Prince Charles’s. And here she’d been thinking that the cultural cringe was dead.
A terrible business,’ Thomas Ashby said. ‘Unconscionable. We’re deeply shocked.’
Ellen regarded him carefully. It was possible that he meant it. Ashby was lanky, dark-haired, expensively suited, faintly indifferent and impatient but too well-mannered to display it. It was possible that he didn’t welcome the publicity, hated women or found police attention grubby-or tick all of the above.
‘I’ll need to examine Mr Roe’s office,’ she said.
He inclined his head gravely. ‘And so you shall.’
I bet he’s had someone go through it with a nit comb, thought Ellen. ‘But first some background on his job here.’
‘His job? His job was school chaplain.’
‘I’m aware of that, but-’
‘This involved mentoring, crisis counselling and guidance in values and spiritual matters. And some religious instruction, but only in the context of, say, an English or History lesson. We are non-denominational here at Landseer.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you?’
‘Did he have any enemies in the school community? Staff or students?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Didn’t rub anyone up the wrong way with the “values” he imparted?’
Ashby glanced at his watch. ‘I have another appointment. My deputy will show you around.’ He lifted the phone on his desk and pressed a button. ‘Kindly ask Mrs Moorhouse to come to my office.’ He replaced the phone, got to his feet, buttoned his suit coat and came around the side of his desk, one hand out in the unmistakeable intention of guiding Ellen out by the elbow or the small of her back. She dodged him neatly, entered the corridor and heard the costly click of his door sealing him in with the leather, the book spines, the gleaming walnut and the glorious sea views.
Ellen hovered: was she to wait for the deputy principal, or return to the reception desk? There was the snap of shoe leather and a small, round, short-haired woman appeared. Another irritated person of importance, thought Ellen, taking one look at the deputy head’s grim mouth and air of purpose. She decided to take charge.
‘Mrs Moorhouse? Sergeant Destry from the Crime Investigation Unit. I’m here investigating a serious assault. The victim is your chaplain. I need full access to his office and files, and I may wish to interview staff and students who had anything to do with him in the past few days.’
The woman came to a halt, heaved a sigh, gestured loosely with one hand. ‘Yes, I am aware this is serious business. We’ve already had Ollie Hindmarsh on the line this morning.’
Ellen went very still. This smacked of interference. Of information being controlled, delayed or withheld. ‘What did he say?’
Moorhouse regarded Ellen for a moment. Then, as if satisfied, she said, ‘What he said was doublespeak. He’s a politician, after all. What he meant was he didn’t want any shit to stick to him or to the school.’
Ellen grinned. It was possible that Moorhouse was the real driving force behind Landseer but destined to remain unacknowledged and never promoted to the top job. ‘It’s not my intention to ride roughshod over anyone.’
The deputy head said elliptically, ‘Riding roughshod might be the best thing. Follow me.’
They passed through endless dim corridors, Moorhouse asking, ‘What happened, can you tell me?’
Ellen outlined the circumstances, concluding, ‘But Mr Roe’s still in a coma. It was a pretty vicious assault.’
‘Oh dear,’ Moorhouse said without feeling. ‘Any brain damage? Not that you could tell, necessarily.’
Ellen snorted. ‘I take it you didn’t like the man.’
Moorhouse powered on through the corridors, leading Ellen past anonymous offices and up and down bewildering short hallways and staircases. ‘Oh, put it down to sour grapes. I have a psychology degree and specialist training as a counsellor, in addition to my teaching credentials. I’ve counselled kids for years. Why do we need a chaplain?’
Ellen said lightly, ‘So you bashed Mr Roe over the head out of professional jealousy.’
Moorhouse snorted, ‘I wish.’
She stopped at a flimsy door, a sign on the wall reading: School Chaplain. ‘Mind you,’ she said, ‘I did shove him away in a forgotten corner.’
She unlocked the door and stood aside. ‘Take your time. I’ll be in my office next to the reception desk.’
‘Wait.’ Ellen touched the woman’s upper arm fleetingly. ‘Can you give me a few more minutes?’
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