Garry Disher - Kittyhawk Down

'Except he kept his old phone number.'

'Except for that.'

'What did he say?'

'Very cagey. Wanted to know how I'd got his number. I'd thought of hanging up, saying wrong number, but I thought that would look more suspicious.'

And so Challis had improvised, telling Casement that he was simply doing his job, that he was sitting in a call centre full of similar operators, going down a list of mobile phone numbers on behalf of a charity. Who gave you the list of numbers? Casement had demanded. Challis had said he didn't know, he was just doing his job, but maybe the phone company itself had sold the list. 'Bastards,' Casement had said.

'So I apologised and got off the phone quickly.'

'He didn't recognise your voice?'

'Don't think so. Not in that context.'

'So who is he?'

'I've contacted Scotland Yard, asked them to look into the names Casement and Billings. Given that he used original documents to pass himself off as both names, it's possible they're actual people-who might or might not be dead now.'

'So we're looking at him for killing his wife?'

'And Trevor Hubble,' Challis said, perching on the table next to the whiteboard. 'Let's deal with Hubble first. Suppose Casement is on the run. He comes to Australia using the name Billings, meets Hubble, and takes on Hubble's identity when Hubble gets homesick and returns to England. But then Hubble gets restless again and returns to Australia, so Casement/ Billings feels threatened. He takes Hubble out on his boat, kills him, leaves the St Kilda house and moves down to the Peninsula. He meets Kitty and they get married. Being married was good cover and gave him some badly needed legitimacy.'

He paused. 'We need hard evidence. His boat, for starters. We know from Louise Cook that he had one. Does he still have it? Where is it moored? Can we get a warrant to search it? Hubble's fingerprints would be nice.'

'Global positioning system,' Scobie said suddenly.

'What's that when it's at home?' asked van Alphen, who was there on loan from Kellock.

'Something to do with navigation. It can tell us where the yacht has been, and when.'

Challis pointed to van Alphen. 'Van, I want you to find the yacht and get a warrant to search it and examine its global positioning gizmo. There's also the matter of the anchor used to weigh down Hubble's body. Has it turned up yet?'

They shook their heads, unsurprised by the world. Cops stole or misplaced or borrowed evidence all the time. Who would miss an anchor? Why would it ever be needed again?

'Next, Janet, his wife,' Challis went on. 'It's possible that she got too nosy, or twigged to who he was, or maybe she'd been in on the deal from the start and had become a liability. Either way, it was an opportunistic killing because it could be blamed on Munro.'

'Maybe she was bringing unwanted police attention home with her,' Ellen said. 'First when Lister rammed her plane, then when we found the photograph.'

Van Alphen scoffed. 'So why kill her and guarantee police attention?'

'Sympathy, not suspicion,' Challis said. 'And it could be that he stands to gain in other ways. Scobie, I want you to look into their finances. Does Casement have money of his own? Did Kitty? Does Casement inherit? How much? Did he take out any insurance policies on her life lately? And so on.'

Scobie and the others made to close their folders and go, but Challis held up his hand. 'Not yet. There's the matter of the Meddler and his wife.'

He could see sceptical faces watching him. 'Bear with me. Lister told us that he didn't shoot them or order them shot, and I believe him. He also said that Munro talked of killing the lawyer, but not of killing the Meddler and his wife. Why be coy about them? He also said nothing to Lister about shooting Janet Casement. I think Rex Casement goes to the top of the list for the Meddler shootings as well.'

'Motive?'

'This is the Meddler we're talking about. He got up people's noses. He dobbed them in or threatened to. What if he found out who Casement really was?'

'If he did, why didn't he report him to the police?'

'Frustration?' Challis said. 'Greed? Perhaps he thought he could profit from it in some way, try a bit of blackmail. He's not going to try blackmailing someone who dumps rubbish or doesn't feed his sheep, but Casement was a different kettle offish. If he's living under assumed names then it's probably for something big, like fraud-something worth blackmailing for.'

'So we need to hear back from Scotland Yard?'

'And we need to go back and search the Pearce house again,' Challis said. 'Ellen, you come with me. The rest of you, you know what to do.'

They were crossing the carpark when his mobile phone rang.

'Inspector Challis? You gave me your number just in case.'

'Who's talking?'

'Louise Cook.'

'Yes, Louise.'

'Um, I think I did something stupid. But I was that mad.'

Challis clenched inside, knowing what to expect. 'What did you do?'

'I rang that mobile phone number I gave you. Billings answered and it definitely was him, even though he gave a different name.'

'And?'

'And I got mad at him. Told him I knew he killed Trevor.'

'Christ.'

'Look, I'm really sorry. It's just I felt-'

'When?'

'What?'

'When the bloody hell did you call him?'

'There's no need to be like that. I did the right thing, I called you straightaway, soon as I realised it was him.'

'But you warned him, and now he'll run and now your own life is in danger. Christ.'

'What? What do you mean?'

Challis forced himself to be calm. 'I hope you didn't tell him where you live. Tell him you wanted money in return for silence.'

'If that's the thanks I get for-'

'Goodbye,' Challis said, snapping his phone into his pocket and telling Ellen, run.

'How's John Tankard?'

'Not too bad,' Pam Murphy said. She was driving, Challis beside her, van Alphen and Ellen in the back seat.

'Is he getting counselling?'

Challis sensed resistance in her. She's protecting her own, he thought. She doesn't like this line of questioning. She drove expertly, at speed, along the coast road toward Penzance Beach and the turnoff for Upper Penzance, and deflected him: 'Will Casement run, sir?'

'He has before. He'll have a contingency plan, new ID to slip into.'

'Do you think he'll be there?'

'I hope so, but drive like the clappers even so.'

'Will he be armed if he is?'

'There's a good chance.'

And so they were armed. And armed backup would follow behind them as soon as Senior Sergeant Kellock could muster some more uniforms. Unfortunately there were officers down with the flu and others attending at a four-car pile-up at the corner of Myers and Coolart roads. The Meddler had been right about that intersection: why the hell had they installed give-way rather than stop signs?

Challis watched Pam Murphy brake and corner with a flick of the wheel onto Five Furlong Road. There was something a little staged about the manoeuvre, something a little self-conscious. She'd driven pursuit cars in her last posting; she was still young enough to want to show off. She wanted to join CIB but the uniform allowed her to do the fun stuff, like drive at speed, siren on, telling the world to step out of her way.

'Damn, there he is,' Challis said.

This part of Five Furlong Road was narrow, rutted, pot-holed, with treacherous gravel verges. Two cars passing from opposite directions were obliged to slow to a crawl and pull over to the side, outside wheels in the ditch if that were shallow enough. If not, you risked bottoming out and scraping away your sump and exhaust system. But Casement, in the familiar Mercedes station wagon that his wife had driven, was not slowing, pulling over, stopping. Pam swung into the bracken between two peppermint gums, bouncing the chassis over clumps of hardened mud cast up by a shire grader, while Challis craned his head around to peer through the rear window at Casement, who had flashed past, churning up a dense blanket of gritty dust. They heard small stones ping against the rear of the police car.