One Boy Missing(21)

‘None of your fellas?’

‘Well, I’d hope not.’ He wondered whether Monaghan’s lips ever moved from the horizontal.

‘We’ve got stuff crushed up everywhere in here.’ The sergeant led Moy back into the house. ‘It’s like the Keystone Cops.’

Another investigator was taking photos of the floor in the lounge room. He’d set up markers and Moy was surprised to see that there were at least thirty points of interest around the room. ‘What have you found?’ he asked Monaghan.

‘A few footprints, but fuck knows who they belong to.’

‘Right, but nothing that might tell us who she was?’

‘No.’ The sergeant glared at Moy. ‘We’re still interviewing the possums. What about you?’

You prick, he thought. ‘The closest homes are down the end of Creek Street. Nothing of much help. The fella that called it in was driving past with his kids, going into town for some bread and milk.’

‘You’ve done the door-knocks?’

‘Yes. I had a couple of constables work their way right along.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No.’

‘Doesn’t leave you with much.’ Monaghan knelt down where the body had been. ‘The fire investigator reckons she was covered in diesel. Don’t know much else until the coroner’s done. No stab marks, no strangulation.’ He looked up at Moy. ‘You finished your initial report?’

‘I’m working on it.’

‘Yeah.’ He stood up. ‘This way.’

Monaghan led him into the kitchen. They walked on a raised aluminium walkway that had been laid throughout most of the house. ‘More prints here,’ Monaghan said, indicating unburnt boards. ‘Then there’s ash, and more prints.’

They arrived in the kitchen and Monaghan indicated the sink, full of broken dishes, and a chicken carcass on a burnt chopping board.

‘I could be wrong, but that’s a lot of dishes for one person,’ the sergeant continued.

‘Maybe she wasn’t houseproud.’

‘Maybe.’ He walked over to the sink and ran his index finger across some of the plates. ‘All greasy,’ he said, looking at Moy.

Moy shrugged. ‘So, perhaps, whoever did it had tea with her first?’

‘Maybe. That’s what you gotta find out, DS Moy.’

‘Right.’

‘That’s what the statistics show, isn’t it? People getting knocked off by someone they know? So, if these were squatters…itinerant, probably. Unlikely to be local. You work it out. You get paid more than me.’

‘Eat the chook, then have an argument?’ Moy said.

‘What about the diesel?’

Moy stared at the broken plates. ‘I suppose I could start with the chicken shop?’

‘Don’t bother.’ The sergeant held up a plastic wrapper. ‘They roasted their own.’

And so the tour continued, with more suggestions about what he might want to consider next time, how there was a manual about securing crime scenes, easily downloadable.

‘I’ll do my report,’ Monaghan concluded, as they returned to the front porch. ‘You may be the only detective on this, at least for a while. But that’s good, eh? You know all the locals, that’s how you’re gonna solve it. People don’t just appear from nowhere and then disappear into thin air.’

MOY HEADED BACK to town. Light rain had fallen and dried. As he slowed for the intersection of Creek Street and Peyser Avenue his car skidded on a slew of loose gravel and ended up stalled in the middle of the intersection. He sat looking both ways but there was nothing coming. His heart slowed and he took a deep breath, pressing his foot to the brake before realising it was too late.

Then he heard the shriek of tyres from further along Peyser Avenue. He started the car and headed towards the tennis club where, it turned out, a pair of cockies’ sons in a hot ute were busy with circle work on the newly resurfaced courts.

The ute had fat tyres and big rims, metallic paint and a pair of spotlights welded to a roll-bar. The driver, a peach-fuzzed teenager in a black singlet, was laughing, leaning into an ever-tightening circle as he called to his mate. There were a dozen or so skid marks covering all four of the courts. Moy could smell the rubber.

He pulled up on the side of the road and punched the number on the clubhouse into his phone. The club secretary answered and Moy asked him to come straight away. Then he got out and sat on the bonnet of his car with his arms crossed. Eventually the driver noticed him. Stopped; said, ‘Fuck it,’ and went back to circling. Moy stood up, and held his warrant card against the fence.

The ute stopped.