The Bat(23)

‘Inger was a nice, attractive and very stupid girl with some notion that she and I could be happy together.’ Evans studied the ceiling. Then he sniggered contentedly again. ‘I think, in fact, that sums it up very neatly.’

‘Have you any idea how she could have been killed or who could have done it?’

‘Yes, we have newspapers up in Nimbin, too, so I know she was strangled. But who did it? A strangler, I suppose.’ He threw his head back and grinned. A curl fell over his brow, his white teeth glistened in the tanned face and the laughter lines around his brown eyes stretched back towards ears hung with pirate rings.

Andrew cleared his throat. ‘Mr White, a woman whom you knew well and with whom you had an intimate relationship has just been murdered. What you might or might not feel about that is not our business. However, as you are no doubt aware, we are looking for a murderer, and unless you try to help us this very minute we will be forced to have you taken to the police station in Sydney.’

‘I’m going to Sydney anyway so if that means you’ll pay for my plane ticket, fine by me.’

Harry didn’t know what to think. Was Evans White as tough as he was trying to make out, or was he suffering from deficient mental faculties? Or an inadequately developed soul, a typically Norwegian concept? Harry wondered. Did courts anywhere else in the world judge the quality of a soul?

‘As you wish, Mr White,’ Andrew said. ‘Plane ticket, free board and lodging, free solicitor and free PR as a murder suspect.’

‘Big deal. I’ll be out again within forty-eight hours.’

‘And then we’ll offer you a round-the-clock tail, a free wake-up service, maybe even the odd free raid thrown in as well. And who knows what else we can cook up.’

Evans knocked back the rest of the beer and sat fiddling with the label on the bottle. ‘What do you gentlemen want?’ he said. ‘All I know is that one day she was suddenly gone. I was going to Sydney, so I tried to ring her, but she wasn’t at work or at home. The day I arrive in Sydney I read in the newspaper she’s been found murdered. I walk around like a zombie for two days. I mean to say, m-u-r-d-e-r-e-d? What are the statistical chances of ending your life being throttled to death, eh?’

‘Not high. But have you got an alibi for the time of the murder? It’d be good . . .’ Andrew said, taking notes.

Evans started with horror. ‘Alibi? What do you mean? Surely you can’t suspect me, for Christ’s sake. Or are you telling me the cops have been on the case for a week and still don’t have any real leads?’

‘We’re looking at all the evidence, Mr White. Can you tell me where you were for the two days before you arrived in Sydney?’

‘I was here, of course.’

‘Alone?’

‘Not completely.’ Evans grinned and chucked the empty stubby. It flew through the air in an elegant parabola before landing noiselessly in the rubbish bin by the worktop. Harry nodded acknowledgement.

‘May I ask who was with you?’

‘You already have. But fine, I’ve nothing to hide. It was a woman called Angelina Hutchinson. She lives in the town here.’

Harry noted that down.

‘Lover?’ Andrew asked.

‘Sort of,’ Evans answered.

‘What can you tell us about Inger Holter? Who was she?’

‘Agh, we hadn’t known each other for that bloody long. I met her on Fraser Island. She said she was headed down to Byron Bay. It’s not far from here, so I gave her my phone number in Nimbin. A few days later she rang me and asked if she could stop over one night. She was here for more than a week. After that we met in Sydney when I was there. That must have been two or three times. As you know, we didn’t exactly become an old married couple. And besides she was already beginning to be a drag.’

‘A drag?’

‘Yes, she had a soft spot for my son, Tom-Tom, and let her imagination run away about a family and a house in the country. That didn’t suit me, but I let her jabber on.’

‘Jabber on about what?’

Evans squirmed. ‘She was the kind that’s hard-faced when you meet her, but she’s as soft as butter if you tickle her under the chin and tell her you love her. Then she can’t do enough for you.’

‘So she was a considerate young lady?’

Evans clearly didn’t like the path this conversation was following. ‘Maybe she was. I didn’t know her that well, as I said. She hadn’t seen her family in Norway for a while, had she, so maybe she was starved for . . . affection, someone being there for her, know what I mean? Who bloody knows? As I said, she was a stupid, romantic chick, there was no evil in her . . .’