The Bat(37)

‘Morning,’ Harry said. Sandra gazed at him without a sign of recognition. ‘Remember me?’

She raised the corners of her mouth. It might have been intended as a smile. ‘Sure, love. Let’s go.’

‘I’m Holy, the policeman.’

Sandra peered at him. ‘So it bloody is. At this hour my contact lenses are beginning to go on strike. Must be all the exhaust fumes.’

‘Can I buy you a coffee?’ Harry asked politely.

She shrugged. ‘Not much going on here any more, so I may as well call it a night.’

Teddy Mongabi suddenly appeared in the strip-club door chewing a matchstick. He nodded briefly to Harry.

‘How did your parents take it?’ Sandra asked when the coffee came. They were sitting in Harry’s breakfast place, Bourbon & Beef, and the waiter remembered Harry’s regular order: Eggs Benedict, hash browns, flat white. Sandra took her coffee black.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Your sister . . .’

‘Oh, yes, right.’ He lifted the cup to his mouth to gain time.

‘Mm, yes, as well as can be expected. Thank you for asking.’

‘It’s a terrible world we live in.’

The sun had not yet cleared the rooftops in Darlinghurst Road, but the sky was already azure with a few circular puffs of cloud here and there. It looked like wallpaper for a child’s room. But it didn’t help, because the world was a terrible place.

‘I talked to some of the girls,’ Sandra said. ‘The bloke’s name in the picture is White. He’s a dealer. Speed and acid. Some of the girls buy from him, but none of them has had him as a customer.’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t have to pay to have his needs covered,’ Harry said.

Sandra snorted. ‘Need for sex is one thing. Need to buy sex is quite another. For lots of men that’s the kick. There’s plenty we can do for you that you don’t get at home, believe you me.’

Harry glanced up. Sandra was staring straight at him and the glaze in her eyes was gone for a moment.

He believed her.

‘Did you check the dates we talked about?’

‘One of the girls says she bought acid off him the night before your sister was found.’

Harry put down the cup of coffee, spilling it, and leaned across the table. He spoke quickly and softly. ‘Can I talk to her? Is she reliable?’

Sandra’s broad, red mouth parted in a smile. There was a black cavity where the tooth was missing. ‘As I said, she bought acid, which is forbidden in Australia. And is she reliable? She’s an acidhead . . .’ She hunched her shoulders. ‘I’m only telling you what she told me. But she doesn’t have the world’s clearest concept of what day a Wednesday or a Thursday is, let’s put it like that.’

The mood at the morning meeting was irritable. Even the fan’s growl was deeper than usual.

‘Sorry, Holy. We’re dropping White. No motive, and that woman of his says he was in Nimbin at the time of the murder,’ Watkins said.

Harry raised his voice. ‘Listen, Angelina Hutchinson is on speed and God knows what else. She’s pregnant, probably by Evans White. He’s her pusher, for Christ’s sake! God and Jesus rolled into one! She’ll do whatever he tells her. We spoke to the landlord and the woman hated Inger Holter, and with good reason. The Norwegian girl tried to steal her golden goose.’

‘Perhaps we’d better have a closer look at the Hutchinson woman,’ Lebie said quietly. ‘At least she has a clear motive. Perhaps she’s the one who needs White as an alibi and not the other way round.’

‘White’s lying, isn’t he. He was seen in Sydney the day before Inger Holter was found.’ Harry had got up and walked the two paces the conference room allowed.

‘By a prostitute on LSD and we don’t even know if she’ll make a statement,’ Watkins pointed out, turning to Yong. ‘What did the airlines say?’

‘The Nimbin police themselves saw White in the main street three days before the murder. Neither Ansett Airlines nor Qantas has had White on the passenger lists between that time and the murder.’

‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ Lebie growled. ‘If you sell dope you don’t travel under your own name. Anyway, he could have caught the train. Or driven if he’d had the time.’

Harry had some steam up now. ‘I repeat. American statistics show that in seventy per cent of all murder cases the victim knows the murderer. Yet we’re focusing the investigation on a serial killer we all know we have as much chance of catching as winning the pools. Shouldn’t we do something with better odds? After all, we have a guy who has quite a bit of circumstantial evidence stacked against him. The point is that now we have to shake him. Act while the trail’s still hot. Bring him in and wave a charge in his face. Push him into making a mistake. Right now he has us where he wants us: in . . . a . . . a . . .’ He searched in vain for the English word for bakevja. Rut.