Challis - 02 - Kittyhawk Down Read Online Free PDF Page A

wouldn't want her lover to kill. As Tessa Kane kept saying, it was time he shook her off. Time he
divorced
her, in fact.
    'I suppose her parents were there?'
    'Yes.'
    In fact, Challis liked his wife's parents. They were bewildered, apologetic, as tortured with notions of responsibility as he was, and sorry to think that their daughter could do such a thing to so nice a man.
    Tessa snorted. Challis read it not as contempt but obscure pain and envy, as though she felt she had no claim on him at all. He put down his scotch. 'Tess—'
    'Something unusual happened on my hike. Do you want to hear about it?' She looked at him, brightly blinking her moist eyes.
    Relief flooded through him. 'Of course.'
    'I was walking along an empty stretch of beach near Flinders this afternoon. There was a lot of seaweed and kelp on the beach, strong winds, waves, you know how windy it was today.'
    Challis nodded. Had she seen him? No.
    'Anyway, I'm trudging along when a four-wheel-drive appears, roaring straight at me across the sand.'
    Challis's nerve endings tingled. 'Go on.'
    'White Toyota traytop ute, to be exact. Two men inside. The driver starts shouting at me. What am I doing there? Who else is with me? Have I found some boxes on the beach? Maybe I've hidden them? He was quite aggressive. Then he just sped off further down the beach. I was too surprised to take down the number.'
    'Shipment of drugs,' Challis said flatly.
    'I'd say so.'
    Challis worked homicide, not drugs, but the trade in drugs often leads to homicide, so naturally he was interested. 'There was a gale last night,' he said.
    She nodded. 'Either the stuff was tied to a buoy and got dislodged, or it was thrown or washed overboard from some ship or yacht.'
    'Or the shipment was ripped off.'
    'That too. Or it's entirely innocent. But it didn't
feel
right, you know?'
    Things not feeling right is a common instinct in the police and the press, Challis thought. 'What did they look like?'
    Tessa shrugged. 'I only saw the driver clearly. Generic Peninsula male, late thirties, beanie, shades, footie jumper, needed a shave. I can't be more specific than that.'
    'Even so, it's worth reporting. Our collators can feed it into the system.'
    She saluted. 'Yes, sir.'
    A silence opened between them. It was clear to Challis now that they were not going to make love and he'd been deluded to think that a reunion after what he'd done to her— as she saw it—could have been passionate. If he reached out and touched her now she'd flinch and say, it's not as easy as that, Hal.
    She seemed to read his confusion and unhappiness and got to her feet. 'I'd better go.'
    She almost walked out on him coldly but at the last moment stopped and briefly touched his cheek.
    She'd left her scotch unfinished.

CHAPTER FIVE

    At one am, with Dwayne Venn questioned and remanded and most of the paperwork done, Ellen packed up and drove home to Penzance Beach, still dressed in her baggy stakeout cargo pants and cotton windcheater. The Destry family home was a fibro holiday house on stilts in a hollow between the beachfront and hilly farmland. Penzance Beach was a fifteen-minute drive but a world away from Waterloo, with its depressed estates and idle light industry. In summer, Penzance Beach crawled with the four-wheel-drives and German saloon cars of the well-heeled Melbourne families whose fairytale cottages and architect-designed bunkers would one day replace the fibro shacks of families like the Destrys.
    Melbourne was just over an hour's drive away so Penzance Beach crawled with outsiders at Easter too. She slowed the car and looked for somewhere to park. The street was full of cars of the holidaying families and the kids attending Larrayne's party. She drove down two adjacent streets before finding a gap large enough to fit her Magna, and walked back. Good: the party was winding up. There were shouts goodbye as kids tumbled out of her front door and away.
    She went inside to find a stony-faced husband and teary