Challis - 05 - Blood Moon Read Free

schools in the city, hadnt known her attacker, hadnt seen him,
in the dunes late at night, hadnt been able to identify him in any way. All
they had was a spill of semen on her T-shirt and shorts. What was the betting
thered be no DNA match to anyone in the system?

    Challis slowed the car, spotting Scobie
Suttons Volvo station wagon parked outside the Villanova Gardens apartments.
The Volvo was twenty years old but still pristine, a car that had never broken
the speed limitwhich didnt mean that it was ever driven well, for Scobie
Sutton was a well-known lousy driver. There was also a police car and a black
Astra soft-top.

    The Villanova Gardens was named
after an Italian sailor whod jumped ship a hundred years earlier, when
Waterloo was a huddle of fishermens makeshift tents and cabins. Challis parked,
got out and glanced both ways along the street, spotting Pam Murphy and a
uniformed constable knocking on doors. Few street lights in this part of town,
he noticed. He eyed the apartments. They were double-storeyed, in a row of ten,
each with a small, incorporated garage, hedges for privacy, and an upper-level
balcony that he guessed gave a view across the yacht basin and Western Port Bay
to the distant smoke stacks of the refinery on the other side. Uninspiring, but
you could honestly call it a view.

    He approached number 6, fishing ID
out of his suit coat and showing it to Andy Cree, the constable whod been
stationed to keep a log of all those authorised to enter or leave the building.
Cree was a new recruit to the station, young, athletic, engaging, always
wearing the easy air of a kidder. Challis preferred that to shyness, ineptitude
or flunkeyism, but Cree was in a lazy mood today, in no hurry as he logged the
details. Keeping it light but firm, Challis said, Ive got all day, Andy.

    Cree flushed. Yes, sir.

    Whos here? Whos been and gone?

    Cree checked the log. Ambulance
guys have taken the victim to hospital. Constable Murphys doing a doorknock
along the street with Constable Tankard. The crime scene technicians arent
here yet. DC Sutton from CIU, and the victims brother, name of

    Challis said, The brother? Whats
he doing here? This is a crime scene.

    Crees face flickered, then cleared.
He said he wanted to take toiletries and pyjamas to the hospital. Constable
Sutton gave the okay, sir.

    Challis made to go in, then paused. Where
was the victim found?

    There was a low hedge running beside
the footpath. Cree pointed over it to the small patch of lawn between the
street and the front door. Lying right there, sir.

    There were also hedges on either
side of the yard. Given the hedges, the sparse street lighting and the darkness
of night, it was possible to see why Roe hadnt been spotted by his neighbours
or passers-by until daybreak.

    And theres blood on that rock,
Cree said, pointing to a hefty stone lying on the concrete pathway leading to
the door. It was painted white and had been removed from the border around a
bed of roses. Nodding his thanks, Challis walked up the short, narrow path to
the open front door and into a hallway that led to a cramped living and dining
area with a kitchen through an archway, and beyond that a door that probably
led to the laundry and a bathroom. Minimalist but expensive fittings and
furniture, he noticed quickly, before glancing up the plain staircase to the
upper level, where the bedrooms would be. And where voices were raised.

    Challis pulled hard on the banister
to propel himself up the stairs. He tracked the voices to a small office at the
rear, where Scobie Sutton stood by helplessly as a man dressed in jeans and a
polo shirt wrapped a power cable around a laptop computer that had been on the
desk under a window. Sutton looked up. Sorry, boss...

    The detective had the bony
narrowness and angularity of an undertaker, an impression reinforced by his
dark suit and glum air. He gestured feebly as if to grab the laptop. Meanwhile
the other man dodged him and turned to Challis. Who