Free Challis - 02 - Kittyhawk Down by Garry Disher Page A

etched into the case of the Floater's Rolex were service marks. She jotted them down and said she'd make a few calls and let him know in a day or two who had serviced the watch.
    So that was progress. Next Challis examined Kitty Casement's aerial photograph of the cannabis crop. There was a topographical map of the Peninsula on his wall but he was unable to match the tiny patch of coastline represented in the photograph to any part of the map.
    A job for CIB and after that the Drug Squad, so he went in search of Ellen Destry. She was not in her cubicle. He walked downstairs and into a throng of uniformed and plain-clothes police, some cramming breakfast hamburgers from the fast-food joint across the street into their mouths.
    Challis shuddered, saw Pam Murphy and edged toward her. 'What's going on?'
    She blushed faintly, as if surprised that he knew her or would want to talk to her. In fact, Challis rated highly her detection abilities and knew she wanted to move on from uniformed work. 'The Monday talk, except it's on Tuesday this week.'
    She pointed to a typed notice on the wall of the corridor. Challis read that Senior Sergeant Kellock would be addressing staff on 'Self-Selection and the Criminal Mind', starting at nine am, finishing at nine-forty. Kellock had scrawled at the bottom: 'All staff are urged to attend'.
    Not for me, Challis thought, but then Ellen entered the corridor and tugged at his sleeve. 'Come on, Hal, you might learn something.'
    He let her lead him into the main conference room and found himself leaning on the back wall with her, looking over a sea of heads to a table and a whiteboard at the front of the room.
    'Scobie not here yet?'
    Ellen shook her head. 'School run.'
    Kellock was aptly named. It suggested a bullock, and the man was constructed of a thick pelt and a heavy superstructure of chest and shoulder bones and muscles. Waterloo was his station. He ran a tight ship. He also used to say that his door was always open, but last year someone had swiped the keys to the drugs safe and now the words were more metaphoric than literal.
    'As you know,' he said, swinging his massive head about, 'I've been in the States and Europe on a Churchill Fellowship.'
    'And pretty darned pleased with myself,' murmured Ellen in Challis's ear. Challis grinned.
    'The topic of today's chat is a very useful finding made by criminologists in the UK,' Kellock said. 'I mean, it's so obvious and simple, all you can do is shake your head in wonder.'
    He looked at them expectantly, waiting for them to bite, but the air in that little room was too warm, too stale, too overburdened with yawns and settling stomachs and aftershave and scented soaps and shampoos for that.
    So he said, 'Simply put, your bad guy self-selects.'
    He waited.
    Nothing.
    'What do I mean by that? Well, your criminal type tends not to let himself be bound by everyday laws and conventions. He'll park illegally, for example. He'll think nothing of speeding, running a red light, driving an unregistered and unroadworthy vehicle. And so on. There's a serial killer case in the States that was solved only because the killer was pulled over for driving with bald tyres. They opened the boot of his car and found his latest victim inside.'
    Challis, like the others, looked at him attentively, wondering where this was going.
    Frustration showing through for the first time, Kellock said, 'So, one of the best places to find a criminal is in the disabled-parking bay at your local supermarket.'
    He referred to his notes. 'In a six months' study in Huddersfield in the north of England, it was found that
one-third
of illegal parkers had criminal records,
half
had committed previous road traffic offences, and
a fifth
were of immediate police interest owing to suspected connections with unsolved crimes.' His big head looked out at the room again. 'Those are significant figures, ladies and gentlemen. Furthermore, one in ten of the cars illegally parked by these characters was