Free Whispering Death by Garry Disher

just say she’s part of something loose and shadowy,’ Towne said. ‘ATM skimming, credit cards, identity theft, burglary to order, shoplifting raids.’
    â€˜Foreign gang?’ said Wilmot.
    Towne bared his teeth.
    Wilmot snapped. ‘So what do I do now?’ Irritated. ‘Kiss your sweet arse and go home?’
    Towne crinkled his eyes again, but they remained as flat and fogged as the river.

12
    In the Chicory Kiln that evening, seated at a window overlooking vineyards on Myers Road, Pam Murphy read from the boxed paragraph on the front of the menu:
    â€˜â€œThe Chicory Kiln—so called because there was once a chicory kiln where the bistro now stands—offers the ultimate in relaxed dining on the Peninsula, and…”’
    She glanced at Challis. ‘Boss? Know what a chicory kiln is? Or chicory, for that matter?’
    â€˜Edible plant,’ said Challis, his face dark and hawkish in the candlelight.
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜Rarely grown anymore.’
    She cocked her head.
    â€˜Edible in what way?’
    â€˜Salad leaves and coffee.’
    â€˜Aha. Coffee. Hence your interest.’
    The only coffee that Challis trusted was the coffee that he made. Wouldn’t touch the canteen coffee. Always asked for tea if a doorknock witness offered coffee.
    He smiled at her blithely. ‘They used to roast and grind the roots. During the Second World War, it was added to coffee or used as a substitute.’
    â€˜Fascinating.’
    Challis was unmoved. ‘Early in my career I was posted to Phillip Island. Chicory kilns everywhere.’
    Then she saw his face shut down, as if a shadow from his past had crept in. She’d heard the whispers over the years. He’d met his wife on the island and she’d gone with him from one rural posting to another as he rose in the ranks. Then, somewhere in central Victoria, she’d started sleeping with one of his colleagues and she’d conspired with her lover to kill Challis. Something about an anonymous call and a lonely bush track. The wife was dead now. Suicide in jail. The lover was due for parole in a year or so.
    Pam thought about these things as she tore off a hunk of coarse bread and dunked it in a small bowl of olive oil. Local olive oil, according to the menu. She chewed the pungent bread, wiped her mouth and fingers.
    â€˜Have you ever drunk chicory coffee?’
    Challis shuddered. ‘God, no.’
    Pam grinned, then glanced around the Chicory Kiln’s interior, which evoked Tuscan villa, New England barn and Bedouin fort in roughly equal parts: gnarled posts and beams, terracotta floor tiles, vaulted ceiling, whitewashed earthen walls. The diners sat at heavy wooden tables, cooled by ceiling fans in summer and warmed by an enormous stone fireplace in winter.
    The diners, this Friday evening, were a mix of locals and weekender tourists. Young, middle-aged, old. Kids on a first date, a hen’s party of shire office workers, the Waterloo postmaster and his wife, a family singing Happy Birthday to an ancient crone.
    And Murphy and Challis, who’d come to question the staff and stayed for dinner.
    Eva—German backpacker, twenty-six years old, charged with washing the Chicory Kiln’s dishes, making the salads, sometimes clearing the tables—had talked to them during a cigarette break in the stinking air beside the bins in the rear courtyard, smoke dribbling from her mouth. ‘I am not knowing this girl Chloe so much. I am here three weeks only. I make the oranges from the trees on the river, I serve the food in Sydney, I cleaning houses in Byron Bay. That is all who I am. I know nothing. I hope you catches this man. You see my visa if you want.’
    That was at 5.30. Over the next hour, as other staff arrived for work, Murphy and Challis had taken them aside and asked them the same questions. How well do you know Chloe Holst? Did anyone ever visit her at the restaurant, take her