Free Whispering Death by Garry Disher Page B

to pull herself together.
    She’d gone to her GP, who’d ascertained that she wasn’t suicidal and prescribed citalopram. The anxiety went away, sure enough, but so did a lot of things. Pam Murphy considered her few months on the citalopram as lost months. A low-level dullness had ruled her. She lost her spark. She didn’t even give a stuff about whether or not she had sex. And because she still had bad days sometimes, the anxiety returning, the GP had increased her dose from 20 mg to 40 mg per day. If that doesn’t work, the GP said, we’ll go to 60, or try a new generation SSRI.
    Not try to find out what was wrong, just up the dose.
    So Pam had stopped, cold turkey, and right now she was feeling happy. Yeah, she was kind of attracted to Challis, but she didn’t want to sleep with him. Besides, he was in love with Ellen Destry. It was the fact of sitting in candlelight with a nice man, a man she knew, a man who wouldn’t hurt her or play games with her.
    Challis glanced at his watch. ‘I’m calling it a night.’
    She wanted to say, ‘Don’t leave.’ But it was eleven o’clock and the dining room was empty. They paid, walked out into the moonlit car park, Challis standing very close to her and she very aware of him as they watched the last cars leave one by one. No CCTV. She thought it likely the abduction had nothing to do with the Chicory Kiln, and found herself saying, ‘It was opportunistic.’
    Challis said, ‘Opportunistic choice of victim, but he stalked her first.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    A tired-looking man arrived in a station wagon. Kelly hopped in, full of talk. A short time later, Gabi was picked up by a boy in a little Subaru, the car doof-doofing, the speakers almost shaking the car on its springs. When Gabi whispered in his ear, he turned the volume down, shot the detectives a scared look and drove sedately out onto Myers Road.

13
    Challis lived on a dirt road inland of Waterloo and woke on Saturday morning to find an SMS from Ellen Destry: Arrvd Spore Yerp 2moro XXX .
    Arrived Singapore, Europe tomorrow, kisses. His spirits galvanised, he walked with vigour in the dawn light and planned his weekend. Doorknock the back roads where Chloe Holst was found this morning, talk to the aircraft broker this afternoon, do some odd jobs on Ellen’s house tomorrow.
    By 8.30 he was in his old Triumph, heading for the nature reserve where Chloe Holst had been dumped and thinking about a new car. The Triumph was a rustbucket, rattly and unreliable. Distinctive to look at and almost fun with the top down, but unreliable. He should sell it. Sell it and the plane, he could afford to buy a decent one. He’d miss the Triumph’s dampish winds, though, its sensitivity to the Braille of every road surface.
    There was a crime-scene van at the reserve, two officers picking around the outskirts. There’d be others inside the reserve itself. He drove on until he’d reached the end of the road and turned into the first driveway.
    A small kit house hung with potted plants, a handful of goats in a pen behind it. A young woman, vaguely hippie in a long skirt and leather sandals, with grimy ankles, answered his knock. She was sweetly effete, incense hanging in the fibres of her clothing, and she hadn’t seen or heard anything.
    The next house, half a kilometre along, was a severe arrangement of corrugated iron cubes that advertised itself as ‘The Wellness Centre’. No one answered his knock.
    No one at home at the next stop, either, a weatherboard house in a yard choked with trail bikes and dogs, the dogs all teeth, ribs, drool and rusty chains. Then he came to a small brick house set in several hectares of unloved apple trees, where a raw-boned woman said viciously: ‘Someone pinched our ride-on mower last month and it took you lot a week to come out and have a bloody look. So no, I didn’t see anybloodything on Thursday night,