Whispering Death by Garry Disher

all right?’
    The last house before the T-intersection with the Dandenong-Waterloo road was announced by a rotting gate. A rotting mailbox, a weedy driveway that disappeared betweens the trunks of the highest pine trees Challis had ever seen. He opened the gate, drove through, closed it and bounced the Triumph over ruts to a small fibro farmhouse so deep in the shadows that the walls wore moss. It looked diseased. Weeds spouted in the gutters. Thin hens pecked desultorily and an old dog lifted and dropped its tail. There must be little houses like this all over the world, he thought. Rural America, rural Norway. It’s where the old and the poor and the forgotten go to hide, in the only space they can navigate.
    He got out and approached the house. Reaching the front step, he turned to get his bearings. The road was clearly visible: he simply felt like he was buried in the woods. He knocked, and after some time an old man opened the door a crack, revealing one eye and a whiskery cheek. ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ Challis said, holding up his ID and saying he was from the police.
    He didn’t get a chance to say why. The old man disappeared into the gloom, returning a moment later with a spiral-bound notebook. ‘What day?’
    â€˜I beg your pardon?’
    â€˜Night time? Day time?’
    He’d scribbled vehicle make and registration numbers in his notebook, together with times and dates. ‘Thursday night,’ Challis said.
    â€˜Thursday, Thursday. Sorry, I was at me daughter’s.’
    It didn’t matter, Chloe Holst had been driven to the reserve in her own car. But her rapist might have scouted around in the days and weeks before snatching her, so Challis said: ‘Your notebook could be very useful to the police. May we borrow it? I’ll make a photocopy and return it on Monday.’
    He was expecting resistance, but the man stuck out his chest and firmed his chin. ‘Happy to help, happy to help.’
    Challis took the proffered notebook, flipped through the pages, frowned and looked more closely at the scribbled information. ‘These are all trucks and vans, not cars.’
    â€˜Well, obviously.’
    â€˜I don’t follow.’
    The old man couldn’t believe Challis’s ignorance. ‘You don’t think them people smugglers come into Western Port Bay with just one or two people aboard, do you?’

14
    Meanwhile Pam Murphy had awoken feeling jittery, close to panic. That was nothing new. Some deep breathing helped; she avoided coffee.
    But the dizziness was starting to bother her. She went on-line, Googling the withdrawal symptoms of her antidepressant, recalling the advice of her GP: ‘I don’t think you should quit, but I can see that’s what you want, so make sure you phase out slowly, over several days.’
    Several days? Hell, according to the Internet, that should have been several weeks, even months. Even then some chat-page respondents reported long periods of dizziness, mild auditory and visual hallucinations, something screwy with their eyes, itchy skin. And the special kind of dizziness she’d been feeling was called a ‘brain zap’. Exactly right, she thought.
    As for some of the antidepressants recommended by her doctor, some had been associated with suicides and murders in various parts of the world. The things the doctors don’t tell you, she thought. The things they don’t know .
    She switched off and thought about the day. Challis wanted her to interview Chloe Holst again—but not at six-thirty in the morning. Checking the tide times, she strapped her surfboard to the Subaru and headed to Point Leo, where she pulled on her wetsuit and paddled out to catch a few waves. The brain zap got her a couple of times, making her misjudge, spoiling her run into shore, but the surf, the sand and the air itself were a tonic. And although she didn’t speak to the other surfers, she felt a bond with