The Dragon Man by Garry Disher

Author:Garry Disher
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781569473566
Publisher: Soho Crime
Published: 1998-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

They were country people: decent, bewildered, fearing the worst. They'd been expecting Trina to arrive some time on Christmas Eve. It's a long drive from Frankston to Shepparton, so, although they'd been worried when their daughter hadn't arrived, they'd told themselves to expect her after they'd gone to bed, or Christmas morning at the latest, though they'd have been cross with her if she had left it that late. She'd always been a bit wilful and inconsiderate. Not malicious, mind you, just always went her own way. But when she hadn't arrived by ten o'clock, they'd phoned. No answer. Then, remembering that two girls had been abducted and murdered, they'd phoned the police in Frankston, who sent a divisional van to their daughter's address.

Trina Unger lived in a small, worn-looking home unit. The doors were locked, the blinds drawn. The police had broken in eventually, but the place was empty. Trina Unger's bed was unmade. A half-packed weekender bag sat on the end of the bed. The other bedroom had been hastily tidied. There was a flatmate, according to the Ungers. They didn't know where she was. At her parents' for Christmas?—as Trina should have been.

Then at lunchtime Trina Unger's car was found on a lonely stretch of the Old Peninsula Highway, just ten kilometres from Frankston. All of the windows had been smashed in.

Now it was three in the afternoon. The parents had arrived from Shepparton, and Challis and Sutton were interviewing them in their daughter's sitting room. The walls were close and faintly grubby, the ceiling too low, and the overstuffed, mismatched op-shop armchairs crowded the small, tufted orange carpet. The place smelt damp, despite the heat of summer.

'The second bedroom?' Challis said.

'That would be Den's,' Mrs Unger said. 'Denise.'

'Do you know where we can contact her?'

'Afraid not.'

Challis nodded to Sutton, who stood and made for the bedroom. All of the detective constable's movements were slow and automatic, his bony face drawn, his eyes ready to brim, as though he could not get the image of the cot-death baby out of his head.

Challis turned to the Ungers again. 'We found your daughter's car.'

Kurt Unger was sitting upright, his fists bunched neatly on his large knees. The words wouldn't come clearly, so he coughed and tried again. 'Yes.'

'On the Old Peninsula Highway,' Challis continued. 'That's in the opposite direction from Shepparton. And she'd started packing, but hadn't finished. Have you any idea where she might have been going?'

'None,' Freda Unger said.

'Does she have a boyfriend? Could he have called her?'

Freda Unger made a wide gesture with both arms. 'Who knows? We never met any, if she did have boyfriends. But she was young still.'

'Twenty?'

'Twenty-one in March.'

Kurt Unger coughed. He said, 'I overheard a policeman say the windows were broken on her car.'

Challis cursed under his breath. 'Yes.'

'She locked her doors but he broke her windows with a rock and dragged her out,' Kurt Unger said fixedly. Nothing moved, only his bottom jaw.

His wife crumpled. 'Oh, Kurt, don't.'

'We don't know what happened,' Challis said.

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