Chapter Sixteen #2
‘Come in, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m Alison, Steve’s wife. Are you hungry? Come to the kitchen. I’ve been making scones and Steve won’t eat them for me anymore. I love a scone. It’s not as much fun eating them alone.’
A little bemused, Judith followed Alison down the corridor to the kitchen.
The wall on the right was full of family photographs, but there were far too many children in the photographs for one family.
Judith slowed down, trying to take it all in.
She recognised a younger version of the apple-cheeked woman in some of the photos.
In most of them a great red-headed bear of a man stood beside her, his arm slung over her shoulders, or wrapped around her waist, as they both grinned at the camera.
‘Are you looking at my kiddos?’ Alison asked.
She stopped walking and smiled fondly at the photographs.
‘Aren’t they beautiful? We’re too old for it now, of course, but Steve and I, we fostered thirty-six children over twenty-five years.
’ She nodded in some satisfaction at Judith’s widened eyes.
‘I know that seems like an unreasonable number, but some of them were with us only for a weekend here and there, a bit of respite care, you know?’
She started walking in the direction of the kitchen again, and Judith followed.
‘Thirty-six . . . that’s a lot of kids.’
‘I suppose we might have had one or two more. I lost track of the full number years ago. The Foster Care Association honoured me and Steve last year. Wasn’t that lovely? There was a dinner and a plaque and everything.’
They’d arrived in the kitchen, where the promised scones were cooling on a baking rack.
The kitchen was more modern than the rest of the house had promised.
She’d been expecting more brick, and maybe yellowing cabinets, but they must have renovated this part of the house sometime over the past few years, because the kitchen was all bright and white modernity.
‘Take a seat there, Judith,’ Alison said.
‘I think Steve is in the shed. Let me see if I can find him for you.’ She disappeared through the back door and returned a few minutes later, followed by the red-headed man from the photographs, a few years older now, and distinctly less bearish.
Steve Gifford had that loose-skinned look that comes with major weight loss.
He shook Judith’s hand, and she noticed that he’d lost the tip of his right index finger.
Not recently. It was clearly an old injury, long healed.
‘Steve,’ he said. ‘Is Allie trying to force scones on you?’
Judith smiled. ‘They’ve been offered.’
Alison had already put the kettle on. She was busy spreading jam and cream on a scone, and setting it on a plate in front of Judith.
‘Just because you’re not eating nice things, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to do without,’ she said to her husband.
She turned to Judith. ‘He’s on the Ozempic, you know?
His doctor put him on it because of his diabetes.
It’s wonderful, all the weight he’s lost, and his blood sugar is normal and of course I’m delighted, because my own father died of that disease and it’s a terrible thing.
So it’s very wrong of me to say it, but I do sometimes miss the old Steve.
’ Her expression was a mix of guilt and defiance.
He kissed her on the cheek. ‘I think that’s probably enough on that subject, Al. Judith, how can we help you?’ He took over the making of the tea. Alison sat at the table, and gestured for Judith to do the same. ‘Is it about one of the kids?’
It occurred to Judith that twenty-five years of providing foster care probably meant that the Giffords had experience dealing with police. That might be why they were so relaxed in her presence.
‘I’m here about the gun,’ Judith said.
Steve frowned. ‘I’ve been worrying about the damn things from the moment they were taken. Was one of them used to hurt someone?’
One of them?
‘I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that question right now,’ Judith said. ‘I’m just here to ask you about the theft.’ She took a bite of the scone. It was delicious.
Alison glanced at Steve.
‘There’s nothing we can tell you that we haven’t already reported,’ she said. ‘The guns were taken back in May. On the twentieth of May, sometime in the middle of the night. We were away for the weekend. When we came back, we found the safe open and the guns gone.’
‘Guns? More than one was taken?’
‘Yes,’ Steve said. ‘My .38 Super and my .357 Magnum.’
‘The safe was locked?’ Judith asked.
Steve nodded firmly. ‘It’s always locked, and so is the workshop. I’ve never messed about with gun safety. We had kids in the house for years. Some high-risk kids too. We know how to be careful.’
‘Can you show me?’ Judith asked.
‘No problem.’
Judith stood.
‘Finish your scone first, dear,’ said Alison, frowning a little.
‘I’ll come back for it.’ Judith followed Steve outside.
The workshop was impressive. It was the size of a triple garage, and very clean and organised, with two long workbenches running along one wall.
But it was the tools that made Judith stop in her tracks.
There was a workbench and a table saw in the middle of the room, and two other workstations set up along the wall.
One of the benches had what looked like custom-built shelves, filled with Festool power tools stored in their boxes.
The second had a wall unit hung with hand tools; chisels and planes and saws of different sizes.
‘Wow,’ Judith said.
Steve nodded. ‘That’s my Stanley set. They’re great, aren’t they?
Can’t buy them today. Well, you can, if you can find them second-hand, but they cost a fortune.
You can’t get that quality new, you see.
I got mine from my dad. He was a furniture maker.
I do a bit myself now, in retirement. I’m not a patch on him, but I love it.
’ He led the way to the corner of the room. ‘Here’s the safe.’
It was a large safe, about a metre wide and a metre and a half tall. It was black steel, with a single keyhole at the centre front, and a brass handle to pull the door open. It looked to be in perfect condition.
‘Is this new?’ Judith asked.
‘Had it for thirty years.’
‘But this is the safe that was broken into?’
Steve nodded.
‘I don’t understand,’ Judith said. ‘There’s no damage.’
Steve looked confused. ‘Well. They used the key, of course.’
‘The key,’ Judith said. Regulations required that keys to gun safes were kept either with the owner, or in a separate room some distance from the safe.
Gun regulations in Victoria were strict.
Even Judith’s service weapon, a semi-automatic Glock, had to be stored in the station under lock and key when she was off duty. ‘You kept it in the workshop?’
‘Christ, no,’ Steve said, shaking his head. ‘It was in the house, in the study. There’s a drawer in my desk that I keep locked. The key was in there. They came in through the window and jimmied the drawer open.’
Judith digested this. ‘Did they take anything else? Do any other damage?’
Steve looked grim. ‘Not a thing,’ he said. ‘Whoever they were, they came for the guns.’