November 22, 2014 AD
Four Minutes at the Grand Chancellor
At the Hobart Police Charity Gala, raising money that year for the Hobart Children's Fund, Detective Karl Jenkins and Louise Jeffries met across a crowded ballroom. She was there as a board member of the charity, he because his division had bought a table. They spoke for four minutes about his work and hers, and about nothing else. Neither mentioned her son, her father-in-law, or the evening in the station foyer, and neither was the first to look away.
The Hobart Police Charity Gala was held in the ballroom of the Hotel Grand Chancellor on the waterfront. That year's proceeds were directed to the Hobart Children's Fund. Organised Crime Division had bought a table, and its detectives were expected to fill it. Karl Jenkins came in a hired dinner suit and spent the first hour near the edge of the room with two colleagues from the division and Detective Sergeant Charlie Claiborne, his former partner, who had come as a guest of Professional Standards Command and attached himself to his old division for the evening.
Louise Jeffries arrived shortly after the main course was cleared, with the chair of the Fund's board, Margot Kellaway. She had served on the board for several years, and she was there to thank the police on the charity's behalf. Thomas Jeffries did not attend. Louise worked the room as she was expected to, moving from table to table with Kellaway and accepting the thanks of donors with the same exact courtesy at each.
Karl saw her when she came in. She saw him a little later, across the floor of the ballroom, while Claiborne was in the middle of a story. Their eyes met and held for a second or two, and neither of them looked away first. Claiborne noticed the pause in Karl's attention, followed his line of sight, and finished his story without remark.
They spoke near the end of the evening, when Kellaway stopped at the division's table. The conversation lasted about four minutes. Louise told Karl she had read the summary of Operation Tidewater printed in the gala programme, adapted from his field notes, and that she had admired how clearly the money had been traced. Karl asked about the Fund's financial literacy programmes, which she had helped design, and listened to her answer without interrupting. Each of them asked the other how they were. Both said they were well.
Neither mentioned Kain, the evening at the station or the call that had preceded it. Neither mentioned Charles Jeffries, whose disappearance remained unsolved six years after their first meeting. The conversation was polite, public and entirely unremarkable to anyone listening. Kellaway thanked the table for its support, and Louise moved on with her to the next.
She left with Kellaway before the dancing began. Karl stayed until the division's table broke up, a little after eleven, and drove home without having had a drink.
