A Man Who Didn't Care

"The calls will happen. The questions will be asked. But none of it works if the man holding the warrant doesn't flinch — and this one doesn't." — Tom Jeffries

Tom found Stout at the edge of the formal gardens, standing where the gravel path met the lawn and the yellow evidence markers began their trail south towards the sundial. Harrison's team was working the forecourt behind him. Two officers were visible at the garden wall, preparing equipment for the bush. Stout stood with his back to the manor, reading a report, and didn't turn when Tom's footsteps announced his approach on the gravel.

Tom stopped four metres away. Closer than the first encounter. The distance of a man who'd recalibrated his approach and wanted the recalibration noticed.

"Detective Sergeant."

Stout finished the line he was reading. Lowered the report. Turned.

"Mr Jeffries."

"I've reviewed the warrant." Tom held a folded document in his left hand — not the warrant itself but his own copy, produced from the sitting room where Louise had left it on the side table that morning. He'd read it in under two minutes. He'd read hundreds of warrants in his career — not as their subject but as a businessman whose operations occasionally intersected with regulatory investigations and whose legal team maintained standing instructions to deliver copies of any court order touching Jeffries interests within the hour. He knew the language. He knew the structure. He knew where the vulnerabilities lived. "It was issued under the Search Warrants Act 1997. Section 7. Application on oath to a magistrate, on the grounds that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that evidential material relating to an offence is present on the premises."

Stout's expression didn't shift. A man who'd had warrant provisions quoted at him before.

"The offence cited is not specified," Tom continued. "The application references Detective Jenkins' disappearance, but a disappearance is not in itself a criminal offence. There's no evidence of assault. No evidence of abduction. No evidence of any indictable offence having been committed on this property. Which raises the question of what reasonable grounds were presented to Magistrate Holden at six-forty-five this morning to justify the scope of what I see in front of me."

"The grounds were sufficient for the magistrate to issue the warrant."

"The grounds were sufficient at six-forty-five this morning. It's now approaching eleven. In the hours since that warrant was signed, your forensic team has processed the shed and found nothing. No evidence of a crime. No evidence of any person having entered or exited that structure. Your own analysis has confirmed the absence of the very thing the warrant was issued to find." Tom held the document up — not offering it, displaying it, the way a barrister might hold an exhibit. "A warrant authorises the search for evidential material. When the search produces no evidential material, the reasonable grounds that justified the warrant begin to erode. You understand the principle, I'm sure."

"I understand the principle." Stout's voice carried the same level tone it had carried all morning. The man's vocal register appeared to have a single setting. "I also understand that a warrant issued under Section 7 remains valid for twenty-eight days and authorises the search of all premises specified within it. The scope doesn't narrow because one area has been cleared. It continues until all specified areas have been searched."

"Twenty-eight days." Tom let the number sit in the air. "You intend to occupy my property for twenty-eight days."

"I intend to conduct a thorough investigation. The warrant gives us the authority to do so. How long that takes depends on what we find."

"And if you find nothing?"

"Then we'll know that too. And we'll have the documentation to prove it."

Tom lowered the warrant. The exchange had reached the boundary of legal argument — the point where the provisions said what they said and neither man could alter them through interpretation alone. The warrant was valid. The search was authorised. The magistrate's signature was not something Tom could erase by standing in his garden and citing subsections.

He knew this. He'd known it before he walked out here. The legal challenge was a positioning move — a demonstration that he understood the framework, that he could engage on Stout's terms, that he was not a civilian who could be managed with procedural language and the institutional weight of a badge. But the framework itself wouldn't give him what he wanted. The framework protected Stout. The framework was designed to protect men like Stout, to give their warrants teeth and their investigations duration and their presence on private property the legitimacy that Tom's name and history couldn't override.

Which meant the conversation needed to move to the territory where the framework didn't reach.

"Let me speak plainly," Tom said. His voice had shifted again — the third register of the morning. Not the raw fury of the first encounter. Not the controlled legal precision of the warrant discussion. Something else. Quieter. More deliberate. The voice of a man who was about to say things that he intended to be heard and remembered and understood without any of them being actionable. "My family has been part of Tasmania's institutional fabric for over two hundred years. We employ twelve hundred people across three sectors. We contribute to charitable organisations, educational foundations, and community programmes across every region of this state. The relationships we've built — with government, with industry, with the judicial system — are not leverage, Detective Sergeant. They are the reality of how this state functions."

Stout listened. His face gave nothing.

"When I say that I intend to raise concerns about the scope of this investigation, I'm not making threats. I'm describing a process. Concerns raised by a family of our standing are received differently than concerns raised by other citizens. Not because the law is applied differently — I would never suggest such a thing — but because the institutional context in which the law operates includes relationships and considerations that extend beyond any single warrant or any single investigation."

"I appreciate you explaining that, Mr Jeffries."

"I'm not sure you do." Tom took a step closer. Not aggressive. Measured. The step of a man closing distance for effect. "Let me be more specific. By this afternoon, I will have spoken to people who take a very direct interest in how police resources are allocated in this state. Not politicians — I wouldn't be so crude. People who advise politicians. People who sit on oversight committees. People who review operational decisions and determine whether the deployment of forensic teams and the establishment of command posts on private property represents an appropriate use of public resources. These conversations will be cordial. They will be concerned. They will ask questions that will require answers. And those answers will need to come from somewhere within your chain of command."

"My chain of command is aware of this investigation and fully supports its scope."

"Your chain of command is aware of this investigation as it was briefed to them this morning. By this afternoon, they may be receiving questions that reframe the conversation. Not about Detective Jenkins — no one would suggest that a missing officer doesn't warrant a serious response. About proportionality. About duration. About the public interest in maintaining cooperative relationships with families who contribute significantly to the state's economic and social wellbeing." Tom paused. Let the words find their weight. "The questions won't mention my name. They won't need to."

Stout stood in the winter sunlight at the edge of the formal gardens and looked at Tom Jeffries with an expression that Tom couldn't read. That was new. Tom could read most people — the micro-expressions, the tells, the involuntary signals that decades of negotiation had taught him to identify and exploit. Stout's face offered none of them. It was the face of a man who had heard what was being said and was choosing, with absolute deliberation, not to respond to any of it.

When Stout spoke, his voice was unchanged.

"Mr Jeffries. Under Section 34B of the Police Offences Act, it is an offence to resist or obstruct a police officer in the execution of their duty. Under Section 15 of the Search Warrants Act, hindering the execution of a warrant carries a penalty of up to twelve months' imprisonment." He paused. Not for effect — Stout didn't appear to deal in effect. He paused because the next words required precision. "I'm not suggesting that anything you've said this morning constitutes obstruction or hindrance. I'm informing you of the legal position so that there's no ambiguity going forward."

The air between them changed. Not temperature — texture. Something in the quality of the winter morning had shifted, the way it shifted in courtrooms when a cross-examination turned and the witness realised that the barrister had been leading them somewhere they hadn't seen.

"You're threatening me," Tom said. His voice was very quiet.

"I'm informing you. The same way you've been informing me." Stout held Tom's gaze. "The investigation continues. Your concerns can be raised through the appropriate channels. If anyone in my chain of command determines that the scope should be adjusted, I'll comply with that direction. Until then, my team works. That's not a negotiation, Mr Jeffries. It's the law."

Tom stood in his own garden, on his own land, in front of a house that bore his name, and felt something that he hadn't felt since the day his father had failed to return from Melbourne — the sensation of a situation moving beyond his ability to control it through the tools he possessed. His contacts were real. His reach was real. The calls he would make this afternoon would be received by people who would listen and who would act on what they heard. He had no doubt about that. None.

But standing in front of Alexander Stout, watching the man's face give nothing and his posture yield nothing and his voice concede nothing, Tom understood that the calls and the contacts and the two centuries of accumulated Jeffries influence would need to overcome something that he hadn't encountered before in any boardroom or political negotiation or institutional manoeuvre.

A man who didn't care.

Not reckless. Not naive. Not unaware of the pressure that was coming. Stout understood perfectly well what Tom had described — the phone calls, the questions, the institutional reframing that would filter down through the chain of command. He understood it, and it didn't matter. Because Stout's authority didn't come from the people Tom could call. It came from the warrant in his pocket and the badge on his belt and the missing detective whose name was the only name that mattered to him this morning.

"This conversation isn't over," Tom said. The same words he'd used before. They sounded different now. Thinner.

Stout nodded. The nod of a man acknowledging a statement without agreeing with its content. Then he turned and walked back towards the forensic van, the report still in his hand, his stride unhurried, his attention already moving to the next task on a list that Tom Jeffries' presence hadn't altered by a single item.

Tom watched him go. The winter sun was climbing. The evidence markers dotted his lawn. The officers moved across his grounds. The shed stood open. And somewhere inside the manor, his wife was sitting in a room with a closed door, waiting for him to handle things the way he'd promised.