One Boy Missing (17 page)

There was no goodbye, no conditions, no threats—just the implication that the boy, who was now looking up at him, would be taken away, fed into some machine and processed for information.

Moy stared back at the crow. It flew away. He went back inside the house, turning over his options. There were books full of procedures that helped you solve crimes. He remembered studying them for his first detectives exam. Cross-matching stories. Phone number analysis. But it was all a distant haze. He guessed he must’ve been good at it. Promotions. Commendations. But that was all before he backed up his driveway. Now there was just the occasional complaint; the raised eyebrow.
Why didn’t you enter his name on the database?
I did…didn’t I?
We could’ve saved twelve months’ work if we’d known
. Right, I…

Can’t seem to put things together, he thought. Pedal faster and go slower. But I’m dealing with it…
Every day in every way
…

Later, as they sat eating lunch, Moy looked across the table at Patrick. He hoped he didn’t have far to go. If the boy told him everything (the crime, who was at home, who did the bashing and burning) then all this time would have been well spent. He knew what he should do next. ‘I’m quite stumped, with this fire,’ he said.

Patrick looked at him. ‘What fire?’

‘The house, on Creek Street…not far from where that old fella said he saw you and your…friend.’

Patrick looked down, studying the cuts he was making in his pie. ‘Don’t you know what happened?’

‘I thought you might know something, seeing how you lived around there.’ He waited. ‘You did live somewhere…close?’

Patrick stood up, scraped the rest of his pie into the bin and went into the next room to watch television.

Moy fetched another box, took it to the lounge room, taped it together and started packing DVDs. As he worked he said, ‘Do you want to help?’

Patrick just stared at the screen, trying to make sense of other crimes, other people’s problems.

After ten minutes of packing Moy stretched and said, ‘I’m getting a bit sick of this.’

No reply.

‘Maybe we should go for a drive. There may be ice-cream involved.’

‘I can help you pack.’

‘Later.’

Moy picked a random route through town: Civic Park, Ayr Street, King Edward Terrace back to the showgrounds. The boarded-up sideshows were being cleaned, painted and stocked for the annual show. A few men were welding sheep-yard panels. Some of the rides and the steel superstructure of the ferris wheel had already arrived. ‘Ever been to a country show?’ he asked.

Patrick shrugged.

‘It’s a lot of fun. Preserves and tractors and monster pigs…big as cows, I kid you not.’

‘Pigs?’

‘Yes. Genetically engineered. Enough bacon for a whole city. And cows like elephants. Not natural. Still, that’s what it’s all about. Increased productivity. Even the pigs have to fall in line.’

‘What makes them fall?’

‘It’s an expression. They have to get bigger.’

Then they went onto the oval, driving around the circumference for no particular reason. ‘See, this is my exercise,’ Moy said. ‘Four circuits…and look at me, still fat.’

‘We could try jogging.’

‘You could. It’s much easier this way.’

‘You’re a disgrace, Bart,’ the boy said, beaming.

Moy turned to him. ‘Bart? That’s a bit disrespectful. What about Mr Moy? Or Detective?’

‘Bart…fart.’ He giggled.

‘Hold on, that’s it. I’m placing you under arrest for—’

‘Bart fart.’

Moy reached for the boy’s hand. ‘Where are my handcuffs?’ As he started searching his belt the car veered left. He braked but the front fender made contact with one of the posts supporting a boundary rope. Closing his eyes, he smiled. ‘They never check.’

He continued along RM Williams Way, across the train track and back onto Creek Street. Then he saw a familiar-looking jogger: early twenties, slim, bike pants. He noticed how she hovered above the road. Her trunk, too. Like you could get your hands around it. And tear-drop breasts that slept in a sort of leotard.

‘I reckon you fancy her,’ Patrick said.

Moy turned to him. ‘Pardon?’

‘You were looking at her.’

‘I look at everyone.’

‘Not like that.’

‘I’m a detective. It’s my job.’

Patrick smiled. ‘You should stop and talk to her.’

‘Why?’

‘You could pretend you’re looking for someone.’

Moy shook his head. ‘You think I fancy her?’

‘I don’t
think
…’

‘I should stop and talk to her?’

‘Get her phone number.’

‘How old are you, exactly, Patrick?’

‘Old enough to know.’

Pause.

‘I wasn’t even looking.’

‘You were.’

They passed a tractor.

‘About an eight,’ Patrick said.

‘You’re scoring women? You’re nine years old.’

‘So?’

Moy tried the radio but there was nothing worth listening to. Then Patrick asked, ‘Where are we going? Are we going back to see him?’

‘See who?’

‘The old man.’

‘Do you want to?’

‘I’ll wait in the car.’

Moy looked at him for a few moments. ‘I just feel like some fresh air.’

They kept on, and the last few houses petered out. ‘Should we go back?’ Patrick asked, moving about in his seat, clutching his seatbelt.

‘Why? Is there something wrong?’

‘No.’

Moy felt he shouldn’t, but something was leading him on. He knew there’d be a psychologist somewhere who’d have a problem with his approach but he sensed it had to be done. He sped along the road, past virgin scrub. ‘Feel that wind on your face, eh? That’s the good thing about this job.’

‘Bart…’

‘No one watching over your shoulder.’

‘Can we go home?’

‘No one telling you what to do.’

‘Bart!’

Moy slowed as they approached the house.

Patrick looked at the ruin and dropped his head. ‘Please?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t want to be here.’

‘Why?’ He pulled over and stopped. ‘It’s a beautiful bit of country.’

‘You did this on purpose.’ He glared at him.

‘Did what?’

‘Brought me here.’

‘This road?’

The boy pointed to the house.

‘That’s the house,’ Moy said. ‘The one I’m confused about.’

‘Why did you do this?’

‘I thought I’d show you.’

Patrick stared at him. ‘Why?’ He clenched his fists and started punching him.

‘Hold on,’ Moy said, grabbing his arms.

‘You knew,’ Patrick screamed, pulling away from him.

‘Knew what?’

‘That I lived there.’ He stopped, relaxing his arms and sinking back into his seat. ‘With my mum, and my brother.’

Moy took a few moments. ‘Your mum?’

‘Yes, you knew.’ His face was full of anger.

‘I suspected.’

‘
You knew
.’

Moy felt bad. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s too late to be sorry.’ He opened his door and ran. Sprinted across the road into the scrub. Moy got out and chased him through paperbark and spiny acacias. ‘Patrick! I said I’m sorry.’ He looked around but couldn’t see him. ‘Patrick!’ His words settled in the scrub. Then, twenty or so metres away, he saw him climbing a eucalypt.

He ran towards him, watching him grasp the trunk and pull himself up. The boy arrived at a branch and sat on it. Standing up, he hugged the trunk again and continued climbing. Another five metres and another branch.

‘Patrick, get down. You’re gonna fall.’

He continued climbing. There was a long stretch of naked trunk. He got halfway and looked up. Then he dropped his head to check on Moy.

‘Patrick!’

Another branch. This time he climbed a series of limbs that rose like a spiral staircase. Now he was high above the earth. He seemed content and sat down in a fork that sagged beneath his weight. Then he looked out across the wheatbelt.

‘Patrick, this is stupid.’

Moy guessed he was high enough to kill himself. He had no idea if this is what he had in mind, or whether he was just making a point. ‘Are you gonna talk to me?’

Patrick looked down. ‘I don’t need you.’

‘You can look after yourself, eh?’

‘I didn’t ask you to look after me.’

‘I know.’ He wanted to reach up, to hold him. Thought of climbing but realised he’d never get off the ground. ‘That’s quite an effort. You like climbing trees?’

Patrick looked down with disdain. ‘I can keep going.’

‘I know you can.’ He waited a few minutes, looking up at the boy who was looking out towards impossible horizons. He wouldn’t look down.

‘I make stupid decisions,’ Moy said.

Patrick looked down at him, as if to say,
I noticed
.

‘I’m an idiot.’

‘I don’t
need
you.’

A few more minutes. It was as if the boy was welded to the tree.

‘Right,’ Moy said, realising. ‘I’ll be in the car then.’ He turned and walked off.

Twenty minutes passed before the door opened and Patrick climbed in.

‘Quite an effort,’ Moy said.

No reply.

‘Point taken.’

Patrick looked at him. ‘That’s nothing. I climbed a power pylon once.’

28

THE FOLLOWING DAY Moy received a phone call from the Port Louis police.

‘Just wondering if you know anything about this body?’ Detective Sergeant Susan Carey asked.

Doing the rounds, Moy guessed. He remembered her from the academy. A square-faced woman who topped every exam, ran fastest, asked the most questions. He cleared his throat and attempted to speak in clear, detached words. ‘Ah…the body? Mangrove Point?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘No, not yet.’

Then she asked if they had any missing persons, unsolved domestics, drug crops?

‘We’ve got a body in a burnt house, but I’m still looking into that.’

‘Well, our man still hasn’t been claimed. We got the autopsy report back and it says he’s been whacked on the back of the head with something flat. A shovel, or spade, perhaps?’

‘Nasty.’

‘A single fracture to the skull. And there was soil under his fingernails, and pine pollen in his hair and eyebrows.’

‘No one like that reported missing here.’

He could feel her burrowing into his head. There was tension in his neck, and he used his fingers to soften his muscles.
Solve your own friggin’ case. I’ve got my own problems. Tell me who the burnt woman is, where she came from, where the missing kid’s hiding. Or buried
. ‘Gotta go,’ he said, tired of playing along.

He put his phone in his pocket and took a deep breath. There were a hundred thoughts trying to pierce the endless fog in his head, and none of them connected. All he could think was that he wanted to get away from Guilderton, its gravel footpaths and experimental roads. The smell of the police station, its faintly blue fluoro lights, piles of papers like gas bills, except they weren’t. The lost, dead and dying. Screaming out for attention, like a blown globe or uncut lawn. Multiple jobs—dozens—but none of them he felt up to.

Fuck it, he thought.

‘Patrick!’

THEY LEFT GUILDERTON behind. The grey streets and shop-fronts, the granite Anzac and the smell of burning wood; the café, with its plastic flowers and pipe loaves. As they drove, Moy chose to forget. Memories that filled every room of his house. Weeds in the garden and in the cracks in the driveway. ‘It’s a nice bit of country,’ he said.

‘Not many trees.’

He guessed this wasn’t something a wheatbelt kid would say.

‘They cleared them a hundred and fifty years ago.’

‘I know.’ The boy played with his seatbelt.

‘But they couldn’t get all the stumps. So after they’d planted the wheat someone invented a plough that would…’

‘I know,’ Patrick repeated, looking at him. ‘The stump-jump plough. We went to this museum…’

The edges had crumbled so Moy drove in the middle. A freshwater pipeline followed the gist of the road, stretching across valleys on a viaduct that looked rusted and weak. The steep hills were bare and rocky; the low slopes and plains yellow with wheat. Moy noticed that Patrick wasn’t interested in the scenery. His eyes would move from his lap to the mid-distance, back to the dashboard, the radio, the clouds.

‘This is Guilderton’s water,’ Moy said, indicating the pipeline.

Patrick looked at him, lost in a thought. ‘Where’s it come from?’

‘A big reservoir, off to the north. The highest ground in the district.’

‘Is there enough water?’

‘I assume. It’s not New York, is it? Six or seven thousand people.’

‘Five thousand, eight hundred and eighty. It’s on the sign as you come into town.’

Moy ran over a dead fox with a smear where its head had been. ‘These little buildings are pump houses,’ he said, indicating a small brick structure through which the pipe passed. ‘There’s one every few kilometres.’

Patrick looked at him again. ‘But you said the reservoir was built on high ground. Why do they need pumps?’

‘Maybe it’s not high enough.’

‘There’s lots of pump houses.’

‘There’s a lot of water.’

‘And a lot of gravity.’

Moy stopped to think. ‘I’m starting to see you’re a clever young man.’

Patrick studied the ripe wheat. ‘Tom was smarter,’ he said.

‘Tom?’

‘Don’t be stupid, you know who Tom was.’

‘Your brother?’

No reply.

‘Was he older than you?’

‘Yes.’

Moy was determined to take it slowly. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘What?’

‘Tom. What was he like at school?’

‘He used to teach me my tables. Dad said he had a photographic memory. You could take a list of words, as hard as you like, and put them in front of him. Maybe five or ten minutes later you could test him…a hundred per cent, every time.’

‘That’d be handy for crosswords.’

Patrick stopped, thinking about what he was saying. ‘He remembered all of Dad’s phone numbers. Dad used to call him Teledex, but Tom got angry, so he stopped.’

There was a long pause. Moy was willing to wait. He watched an eagle searching for thermals or perhaps thinking about eating what was left of the fox. ‘Sounds like you really got on with your brother?’