Moy sighed. ‘Now I’ve got a job on my hands.’
‘You certainly have.’
‘No other explanation?’
‘Well, she could’ve done it all herself, if she had a great sense of drama. But it’d be the strangest suicide I’ve ever seen.’
Moy attempted a smile. ‘Anything else?’
‘Give us a chance, Detective Sergeant. You leave your man here tonight and we’ll be back in the morning.’ Then he fixed Moy’s eyes. ‘Please don’t go traipsing around.’
‘Obviously.’
‘There’s a lot of disturbance already. Perhaps that’s your Country Fire people…’
‘Perhaps.’
‘They weren’t expecting a body?’ Lehmann suggested.
‘No.’
As Moy headed home he took another call from Gary. Ossie had just visited an old widow called Dorothy Olding who’d reported an intruder. Someone in her kitchen, she said. She’d got out of bed and heard someone running out the back door. Looked down the street and seen a small figure heading back towards town.
‘Said it looked like a kid,’ Gary concluded.
‘Right. That’s all? A kid?’
‘Going through her fridge.’
Stealing food, at this time of night? He thought of the boy in the alleyway. ‘Anything taken?’
‘She said whoever it was had a good go at her orange juice. She was very annoyed. Said she’d paid top dollar. And some mint slices.’
‘How did she know? She counts them?’
‘Apparently.’
He pulled over in front of the first house on the way back into town. Someone would have seen something. As he got out he noticed a blind opening and a pair of eyes peering out. He walked up the front path and knocked. A man his own age, wearing a black AC/DC T-shirt and footy shorts appeared with a beer in his hand. He used it to scratch the tip of his nose. ‘I know you.’
Moy took a moment. ‘Commercial Hotel?’
‘Spot on.’
It was his first week in Guilderton. He’d stopped by the Commercial for a beer, get to know the locals, try a bit of preventative policing. In the almost-deserted front bar he’d heard loud voices and applause coming from out the back. He’d gone to see what was happening.
A small group of men had cleared the tables and used cutlery to make a miniature racetrack on the ground. There were four babies in nappies and jumpsuits at an improvised starting line. One man gave a signal and the babies were off, crawling and tumbling along the beer-wet carpet. If one of them strayed across the cutlery a hand or foot would guide him or her back. The babies approached a finish line of folded napkins where four dads waited, calling, pulling faces and singing snippets of Wiggles’ songs.
Eventually a tubby-looking boy crossed the line and the crowd roared as Dad turned to shake hands with his mates. Then the room quietened. Babies crawled under tables, dads exchanged cash.
Moy approached one of the fathers and said, ‘Looks like a lot of fun.’
‘Ladies’ night at the footy club.’ The man nodded towards the abandoned track. ‘This is the crèche.’ He leaned over and picked up his baby; eyed Moy defensively. ‘It’s not for money.’
Moy was surprised he’d been recognised. ‘Well, I’ve never arrested anyone for baby racing.’
Now, standing in the doorway at the far end of Creek Street, he smiled. ‘How’s the racing?’
‘Good.’ The man was unsure. ‘That what you come about?’
‘No. I’s just wondering if you knew anything about this fire at the end of the street?’
The man took a deep breath. ‘Right…a fire?’
12
MOY TOOK THE usual four hours to get to sleep. He avoided the Stilnox on his bedside table; they left him more tired the next day, and not in a way that translated to better sleep the following night. Just more tossing and turning, cursing himself for not being able to get even this simple thing right. Sometimes he’d get up at two or three in the morning and switch on the television. Abflexer and
Hey, Dad
did nothing much for his insomnia but they passed the time. Sometimes he’d try a walk around the block. Stand at the end of the driveway staring out across the paddocks.
Think of Charlie.
Eventually he’d go back to bed for two or three uncomfortable hours, sweat soaking his pillow, sheets kicked onto the ground as dark dreams squeezed themselves into what was left of the night.
This morning he was out riding with a boy who seemed to have his son’s face and wiry body. They were following a path that ran beside a dry creek. The path was littered with leaves and the boughs of big gum trees hung low and heavy, brushing and scratching their faces. The boy was twenty metres in front of him. Although Moy pedalled hard he couldn’t catch up.
‘Slow down, my legs have had it,’ he called.
‘Hurry up,’ the voice replied, fading.
Despite his anxiety to get to the boy, there was a feeling of euphoria as the cool breeze passed over his face and through his hair. He hurtled down a hill, no brakes. It was everything good and bad all at once; the feeling of wanting, but not getting.
When he woke the window was light. He felt glad for the sleep; happy he’d done it without the aid of his usual half-tablet.
Then he was asleep again. This time he was pulling into the car park of a hospital. The boy, still five years old, was lying on the back seat of his car, secured around the chest and legs by a seatbelt.
‘We’re there,’ he was saying, searching for a park but not finding one, wondering why he was bothering anyway. He stopped in the middle of the emergency department car park. A security guard came over and said, ‘Not here, you’ll block the ambulance.’
He just ignored him. He got out and tried to open the back door. It was locked. He tried the driver’s door but that was locked too. Then he saw his keys in the ignition.
‘Fuck.’ He kicked the front tyre and looked at the guard. ‘It’s my son.’
The guard seemed confused. ‘You’ll have to move the car.’
‘
Look
,’ Moy screamed, indicating. ‘I can’t.’
‘You’ll have to. There’s an ambulance coming, it won’t be able to get through.’
‘Fuck, are you stupid? I’ve locked the keys in.’
The guard’s face hardened. He stood up, twisted Moy’s arm behind his body and pushed him against his car. Reached for his radio and called for help.
Meanwhile, Moy was looking at Charlie through the back window of his car. ‘It’s my son,’ he pleaded, but the guard was unmoved.
‘Christ, he’ll die,’ Moy said.
He woke. Opened his eyes and realised it was still early morning. He could hear cars and a lawnmower and smell porridge. There’d been no security guard, of course, and he hadn’t locked his keys in the car. He’d found a park straight away and never blocked the ambulance.
His phone rang and he reached for it, knocking over the remains of a glass of water.
‘That you, son?’ A tired-sounding voice.
‘Dad.’
‘Look, I’ve got a bit of a problem.’
And then he heard the phone drop, George curse the
goddamn-piece-of-shit
, attempt to pick it up off the floor and say, ‘Everything’s coming back up the toilet.’
Moy sat up, rubbed his eyes and asked, ‘What’s everything?’
‘Everything. Whatever’s gone down, it’s coming back up. Weeks’ worth of it, by the look of things.’
He stood up, opened his blind and looked out at a pair of red-headed sisters walking to school. One of them noticed him in his boxers. She giggled and told her sister. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour, Dad.’
‘What should I do?’ George asked.
‘What can you do?’
AN HOUR LATER, Moy and George were standing in the doorway of the toilet in the family home. Moy dared not venture in. The floor was flooded and the overflow, a mixture of pulped paper, shitty lumps and cigarette butts, had reached and soaked the hallway carpet.
‘What a stink,’ Moy said.
‘What did you expect?’ his father replied.
‘What have you been putting down there?’
‘Same’s been going down there for the last thirty years, with no problems.’
‘Well, you got one now. How much paper do you use?’
George looked annoyed. ‘What’s it matter?’
‘Well…’ He tried to think of how to say it.
‘I use what I need to use.’
‘What about the cigarettes?’
‘I’ve always flushed them down…never mattered.’
‘So, we call a plumber?’ Moy asked.
‘My arse. I know what the problem is.’
George led him outside, halfway up the driveway and stopped to point out a willow that grew on the other side of the fence. He showed him the roots that came onto his side and lifted the pavers he’d used as garden edging. ‘Look. Right across the drive,’ he said. ‘And here, this is where the sewer runs.’
‘Y’reckon?’
‘I know. I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Ever since she planted that bastard thirty years ago.’ He raised his voice. ‘I told her not to. Not there. I said, why don’t you plant it in the middle? Wouldn’t listen.’
‘Dad, ssh.’
‘Won’t bloody ssh.’ He called louder. ‘Now who’s gotta pay three hundred dollars for a plumber?’ And he quietened. ‘Old cow.’
They stood together in the warm morning sun, Moy noticing the iron pulling away from the rotten fence posts. ‘That’ll need doing soon,’ he said, indicating.
George looked at it. ‘That’s your problem, when I’m gone. Good luck getting any money out of her.’
Moy knew who ‘her’ was: Thea Miller, ex-nurse, widow and treasurer of the Guilderton Country Women’s. She kept to herself, had a man in to do her garden and lawns, double-pegged her tunics, raked the gravel around her succulents and twice monthly vacuumed the carpet in her 1978 Premier. She generally ignored anyone she hadn’t met prior to her fortieth birthday.
George shook his head. ‘Only one thing for it.’
Five minutes later Moy was in the shed, wiping away spider webs as he moved through a jumble of old furniture, boxes and half-made cabinets George had lost interest in. He found the corner where the paints and chemicals were stored, lifted each tin and blew the dust from it.
‘Bingo.’
He made his way back to George who in the meantime had used a stick to take the lid off the sewer access.
‘There you go,’ said Moy. ‘Caustic soda.’
‘Bung it in.’
Moy pulled back the lid and looked at his father. ‘You want me to do it?’
‘That’s what you come home for, wasn’t it? To help your old man?’
‘Yes, that was the idea.’
‘Well, off you go. That stuff eats anything. You wanna murder someone, that’s what you use to get rid of the evidence.’
‘I know, Dad.’ He started emptying the powder into the hole.
‘Fella in East Hay did that.’ George sat down on a planter, remembering. ‘His wife…and I think there was a kiddy. He thought she’d been on with another fella. You heard of that one, son?’
‘No, Dad.’ He emptied the last of the powder and replaced the lid.
‘This fella at the pub had been bragging to his mates—I’ve had so-and-so’s wife. But he never had. He was just a big mouth. So one of these blokes at the pub tells the husband and the stupid bugger believes him.’
Moy sat beside his father. ‘I don’t think that’s gonna solve the problem,’ he said, indicating the empty container.
‘He strangled them. East Hay, yes. 1949…then, they say’—and he turned to his son again, smiling, as if he’d reached the punchline—‘he sawed them into small pieces, so they’d dissolve quicker. You ever heard of anything like that, son?’
‘Yes, there was a case—’
George wasn’t interested. ‘There was a bathtub in the back shed and when they found it, it was full of jelly.’
‘What about the bones and hair?’ Moy asked.
‘Some things persist.’ George closed his eyes and smiled.
‘Should we call a plumber?’ Moy said.
‘Suppose so,’ came the whispered reply.
13
MOY DROVE TO Dempsey’s Takeaway and bought three dim sims, bleeding oil into a bag that boasted
Proud Sponsors of the Guilderton Maulers
. As he ate he cruised along Creek Street, holding one of the dim sims with his fingertips. Minced meat emerging from what looked like an old war wound.
The radio nagged in his ear—slide guitar, nasal drone—and then the news update. It was the same voice that reported the fodder store specials, the demise of the Methodist tennis team and a fire at the impregnation plant, as if all these things could go together. Service times—Uniting, Anglican and Catholic, and then: ‘Police media have just released details of a body washed up at Mangrove Point, south of Port Louis.’ Moy held the dim sim between his teeth as he turned up the volume. ‘The body, a tall, solidly built fella in his thirties, hasn’t been identified. But, I suppose he will be…when someone misses him.’
These words rang in Moy’s ears.
When someone misses him
. As if ultimately, everyone belonged somewhere. When, he knew very well, some people were never missed at all.
The low voice moved on to the more important business of lost rams.
Moy wondered what a dead body was doing in a swamp at Port Louis. The town was twice the size of Guilderton but half as interesting. Neat streets, all finished with diosma, leading down to a kelpy beach that kept going out for two hundred metres. Everyone agreed: not worth the drive. A Catholic town with seven churches, three Freemason halls and a 1950s feel. It had a Community Prayer Week every year when the locals shut up shop early to pray for the welfare of the town and its people.
When Moy arrived at the burnt-out house he noticed a Major Crime Investigation four-wheel-drive parked on the side of the road. Its back door was open and someone had unloaded cameras, bags and tackle boxes. There was a card table loaded with evidence bags, each holding small black objects: a remote control, sunglasses, knives, forks and jewellery.
He got out of his car, did up his top button and tightened his tie. Then he turned and noticed a farmer, sitting on an idling tractor in an adjacent paddock, watching him through a shelter-belt of sheoak.
‘Got a minute?’ he called to him, walking over to the fence between the shelter belt and the paddock.
The farmer got down off his tractor. ‘Jo Humphris,’ he said, extending his hand.
‘Detective Sergeant Bart Moy, Guilderton police.’