The boy wouldn’t be drawn.
‘Ah, I’m pretty clever, Wolfgang. I’ll get you yet. I am a detective, you know. I find out things for a living.’
He took the boy’s hand and shook it anyway.
‘I’ll check with Deidre, see if it’s okay, eh?’
Their eyes remained locked.
‘Just for a while, mind you, until we find Mum and Dad.’
Something went out behind the boy’s eyes, and it was all over.
20
MOY SAT ON a bench in the middle of the back lawn. He held a cigarette, but hid it from the boy. Took a puff, turned away, exhaled. ‘How many?’ he called.
The boy was using an old squash racket to hit a tennis ball against the side of the house. Moy was impressed. ‘You play for a team?’
He was good, the heartbeat rhythm, the determination not to miss a shot. Moy watched him biting his bottom lip, focusing on the ball like it was a personal challenge. ‘We’ve got a club, if you like. Or badminton. I played badminton.’ He wondered if he should tell him: George watching him every Friday night, coaching from the side, becoming angrier.
What was the point? As if he’d care about racket sports in Guilderton. ‘I’ll give you a game. What do you reckon?’
Nothing except the regular thump resulting from an unvarying parabola; never harder, softer, longer, shorter. As if the formula worked, and had to be honoured.
Gary Wright walked down the drive, stopped and watched the boy. ‘Impressive,’ he said.
The boy didn’t stop.
‘Nearly as good as me. Wimbledon champion, 1978.
Just
beat Connors. But it was a tough game.’
Nothing.
‘Course, you won’t find it in the history books…but I won. Do you believe me?’
The boy took a step back and nearly missed. Forward, and re-established his rhythm.
Gary made his way over to Moy.
‘You’re so full of shit,’ Moy said.
‘
Me?
How’s it going?’
‘Signs of life.’
They watched the boy. Moy said, ‘He’s gotta get sick of it soon.’
‘I tried both motels,’ Gary said. ‘That fella, what’s his name, Gale, Gage, he’s got something on with that Asian bird.’
‘It’s his wife.’
He smiled. ‘Yeah? She’s a good worker…all day, washing sheets. They’re actually
married?
’
Moy didn’t care. ‘Nothing?’
‘Said he had a family with a couple of kids, but they were younger.’
The boy stopped. He looked at them. Moy hid his cigarette and said, ‘All done?’
He went in.
‘Doesn’t trust me,’ Moy said. ‘Maybe I look like someone…’ Gary watched him go. ‘Got me thinking.’
Moy offered Gary the cigarette. He took a puff then returned the stub, which Moy snuffed out on the bench.
‘About two years back.’ He took an envelope from his pocket and removed a rubber band that was holding it together. ‘Probably no connection.’ Then he took out a pile of colour photos. ‘They were left in the pub.’
Moy looked at each of the photos as Gary handed them to him. They’d been taken at the local pool. Children, boys mostly, in the water, on the grass, the change rooms. Two shots were dark, like they’d been taken in a corner. They showed more than the others.
‘Just left in the pub?’ Moy said.
‘Russ handed them in.’
There was a long pause, as Moy thought how this might fit in.
‘I never knew.’
‘Don’t know lots of things about this place, Detective. They’ve been sitting in the safe. We asked around, no one knew nothing. So we guessed we got a kiddy fiddler somewhere.’
‘You guessed? Could be a photographer.’
Gary just looked at him.
‘Know the kids?’ Moy asked.
‘Locals.’
Moy studied the envelope. There was a picture of a silo in the top corner, with the words
Stow’s Fabrications: Sheds and Silos
. He looked at Gary and said, ‘What’s he got to say for himself?’
‘Dunno.’
‘No one ever spoke to him?’
‘It’s not like you’d put them in your own stationery.’
‘But you said
got me thinking
. About who?’
‘No one…coincidence. The age of the kids in the photos. And Roger Federer over there.’
Moy placed the photos back in the envelope, put it in his pocket and stood up. ‘Watch him for thirty minutes?’
‘My day off.’
He walked away. ‘You can tell him about the time you captained Australia A.’
When he arrived at Stow’s a silo was being loaded onto the back of a truck. He asked for the manager and was shown into his office. A short man with an open shirt and a gold necklace greeted him. ‘Bill Stow.’
‘DS Moy.’
They sat down and Stow said, ‘You lot after a silo?’
Moy looked at him and wondered. Why would you put photos in your own envelopes? He noticed his leather hands, and strong arms, and guessed he wasn’t the type. ‘Stow’s have been round a while?’
‘We have.’
‘My dad had some of your silos.’
‘Everyone has.’ But he wasn’t going to waste time on small talk. ‘Someone stolen somethin’?’
‘No…no.’ He took out the envelope and showed him. ‘One of yours?’
Stow looked carefully. ‘Ten years since we used them.’
‘It was found in the pub a couple of years back. Full of photographs…kids.’
Stow understood. ‘Fuck.’
‘At the time, apparently, nothing much was done. Not that you could do much.’
‘Someone at the pub mighta seen.’
‘Too late now. Don’t s’pose you’d know anything that might help?’
‘No.’ Wondering if this was really a stationery issue, or something deeper. ‘So, you’re saying someone here…’
‘No, Mr Stow. Just, there’s so little to go on with these sorta things.’
‘Right.’ But he kept looking at him. ‘Why you asking now?’
‘Well, it’s complex, but we’ve found an unclaimed kid.’
‘What, someone’s bringing them into town?’
Moy knew he’d said too much. Could see the front page of the
Argus
in the morning.
‘No one’s bringing kids to Guilderton or…anything like that. I just came on the off-chance.’
Stow stood, approached a filing cabinet and pulled out a drawer. ‘A to F,’ he said. ‘These go back forty years, but out back there’s a dozen boxes with all our old orders.’
Moy understood. You couldn’t solve a crime with an envelope.
‘I don’t know what I can say, Detective. Unless you want to take everyone’s number and ring them. Might take you a couple of months. Then you gotta think what to say, eh?’
Excellent. Another prick trying to do his job for him. ‘Anything you can think of, Mr Stow. Wouldn’t like to think there’s someone in town who’d hang out in change rooms.’
‘Every town’s got one of them.’
‘Have they?’
Stow stopped, refusing to be drawn. ‘This unclaimed kid prob’ly just needs a belt around the ears. Someone’s looking for him.’
Him,
Moy thought. ‘Yes, she’ll probably be claimed soon.’
Stow sat down. He looked at the envelope. ‘You could check it for fingerprints.’
‘We could.’
‘But it’s prob’ly seen a few hands.’ He waited with an
anything else?
expression.
‘Keep your eyes open,’ Moy said, reclaiming the envelope. ‘You’re well connected, eh? Speak to a lot of people?’
‘It’s not a question you ask, is it?’
Moy walked out through a cathedral-sized shed where two men were welding. Silos. He guessed that’s what you could do with a body. He remembered the story, years ago, of the kid who’d climbed a ladder, looked in, fallen in. And drowned, wheat and its dust filling his lungs as he choked down the grain. Less than a minute, then silence. And it took them weeks to work out where he was.
He looked back towards the office and Stow was watching him. He raised his head in a final farewell. He was convinced the man was no photographer, but he wasn’t sure he had no idea.
21
MOY BRIEFED GARY, who told him he was wasting his time. The kid had run away. The parents didn’t want to report it. They were scared of what he’d say about them. The boy was still deciding if he should turn on them.
After he was gone, Moy stood at his kitchen window watching the boy hanging their freshly washed clothes on the line. He noticed how he took a shirt from the basket, climbed a chair and pegged it out. Guessed he’d been taught well; could almost see someone standing beside him, telling him what to do.
For those few minutes there was nothing but the washing—vomit-free pants and shorts, socks and undies—all from the little piles Moy had left sitting around his house for weeks, until, when he was out, the boy had gathered them in a basket. ‘He’s quite a little worker,’ he said to Deidre, clutching his phone.
‘He is,’ the carer replied. ‘So…you’re sure about this?’
‘Yes,’ Moy said, watching the boy drop a sock, climb down to retrieve it and return to the job. ‘We seem to get along…I think. I’m not saying you didn’t—’
‘No, no,’ she said, coughing. ‘But I’m quite happy to have him back.’
‘Give us a few days. Not sure what the rules are but…it’s not like anyone’s gonna say anything.’
‘Don’t be so sure.’
‘
Guilderton?
Headquarters don’t know we exist. I used to fill in all the forms, but now…’
‘You’re mandated?’
‘Yep, I’m mandated.’ And he wondered whether he was, or what it meant.
It was one of the consolations of country policing. He knew it suited his own gluey state. Not that he didn’t try. He did.
Every day in every way I’m getting better and better
. But things were missed. Like the Crowley file. He thought he’d forwarded it to the drug section. Then again, it hadn’t come up on the courier’s list. But he must’ve. Perhaps. And he wondered, where else could it be? In the vegetable section at the supermarket? In with the magazines in the doctor’s waiting room?
Deidre still wasn’t sure. ‘Aren’t you busy with all your investigations?’
‘I can work around it. Anyway, he’s company.’ He looked at the boy, thinking. ‘And I can talk to him, and ask him questions.’
‘He’s talking to you?’
‘A few words.’
‘Great.’
The boy finished, and stood staring at the half-full line.
‘If I can get him to trust me he’s more likely to open up,’ he said.
‘Have you got some clothes?’
‘No.’
‘I have a few things—’
‘I’ll take him out, he can buy what he likes.’
And then he stopped, thinking. Charlie’s clothes, where were they? In boxes, at Megan’s place? Or did they give them away? Some of them at least? No, Megan would never have done that. So where were they? Then he thought—what does it matter? They’d be far too small.
‘Something practical,’ Deidre was saying. ‘Summer clothes. Shorts and T-shirts, polo tops.’
Moy looked up and smiled. There, on the hoist, turning in circles, was the boy; holding on to one of the support bars, stretched out, his feet a few inches from the ground; kicking his legs, laughing, turning circles until he slowed, at which point he’d put his feet back on the chair, push off and start again.
‘He’ll be fine,’ he said.
‘Let me know if you need help.’
‘I will.’
And then he rang off. He walked from the house and made his way out to the hoist. Grabbing the supports, he started turning the line’s metal arms. ‘How’s that?’ he asked, but the boy was just laughing, giggling. ‘Are you feeling sick?’
No reply.
‘You will soon…we’ll have another pile of vomit to clean up.’
He pushed harder and the boy’s legs flew out, collecting him in the side of the face.
‘Sorry!’
‘That’s okay.’ Then he spoke loudly. ‘Should I keep going?’
‘Yes.’
He pushed. ‘More?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sure you’re okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m good.’
Moy just watched him fly, seeking but never finding a straight line. The greaseless axle ground. Then the stem of the hoist cracked and the whole line toppled. Wires flew through the air as struts bent, collapsed and sent the boy flying onto the grass. He rolled, sat up and looked at Moy. ‘Oh no,’ he said, and Moy came and sat next to him. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Nothing broken?’
‘No.’
And they just looked at each other. ‘Do you think they’ll make me pay for it?’ Moy asked.
The boy nodded.
‘I’ll say it was like that, shall I?’
A smile.
‘That’s what I’ll say…it was like that when I got here, eh?’
A shrug.
‘Or, I could say, this nasty little thief broke in…and when I caught him, I had to torture him.’
Moy tickled the boy’s side. The boy pulled away, giggling.
‘Yes, that’s it. I had to torture him until he admitted breaking my washing line. Go on, you young thief, admit it.’
Moy was tickling with both hands and the boy was rolling about on the uncut grass, laughing, curling up to protect his midriff.
‘I’m waiting,’ Moy said. ‘All you’ve gotta say is, it was me. Go on.’
No response. The tickling continued.
‘Go on.’
The boy was kicking the grass and his shoes left brown skids. His eyes were closed. ‘Get off,’ he squealed.
‘
It was me
.’
‘It wasn’t.’
Moy stopped. The panting boy looked up at him.
‘I’ll have to charge you,’ Moy said. ‘And there may be prison time involved.’
The boy giggled and hit him lightly with a fist.
‘My son used to ride the hoist. Used a chair to get up, then realised he couldn’t get down.’
‘Where is he?’
Moy sat forward, his arms on his knees. He looked at a distant geranium, overgrown with weeds. ‘He’s…gone.’
‘Where?’
‘Gone.’
‘When’s he coming back?’
‘Looks like you can speak,’ Moy said. He squeezed the boy’s knee. ‘Now maybe I get to know your name?’ He extended his hand once again. ‘I am Bartholomew Moy…and you?’
‘Isn’t he coming back?’
‘Wolfgang, wasn’t it?’
‘Bart?’
‘You’re using my name…I should be able to use yours, don’t you think?’
‘He’s not,’ the boy said, choosing not to shake Moy’s hand.
Moy turned around. ‘He died,’ he said.
And the boy was gone again.
THEY FIXED THE hoist, straightening the stem and propping it up with an old ladder. Then they filled two buckets with warm water and disinfectant, found a few old sponges and went out to the car. The boy was straight into it, wetting the vomit stains, wiping them, rinsing his sponge and starting again. He cleaned the dashboard and started on the carpet. Moy worked from the driver’s side, slowly wetting and scrubbing, picking flecks from the radio. There were several minutes of silence before he said, ‘It looks like your mum taught you well.’