No response.
‘How’s that, Detective Moy?’ he asked himself. ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I don’t have to ask you to do anything.’
There was another minute of silent scrubbing.
‘Your mum would be very pleased with your efforts.’
Silence.
‘Or maybe your dad?’
The boy looked at him angrily.
‘Maybe not.’ He stopped to think. ‘Dad’s not around, perhaps?’
‘You keep my dad out of this.’ His face hardened and he clenched his fists. ‘You just want to solve your case, so you can get on with something else.’
Moy stood up and came around to the boy’s side.
‘So you can put me in a home, and forget about…’ He knelt, held his arms, but he pulled away.
‘Get off! Don’t touch me!’ He was shaking. He picked up a bucket, went to throw it over Moy, but stopped. Instead, he ran inside, went to his room and slammed the door.
Moy followed. He stood in the hallway. ‘You okay?’
No response.
He didn’t know what to say. To keep prodding and poking, opening barely healed sores, invoking a father who might have been capable of anything. ‘If I came in, we could talk?’ He guessed it mightn’t be so simple. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about your dad.’
Silence.
‘You there?’ He went into the room. The window was open and the boy was gone. He stepped forward, looked out and called, ‘Come on.’ Then he ran from the house, around it, tripping on a bucket of water. ‘Where are yer?’
Nothing.
To the top of the drive. Looking down the road. The boy was further along, standing outside the plumber’s house, waiting.
‘You coming in?’
The small figure darted across the street, into the paddock on the edge of town. As Moy followed he watched him flatten wheat, fall, stand, run towards a distant harvester.
‘I said I’s sorry,’ he called. He could see the boy was wounded; just had to run.
Arriving at the fence, Moy climbed over. Stood standing, searching.
But the boy had gone.
‘I know…it’s none of my business,’ he shouted, over the sound of the approaching harvester. ‘Come on, show yourself, it’s dangerous.’
The driver was watching him.
‘This is silly…I’m sorry.’
Then, a muffled voice. ‘Go away!’
The harvester was eating the crop. It turned, came back, and Moy held his breath. There was no point risking it. He waved at the driver but he just looked at him strangely.
‘Please,’ he called. ‘What do you want me to say?’
Nothing.
The harvester turned again. This time it would come close. Moy ran into the wheat, searching.
You little shit
. But he knew there was more at stake. He wasn’t a foster carer. It’d be hard to explain.
He turned towards the harvester and waved. It slowed, stopped, and the driver got out and called, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Could you wait a minute?’
The farmer watched as Moy searched. Then, he looked back towards the fence. The boy emerged from the wheat, slid between the wires and ran back up Gawler Street.
Moy waved at the driver. ‘Lost dog.’ He struggled through the wheat, hurdled the top wire and ran after him. Back up the road, across, into the Flamsteeds’ yard.
The boy had picked up a shovel. He was swinging at knee-high aloe, taking off lizard-tongue leaves.
Moy held him. ‘Stop it!’
He twisted to release himself but didn’t have enough muscle. Moy ripped the shovel from his hands and threw it down. Then, Mrs Flamsteed was standing on her porch.
‘All under control,’ Moy called.
She didn’t respond. She knew he was reliable.
Moy wrapped his arm around the boy, lifted him and carried him from the yard. ‘Sorry,’ he said, as he went. ‘We’ll get them replaced.’
The boy fought to get free. Moy took him in, put him on his bed, pointed a finger in his face and said, ‘Not an inch.’
The boy just glared at him.
‘Got it?’ He knew there’d need to be tough love first. Car washes weren’t going to do it.
Then he went to the shed, found a hammer and nails, and stood on the outside securing the window. As he did he looked at the boy, but he didn’t look back. He said, ‘I can remove these, any time.’
He looked across the road. Mrs Flamsteed was still on her porch, watching.
‘All tidied up?’ she called.
22
THE PROBLEM WAS solved with pizza. Moy ordered three. Garlic bread. Coke. A conversation at the door with the delivery boy. ‘Looks like I’ll have to eat them all myself,’ he said, turning towards the door of the spare room. ‘My son, he’s too sick to eat.’
He sat in the lounge room, feasting. A few minutes later he heard the boy’s door opening, then saw a shadow in the doorway. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘I got tropical. You like pineapple?’
The boy came in and knelt down in front of the boxes on the coffee table. He took a slice and started to eat.
‘I poured you a Coke,’ Moy said.
The boy chewed a few times, waited and swallowed.
‘Thank you, Detective,’ Moy said. ‘That’s okay.’
‘Thanks,’ the boy managed.
‘That’s okay.’
After they’d eaten and drained nearly a litre of Coke, Moy said, ‘Do I owe you an apology?’
The boy looked at him. ‘Was the lady angry?’
‘No. She’s got plenty of plants. Said she understood. Still…’
‘What?’
Moy fetched pen and paper, and helped him compose the note. ‘
Dear Mrs Flamsteed
…’
‘I can write it by myself. I’m not five years old.’
‘You never told me how old you were.’
‘Nine.’
When he was finished he crossed the road, by himself, and placed it in her letterbox.
He returned and Moy said, ‘She’ll be over with one of her saints.’
The boy had seen them on the fridge. ‘For me?’
‘Yeah. But I’ll keep her at the front door. I’ll tell her you went down the street for some milk. Unless, of course…’
The boy grinned. ‘My uncle was into Jesus.’
Moy knew better than to try again. Instead, ‘I suppose I should go do some work.’
‘What about me?’
‘You can come with me.’
‘To work?’
Moy shrugged. ‘I don’t think you’re ready to start school just yet, are you?’
‘No.’
They both got changed. When Moy emerged from his room the boy was putting the pizza boxes in the bin.
They backed out of the driveway in the lemon-scented car, cruised along Gawler Street behind a truck full of pigs, its tray dribbling shit, and past Civic Park on the way to the station. ‘What’s your favourite music?’ Moy asked, tuning from station to station. Eighties double-plays…Bing Crosby.
‘Don’t know.’
They settled on the squawk and mumble of the police radio.
Then the boy looked at Moy and said, ‘Patrick.’
Moy kept his eyes on the road. ‘Patrick?’ He stretched his right hand across his body. ‘I’m Bart…nice to meet you.’
Patrick lifted his hand from his lap. Slipped his fingers and palm into Moy’s. Then Moy closed his hand and they shook.
‘Do you have a surname, Patrick?’
The boy looked back at the road.
‘That’s okay. One step at a time. It’s a nice name, Patrick. Very Irish. But you’re not Irish, are you? I mean, what would an Irish person be doing in Guilderton? No, that’s quite a start. I feel like I know you now.’
They pulled up in front of the station. Patrick sat back in his seat, his hands sliding down, and squeezing his legs. His teeth closed on his bottom lip and he looked at Moy strangely.
‘Let’s go,’ Moy said, climbing from the car.
Patrick sat motionless, staring down into the black comms screen.
‘You coming?’
They went in through the double glass doors, postered with an ad for a Blue Light disco and a man named Sidney Barrett, wanted for the murder of his wife and mother-in-law. Patrick walked slowly, looking around—at the fan clunking above the waiting area; the aquarium, full of murky water and plastic seaweed; a coffee table with magazines and a Rubik’s cube with most of its coloured stickers peeled off. Moy approached the desk where Jason Laing was busy counting the number of fines in an infringement pad.
‘This is Patrick,’ Moy said, his voice filling the empty room. ‘Patrick, this is Constable Jason Laing.’
Patrick lifted his head and looked at the policeman. Laing studied the boy’s face. ‘Hello, Patrick.’
No reply. Patrick looked down at the lino and the black marks at the bottom of the counter where thousands of boots had scuffed the wood.
‘Patrick’s staying with me,’ Moy said.
Laing leaned forward, although he was no closer to the boy. ‘Are you sure that’s something you want to do, Patrick? This man hasn’t cooked a meal since 1986.’
‘Thanks very much. At least we don’t have cats sleeping with us.’
‘That’s not my fault,’ Laing replied, attempting to meet the boy’s eyes. ‘It’s my wife, she loves cats.’ He leaned across the desk. ‘That’s what happens when you get married, Patrick…be warned.’
Moy looked at him, the kindergarten teacher with the bobbed hair on the tip of his tongue; Laing shot back a glare. Patrick (if that was his name) watched them with a blank expression.
‘Well, you look after yourself,’ Laing said. ‘Detective Moy will find your parents in no time. He’s very good, despite what everyone says.’ The phone rang and he answered it.
‘Come on,’ Moy said, taking Patrick around the shoulder and leading him towards his office. As he went Laing covered the mouthpiece and said, ‘Oh, Superintendent Graves rang. He was wondering why he hasn’t got a report on—’ he indicated the boy. ‘And the fire.’
‘Thanks, Constable.’
‘Thank you, Detective.’
Moy took Patrick through into the hallway. ‘You find this place a bit…intimidating?’
‘No.’
‘Any of these fellas would help you, you know. All you gotta do is ask.’
They got to a room with a steel door. Moy produced a fistful of keys he used to open a seam of locks. ‘This is the armory.’ He walked inside and switched on the lights. Patrick followed him in, his eyes lighting up at the sight of three shotguns, two pistols and a rifle locked in a cradle. There was a silver cage, itself locked up, full of old pistols, rifles and shotguns. ‘These are the ones we’ve confiscated,’ Moy said, shaking the cage. ‘They have to be sent to town, to be destroyed.’
The boy had seemed fascinated with Moy’s revolver, snuggled into a holster on his belt. He’d studied it, his mouth open with anticipation, plainly resisting the temptation to ask if he could hold it.
Now he looked at the cradle with the guns and said, ‘Have you ever had to use them?’
‘Not these, but back in town, there were times…’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, there was this dad, and he’d locked himself in his house with his wife and kids…’ He stopped.
‘And what happened?’
‘What happened? Nothing, he gave up.’
‘You didn’t have to shoot him?’
‘No.’
‘You should’ve.’
Moy looked at the boy, looking at the guns. ‘Why’s that?’
‘If he was threatening them.’
Moy could hear Laing whistling from the front desk. ‘But he gave up. Everything was okay.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Of course, we don’t put up with violent people. If we can just work out who they are.’
‘Sometimes you know,’ Patrick said, looking at him.
‘What do you mean?’
But the boy’s head just dropped.
‘So there’s a violent person?’
No reply.
‘But it’s not someone you know, is it? Someone from Guilderton, for instance? Someone you’ve met today?’
Nothing.
‘The thing is, if you told me, I’d have him in here like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Or if it was someone close, we could go and have a talk.’
The boy worked at a hole in the lino with the tip of his shoe.
‘Someone you know, someone in your family?’
Silence.
Moy switched off the lights and locked the door, and they continued down the hall. He entered a code on a keypad and another door opened. They walked into a room made up of three small cells. The cells were clean, with tiled floors and fold-down beds that had been made up with fresh linen and rugs. Each had its own stainless steel toilet, a single roll of paper and a hand basin.
‘This is where we put the bad guys,’ Moy said. ‘Or sometimes, on nights, we have a sleep here.’
‘You do?’
‘The beds are quite comfy. Try one.’
Patrick stood staring at the closest cell, its door wide open.
‘Air conditioning, heating, everything. We have meals sent over from the Wombat Inn. If this was a motel it’d be two hundred a night. What do you think?’
Patrick was still looking, unsure.
‘Come on,’ Moy said, going into the cell, sitting and then lying on the bed. ‘It’s mainly for the farmers who get on the grog.’ He stopped again. ‘It’s like a cubby house.’ He motioned for Patrick to come in.
Patrick took a few steps, looked up at the bars and then crossed the threshold.
‘See, you could decorate it: lava lamp, the whole lot.’
Patrick’s face twisted. He dropped to his knees, fell forward and crumpled into a ball.
Moy knelt beside him. ‘You okay?’
‘Please…’
‘Should we take you out?’
But the boy just kept crying.
Moy picked him up and carried him from the cells. He draped him across his shoulder, entered the code and left the room. When he had him in his office, he lowered him into a chair. ‘Hey,’ he said, but Patrick just sobbed, fighting for breath.
Laing stepped into the office. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Fine,’ Moy replied.
The constable just waited.
‘Fine.’
Laing left the room.
Moy sat beside the boy. ‘I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t such a good idea, was it?’
A vacant stare. Moy looked around. Picked up the old photo on his desk and held it for a while. ‘I didn’t tell you what happened to Daniel Moy, did I?’
Patrick shook his head and sniffed.
‘See, after all that walking, the photographer wouldn’t go with Daniel.’
Pause. ‘What do you mean?’
‘After walking for two days the photographer wouldn’t go with Daniel, to take the photo of his daughter, Lizzie. So Daniel said, listen, she’s my only daughter, and she’s gone. Me and my wife are worried we won’t remember what she looked like.’