For this one, Nathan watched the thin tendril of smoke wind up from the tip of Kieran’s cigarette into the air. The ducted heating kicked in, the flow of warm air swirling the vine of smoke away. The influx of heat helped with the chill creeping into the air.
His mum got up. She took the empty cups.
‘Would you like another drink? I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘Thanks, Pauline, that’d be lovely.’
‘Okay, let’s look at this . . .’ Kieran turned to the next sheet. He read a moment. Smoked the last of his cigarette, stubbed it out. ‘The day you were discovered at the diner. On that same day William’s father was shot and killed at the Newhaven Hill Caravan Park. I think this has been mentioned to you before, right, Nath? The shooting took place only two hours before we met in the diner. Originally, you were told that the shooting was believed to be a result of an argument William’s parents had. But since then, it’s been discovered that the bullets used were from a batch found at the Barbary Street house.’ He looked up from the page. ‘The detectives now believe the gun used was stolen from the Barbary Street house, and that William stole the gun to take to the caravan park and shoot his father.’
Nathan shook his head.
‘Were you in the caravan at the time of the shooting?’
In the kitchen, at the sink, rinsing the cups, Nathan’s mother stopped and bowed her head. Her jaw clenched. Her ragged breathing could be heard. Nathan’s father was staring through the archway, into the lounge room. His chest rose with a deep breath.
‘It’s hard,’ Kieran said, having glanced at both of them, ‘none of us think it’s fair, Nath, that you might have been there. It was . . . I’ve seen the pictures of the shooting . . . not something anyone would want to see. We all think the same. If you were there, you shouldn’t have been. Joe Vander was dead; you should have been safe. You weren’t. And that’s what everyone is trying to get to the bottom of here, mate. Your ordeal should have been over, but it wasn’t.’
‘It was.’
‘Did William tell you how involved he was in the abduction?’
‘He didn’t need to.’
‘We know he was a kid when it all started, no one is saying he wasn’t, but . . . he’s done things since, mate. They can’t be ignored.’
‘Only because he had to do them.’
‘Are you saying he shot his father?’
‘No.’
‘Did he light the shed fire?’
‘No.’
‘He’s had opportunities to change his life.’
‘He wanted to change.’
‘It doesn’t seem that way, mate.’
‘He was threatened.’
‘By who?’
The detective suddenly leaned forward. ‘Everyone has tried to help him. He doesn’t want help. He planned to murder. He injured Marta Vander in the hope she wouldn’t talk. Joe Vander’s death wasn’t due to natural causes. William did that too.’
‘No.’
‘He eliminated every single person who could put him at the market that day. They’re all dead. That’s not a coincidence. The reason he didn’t take you to the police was because he had to do that first.’
‘It’s not true.’
‘He was protecting
himself
, not you.’
‘It didn’t happen like that.’
‘What he did was incredibly calculated and criminal. William is not someone you want to be protecting. His damaging behaviour started as a child, and has continued.’
‘It’s not true.’
The detective reached for the photo of Monty and Jerry. He held it and waved it. ‘He sent you this? So you trust him?’
‘I do trust him.’
‘We tracked down this house. These two dogs . . .’ The detective dropped the photo onto the table again. ‘Billy killed them. After he took that.’
‘No,’ Nathan breathed.
Kieran’s head swung around. He stared perplexed at the detective.
‘He killed the dogs?’ Nathan’s mother said.
‘Peter.’ Nathan’s dad lifted his hand and held it open. ‘You didn’t tell us that?’
‘Oh my god. He killed the dogs? Why didn’t you tell us that? We wouldn’t have shown it to Nathan . . . Nathan?’
The detective leaned back. He jiggled his pen between his two fingers. Red crept up his throat. Nathan noticed the small pin on his lapel. A gold cross.
Billy
.
No other policeman called Billy that.
Kieran shuffled the papers. ‘O
kay
. . .’
‘It’s not true.’ Nathan pushed back from the table. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’
‘Nathan,’ his mum had come across, ‘we didn’t know about the dogs, they didn’t tell us. We wouldn’t have agreed to any of this if —’
‘It’s okay. They’re not dead. Billy wouldn’t do that.’
‘Peter? Why didn’t you tell us he’d killed the dogs?’
‘Can’t you see he’s a liar?’ Nathan said.
N
athan went to the glass sliding door, looked out at the sheeting rain.
‘Trick a criminal into telling you what you need to know,’ his dad was saying, ‘but do not trick my son.’
‘Some pressure is sometimes needed if we’re ever going to get anywhere.’
‘By
lying
?’
‘If you ask me, they’re as good as dead. Everyone else William gets anywhere near ends up dead.’
‘This is exactly why we insist on Kieran.’
‘We need some movement, Mitch.’
‘Don’t come in here and tell me what it’s going to take for my son to open up. You lot were the ones who walked through that house and missed what anyone with half a brain would have seen.’
‘You know it’s been —’
‘How many times did the woman next door ring the police and tell them homeless boys were constantly in and out of that house? Out of all those calls, how many times did a cop actually step inside the door?’
‘It’s not that simple. Officers can’t —’
‘Call after call after call.’ Nathan’s dad held up a finger. ‘One search, one time, one walk through that house, one enquiry, one check.’ His body was tense. He sounded out of breath. ‘Don’t make my son think it’s up to him, it’s on his shoulders; it’s on
your
head.’
‘We’ll go.’
‘You’ll go,’ Nathan’s father said, pointing at the detective. ‘I’d like to talk to Kieran.’
The detective packed up the paperwork. He put the photo of Monty and Jerry in the folder. Nathan’s dad came to stand beside Nathan at the door. He unlatched it and slid it open. The cold and damp blew in on them. Nathan’s dad shut his eyes to it. Behind them, the detective said goodbye to Nathan’s mum, thanked her for the coffee. He went to leave.
‘Peter,’ Nathan’s dad opened his eyes and said, ‘ever think about the one person around William Benson who didn’t end up dying?’
‘Good luck or good management. That’s all I’m saying.’
‘Damn good management I would say, if you look at the three who are dead.’
‘I’ll be waiting in the car, Kieran.’
Kieran cringed once he’d gone. ‘I don’t know what happened there.’
‘He lied. That’s what happened.’
Kieran checked over his shoulder that the front door had shut. ‘It’s not like him.’
Nathan’s mum pulled the sliding door closed. She looked at Nathan’s dad, touched his arm. ‘Sit down. Both of you.’
Nathan went with his father to the table.
‘I don’t know,’ Kieran said as they sat. ‘Media has dropped right off. No one is baying for blood. Within the ranks everyone thinks like you do, Mitch. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch of . . . people. Peter’s getting pressure from somewhere, though.’
‘How much is true?’
‘I don’t get briefed. I just get told what to say.’
‘How close are they to finding him?’
‘I’m not sure. The photo has them believing that William and Nathan might be closer than they first thought. They think Nathan knows where he is.’ Kieran exhaled his smoke and then smiled close-lipped at Nathan. ‘The dogs are fine. I’ve seen them myself.’
‘All we want to know is that Nathan is safe. Is William as dangerous as they’re making him out to be?’
Kieran scratched his jaw. ‘For me, where things tend to fall down, is that anyone who actually saw William and Nathan together, including me,’ he tipped his head, ‘can only testify to the fact that the two of them looked like a pair of good mates. William wasn’t hiding him. He wasn’t hiding himself . . . There
are
questions. William’s mother, and the caravan caretaker, they’re lying about what happened with the shooting. The two of them can’t get their stories straight. One minute they’re saying Nathan wasn’t there at all, next they’re saying he was down at the caretaker’s residence. And it’s hard to ignore that a call
was
made to Miloslav. No one can work out why they were all at the shed. Autopsy reveals Miloslav was beaten before he died. Marta was beaten. Joe Vander had signs of being beaten . . . but . . . is it exactly like Peter thinks? I don’t know. I guess only Nath knows. It’s not beyond all realms of possibility that William didn’t try and get rid of everyone who could put him there that day. But, like you say, Mitch, if that’s the case, if he’s that ruthless, why deliver Nathan safe and sound, why sit him down in the diner to be found? And why drag Marta Vander from the fire? If anyone was going to talk, it was going to be her . . . I’ve said this before but William, to me, he came off like a tough kid but a good kid.’
‘I can’t get past it,’ Nathan’s mother murmured. ‘He was at the market? I don’t understand it. I can’t work it out. I don’t know if I want to work it out.’
‘I know what you’re saying, Pauline. It’s not that much of a shock to us, though; we see it all the time. It’s a web. These kids get stuck . . . My gut? What experience tells me? It’s always a bit of what you think and nothing like what you thought.’
‘He’s up against it, isn’t he?’ Nathan’s father said. ‘If they find him?’
‘Bloody oath. They’re not going to pass up a fall guy. He’s got a rap sheet that makes it all too easy. I better go.’ He put his smoke in his mouth and got up, lifted the chair and placed it in tight against the table. ‘Pete’s got too much pulling power to piss off. Try saying that with a ciggie between your lips.’
H
e had a shoe rack now, five pairs of shoes on it, not counting his farm boots and gumboots by the back door. Not counting his slippers. He had coats on hangers. A farm coat, a stonewash denim jacket, a duffel coat. In the drawers were socks and jocks and T-shirts, three different pairs of jeans, trackpants, jumpers, singlets, shorts and swimming trunks. Nathan took the plastic bag from the top shelf of his wardrobe. Folded inside were the clothes he’d been found in, packed flat by Nurse Rosie, at Nathan’s request, the bag tied off tight, not yet untied. Nathan sat down at the desk and tore the plastic.
He took out the Wrangler jeans. They were dirty, stiff with dried sweat, smudged with soot, ash, misted blood and bigger dots of blood, melted chocolate, grass stains; they smelled of fire smoke, stale cigarette smoke, gunpowder. From the pocket, in with the spare bullets, he took out the photo he’d taken from the Boytime Co-op pin board. It was the picture of Billy with his gloves on, grinning with his mouthguard in.
Nathan’s mother had sat on the bed. He passed the picture to her. ‘That’s him.’
‘This is him? William Benson?’
She switched on the lamp.
In the hospital, when Nathan met his mother, the amount of pain in her had amazed him. He’d looked into her face and seen her torment. She’d barely been able to stand under the weight of it. It had dawned on him: what had happened to him had happened to her too. Maybe not physically in the backroom with him, but there mentally, every step of the way. The same with Nathan’s father. The hurt in him had been huge. It had winded him, made him shake, had him crying. Written on both their faces: taken too, dragged from life, locked away, sleepless nights, empty days, painful moments. Years of it. Nathan’s mother, after seeing Nathan, had been treated for shock in the next room.
His mum was shaking again now. She’d taken the soggy tissue from her sleeve. The pain was back. Nathan didn’t know what to say to her about it. He didn’t know how to tell her he was sorry. It felt like his fault.
His father had come into the bedroom. He glanced at the torn bag and dirty clothes. He stood a few paces back. Nathan related to the way his father held things in, chose his words. It wasn’t about being closed off; it was about not falling apart.
His mum passed the photo to his dad.
‘That’s him.’
Nathan watched for the reaction in his father. This was Nathan’s test. He needed to see for himself what they really felt about Billy. He needed to know if his parents were forgiving, open to understanding, able to push past blame. Hurt didn’t seem to surface in Nathan’s dad, or anger. He seemed curious. After glancing at Nathan, he handed the photo to him.
Nathan took the photo and pinned it to the corkboard above his desk. Beside the times tables sheet and that week’s words. It was right to have Billy up there, in the open. Billy gave the corkboard colour. If Nathan was to step back from the desk, look at the picture within the context of the room, Billy’s vibrancy and attitude made everything else look straightjacketed and lifeless, as though he was the only real thing in there.
From the pocket of the jeans, Nathan took the spare gun bullets.
As soon as his mum spotted them, she sobbed.
‘I shot Billy’s father. I took the gun.’
‘It’s not fair,’ his mother cried.
‘Kovac lit the fire, not Billy. Kovac hit the woman. Billy saved her. We were at the shed because of me.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘I killed Joe. I hit him. I didn’t give him his tablets. Billy took me from the house because I asked him to.’
‘No one blames you.’
‘Billy left me down the creek for you to find me. I followed him down there. He didn’t make me go.’
‘No, Nathan, no, it wasn’t your fault . . .’
‘They took Billy too. He was trapped too.’
‘He wasn’t, though; he got away.’ Nathan’s mum was back there then, at the market, at the hospital, slumping on the bed, too much weight, too much sadness. She pressed the heel of her hand to her chest. ‘He could have told someone. How hard is it to tell someone?’
‘Harder than it seems.’
Nathan palmed his tears away.
‘Why aren’t his mother and the caretaker blaming you for the shooting?’ Nathan’s father said.
‘They’re trying to help me.’
‘Why is William hiding if he hasn’t done anything wrong?’
‘He’s scared.’
Nathan got up and went over to his mum. She was fighting to breathe. Rocking with the grief. He sat beside her. ‘He was trapped. But no one looked for him, so they didn’t have to hide him.’
She cried harder, gripped him, pulled him to her. She was clinging, not wanting to let go. He put his arm around her and let her press her face against his neck, let her touch his hair. ‘My boy,’ she said. ‘My beautiful boy.’
‘Do you know where to find him, son?’
‘I know where to look.’