One Boy Missing (23 page)

‘Who you lookin’ for?’ the old man asked.

‘I rang earlier and spoke to the secretary.’

‘Who?’

‘The secretary?’

‘No, yer fuckin’…missing person?’

‘Have you heard of Alex Naismith?’

The old man watched his son lurch after the ball. ‘Played Div Four, two or three years ago.’

‘Know much about him?’

‘He stopped, didn’t see out the season. That’s the last we saw of him.’ Then he looked back at his grandson. ‘He’s too smart, anyway.’

‘Who?’

‘Michael. Clever little bastard. Good at maths. He’d be better off studying engineering, medicine. Steada throwing good money after bad.’

‘Things might get better.’

There was a siren. Moy had no idea what it meant.

‘You’re not gonna tell us what it’s all about?’ the old man said.

‘Well, Alex, he washed up at Mangrove Point.’

‘What, dead?’

No, bodysurfing.
‘We reckon.’

‘Fuck.’

‘So, you know, I suppose things could always be worse.’

The old fella shook his head and turned back towards the oval. ‘Not at eight dollars a tonne.’

MOY PULLED OUT, back onto the road to town. As he picked up speed he noticed a deserted farmhouse. Nearby paddocks had been reclaimed by scrub. There was a windmill, still turning, although the axle and gears were hanging loose. It occurred to him that there were many places like this—forgotten, cheaper to ignore than demolish. He supposed they could be made livable if someone was determined. They would make decent places to live. Away from neighbours and prying eyes.

He wondered about the house on Creek Street. What if Helen had brought her two sons to get away from someone? What if she’d had to flee the city and remembered this place from some childhood holiday, or something someone had mentioned?

And what if Alex Naismith, whoever he was, and however he was connected, had found her?

As his open window sucked in cool air he tried to imagine Helen Barnes, and Alex Naismith, together. He could see Helen popping out to a crowded coffee shop when Austen was at work. She would be smiling, and saying, hi, Alex, offering her hand. They would be huddling together, their faces almost touching. She would be telling him how she was ready to leave Austen and the kids.

So then, he imagined, fast-forwarding through the highlights, Helen running off with him, him tiring of her, leaving her, Helen telling his wife or vandalising his car…

He drifted into a low valley, accelerated up a steep hill and became airborne on the crest, settling back onto the road with a gentle
hmph
.

Maybe an unpaid debt. Austen’s. Maybe Alex had killed the husband and she’d fled with the kids.

Silly stuff, he told himself.

Or maybe it wasn’t, as Patrick thought, Austen leaving the family. Maybe Helen had just got sick of her husband and left, some hot afternoon when she’d had time to think and realise how much she hated her life. Or maybe Patrick was right. Maybe Dad had just up and disappeared, and maybe they’d gone looking for him, returning to some accommodation they’d once shared.

That didn’t explain the furniture, clothes and toys in the house.

Or maybe Naismith had nothing to do with the Barnes family? Maybe he was just there to welcome them, to warn them, to tell them to move on…Maybe things just got out of hand.

36

THE GREEN AT the Guilderton Bowls Club was freshly shaved, so precisely clipped it looked artificial in the morning light. There were a few patches but they’d been packed with loam, whacked flat and watered in anticipation of new growth. There were waiting bays with seats bolted to concrete slabs. Each one had a sign:
Have You Marked Your Score?

Moy sat in one of these shelters with Patrick and watched George open his felt-lined bowls case. George took out one of a matching pair, wrapped it in a rag and handed it to the boy. ‘A good five minutes.’

Patrick started polishing the bowl the way George had shown him. ‘How’s this help?’ he asked.

‘Makes it smoother.’

As Patrick worked on the bowl, George walked to the other end of the pitch and set out his jack. He stepped back, surveyed it from three or four different angles, shrugged and headed back.

‘Let’s have yer,’ he called to the boy, turning up the collar on his club shirt and hitching his pants. He took his own bowl and found his position. ‘No one’ll bother us until at least ten.’

‘Does everyone dress in white?’ Patrick asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a tradition.’

‘Why?’

George stared at him. ‘
Why why why?
You can’t just keep using that word.’

Patrick looked at him.

‘Otherwise you’d have people in T-shirts, sandshoes, work boots. What would that look like?’ He looked pointedly at Moy’s T-shirt. ‘You’re playing?’

‘No, I’m happy just sitting here…watching…passing judgment.’ Moy looked at Patrick and smiled.

‘Right now Paddy,’ George said, demonstrating his swing. ‘See, like that. Follow through with your arm, nice and slow.’

Patrick stepped forward, grasped his bowl and copied George’s swing.

‘Good, but bend over,’ the old man said, taking Patrick’s shoulders and forcing them down. ‘That’s the idea. Just soft…you’ve gotta learn to judge…like so.’ The bowl shot off, curved, arced back to the jack but stopped a few feet short. ‘For now it’s better to undershoot.’

Patrick assumed his stance, drew a mental line over the grass and bowled. The bowl started slow and went straight; it headed for the jack, connected and knocked it a few inches to the right. He turned and looked at George and Moy.

Moy applauded. ‘Nice work, Clarry.’

‘I hit it.’ He was beaming. ‘Can we try again?’

‘Of course. You grab the bowls.’

Patrick sprinted down the pitch and George called out, ‘Walk!’

The boy replaced the jack, gathered the bowls and returned. ‘Do any kids play?’ he asked George.

‘It’s an old person’s sport,’ Moy said. George glared at him.

‘So I can’t join the club?’

‘You can if you like. It’s good you’re thinking about the future.’

He turned and tilted his head. ‘Why?’

‘Gotta have somewhere to stay, everybody does.’ He looked at his son. ‘Be good if you stayed here with us, wouldn’t it, Bart?’

‘Would you like that?’ Moy asked.

It seemed to strike Patrick as a novel idea. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

‘Unless your dad claims you.’

Patrick took a moment. ‘He won’t.’

‘Why not?’

Patrick shrugged. He looked at George and asked, ‘Did you ever come here with your dad?’

‘God, no.’ George almost laughed. ‘We were always too busy on the farm. Hardly ever came to town. Certainly not to play bowls. My dad wouldn’t have dreamed of doing something like this.’

‘Was he grumpy?’

‘No, practical. That’s how it was in those days.’

‘What was his name? Your dad?’

George smiled at him. ‘You haven’t worked it out yet?’

‘I think…’

‘His name was William, William Moy.’

Patrick turned to face him. ‘William…the photographer’s son?’

‘That’s him.’

‘So…’ He stopped to think about how it might have happened. ‘He never came back for him?’

‘Well, thing is, I never knew until I was about your age. Dad never told me.’ George shrugged at Patrick’s expression of disbelief. ‘Mighta thought I wouldn’t be interested.’

Moy was half-sitting, half-lying back in the shelter, listening to the fugue of old and young voice, the harmony, the poetry. The sky was a half-cloudy, indecisive blue, the breeze not cold, not warm.

‘What happened?’ Patrick asked George.

‘Some time in the late forties, maybe? After the war anyway, one time I was looking through the photo albums and Dad says to me, you know, my father died in Sydney.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Course, I knew very well my grandfather Daniel’d died right there on the farm, so then the whole story comes out.’

There were only two photos of his father, Bill had said, probably it was always like that with photographers. He told George he could remember the sound of his father’s raspy pipe-smoker’s voice and his floppy bowtie, the hair that grew out of his ears and nose.

‘He was looking for his wife in Sydney,’ George told Patrick.

‘What was his name?’

‘Harrison…Harry. Apparently he got in a fight and ended up with a knife between his ribs.’

‘What about Daniel?’ Patrick asked.

‘Well, after losing Elizabeth, he agreed to look after Dad. That’s the sort of man he was…help anyone out.’

‘William stayed with him?’

‘Yes, the day after the photo was taken—the death photo.’ George recalled the
memento mori
. ‘Harry kissed Dad on the head and said, I’ll be back soon, son, behave yourself, do exactly what Mr Moy says.’

Young William, with blood still dried on his throat.

‘Dad told me he cried for a whole day,’ George said. ‘Harry got back in his cart and drove off and Dad never saw him again.’

Patrick, looking at the grass, seemed to be remembering.

‘Anyway,’ George said, ‘Dad settled in. Elizabeth was buried, a cross was made. Life went on. He learned how to plough and seed and deliver lambs. And that was that.’

Patrick studied George’s face.

‘Until one day,’ George said, ‘this letter came saying what happened in Sydney. Then there were lots of waterworks. Daniel said, we don’t know if this is true, son. But Dad knew. And then the months and years went by. He knew. Something had happened to his father. Maybe his mum had run off with someone, and Harry was after them. Maybe he was the fella that stabbed Harry.’

Patrick stared at George. ‘So what happened then?’

‘Well, Daniel was always a practical man. He said, how about we make this all legal? And Dad said, fine, and then they went to town to see a lawyer, to fill in the adoption papers.’ George was enjoying the story. ‘When I first heard all this I was shocked. Still, it explained a lot of things. Missing photos…different hair colour…’ He squeezed Patrick’s knee. ‘See, that’s Bart’s grandad. A stranger. Someone that somebody met by accident.’

‘And all in one day?’ Patrick asked, seeing both photos—William and Daniel, Elizabeth, Daniel and Helen—but wondering, clearly. ‘And what was his surname?’

‘Who?’

‘Your other grandad. Harry.’

‘William never said.’

‘Why?’

‘Maybe he never thought to.’

‘Why?’

‘
Why why?
’

‘Why?’ Patrick persisted.

‘Maybe he just wanted to move on.’

And Patrick stared at the jack, thinking, as the first of the bowlers came outside.

37

MOY SAT IN his room and stared into his monitor. Forensic evidence: a bumper bar; a bike that had nothing to do with anything but was photographed anyway; the soccer ball; even his keys, and a beer bottle they’d found in the back of his car.

Megan had asked when he’d drunk it. She’d claimed she could smell it on his breath, which was rubbish. It had been days since he’d had a drink. He could remember her screaming at him. ‘If you’ve been drinking…’ Him yelling back that it was an
accident
and accidents, by definition, weren’t something you anticipated. How he needed her support now, and she was being a complete and utter bitch. As if it was something he’d meant to do.

‘If it goes to court, don’t rely on me,’ she was saying.

‘What do you think happened?’ He could see her face, set hard, and her arms crossed.

He went into his room to pack a few clothes and she followed him.

‘So?’ she asked.

‘Tomorrow morning I’m going to split the savings and put half in my credit union account, and then I’m going to check into a motel.’

‘You need both signatures.’

He’d stopped. ‘Wrong. Check.’

He sat back in his chair now, staring at the soccer ball, remembering his wife standing at the door as he took his keys, wallet and pistol, and left.

His phone rang. ‘Yes?’

It was Superintendent Graves wanting more information. The days and weeks are passing, he explained.

‘Sir.’ Thinking,
pompous old timeserver
. Irritated by the drone, the formal clunk of words. ‘I’ve read the reports, and I’ve followed everything up. I’ve talked to everyone on Creek Street but no one seems to remember them. The house itself is a long way out.’ He wanted to tell the superintendent not to bother him in his own space, his own time. Brave words and sentences were forming in his head.
I’m solving it in my own way, and if you don’t like that
…

‘So, it’s probably time to get this boy seen to,’ Graves said. ‘There’s probably a psychologist, or someone?’

Seen to.
‘Yes sir. I don’t think that’s going to achieve anything.’
You complete fucking prick
.

‘What about this brother?’ Graves asked.

‘I assume he’s being…kept somewhere.’

There was a long silence from the other end. ‘Why would someone want to keep him?’

‘The boy’s seen whoever it was attacked the mother. Maybe he’s got away, too. Maybe he’s hiding somewhere.’

‘Lot of maybes, Bart.’

Moy noticed Patrick standing in the doorway. ‘Well, Superintendent, I’ve done my best with limited means. I don’t think—’

‘Detective Sergeant, the normal—’

‘I need to call you back…tomorrow perhaps. I have to go.’ He hung up, placing the phone on his desk. ‘Patrick?’

Patrick opened the door and stepped inside the room, pulling his T-shirt down over his underpants.

‘What’s up?’ Moy asked.

The boy shrugged.

‘Were you listening?’

‘You were talking about Tom?’

‘Tom, and Mum, and the fire. They think I’m taking too long.’

No response.

‘They’re saying it’s about time someone else had a go. I said no.’ He waited. ‘Do you think I’m taking too long?’

Patrick shrugged.

Moy made no attempt to make the boy feel comfortable. ‘If I agree, they’ll send three major crime investigators. They’ll start from scratch. Evidence. Witnesses. They’ll get you to tell them exactly what happened. From the beginning. Would you like that?’

Patrick shrugged again.