One Boy Missing (26 page)

‘Not sure. I just kept going. Would’ve died eventually, I suppose.’

‘You should’ve checked.’

‘It shouldn’t have been on the road.’

They passed through a doorway into an adjoining hall. There were dozens of pigs sitting and standing on concrete slabs. Monsters as big as small cars. Sows, their legs open, their battery of pink nipples erect in the morning cold. ‘All of this so I can have a bit of bacon,’ Moy said.

‘They put a bolt through their head, but they stun them first.’

Moy was lost in the little eyes, so ridiculously small compared to the rest of the body. ‘Maybe I’ll become a vegetarian.’

‘She’ll still get killed.’

‘Let’s go look at the scones.’

They moved to the next hall, and glass cabinets full of hand-made dolls and doilies. Then the baking. A bank of sultana cakes with the sultanas too close, too far apart, spaced just right. Pavlovas sitting white and perfect in their cabinets and, finally, scones: uncrumbly, undoughy, exactly two inches high and wide, topped with a tight perm of jam and cream.

They passed a lucky dip and Patrick looked at Moy.

‘Five bucks? They’re always crap. I’ll buy you something decent when we get to the sideshows.’

But the promise of the big pink and blue boxes had captivated Patrick. Toys wrapped in six layers of newspaper. ‘Please?’

Moy took out his wallet and handed an old woman five dollars. She smiled.

Yeah, he thought, looking at her. It’s meant to be a country show. Better be something decent.

Patrick felt around in the blue box, produced the biggest parcel and started unwrapping it. One, two, three layers, revealing a small plastic racing car with one of its wheels already missing. ‘Look,’ he said, beaming.

‘Great.’ Moy smiled at the woman. Then he noticed they were outside the toilet. He looked at Patrick. ‘I’ll be two minutes.’

‘I’m going to look at the paintings,’ Patrick said, noticing a wall covered with water-colour gum trees and paddocks.

Moy stood at the urinal and unzipped. Waited. An old farmer came in and stood beside him.

‘How are yer?’

Moy nodded. He waited.

‘Havin’ a bit of trouble?’ the old man asked, directing his copious stream into a pre-existing puddle of piss and stepping back as it splashed his shoes.

‘Yeah,’ Moy replied, turning and walking into a cubicle.

When he emerged the old man had gone. He went into the hall. Paintings: water-colours, oils and acrylics, but no Patrick. Walking over to the Artists’ Corner, he looked along the aisles formed by stands displaying art.

Nothing.

‘Patrick?’ he called, and then loud, as his heart started to race. ‘Patrick…over here.’ Surely he wouldn’t have wandered off, he thought as he stood sweating. Surely.

He took a breath and forced himself to think. It was a big hall, set out for a casual stroll. He started against the far wall and walked up and down every aisle: art, craft, cooking; compositions and crayon portraits; ships in bottles, model tanks and planes. ‘Patrick!’

He ran back to the toilet, elbowed the door and cannoned inside.

Nothing.

Fuck. Think, Moy, think.

Four, five, six long seconds. Light on the cracking wall, piss and lemon scent in his nostrils.

He took a deep breath.

No, what a stupid thing to think, you fuck.

And then, forcing himself again, he became the detective and not the parent. He thought how Patrick had run away before. How he’d hidden in a hole, stolen money, eaten chips and fried chicken for a week. How he’d lost his whole family in a matter of days. How he was a scared little boy.

But he could see his smiling face, his hand in the lucky dip.

He wasn’t scared now.

He wouldn’t run now.

The lucky dip. He ran back to the woman. ‘Have you seen my boy?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘The paintings.’

‘How long ago?’

‘A few minutes.’

‘Was he with someone?’

‘Not that I noticed. Has he wandered off?’

Moy didn’t answer. He retraced his steps, stopping and asking a show society guide. She couldn’t remember any boy. A middle-aged woman at a coffee stall. No, sorry. Half-a-dozen people admiring the crafts. Is he lost? And a woman who remembered them, together, looking at the scones.

He ran up and down every row, calling, ‘Patrick, are you here?’

He’d gone. Or been taken.

A fragment caught in his mind. Someone beside them in the grandstand. A smile or lifted eyebrow. Asking the time. Sunglasses, a beard, looking up from a magazine.

But there was nothing, no one.

Was it the man with the shovel? Naismith’s murderer? Or Patrick’s father, come to reclaim a clue? The longing for his son too strong?

He ran outside. There were hundreds of faces—mums and dads, kids, some as tall as Patrick, with his hair, even his blue windcheater. ‘Patrick!’

He wouldn’t go any further than this, he thought. He’s too smart, too careful.

He felt sick. Wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. ‘Patrick!’ More faces; similar; passing; curious. Back to the cattle shed, the pigs, the sheep. And out the other end, minus the boy he was meant to be looking after, caring for.

Fuck fuck fuck.

He stood on a high ramp and studied every face. ‘Go,’ he said to himself, and ran back to the Arts and Crafts. Jumping up the steps, he ran up and down each of the aisles and, again, stopped at the lucky dip. ‘My son, he’s gone,’ he said to the woman.

‘You sure?’

‘I’ve looked everywhere.’

She barely moved in her seat. ‘I wouldn’t think. Plenty of kids go missing. They meet a friend then they’re on the sideshows or at the sample bags.’

‘Not Patrick.’

‘Just wait a while.’

Moy stared at her. ‘Can we put a message out?’

She half-raised her eyebrows but Moy decided to let it go. Standing up, she looked across the hall and motioned to the guide. This woman, wearing a green dress and carrying a clipboard, approached them with a smile.

‘This gentleman’s lost his son,’ the first woman said.

‘That’s quite common.’

‘I’ve heard all that,’ Moy replied.

‘Give it twenty minutes, have a look around.’

‘Listen,’ Moy almost shouted, ‘I’m a policeman.’ Saying it slowly. ‘A detective. The boy was under my care.’

‘Your son?’ the guide asked.

‘Yes, no, look it doesn’t matter. I want you to put out a call on the PA.’

‘I don’t think so, we generally only—’

‘We’re wasting time.’

‘That’s the secretary’s decision.’

‘Call him.’

She found a little walkie-talkie in the pocket of her dress and contacted the secretary, who was also unconcerned. Moy put it in simple terms. ‘Tell him if he doesn’t, he’ll be charged with impeding an investigation.’

Impeding, he thought.
Impeding
. Turning the word over in his head.

‘Tell him to do it now. Patrick Barnes. Four foot five. Nine years old. Brown hair. Tell him to return to the lucky dip.’

The secretary refused. Moy grabbed the walkie-talkie. ‘If the boy’s been taken you will be charged,’ he said.

‘You think I should do this ten times a day?’

‘If it’s needed.’

Silence.

And then the message, loud and tinny.

Moy waited, pacing the aisles as the two women watched him. He turned to a landscape painting and studied the hills and a blocky house with a curl of chimney smoke like Charlie used to draw.

Six minutes, seven. No Patrick. Moy decided he wasn’t about to wander back in. There was only one conclusion. He’d been taken. Stepping outside, he called the station. ‘Jason, it’s Bart. Patrick’s gone missing.’ He scanned the faces again, still hoping for a simple solution. ‘Who have we got?’

Jason told him it was just Andrew and Ossie, out on patrol (oh, and I think Ossie said they were gonna stop at his place for lunch).

‘Okay,’ Moy said. ‘Call ’em, get ’em down here now. Ask ’em to check cars heading back to town. A man, a boy, Patrick. You remember what he looks like?’

He described him anyway.

‘Then tell ’em to look around the showgrounds, the car park. What about Gary?’

‘Three days off.’

‘Ring him, tell him what’s happened, see if you can get him down here.’

He rang off and looked at the woman. ‘A fucking
broken
toy car,’ he said.

But she just stared at him.

‘If you see the boy, get your mate to put out another call.’

The guide seemed genuinely shocked. ‘Is it a custody dispute?’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t move from this spot.’

GARY WRIGHT WAS still in his track pants, wearing his uniform jacket and carrying a radio. He kept checking with Andrew and Ossie who were combing two acres of agricultural machinery displays on the east side of the showgrounds. ‘So what time was it, when you came out?’ he said.

Moy studied his watch. ‘Ten forty-five, fifty, I can’t remember.’

‘You okay?’

‘I can’t believe I left him alone.’

‘You think someone might be after him?’

He held his head. ‘I should’ve considered it.’

‘I reckon it’s the father.’

They walked along a dusty race between two rows of stalls. Dagwood dogs and hot chips from greasy caravans; a shooting gallery with rabbits strung up by their legs; open-mouthed clowns and wart-covered masks.

‘You take that side,’ Moy said.

They separated, stopping at each stand to ask about the missing boy.

The missing boy, he thought.
Missing boy
.

He’d hoped the horrors of the last few weeks were behind them. Helen Barnes, burnt beyond recognition, her son Tom, lost, murdered. But Patrick, precocious bowlsman and golfer? George’s mate. He’d been saved from all this. He was protected, perhaps more than any child in Guilderton. No one could’ve got to him.

He felt too sick to go on. The sound of Patrick’s voice, his hands, placing a seedling in its small hole. Moving into a gap between two tents, he closed his eyes and held his head. This won’t have a happy ending, he convinced himself, aware that he was the detective that couldn’t solve crimes. ‘Charlie,’ he whispered.

‘You okay?’ Gary asked, standing beside him.

He opened his eyes. ‘Just getting my breath.’

‘Should we get on?’

Moy worked his side of the alley. ‘A boy, yes.’ Again and again. ‘This tall.’ He tried to remember, to show them. ‘Nine years old. Name’s Patrick Barnes.’ And that sounded worst of all: Patrick’s transformation from survivor to victim. His face on a missing persons poster, the sort that were pinned up around the station. Almost none of the dates recent.

The sideshow attendants he spoke to weren’t concerned. ‘There’s hundreds of kids by themselves,’ one said, and Moy asked, ‘A nine year old, with brown hair?’

‘Who knows?’

‘By himself? Looking lost? Maybe he was running?’

The attendant turned to a pair of fairy-winged teenagers.

‘Are you listening?’ Moy shouted.

The young man, with his cut lip and stubble, looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Don’t
what
me. Listen.’

‘Hey, simmer.’

But Gary was there. ‘Come on, Detective.’

They moved into the crowd. ‘You sure you haven’t got a photo somewhere?’ Gary asked.

Shit, Moy thought, have I taken a photo of him? Surely I have? Surely? ‘Maybe at home. I could go look.’

Gary seemed to have taken over. ‘I don’t know. By the time you get back half of these people would’ve gone.’

‘Let’s keep going.’

41

IT WAS AFTER nine and Guilderton was drifting off to the sound of humming cold rooms and not-quite-tightened taps. Moy, cruising in his Commodore, heard a distant helicopter but knew it wasn’t for Patrick. Where would it look anyway? Pig sheds? Under logs? Guilderton was no Simpson Desert, Patrick no little boy lost, wandering in scrub. This would be a search in sheds and creek beds, chook houses and seed bins. In places where no one would think to look.

Jason Laing sat beside him, scrolling through information on the comms screen. ‘They’ve locked the showgrounds,’ he said.

‘Nothing?’

Moy knew there wouldn’t be. He’d seen the State Emergency Service volunteers, done up in their orange overalls and black boots, prodding haystacks and climbing up to look in the hoppers of the big seeders. Spread out, crossing paddocks, calling, ‘Patrick Barnes…can you hear us?’ Waiting at the coffee caravan, leaning against fences.

‘He might’ve tried walking back to town,’ Laing suggested.

‘Why?’

‘Maybe he thought you’d gone home?’

‘I was in the toilet.’

They passed up and down lanes that ran behind shops and homes. Moy would stop and Jason would get out, looking behind bins, over fences and in and under grain trucks.

‘I shouldn’t have left him,’ Moy said, as they drove.

‘It was only a minute,’ Laing replied. ‘When we were kids we’d be gone all day. Down the creek, up those trees in Civic Park.’

‘No, he wouldn’t have gone off.’

‘He doesn’t have a mate, someone who might’ve said—’

‘He doesn’t know anyone…that I know of.’

‘What about his brother?’

Moy looked at him, thinking. ‘How?’

‘What if he wasn’t missing? What if he’d been hiding too, and seen Patrick?’

He did a circuit of Civic Park. ‘That wouldn’t make sense. Patrick’s been talking about him for weeks.’

‘Maybe Patrick didn’t know.’

‘What was he hiding from?’

‘The dad?’

Moy shook his head. ‘Either way, it’s not gonna help us find him, is it?’

They got out and looked around the old train, the playground, the wisteria arbour and the Rotary lunch shed. ‘Patrick, it’s Bart.’

Nothing.

They got back in and drove. ‘This is fucking pointless,’ Moy said.

‘What else y’gonna do?’

There was something, or someone, missing, he guessed. The person who’d killed Alex Naismith. Who’d argued with him, knocked him on the head and driven him to the coast. Who’d dragged him from his car or ute and rolled him over rocks into the ocean.

His phone rang.

‘Dad? You still awake?’

He could hear George dropping the phone, fumbling his sheets and picking it up. Followed by rustling paper and a glass being knocked. ‘Someone here reckons a boy went missing?’