The White Tower (20 page)

‘The old Ventac would have saved Sally,' I told him.

‘Our success rate's gone up twenty per cent.'

‘It's a machine,' I told him. ‘A machine with something wrong with it. Next time it might kill a child.'

He opened his hands again, not to me, but perhaps the gesture hadn't been for me the first time either, any of the other times.

He took my arm. I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. I shook him off. It's not much of a resistance I know, but I'm glad I did it.

‘I won't go on waiting for a tragedy to happen,' I shot back over my shoulder. ‘I've written my own report and I'm going to publish it.'

He let me get ahead of him. I hurried. He was soon out of sight.

. . .

I blinked and shook my head. It was hard to believe that there were people living in my street whose biggest worry that night was whether a late frost would kill their tomatoes. Ivan's worn tracksuit smelt of sun and soap powder. Our office curtains were open on a dark backyard, a hills hoist. A blackbird began to sing.

‘His mistake,' said Ivan, ‘was thinking he could fix things on his own.'

‘That's what Eamonn said.'

How alike Niall and Fallon must have been. And how different. I imagined the pleasure, the small Celtic jewel of pleasure, perhaps the last of his life, Niall had got from modelling his hiding place, the way it must have brought them closer, in his mind at least, even as Fallon was condemning and rejecting him. I had a flash of Bridget Connell, alias Sgartha, in the middle of the factory, in front of the bird car, her spiky hair, enormous claim on her own and other people's fantasies. Had she seen herself as Niall's protector? How did she shoulder her share of the responsibility, alone, in the middle of the night?

On impulse, I forwarded all of Niall's files to Sorley Fallon.

Twenty

We dozed for a few hours, then I checked my mail. No reply from Fallon.

I rang Brook, who said that he thought he had enough for a warrant for Fenshaw, and that it would probably take about twenty-four hours to get.

‘Sorry to wake you so early.'

‘That's okay. I've got my second wind.'

‘Second winds,' I told him, ‘are blowing right through Canberra.'

The phone rang while we were having breakfast. It was Robert Ferris from the Telstra Tower.

He said the police had been back to the tower interviewing everyone. ‘We all thought that business was over and done with.'

‘Is there something you think the police should know?'

‘I saw you there one night,' Ferris said. ‘You had your kids with you. I've a grand-daughter about the same age as your little girl.'

‘How did you know it was me?'

‘Olga Birtus told me what you looked like.'

‘Can we meet for coffee?'

Ferris didn't reply straight away, and I thought he was going to refuse, but eventually I got him to agree to meet me at the Botanical Gardens in the early afternoon. It was his day off, he was looking after his four-year-old grandson, and had already arranged to take the boy there. His wife would call by later and pick the boy up to take him shopping. I listened to these family arrangements, understanding that they were Ferris's attempt to impose normality on an abnormal situation, wondering what had happened to make him seek me out.

I fetched my photocopy of the coronial report to check what it said about him. Hans Rowholt had been in charge of security the evening Niall Howley died, and Ferris had been with him. A third man was mentioned, Ian McFarlane, who'd been on duty at the security entrance. The police did not seem to have taken a statement from McFarlane.

According to his testimony, Ferris had not heard or seen anything unusual. No visitor had been reported behaving suspiciously. He did not remember having seen Niall Howley. There'd been no one on any of the outside galleries when he and Rowholt had locked up at ten o'clock.

. . .

The Botanical Gardens consisted entirely of Australian native plants. They made me feel, contrarily, as though I was both inside a greenhouse, and wide open to the air. I remembered this feeling as soon as I stepped out of the car, recalling my visits to the gardens with Peter when he was a small boy.

The air smelt cared for. It used to make me feel better just to walk along gravel paths between eucalypts and acacias with such air around me. While Peter ran up and down, I'd stand at the edge of the rainforest watching. One of his favourite games had been to run along the steep paths waiting for the sprinklers to come on. It didn't always happen, but when it did he'd yell with delight, flinging his arms wide as though to catch the water.

From the car park, you could see the line where the gardens ended and ordinary bush took over, the Telstra Tower's needle point above the mountain.

Ferris had arranged to meet me at the duck pond. It wasn't really a duck pond, but when he suggested it I knew immediately where he meant. Duck pond suggested grassy English banks. This stretch of water, surrounded by large untidy casuarinas, was nearly always in shadow, and the black ducks, being wild and not domestic, were sometimes not to be found at all.

When they were there, they quacked appropriately and ate the bread that children threw. The water was edged with mud and slippery rocks, but there was a wooden seat for parents. In the spring, if you were lucky, duck parents paraded their offspring and kept children entertained.

I saw Ferris as soon as I rounded the corner of the car park. He was sitting on the wooden bench. It had to be him. There was no other grandparently figure in sight, and a boy in a red parka running madly up and down the grass was clearly in his care. I recognised him as the guard who'd appeared at the security door, while I stood at the lift well watching, the night Ivan and I had gone to the tower.

He looked up and I waved. He didn't wave back, but got to his feet and called the boy over to him.

I smiled at the boy, who didn't smile back, but stared up at me through a thick blond fringe. He was a comfortable-looking child. His parka was spotless, and his dark green tracksuit pants looked ironed.

‘James and I thought we might walk down to the swamp.'

‘Fine. That's fine.' I smiled again, to show that none of this was meant to be an ordeal. ‘Lead the way.'

And lead the way they did. Walking, the family resemblance between the man and boy became more apparent. They both had the same square-shaped head on solid, rolling bodies. Though Ferris's hair was grey, it was thick and plentiful. I imagined it as once having been a bright mop like his grandson's, who gave a skip, then ran ahead along the path.

‘How long have you been working at the tower?' I asked, glancing up again, wondering if he found its presence overbearing.

‘Seventeen years.'

‘How long have you been using your current computer system?'

Ferris shot me a look, but he answered readily enough. ‘About two years.'

‘Was it hard to get used to?'

‘In many ways it's easier. Saves duplication and a lot of stuffing around. But well, you know, computers. Half the time they're down.'

We reached the swamp. Our gravel path followed the edge of it, and there were a couple of small bridges. James was kneeling in the middle of one, peering into the water.

I liked the swamp. With no large trees blocking the sun, it was one of the warmest spots in the gardens. On winter days, when it was too cold to play tag with the sprinklers in the rainforest, I used to bring Peter there. Once we'd seen a lizard solemnly eating daisies. Peter had talked about it for months afterwards. We'd gone back looking for it, but had never been able to find it again.

Ferris said, ‘We had a bit of weather the night Howley died.'

‘What kind of weather?'

‘Spot of lightning. God moving the furniture around up top.'

‘How long were the computers down for?'

He didn't answer me directly, and avoided meeting my eyes. ‘We're used to storms up there. Can't shut up shop just because of a bit of weather. There's a UPS—uninterruptible power supply to you. Cuts in when something happens to the main power supply.'

‘What happened that night?'

‘Computers were jammed. That's what the technical blokes said. They couldn't figure it out. Got their knickers seriously tangled.'

‘What time was this?'

‘Still working on it by the time I went home. Then next morning that kid's body was found.'

‘Why didn't the police take a statement from Ian McFarlane?'

Ferris sat down on a wooden bench facing the swamp. His face looked heavy suddenly, and miserable.

‘Hans Rowholt and I have worked together for a long time. Then with Ian—Ian's a much younger bloke—we kind of made a team. We started out as government employees. About eighteen months ago, security was handed over to a private company.'

‘To Swift.'

Ferris nodded. Even while intent on what he was saying, he kept his eyes on James.

‘They cut costs, cut the number of guards, relied more on computers running the system. For security to work properly you need backup, and I don't just mean electricity. That night we were short-staffed. It was the middle of winter. People were sick. There was no one to replace Ian when he went off duty. He told Hans he thought we should close, send everybody home. Computers were going arse over turkey, excuse the expression. Hans was inclined to agree with him. He rang Sydney and they said, what's the problem? Couldn't see it. Told Hans he had a job to do and just get on with it. Ian said his wife was sick and there was no way he was working a double shift. He walked out.'

‘Leaving no one on duty at the security entrance?'

‘Hans told me to take over.'

‘And the doors leading to the broadcasting platform?'

‘Ian left them in the default position.'

‘How long were they like that?'

‘About fifteen minutes.'

‘Why didn't McFarlane tell the police? If he'd lost his job, what did he have to lose?'

Ferris raised his chin aggressively. ‘Ian may have told the Swift bosses to get stuffed. But he wants to go on working in security. Why shouldn't he? He's a good bloke, knows his job and honest with it.'

‘They came to an agreement?'

‘I don't know what was said. All I know is that Ian resigned and moved straight into another job.'

‘And the technicians?'

‘Should be fired for incompetence tomorrow. I mean who shut themselves in the basement for hours on end?'

‘What about the outside galleries?'

‘Hans said the kid must have already been out there.'

‘But you know differently.'

There was a long moment before Ferris answered.

‘Someone had been in the technician's lab, the one behind the broadcasting platform. Some of the furniture was moved.'

‘Who told you?'

‘One of the technicians. He said he had to tell someone, and he knows my opinion of Litowski.'

‘I'm surprised no one blew the whistle earlier.'

‘Hans was “retired”. It was suddenly
his
fault that we were understaffed. Litowski was given the top job and we were told to take our cue from him. We were also warned what would happen if we didn't. I mean, how's it going to look for Swift next time they tender for a job? Oh, they're the company that let a nutter into a secure area of the Telstra Tower, so he could jump off and break his silly neck.'

‘What were you told to say?'

‘The kid had climbed over the fence and jumped.'

‘What did you think?'

‘At the time I didn't have any idea that he'd been somewhere else.'

‘What about the storm?'

‘It reduced visibility and made a lot of noise.'

‘And the computers?'

‘A minor problem. Had it fixed in no time. We kept quiet because we didn't want to lose our jobs. And frankly, at the time I couldn't see that it made much difference. The kid was dead whichever platform he'd jumped off. But if someone
pushed
him—'

James chose this moment to lean too far over the water for his grandfather's comfort. Ferris walked smartly to the bridge, but he didn't yank at the boy as I might have done if I was tense and upset. He knelt down beside him and spoke softly.

I walked across and showed him photographs of Fenshaw and Colin Rasmussen. Ferris said that the police had been back at the tower asking about them. He didn't recognise either man.

I left him to finish his outing with his grandson.

I rang Brook from my car. He'd got the warrant for Fenshaw in record time.

‘Isn't talking but. He's got a lawyer with attitude.'

I relayed what Robert Ferris had told me, wondering why I hadn't pursued the one fact that had been staring me in the face that first morning at the tower. Mikhail Litowski had been promoted after Niall's death.

‘More warrants,' Brook said dryly, ‘though nicking some of those security cowboys will be fun.'

. . .

At home, I made myself a sandwich and checked my mail again. Fallon had sent me a memo, written by Alex Fenshaw to the hospital board, arguing that Niall was mentally unstable. The bizarre manner of his death proved this. Niall's testimony could not be considered that of a sane person. A further inquiry into the Ventac 2 was unnecessary. It would be an unwarranted cost in time and money. Earlier inquiries had been exhaustive and conclusive.

I rang Ivan at work. ‘Fallon's got into the hospital records.'

‘The sneaky bugger.'

‘He's a better hacker than either of us.'

‘Oh, I don't know about
that
.'

Twenty-one

It was almost three o'clock. I walked across to Lyneham shops, thinking to buy a treat from the bakery for afternoon tea, and meet Peter at the school.

There were a number of small rituals associated with picking children up from school, which, as a new parent five years ago, I'd quickly learnt. Parents of the younger children waited in a straggle around the playground equipment. In high summer they stood in the scant shade offered by school buildings, in winter hugged uninviting bricks for warmth and shelter against the rain that slanted off the Brindabellas.

Parents who waited at the senior entrance did so less obviously than those at the junior section. Many had driven, and remained in their cars. Those on foot stood a little way back from the doors and seldom looked at them. They chatted to each other, or stared into space.

It was blowy and warm. Sun bit through the new prunus leaves that lined the walkway to the school's main entrance. I always knew when the bell was about to ring, but still it was a shock. Momentarily deafened parents watched their kids pour out the doors, a mass of blue shorts and yellow T-shirts.

The second wave pushed through the doors, the third, and finally the stragglers. I turned around thinking I must have missed Peter. But surely he would have seen me.

I went right up to the doors and stared through them, unable to see much more than my own reflection. Maybe Peter's teacher had kept him in. With another backward glance, I pushed past a group of laughing girls and hurried along the corridor to Peter's classroom.

It was empty apart from his teacher, who was standing at her desk piling folders on top of one another.

‘Mrs Hyles? Have you seen Peter? He wasn't at the front.'

‘Oh,' she said. ‘I think he left with the others.'

‘Did you see which way he went?'

She was sorry but she hadn't noticed. ‘Let's check to see if his bag's still there.'

The rack was empty except for a single yellow sweatshirt.

‘He probably went out the back doors. You know what kids are like.'

There were four, if you counted the toilets five, doors Peter could have used. I'd only been a couple of minutes in his classroom, but by the time I got to the back of the school, the yard was practically deserted.

Four boys were dribbling a basketball. Some girls sat in a huddle on the steps, poring over a piece of paper. I demanded to know if they'd seen Peter.

They looked up at me with the dull contempt of children used to adults asking stupid questions. One said, ‘Who's he?'

I realised they were year six and that my son was beneath their notice.

I didn't stop to explain, but rushed up to the boys, who shook their heads. Next I overtook a couple of girls who lived around the corner, one a tall blonde with the shy, superior air of girls who develop early. She thought for a moment then said no. I was almost at the high school now. I spotted a yellow T-shirt in the distance, heading for Mouat Street. I chased it for twenty metres before admitting to myself what should have been obvious.

I ran to where I had a clear view of my front garden. Peter would be waiting there, school bag tossed up on the porch. He would be round the back.

I pulled at the latch and shoved the back gate open, calling out his name. I ran round the side of the house. The backyard was empty.

‘Fred?' I called out. ‘Fred!'

Could he be sick or hurt? I checked the kennel, then walked around the yard looking in all the places he liked to lie, up by the back fence next to the rose bushes, underneath the fig tree. I pushed aside branches, stamped in the long grass. Fred was gone. Peter was missing and he'd taken his dog with him.

I choked on my breath. The air was impossibly dry and full of grit. I checked the nail on the wall of the garden shed where Peter kept Fred's lead. It wasn't there. Why hadn't I noticed earlier that Fred was gone?

After school, Peter generally preferred his dog's company, or his own. Sam was the leader of the group he ate his lunch with. If Sam had invited him over, Peter might have been so keen to impress that he'd rushed out of school the back way, collected Fred, and left again without waiting to speak to me.

I rang Sam, congratulating myself that I'd had the foresight to copy his number into my address book. This piece of clear thinking raised my spirits and I expected to find Peter at the other end, with some laughably simple explanation of why he'd taken Fred with him to Sam's.

Sam answered the phone himself. No, Peter wasn't there. Sam thought he'd left the classroom with everybody else. He gave me the number of another boy. When I rang it, a woman answered and said her son was at basketball practice. It didn't sound as if she knew who Peter was.

I clicked on the answering machine, then ran next door and knocked, praying that my neighbour, Sylvia, had seen Peter go off with Fred.

Sylvia was often at home during the day. She came to the door after my second knock, dressed ready to go out. She'd been talking to her sister on the phone at three, she told me, rather a long call because her sister's husband had just had an operation. She was going over to the hospital now. She was afraid she hadn't seen Peter come home.

Most of the houses in our street were empty, their owners still at work. I ran from one to the next. Of the few people who did come to their doors, none had seen Peter or Fred.

I scanned the small horizons that bounded all the good safe places. I called Peter's name until the two sweet syllables crumbled to a bit of old dry wood.

I headed towards Southwell Park. Would Fred have willingly got into a car with a stranger? If the stranger had offered him food, I was afraid the answer was yes.

I stumbled over a tree root and looked down. The root was immense, growing with the slow confidence that finds its way through stone. Each blade of grass around it was singular and lovely, the brown pine needles that had come to rest between them, the light shining through the branches of the trees, oblique afternoon light that I'd always found restful, walking outside just to stand in it.

The road and traffic gave way to scrubby eucalypts and casuarinas. This was the way we'd always come, first when Peter was very small, then with Fred to show him fresh rabbit droppings, the best spots to dig. It didn't seem to matter to Peter that Fred took no notice of these treats, but simply ran from one garbage bin to the next, and when there were no more, when the playing fields ended and the overgrown bit around the creek began, turned round as if to say, there's no point going on. No one will have dropped a sandwich here.

I walked close to the trees that lined the creek, but even there it would have been hard for anyone to hide. The only place Peter could be, if he was for some reason hiding from me, was an overgrown copse that bordered the golf course on one side and the creek on the other.

I saw yellow everywhere. A leaf catching the sun was the corner of his T-shirt. I heard a dog bark and my legs gave way underneath me. A fluffy, impossibly happy golden retriever ran out of the trees on the other side of the creek. I could have shot it and its owner just for being there.

Under the thick trees, in the undergrowth, the air was cool and damp. I stood still, waiting for my eyes to adjust. There was the tree Peter liked to climb, while Fred stood at the bottom barking as though his master was some large, ungainly cat. There was the glen—funny unAustralian word, not appropriate at all, but it was what we called it—where we'd brought a picnic once during the school holidays. Fred had to be tied up so we could spread our food out on a blue and white cloth. The grass looked flattened as I walked across it, ducking my head to avoid low branches. Could Fred and Peter have been here, rested here?

The ground was soft. I looked around for open bits where footprints might show, but though a little way further on there were plenty of these, both human and dog, they were too big or too small, the wrong shape, not my son's or his dog's. My insides turned over as though all was pulpy there, and no outline could hold.

I called Peter's name, and Fred's, thinking there might be a chance that, if Fred wasn't on the lead, he would come when he heard me. But all that came back in response to my voice were the ducks on the golf course pond, and small birds rustling in the holly bushes that formed a barrier between the golf course and the copse. I had no sense of anybody hiding, watching me. Still I stumbled on, looking up into the trees, though how Peter would have kept Fred quiet while he climbed one, I couldn't guess. My feet were muddy, my legs wet from the long grass. I stopped again and for a few seconds there was complete, pure silence, and then my legs, which kept threatening to fail me, did, and I crumpled down by the trunk of a casuarina and began to cry.

. . .

I rang Ivan, and left urgent messages for Brook and Derek, who was out of Canberra at a conference. I looked through my kitchen window without being able to make a connection between myself and what was out there.

Ivan walked in holding Katya, his face hard as an early Cubist painting. I wanted to grab my daughter from him, take my remaining child and run.

I switched on my computer. There was another email from Sorley Fallon.

Overcoming time and distance was an image of a castle and a cliff beneath it, cruel rocks, a boy who, in spite of his twisted posture, might possibly be sleeping. But instead of long pale hair, a black shirt, the figure lying on the rocks was a true boy, no more than ten years old, dressed in blue shorts and a Lyneham T-shirt.

I must have cried out, screamed.

Ivan was beside me with Katya in his arms. A footfall in the corridor had me running to the door. It was Brook, who used my phone to ring his station commander. A couple of Belfast-based officers could be at Fallon's shop within three hours.

In spite of following through the hospital inquiries in his own way, stubbornly, methodically, Brook had never let go his suspicion of Fallon, or of what, in his mind, Fallon represented.

He examined Fred's kennel. I showed him the hook on the shed wall.

‘Is anything else missing?'

‘I don't think so.'

‘Would Fred let a stranger into the backyard?'

‘If he was offered food,' I said, thinking that I should have asked Sylvia whether she had heard him barking.

Brook left then, to put together a media release. He took a recent photograph and a full description of what Peter had been wearing.

‘We'll start broadcasting at seven if he isn't found by then.'

. . .

Ivan fed Katya. His body bent over her highchair looked ridiculously big, her favourite small gold spoon all but invisible in his hand. When she'd had enough, he made sandwiches, offering me one. I shook my head, but decided I would wash the dishes.

The sink seemed filled with the discarded paraphernalia of illness—syringes, used gauze bandages, empty bottles and pink cotton wool. A slow leaching down through all these layers was no more, at that moment, than the pastel layers of hope, fading as I watched them. I shook my head to clear away the vision, but my eyes continued to betray me.

We watched Brook interviewed on television. Whoever had taken Peter knew that the one chance he had of making sure he came quietly was to take Fred, and then get word to Peter—during school? A note in his bag? Unless Peter did what he wanted, he would never see his dog again.

I saw this part with perfect clarity. The note. Peter too frightened to tell his teacher—wanting to run home and see if Fred was there, but then dismissing this as too risky. The horrible afternoon, the final bell. Peter working out which door he had to make for. And me waiting like a dumb fool as the minutes ticked by.

How could it be Fallon, or someone acting on Fallon's instructions? Fallon didn't even know of Peter's existence, let alone Fred's. He hadn't asked me anything about my life in Australia.

Night bells. Bells tolling the watches of the night, so that one person might say, it's over now, my shift. Some time, it could have been a few minutes after the news finished, it could have been hours, I let myself out the front door, locking it behind me.

The pine trees on the oval looked the same. I knew them well, where each branch went, the ones that had been amputated to make a cycle path.

I came to the path and turned left along it. The cream-brown wounds of the trees' lost arms shone under lamps that seemed placed at random, though they weren't. Weak light cut the darkness. The trees were neutral. The path, pine needles and grass had had their afternoon beauty and would have it again.

Thunder rolled off Black Mountain as I crossed the road back to the house. A sword of lightning cut the sky in half.