Through a Camel's Eye (5 page)

EIGHT

Chris was waiting outside the high school when the bell went. Ben McIntyre did not seem surprised to find a policeman waiting for him, but Chris reflected that fourteen-year-old boys were better at hiding surprise than other reactions - fear, for instance, or excitement - which you could smell on them.

‘A few quick questions, Ben. My car's over here.'

‘I had nothin' to do with that stupid camel!'

‘When were you last at the paddock?'

Ben looked as though he was about to make a run for it. ‘It was nothin'!'

Chris took the sullen and monosyllabic teenager through each step, how someone - he couldn't recall who - suggested that they ride over and see if the camel lady was there. When she hadn't been, they'd tried to get Riza to come to the fence. Ian Lawrey had picked some grass and Zorba had some butterscotch in his pocket and he'd tried to give him that.

‘What happened then?'

Ben sighed and looked down at his hands. ‘Zorba wanted to ride him. Ian bet him fifty bucks he couldn't stay on for five minutes, but - '

‘One of you
rode
the camel?'

‘Zorba was gunna. I mean he was game. But then that old bat showed up.'

‘Mrs Renfrew? What did you do then?'

‘We left.'

‘All together?'

‘Yeah.'

And never went back to give Zorba a chance to win his bet?'

‘The camel got nicked, didn't it?'

‘And you swear you had nothing to do with that?'

‘I swear to God,' Ben said, and clasped his hands.

Chris let the boy's last word hang in the air for a few seconds before remarking, ‘Fifty dollars is a lot of money.'

‘Not for Zorb. His parents are rolling in it.'

‘What about Ian? Where would he have got the cash if he'd lost the bet?'

Ben shrugged.

‘Who was the fourth boy?'

‘Rasch,' Ben said reluctantly.

‘Raschid Abouzeid?'

‘Yeah.'

‘The others gave him grass and butterscotch, and Zorba was prepared to ride him. What did you do?'

‘I've gotta go now. Really.'

‘All right, Ben. I'll have to talk to your friends, but I won't say I've spoken to you. I'll say I worked it out from the descriptions Mrs Renfrew gave me.'

‘She can't talk!'

‘You're right about that, but she draws a mean picture.'

Chris gave the boy half an hour's breathing space, during which time he made notes while the conversation was fresh in his mind.

He paused in the doorway of the caravan park office, nodding hello to Penny McIntyre, seeing that she was expecting him, and that she would take her son's side if and when sides needed to be taken. Chris respected Penny for this. He would have thought less of her if it had been otherwise.

‘Come in, Chris,' she said. ‘Ben's told me about your little chat.'

If there was a sting in the end of this, Chris chose to ignore it. He pulled a chair out from the wall and sat down.

Penny offered tea, returning with a tray covered with a small white cloth, and delivering what were clearly rehearsed lines. ‘I imagine it's thirsty work, bailing up young lads on their way home from school.'

‘I didn't bail him up, Penny.'

‘Ben wouldn't hurt a fly.'

‘I'm not saying he did.'

‘What then?'

‘It was most likely a bit of harmless mischief, up there at the paddock. But the timing - a group of boys messing around with the camel, then he disappears.'

‘That's a coincidence.'

‘What did Ben tell you about it?'

‘Nothing. I mean nothing till today. He said they went to watch that girl trainer, but she wasn't there.'

‘Did he tell you Ian Lawrey bet Zorba Kostandis fifty dollars that he couldn't stay on for five minutes?'

Penny chose not to answer straight away. After a few moments, she said carefully, ‘Nobody rode the camel. If you had kids yourself, you'd understand.'

‘If Zorba had won the bet, where do you think Ian would have got the money to pay him?'

Penny frowned. She knew the Lawreys as well as he did, how the mother's health was poor, how strict the father was, how their struggle to bring up four kids on a labourer's wage had been made immeasurably more difficult by Phil Lawrey's accident.

It was Chris's opinion that Ian would have stolen the money, and he knew that Penny thought so too.

He thanked her for the tea and said goodbye. He did not want to front up to Ian Lawrey's parents, much less Zorba's and Raschid's. The Greek family he knew: they'd lived in the town for longer than his own, arriving as fishermen in the mid 1800s, with branches quickly becoming established in local businesses. Zorba's grandfather had started a hardware chain. Many of the Kostandises had married Greeks and every New Year they had a big party in the park above the bay.

Raschid's family were recently arrived. Chris had been surprised when Ben had named him as one of the four. He hoped the other boys wouldn't take their punishment of Ben too far. But it wasn't to be helped. He had to talk to them.

The Kostandises lived in one of the town's most expensive streets, in a two-storey bluestone house overlooking the sea. It had been one of his mother's favourites. She'd often told him how she used to take him for walks in his pusher along that street, to look at the houses and gardens. These stories had embarrassed him, but during the year before she died, he'd often taken her back there; it was still her favourite walk. When she'd grown too weak for walking, he'd driven her in his car, and sat with his eyes half closed while she kept up a kind of monologue; listing plants, noting renovations.

No one answered his knock on the door and there were no cars in the driveway.

Ian Lawrey was out the front of his house, playing cricket with his younger brothers. He stopped as soon as he saw Chris pull up, and began to walk away, his red-gold hair sticking out at odd angles.

Three small boys watched while Chris caught up with Ian, who half turned and glanced back nervously. Chris understood that he was worried because his father was inside. Phil Lawrey had been off work since he fell off some scaffolding on a building site. A man with three broken ribs and a broken ankle must be getting pretty bored by now; and the man had a temper.

‘We'll stay out here,' Chris said. ‘Keep going with your game.'

Ian took the cricket ball from his smallest brother, who'd been holding it with both hands, as though entrusted with a treasure.

Once Ian had bowled, and a kaleidoscope of small legs had followed the ball, Chris asked, ‘So whose idea was it to go to the camel paddock?'

‘We never - '

‘Now Ian, that won't do.'

Ian frowned, but had command of himself. ‘It was mine,' he said.

‘I must say I think the bet was a dumb idea.'

Ian pursed his lips together, getting ready for another denial.

‘Where were you going to get the money if Zorba won?'

‘From my savings.'

They caught each other's eyes, then Ian looked away.

‘I'm going to find out what happened. You'll make it easier for yourself if you tell me now.'

Having delivered his warning, Chris gave Ian time to think, standing back while each of his brothers took a turn to bat. He noted how Ian placed the ball within their reach, and praised them when they hit it.

‘Who went back to the paddock?' he asked when Ian took a break from bowling.

The boy couldn't keep his fingers still. Empty of the ball, they made for tufts of bronze hair.

‘Zorb wanted his fifty bucks.'

‘So you and Zorba went back to the paddock. When?'

‘The next day. After school.'

‘Did Zorba ride the camel?'

‘That lady who owns him, she was there talking to Mr Erwin. As soon as we saw ‘em, we got off our bikes. Zorb wanted to wait, but I said I couldn't. I didn't know how long they'd be. Mum expects me to mind my brothers after school.'

‘So when was the next time?'

‘What?'

‘I don't expect Zorba gave up that easily.'

‘The next day he couldn't go because of soccer training. The day after that we went, but the camel was gone.'

‘Did you see anybody else at the paddock?'

‘Only Mrs Renfrew the first time and the other lady and Mr Erwin the second.'

‘Anybody else? Please think.'

Ian made a face as if to protest that he was doing that. One of his brothers ran up and asked him to bowl again.

‘In a minute,' Chris said. He watched Ian carefully while he pulled out a photograph of Margaret Benton.

‘Have you ever seen this woman?'

‘No! No, I never!' Ian cried, suddenly going pale.

His brothers stared with undisguised alarm.

‘It's all right. Calm down. Think about it. I'll be along to talk to you again.'

Chris checked his watch. Not much past five. He felt as though he'd been at the Lawreys for much longer than a quarter of an hour. They'd set up the sunroom at the back for Phil, but Eileen Lawrey had a dozen eyes and ears - with that brood she had to - and he doubted very much if his visit had gone unremarked. Then there were the small boys, who might be bribed to keep their mouths shut, but could still forget.

Chris knew he should go back to the Kostandises' place. To stall for a few more minutes, he got out his notebook and wrote down Ian's denial about having seen Margaret Benton, wondering why the boy had lied.

Maria Kostandis called Ian Lawrey names he wouldn't have expected her to get her tongue around. Her son ride a camel? Ridiculous! Taking bets? It was all malicious invention. She didn't let Chris get anywhere near Zorba, though he knew the boy was at home. He'd watched them going inside together as he was pulling up. He could wait for Zorba after school, but the boy would echo his mother's denials, then go home and complain.

Chris walked fast along the street, turning his back on the southwesterly, walking off his annoyance. He recalled his mother's admiration, and felt annoyed with her as well, and then surprised, because annoyance with his mother was something he seldom allowed himself to feel. It quickly gave way to shame, as he remembered how white and paper-thin she'd been the last few times he'd driven her to the house belonging to the wealthy Greeks; the expression of contentment - never envy - on her face.

The same oblique sun that struck those huge, hewn stones had been touching her; but there it was absorbed by a dark mass, a shelter announcing itself as impenetrable. Light had passed through his mother's skin as through the window of a car, as through cobwebs, or air. She'd thanked him for the outings as he helped her back inside, in her voice the acknowledgement each time that it might be the last. Her voice was paper-thin as well, though never maudlin or self-pitying. He always said that it was fine, don't mention it, while he felt his insides crumbling; and hoped, and felt ashamed of the hope, that he wouldn't have to go through the ordeal again.

Sometimes he added that he would drive her anywhere she wanted, and understood, by the silence that followed, that she saw through this offer. He hated himself then.

Even after she became too ill to leave the house, his mother used to ask him if he'd been by there, and what was out, or budding, in the garden. He wished it hadn't been Zorba's mother who'd been obstructive and belligerent, and he wished he hadn't had to endure her tongue-lashing while standing on her expensive Turkish rugs.

Raschid had nothing to add to Ben's and Ian's stories. He confirmed the bet, and the way that Camilla had interrupted them. Chris wasn't sure whether Raschid was telling the truth when he said he didn't know that Ian and Zorba had gone back to the paddock on their own. He thought that, on balance, the boy was most probably lying.

Raschid's mother stood anxiously in the doorway while Chris questioned her son, but she didn't interrupt. Chris felt her anxiety as something he could touch, and understood that it was caused, not by anything Raschid had, or had not done, but by the possibility that her husband might come home to find a policeman in his living room. For her sake, he got through the interview as quickly as possible.

NINE

A gentle hopping glow attracted Camilla from the doorway of her bedroom. She paused in the act of switching on a light, wondering who could be out there at this time of night. A burglar would hardly attract attention with a torch. She wondered if the police had come back to search. But why the need for subterfuge?

Camilla made her way silently down the corridor to the back of the house, thinking of the drawing she had made, the speed with which news travelled around Queenscliff. If Riza's abductor had come to silence her - she paused a moment for the irony in that - then the best thing would be to run away.

But Camilla braced herself against the temptation of a cowardly escape. If the thief were really out there, she was being given a chance to prove that she wasn't a coward after all. She stood in deep shadow by the kitchen window and watched the dim, bobbing light pass across the back yard and stop outside her garden shed. She watched the light disappear as whoever was carrying it went behind the shed. Camilla guessed who it was then, and what she was doing. She smiled to herself in the darkness, as, just in case she was wrong, she bent to take a rolling pin out of a drawer. She stared down at her tense and whitened knuckles grasping the makeshift weapon, catching her breath at the ease with which a violent impulse could rise up without warning.

The light was lowered and became even dimmer. The torch had been placed on the ground, revealing the shed window from below, and Julie Beshervase peering into it. Camilla watched as Julie tried the catch, then cupped her hands around her face. She wore dark clothes and a scarf around her head, but it was Julie's figure all right, Julie's long-legged stance.

Camilla loosened her grip on the rolling pin and smiled again, thinking of the contents of her garden shed. She watched until Julie picked up her torch and returned the way she'd come.

No building in Camilla's vicinity had such solidity and stature as the lighthouse. When she woke to a foggy morning, she got up and headed for the cliff path.

The fog horn filled every cranny in the rocks; even the rests between each blast were sucked up by the echo. Camilla was fascinated by the thick white stalk of the lighthouse, appearing and disappearing through the fog. Behind her, the pier squatted as a vague horizontal line, a grey denser than the sky. Its verticals were lines of shadow legs, a giant centipede.

On occasions like this - and it was far from the first one - Camilla stood spellbound by the spectral pillar and the deafening noise. She grimaced, hands clamped to her ears, thinking that it might be a relief to change her loss of speech for loss of hearing, and then frightened that this wish might be taken as ingratitude for what she still possessed. No one had told her to stand under the lighthouse in a fog. In fact, there were signs that expressly forbade it.

Camilla proceeded along the cliff path, grateful that she knew where to put her feet. She stopped, recalling the white-faced woman. When Chris Blackie had shown her a photograph, she'd hesitated and then shaken her head. She could not be sure. But the woman had been wearing dark clothes and she'd indicated this to Chris. She wondered if she should make another drawing.

When, exactly, had she heard the scream? Chris had asked her this, but again, she couldn't be sure. Her thoughts were muddled and she was afraid of being misunderstood. Chris had not been unkind, or hasty, but still, Camilla knew she was suspected of taking Riza, and that she must be careful.

Thinking of the woman, she felt the membrane between her being and another's to be stretched so thinly that she might pass through it unseen. She longed for a voice to shout with, to shout a warning that she feared was too late.

The phone was Camilla's enemy. When it rang, she fumbled the receiver, hot of hand and face, lifting it with shaking hands, straining towards the voice on the other end. It was usually somebody selling something, or her son. If the former, she felt relieved. If the latter, she tried hard to indicate, by the quality of her listening, answers to his questions about her health, about what she'd been ‘up to'. She knew the questions were a test that she was bound to fail. Success would be recorded when she could reply in a normal voice. She marvelled that this person to whom she'd given birth could be so cruel.

But now, when Camilla passed the telephone on its stand in the hallway, she thought of Chris Blackie and wondered what progress he was making. She thought of writing him a note about Julie Beshervase coming to her place at night, but decided not to. She didn't want to get Julie into trouble.