1
BART MOY’S HEADACHE extended from his temple to his shoulder. He’d tried a warm shower, a series of stretches and a few tablets he’d found in the pocket of his jeans. He knew it was all a waste of time—what he needed was sleep.
He waited at Guilderton’s only set of traffic lights. They always seemed to be red, no matter what direction you were going. He noticed the screwed-up piece of paper on the seat beside him. Picked it up, flattened it on his knee. ‘Application for Professional Development’. He hadn’t filled it in. What could you do in Guilderton? DNA sequencing? Still, he wondered if it was symptomatic of something greater. Why apply if you didn’t want to be developed? Why can’t I just do my job? Or is that the problem? Just a shithouse copper, going through the motions? Like the old man who walked past his house every day. Socks and sandals. Returning with a litre of milk.
He stopped and got out of his unmarked Commodore. Straightening his back, he remembered he hadn’t brushed his teeth. He ducked back in to search for mints. Nothing. Then he stood looking down the laneway behind Ayr Street.
Moy glimpsed his face in the wing mirror. He was getting fat, he knew; he’d lost his chin, gained a blush on his cheeks. He didn’t care anymore. He’d passed into his forties with little or no fuss: the stomach had arrived, the trainer-bra boobs along with a sort of giblet effect under his arms, but his legs were still strong, his buttocks tight, his mind sharp. Growing old didn’t bother him; the glib childhood promises of career and wealth had long since given way to gas bills and self-pollution. Now life was just movement—a slow progress through the world in the dawning realisation that you were stuck with your own company for the rest of eternity.
A tall figure appeared behind him and asked, ‘Detective Sergeant?’
Moy turned. ‘Bryce.’
‘Down the laneway,’ the younger man said, indicating with a nod.
Moy looked at him. There were still traces of enthusiasm in his eyes, in the way he kept his shirt ironed and his shoes polished. Since arriving in Guilderton, Constable Bryce King had done all the right things: joined the Guilderton Maulers, Mallee League ’91 Premiers, where every Friday night pig farmers and diesel mechanics got to tell him to fuck off; continued a tradition of Stranger Danger talks at Guilderton Primary; helped replace a urinal at a Civic Park working bee and, to the delight of most, started dating the girl from the forestry office who walked with an audible limp.
‘You meant to have knocked off?’ Moy asked.
‘I can wait,’ King replied, and Moy remembered what pissed him off most about the young and ambitious.
‘Where’s this butcher?’
The constable took a moment, wondering. Moy studied his eyes and guessed what he was thinking. His lips almost formed words, but he stopped short: It’s because I haven’t shaved for three days, isn’t it? Give it twenty years and see if anyone thanks you for your sixty-hour week.
‘There he is,’ King said, pointing to the butcher, emerging from the back door of his shop.
Moy locked the car and walked down the laneway, under tape that had been stretched between fence posts, past the hippo bins and broken crates left, he guessed, by the old wog baker he’d arrested for laying into his wife.
He attempted to tuck his shirt into his pants where it kept coming loose around his hips. Walking around a mud-splattered patrol car, he shook hands with the butcher. ‘Detective Sergeant…’ he began, but stopped short.
The butcher smiled. ‘Moysie,’ he said.
‘Justin Davids, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, good to see you. Where you been all these years?’
Moy shrugged. ‘Working in town.’
‘What brings you back?’
‘You know…Dad’s ill.’
The butcher studied his old friend’s face and made up his mind about this new, middle-aged Moy. ‘Well, welcome home.’
Moy could guess what he was thinking: Wife shot through? Couldn’t get ahead, couldn’t get a promotion, couldn’t afford the nice house, the car, the trips? Had to come home and slum it with all the farm boys and bush pigs?
Moy had one strong memory of Justin Davids. It was primary school—grade six or seven. There was a little Lebo and Justin and his tribe of followers had given him hell. They’d called him Castro which, Moy realised at the time, just proved how completely stupid they were. They’d spoken to him like they were clearing phlegm from their throats: ‘Hey…cchk…Mohammed.’ Justin had inspected Castro’s sandwiches and confiscated the mettwurst to flick at his mates.
Standing at the back door to Mango Meats he found himself wanting to mention Castro but stopping himself.