One Boy Missing(3)

He parked, got out and walked along the bike track, dragging his feet, thinking he should call out and having no name to call.

‘Who you looking for?’ A kid’s voice.

He turned to the nine- or ten-year-old standing with his hands in his pockets. Not a missing child, this one. ‘Kid your age.’

‘You his dad?’

‘I’m a policeman. He’s lost.’

The boy didn’t seem concerned. ‘No one here,’ he said, almost defiantly, and Moy could smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes.

‘You gettin’ ready for school?’ he asked, but the boy almost laughed.

‘Dad got me harvest leave. No one goes to school this time of year.’

He turned and ran off and Moy took a few moments to survey the rest of the park. He could remember coming here himself, in the days before the track. Back then it was all about climbing the pine trees.

He looked up, as if the boy might be hiding in the limbs. He saw himself with a slingshot, waiting for an old woman to go past with her shopping. Remembered just sitting there, unable to do it, the rock heavy in his hand.

He cruised the length of Gawler Street, a succession of cream-brick government houses full of teachers, nurses and coppers who’d come from other places, marooned in the wheatbelt, biding their time, planting vegetable gardens to soak up weekends with absolutely nothing to do. The smart ones loaded their cars on Friday night and drove to town, returning in a semi-depressed state every Sunday night, deadening the rest of the week with overwork and alcohol. But mostly it was just the hum of harvesters, conversations about reflux and milk teeth, the taste of microwave meals and snow-drift CSI, no matter how big your antenna.

Most people with a guvvie house had given up on caring for it. For one, they were inspected annually and if the agent decided the place was in good condition they’d put the rent up. Secondly, the government didn’t do routine maintenance. Paintwork, cracked windows, nothing. The message was clear: just do your time. Survive, marry a local girl and buy something decent, or piss off.

Moy passed his own house, slightly shabbier than the rest, the broken blinds drawn, the window shades blowing in the breeze. He could see down the drive, into the backyard, where his undies and T-shirts hung on the line.

There had been problems with truants—harvest kids, or other ferals—bored shitless during the holidays, stealing washing from clothes lines. Making their way to Civic Park and dressing the busts of old mayors in bras and singlets. Mayor Humphris (1878–1883) in a summer frock with a lace collar.

Moy pulled out just as a grain truck flew past raising a shower of dust and fine gravel. He listened to it pepper his car and noticed a chip appear in the middle of the windscreen. He reached for his lights and planted his foot; overtook the truck and slowed it to a stop in front of the Guilderton Rotary. He got out, fuming, and the driver climbed down to meet him.

‘Well?’ Moy said.

‘I got me tarp on.’

It was one of Paschke’s sons, a farm boy who spent his days driving between his father’s place and the silos. ‘How fast were you going?’

‘Wasn’t much over fifty.’

‘How much?’

‘Fifty then,’ the driver changed tack.

Moy took a deep breath and wondered whether it was the chip, his headache or other things. ‘You chipped my windscreen,’ he said.

‘Council needs to sweep these roads. Dad’s been on at them.’

‘If you go slow enough it’s not a problem.’

The Paschke boy shrugged. ‘I stick to the limit but there’s two headers, full up, waiting in the paddock. Twenty minutes each way and a line at the silo. Maybe you should tell ’em to build some new receiving bays.’

‘What’s that got to do with speeding?’

Here, Moy guessed, was why he was becoming a second-rate copper; one of the reasons. If he were any good he’d find his infringement book and start writing, but he just didn’t care enough anymore. Paschke’s boy would be back along this road in his truck, ten times a day, raising a cloud of dust and gravel that no one gave a shit about. A few neighbours, perhaps, but they never complained. It was just the way it was if you lived on the western edge of Guilderton. Gawler Street was the only road the trucks could take to get to the silos.

He looked at the boy. ‘Slow down,’ he said, and walked back to his car. The truck pulled out around him, raising another shower of dust and double-tooting its horn: See you later, mate.

Moy switched off his lights and let his head drop onto his steering wheel. He noticed a sticky mess where he’d spilled something on the console and thought, things could be a lot worse.