One Boy Missing(33)

Something went out behind the boy’s eyes, and it was all over.





20

MOY SAT ON a bench in the middle of the back lawn. He held a cigarette, but hid it from the boy. Took a puff, turned away, exhaled. ‘How many?’ he called.

The boy was using an old squash racket to hit a tennis ball against the side of the house. Moy was impressed. ‘You play for a team?’

He was good, the heartbeat rhythm, the determination not to miss a shot. Moy watched him biting his bottom lip, focusing on the ball like it was a personal challenge. ‘We’ve got a club, if you like. Or badminton. I played badminton.’ He wondered if he should tell him: George watching him every Friday night, coaching from the side, becoming angrier.

What was the point? As if he’d care about racket sports in Guilderton. ‘I’ll give you a game. What do you reckon?’

Nothing except the regular thump resulting from an unvarying parabola; never harder, softer, longer, shorter. As if the formula worked, and had to be honoured.

Gary Wright walked down the drive, stopped and watched the boy. ‘Impressive,’ he said.

The boy didn’t stop.

‘Nearly as good as me. Wimbledon champion, 1978. Just beat Connors. But it was a tough game.’

Nothing.

‘Course, you won’t find it in the history books…but I won. Do you believe me?’

The boy took a step back and nearly missed. Forward, and re-established his rhythm.

Gary made his way over to Moy.

‘You’re so full of shit,’ Moy said.

‘Me? How’s it going?’

‘Signs of life.’

They watched the boy. Moy said, ‘He’s gotta get sick of it soon.’

‘I tried both motels,’ Gary said. ‘That fella, what’s his name, Gale, Gage, he’s got something on with that Asian bird.’

‘It’s his wife.’

He smiled. ‘Yeah? She’s a good worker…all day, washing sheets. They’re actually married?’

Moy didn’t care. ‘Nothing?’

‘Said he had a family with a couple of kids, but they were younger.’

The boy stopped. He looked at them. Moy hid his cigarette and said, ‘All done?’

He went in.

‘Doesn’t trust me,’ Moy said. ‘Maybe I look like someone…’ Gary watched him go. ‘Got me thinking.’

Moy offered Gary the cigarette. He took a puff then returned the stub, which Moy snuffed out on the bench.

‘About two years back.’ He took an envelope from his pocket and removed a rubber band that was holding it together. ‘Probably no connection.’ Then he took out a pile of colour photos. ‘They were left in the pub.’

Moy looked at each of the photos as Gary handed them to him. They’d been taken at the local pool. Children, boys mostly, in the water, on the grass, the change rooms. Two shots were dark, like they’d been taken in a corner. They showed more than the others.

‘Just left in the pub?’ Moy said.

‘Russ handed them in.’

There was a long pause, as Moy thought how this might fit in.

‘I never knew.’

‘Don’t know lots of things about this place, Detective. They’ve been sitting in the safe. We asked around, no one knew nothing. So we guessed we got a kiddy fiddler somewhere.’

‘You guessed? Could be a photographer.’

Gary just looked at him.

‘Know the kids?’ Moy asked.

‘Locals.’

Moy studied the envelope. There was a picture of a silo in the top corner, with the words Stow’s Fabrications: Sheds and Silos. He looked at Gary and said, ‘What’s he got to say for himself?’

‘Dunno.’

‘No one ever spoke to him?’

‘It’s not like you’d put them in your own stationery.’

‘But you said got me thinking. About who?’

‘No one…coincidence. The age of the kids in the photos. And Roger Federer over there.’

Moy placed the photos back in the envelope, put it in his pocket and stood up. ‘Watch him for thirty minutes?’

‘My day off.’

He walked away. ‘You can tell him about the time you captained Australia A.’

When he arrived at Stow’s a silo was being loaded onto the back of a truck. He asked for the manager and was shown into his office. A short man with an open shirt and a gold necklace greeted him. ‘Bill Stow.’

‘DS Moy.’

They sat down and Stow said, ‘You lot after a silo?’

Moy looked at him and wondered. Why would you put photos in your own envelopes? He noticed his leather hands, and strong arms, and guessed he wasn’t the type. ‘Stow’s have been round a while?’

‘We have.’