Moy was standing in his driveway, holding his son, trying to open the back door of his car. It opened and he laid Charlie across the back seat, secured him with a seatbelt, closed the door and got in the driver’s side.
The engine was still running. He selected reverse, shot back up the driveway (crushing the soccer ball) onto the road, changed gear and took off with a puff of tyre smoke. He became airborne over a rise, crashed down to the road and continued. ‘Charlie, can you hear me?’ But he knew it was best to keep going, towards the road that led to the highway that took him to the hospital.
There was a roundabout, but he didn’t look right. Instead of slowing, he pushed his foot to the floor and the car roared. ‘One minute, Charlie, one minute…hold on.’
He slowed for the highway but didn’t give way. As he turned a pack of oncoming cars had to brake to avoid him. Then he planted his foot again. ‘Hold on, Charlie.’
When he looked at the photo Charlie was still painting the train.
‘What happened?’ Patrick asked.
Moy tried to smile at him. ‘It was an accident.’ He studied the blue clouds and yellow birds.
‘But what happened?’
Moy looked at the boy and understood, at last, why he wouldn’t talk about his brother.
27
THE NEXT MORNING, already warm, as Moy paced up and down his driveway. ‘This other boy might be his brother, or a friend,’ he said, into his phone. He moved it away from his mouth, cleared his throat and returned to Superintendent Graves. ‘I’ve got no way of telling.’
‘Every home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Schools, motels…pubs?’
I’m not completely fucking stupid.
‘Footy club, scouts—’
‘Listen, Superintendent—’
‘It seems you’ve got a different crime now. If there was a brother. Patrick might have been threatened.’
Moy took a deep breath. Nothing annoyed him more than remote-control policing. ‘Things are progressing,’ he said. ‘I’m happy with the way Patrick’s opening up.’
Patrick. Sitting at the kitchen table, looking out at him, raising a few fingers as a token wave, grasping his texta and returning to his portrait.
‘You don’t actually know who the boy is?’ Graves asked.
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Patrick? That’s what you know? Assuming he’s even telling you the truth.’
‘The way I see it,’ Moy said, watching a crow on the fence, ‘is there aren’t many options. He’s just a very scared boy. I don’t think formal questioning would achieve much.’
‘I’m not suggesting that,’ Graves shot back. ‘I’m not completely insensitive.’
‘I didn’t say—’
‘I just don’t want to be in this situation in a month’s time.’
Moy took a moment to consider his response. ‘I think he’s starting to trust me. I think there’s something he wants to tell me.’
‘Well?’
Moy studied Patrick’s face, the way he bit his lip as he worked, stopped, turned his head to assess his progress, then continued.
‘Here’s how I see it,’ the superintendent said. ‘If you could just tell him everything’s okay, but we need his help. Say this isn’t something that can go on and on.’
‘I can’t pressure the kid.’
‘If you want me to arrange for him to go to town, see a shrink, find a foster family? Maybe that’d give him some sense of normality. Maybe the problem’s that he’s still where it happened.’
‘I don’t think…’
‘The threat is too close.’
Moy knew he had a point, but wouldn’t say so.
‘I think that would be a disaster. I don’t think those sort of changes would be good for him.’
‘Well, get me something.’
Moy stopped himself from barking back down the phone. Get you what? He’s a kid, for God-fucking-sake.
‘I just need a bit longer,’ he said, as he crushed broken concrete under foot.
‘You’re not a social worker, Bart, you’re a detective. This goes against the grain.’
‘A bit longer.’
There was a short pause, and then the superintendent said, ‘Righto, keep me informed.’
There was no goodbye, no conditions, no threats—just the implication that the boy, who was now looking up at him, would be taken away, fed into some machine and processed for information.
Moy stared back at the crow. It flew away. He went back inside the house, turning over his options. There were books full of procedures that helped you solve crimes. He remembered studying them for his first detectives exam. Cross-matching stories. Phone number analysis. But it was all a distant haze. He guessed he must’ve been good at it. Promotions. Commendations. But that was all before he backed up his driveway. Now there was just the occasional complaint; the raised eyebrow. Why didn’t you enter his name on the database? I did…didn’t I? We could’ve saved twelve months’ work if we’d known. Right, I…