‘A favour?’
‘Yes. When William wasn’t listening, the photographer said, Mr Moy, I feel, already, I can trust you. And Grandad said, you do do you? Why’s that? And the photographer replied, only a very good parent would do what you’ve done.’
Patrick was waiting, hanging off every word.
‘Then the photographer said, Mr Moy, I have to travel to Sydney, for four or five weeks, and I need someone to look after William.’
Patrick sat forward. ‘But Daniel had just had a knife to William’s throat?’
‘True. But that’s what the photographer had come to think of Daniel, in those few hours. As they went they talked, and they struck up a bond. I suppose they discussed family and farming and photography and how hard it was to make a living. And then—they were mates. One minute there was a knife, and the next, mates.’
‘And did he agree to look after him?’
‘Of course. The photographer said, in return, I’ll take all the photos you want.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Well, no one likes to tell the whole story. Do they, Patrick?’
32
MOY DROVE BACK to work, past the Bryan Moroney Public Pool and what was left of Klinger’s old service station. He could still remember pulling up as a child. George, cigarette in hand, getting out to fill their car. Some sunburnt teenager would pop the bonnet, check the oil and ask if he wanted a top-up. And George would drag on his Winfield and say, ‘Leave it, I haven’t got time.’
He slowed past the Jack Dawes Crèche and Kindergarten.
Yes, my God, it is, he thought, studying the man in work pants and black boots, a windcheater pulled over his uniform. He was talking to a much younger woman who was leaning against a car, laughing.
Jason, you dirty bastard.
He slowed and pulled up on the opposite side of the road. Then he killed the engine and slipped down into his seat, watching. The girl stood up and crossed her arms. She said something and playfully pushed him. He pretended to fall back before holding her shoulder. She smiled. Looked around. Kissed him. Then he dropped his head and whispered something to her.
Soon it was all over. Perhaps it was the epilogue to a secret lunch at the teacher’s house. Perhaps they’d been alone together in the kindy, swapping saliva under a Dorothy the Dinosaur poster. Either way, Jason Laing held her arm, but stopped himself from kissing her again, perhaps remembering the wife and kid and the mortgage he had no intention of repaying. He got into his car and drove off and the girl went back inside the kindy.
And Moy remembered, just as clearly as the smell of fifty-fifty petrol, how quickly the love faded. How, in the end, it was sacrificed to rates and early starts, lawns mowed and gutters cleaned.
He drove back to work and settled behind his desk. He studied the lumps of Blu Tack where his photo had been and listened to the thud of a football from the primary school oval. Someone asking Gary for an application for a gun licence. A kettle boiling. He massaged his forehead, took hold of his mouse and started navigating through the police database.
HELEN JANE BARNES
BORN 9/7/1974
AUSTEN JAMES BARNES
BORN 10/6/1971
MARRIED 1/10/2001
ISSUE 2
THOMAS JAMES BARNES 3/11/2003
PATRICK JAMES BARNES 17/4/2004
CALLOUT FOR DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE. NO
ACTION TAKEN.
That was it. No record of parents or grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles or aunts. It was as though they had just appeared, lived some sort of secret life, moved into the mouse-infested shack on the edge of town, pissed someone off, and suffered. Try as he might, Moy still couldn’t put meat on their bones, dress them, arrange them and move them through the world. They were phantoms, living on the fringes of a town where no one kept secrets for long.
Constable Laing came into the office, placed some files on the desk and looked at Moy. ‘You look tired.’
‘Not half as tired as you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Moy shrugged. ‘You had a job down the kindergarten?’
‘So?’
‘Just sayin’…you look tired.’
‘You watchin’ me?’
‘Just happened to be driving past.’
Laing waited. ‘Community relations.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What?’
Moy looked up. ‘None of my business.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not too late…’
‘Say it.’
‘Think what you’re risking.’
Laing looked as if he was biting back a retort. He said, ‘Detective Sergeant, you know how hard it is to get the whole story.’
‘Yeah?’
‘The life of a country copper.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Lot of dust, little bit of justice. It’s not so much the law, is it? More a sort of compromise, between the could and the should. You know?’ He almost winked. ‘What we do, and what we write in that bullshit.’ He indicated the files. ‘You gotta work out what’s important, Detective.’ Waving a finger, he drifted from the room.