Gone by Midnight

by Candice Fox

  The storm turned out to be a fizzer, hitting north of us, hardly making a dent in the heat. I found I couldn’t relax knowing Lillian was in the house, her safety and happiness solely my responsibility. I kept waking from light dozes, gasping at a creak of the floorboards or whisper of wind from outside, convinced she was in the room with me. When I went to check on her, I only found her sleeping in the exact position I’d left her in, the books packed away and her ballerina get-up replaced with light pyjamas. Then I began to wonder why she wasn’t tossing and turning at least a little and began paying hourly visits, squinting in the dark to make sure she was still breathing. I thought, as I tiptoed through the dark, about Sara Farrow finding Anya lifeless and cold, about her reaching for Richie’s blanket in the hotel room and finding it empty.

  The late hours were a good time to download the videos of the interviews with the Sampson, Cho and Errett families. I sat up in bed and clicked the files open on my computer, finding the first video I downloaded to be a combined interview with all three boys. Jaxon Cho’s spiky black hair was still mussed from sleep, and Tommy Sampson was rosy-cheeked and hiccupping from barely suppressed tears. Luca Errett, a lean and slightly bobble-headed kid, had his arms folded and was staring straight into the camera as the officer gave the date, time and precautions necessary for the recording. The boys had been allowed to give the interview without their parents, and the recording being made was number six in a series related to the case. I guessed the other interviews in the sequence were interviews with Sara Farrow and the parents.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Okay, boys. So, you know we’ve just been discussing how important it is to tell the truth when you’re talking to the police, no matter what. Doesn’t matter what your mum or your dad or anyone else told you to say – when you talk to the police you tell the truth, don’t you?

  SAMPSON: Yep.

  CHO: We’re not lying.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Well, that’s great. Good kids. You see, we just want to know –

  CHO: If you lie to the police they put you in jail.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Not necessarily. But in this case –

  ERRETT: They can put you in jail, but, if they want.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: We just need to know absolutely everything that happened from the moment Mrs Farrow brought Richie into the hotel room, until the moment you guys were woken up by all the parents last night. How did you spend the evening? Did you play games?

  SAMPSON: We just watched movies. We didn’t do anything bad. My mum said that they were going to come and check on us all the time, so we just watched movies like they said.

  ERRETT: That’s not all. We played Chubby Bunny. We played fart bombs. We made a cubbyhouse. We did heaps of things.

  CHO: We didn’t make a cubbyhouse. That was the night before last night.

  ERRETT: No it wasn’t.

  CHO: Yeah.

  ERRETT: I think I would remember better than you. I’m two months older than you.

  SAMPSON: Is Richie dead?

  OFFICER CREIBORN: No, no, no, there’s nothing to suggest that at all.

  ERRETT: My dad said he could be dead.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: When did your dad say that?

  ERRETT: I don’t know. Ages ago. Before the police came. He told my mum. He has secrets.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: What do you mean he has secrets? What kind of secrets?

  ERRETT: I don’t know. They’re secrets!

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Then how do you know he has them?

  CHO: I know a secret!

  ERRETT: He was talking to me, not you.

  SAMPSON: Is Richie really dead? Really? How did he die?

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Tommy, mate, there’s no need to cry.

  SAMPSON: I want to go home!

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Boys, it’s very important that we focus right now. We’ve got to be brave, stay on track and think hard. Did anyone come to the room and knock on the door while you were alone? Did anyone other than your mums and dads visit the room during the night?

  CHO: Yeah. Someone did.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Who was that, mate?

  CHO: The pizza man came.

  ERRETT: He’s not talking about the pizza man. He’s talking about a killer or a murderer or a stranger.

  CHO: I saw a show about a murderer once on the TV. My mum didn’t know I was watching it. It was a bit scary. When the murderer came on the TV screen I just hid my eyes like this.

  I didn’t envy Officer Creiborn in his battle against the boys’ distracted, fragmented observations. I watched the group and solo interviews, some from right after Richie went missing, some that had been added as recently as that afternoon. I started to get a sense of each of the boys. Cho was the dreamer, often looking around the room as he spoke, as though there was an audience of a hundred crowded before him and he had to make sure he addressed everyone. He became fixated on the idea of the stranger, wanted to get everything he knew about ‘Stranger Danger’ out in the interview, no matter how unrelated it was to the case. I saw in him a hidden excitement, and I could understand that – nothing like this had ever happened in the boys’ lives, and they probably felt special sitting in interviews with police, having their words recorded, the opportunity to solve a real-life crime in their very hands. The reality of Richie’s disappearance hadn’t hit them, and perhaps wouldn’t for years to come.

  The boy with perhaps the best conception of the gravity of the situation was Tommy Sampson, who cried through his entire solo interview and almost half of the group one. A look of pure devastation crossed his features when Officer Creiborn presented him with the notion that he and his friends had in fact left the room against their parents’ orders, not long after Detective Ng’s discovery of the second key to the Farrow room. He broke down and confessed with all the sorrow and remorse I’d seen in the expressions of accidental killers, his parents appearing from behind the camera and holding him to their chests. Though Officer Creiborn assured Tommy he wasn’t in trouble for leaving the room, that they just wanted to know what had happened on the boys’ adventures around the hotel, Tommy was too distressed to continue with the interview.

  It was Luca Errett who really intrigued me. I saw immediately that he was making some attempts to judge what information he should and shouldn’t let on to Officer Creiborn in his solo interview, sometimes coming back with a question to avoid answering the one Creiborn had presented him with. He sat on the edge of a bed in front of the camera with his arms folded, now and then glancing into the lens. It was clear his parents were there, behind the camera, and from the voices at the beginning of the tape it sounded like his father was sitting on the right side of the screen. Luca kept looking off to that side as though to get approval before he answered. I picked up the photograph of John Errett from the run sheet. He shared his son’s close-cropped hair and slightly oversized head, staring right down the camera like he was having his mugshot taken.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Whose idea was it to go wandering around the hotel?

  ERRETT: Someone, probably. One of us. I don’t know. It wasn’t me.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Was it Richie’s idea, perhaps? You boys used Richie’s mum’s key to get back in after you’d gone wandering around.

  ERRETT: Yeah, we found the key in their room in the little paper folder.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: That was on the first night.

  ERRETT: No, last night.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Well, it had to be on the first night, though. Because you went wandering around the hotel on both nights, didn’t you?

  ERRETT: I meant the first night. Yeah.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: And what did you do while you were outside the room?

  ERRETT: Did anyone see us walking around?

  OFFICER CREIBORN: We can talk about that later. I want to know what you guys did.

  ERRETT: Well, we had lots of fun actually. We played knock-and-run. We played with the lifts. We had races. Played some Bullrush. Heaps of stuff. We didn’t break anything and we didn’t st
eal anything, but. So we should probably only get in a little bit of trouble, like no video games or no going to our friend’s houses or something.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: And how is it that every time your parents came and checked on you, you guys were all in the room?

  ERRETT: Tommy has a watch, so we just went back up to the room and snuck back in when it was almost an o’clock time.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Did you see anyone in the halls or in the elevator when you went around?

  ERRETT: Yeah, but when we saw someone we just would hide. There were heaps of places to hide.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: When did you notice that Richie was missing?

  ERRETT: Um. It was maybe … I don’t know.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Was he there when you all went back to the room to sleep?

  ERRETT: We didn’t go back to sleep, we went back to build a cubbyhouse ’cause we got bored.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Did you build a cubbyhouse on both nights?

  ERRETT: No – Yes.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Because it says here in our notes that you built a cubbyhouse on the first night.

  ERRETT: We were in the cubbyhouse when all the mums and dads came in and started yelling and some of them were crying.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: That’s … maybe. That’s not what we have here, but maybe. It’s very important not to get the two nights mixed up, because they’re very similar.

  ERRETT: All the mums were crying.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: Pretty scary, huh?

  ERRETT: They kept asking us, ‘Where’s Richie? Where’s Richie?’ but I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember. I said he wasn’t there. Maybe he went somewhere else.

  OFFICER CREIBORN: He went somewhere else?

  ERRETT: Like maybe he was still sleeping or something.

  Watching the videos of the boys was frustrating. It felt almost as though they had the answers, but were unable to find the words to convey what they knew.

  I browsed through the other files Chief Clark had made available to me, watching CCTV of the Sampson, Cho and Errett parents at dinner with Sara at the Clattering Clam. The women and men switched seats midway through the night, the women leaning in conspiratorially at the end of the table, the men leaning out, lounging in their chairs.

  I scrolled through the tape, watching the restaurant workers clear the tables one by one and put up the chairs. They vacuumed, shut and locked the windows and turned out the lights.

  With the lights out, the lamplit street at the side of the hotel became more visible. I kept rolling, the palm trees twitching in the sea breeze, and stopped at the sight of a man going by on a bicycle. The time stamp read 4.14 am. I tracked the footage of the man back and forth a couple of times, watching him glide along. He was wearing worker’s coveralls, and a big set of keys gleamed on his belt.

  I was distracted from the video by the sound of bare feet on the floorboards. The sun had risen while I worked and Lillian was standing in the doorway, wiping her eyes and clutching at the shorts of her pink-and-orange pyjamas.

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’ she asked.

  ‘Mummy’s gone away for a little while, remember?’ I asked. ‘She’ll be back in a couple of days.’

  Lillian’s bottom lip grew heavy and trembled.

  At that moment I got a text on my phone and opened it. Saved by the bell.

  ‘Come on, let’s get dressed,’ I told her. ‘I’ve got something cool to show you.’

  Celine had the typical dog reaction as we walked into Dr Bass’s clinic, the smell of the building causing her to shrivel at my side, her tail between her legs. Lillian perked up at the same scent, sensing new and exciting creatures nearby.

  ‘Oh, the zoo!’ She pointed at the bags of feed stacked against the wall, the pictures of happy horses and guinea pigs.

  ‘Almost,’ I told her. Something flickered in Laney Bass’s face as I led my daughter inside, her smile faltering for less than a second.

  ‘I didn’t know you …’ She gestured to Lillian, seemed to try to brush the comment away as soon as it was out of her mouth. ‘Never mind, I –’

  ‘She’s visiting,’ I said, lifting Lillian onto my hip. ‘She lives down south with her mother. Look, Lillian, this is Laney. Her name sounds a bit like yours.’

  The two greeted each other, Lillian’s eyes going straight where mine did, to Laney’s shiny gold hair braided loosely down the side of her head. She was wearing a lab coat that caught the girl’s attention, Lillian reaching out and fingering the stiff lapel.

  ‘Come and see,’ Laney said excitedly, rubbing her hands together. ‘I think you’ll be quite pleased.’

  She led us through the surgery into a room lined with cages. Peeper was sitting on a folded white towel, her beak nestled in her chest, one eye watching us approach.

  ‘Well, hello,’ I told the bird. ‘Feeling much better, are we?’

  ‘A little,’ Laney answered as I crouched and patted Peeper through the wire. ‘She’s eating again, which is always a good sign. Her blood work’s better. I can’t give her back to you just yet, but I’m really liking the signs. If they get through the first night, I always start to have hope.’

  Lillian pressed her nose against the bars of Peeper’s cage and tried to squeeze her whole hand through the gap to pat her, grunting with effort.

  ‘I want to pat duck!’

  ‘Actually –’ Laney looked at me, her eyes full of mischief ‘– I’ve got something totally awesome you could pat, maybe. If your dad lets you. Stay here.’

  She dashed away. There was a strange, unfamiliar happiness surging in my veins, relief perhaps that Peeper was doing better, but maybe something more. Laney had not, it seemed, discovered my identity, and I considered that if I was lucky enough she might never do so. If I played my cards carefully, Laney might even end up being a friend. The simple pleasure of adding a new person into my life, someone unstained by my past, made me feel warm.

  I saw what Laney was carrying before Lillian did. An infant crocodile no longer than my hand, its narrow snout taped shut and yellow eyes bulging. Laney raised her eyebrows, and I nodded, and she tapped Lillian on the shoulder, distracting her from the bird just beyond her reach.

  Laney and I crouched together to best witness Lillian’s reaction, our shoulders touching.

  ‘Look, Lill,’ I whispered.

  ‘A tiny baby croc!’ Laney grinned.

  ‘Ohhh.’ Lillian’s eyes grew wide. She filled her lungs with air. ‘Tiny cock!’

  Laney and I looked at each other. We burst into laughter, the vet almost forgetting the reptile in her hand, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist. Lillian watched us, bewildered. The vet put a hand on my chest. I couldn’t breathe.

  On the highway heading for Cairns, still smirking to myself now and then over Lillian’s choice of words and Laney’s reaction, a motorcycle rider wearing pink converse shoes cut me off and slowed until she was only a car space in front of me, the tinted shield on the helmet flipped down, hiding her face. The biker waved backwards at me and then pointed forward, full arm extended, like a general leading a battle charge. As she sped off, I shook my head, too tangled in thoughts of my daughter to make any kind of connection.

  I found Amanda in the back car park of the Cairns police station, ruffling her helmet hair, her battered leather jacket zipped up to the tattooed flowers on her neck.

  ‘What is that?’ I asked. She leaned on the bike like she’d owned it for a decade, grinning, then seemed to decide the position was too casual to demonstrate her pride in the machine. She draped herself over it like a Playboy model.

  ‘It’s the Swamp Monster, of course.’

  ‘This thing is bloody awesome.’ I ran my hand over the crocodile-leather seat, gripped the handles. ‘Where did you get – Oh, no.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Amanda laughed.

  ‘I’ve warned you about hanging out with those bikies, Amanda.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’ve already got a daughter, chum.’ She shrugged. ‘She
’s three, and she’s not me.’

  I was about to launch into my usual complaints about criminal gangs and then grimaced, reminding myself of Kelly. My ex-wife had told me to get some friends who had nothing to do with dead bodies, and here I was about to request that Amanda clean up her own pool of friends. I simply patted the machine appreciatively.

  ‘So you’ve got a girlfriend now, have you?’ she said.

  ‘What?!’ I laughed. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Whoa, you do have a girlfriend!’ Amanda stumbled back as though slapped. ‘Who is she? Oh Christ, she doesn’t know who you are, does she?’

  ‘This is …’ I struggled for words. ‘You just say things sometimes, Amanda, and you assume they’re true.’

  ‘Oh, it’s true,’ she said. ‘That’s your courtroom shirt. I’ve seen you wearing it on the news.’

  I stroked the shirt self-consciously. ‘So?’

  ‘So it’s the nicest shirt you own. What are you doing wearing the nicest shirt you own, with no occasion to wear it, regardless of the terrible memories it must bring up for you? You must have pulled it out of the wardrobe this morning and judged how good it would make you look versus the attached memories. The girl won out. You wore the shirt.’

  ‘It’s just a nice shirt!’

  ‘And you were driving along the highway smiling to yourself like an idiot when I passed you.’

  I sighed.

  ‘Then I present you with the accusation of a girlfriend and you just about lose your lid. And not in a good way, either. I know your face. There’s excitement there but also sheer terror.’

  ‘That’s enough looking at my face.’ I held a hand up. ‘I don’t need to be psychoanalysed every time I step out of the house.’

  ‘The girlfriend.’ Amanda waggled a finger. ‘Is that why you were trying to call me last night? To spill the beans on the brand-new squeeze?’

  ‘I wasn’t calling you.’

  ‘Huh. Really? Someone called me a bunch of times from a private number, and then when I’d pick up there would be no one there.’