by T. J. Beach
Debbie’s head pounded so hard she thought it might explode. The police had to do something.
Stu stared at her. “What are you going to do, Debbie?”
Debbie glared back. “I’ve written a note excusing Lachlan from sport. Shit, what about the other kids in the class? Stu, this is urgent!”
“What did you say in the note?”
“Lachlan has asthma.”
“Okay. I know you two.” He looked from Debbie to Hollins. “I’m begging you, Debbie, no Facebook groups warning mothers to keep their children away. No amateur detecting. You could be the one who ends up behind bars and you could ruin any case against him.”
“I’m going to get counselling for Lachlan.”
“Good idea.”
“How many more kids are going to be traumatised while we wait?”
“I’ve had believable reports there might be a pedophile teaching school and running camps for boys in Bell’s Landing. Give me some credit. I will investigate this with the full resources and power granted to me as a West Australian Police officer without overstepping those powers and responsibilities to make a potentially false accusation against a respected local citizen.”
“Shit.” What Stu said made complete sense, but it didn’t sound like much to Debbie.
“It is extremely unlikely that what I do will be visible to you until we walk him out of the staffroom in handcuffs. I’m asking you for restraint — both of you. Be vigilant. Keep your eyes open. Take notes. Tell me anything, absolutely anything you see that might help. But don’t tip him off and don’t do anything illegal.”
Gary nodded.
Debbie boiled inside.
Hollins saw Stu Reilly off the premises and resumed his seat.
“What are we going to do?” Hollins asked.
“I’m getting straight onto the web to find a counsellor for Lachlan. Then I’m going around to the school with my note for Miss Bryant.”
“Then what?” Zero chance Debbie Haring would sit on her hands, waiting for the authorities to go through the proper channels. Anyone who’d met her would know that.
Debbie gave Hollins her evil grin. “The less you know, the better.”
“There will be something on his computer for sure. If we could get a look at it.”
Debbie’s eyes sparkled.
“Ahhh, Dodgy Utility Girl rides again. How are you going to get his computer?”
“Didn’t you hear me? The less you know, the better.”
“Anything you need, just ask.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DEBBIE TIMED HER school visit to coincide with the beginning of lunch break.
She scanned the playground for Jennifer — practicing handstands on the grass by the jungle gym — and Lachlan. Hard to tell who was who under wide-brimmed school hats, one of three boys sitting together on with their lunchboxes in their laps looked like Lachlan.
She tapped her knuckles on Lachlan’s classroom door and poked her head in. “Knock, knock.”
Miss Bryant turned, clutching a pile of worksheets to her chest. “Mrs Haring, what can I do for you today? Has Lachy lost something?”
“No.”
“I wouldn’t think so. Lachy’s such a careful boy.”
She had an annoying beatific grin, like a spaced-out hippy lost in a classroom. Debbie fixed her own grin. No need to antagonise the woman. “I thought I’d pop in to let you know that Lachlan’s excused sport.”
“Oh.”
Debbie offered the letter she’d typed.
Miss Bryant fumbled for it, almost dropped the worksheets, shovelled them onto a desk and took the note. A frown built as she read it. “Oh, dear. Lachy has asthma?”
“Yes.”
“That’s awful. I hadn’t noticed anything. He doesn’t wheeze or get short of breath.”
“Recently diagnosed. Very recently.” The night before definitely counted as recent.
“He can’t do sport?”
That’s what the letter said, couldn’t the numbskull read? “No. The best treatment for exercise-induced bronchoconstriction is to avoid vigorous exercise.” Ten minutes on the internet paid off in spades.
“Yes. I see. Right. If that’s what the doctor says.”
“Mmm.” A doctor would very likely say just that — if Lachlan had exercise-induced asthma. “Please keep Lachlan in the class when the others do sport.”
“Oh. I suppose I could do that. Lachy can go and watch the others, can’t he?”
Not if Dave McManus is there! “I’d rather not. He’d feel left out, I think, maybe embarrassed. Peer pressure. he might feel he has to join in, which, with exercise-induced bronchoconstriction could cause problems.”
“I can see that. You were worried about Lachy being bullied, weren’t you?”
Not half as worried as I am now, love.
“I had noticed Lachy was a bit reluctant to go to sport.”
Now you notice, you dozy wench!
“Do you think it might have been that he was struggling to keep up? He used to love sport. All the kids do. We’re so lucky to have Mr McManus. Not many primary schools have a sports specialist.” She turned on the irritating dopey grin.
Debbie so wanted to shake the silly woman. “Something like that.”
“Does Lachy have any medication to use if he has an attack in the classroom or at recess?”
Debbie went into her handbag for a Ventolin inhaler, still in its box from the chemist — thank goodness it could be bought without a prescription — and handed it over. “The instructions are on the packet. It’s all sorted, then? Lachlan will sit out of sport?”
The electoral roll gave an address for Dave McManus in the old part of Bell’s Landing. Debbie hadn’t paid any attention to whether the teacher wore a wedding ring, but the only female McManus registered to vote in the Vasse electorate was Eleanor May, who lived at a separate address.
“Divorced are you, Dave?” Debbie asked the computer.
Debbie checked Eleanor’s listing on Google Maps — a retirement village.
“Mum then.”
How would it be to find out your son got his kicks from …? Debbie couldn’t even think the words for fear she’d vomit.
She parked a street away from McManus’s address, mid-morning when teachers were busy at school, and legitimate water board and electricity company inspectors did their rounds. She pulled on the grey cap that matched her coveralls with ‘WA Utilities’ embroidered on one chest pocket and ‘D. Smith, Supervisor’ on the other, checked her backpack, picked up her clipboard, ready-loaded with a fake check sheet listing addresses on Dave’s street, and set off.
He lived in an elderly brick and tile bungalow with a lock-up garage — the front house on the block. A driveway alongside Dave’s place led to an old weatherboard place behind.
The rear house would have been better from Debbie’s point of view, but she took heart from the fact that a nonchalant departure would be easier from the front house in the event of unwanted attention or an alarm.
Debbie inspected a water meter by the fence, made a note on her pad as she had at each previous house, stared at the power lead-in cable slung from a street pole to the home, shook her head as if she saw a problem, and strode up the footpath to the meter box by the front door. A sticker on frosted glass warned that house alarms were monitored twenty-four hours a day by Geographe Home Security. They’d gone bust ten years previously, which probably meant the system would be obsolete — unless Dave had replaced it. No problem either way — if an alarm went off, she’d have ages to make her getaway because no one ever bothered to take a look or call the cops.
The front door had only a simple Yale lock about the same vintage as the house.
Staring thoughtfully at the powerlines while checking peripherally for observers, she ducked around the side of the garage, peeked through a window to make sure an unknown co-tenant hadn’t left his or her car and went around to the rear door.
Overgrown trees tha
t lined the fence around the backyard blocked observation from neighbouring homes, so she quickly slipped on disposable gloves and dipped into the backpack for her semi-automatic — a lock pick gun.
It had the look of a rivet gun, a plastic handle with a long trigger and an attachment for a long, thin needle. She simply had to slide the thin steel rod into the lock and pull the trigger. Out of sight in the bowels of the mechanism, the gun fired the rod which automatically triggered the pins, freeing the cylinder, so the lock turned in Debbie’s hand.
As easy as that, as long as no policemen were watching. Apart from breaking and entering, if a having the gun in her possession could lead to a charge of carrying housebreaking tools. Which would be fair enough if she thought about it.
The door had a bolt on the inside, rusted into the open position. “Tut, tut, Dave. Use the bolt. You’re asking to be burgled.”
She wrapped the gun in a cloth, pushed it to the bottom of her bag and took a deep breath. She was in.
The kitchen sink was half-full of dirty plates, and the living room had newspapers piled on the sofa, a pizza box and two empty beer bottles in a Spirograph pattern of rings on the coffee table.
Debbie shook her head. “You should go to jail for that alone.”
Seeing as no alarms were wailing, she felt around in her bag until her fingers closed over a plastic case about the size and shape of an old-fashioned beeper — her travel-size hidden camera detector. It fired super-strong red LED lights which would reflect off the lens of any hidden optics. Every camera had to have a lens.
Dave had made it easier for her by leaving all the curtains pulled. What kind of person left their blinds down when they went to work? A bloke with something to hide! But sweat slithered down her spine nonetheless. Illegal entry was much harder in reality that it had been when she planned it.
Debbie pressed the button and pointed her tracer at all the obvious spots in the room where people hid cameras — light fittings, wall sockets, speakers and so on. Satisfied the coast was clear, she slipped it into the pocket of her overalls — it would be needed again in the next room — and drew out her next house-breaking tool, a digital radio frequency detector. It looked like a small handheld radio, except that it had an additional arrow-shaped antenna. She scanned for GSM — whatever the hell that was — Bluetooth and radio frequency signals.
It buzzed when she pointed it at the TV in the living room. She jumped. Christ, he had a listening device. No, the wi-fi modem next to the screen had set off her detector. She turned the modem off, checked again, found nothing else, so she turned it back on.
One final check: the ancient home alarm terminal by the front door, covered in dust. Apparently untouched in years, so she left it alone.
Video and audio checks came up safe in the bedroom. Dave’s sleeping space continued the theme of neglect. He’d left the sheets rucked and the laundry basket overflowing.
The second bedroom was the office, a shrine to St Kilda Football Club. Posters of AFL heroes past and present lined the walls. All the players wore skin-tight shorts and guernseys with black, white and red vertical stripes. The clock above the desk had the SKFC logo, the stickman with a halo from the sixties The Saint TV show. A red, white and black scarf hung over it.
She took special care with the video and radio detection but again found nothing.
Debbie sat in Dave’s chair and studied his computer, a high spec Dell with a twenty-seven-inch monitor. Nothing inherently suspicious in that. Heaps of single guys spent their life online gaming or downloading movies, but a pedophile would have a good one for rapid, seamless contact with his pervert network.
She took a photo of the desk with her phone, opened the laptop and booted it up. A St Kilda player taking a spectacular high mark with his knees on the shoulder of a Collingwood man opened on the big screen. Random documents — tax returns, letters — dotted the screen. Debbie’s own computer didn’t look a lot different. The only folder on display had the title ‘private’. A click took her to a mass of photographs — family shots, scans of his birth certificate, teaching degree, Working With Children certification — what a joke! — and driver’s licence.
Ten minutes searching through the file structure uncovered nothing suspicious.
A dog barked and she froze as she went to the desk drawers.
It sounded a couple of houses away.
Debbie held her breath waiting for a key in the lock until she realised she’d not only wasted any chance she had to get out from behind the desk and run for the back door but also a minute’s searching time.
The bottom drawer had a terabyte backup disk. She photographed it in place, plugged it into the laptop USB port, and an external drive icon appeared on the screen. She clicked. A password window opened.
And there, having no access to the world class hackers that every TV detective could call on, she was stumped.
“All your secrets are on the hard drive, wanker. Okay.”
Debbie returned the disk to the drawer, adjusted it so it sat exactly as it had been in the photo, and replaced everything else in its original position.
Debbie had two missed calls from Hollins.
She called him back when she got to the office. “Whaddya want?” she asked. “I’m starting on a nice little office security contract this afternoon. Want to tag along and learn the trade?”
“About as much as I want a hole in the head.”
“Oh yeah? How did you spend your day today?”
“A long run on the beach. Grocery shopping. Now I’m reading a library book.”
Which, dammit, sounded a lot more fun than working her ass off to get everything done in time to pick up the kids from school.
“Have you done your Dodgy Utility Girl thing?” Hollins asked.
“I couldn’t possibly release details of an ongoing investigation.”
Hollins scoffed. “You have, then. Good. What did you find?”
“Nothing I’m willing to share.”
“Bummer. Nothing useful, then. Look, what do you want me to do about cricket training this week?”
Good question. Every hour without solid evidence was another for Dave McManus to lure boys into whatever disgusting activities he had planned for them. The next of his weekend boys’ camps wasn’t until after Christmas, but she doubted Dave waited three months at a time for his sick satisfaction. On the other hand, Stu Reilly had it right. They couldn’t risk Dave being alerted to their suspicions. “Go to training. Act normal. I’ll go as well. I’ll watch him like a hawk. Hey, can you talk to him?”
“Yeah. My Working With Children card came in the post. I can show him that. What did you want me to ask him?”
“I meant can you talk to him without losing your temper, beating the shit out of him and giving us away?”
“I think so.”
“All good then. Have you thought more about his camps?”
“I’ve tried not to.”
“He tried to recruit you as a camp volunteer.”
“He did.”
“He thinks you’re a pedo’ like him.”
“Thanks for that.”
“He offered you the chance to share …” She gulped. “Whatever happens at those camps.”
“You’re thinking I could show an interest, tell him I’ve changed my mind, drop a few hints and get him to reveal all his secrets?”
“I’ve always thought you’d be ideal for undercover work, a secretive loser like you.”
Silence hung.
“You there?” she asked.
He snorted.
“You’re never going to tell me what happened in England, are you?” she asked.
“Tell you what?”
“It would do you some good, you know, to share it — to vent. It would help you deal with whatever it is that makes you such a grumpy asshole.” Also, Debbie ached to find out where Gary learned to handle himself like an action hero.
“So, you want me to pretend I’m a rock spider and cosy up t
o Dave?”
“God.” It sounded awful when he said it out loud.
“Makes you want to throw up, doesn’t it?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KIDS IN BED, Nordic Noir streaming on the telly, as she snuggled with Matt on the couch, Debbie’s troubles eased almost to a bearable level as they always did in her husband’s arms.
“Do you fancy a coffee?” he asked.
She grabbed his shirt and held him down. “No. I want you here.”
His fingertips traced her arm to her hip, tingling all the way.
“That’s how we got started on Lachlan,” she said.
He chuckled. “Then I should do it more often.”
“You should.”
“You want more kids?”
Good question. Jennifer and Lachlan were perfect but such a handful when Matt went away. He made good money, and they were diligent savers, thank goodness, because the projection in her spreadsheet said he’d be FIFO for at least five years before they cleared the debts from their failed homewares store. A depressing thought. The kids lit up on Matt’s days at home. There could not be a better father on the entire planet. He loved nothing more than to get down to play with them on the carpet or roughhouse in the yard.
They threw themselves at their dad the moment he came in the door, all ruffled and heavy-eyed after eight consecutive twelve-hour shifts — the last four night shifts — and most of a day travelling to get home.
Debbie tried not to be jealous of his easy rapport with their babies. Was she such a bad mother when he wasn’t there to share the load? She never found the time or the opportunity to be fun.
Someone had to do the discipline, she told herself, but that was unfair, self-justifying. Matt never let them get out of hand. How the hell did he do it? He only had to lift an eyebrow and they jumped into line. Debbie could yell at them for hours, and they’d start up again the moment she turned her back.
