by Stephen Orr
‘He can find out anything about you, or your family.’
‘So? You threatening me?’
‘You following me?’
He got off his bike and took a few steps towards me. ‘You want a brawl?’
‘What?’
‘On the mound.’
‘What mound?’
And then he described what he’d done to boys a lot bigger and smarter and stronger than me. How he’d meet them on the hummocks behind the glass factory at Kilkenny. How he’d flatten them with a single punch. Right there, he said, pointing to his nose. Right in the middle of their face.
‘You do that to me, you’d be in juvenile detention,’ I said.
‘So?’
‘So.’ This was the level I’d been dragged down to. ‘My dad caught a murderer, and later on he was hung.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Bullshit nothing. I’ll show you the paper.’
‘Allan!’ Without him noticing it, Judy had picked up Allan’s bike and was riding it in circles around the roundabout. He shot after her but she was off at full speed down Thomas Street. She widened the gap. When she was far enough ahead she got off his bike and left it in the middle of the road in front of an oncoming car. Then she ran off. The car stopped and the driver got out and gave Allan a mouthful of abuse as he rescued his bike.
A few moments later Judy was standing beside me. ‘You can’t argue with people like that,’ she explained. ‘You just gotta show ’em who’s boss.’
I looked at her and smiled. ‘Who?’
‘Who do you think?’
The next day there was a fight, and she had her foot on his neck again, and that was the end of that. ‘See,’ she said to me, as she forced his face into the dirt, ‘it’s all about confidence.’
Mr Meus came and dragged her away by the ear.
Towards the end of March, I came home from school with sweaty socks down around my ankles, sauce dried on my lips, and texta on my nails and fingers. I found Dad and Bill sitting on our front porch. Dad was holding a thick book with a plain, brown cover, full of scraps, paper clippings, fabric samples and lolly papers.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, throwing my bag on the verandah.
Dad smiled. ‘Today’s excursion.’
He handed me the book and I sat down and flicked through it. It was a collection of articles about the Rileys, starting on 27 January and finishing about two weeks later. Each piece was neatly cut out, glued in and annotated in a barely legible scrawl of block letters. Most were from the Advertiser but some were from women’s magazines. I’d already seen most of them, cut out and kept by Mum in a shoebox.
I sniffed. ‘It smells funny.’
‘Piss,’ Dad replied.
The book contained a grease-stained bag from the Semaphore bakery, a train ticket from Adelaide station to Semaphore, a picture of a tall man (drawn on a full page) standing beside three children on a beach, and another sketch of three men sitting behind a desk with speech bubbles coming from their mouths, with the words: This sort of thing doesn’t happen on Adelaide.
Dad pointed to one of the men and said, ‘That’s me.’
I looked up. ‘You?’
‘On the telly.’
I sniffed the book again. ‘It smells like . . .’
‘Baby shit?’ Dad asked. ‘That’s because she found it at the dump.’
‘Who?’
‘This old girl, scavenging for bottles. She finds a suitcase and opens it and there it is.’
Dad described the scene when he arrived: a huge mountain of rubbish cordoned off with bunting, a few police cars, a sergeant, half a dozen constables and a thousand seagulls feeding on old lamb shanks and mouldy bread. He helped Bert climb the mountain and a pimply cadet showed them the case. They removed carefully folded nighties, frocks and underwear, hair combs and dental cases, a half-eaten packet of barley sugar, and the book, blowing open in the stench to reveal Anna’s face. There was a colour photo of Liz, sitting in her backyard with a handkerchief to her eye, and Bill, staring out across Semaphore beach, and even Bert and Dad, standing talking outside the caravan.
‘And there was an address, written on a tag,’ Dad said.
They were off again, motoring down Old Port Road, Bert sitting with the case on his lap, saying, ‘I can’t believe someone actually caught a train, and went to the bakery.’
Dad shrugged. ‘Mighta lived down there. What’s the date on the ticket?’
Bert flicked through the book. ‘February four.’
‘What do you reckon?’
‘Someone keeping a record of their deeds?’
‘Who’d be that stupid. And why’s it in a case of women’s clothing?’
‘An old woman.’
‘My uncle had dentures at forty-two.’
Bert smiled and held up a pair of potato-sack knickers. ‘But not a pair of these.’
They pulled up outside St Ann’s Nursing Home in Currie Street. Dad got out, adjusting his holster, already smelling the shit, boiled cabbage and floor polish. ‘This is it,’ he smiled to Bert. ‘Only another few years.’
‘Please, someone shoot me.’
An old woman on a walking-frame was watching them from a window. Dad waved and smiled. The woman opened the window and called out, ‘Do you know my son?’
And Dad replied, ‘We used to play golf.’
‘Where?’
‘St Andrew’s.’
They entered a foyer of dusty fabric azaleas, portraits of the Queen and Prince, and white couches soiled a deep yellow. Dad showed his charge card to a nurse and said, ‘Wonder if you know anything about this?’ He held up the brown case and the nurse’s eyes lit up. ‘Ah, Else.’
‘Else?’
‘She died last week. She didn’t have no relatives, so we ditched it.’
Dad undid the case and produced the book. He handed it to the nurse and she examined it. ‘Cripes . . . you gotta understand, Else was a special case.’
‘Special?’
‘How can I put it . . .’
‘She was loopy?’ Bert asked, and the nurse just smiled.
Dad’s heart sank. ‘So she had no friends, or relatives?’
‘No. There were other books. One about her brother, whose plane went missing in New Guinea.’
Sitting on the verandah, folding my legs, I closed the book. ‘But why would you bother?’ I asked.
‘Not a lot to do at St Ann’s,’ Dad replied.
Mum was standing in the doorway. She stepped outside. ‘I had an aunt who spent her days going to funerals,’ she said. ‘Anyone’s, but especially kids.’ She sat beside me. ‘How’s school?’
As I dissected my day, Liz approached from the direction of Elizabeth Street with a string bag full of shopping. She waved to us and opened her letterbox. Then she took out a letter, examining it from the front and back, and holding it up to the sun. She ripped it open, took out a note and read. ‘Christ!’
‘What is it?’ Bill asked.
Liz dropped her bag of shopping. A cardboard container popped open and eggs rolled everywhere but none of them broke. She held the fence-post with one hand and offered the letter to Bill, who jumped over a rosemary bush and ran to support her. He led her back to the verandah and sat her down next to Mum. Then he started to read aloud: ‘“Dear Mum and Dad. The man who’s looking after us told me I should write this letter. He is nice and cooks for us: roast pork with crackling, dumplings and apple pie. Also, he took us to the movies and bought Gavin and Anna some Coke and popcorn. We are fine and hope to see you very soon. Love from Janice. XXX”’
Liz took the letter back off him and read it again.
‘Is it Janice’s handwriting?’ Dad asked.
Liz was trembling. Bill held the letter for her. ‘I couldn’t tell,’ he said.
‘It is,’ Liz insisted. ‘I think.’ She reclaimed the letter, stood up and walked across the yard to her house. Then she turned off the sprinkler and went inside.
Bill l
ooked at Dad. ‘Surely it’s not a hoax.’
Dad shrugged. ‘It’s easy done.’
Bill dropped his head and stared at the weedy gravel. ‘Still, it doesn’t seem right.’
‘Why?’ Dad asked.
Bill looked up. ‘She wouldn’t clean her room if she didn’t want to. Then she sounds so happy . . . and she’d know what’s going on. She’d know.’
Liz returned with the letter that Bill had read out on television. We all huddled around and compared the two. There were similarities and differences. A capital S looked the same but is were dotted in one and not the other. The cursive leaned at the same thirty-degree angle we’d learnt from Mrs Headley’s slope cards, but then again, Dad pointed out, everyone learnt to write from a slope card, and anyway, the spacing between words varied between the two letters. ‘Maybe it’s them,’ Liz said, looking at Bill.
‘I wouldn’t get hopeful,’ he replied.
‘It sounds like her.’
‘It sounds like any kid.’
Bill looked at Dad. ‘Bob, tell her.’
‘Listen, we got fellas can look at it and tell you for sure. Let me make a phone call.’ He went into our house and soon I could hear him on the phone. Meanwhile, Liz kept looking at the letter. ‘I’ve got a good feeling,’ she said, holding Mum’s hand. ‘Wouldn’t it be good if he returned them, and all of this blew over, and in years to come we looked back on it like . . .’
The next day Dad rang Bill and Liz with the verdict: unlikely. But they couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure. So Liz held onto the letter, folding it into a small square and keeping it up her sleeve with her hankie, producing it every few hours, re-reading it and showing it to shopkeepers and well-wishers as Bill watched her with a sort of dread. ‘Liz, kids at that age, their writing looks the same.’
‘Nonsense. Writing’s as different as fingerprints. Anyway, what if it’s real, how would you feel, later?’
‘Liz, you’re just gonna end up . . .’
As she consoled herself with the thought of her children eating dumplings.
And then, a few days later, there was another note. Bill and Liz were waiting on the street when Dad and Bert pulled up. Liz put the small scrap in Dad’s hand before he was even out of the car.
‘“Dear Mum and Dad,”’ Dad read. ‘“The man says it’s time we came home now. He says you can collect us from the war memorial at Nhill. April 1. 12.00. Me and Gavin and Anna can’t wait to see you. From your loving daughter, Janice.”’ Dad looked up. ‘Tomorrow.’
Bert shook his head. ‘April Fool’s Day.’
Liz stood between the two detectives. ‘I’ll go, if someone will drive me.’
‘What about the Victorian coppers?’ Bert suggested.
‘No,’ Liz demanded, looking at the letter and reading. ‘He says it has to be us. Bill, me.’
Bert shook his head. ‘Liz . . .’
‘I gotta go.’
And he didn’t reply.
Bill looked confused. ‘We haven’t got much choice.’ He turned to Liz. ‘We’ll drive over tonight.’
‘No,’ Dad replied. ‘You come with us, Bill.’ He looked at Liz. ‘We’ll let you know as soon as we can.’
‘I want to come, Bob.’
‘Someone’s gotta be here, Liz.’
‘What if it’s them?’
‘Liz, someone’s gotta be here.’
She stopped, thinking, glaring at Dad.
Bert stayed the night at our place and at five o’clock the next morning the men set off. Liz, Mum and I stood waving at the end of our driveway. Liz kept saying, ‘Ring me with the news, any news,’ as the eastern horizon lightened through shades of purple, blue and aqua. Then we went into Liz’s for a breakfast of ham and eggs and baked beans. Liz kept filling my plate, urging me to eat up. She was in a buzz, a state of doing and talking that allowed her to avoid thinking about the phone call she was expecting – telling her what she already knew. But there was still some hope, and hope was good, like a freshly cooked breakfast at the start of a new day.
And here, again, I give you the story from what Dad told me later.
The government car headed up through the hills. Dad drove as Bert, sitting next to him, ate dry Weet-Bix from a paper bag. Sometimes he’d look at Dad and Dad would look back at him. ‘What?’
‘Your sleeping bag was cold.’
But it was hardly the sleeping bag. Bert was a man who liked to do things by the book. His father had been too, and would’ve made commissioner if only he’d been a mason. His dad was passed over again and again as a succession of lesser men got the job. Mateship had its limitations. That was the problem with Australia. That’s why they were off on another goose chase when they should’ve been following more tangible leads. These were his thoughts, as he sat feeling in his pocket for his tickets to the Monday night trots, looking at Dad without saying a word ‘What? You’ll be back in time,’ Dad said.
‘It’s not that,’ Bert pretended. ‘You should’ve told the DCI.’
‘Yeah, well that’s not how you get things done.’
But Bert wasn’t convinced. So he took out his notebook and pencil and wrote: 1/4/60 – journey to nhill, Vic, to follow up ‘Janices’ letter. Writing is not childs, but imitation of same – made feelings known to B. Explained alternatives. He was determined (again).
Bill, stretched out across the back seat, quietly strummed his ukulele as he hummed the melody to the ‘Jolly Brother’s Waltz’. ‘I used to play this debonair man,’ he explained, remembering. ‘Sebastian Stoller. I’d come on and slowly remove my gloves, top hat, scarf and coat. Three minutes it took me. Slower if I was gettin’ a laugh. Then I’d sing “The Poacher and the Bear” or “Old Top Hat”, and play piano and tell a few stories.’ He sat forward. ‘Bert, ask me how my brother’s gettin’ along.’
Bert frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Go on.’
‘How’s your brother getting along?’
Bill smiled. ‘He’s been arrested for drinking eau-de-cologne.’
Bert stared at him, convinced he wasn’t all there.
‘For drinking eau-de-cologne,’ Dad continued, remembering the skit. ‘What was the charge?’
Bill leaned forward. ‘Fragrancy.’
Dad smiled but Bert just lifted his eyebrows.
‘Fragrancy,’ Bill repeated, slapping Bert on the shoulder. ‘That used to get a big laugh.’
Bert looked back at him. ‘Where?’
‘The Tiv.’
Bill was walking from the stage, and he could hear the clap from each individual hand. Back in the car he looked out of the window at the Mount Lofty Ranges spread out in front of him, and wondered how he’d got from there to here. This was a thought he often had as he drove the highways and dirt roads of South Australia.
Bert, meanwhile, was still holding his notebook and pencil. He licked the one-inch long HB and wrote: BR, changeable character. one day a pillar of salt, the next a comedian . . . At quarter to twelve Dad and Bill sat on a bench beside the granite Anzac in the middle of Nhill’s main street. He was no ordinary Digger. He was a corpulent, middle-aged man who didn’t quite fit into his uniform. He was slightly effeminate and grinning, stretching his hand out to an angel – a stumpy little angel with an arm knocked off, dressed in a granite robe that blew in a wind smelling of pigs and April Violet from the frock salon – and wings, twice the size of his body, like some giant wedge-tailed eagle rising up over Nhill.
‘Is it just me?’ Dad asked, looking at the Digger.
‘What?’ Bill replied.
Dad indicated a squat man in shorts, abattoir boots and checked shirt who’d just walked past.
Bill smiled. ‘Maybe it’s his dad.’
The main street of Nhill was packed with utes and flattop trucks stacked high with hay. There was an occasional tractor and the local copper cruising up and down the main street, watching Dad and Bert with suspicion. He slowed and wound down his window. ‘You fellas okay?’
�
�Fine,’ Dad replied. ‘Lovely town.’
Bert sat on a bench along the main street outside a pet shop advertising Labradoors, Groomed and Vacsinated. He was watching for anything suspicious, or hopeful. So far there was just an old cocky, standing against the bank with his arms crossed, smiling at kids as they walked past. Not the criminal type, Bert supposed, writing in his notebook: Nearly midday. Nothing.
Dad looked at Bill. ‘You’re not gonna be disappointed, eh?’
Bill shrugged. ‘No, but stranger things have happened.’
‘What I mean is,’ Dad continued, leaning back and breathing the warm, beer-soaked air from the Commercial Hotel, ‘people don’t generally steal something, and get away with it, and then give it back.’
Bill looked up into the lino-blue sky and closed his eyes. ‘I know. I’m not stupid, Bob.’
‘And then get us to a small town, where the kids were sure to be noticed.’
‘I know.’
Dad was thinking about the carpet cleaning van with its Victorian plates.
Maybe some fella drove from Melbourne, he thought. Maybe he took them at random, and used them and killed them, dumping them on the way back. At Nhill? No, why would he draw attention to himself?
Usually, as details built up, a case would start to resolve itself, but not this time. Dad was back to his string of coded letters. Taman Shud. The End. Although now there were just some old chips and cigarette butts, and a franger that had dried up in the sun, a wreath of dead roses beneath the poofy Digger, a phone box with its door hanging off one hinge, and concrete paths, as thin as sliced cheese, crumbling like old poultry rations.
Dad looked at his watch. ‘Just about time,’ he whispered. He looked over at the pet shop and Bert shrugged, as if to say, Well, where’s your man?
‘Who would do something like this?’ Bill asked, grinding some old almond husks with his heel.
‘It comes with the publicity,’ Dad replied. He stood up and looked at his watch. It was midday. He turned in a slow, careful orbit, observing every detail of the landscape – every woman, every child – a sign-writer busy on the front window of C.B. Haese, Feedstore, a dog lifting its leg on a power pole, sniffing it and having another go, a man in overalls changing light globes in front of the Newline Cinema, and a builder removing cracked tiles from a butcher shop floor.
