by Stephen Orr
Dad looked at Bill. ‘Not everyone’s like you and me, Bill. Some people see a dog and they kick it.’
Bill stood up. ‘Hello,’ he shouted, and a few of the shoppers looked at him.
Ten past twelve, quarter past, half past – Bill cupped his hands and turned in a circle as he shouted, ‘Come on, I’m here, like you wanted.’
Dad stood beside him. ‘Come on, Bill.’
Bill sat down. ‘He’s not coming, is he?’
‘Probably not. Still, since we’ve come this far . . .’
Bert didn’t say a word, lift an eyebrow or offer an opinion, and they walked up and down the main street, going into the post office, the deli, the co-op and the car yard. Dad showed his charge card and a picture of the kids and explained why they were in Nhill. Middle-aged women, smelling of talc and pipe loaves, shook their heads and said, ‘No, a terrible shame . . . to think they might have been here . . . do you really think so?’
‘Probably not . . . thanks anyway.’
On the way back to Adelaide, Bill was nowhere near as entertaining. He just sat in the back, letting a breeze smelling of dry grass and native pines pass over his face. At one point he said, ‘I’m sorry fellas, I know it was a waste, but it was for Liz.’
Dad waited for Bert to say something, but he didn’t. ‘Wasn’t a waste, was it, Bert?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Bert replied.
‘Anyway, ’s just what we needed. Get away from town. Nothin’ worse than the same four walls.’ He stopped to think. ‘When I was about eighteen, me and ten other blokes, cadets, went up to Arno Bay. Ate chops for a week. Got pissed every night. I got burnt red on the first day and had to stay inside. They’re the things you do when you’re young. Dumb things. But things you remember, eh, Bert?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘You don’t remember doin’ the dishes and mowin’ the lawn.’ He looked in the rear-vision mirror. ‘You must have some stories, Bill. From when you were on the road.’
‘Yeah,’ Bill replied, watching a distant train blow puffs of black smoke into a sky bleached skull-white. He had lots to remember, but he wasn’t interested in brightening anyone’s day with anecdotes. No matter how much you remembered, you couldn’t go back. No matter how many paper clippings or how much sheet music propped up on the piano, no matter the certificates, or smells, or hair left in combs – no matter what anyone said or did. There was just an empty world filled with old stone walls and rusted barbed-wire fences twisted together like string. There was just a foal, grazing bare paddocks littered with stones.
‘What about when you stayed in country towns?’ Dad asked, looking back.
But Bill’s eyes were closed.
‘Let him sleep,’ Bert said.
Dad looked at Bert. ‘You gonna talk to me now?’
‘Don’t start.’
‘Well go on, say it.’
Bert looked ahead, through a windscreen coated with insects and bird shit. ‘I’ve already said it.’ He looked back, to make sure Bill was asleep. ‘Eh, Bill?’ he said.
No reply.
He stared ahead. ‘Remember when I rang the manager of the Snowtown pub?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The other day I rang him back. I said, “Thanks for handing on the message.” And he says, “What message?” Hold on, I think, then I say, “About Bill’s kids going missing.” “No,” he says. “He’d already gone, I didn’t tell him anything.”’
Dad looked at Bert and squinted. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘How did Bill know?’
‘He knew. The manager probably forgot he’d told him. Or he heard it somewhere.’
‘Couldn’t have. No one in the state knew then.’
‘Christ, Bert, so what do you reckon, that he – ’
‘We’re paid to ask questions, Bob.’
Dad pulled over into the shade of a giant callitris pine. He and Bert got out, closed their doors without slamming them and walked slowly towards an irrigation ditch. ‘You think I’m not doing my job properly?’ Dad asked, finding some tussocks to sit on.
‘Don’t get dramatic.’
‘Because I know Bill, and I know that he’d never . . . I can’t believe you’d even think that.’
He looked up at him, frowning, his cheeks compressed and his eyes narrowed. There was silence; just the whistle of a hawk searching for field mice, the chug of a distant tractor and the crackling and cooling of the engine.
‘It’s about ruling people out,’ Bert replied. ‘How do you know it wasn’t Bill driving that car down Main North Road that afternoon?’
‘Come on.’
‘How?’
Dad was having none of it. He stood up. ‘This is bullshit. If you want, you go and make a complaint about me.’ He stood up and returned to the car, climbing in and starting the engine. Bert stared out across a paddock, reaching down and pulling a flower from a tall weed. Dad sounded the horn. ‘Hurry up,’ he called.
As they drove Bert said, ‘You ask him then.’
‘You ask him.’
Bill could hear everything – the wind in his ears, the clicking of a rock in the tyre tread and Dean Martin singing under the hum of the motor.
‘Think of what he’s been through,’ Dad said.
As Bert licked the tip of his pencil.
That night Dad and Bill sat at our kitchen table going through the detective’s reports (searches at the dump, at the Gepps Cross abattoir and sewers under city streets). Dad produced a slim, paper-clipped file and handed it to Bill. ‘We thought there might haven been something in this one.’
Bill sat forward to read. ‘This the freighter?’
‘Yeah, the Devon.’
Detective Farrugia and myself spoke to each member of the crew. All were on board, unloading, on the 26th. The captain explained that no passes were issued until the 28th, when all of the lumber was finished.
Another hunch. One of Dad’s detectives had noticed that the Devon had been in Adelaide on 26 January and also in Melbourne six months earlier when a young girl had gone missing from Portsea.
‘Same thing in Melbourne,’ Dad explained. ‘They were all unloading.’
‘Is the captain telling the truth?’
‘Well, the harbourmaster reckons so, and we’d have to explain how a hundred ton of wood got onto the wharf.’
Bill returned the report. ‘Lot of muckin’ around, eh?’
Dad produced another clump of pages, paper-clipped together. ‘This one was a fresh grave at Flagstaff Hill. Turned out to be a horse.’ He smiled. ‘Took three cadets a day to dig it up.’ He looked at one last report, but dismissed it, and then said, ‘That’s it.’
Bill stared at him. He picked up his beer and drank it without tipping his head or dropping his gaze. ‘Nothing else?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing you wanna ask me?’
Dad looked puzzled. ‘Like what?’
‘Like what time I left the Snowtown pub that morning?’
Dad swigged his beer. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
Silence. The hum of the fridge motor. Dad wiped froth from his lips. ‘You weren’t asleep?’
‘I haven’t slept for two months.’
‘Listen, let me tell you something about Bert. If I went to the shithouse without washing my hands, he’d write it in his book.’
‘Bloke at the pub got it wrong,’ Bill explained. ‘Yes, I’d left, but I rang later. Thought I’d left my watch in my room. I’m useless without a watch. Anyway, I got the girl servin’ at the bar and she says, “We got a message for you. You gotta get home straight away.”’
Dad shook his head. ‘That’s what I told Bert. Someone’s said somethin’ to someone, or forgot.’
‘You tell Bert to call that pub back,’ Bill continued. ‘Tell him to talk to that girl. Tell him so there’s no more bulls-hittin’ around.’
‘Just forget it,’ Dad said.
‘Go on.’
‘
He’s a drama queen, Bill. Doesn’t like it that I’m in charge.’
‘Still, I’d like him to call. And an apology wouldn’t go astray.’
‘Forget it.’
‘Why should I?’
Dad talked slowly. ‘Then he’ll get his hackles up. I don’t want any more drama. I wanna concentrate on the kids, not Bert.’
Bill took a moment and then said, ‘Just as well you’ve got some common sense.’
Dad had a long, slow drink. ‘How long I known you, Bill?’
‘Too long.’
‘Exactly.’
Mum came in the front door. She looked in my room and saw me busy with my homework and said, ‘Good boy.’ Then she was off, storming down the hallway, fronting up to Dad and saying, ‘Thanks a bloody lot.’
‘What now?’ And then he remembered, looking at the appointment time he’d written on his hand and exclaiming, ‘Christ, I forgot all about it.’
I stalked down the hallway and watched from behind the arch. Mum threw her keys and purse on the bench and stood with her hands on her hips. ‘Yet again,’ she said.
Yet again. She’d had enough. Just like sports day, she said. I came, Dad replied, and she shook her head, Yes, as they were packing up. And what about that working bee, and what’s his teacher’s name, and what grade’s he in?
And there was more. Why didn’t he help with the shopping, she asked. Or mow the lawns or spray the weeds or stay home to babysit so she could go out occasionally? What about Con and Rosa, Dad replied. It’s not their job, she screamed. It’s yours. What about mopping the bathroom or hanging out the washing or paying a bill? All the time, just think about yourself!
‘Myself? Who pays for all this?’
She shoved a mop in his hand. ‘Good. You do it and I’ll get a job.’
‘As what?’
‘A doctor.’
‘A doctor?’
‘Six years at uni. I got the marks. You’ve just gotta support me, and watch Henry.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘Am I?’
Dad saw his job as more than just work. It was helping people out, holding the community together, it was a touch of Superman in the suburbs, it was about being there for people who relied on him, to find out who killed their husband or stole their kids. This, he thought, is what you just don’t understand, Ellen.
‘You want to know what his teacher said?’ she continued, stepping into the hallway and taking me around the shoulder. ‘He said he’s top of the class in English grammar and composition. Did you know that?’
Dad looked at me and smiled. ‘Good on you, Henry.’
Bill stood up. ‘I’ll see yers later then.’
‘Don’t go,’ Dad pleaded, sliding his beer in front of him.
‘No, gotta see how Liz is.’
And then he stood up and shuffled off.
‘Teacher says he’s been giving him three or four certificates a week,’ Mum said, looking at me. ‘Where are they, Henry?’
‘In my drawer.’
‘Why?’
‘I guessed everyone was too busy.’
Mum turned back to Dad. ‘See.’
Dad knelt down in front of me. ‘I’m never too busy. Go get them and show us.’
I returned to my room, pretending to search for the certificates I knew I’d already thrown away. I could still hear them going their hardest in the kitchen. ‘It’s the job,’ Dad said. ‘Criminals don’t keep regular hours.’
‘So? I reckon you prefer it to being here.’
‘Grow up.’
‘If I’m just here to cook, I’ll go. I swear, I’ll go.’
‘You will not.’
‘Try me.’
Stand-off. It was the first time I’d ever heard her mention this.
‘I could set myself up. I could study. I could get a good job. I could do something with my life.’
Dad sounded half-shocked, half-angry. ‘All because I missed parent/teacher night?’
‘No, that’s just the start of it.’
‘Please, Ellen.’
Silence again.
‘If you want to discuss this,’ he continued, ‘we’ll do it later.’
‘I’m sick of washin’ your socks.’
‘Later.’
By now I’d retrieved the certificates from my bin and was sticky-taping them back together. I didn’t know what to do next.
Dad was right, she wasn’t an easy woman to love.
Chapter Eight
On the evening of the tenth of May we sat in front of the telly watching images of a man who looked like a bank manager, standing with his hands behind his back, adjusting his glasses. He wore business pants and a white shirt and it looked like he hadn’t shaved for days.
He was the real thing. He was no air-conditioner mechanic. When Adolf Eichmann looked at the camera it was enough to make you hide behind the curtains. He had no expression – no hate, no anger, no pity. The Israeli Secret Service had caught him getting off a bus, walking home, lighting up a cigarette and whistling, smelling roses in a Rio de Janiero front yard, exchanging greetings with neighbours who’d lent him tools and baking soda.
‘It just goes to show,’ Dad said, thinking, ‘people can turn it on and off.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Whatever it is that . . .’ He stopped. ‘Evil’ was a word tainted by Hollywood villains, cheap and nasty crime novels and the Bible. But that’s what he meant, I suppose. Evil: the man in the blue bathers, watching the Rileys, approaching them, playing with them, dressing them and walking them to his car. And later that night, arriving home to his own wife and children. ‘Did you have a good day, kids? So-and-so, what did you do to your arm? Come here, let me take a look at it.’
‘What will they do with him now?’ I asked.
Mum nearly laughed. ‘What do you think?’
‘Execute him?’
Dad was looking intently at Eichmann’s face. ‘And to think, he nearly got away with it. If not for a bit of bad luck.’
An informant, a neighbour, a car hire receipt or a chance sighting, all the things Dad had been hoping for. His only consolation was that if it took fifteen years to find Eichmann, maybe he just needed to be patient.
We were interrupted by a knock at the door. Mum got up and answered it and showed Mr Eckert into our lounge room.
‘You’ll never guess,’ Don said, looking at Dad, warming his hands in the change-pocket of his apron.
‘They got Eichmann,’ Dad replied, indicating.
‘I know. You’ll never guess, Bob.’
‘What?’
‘They smashed my front window.’
Dad looked up. ‘Who?’
‘Those Arthurson kids.’
‘You sure?’
‘Hundred per cent. I saw ’em riding past. The girl takes a rock and hurls it. Glass everywhere. Over me fruit and veg. I’ll have to throw the whole lot out.’
‘You sure it was them?’
‘Who else would it be?’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘Yes, I’m sure. I had to duck, or else it would’ve been all over me. I’m gonna have to empty the shelves and clean the whole place out.’
Dad stared at images of Auschwitz, Birkenau and Dachau, of SS officers celebrating in their mess. ‘Call the police, Don.’
‘You want me to?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’ He turned to leave, but stopped and pinched the tip of my nose. ‘How’s school?’ I told him it was still there. Then he showed himself out.
‘Christ!’ Dad exclaimed, pulling on his shoes and tying them.
‘What?’ Mum asked.
‘I’ll help with the dishes after.’
‘Let him call the police.’
But Dad just shook his head. ‘Talk about bloody Eichmann.’ He stood up and walked into the hall. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Bob,’ Mum harped.
‘A few words and it’s solved,’ he replied, tr
ipping over the rug and stumbling out the front door.
‘Bob.’ She slammed the door after him and stormed down the hallway into the kitchen. ‘Henry, come and help,’ she called, but I was already on the front porch, setting out after Dad.
Don and Dad were standing together examining a penny-sized hole in the glass when I approached them. Dad had already teased the truth out of Don, that he hadn’t been in the shop at the time but out back listening to the trots. He’d heard the glass break and rushed out to see the back of two shadowy figures riding down Day Terrace. He’d rushed out and called after them, ‘There’s no point running,’ and the two cyclists had stopped, looked back and wondered what the hell he was talking about.
Dad looked at the hole in the glass and said, ‘It’s like a bullet, eh?’
‘No, I found the stone,’ Don corrected.
‘I didn’t actually mean it was, Don.’
‘Eh?’
Dad smiled. ‘Well, I reckon you call your insurance company.’ And with that Dad turned and headed home, waving a single finger for me to follow. Don stood under yellow light, his mouth open, a few moths buzzing around his head.
The next morning, as sunlight warmed the air, and Mr Hessian raked leaves from his lawn and threw them back over Con and Rosa’s fence, I sat behind the overgrown golden diosma beside our driveway. It was the same spot we’d sold lemonade that day, and I could see the rise in the road where we’d put the stumps for cricket. I could see Janice, drawing in chalk on the pavement.
He was looking for you, I said.
Who was? she asked, noticing me, blowing chalk dust from her fingers.
That German fella, I replied. Stumpf, or something like that.
He was a clairvoyant. Your mum’s old boss paid for him to come from Germany. She showed him around your house, and bedroom, and even out here, where we played cricket.
Janice continued drawing. What a load of bullshit, she said.
That’s what your dad said, I told her. He wouldn’t have a bar of it.
Stumpf, Liz and her old boss, a Greek who’d made his fortune building blocks of flats, had walked around the garden. Stumpf was a tall, heavy-set man in a suit that was too small for him.
‘And here, the children often played here?’ he had asked.
