‘Oh, yes,’ said Dad.
So he rang Bob Munn again.
CHAPTER 27
Myra and Johnnie
Myra rang that night. It was strange, almost as though she knew we’d been talking about her.
‘I just rang to see if you’d heard anything,’ she said. ‘To see if there was anything I could do?’
And I thought, You just want to know if the police suspect you, as well as Johnnie. That’s the only reason you rang.
But I just said stiffly that, no, there was nothing new, and I was fine thanks, and I’d tell Dad she’d rung.
I know she thought I sounded a bit odd but maybe she just put it down to my being upset, because she just said gently, ‘Take care of yourself, Sara,’ before she put the phone down.
I started to watch after that.
I went to the café sometimes after school, before I went to Mum’s place, in case Johnnie was there, or Myra.
I walked past the football matches at the rec ground on Saturday mornings while Dad got the groceries, to see if Myra might be watching Johnnie play.
I watched at the school play to see if they sat together and on Heritage Day to see if they looked at each other across the crowd in the way people do even if they’re pretending they’re not looking at all. Or if they carefully didn’t look at each other in the way that people do.
But I never saw them together at all.
That might mean anything, of course. They know they couldn’t be seen together for years, maybe, or people might suspect.
And then maybe Johnnie wasn’t in love with Myra even if she was in love with him.
And I thought, Well, if she realises that, maybe one day she’ll confess to the police, to get even with him. Maybe one day if he goes out with someone else …
But Johnnie didn’t go out with anybody else either.
I wondered if the police were watching Johnnie and Myra too, after Dad had told them our suspicions, but they couldn’t have been because there were no strangers in town to watch anyone. Of course, they might have asked Constable Severn to keep a watch out, but he’s got all the police stuff for a hundred kilometres to do. I didn’t think he’d have much time to think of Reenie.
I wondered if the police were doing anything, anything at all?
And I kept on watching.
CHAPTER 28
The Rubbish Bin
The trouble is when people disappear, you keep on thinking.
It’s different when someone dies. When Grandpa died I cried for ages. It still hurts now sometimes when I think, I must tell Grandpa that, then realise I can’t. I’ll never tell him anything again.
But even though I miss Grandpa—we used to talk together for hours sometimes, just the two of us, about all sorts of things—I didn’t have to THINK when he died. All I had to do was cry and remember him.
It wasn’t like that with Reenie.
It was like I HAD to keep thinking about it. I mean someone had to sort it all out, how it happened and WHY it happened and it may as well be me.
So I just went over it and over it, sometimes just in my head and sometimes with Dad or Mum. Sometimes it seemed we did hardly anything else that winter, except go over every detail in case there was something that we’d missed.
And of course I talked about it with Di.
Di and I have been friends since pre-school. It’s funny how that happens sometimes. I mean we’re interested in the same sort of stuff, of course—books and the same music and NOT in horses—but we didn’t know that back in pre-school.
We just liked each other.
We even look alike in some ways. We are both short and we’ve both got long, brown hair, though Di’s got brown eyes and an olive skin that never burns at all, even when she forgets to put on sunburn cream at the swimming carnival, and I’ve got green eyes, like Dad.
I suppose a friend is someone you can talk to about anything, like you’re both on the same TV channel. It’s like that with Di and me. We talk about all sorts of things. And when Reenie disappeared, we talked about that too.
‘But the thing is,’ said Di (we were sitting in the rotunda in the park in town—it’s one of the few places you can go in town if you don’t have money to buy a milkshake), ‘even if he did kill her in the flat, how would he have got rid of the body?’
‘He could have put her in his ute and taken her somewhere.’
‘But someone might have seen him—even late at night people can be wandering around. He’d have to get all the way down the back steps, then along by the hardware store and out to the road,’ said Di.
She was right. Even if he’d wrapped her up in a blanket or a garbage bag, someone would have thought it looked strange and …
‘The garbage bin,’ I said slowly. ‘That’s what he could have put her in. No one thinks it odd if you’re wheeling a garbage bin.’
Di blinked. ‘But … but you couldn’t fit a person in a garbage bin!’
‘I bet you could. If you scrunched them up.’
‘But …’ Di shook her head.
‘Let’s try it then.’
‘What?’ Di looked at me like I was crazy. But then it was just a puzzle to her. It didn’t really matter. She didn’t really have to know, like I did.
But she followed me anyway. Down to Mum’s place. Mum was at a meeting at the school, so there was no one home. I let myself in and called out, just in case, and checked the answering machine for messages. That’s something we all did all the time … it was habit by then.
Di followed me inside.
‘The garbage bin’s out the front,’ she said.
I nodded. I’d forgotten it was garbage night tonight. Mum must have put the bin out before she went to work.
‘I’ll take it into the garage.’
‘Why?’ asked Di.
I blinked at her. ‘I’m not going to try this where everyone can see.’
‘Oh,’ said Di. She nodded.
I just hoped the bin wasn’t too full.
I grabbed the bin and wheeled it up the drive to the garage, then opened the door and wheeled it inside. Di came in and shut the doors.
It was gloomy in the garage, but not too bad. There’s a window on one side that lets some light in.
Di stared at the garbage bin, like she’d never seen one before. I opened the lid. It was about a third full—not too bad. I started hauling out the garbage bags.
‘What are you doing?’ protested Di.
‘I can’t get in with all this stuff in there, can I?’ I asked reasonably.
‘You’re not really getting IN there?’
‘How else can we tell if someone can fit?’
Di shrugged and started to help. Luckily Mum is as neat with her garbage as she is with everything else. All the bags were perfectly tied and none of them leaked. Even the bin had been cleaned at some time not too far past.
The bin was too high to just jump into. I grabbed an old milk crate in the corner and stood on that, then swung my leg over the edge.
‘Hold it steady,’ I ordered.
Di grabbed the side. ‘It keeps on rocking,’ she said.
‘Well, try.’ I swung the other leg over. The edge scraped the backs of my thighs as I jumped down.
It smelt, but not too bad. It wasn’t as wide as I thought, or maybe I’m wider. Suddenly I had to suppress a desire to giggle. I tried to crouch.
Down, down. ‘Is my head below the top yet?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Di. Her voice sounded strange, as though maybe she was picturing Reenie’s body in the bin, not mine.
‘Close the lid,’ I said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
The lid clunked above me.
It was dark. It was stuffy. It was cold. I hadn’t realised inside a rubbish bin would be cold, away from all the sun. Smells that I hadn’t noticed before clung all around me.
For a horrible moment I wondered if Di had latched it. If, when I tried to get up, the
lid wouldn’t open. If I’d be here till the air ran out and all that was left were the smells.
Di opened the lid again.
‘You were right.’ Her voice was still subdued.
I stood up. It was harder getting out than getting in, but finally Di sort of levered it down to the ground and I crawled out instead.
We loaded the garbage bags into the bin and hauled it back out to the footpath.
Di looked at me uncertainly. ‘I … I’d better go home,’ she said.
I nodded. I knew she didn’t have to get home for ages, but I felt the same way; as if there was too much in my head and I wanted to be by myself to sort it out.
So Di went home and I went in to wash before Mum came home and wondered why I smelt of old orange peel.
But there was no way to wash away the image of Reenie’s body, crammed in the bin.
CHAPTER 29
How to Hide a Body
How many ways are there to get rid of a body? The more you think about it, the more you find.
You can bury them in the garden and plant petunias on top, so it just looks like a flower-bed. But, of course, someone might look over the fence and see you.
You can hide them in a chest up in the attic, like they do in all those movies. Of course, none of the houses around here have attics or basements or the places murderers use on TV. But I suppose you could put a body under the bed in the spare room instead, in lots of garbage bags to stop the smell.
You can bury them under the house, if you can crawl under there.
And, of course, if you can get the body into your car you can take them anywhere and bury them anywhere, or put weights on their legs like gangsters do so they sink in the harbour or the river.
But this was Reenie I was thinking about. Reenie! Things like that couldn’t happen to Reenie.
And I thought: How she’d have hated all this, all this talk about her, all this wondering and speculating. Because Reenie was the sort of person no one gossiped about at all.
CHAPTER 30
Johnnie
‘Hello Sara!’ said Johnnie. His smile was wide and relaxed. Just a bit too wide and relaxed, I thought, as I tried to smile back too.
‘Er … hi,’ I said.
It was Saturday morning at the café. I had changed my books at the library and visited Grandma at the hospital—as I do every Saturday (though it has been ages since she knew who I was or even that there was anyone visiting her at all)—then I had gone to the café to meet Dad, because if he gets talking to someone at the stock and station agents he can be there for hours, so it’s easier for me to meet him there. I can have a milkshake and read my books if there’s no one to talk to.
But mostly there is.
The café smelt of raisin toast and coffee and damp dog. It was raining outside, great slow drops like they were in no hurry to get anywhere and Sylvia’s Great Dane was sleeping under one of the tables on the verandah with the bone from the pea and ham soup lying next to him.
He’s not officially allowed inside, of course, but everyone knows Sylvia only boots him out just before the café opens.
The café was crowded, as it always is on Saturdays, especially when it’s raining. I knew it would be hard to find somewhere to sit unless there was someone I knew with a spare seat at their table. But the first person I saw was Johnnie, with his grin, his great big, much too casual grin.
‘Come and sit down,’ said Johnnie.
Well, that’s what you always say, isn’t it, if someone you know comes into the café? Except Johnnie was years older than me and he was sitting there with two of his mates, who were years older than me, too, and he’d never even noticed me before except to nod or to give Reenie that birthday present for me. Why should he?
But he was sure as pickled cucumbers being friendly to me now.
The buzz of conversation died down around the café. People were watching. People who had been talking about Reenie and Johnnie, and did he kill her or did she just walk away and what do Reenie’s family think?
So I sat down at his table.
Sylvia came up at once, though there were other people waiting to be served. She gave Johnnie a sharp glance, then turned to me.
‘Hi, Sara. What do you want today? Vanilla milkshake like always?’
‘Yes, please. With—’
‘With extra ice-cream,’ said Sylvia, writing it down on her pad.
Actually I’d been thinking I might have a hot chocolate for a change, and maybe a melting moment, but I didn’t want to trust my voice.
Sylvia gave me a smile and touched my shoulder for a second, as though to say, ‘I’m here if you need me.’
Then she disappeared through the kitchen door and I was stuck with Johnnie, still with that careful grin, and his mates, who weren’t smiling at all.
‘This is Sara,’ said Johnnie, as though they didn’t know. ‘Sara, this is Dave and this is Tom.’
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ said Tom. He was big—big-boned I mean, not fat—with sandy hair. I’d seen him around before, but hadn’t really noticed him. Dave didn’t say anything.
There was silence for a minute, unless you count the singsong mutters all around.
‘Well, how have things been?’ asked Johnnie.
Well, my sister has disappeared and we’ve all been wondering if you killed her. What did he expect me to say? ‘Oh, fine,’ I said.
More silence. Dave took a mouthful of his hot chocolate. It smelled good. ‘How are things with you?’
Johnnie’s grin froze ever so slightly. My girlfriend has disappeared and everyone thinks I did it, including you most probably, said the tension behind his grin. ‘Fine,’ he agreed.
‘It’s good rain,’ said Tom. ‘We must have got ten mils out our way.’
You could almost hear him thinking, must keep talking, must keep this looking normal, for Johnnie’s sake. ‘How much did you get?’ he asked me.
‘Dad hadn’t looked at the rain gauge when we left,’ I said gratefully. ‘But I’d say about ten mils too.’
‘Well, we needed it,’ said Tom, glancing up at Johnnie as though to say, Come on, do your share.
‘The place has been pretty dry,’ said Johnnie. ‘I bet your dad’s glad of it.’
‘Yes,’ I said, wondering frantically how to spin this out any further. ‘He said how great it was as we drove into town.’
Sylvia brought my milkshake. There were still lots of people waiting, but she stopped at our table anyway.
‘Nice rain, isn’t it?’ she asked.
Everyone nodded.
‘It must have been getting pretty dry out your way?’
More nods.
Even Sylvia couldn’t find anything to say after that and, anyway, the customers were two deep at the counter, waiting to pay. So she dashed off and the silence grew deeper because, after all, what did we have to talk about, except the stuff we couldn’t talk about.
I sucked as hard on my straw as I could without making a rude noise to try and get rid of the milkshake. More silence, except for a slurp I couldn’t help when the ice-cream got caught on my straw, then gave way. Then Tom said:
‘You going to watch the game this afternoon?’
It wasn’t directed at me and I was grateful for that, too. The three of them started to talk about the football, mostly Tom asking the others questions, then they all more or less joined in, sort of stilted, because I was there, but at least they were talking.
I tried to look as interested as I could till my milkshake was finished. People weren’t staring at us now, just sort of glancing over their cups of coffee now and then in case they’d missed something.
I got to my feet. ‘I’d better go and meet Dad,’ I said. ‘He’ll be wondering where I am.’
Dad would still be chatting away at the stock and station agent’s, but there was no way I was going to stay there any longer.
Johnnie’s grin appeared again. ‘Well, it was good to see you again, Sara. Say h
ello to your mum and dad for me.’
‘Sure,’ I said. There was no point my saying the same to him, because I didn’t really know them and, anyway, his Mum wasn’t speaking to me.
‘See you,’ I said, and went up to the counter to pay my bill.
There were people in front of me, so I had to wait a couple of minutes. I was nearly at the front when someone touched my shoulder. It was Johnnie’s friend, Tom.
‘I’ll pay for it,’ he said.
‘No, it’s okay—’ I began.
‘No, really. You pop off and find your dad.’
He seemed pretty determined, so I just said, ‘Thank you.’
‘No problems,’ said Tom. His eyes were this rich brown, like soil’s supposed to be but never is. He hesitated. ‘Look, I’m really sorry about your sister. About Reenie.’
He wasn’t being Johnnie’s friend now. He wasn’t putting on an act. He was talking to me as though he really meant it and he wanted me to know.
‘Thank you,’ I said again. Then I left the café.
CHAPTER 31
Tom
The hills on the way home were all damp and faded looking. In spring or summer rains they have a green fuzz, but now in winter they just looked wet and more miserable than ever.
‘Dad?’
‘Mmmm,’ said Dad, avoiding a pot-hole.
‘I saw Johnnie in the café.’
Dad glanced at me, then looked back at the road. ‘Did he say anything?’
‘Sort of. He asked me to sit down with him and his friends. But he was really nice and everything.’
‘I suppose he would be,’ said Dad non-committally.
The ute splashed through the low spot before the gravel road starts, then bumped as it left the bitumen. Dad slowed down a bit, though he’s used to the gravel so he still goes faster than most people.
‘Dad. Do you know Johnnie’s friend, Tom?’
‘Tom? That’d be Tom Burnley. Was he there as well?’
I nodded. ‘Tom and Dave.’
‘Tom Burnley’s at uni now, up in Sydney. Engineering, I think. It must be uni holidays. He was always a nice kid, Tom Burnley.’
Missing You, Love Sara Page 7
