Pig Boy

by J. C. Burke

  ‘Try us,’ replies Peels.

  ‘You know the body of the man they found in the river?’ I begin my story. My eyes are closed because it’s easier to describe what happened if I follow it in my head like a film playing. Soon my fingertips are tingling with pins and needles because my hands are gripping the sides of the chair so tight. I am careful not to skip a detail, careful to keep my voice steady.

  It’s not until I’m telling the part about Steven Marshall pointing the gun against the man’s head that my eyes open. They open so I don’t have to see his face, don’t have to relive my darkest moment. But Peels and Graham are watching me like I’m at the end of a joke, about to deliver the punchline.

  However, I am patient and calm and stare at the space between them until I am finished. ‘That is the truth. I took the AK-47 because I was scared and, and I panicked. I was convinced the Marshall brothers would come back to get me.’ Now it’s loaded with irony but I say, ‘Come back to get me and my mother.’

  ‘Gee, that’s a cheeky place to execute someone,’ Graham says to Peels. ‘In that scrappy bit of bush virtually next door to the high school,’ he continues. ‘I’m surprised no one reported the sound.’

  ‘There was no sound,’ I hiss.

  ‘Ohhh,’ he replies. ‘They used a silencer, hey?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So you’re telling us that Steven and Billy Marshall left the body and the AK-47 in the bush? Kind of like saying they had a picnic and left their rubbish there?’ Peels asks. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Look,’ I tell them. ‘Didn’t you go down there to break up a fight between them? Surely that’s proof.’

  ‘Oh, were they arguing about who was going to drag away the body? Why didn’t we understand that?’ Graham gives Peels a grin. ‘I bet the one with the bung foot got that job. That’s Billy, isn’t it?’

  ‘They would’ve been looking for the bag,’ I hiss. ‘Obviously the body wasn’t still there.’

  ‘So when did they come back for the body, Damon?’

  My mouth automatically opens to say they probably came back a couple of hours later. But I catch myself and just say, ‘How would I know?’

  ‘So you don’t know?’ Graham feigns surprise. ‘But you seem to know everything else.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘So, let me get this straight,’ Peels says. ‘You are suggesting that they overlooked every bit of incriminating evidence and simply left the scene of the murder straight away? Left the body and the AK-47 in the bag? Bang, shoot the dude and they were out of there. Doesn’t sound like the Marshall boys we know.’

  ‘It sure doesn’t.’ Graham is smirking. I shove my hands under my thighs because my fingertips are beginning to twitch, like a tic I can’t control. ‘Why do you think Steven and Billy Marshall left, Damon? What’s your theory?’

  ‘Well, obviously that’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about,’ I say to them. ‘That thought has turned over in my head so many times. Did they panic, is that why they left? Or was it because they heard a noise? Or because they saw me? I was sure, sure they must’ve seen me. I promise. I give you my word.’

  ‘And this man that you’re alleging Steven Marshall shot,’ Peels asks, ‘is the same man whose body was found in the Clancy River?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you see them throw the body in the river as well?’ asks Graham.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you know it’s the same man.’

  My hands fly into the air as I yell, ‘How many fucking bodies do they find in Strathven with a gunshot to the head!’

  Graham thumps the desk and the folders jump. ‘I’d say a lot more, Mr Styles, if your good mother hadn’t shown the courage to call us.’

  I AM IN A CELL. Along the back wall is a bench lined with a thin plastic mattress. First sniff and the disinfectant almost knocks you out. But with every subsequent one the perfume of bodily fluids grows sharper.

  Patches of graffiti are dotted along the walls. They’re like pieces of advice, a thread of conversation between the prisoner before and the one before that and the one before that.

  A sketch of a dragon catches my eye. Its tail fans out like the leaf of a dope plant. The detail is incredible if you study it up close. The guy who drew it had to have been in this cell for days. I wonder how long they will keep me in here.

  For now, Peels and Graham have left me alone. But they’ll be back. Their parting words were that they were giving me a chance to rethink my story. Peels said he would organise some dinner and Graham suggested that a full stomach might help to clear my mind. I don’t expect them to say they’ll check out my story. I’m beyond that hope. But I swear I saw them glancing at each other, as if there was some recognition of what I was saying.

  It’s 8.51 pm. More than twenty-four hours since I’ve eaten but I’m not sure my stomach could welcome food. Besides, growling down a meal is almost an admission of guilt and I know Peels and Graham are looking for any sign.

  I stretch out on the plastic mattress and wrap my arms over my face so that the fluorescent light is dimmed for a while. Being here still doesn’t feel real. It’s more like I’m shadowing a bloke who looks and sounds like me. I feel bad for him. I can sense how ripped off he feels. In Strathven there’s none of the innocent-before-proven-guilty stuff that our democratic society brags of. Regardless of what this kid here says, the cops think he’s planning a shoot-out somewhere. In fact, they’re convinced of it. But they don’t know the first thing about him. They have no idea that he’s terrified of guns. They’re just like the Year 1 teacher who didn’t know how much he loved animals, and that he would never ever tip pencil sharpenings into the class’s fish tank.

  The flap at the bottom of the door opens and a tray appears.

  ‘I’ll come back for it in fifteen minutes.’ It’s the old desk officer speaking. ‘Enjoy your meal.’

  The smell has carried me straight back to the kitchen at home. It’s the same frozen lasagne the old girl buys. I hold the foil dish up to my face and inhale the scent of the creamy cheese sauce. Suddenly days at home with Mum seem like a sick and dirty joke. I drop the meal, spilling half of it on the tray. I am doubled over, my arms wrapped around my sides because the dead space inside me spasms like a violent cramp reeling through my body. What kind of mother grasses on her son?

  When finally I can uncurl myself, I stand up and carry the tray to the flap at the bottom of the door. For a second I wait. There’s someone heading towards my cell and I’m certain I can hear the squeak of nylon stockings. I straighten my t-shirt and rake my fingers through my hair.

  The bolt unlocks and the door begins to open. The old cop is clearly saying ‘in here’. Counting to three, I take a step back and prepare to face my mother. But it’s not her. She hasn’t come to see me, to check if I’m all right. It’s the policewoman from home, the one that looked after Mum. She’s wearing the pantyhose.

  They stroll into my cell like they can’t even see me. The door slams behind them.

  ‘It’s this camera in here,’ he’s saying. ‘It could be a battery.’

  ‘No, this has happened before,’ she answers. She’s holding a remote, pressing buttons until a red light appears. ‘There we are.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say.

  ‘What’s up?’ At least he bothers to reply. The woman doesn’t even turn her head.

  ‘I wanted to ask the police lady how my mother is? You were looking after her back at the house.’

  ‘How do you reckon she is,’ the lady grunts.

  ‘What about the dog? Did Mum go back …’

  But they’ve left and the door locks behind them.

  It’s a second before I can move. Then I stagger back to the bed, climbing onto the mattress and curling into a ball. I lie here facing the wall while my finger traces around and around the dragon’s tail.

  ‘Mr Styles? Mr Styles?’ I hear the window at the top of my cell door slide open.
I roll over and see the old cop’s face peering through the bars. ‘Mr Styles. I have a message for you.’

  The clock says 10.05 pm.

  ‘Mr Styles?’

  I sit up slowly, like a crusty old man. My back aches and I wonder, if I straighten my spine will it snap in two?

  ‘Mr Styles, I have a message,’ he says again. He’s waving a bit of paper through the bars. ‘I promised that I’d read it out to you. It’s from Mr Miro. He insisted that he write it out word for word.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  He begins, ‘“I would very much like to say that I think of him always and I am not very far. Remember to be patient and remember I am your friend. Miro.”’ He folds up the paper and holds it through the bars. ‘Here, take it.’

  ‘Did he say where he was staying?’

  ‘No. He just said he wasn’t very far away.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’

  I wait for the sliding window to shut before I open the corners of the letter and read it for myself.

  This is the first time I’ve seen Miro’s handwriting. The fussy curls and his offbeat placing of words makes me smile. Yet it kills me too. I am not forgettable.

  When I’m lying down I hold his message to my nose and breathe it in, as though hidden in the words is an elixir for strength. All I can smell is ink and new office paper but his hands have touched it and that’s more, much more, than I could’ve hoped for tonight.

  The pungent odour of three men who’ve been in the same shirts all day and night sits in the air, going nowhere. I concentrate on breathing through my mouth.

  Perhaps it’s because I had a nap – it was a short but deep sleep, the total exit from reality that only comes after a good cry – but at this moment I actually don’t feel too bad. The post-tear peace is still with me and I begin to notice things about Interview Room 1 that I hadn’t before.

  Along the grey floor, as straight as a ruler, is a long scratch mark like someone has dragged a chair across it. The fourth last panel in the ceiling is drooping, threatening to cave in on us, which for me would be the preferred outcome.

  It’s 11.45 pm and Peels is listing all the games I’ve played over the last few months. They’re fixated on Independence Day at Liberty High. Unfortunately for me, it is the most recent game I played. But if they studied the record a bit harder they’d also see it’s the game I’ve played the least. But I would guess they’re hanging a large part of their hypothesis on the fact that I even own it.

  ‘Are you aware this game is prohibited in Australia?’ Peels asks me.

  ‘I know it’s RC, as in Refused Classification,’ I explain. ‘But I didn’t buy it here. I bought it over the net. The game was sent from America. It’s not illegal there.’

  ‘Senior Constable Peels and I have had a good look at Independence Day at Liberty High and so has our computer expert,’ explains Graham.

  ‘You have a computer expert here? In Strathven?’

  Graham ignores my question and keeps talking. ‘It’s a nasty, nasty game with an extremely high level of violence. So why’s an intelligent bloke like you wanting to play a game like that? Please explain this to us.’

  ‘I’ve only played it a few times.’

  Graham pushes. ‘But why did you even want to own it?’

  ‘The graphics are probably the best around,’ I answer. ‘That’s why. The game itself is pretty lame.’ Before Peels and Graham have a chance to flinch, I add, ‘There’re some, some fundamental problems with the way the levels are designed. That’s why I hardly ever play it. It’s not that interesting.’

  ‘The name you play under is The Prophet of Doom,’ says Peels.

  ‘Yes. But mostly I just get called Prophet.’

  ‘But that’s your full gaming title?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Prophet of Doom,’ Graham says. He’s leaning back in the chair with his arms crossed. His ‘Mr Nice Guy, I understand how you feel and I’m going to trick you into saying things’ act is well past its expiry date, which gives me an advantage because at least I know where he stands. ‘What exactly does that mean, The Prophet of Doom?’

  ‘It’s what the Prophet Jeremiah is sometimes referred to,’ I answer. I detect that Graham is stupid, probably quite uneducated. Peels is definitely the brighter one. But how bright, I’m still not sure. So I bung on the intelligence act that I haven’t played since my last English class with Mrs Finch. ‘They called Jeremiah the Prophet of Doom because he predicted disaster.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Jeremiah was perplexed by the low moral condition of man and the social injustices around him. He wasn’t popular. He was lowered into a pit and left to die but a man who loved Jeremiah very much hauled him out of the pit with ropes. I believe that Jeremiah probably thought too much and too hard about everything. He was that type of man. Of course, he’s also called The Crying Prophet. But I wouldn’t want to game under that name.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about this Prophet of Doom,’ Graham says. The smirk is hiding inside his lips. He won’t let it escape but I can spot it. I have had years of practise with Pascoe. ‘You’ve done a lot of research on him.’

  ‘No,’ I reply. Now the smirk hides inside my lips. ‘We learnt about him in scripture in Year 1. That’s all.’

  Peels the party pooper stops my fun. ‘You seem to enjoy these sniper-style mercenary games.’

  ‘They make him feel like a man, Senior Detective,’ butts in Graham.

  I roll my eyes. ‘No comment,’ I groan.

  We’re all sitting back in our chairs with our arms crossed. It’s as though we’re playing a game of Simon Says but at this exact moment, I’m not sure who Simon is.

  What I do know is that a few more ‘no comments’ might go flying their way. Why should I cooperate with them? They don’t believe me. They don’t even want to believe me. They’re not going to check out my statement that the police went down to the bush early one morning to break up a fight between Steven and Billy Marshall. Why would they? I don’t count. Actually, I do count but not for any reasons that benefit me.

  ‘Last week we had a visit from a parent whose child is a student at Strathven High,’ begins Peels. ‘He came to us in considerable distress after he recognised you in a safety awareness course at the Mereton Shooting Club’.

  I keep my expression bland, another trick I perfected in Pascoe’s office. ‘Look, I received my renewal papers in the post just like everyone else. I told you I wasn’t charged with the incident at Year 10 camp. I have every right to go and renew my licence.’

  ‘But your mother found it a concern too,’ Graham adds. ‘So she told us yesterday. She said that she remembered you looking for your licence renewal letter in the mail and that she questioned you about it because you hated visiting the rifle club and any form of hunting. She also said it happened on the same day you were expelled.’

  ‘No comment,’ I groan. ‘But those facts are incorrect.’

  ‘Mr Styles, why were you renewing your shooter’s licence,’ Peels asks, ‘if you had no interest in pursuing the activities required for the holding of a shooter’s licence?’

  ‘You were planning on buying more guns,’ says Graham. ‘Weren’t you? Building up a bit of a stockpile? You’d need a licence for that. That’s why it was step three in your plan.’

  ‘I was renewing my junior licence to an adult one because I took a job with Miro Jovic.’

  ‘Step five, I believe,’ Graham adds.

  ‘Mr Jovic is a professional pig shooter, yes?’ Peels asks.

  I nod.

  ‘So his job is to hunt. Is that correct?’

  Again I nod.

  ‘But your mother says you hated hunting. That her former partner, Archie McElroy, stopped taking you because, and these are her words, you were “a big wooz”.’

  I have to suck a quick breath in before I can say, ‘No comment.’ I wonder if Graham’s seen that I’m wounded because he’s sitting forward again, leani
ng over the desk and almost frothing with delight.

  ‘But I guess if you take a job with Mr Jovic,’ he’s saying, ‘a professional hunter, then there’s the perfect opportunity to cram in a heap of target practice. Especially on the more challenging targets, the ones that move.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘And the photo that you sent to Cleopatra – that’s her name, isn’t it?’ he continues. ‘The photo where you’re dressed in army fatigues with the big dogs and a rifle in your hands – did your girlfriend like it? Do blokes with guns make her wet? Oh, I suppose you wouldn’t know. Cleopatra’s not real, is she? She’s just some random that you game with who lives on the other side of the world. But that’s as close as you get to having a girl. That’s if Cleopatra is actually female and not a fifty-year-old pervert …’

  ‘She is a female!’ I shout. ‘I’ve heard her …’ But Graham’s grin silences me.

  ‘But she’s not a real girl in the real world. Not like Bridie Tebble, because those real girls wouldn’t spit on you.’

  ‘No – comment.’

  They bring up my history of creative writing and the collection of Australia’s Worst Crimes journals and internet sites I’ve visited. They discuss what they call ‘my profile’ – a loner who keeps grudges, has a preoccupation with death and has suffered significant episodes of rejection which apparently adds up to making me a perfect candidate to murder the inhabitants of my school and town. Through the seventy-three and a half minutes it takes them to sum me and the situation up, all I give them are two words: ‘No comment.’

  If I wasn’t planning on murdering the whole town, why wouldn’t I be now?

  I’VE SPENT THE LAST THREE hours pacing around my cell. Everything’s bolted to the floor, so there’s nothing to chuck. All I could do to keep my mind off my fingers’ searching for anything to pull or twist or destroy was to walk. Walk up and down and up and down the small square of my cell.

  Now the handcuffs are back on and I’m being led out the door. It’s 4.40 am.