The Beauty Is in the Walking (8 page)

‘Sorry, sorry, got held up,' she said as she strode over the last few metres of bitumen and finally stepped onto the footpath so we were again the same height.

About then, Mr Webster came out of the police station and, seeing so many of us clearly up to something, he stopped for a closer look. He saw the knives and his eyebrows just about shot up through his hairline.

Dan held his plastic bag in front of his face. ‘We're making a point,' and in case Mr Webster had missed the joke he touched his finger gently to the tip of the knife.

Mr Webster turned away and I knew that even if my picture didn't end up on the front page of tomorrow's paper, my parents would hear about it anyway. There was no going back and, besides, a guy was heading across the road towards us with a camera in his hand.

‘Guys,' I called. ‘It's show time.'

The reporter was Kerrod Williamson. He went out with one of my cousins years ago, although nothing ever came of it and she married someone else. A slim guy of average height, his moleskins were to impress the graziers he interviewed about stock prices and all the farm news that filled
The Advocate
.

He gave us a wave as though he'd picked up on the party atmosphere Dan was creating to soothe our nerves – in fact, he spoke to Dan first.

‘Are you the one who rang me earlier?'

‘That was me,' I told him, stepping forwards.

He disappointed me by putting the camera away in the battered leather bag dangling by a strap from his shoulder and taking out a notepad instead. One thing at a time, I cautioned myself, but we needed a photograph if this was going to work.

With the notepad ready he took a closer look at me. ‘You're Marg O'Leary's son, aren't you?'

‘That's right. Tyke's brother.'

‘Yeah, of course,' he murmured as he scribbled onto the pad. The only words I could make out were Mum's name, although I couldn't see what that had to do with why we were here. I watched him take note of my CP, which happened so often you'd think I'd stop caring what people thought of me. Didn't work that way, though.

‘So what's this all about?' he asked.

I told him as simply as I could, although I deliberately didn't include our trump card, hoping it would have more impact if he asked.

‘How can you be so sure the Rais boy has nothing to do with the case?'

Bullseye.

‘Because he couldn't get into the school from where he was seen by Mrs Bagnold,' and I calmly explained how I'd walked the school's boundary.

‘You're sure he couldn't get over the fence from that side?'

‘Not unless he was Spider-Man,' said Dan from behind my shoulder.

I hadn't noticed until then that the others had closed in around me with Chloe to my right and Dan behind my left shoulder, while the rest fanned out into a loose half-moon. The watchers had crossed the road by now, as well, twenty already and others were arriving all the time. They stood between us and the steps up to the police station, which meant they'd form a kind of honour guard when we set off. Hey, this was going better than I could have hoped for.

Williamson was still smiling at Dan's Spider-Man line.

‘You discovered this yourself?' he asked me, looking impressed.

‘It's not just the high fence, either,' I told him. ‘Mahmoud was seen about dinnertime, but the pig wasn't killed until after midnight. And he was walking his brother home.'

‘He had a brother with him? That's the first I've heard of it. Here,' said Williamson, offering me the notepad. ‘Draw a diagram of the school and mark the places you just told me about.'

I did the job quickly so we wouldn't lose the momentum building up for what we were about to do.

‘What are the knives for?'

Dan stepped out from behind me with the plastic bag held at eye-level again. ‘I thought you'd never ask.'

Williamson was confused now about who was going to answer.

‘They're because of this morning's newspaper,' I explained. ‘That whole front page was a set-up to make Mahmoud look guilty.'

‘A set-up,' he repeated. ‘What do you mean?'

His face didn't match the question. He knew exactly what I was getting at and for the first time I began to wonder if he was really on our side.

‘Those detectives told you they were going to the house, didn't they? Did they tell you to bring a camera, like I did this afternoon?'

Williamson ducked the question by turning to the other kids. ‘Do all of you agree with Jacob, here? Was it a set-up?'

I saw Dan turn left and right as though he was orchestrating a group nodding of heads and the delay let Chloe jump in.

‘It was racist,' she said. ‘That's why I'm here. They're pointing the finger at Mahmoud because of what he is and where he comes from.'

Williamson's pencil scratched furiously across the page. ‘So you're clear about this. You're accusing the police of being racist.'

‘Not the police so much,' Chloe responded, taking a moment to line up exactly what she meant. ‘Look what happened at school last Friday, the way a mob went after Mahmoud. If people aren't careful, the whole town will end up a disgrace.'

The look on Williamson's face worried me, like he'd busted through a doorway and he couldn't wait to rush inside. ‘Is that your view as well?' he asked me.

I didn't answer straightaway and, as it turned out, I didn't answer at all. I agreed with Chloe about racism helping those rumours at school get out of hand, maybe, but I wanted our protest to focus on the evidence, or the lack of it, at least. That's what the knives were about. I tried to explain this to Williamson, but by the time I was ready, he'd locked on to Dan who'd been busting for his attention from the start.

Williamson wrote down his name and, with the formalities out of the way, Dan launched into what we were trying to show with the knives and the plastic bags. Williamson understood immediately. ‘Very clever,' he said to Dan.

I couldn't suppress a touch of resentment. The whole thing was my idea, yet Dan was holding court now and to poke my head in and say as much would be childish. It was all about the effect we were trying to create, the picture we hoped to plant in people's minds – that was all that counted.

‘Can you take a picture of one of the bags close up?' I asked.

‘Yeah, sure,' chirped Williamson who had taken to Dan like a kindred spirit and, of course, it was Dan he photographed holding his knife in the plastic bag in front of his face. ‘Great,' Williamson murmured to himself as he clicked off a couple of extras. Then, to the rest of us, he called, ‘Can I get all of you in a shot?' At least I was at the centre of that one.

The talking was over now and the kids who'd come to watch parted like the sea before Moses so we could pass through. Nothing much happened in Palmerston and certainly nothing like this, so it wasn't so strange that they'd come for a stickybeak. We mounted the stairs, paused for a final breath and a nervous glance at each other and then it was on through the doors.

The whole station knew we were coming and even Marcie Seymour, who did the general office work, was
standing with a young cop in the doorway of a room that opened off reception. Now that we'd arrived, they closed the door as though they didn't want any part of what was happening. At the counter, two older, harder faces waited for us – Sergeant Wallace and the detective from this morning's paper, both of them big men, as tall as Mitch but heavy-shouldered like Dan and the sergeant, especially, bulged around the waist.

‘What's this about?' he asked curtly.

Dan was beside me again, but he left the talking to me this time and I shrank a little now that I was confronted by such a stern figure. What had I expected, though? Wake up, Jacob, I told myself. You wanted to get out front – well, here's your chance. I stepped forwards to the counter and placed my knife in front of them.

‘This was in a drawer at my home. It's sharp, it could cut open an animal and I'm sure plenty of people have seen me around the high school. That makes me no different from Mahmoud Rais. So I should be a suspect, same as him.'

I turned to face my friends as a signal that they should do the same. Dan and Chloe were already on the move.

‘Stay where you are,' said the detective in a voice every bit as intimidating as his scowl. I remembered his name at last – Dunstan – and even the sound of it in my head seemed to match the menace in his voice. ‘Before you go ahead with your little stunt, you should know more about the knife taken from the Rais boy.'

At this, Dan and Chloe slipped back among the others. Dunstan certainly had the attention he was after, but he ignored us and spoke directly to Kerrod Williamson who stood to the side taking notes.

‘The knife in question wasn't taken from a kitchen drawer; it was surrendered by Mahmoud Rais on the orders of his father. He'd been carrying it on his person.'

He paused to let us take this news in, although it told us little yet. It was all in the suggestion of what was about to be revealed. This guy was a good storyteller, as I should have known from this morning's paper.

‘It was a flick-knife of a type outlawed in Australia and as a result it was confiscated. Rather than arrest Mahmoud, he was cautioned.'

A flick-knife, for Christ's sake. Those things were deadly.

Dunstan wasn't finished yet. ‘On examination, the knife was found to be razor sharp. It's been sent for forensic analysis. I'm sure you avid
CSI
watchers know what that means.' He smiled, as though he was sympathising with us, but that wasn't the message in his eyes. ‘Tests will determine if was used to inflict injuries on the animals in this case.'

That was it. He didn't hold back now. No friendly smile, just a gotcha smirk he made no effort to hide. He'd got us, all right, or me, at least. My mind drowned under a waterfall of embarrassment.

I turned towards the others again and found my own confusion on their forlorn faces. I couldn't have
been more off balance if you'd twirled me around twenty times and, amid the giddiness, I clutched onto one thing: a sudden anger towards Mahmoud, as though he had let us down, let
me
down. Why did he have a flick-knife? It shouted ‘guilty' as loudly as this morning's front page and I wondered why the police had bothered with the plastic bag and the photo at all.

‘We'd better go,' I said to the group.

‘Wait there,' called the sergeant.

I turned back to see him holding up the plastic bag with Mum's knife laying along the bottom in silent mockery. I came forwards to retrieve it, but he withdrew it from my reach in the way one brother teases another in the backyard.

‘It's against the law to carry a weapon in public. You'll have to leave them here and your parents can collect them in the morning.'

How were our knives dangerous when we carried them in plastic bags? I was too stunned to argue about it, though, and he'd have an answer even if I did. I couldn't afford to lose any more battles today. One by one, the bodies stepped round me to place a bag on the counter and mumble a name so it could be written on the plastic in felt pen. I saw Dunstan nod at Williamson and, as Dan stepped up, the camera flashed. That picture would end up in tomorrow's paper – we could be sure of that – and Dan knew it better than I did.

He took off through the doors without giving his name and the rest of us were soon after him, each of us
withdrawn into our own little worlds, I think, because no one was speaking.

Svenson had stayed along with the other onlookers and, reading our body language, he met us as the bottom of the stairs.

‘How'd it go?' he asked tentatively, not directing his question at me or anyone, really.

Dan winced at the sight of the rubbernecks waiting expectantly along the kerb and when he answered he turned away from them and kept his voice low, which only pushed more of his dark mood into his reply.

‘We made a fool of ourselves, that's how it went. The Leb is guilty as all shit. He was carrying a bloody flick-knife, for Christ's sake, a wog's weapon like he's some Mafia nut job. I felt like a stupid little kid who's peed his pants. The look on those coppers' faces, they couldn't get over themselves and we had to stand there while they shit all over us. This is your fault, Jacob,' he seethed at me. ‘Getting too big for your boots, that's your problem.'

He stormed off across the road without looking one way or the other, forcing a car to swerve a little to miss him. Mitch wanted to go with him, judging by the reluctance and defeat I saw in his face. ‘Jesus, Jake, you bloody landed us in it, no doubt about that.' Bec was already on the move.

‘Bec, Bec,' Amy called. She went to the kerb and, when Bec didn't turn around, she looked back to me, unsure of what to do.

‘Go after her,' I called, since Amy would have a better chance of calming her down than I would.

‘What about you?'

‘I'm okay. Go, go!' I was almost shouting this time and there was a sort of relief in belting words out of my lungs when the rest of me was so flat.

‘We have to go, Jacob,' said Alicia Greaves while my words were still dying in the afternoon cool. There was no spit of anger like Dan, simply ‘Sorry,' as though her mother was waiting in the car around the corner and she couldn't keep her waiting any longer.

‘Look, I'm sorry, too, okay. I didn't know about the knife.'

I doubt it mattered to Alicia by this time.

‘You don't have to apologise, Jacob,' said Chloe. ‘We were still right to go in there.'

I stared at her. We were? The words didn't leave my lips, but they were written all over my face and she wasn't slow to read them.

‘The knife! Forget it. I bet the tests show it had nothing to do with the animals,' she declared with a certainty I wished I could share. ‘This morning's front page was still a set-up.'

‘But he was carrying a knife.'

‘Think about it for a minute. Mahmoud was attacked by a mob on Friday. If you hadn't been there, they would have really hurt him. He's scared to death, anyone would be. Of course he'd want to protect himself, and where he comes from you take care of yourself. It's a matter of honour.'

I turned to ask what Mitch thought of Chloe's explanation, only to find he'd gone after Dan anyway.

‘What's this about a knife?' Svenson asked.

Between us we told him.

‘Chloe's right. If Mahmoud was American they'd have found a gun in his belt,' he said seriously.

Was that supposed to make me feel better?