The Minnow (22 page)

Jonathan and I say nothing for the remainder of the trip. As we enter the grounds of the Mavis Ornstein Home for the Elderly, I notice that the hedge is looking worse for wear. At least it isn't brandishing a negative message. But, come to think of it, maybe that is exactly what it's doing.

Papa has disappeared by the time I get the Minnow out of her car seat. I have to find him, talk to him. If he feels betrayed, who could blame him?

Caleb Loeb has done a runner. I have to monitor my face. Constantly.

‘He'll be back,' I say. Luckily the wind is blowing— to distract Jonah from the hollowness of my words. It is pointless saying I told you so. But part of me wants to shout it over and over. Instead, I touch Jonah's shoulder, rub my hand across his back.

Jonah fiddles with his watchband. It was his mother's watch. He found it in the shed yesterday morning. ‘Look at this,' he had said, holding it by the buckle. Then he put it on. It was a significant find, but he had waited over an hour to show me. Jonah is like that. He took almost a week, once, to show me a cufflink. I can't imagine Jonah's father wearing the sort of shirts that required cufflinks, but what do I know?

Still, I thought it strange that stuff could just reappear, so long after the fact.

I thought it was Papa's doing.

‘Not me, sport,' he said when I asked.

‘Then, who?'

‘Beats me,' was the reply. He caught my look. ‘But I can ask around.'

‘Thanks, Papa.'

Jonah's eyes are bloodshot. He probably hasn't slept a wink. I know things are bad because he isn't even chatting to the Minnow. Nana always says that if you're lost for words in a crisis, grab a pot and cook something. She says it gives you something to do and, while you're doing it, the activity is relaxing. I'm following her advice and making scrambled eggs and toast. I hardly ever cook, because Jonah is better at it, but he has been sitting at the kitchen table for over an hour and if I don't eat something soon, I'll fall over.

‘Jonah,' I say, as he walks around me to the fridge. ‘Things seem to be turning up.'

‘Turning up?' he says, grabbing the milk and sitting back down at the table. It doesn't matter how many times I ask him to use a glass, Jonah drinks from the bottle. But right now I haven't the heart to get cross at him, so I watch while he empties a litre down his throat.

‘Yeah,' I say, ‘you know, your mother's watch.'

‘That's only
one
thing,' says Jonah.

‘Okay,' I say, ‘but you have to admit, it's unusual. After all this time.'

‘Yeah. So?'

Sometimes conversation is an art, and to get anywhere with Jonah when he's feeling down, persistence is the key. ‘So,' I continue. ‘I wonder if stuff might be turning up at mine.'

‘Like what?' he asks.

‘I don't know,' I say. ‘Stuff.'

‘And…'

‘And,' I say, passing him a piece of toast, ‘I want you to come with me to look.'

‘We didn't see anything at the tree house.'

‘True,' I agree, ‘but we didn't look around. I'd like to go back and look around.'

‘Sure,' says Jonah. He looks at the piece of toast in his hand and looks up at me. It is as though he has forgotten what to do next.

‘Butter it,' I say, and I use my eyes to indicate where the butter is sitting, right in front of him.

‘Sure,' he says. ‘Okay.' Jonah grabs a knife and starts buttering. I hand him the second slice. ‘I can't believe you're actually cooking breakfast,' he says, and he gives me the full-wattage Jonah Whiting smile.

His face is so pretty and his eyes are so kind. I wish, for the umpteenth time, that I had killed Caleb Loeb when I'd had the chance.

I was only three when Dad gave me my first car. My first and only car, as it turns out.

‘Here, little squirt,' he said.

We were standing in the shed, and I was willing my eyes to adjust to the gloom.

‘For god's sake, Lucas,' Mum said to Dad. ‘The poor kid has no idea what she's supposed to be looking at.'

Dad lifted me up and swung me onto his hip, grabbed a large object off the ground with his free hand and walked us both outside. The sunlight was blinding but, as my eyes adjusted, I could make out a shiny red car. I stood, unmoving. The tension must have been excruciating.

‘Put her in it,' suggested Mum. Dad obeyed. He lifted me up and guided me into the seat. He placed my hands on the wheel, then lifted each leg until both feet were resting on the pedals. For the next hour, Dad pushed me around the yard, coaxed me to pump my legs, taught me how to steer.

After lunch I was on my own. I got more adventurous. The driveway had a small slope running away from the shed. It ended in a dip and I would drag my feet on the ground, to help slow my approach. When Mum realised there were no brakes, she made me wear my gumboots. This was even better as it meant I could brake at the last minute, skidding to a halt in the dirt.

That little car and I became inseparable. When Dad was fixing his truck, I would pretend to fix my car. Sometimes he would prop it up on boxes, so I could lie underneath it and fix the drive shaft. But mostly I drove it in the house. I would get out of bed in the morning and drive to the kitchen for breakfast. I would sit in the car and eat lunch on the front porch. I probably would have slept in it—if I had been allowed.

The day came when I was too big to get my legs under the bonnet. Reluctantly I passed it on to Sarah who used it as a dolls' playhouse.

‘Your father found that car at Bunter and Davis,' says Papa, when I ask him about it. ‘He spent months fixing it up. The mechanics of those little pedal cars were fairly simple. All he had to do was straighten the drive shaft and remove the rust. It was the panel beating and respraying that took the most time.'

‘It was metal?'

‘Yes, sport,' replies Papa, ‘and it was a little beauty.'

Oscar is really adventurous. He says that leaving Mrs Blanket was scary at first, but once he got used to it, he could never go back to being a tank-dweller. In a way, I know what he means. As much as I miss Mum, Dad and Sarah, I love my new life with Jonah and the Minnow. I don't think I could ever go back either. It was a strange realisation.

‘Have you given the sinker to the Minnow yet?' asks Oscar, during one of our late afternoon swims. Ever since he suggested I keep the sinker, he hasn't left the subject alone.

‘Not yet, Oscar,' I say. ‘I still feel uncomfortable about it.'

‘Are you talking about the sinker, or Bill?'

This is the problem with perceptive friends. They take no notice of your camouflage. ‘Can we not get into this now?' I plead.

The water is warm and dark. I just want to enjoy it.

‘Bill is the Minnow's biological father,' says Oscar, playing the same record as Papa.

‘I don't care to dwell on it.'

‘No one's asking you to dwell, Tom. But for your own sake, you might want to give up suppressing the fact. It's taking too much energy.'

‘I don't want to talk about it, Oscar,' I say, my voice rising involuntarily. ‘Please, just drop it.'

‘Okay,' he says.

We swim across the inlet to the dinghy, which is moored about thirty metres from the pier. It is Bill's tinny, but he has been unable to collect it since Jonathan lodged an AVO against him. He isn't allowed anywhere near the inlet or Jonah's house. He can't even go to the boatshed unless he has prior permission. Jonathan said that once charges are brought against him, he will probably go to jail. Until then, he is living in town, in a room above one of the pubs. It is nowhere near the pet shop or the pie shop, so I haven't got much chance of bumping into him accidentally. Even if that happens, Jonathan says I am to remain calm and walk away. Bill is not allowed to approach me or speak to me.

‘Can I tell you something?' Oscar asks. We have finished our swim and I'm about to climb into the dinghy.

‘Do I have a choice?'

‘Sure, Tom,' he says, waiting until I'm comfortably aboard. ‘On this, you most certainly have a choice.'

I wrap myself in a towel and lean over the side. ‘Okay, Oscar,' I say. ‘Spill the beans.' I brace myself for a lecture.

‘You are the strongest person I've ever met,' he says.

That's it? I'm not sure what to say.

‘I'll be off then,' he says, and he dives under the tinny and disappears. A moment later he surfaces, about ten metres away. ‘I forgot to tell you,' he shouts, ‘I'm visiting friends on the other side of the outcrop.' What he means is: it's safe to cast my line anywhere this evening.

‘Thanks, Oscar.'

I dry off and pull on my tracksuit over my swimmers. The sun has dropped behind the trees and the inlet is cast in shadow, but the sky directly above me is still light, deepening to a deep red smudge in the west. It's probably only half an hour till sunset, meaning I've got less than an hour to catch dinner. But the conditions are perfect, there is almost no breeze, the water is calm—and within no time at all I've cast two lines off the bow and am readying a third. My feet are cold, even though the rest of me is warm, and I make a mental note to bring socks with me from now on. Then I sit back and wait.

A fish tugs on the line that is tied to my wrist. I must have nodded off. I open my eyes and get a fright to see that it's quite dark. I sit up and hurriedly pull in the line, but it's empty. The two off the bow are no different, although the bait has gone from all three. Rascal fish.

Nothing for it, but to pull up anchor and go home.

I'm almost at the pier when something catches my eye: a small flint of light, coming from Ponters Corner. I continue rowing, keeping my eyes steady, waiting for it to happen again. I'm about to give up, when I see it, brighter and closer, and, if I'm not mistaken, heading for the pier.

I row faster, not caring whether it's obvious or not that I'm in a hurry. If it's Bill, he knows all my moves anyway, so the important thing is to make the pier before him and get home fast. Thank god I've got Jonah's bike.

I'm breathless by the time I arrive home. The bike crunches along the gravel drive, and I stop peddalling, slowing to a stop at the back of the house. I lean the bike against the stoop, tiptoe up to the kitchen door and let myself in. Jonah looks up at me. ‘Hi,' he says. ‘Why so quiet?'

‘I fell asleep in the dinghy. I've got no idea what the time is and I thought you and the Minnow might be asleep.'

‘It's only seven-thirty,' says Jonah. ‘I take it there's no fish.'

‘Nup. Sorry. Rascals took the bait.'

‘It's okay,' says Jonah. ‘I made just-in-case soup.'

I feel safe, if a bit rattled, and head for the shower.

Bill won't come here. He is not completely stupid.

Jonathan, the Minnow and I are walking across the Mavis Ornstein car park when Betsy Groot almost runs into me.

‘Tom, dear, I need to speak to your grandfather.'

Jonathan has stopped walking. I realise he is waiting for me.

‘Tom, dear, it's
urgent
,' she says, almost shouting the last word.

‘It's all right, Jonathan,' I say, pretending to fuss with something on the side of the Minnow's pram, ‘I'll catch up in a moment.' Reluctantly he walks ahead.

I wait until Jonathan's out of earshot before I speak to Betsy. ‘Have you checked the veranda?' I ask.

‘He's
never there
,' she replies.

‘What is it, Betsy?' I ask. ‘Maybe I can help.'

‘It's your grandmother,' she tells me in a measured tone. ‘She has had another turn. It is a bad one this time, dear. She was calling for your grandfather.'

My heart does a weird lurching thing. ‘When?'

‘When what, dear? answers Betsy.

‘Doesn't matter. Where is she?'

‘In her room, dear,' says Betsy.

‘Sorry, Betsy, gotta go,' I say, and start running.

My skin feels thick and heavy, like I'm wearing a coat of armour crossed with a wetsuit.

It's dark, but my nose tells me I'm in the boatshed. I recognise the familiar mix of sweat, machine oil and wood smoke, overlaid with the scent of something delicious, which I can't quite place.

I squeeze under the door and head outside. The food smell is coming from the woodpile at the end of the deck. I waddle over and burrow my way into a section of the stack. It seems relatively easy. Blocks of wood give way. Ants scuttle.

I head down the stairs and into the yard. I sniff around, decide on a patch of ground and mark the circumference with a scratch-line (about a metre-and-a-half long and a body-width wide). I then proceed to dig the whole section to a depth of about eight centimetres (waist-high in echidna terms). My front paws do most of the work, helped by my nose, which has a surprising strength.

When nothing turns up, I stop. After a bit of thinking time (spent walking back and forth along the length of the dig), I settle on a smaller section and resume digging, straight down. In less than ten minutes I strike something hard and metallic.

Complete excavation—of what turns out to be a long metal box—takes until dawn. There is no padlock. I open the lid:

Three rifles in separate calico bags.

One Leopold Mark 4 long-range rifle scope.

Five boxes of
RUGER .204/5mm calibre
ammo
.