Time's Long Ruin (29 page)

‘Do you mind?' Bert asked, looking at Liz and picking up the phone.

‘Give it a few more hours,' she replied.

‘It's after five,' Dad said.

‘Please.'

‘Liz, he might be able to help.'

Bert looked at them.

‘Go on,' Dad said, and Bert dialled the number.

Then Dad stood up. He went over to the sink, picked up a dirty glass and filled it with water. ‘We'll need a photo,' he said.

Liz shook her head nervously. ‘A photo?'

‘Something recent,' Dad suggested.

Liz stopped to think. ‘We've just had some developed.'

Dad drank the water in three gulps and then loosened his tie. ‘A shot of 'em together?'

‘Yes, in the linen press.' She went to stand but Mum pushed her down. ‘You wait.' She left the room and we listened to Bert. ‘William Riley. What time's he due? . . . Listen, when he arrives, you get him to call me on this number . . . No, you don't need to tell him anything . . . Just get him to call.'

Mum returned and handed a photo to Liz. ‘This one looks good,' she said and asked at the same time.

It was taken in our shared backyard. The kids were standing ankle-deep in lawn that hadn't been mowed for months. Janice, on the left, and Anna, on the right, were holding the flowers of two arum lilies they'd just picked from Liz's only bush. Janice was wearing long pants and Bill's gardening boots, grinning, her teeth cuttlefish white against a background of deep-green foliage – her hair was uncombed, sticking out everywhere, as it always was. Gavin was wearing a skivvy and his pyjama bottoms and socks, heavy with pilling. He was holding a pair of pliers.

‘Or is it a can opener?' Liz asked, looking carefully.

‘It doesn't matter,' Dad said.

‘No, it doesn't, does it?' she replied, looking at him.

His fringe was straight, but crooked, rising from his left eyebrow to his right temple.

Anna was the handsome one. Her eyes were brown and sweet and forgiving. When she smiled the corners of her lips barely turned up, and her cheeks swelled with baby fat under ruddy caramel skin.

‘Don't tell him it's the police,' Bert whispered into the phone, looking at us. ‘If he can't get that number, tell him to ring home.'

Liz clutched the photo by the edges. ‘Janice, look at the time,' she whispered. Then she started to sob again – a dry, tearless crying.

‘Come on,' Rosa said, taking the picture out of her hand and giving it to Dad, looking at him and asking, ‘Now, maybe, we could have a lie down?'

‘Good,' Dad replied, busy with his own thoughts.

Mum and Rosa helped Liz to her bedroom. Then Mum returned to the kitchen and stood face-to-face with Dad. ‘What should we do now?'

‘The doctor shouldn't be long. We better get down to Semaphore.'

‘I'll come,' Con said, stepping into the kitchen and peeling off his overalls.

‘And me,' I suggested.

‘Con,' Dad replied, ignoring our offers, ‘if Bill rings, tell him what's happening. Tell him to get home now.'

‘I can help look.'

‘I can get plenty to look, but I need someone here.' Then he turned to me. ‘Including you, okay?'

Bert hung up. He looked at Dad. ‘We off?'

I can see Dad and Bert now, driving down Port Road in the hot, early part of the evening. I can see them staring out through a scratched windscreen. I can see Dad loosening his gun-belt and muttering, ‘Christ, what are the chances of it happening next door?'

I can see Bert pulling off his tie and shoving it in his shirt pocket, and saying, ‘You oughta ask for someone else,' and I can hear Dad replying, ‘No, I can remember the day each of those kids were brought home from hospital.'

On Semaphore Road the shopkeepers were locking up. They were putting keys in their pockets and peering into their shops to check the lights were off. They were waiting in the shade of pepper trees for buses – boarding and standing in aisles holding onto leather straps, getting off and walking up garden paths looking at drooping hydrangeas. They were entering hot bungalows and opening windows, exchanging stale heat for fresh, taking off their clothes and stepping under cold showers.

‘And what if it ends . . . badly?' Bert suggested. ‘How would they feel towards you?'

‘I don't know. But I can't leave it for someone else, Bert. Christ, we live in each other's pockets. Our kids go to school together. How would it be, “You comin' over for a beer, Bill . . . by the way, they found your kids yet?” What would that make me, Bert?'

‘A shit neighbour.'

‘A shit person.' He drove just under the limit. ‘You gotta do what you can, Bert, otherwise . . .' And then touched his foot to the accelerator.

‘So, what do you reckon?' Bert asked.

‘Janice, the nine-year-old, she's a smart kid. Not just school-smart. She can work a person out. She wouldn't get herself into a situation. And she's got balls. She'll take on the best of 'em, boys, anyone.' He smiled. ‘I remember once she tipped out a carton of Bill's beer. Took off the tops, poured 'em down the drain. Bill likes his grog – ' He swerved to avoid a dog. ‘Beautiful kids, Bert . . . funny and . . . sensible.'

Bert looked at him. ‘You sure about this?'

‘I'm fine.' Dad was getting faster and faster, but there was no one to stop him. ‘I remember, she lined up all the bottles on the roof. No one could work out how she got them up there. You oughta've seen Bill.' He smiled. ‘She always looked out for Henry . . . looks out . . .'

Dad thought, just for a moment, How I'd ever get by without them?

‘On sports day, she'd run her races, then run 'em again for Henry. He's got a drawer full of ribbons. And she wouldn't get a bike. Do you know that, Bert? Never even seen her ride one.'

‘Because of Henry?'

‘Because of Henry.'

Bert was still looking over at him. ‘So you want to find them?'

‘Of course, we gotta find 'em, Bert.'

‘But if Janice was, is, that shrewd . . .'

‘What?'

‘If she's that good at lookin' after herself.'

Dad studied his face. ‘They'll turn up,' he said. ‘Beautiful kids. How Bill ever produced such good-lookin' kids . . . and well adjusted.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘Bill has his . . . mood swings. Hits the grog and doesn't stop. Next thing you know I'm in there pullin' him off of Liz.'

‘And that's it?'

Dad stopped to think. ‘Yeah, that's it. Except, I think he got this girl pregnant.'

‘When?'

‘Recently. Said her boyfriend, or husband, threatened him.'

Bert took out his notebook and pencil, licked the tip and started to scribble.

‘What are you writin'?' Dad asked.

‘Makin' a note.'

‘If it comes to that, I'll talk to him, eh?'

Bert finished his scribbling and pocketed the notebook. Dad stopped at a set of lights. ‘Maybe it was just a one-off. Happens I suppose, if you're on the road.'

Bert was staring ahead. ‘Well, you know him best.'

‘I do.'

‘You know me, I think the worst of people. That way you're never disappointed.'

‘If you think someone took his kids because – '

‘I don't think anything, Bob. Yet. We're paid to look at the facts, remember? And the facts suggest possibilities.'

‘Well that's not a possibility.'

‘Maybe not. What else do I need to know about him, or the wife?'

‘Liz.'

‘Liz.'

Dad looked at him. Watch your mouth, he felt like saying. ‘Nothing. The rest is just Ajax and cut lunches.'

Dad drove along the esplanade, along a mile of coastline covered with a driftwood of salty bodies – swimming, sleeping, standing staring out at a sun that seemed too high in the sky for that time of day. A few clouds spread themselves low and grey in the near distance but no one seemed concerned.

‘Well, we shouldn't be short of witnesses,' Bert said, as Dad parked the car in a
No Standing Zone
beside the old Semaphore tower, placing a wooden plaque that read
POLICE
on the dashboard and looking over at the clock tower on the esplanade. He watched as the second hand moved around. He checked it against his watch and said, ‘It's keepin' time.'

They locked the car, crossed the esplanade and found a sergeant and a group of constables standing beside a police car parked behind the kiosk. ‘G'day fellas,' Dad said, shaking each of their hands in turn. He looked at the sergeant. ‘How's it going, Joe?'

‘I've got fellas lookin' all the way up to Largs and down to Glanville,' he replied, indicating with an outstretched hand holding a HB pencil. ‘We've checked the beach, and all the stormwater drains, and now we're checkin' the carparks.'

‘Good,' Dad said, taking out a handkerchief he'd ironed and wiping his forehead. ‘Could be anything: a towel, a thong. Especially if they got into a car.'

‘Or were forced into one,' Bert added.

‘Is that how it's lookin'?' the sergeant asked.

‘Joe, you tell me,' Dad replied. ‘I've got three kids at the beach, assuming they even got here.'

Joe smiled. ‘Well, I think I can help you there.'

He led them over to a middle-aged Indian woman dressed in a long gold and saffron coloured robe, sitting on a bench outside the kiosk eating hot chips from a bag. Dad introduced himself, sat down and asked, ‘What exactly did you see?'

‘I've told the policeman and he's written it down,' she replied. ‘I've been waiting here for an hour. I have an appointment.'

‘Just another minute,' Dad smiled.

‘There were three kids . . .'

Dad let her describe the children before he showed her the photo.

‘That's them,' she said.

‘What time was this?'

‘After lunch. One, one-thirty. They were with a man.'

‘A man?'

‘He was tall, this big . . .' She stood up to indicate. ‘His hair was blond.'

‘How old?'

‘Mid thirties. Very lanky. A flat chest, with no hair. Was he their father?'

‘No,' Dad replied.

Bert was writing. He looked at Dad and lifted his eyebrows. Dad couldn't believe it. An hour ago they'd missed a train, or gone to a friend's house. Now they were playing with a complete stranger. ‘Anything else?' he asked.

‘Are the children in trouble?'

‘No.'

‘He had blue bathers. Short bathers, coming to here. They were playing over there, on the lawn beside the shower block. He was holding the little boy's hands and swinging him around. The boy was laughing.'

Dad took a lung full of air and let it out slowly.

‘That's all I can remember,' the woman said.

‘Are you sure there isn't anything else you can think of that might be important?' Dad asked.

‘No,' the woman said.

‘Thank you,' Dad replied. ‘Thank you for waiting.'

The woman stepped into her sandals and stood up. ‘Will you need me again?' she asked

‘Possibly,' Dad replied. ‘Have we got your number?'

‘Yes.' And she was off, through the playground and along the path that passed behind the dunes.

‘How did you find her?' Dad asked Joe.

‘When we arrived we spoke to everyone around here.' Again, Joe indicated with his hand and pencil: the small, grey-looking besser block kiosk, the tables shaded with torn canvas awnings, the playground and the benches surrounding it, the lawns and, in the near distance, a few sideshows, a merry-go-round, a miniature steam train running on a figure-8 circuit, clowns with open mouths, and an airgun shooting gallery.

‘You spoke to the operators?' Dad asked.

‘Everyone.'

‘Nothing else?'

‘Nothing.'

‘So what's up with Gandhi? How come she's the only one who saw anything? There must have been hundreds of people.'

Joe shrugged.

Dad looked at Bert. ‘Come on, we'll try the beach again.

Joe, how many you got?'

‘Eighteen.'

‘We need more. Get on to Port Adelaide, tell 'em we need people now.'

Dad was sitting down, taking off his shoes and socks and rolling up his pants. ‘Well, come on, Bert.'

Bert pocketed his notebook and pencil and did the same. Dad jogged across the esplanade and Bert trailed after him. Then Dad zigzagged along the beach, stopping at every sunbather, every wader, every fossicker, cupping his hands and shouting out to every swimmer, ‘We are looking for three children.'