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today.
I can t believe you didn t tell me before.
I wanted you to come here and spend some time with your son.
If I d told you before, you would have flown into one of your panics.
Which happen more and more now, in case you hadn t noticed.
Though this conversation was uncomfortable for me, it was
also a relief because it brought things into the open, if in a shaded
kind of way. Our tone was not innocent, on either side. Having
met this detective, Sheena wasn t worried that I might have
done something she knew I d done something. She might not
have known how, but she knew. She d been there right from the
beginning. So I didn t have to play a part, to protect her naivety. I
didn t have to say, Gosh, I wonder what a detective would want
to speak to me for? Sheena and I were, if at odds, conversing as
conspirators.
What did he say? I asked stealthily, looking around to see if
anyone might overhear us. Aside from us and an Aboriginal boy
with his grandma, there was nobody.
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Nothing, Sheena said, still pushing the swing like she was
moving the clock forward. Taking relief from the rhythm. He just
said he wanted to talk to you. And could you give him a call.
What was he . . . like? I didn t want to probe any deeper than
that, but I needed something.
Sheena sighed again, impatiently, then softened a little. He
seemed all right.
All right?
I don t know, Frosty, I haven t had a lot to do with detectives,
okay? she said, irritable again. Seemed friendly enough. But I
spose they would act friendly when they re trying to put you at ease.
He just wanted you to call him back.
I scratched my chin, trying to calm down. My heart felt like
a grasshopper leaping about against the insides of my ribcage.
What do you think I should do?
Sheena just shook her head. I couldn t tell if it was a simple
expression of sadness and regret at the incidents of the past few
weeks, and at her part in them; or if it was sadness and regret about
her whole life, about having ever got involved with me. And Mick.
There was a whole-catastrophe slump to her shoulders.
I d better go, I said.
Sheena didn t reply.
I stopped Rosie s swinging to give her a kiss. She complained
about being halted. I went across to the slippery-dip and waited for
Rod to come down. I caught him and wrapped him in a hug. He
said, Dad, I can t breathe.
Are you okay? Are you okay? I held him out in front of me,
sweating in a rush of guilty worry.
I m okay, he said. I can t breathe when you squeeze me
like that.
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I chucked him under his chin. Be a good boy, okay? And Dad ll
make sure you never have to come to hospital again.
Dad, can you stay and play with me?
I averted my face so he couldn t see the tears welling.
Soon, mate. Soon I ll play with you all you want. But now
I have to go.
Over the phone, Detective Sergeant Marsh seemed affable enough.
The fact that he was in no especial hurry to meet me I took as
a positive. The worst result of our conversation would have been
if he asked me to come to the station immediately for questioning.
But he said he d visit me, just for a chat , later that week.
Can you come any earlier? I said. Three or four days of waiting
were going to kill me.
Oh? he said. Why s that?
Ar. I m just gunna be busy, and Brock s funeral is later in the
week, and
He interrupted me to say yes, he could come later today. He
showed no further curiosity about why I d want to hurry things
along. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe a bad one.
I tried to gauge the nature of his interest, dropping a bait.
I assume this is about the big Who s killing the great nature
presenters? hoo-ha, I said, with as much levity as I could muster.
Detective Sergeant Marsh just said a flat, Yes, it is. He gave
nothing else away and I wished I d kept my trap shut.
While waiting for him to come, I had to return the gun to the
Lamingtons house. Of course there had been no gun involved in
the killings, but I couldn t take any risks. I didn t want to have to
explain to a policeman why I had an unlicensed firearm. Talking
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to a policeman might have unexpected effects on my nerves. I didn t
want guns anywhere near me.
And I wasn t going to keep it for the Don Simpson or Deano
Rudd jobs. It had failed me once, had led to the opposite of the
clean kill I d wanted something gory and grisly that I could never
swipe from my conscience. I couldn t trust myself with the gun.
Trusting it only led to no good.
But I didn t want to run into Ranger with it, or even little Hunter
again. Could I trust him to keep my secret? What if he said to his
sister that he d seen Uncle Frosty take his daddy s gun out the day
before Brock McCabe was found dead? Ranger had no interest in
protecting me. What if she spoke to the police? What if she already
had? She might well want me out of the way. She ought to, if she
knew what was good for her. Maybe she was responsible for this
Detective Marsh investigating me maybe she d set me up, and I
was being watched now, under surveillance so I wasn t even safe
in the zoo.
I couldn t risk it. I went to the ute in the garage and, looking
around suspiciously, took the gun out. I carried it into our house and
hid it among the tools behind the fridge. Sheena never looked there.
It was where I usually hid her Christmas and birthday presents.
I shoved it in tight, and made myself a sandwich and a cup of tea
to pass the time until Detective Marsh s arrival. All of a sudden
I was starving.
Detective Marsh was a slab of Australian T-bone with a moustache
that was either a handlebar that wanted to be a toothbrush or a
toothbrush that wanted to be a handlebar. It only made it two-thirds
of the way across his top lip before drooping at both ends over,
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or into, his mouth. Did he like the taste of it, was that the thing?
He reminded me of a fish not a catfish, whose moustache is more
Fu Manchu, but one of those deep-sea oddities, an angler fish, who
hangs its false bait in front of its mouth to tempt and catch its prey.
Well, this Marsh and his hairy crumb-catcher weren t tempting me.
About my age, he looked like a retired sportsman. His mo curved
up all friendly when I let him in through the screen door. I ushered
him to the couch and offered him a drink. Loosening his tie, he said
he d like some cold water.
This humidity really gets me, he said.
You re not from Queensland? I said from the kitchen, think-
ing would it be better or worse if he s not from Queensland? My
hands were shaking so much I held them under the tap after I d
poured his water. I wished he d asked for a hot drink so I could
stay in the kitchen, count to one thousand and make him, and my
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