Inside the station, there’s little sign of life, just muffled voices in the back somewhere. He gives the counter bell a ring and Montifore’s offsider, Lucic, puts his head around the frame of the door. ‘Sorry, mate. We can’t bail her. We need the constable for that. If he has the guts to show his face.’ Lucic offers a malevolent smile and withdraws his head before Martin can reply.
Goffing shrugs in sympathy and heads out to his car, piece of paper in his hand. Martin slumps down on the bench where he was left waiting for Herb Walker two days ago. Everything is the same. The same brochures are in the same slots in the same rack: Neighbourhood Watch, fire permits, how to get your driver’s licence. It’s as if the world has not moved on, that it’s condemned to repeat the same cycles. Riversend, like Brigadoon’s evil twin, is locked outside time. Nothing changes. Not even his ageless hands.
Robbie Haus-Jones walks in. ‘Hi, Martin.’
‘Hi, Robbie.’
‘You here to bail Mandy?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Won’t be a mo. See what I can do.’ The young policeman saunters through to the back of the station, seemingly unperturbed.
But it’s an hour before he returns, followed by Mandy and the pretty young constable from Bellington who was there two days before. The hour of waiting vanishes, evaporated by Mandy Blonde’s grateful smile, beaming across the counter at Martin.
‘Sorry, Martin—had to sort a few things first,’ says Robbie. ‘I’ll need you both to sign some forms, pretty much confirming the conditions set out by the magistrate. Martin, you have the money?’
Martin hands over the cheque. Robbie signs off on a receipt. Other papers are signed. Finally the policewoman—her name is Greevy—removes the handcuffs. ‘Free to go.’
Mandy is about to walk out past the counter, but first she turns, takes Robbie’s arm and stretches up, planting a sisterly kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you for speaking for me, Robbie. I won’t forget it.’
Robbie nods, the faintest hint of a blush softening the seriousness of his expression.
‘You ready for this?’ asks Martin. Mandy Blonde nods, and they walk out arm in arm, into the blizzard of camera flashes and the storm of yelling reporters. It’s the money shot all right, but it’s no exclusive.
The photographers and camera operators follow them with the persistence of bush flies, down the road past the bank, past the bronze soldier marking his eternal vigilance, past the shuttered pub. The two of them barely exchange a word. Martin is unable to think of anything beyond banalities amid the mad running, pivoting swarm of cameras. Only as they approach the general store does the media melt away, their appetite for images of the leading police suspect and the disgraced former journalist finally sated. Inside the general store, there is no one at the counter.
‘Fran?’ yells Mandy. ‘Fran? Are you here?’
Martin follows Mandy through the aisles towards the back of the store, where the shopkeeper might be minding young Liam.
‘Fran?’
Fran Landers emerges. She’s wearing rubber gloves, a shower cap and an apron. They’ve disturbed her in the middle of some cleaning task. She looks puzzled. ‘Mandy? Thank God you’re out. Everything okay?’
‘I’ve come to pick up Liam. Where is he?’
‘Oh, not here. Jamie took him back to the Oasis. He said you were back.’
‘Oh. Goodo. Thanks. I’ll see him there.’
‘When was that?’ asks Martin.
‘An hour or so ago,’ says Fran. ‘He saw the police cars returning. We heard on the radio that you were getting out.’
‘Good,’ says Mandy. ‘How was he?’
‘Liam? Wonderful. You’ve really got a playful little fellow there.’
‘Thanks again, Fran. I owe you one.’
Mandy and Martin walk towards the bookstore, Mandy keen to be reunited with her son. They take the back way, out of sight, down the laneways, figuring Jamie will have let himself into the house. It’s Martin who talks. ‘You know, Mandy, the magistrate has ordered me not to write any of this down, or not to publish it, but I would really like to know what’s been going on.’
And she gives a smile, unaffected and pure. ‘Of course, Martin. I’ll tell you what I know. But some of it has to remain between you and me.’
They get to the back of the house, but no one’s there.
‘Maybe they’re waiting out the front,’ says Mandy.
They make their way down the small side lane, Mandy unlocking the gate, and walk out into Hay Road. Still no sign. Mandy is looking slightly annoyed. ‘Shit,’ she says. ‘Where are they? Maybe he’s taken him to the park.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ says Martin. He’s about to speak again when his words are drowned out. The Channel Nine helicopter swoops low over the town, shadowed by the ABC’s, before they peel away and head towards their feed points in Bellington or Swan Hill. No prizes for guessing what’s making headlines on the evening news.
And that’s when he sees the homemade sign, the A4 paper sticky-taped to the light pole, the photograph rapidly fading: MISSING. MR PUSS. REWARD. It stops him dead.
‘Shit,’ says Martin.
‘What?’
‘Shit.’
And then he’s running, running as fast as he can, running back towards the crossroads, running even as he tries to convince himself it can’t possibly be true. Past the blind and useless Anzac, guarding his fading myth, around to the back lane, around to the back of the pub. He stops there, panting despite having run no more than fifty metres, sweat pouring off him in the heat of the afternoon. Mandy is right behind him, younger and possibly fitter, compelled by Martin’s urgency to follow. But both stop, halted by a harsh truth: at the bottom of the wooden stairs, half hidden by the car with its deflating tyres, a baby’s stroller stands empty and unattended.
Mandy sees it, is about to yell her son’s name, when Martin stops her, gesturing frantically, talking in a hoarse whisper: ‘Run and get Robbie. Tell him to get here fast. Tell him to bring his gun.’
Mandy stands open-mouthed for a moment, trying to catch up, and then she is gone, sprinting back through the gate, into the lane and out of sight.
‘Right, now,’ says Martin quietly, summoning courage. He should wait, he knows he should wait, that Robbie is just minutes away. But the empty stroller sits there challenging him, condemning him, compelling him.
He’s moving before he makes the decision to move. Past the stroller, to the stairs. Step by step, he climbs. His senses are fine-tuned, the hairs on his neck raised like radar masts, his hands brushing the flaking green paint of the railing as if to vacuum clues, feeling the baking heat rise from the powdery paint. A step creaks under his weight—or is it the plea of a small boy?
He moves more quickly, gaining the top landing, sees the hole punched in the glass window. The door is closed, but unlocked. He swings it open, enters, remembering to avoid as much as possible the shards of glass on the floor, moving away from the cleansing sun into the darkness. Before turning into the main corridor, he pauses to let his eyes adjust. He can hear nothing unusual, see nothing out of place, but deep down his guts are churning out their warning that something is profoundly wrong.