Game Theory

by Barry Jonsberg

  It wasn’t her. As I got close I knew it wasn’t her. She was with a woman, loading groceries, and her shape was all wrong. The school uniform was grey, for Chrissake. I skidded to a halt. A fine rain was starting to fall, though I only noticed because it made it slightly more difficult to see. I needed to think, but there were too many thoughts pushing against each other in my head. I blinked rain from my eyes and approached a couple of people, asked if they’d seen a girl wandering around by herself. I tried to keep my voice level. One woman was solicitous but couldn’t help. The others simply shook their heads. I ran back into the supermarket. Think. I needed to think.

  If Phoebe had been abducted then any time I spent now was not just wasteful but also damaging. Catastrophic. I thought about that. I did. But the prospect was absurd. Abduction didn’t happen to your family. It was something you read about in newspapers. Those things occurred interstate and you saw the photos, read the words and it was all somehow a fiction, like earthquakes in third-world countries or people falling from balconies at inner-city hotels. You knew it was real, but it didn’t feel real. Words and pictures cushion us from believing in the realm of the emotions, in the gut. I balanced one absurd notion against another. She had gone home. She was annoyed with me for some reason and had left the trolley there (in aisle five, opposite the dog food) to punish me. While I stood in the gathering rain, she was approaching home, her back straight, her lips pursed in annoyance, a secret grievance blooming in her mind. It was dumb, but I was prepared to believe anything that might keep my world intact. Take two improbabilities and select the most palatable.

  I ran home. I ran as hard as I could. The rain was heavier now and my shirt stuck to my chest. Once I slipped in a puddle of water and skidded briefly onto one knee. It was much later that I realised I’d torn a hole in my trousers and scraped my leg bloody. Then I simply got back to my feet and kept running, not really aware I had fallen. I must have known, after five minutes, that she couldn’t have come this way. I would have caught up with her by then. But I couldn’t stop until I was sure. The driveway of our house was deserted and the house itself exuded an air of emptiness. The windows gazed at me and they were blank. I scrabbled in my pockets for keys and found I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t get the front door key into the lock. It took three or four attempts and I was muttering fuck, fuck and making gouges in the metal. I had to do it two-handed.

  ‘Phoebe!’ I yelled when the door finally opened. ‘Phoebe!’ I let my voice rip then. I was home. I could lose control and no one would judge me. I even checked each room. I looked under her bed. That stupid thought was still with me, that she was punishing me for indeterminate sins, and that I would see her eyes, hard with resentment, staring back at me from the darkness and the dust bunnies. And I would welcome her hatred, accept it and hug her close. Instead, I was running again, back to the supermarket, the front door flapping behind me. I was a stupid fuck. She would be there, in the confectionery aisle, maybe her bottom lip trembling as she wondered where I was, but staying put because that was the kind of girl she was, she was responsible, I told her to go there and that’s where she would be and she would be starting to get scared, but she’d trust her brother because he wouldn’t let her down, she knew that and she’d yell, ‘Where WERE you? I had to go to the toilet and when I got back you weren’t here.’ The toilet. Of course. Why hadn’t I checked that? Because I was a dumb fuck, that’s why.

  I nursed that small spark of hope through the rain. It warmed me as I ran. It was an explanation and I was in desperate need of one.

  I burst into the ladies’ toilets because at this stage I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. It was deserted. Then I went to the confectionery section. This time a couple of kids were trying to put chocolate bars into their mother’s trolley and she kept putting them back on the shelves. The mother took one look at me and gathered her children behind her, moved them down the aisle and away from me. I turned in a circle. I did three-sixties over and over, like a drunk or a deranged dancer.

  ‘Phoebe!’ I cried, but I don’t think any words came out. It must have been then that I sank to my knees. They told me later that’s how they found me.

  ‘PHOEBE!’ I screamed.

  I think I kept on screaming her name.

  CHAPTER 11

  The manager’s office was small, windowless and functional. I can’t remember how I got there. She put a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits in front of me. I don’t drink tea. I have never drunk tea. The biscuits were Arnott’s and I wondered if she just took a packet off the shelves in situations like this. How did that work? Did she have to fill out a form and what would she put down for reasons? Was there a box to be ticked for ‘Missing child’?

  Then the manager left. She put a hand on my shoulder and I think I smiled. I might even have said ‘Thank you.’ Later on, I found out it was Ms Abbott, the woman Summer had so spectacularly insulted on her last day at work. She’d been on leave that day but came in when news filtered through of Phoebe’s disappearance. Was it concern, genuine concern, that brought her into work on her day off? Or a sense that potential scandal was best dealt with in person? Forestalling recrimination, protecting her position? I only thought about this stuff later. For now, I wasn’t thinking at all, unless a jumble of images and unrelated ideas counts as thought.

  The police officer was female and couldn’t have been much older than Summerlee. She asked questions. Name, address, description of Phoebe. I showed her a photograph on my phone. I had taken it about six months before, in our garden at home, and it was a good one. She was blowing enormous soap bubbles from one of those machines you buy in toy shops and I caught her just as a bubble was swelling. It distorted the side of her face, which was one of the reasons I liked it. I wasn’t thinking about what would be good from the police’s point of view, I just wanted to share the image.

  ‘Pretty girl,’ said the police officer.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Her job was to sit with me. I knew there were other police officers out there somewhere, looking for Phoebe, interviewing people, searching the store one more time. The cup of tea sat on the desk. It was a sickly cream colour and I felt nauseous just looking at it. The plate of biscuits had two flies jostling for position.

  ‘Delaware,’ said the police officer. ‘That name rings a bell.’

  ‘My sister, Summerlee,’ I said. ‘She won the lotto.’

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Summerlee Delaware. Millions, wasn’t it? Wow.’

  I nodded. The officer smiled and made a note in her notebook. I knew why. At some point – I cannot say when – the possibility had occurred to me. Seven million, five hundred thousand dollars is a sum that attracts attention – and jealousy; how could it not? And here is something very strange. I was aware of hoping – hoping, how weird is that? – that someone had taken Phoebe to make money from it. Because, if that was the case, then it would be in their interests to keep her safe. She would become a transaction, and that was better than the alternative that gnawed at me. I couldn’t help myself. I saw a man, overweight with thinning hair, combed over to hide a bald spot. Sallow skin and sweaty palms. Dead eyes. He was bundling Phoebe into the back of a van. He’d tell her that if she was a good girl then he would give her chocolate. Maybe a couple of Turkish Delights. But she would have to be a very good girl and do exactly what she was told. And Phoebe would be sobbing and telling him that she didn’t want chocolate. She wanted her brother and could the man please, please take her back to the supermarket because he would be getting worried about her and she promised not to tell anyone about what was happening if he just let her go . . .

  The pain hit me in the stomach and I bent over and threw up. It flooded the floor and part of the desk. The biscuits were fucked. And then the spasm came again. I retched and retched, even when there was nothing left in my stomach. The police officer had a hand on my back but I kept vomiting. There was a blinding pain behind my eyes and I think I was sobbing.
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  There is a blank. I can’t remember leaving the manager’s office but the next thing I’m aware of is sitting on a narrow bed, the kind you get in the sick bay at school. There was a blanket around my shoulders and I was sipping a glass of water. The female police officer had gone. Now there was a man sitting in a chair opposite me. He had a bushy moustache and heavy jowls, and looked like he drank too much. He was asking me questions and his eyes were the kind that bore through you, making you feel that you’re almost certainly lying, even when you’re telling the truth.

  ‘So the last time you saw her was when she was queuing at the deli?’

  ‘Yes. I told her to meet me in the chocolate aisle when she was done.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  I rubbed at my forehead. It was slick with sweat.

  ‘I have no fucking idea,’ I said. ‘I didn’t look at my fucking watch, all right? Why aren’t you out there looking for her?’

  ‘Easy, son,’ he said. ‘I know this is hard, but I need information, all right? And, trust me, we are searching for her as we speak. But I need your help, son. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Can you estimate how long it was between leaving her at the deli counter and finding the trolley? Just a guess. Five minutes? Ten? Somewhere in between?’

  I ran the events over in my mind, tracing my steps and running an imaginary stopwatch.

  ‘What about security cameras?’ I asked. It was an explosion in my head. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? The place was packed with cameras. Phoebe and I had whiled away many a long wait at the checkout making faces at the cameras and watching the results on the monitors suspended from the ceiling. There was even a camera on the automatic doors, which we used to find disorientating because it always seemed like the image above you was going in the wrong direction. ‘They must have caught her leaving. They must have.’

  ‘We’re going over the recordings now,’ said the man. I almost apologised. The police would think of that. I was a prick for thinking they wouldn’t. I didn’t apologise, though. The guy had given me his name but I’d forgotten it. He looked like he was going to say something else but thought better of it.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  He screwed up his lips, as if puckering for a kiss. I realised he was sucking his teeth. The moustache writhed like something alive, a salt-and-pepper caterpillar. He blew out his breath and rubbed at the corner of his eye.

  ‘One of the cameras was damaged last night,’ he said. ‘Someone sprayed it with acid. The one that gave a view of the right-hand side of the car park. A person took a spray bottle, filled it with corrosive and carefully sprayed it through the metal grid protecting the lens. What do you think of that?’

  For a moment I thought I was being accused. I felt that familiar sense of panic that comes when your response is certain to be weighed and found wanting. It’s not enough to simply tell the truth. Not when you put yourself in the position of the other person who may, for whatever reason, suspect you are lying. Whatever you say can be interpreted as an attempt to hide the truth. Too aggressive, too passive, too defensive, too shifty, too confident. And when you get to thinking about that, you’re fucked, because your words, your body language, will inevitably glisten with a guilty sweat.

  ‘Did the camera record who it was?’ I said. A thought fluttered. Would he interpret that as me being worried my image might have been caught? He tilted his head to one side and sucked his teeth again.

  ‘It was done after midnight, but the car park lights are on twenty-four seven, so the images are fairly clear. Whoever did it brought something to stand on and took great care to avoid the coverage of other cameras. All we get is an image of a hand and then a jet of liquid. After that, nothing.’

  ‘You think this is connected to Phoebe’s disappearance?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. It’s too early to say.’

  ‘You think she was kidnapped.’ I didn’t phrase it as a question.

  ‘Too early to say.’ He leaned forward on his chair and patted himself on both knees. ‘Look, Jamie. There are all sorts of possibilities. Maybe she saw a friend and went off with him or her. Maybe she’s playing a joke on you. Nine times out of ten, we find a lost child really quickly and it turns out to be entirely innocent, a communication problem, nothing sinister at all. You know what kids can be like.’

  ‘No, I don’t. But I do know my sister. She wouldn’t have left the store.’

  ‘So why did you go home to see if she was there?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking clearly.’ The pain in my head was still intense. It felt as if someone was sticking fine needles into my retinas. The cop waved a hand.

  ‘Understandable,’ he said. ‘Look, let’s get back to timing, shall we? We know when you came into the store. All of the interior cameras are working perfectly and you entered at exactly three twenty-two. But that’s why I need to know how much time elapsed between entering and finding the abandoned trolley. It will give us specific areas of the recordings to focus on.’

  I put my head into my hands and closed my eyes. I reviewed it all once more, the people at the deli, the Indian woman and her child, the broccoli stacker, the woman with the Celtic tattoo. Everything. I answered the questions as best I could, and when he asked the same questions over and over, I thought and deliberated and refined and answered as best I could. I kept my eyes shut to block out the room and focus on nothing but the images as they played out against the darkness of my lids. I knew they would people my nightmares and I knew also that I deserved it. I had lost my sister. She had been my responsibility and I had lost her.

  I opened my eyes when something changed in the room. There must have been the sound of a door opening, but that wasn’t it. It was something in the atmosphere, a sudden chill that pricked the hairs on my neck. My eyes watered from having been shut so long and it took a moment for them to clear.

  Mum stood just inside the door, looking around as if bemused. She was clutching her purse with both hands, holding it up to her stomach, a flimsy shield to ward off danger. Her mouth was set in a line. I could see the tendons working in her face to keep it fixed. And I knew that any relaxation would crack that foundation, produce a seismic shift and bring her structure down. She was one muscle movement away from destruction.

  Mum glanced at the police officer, but I don’t think she really saw him. She moved hesitantly towards me and I stood. The next moment she had me in her arms, her head over my left shoulder. She patted my back, slowly, regularly, like she was trying to bring up wind.

  ‘It’s okay, Jamie,’ she whispered. ‘It’s okay.’

  But we both knew it wasn’t. Her voice was cold and the hand on my back felt as inflexible as judgement.

  CHAPTER 12

  It must have been hours later when the police drove us home. Dad was waiting at the front door. It hadn’t even occurred to me he hadn’t rocked up at the supermarket. Later, I discovered that the police had discouraged it. They probably had enough to deal with, without the entire Delaware family sobbing intermittently and cluttering up the investigation, but they’d told him to stay at home in case Phoebe showed up there. I have no idea of the agony he must have endured, pinned to the stake of home, helpless and the prey of snarling imagination.

  The tooth-sucking cop, whose name was Dixon, had had little to report before we were taken home. The security cameras had picked up Phoebe after she’d left the deli but then lost her somewhere before aisle five. So far, no footage had been found of her leaving the premises. Dixon admitted there were blind spots in the surveillance system, particularly at staff entrances and exits through the delivery areas, which struck me as bizarre. I suspected Dixon felt the same way, though he didn’t say anything other than that interviews of staff and customers were still taking place and he was hopeful we’d get news sooner rather than later. He said ‘news’, not ‘good news’, and I think Mum noticed. The muscles in her fac
e tightened perceptibly. He asked whether we could find a recent picture of Phoebe and, if so, whether the cop who was driving us home might borrow it. Photographs of Phoebe were not in short supply. Only a month or so earlier, she’d had a school photo done and it was brilliant. She was in part-profile, a Mona Lisa–type smile on her face, and Mum had had it framed.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Dixon when we described it. ‘She’s in school uniform, yeah?’ I nodded. ‘Ideal,’ he added. He escorted us out of the store. I was gratified to notice that police officers were in considerable evidence and that three squad cars were lined up outside the entrance. I was less gratified to notice some of the staff watching us. They whispered to each other and stared at me. That’s the one. That’s the kid who lost his little sister. How can you lose your sister in a supermarket? That’s just wrong . . . I kept my head lowered, like those guys you see on news reports, coming out of court. When that thought struck me, I realised I looked guilty but I didn’t care.

  Dad hugged Mum when we arrived home and glanced at me over her shoulder. I couldn’t read his expression and didn’t have the energy to try. When the police officer asked for the photograph, Dad got the picture out of its frame and scanned it into our computer before handing over the print. The officer glanced at the photo.