‘Did Bec notice?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘I never thought of you like the other guys, but you’re taller now and your voice has gone deep, like Mitch’s. I like your voice and I liked having your arm around me in the car, especially after the stunt Dan and Mitch pulled that night. It was gentle and sort of intimate without getting too excited, if you know what I mean.’
Her turn to blush and she pretended to fiddle with something beside her when I knew there wasn’t anything there. ‘You’re different from the other guys and that’s good because a lot of boys don’t know how to show they care. You notice things about me, like the candles and how scared I was up at Kibble’s. You even stopped the whole thing before I went totally mental.’
‘Mitch thought I’d wreck his mum’s car.’
‘Would have served him right for doing whatever Dan tells him. It was Dan, don’t you reckon? He was enjoying how scared I was, the bastard,’ she said with a bitterness that surprised me. ‘Just as well you drove off like that, because nothing was going to stop him. That’s what I mean about the guys around here. So immature. None of the boys I’ve been out with would have gone against their mates the way you did, or bought me the candles or given them to me in such a fun way. They don’t know how to treat a girl. They think it’s all about . . .’
Amy had been lacing her fingers together in her lap as she spoke, breaking them apart and threading them together again, until she couldn’t face the words meant to finish what she was saying and reached for my hand instead. ‘They don’t get it, that it’s fun to hold hands and talk about stuff, like we’re doing now. Do you know what I mean?’
Oh yes, I knew. I daydreamed about the things she was talking about, the closeness and the touching between two people and no one else.
I thought about telling Amy of the restlessness in me lately, thought maybe she felt the same way, wanting something different without being able to say what it was. I didn’t speak up, though, because the restlessness had slipped right out of me while we sat so close on the riverbank.
Amy brought my hand up to her face and let it rest against her cheek. ‘Gentle, see,’ she said, deeply pleased with herself. With me, too?
Then, with tears in her eyes, she told me about her last boyfriend, the bloke I’d mentioned to Tyke. I didn’t particularly want to hear it, but she needed to tell me, to get the hurt of him out of herself, so I let her go. Poor Amy. If my face went solemn in sympathy she should know it was genuine and seeing one large tear finally break free down her cheek almost had me crying, too.
‘I don’t want another boyfriend like that,’ she said at last and then she went silent altogether.
After so long with just her speaking, I was caught out and scrambled to get something out there. In the end I just started speaking and hoped the words would come.
‘I want us to be together a bit, just you and me, so I’ll know what other presents to give you now that I’ve ticked candles off the list.’
I remembered something Tyke had said about Courtney. ‘I like listening to you, especially when you tell me things you don’t tell anyone else, things just for me.’
I cringed at borrowing so much from my brother, but Amy’s face softened and she looked down at her feet drawn up beneath her as though she couldn’t look at me. ‘That’s beautiful,’ she said, still holding my hand and when she turned her face up again for me to see there was the vulnerability I’d stumbled across in Tyke’s face. I had made a connection, somehow, and not because of some false bravery that made her think I was more than I really was. Better still, I’d meant every one of those words, making them my truth as much as my brother’s.
I relaxed now and didn’t worry about saying stupid things that would make her laugh in the wrong way or storm off across the sand because I was a cripple with girl things as much as walking.
‘I’ve been interested in you for a long time, but it didn’t seem right to say anything. I was afraid, I suppose, afraid you would laugh in my face.’
‘I wouldn’t do that.’
‘I didn’t really think you would, but when you’ve got the problems that . . .’
I stomped on the rest of those words. ‘I take longer to get places than most people, that’s all.’ Jokes about my legs came easily when the CP didn’t matter anymore. ‘I’ve never had anyone special, only you in my head and that’s not enough anymore. You’re in the real world and that’s where I want to be.’
When I finally shut up there was something in Amy’s face I had never seen before. She was exploring mine as though it was a distant star she had discovered ahead of any other human being. I wondered what she saw and told myself that wasn’t for me to know.
It was Amy’s turn to speak after I’d taken over so much of the talking. She seemed to know as much, yet she became as hesitant as I’d been at the beginning and when the silence stretched out all she could do was laugh at how self-conscious she’d become. She leaned in towards me, inviting my arm around her as I’d done in the car. This time I had no fear of her pulling away in complaint, yet the daring thrilled through me.
‘We could do something tonight,’ I suggested.
‘I’d love to, but there’s a family thing on. Not allowed to miss it.’
We trekked across the sand, hand in hand for a different reason now.
‘Listen,’ Amy said as we started up the path towards the park. ‘We should keep this just to ourselves for now, eh? Dan and Mitch would stir the crap out of us if they knew. We can have fun together the way we’ve been doing. You’re good at it.’
I was better at a lot of things, it seemed. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Just you and me.’
9
sightings
Palmerston’s newspaper, The Advocate, leaves the outside world to the big city papers and sticks to local news. On Monday that was all it needed for the biggest headline I’ve ever seen.
POLICE TO
INTERVIEW
SUSPECT
The front page didn’t name Mahmoud Rais, describing the suspect as ‘a student at Palmerston High School’ instead, but everyone on Facebook knew who he was. It did name Mrs Bagnold. I’d been wondering all weekend why she hadn’t gone to the police earlier and here was the answer: she’d left Palmerston on Monday for kidney dialysis and didn’t hear about Charlotte until she returned on Thursday night.
I never read The Advocate; it was for olds like Mum and Dad and for that very reason everything it said seemed more considered and legitimate than the bullshit all over the Net. When I sat down at the kitchen table Mum looked across at me with a smart-arse look on her face.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Is that the boy you stood up for on Friday?’
‘It doesn’t prove a thing,’ I snapped at her in a tone that would have earned a clip over the ear if Dad had been there.
At morning tea, when I complained to my group about jumping to conclusions and getting the wrong idea about religion, I was calm, I was logical, I laid out the facts. Svenson would have applauded from the background if he’d been there.
‘You should be one of those nerds on the cop shows,’ said Dan.
‘He’s not good looking enough for TV,’ Mitch said with a shove at my shoulder.
Amy jumped to my defence. ‘Jacob would look good in a lab coat,’ and she winked at me, letting the others see, even though none of them would understand what lay hidden behind it.
I was serious, but they didn’t take me seriously, except Amy who sensed how important the whole thing had become to me, even if she didn’t know why. Did I even know?
At lunch, the guys went straight to the oval and Amy had a social committee meeting. I sat at the picnic table, now dragged into the shade because the summer was hotting up, and wondered if I should just leave the Mahmoud thing alone. I’d never said a word to him and the only connection I’d ever made with the guy was because of the fight.
I was still making up my mind when Chloe slipped onto the seat opposi
te me and it wasn’t hard to guess what she wanted to talk about.
‘You’ve seen all that stuff on Facebook, I suppose,’ I said.
‘It’s pathetic,’ she snapped. ‘Soraya rang me yesterday. Jacob, she’s so upset. Her parents have had to turn off their phones. She’s not at school today, either, and you can understand why.’
She paused to let me take in the news. What could I say?
Straightening in the seat she said, ‘Mahmoud had been at the soccer field on Sandy Creek Road. It’s the only place in town with goal posts, apparently. His little brother was with him, Jacob, only that woman didn’t see him ’cause of the fence. It wasn’t even properly dark.’
‘But Charlotte was killed after midnight. It was in the paper.’
She glared at me across the table. ‘Exactly.’
After school, I left my bag on the rack and walked round to the lane where Mahmoud had been seen. The Bagnold’s house was halfway along and sure enough, it had a fence that came up to my shoulder. It was the school fence on the other side that grabbed my attention, though. It had to be three metres high and, with no crossbar, climbing over would mean wobbling precariously on the floppy cyclone wire. I walked further, all the way to the corner, with eyes peeled for holes in the wire, but it was a new fence – the Ag farm especially had to be careful about sheep finding a way through. Mahmoud couldn’t have entered the farm from this side and what would he have done with his brother, anyway?
Time to move on. The same high fence stretched all the way across the back of the farm and the only gate was off a dead-end street with a couple of houses on it. The gate barely came up to my chest, though, which pretty much settled the matter. If you were sneaking into the farm, you’d come this way.
What’s more, the people in the nearby houses would have had the best chance of noticing anything suspicious. I knocked on the door of the first one.
A man in a singlet and footy shorts responded. ‘What can I do for you, mate?’
I told him.
‘Not you, too. I’ve had the police here twice already. What the hell do you think you’re up to? Playing junior detective. Jesus! Look, I didn’t see anything on that night, orright, and don’t go bothering poor Frank next door ’cause he didn’t see anyone either. Now piss off home to your mummy.’
He slammed the door in my face.
I walked back to get my bag, with my tail between my legs at first, until I gave myself a shake and saw what this meant. For all his bad temper, the guy had told me what I wanted to know: Mrs Bagnold’s sighting on the far side of the school didn’t mean a thing. If the cops were halfway good at their job, they’d have worked that out before I did.
Detective Jacob O’Leary. God help us.
My good spirits lasted until I reached home and found my laptop splashed with news that the police had gone round to the Rais house during the day. Mahmoud’s name was there in black and white. I was too angry to read the comments and stayed most of the night in my room, studying (a bit) and mostly brooding.
On Tuesday morning, things got worse when I fell onto my usual chair at the kitchen table to find The Advocate laid out in front of me, too perfectly aligned to be accidental. Mum was studiously looking away while I took in the headline.
KNIFE SEIZED IN
MUTILATION CASE
These words were superimposed over a full page photograph of a policeman, Detective Sergeant Rob Dunstan, according to the caption, walking side-on to the camera with a clear plastic bag dangling from his hand. Weighing heavily inside was a knife with a blade about ten centimetres long which meant it was way too short to be a boning knife, and the more I stared at the grainy photo the more convinced I became it was nothing more than a steak knife.
When Dad arrived at the table I turned the paper to face him. ‘What do you think about this?’ I asked.
‘Great, they’ve caught the bastard, then,’ he said after a quick glance.
‘No, I mean about the picture. How could the paper get such a close look at the evidence? Aren’t they supposed to keep that private, for the jury, or whatever?’
He studied the newspaper more closely. ‘I see what you mean. Awfully obliging of the copper to hold the bag like that for the camera. Cops probably tipped them off so a photographer would be waiting.’
Mum sniffed and turned back to the stove, but this only seemed to encourage Dad. ‘Coppers do that when they’re under the pump. A week and no arrest, so the town’s getting edgy, but this shows they’re on the case,’ he said, stabbing his finger onto the front page.
‘But it makes Mahmoud look like the killer.’
‘It’s a tough world, Jacob,’ he said with a shrug.
I stewed through Periods One and Two, and if the whole business wasn’t already in my face I found a copy of The Advocate stuffed in the mouth of a bin. I ripped off the front page.
‘Have you seen this?’ I asked, laying the sheet out flat on the picnic table.
They checked it out while I settled into the place Amy had kept for me.
‘It’s a set-up, so bloody obvious,’ I told them.
Bec, who sat on the other side of Amy, drew the page closer until she had a front-on view. ‘Yeah, the cops may as well have held it up for the camera. Take my picture, mister,’ she mimicked.
Dan turned the page towards him and I could see the light come on in his face, too. ‘It’s like they’re telling us what to believe. To be honest, I thought he must be the one when I first saw it.’
‘Me, too,’ said Mitch. Then he checked my face and became worried. ‘Sorry, Jake, you were the big hero last week, I know, but seeing that, I thought, waste of time.’
‘What do you think now?’ I asked.
‘You reckon it’s not him, then?’
‘I know it’s not him and I’ll tell you why.’
I launched into my adventures after school yesterday.
‘You’re right about the fence,’ said Dan once they’d heard me out. ‘No way anyone’s going to get over it without a lot of grunting and groaning for busybodies like old Bagnold to hear.’
‘If they had any real evidence, they’d arrest him, wouldn’t they? They’re trying to make everyone in town think it’s him,’ said Bec, who was catching onto my way of thinking faster than the others. She was often ahead of us in more thoughtful things and that day I was grateful for it when Dan took up her lead.
‘I don’t like being told what to think,’ he said more forcefully, his eyes on The Advocate. It was like he’d said, nobody pushes me around, one of his tough-guy warnings and he’d been in Mrs Schwartz’s office a few times because of the way he backed it up.
‘So if Jacob’s right, then the Leb kid would have had to go right round and come in over the gate,’ said Mitch, summing up.
‘He didn’t do it, Mitch. He’s got no more reason to kill Charlotte than the rest of us. I bet he didn’t even know we had a pig on the Ag farm, or that Kibble had a horse in that paddock in the first place. Anyway, how would he get up there? He’s too young to drive and it’s too far to walk the way you took us the other night in your mum’s Barina. If he tried going up to Kibble’s by the direct route, the river would’ve been in his way.’
‘There’s the ford,’ said Amy. By ford, she meant a series of boulders that let people cross the river dry-footed if the water was low.
‘Yeah, but the Lebs have only been in town a few months. Bet that kid doesn’t know the ford’s even there,’ said Mitch. He stared across the table at me, impressed by the way I’d worked it all out and a little surprised, I’d say.
Someone else was impressed. Amy put her hand on my thigh which no one else could see, of course. Carefully, so the others wouldn’t suspect, I removed my hand from the table and slipped it on top of hers. She splayed her fingers to thread mine between and gave a little squeeze. ‘You’re quite something, you know, Jacob,’ she said, which earned nods of agreement from around the table.
‘So Mahmoud’s not The Ripper,’ sai
d Dan.
Although the music called us into class, I might as well have stayed around the picnic table for all the notice I took of the teachers. This morning’s anger still burned, yet four people had listened to me and in just a few words I’d turned them around. I wondered if I could turn a few more the same way – make them think for themselves.
Not on the Net, I decided. May as well piss at an incoming tide because people didn’t read more than a few lines. The detectives had known that when they called in the photographer. One picture, a handful of words. Gotcha. The image of that knife in the bag still lay at the back of my eyeballs like an alien implant.
Was it Dan or Mitch who’d said half the homes in Palmerston had a boning knife? They’d all have knives of some kind. That was it! I’d take a knife from home and hand it in at the police station. I’d carry it in a see-through plastic bag and tell them I should be a suspect, too.
One idea gave birth to another – the picture in my head, the knife in the bag. I hadn’t actually seen it, only a photograph in the newspaper, but I could still play the cops at their own game. Yes, that’s how I’d do it. Everyone in town was a suspect if all you needed was a knife. This was going to be great.
10
protest: part 1
At lunchtime I took my chances on the stairs, caught Mitch before he and Dan headed for the oval and with all five of us around the picnic table I asked them to join me.
‘Like a protest?’ said Mitch.
Amy looked doubtful. ‘Dad won’t like it. Should hear him when uni students protest on TV. Don’t know what Mum’ll think, either.’
‘She’ll think you’ve got a mind of your own,’ I jumped in. ‘It’ll show you’re making your own decisions from now on.’
Her face brightened at that idea, even if the frown didn’t disappear entirely. ‘Yeah, okay,’ she said tentatively.
‘You’re really going to do it?’ asked Bec, who was sitting opposite Amy this time.
Amy glanced at me and whatever she saw in my face made her sit up straighter. ‘Yes,’ she said and gave a little laugh, more out of nerves than daring.
The Beauty Is in the Walking Page 7