by R. A. Spratt
‘It’s a bank robbery,’ said April. ‘Surely they will send a forensic team up from the city? You getting mud everywhere will just contaminate the evidence.’
‘You’re getting mud everywhere too,’ Constable Pike pointed out petulantly.
April, Tom and Joe were all standing in puddles of mud that had dripped off their clothes as they watched Constable Pike at work.
‘Yes, but I’m a twelve-year-old schoolgirl,’ said April. ‘I haven’t been professionally trained not to contaminate crime scenes and compromise major investigations.’
Constable Pike ignored her and asked the bank manager, ‘Have you got security camera footage?’
‘Of course we do,’ said the bank manager. ‘This is a bank, not a convenience store. We don’t stick up fake cameras hoping thieves will be too stupid to know the difference.’
‘Thieves and police,’ muttered April.
Tom sniggered.
The bank manager placed a laptop on the counter. She clicked on an icon and security camera footage of the bank appeared on the screen. ‘Here’s the relevant time,’ said the manager. She turned the laptop so Constable Pike could see. He reached forward to adjust the screen but the manager slapped his hand away. ‘Don’t get mud on my laptop.’
The bank manager had a younger brother who had been friends with Constable Pike when they were at primary school. It’s impossible to respect someone once you’ve seen them playing Bottom in a really bad school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Constable Pike wiped his muddy hand on his even muddier pants and watched the footage. There was no sound, but you could tell that April and Tom were arguing. They reached the bit where Neil burst in, then Neil and Tom started wrestling.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Tom. ‘What’s everyone watching?’
‘It looks like you and Neil are hugging really passionately,’ said April.
‘We were not!’ exclaimed Neil. ‘We were wrestling.’
‘Hugging, wrestling, it all looks the same on silent black-and-white footage,’ said April.
On the screen the door burst open again and Neil was knocked down. ‘Did you see that?!’ exclaimed April, backhanding Constable Pike in the ribs to get his attention. ‘That robber assaulted Neil with a door.’
‘You just assaulted me with your hand,’ complained Constable Pike, rubbing his ribs.
‘Puh-lease,’ said April, whacking Constable Pike in the ribs again. ‘That is reasonable force.’
‘There is rarely a nanosecond when you’re not doing something unreasonable,’ said Tom. ‘And if you’re not, your dog is.’
Pumpkin barked. It was quite true. At that moment he was happily chewing a loan application.
On screen, the bank robber could now be seen threatening the manager.
Constable Pike peered closer at the monitor. ‘That could be anyone. They’re covered in so much mud it’s impossible to tell. You can’t see their face. And there is so much mud on their clothes you can’t even get a sense of their body shape.’
‘DNA?’ asked Neil. He loved reading about crime and how you could get away with it, so he knew quite a lot about DNA.
‘You’d need hair or skin cells,’ said April. ‘And the robber didn’t stop to do their hair or bleed on the floor at any stage during the robbery.’
‘I can’t tell anything from the footprints either,’ said Constable Pike. The floor was just a big mess of muddy smears. ‘Everyone who was in the race is a suspect. We’ll never find the culprit.’
‘What do you mean “we”?’ asked April. ‘You’re the cop. This is all your problem.’
Constable Pike gritted his teeth. April was entirely right. He was in charge. It would be at least twelve hours before reinforcements from the city arrived, and when they did, the impossibility of the investigation would all be blamed on him.
‘It’s not going to look good, you running in a mud race while the bank was getting robbed,’ added April. ‘Cops have a hard enough time living down the comparison with pigs, and then you go and cover yourself in mud.’
Constable Pike felt like bursting into tears. He hadn’t thought of that. His brothers were never going to let him hear the end of this when they had their next family reunion. Maybe he should become a fugitive and go on the run too.
Then Tom piped up, ‘But I know who did it.’
Everyone stared at him in stunned silence for a moment.
‘How can you know who did it?’ asked April. ‘You saw less than anyone else. You’re vision-impaired.’
‘That’s just it,’ said Tom. ‘You’re all vision-impaired. You can’t see what you want to see because the thief was covered in mud. But I’m used to it. I don’t ever recognise people by the way they look. I have to recognise them by the sound of their voice. If I hear that voice again, I’ll recognise them.’
‘But who are the suspects?’ asked Constable Pike. ‘We can’t ask everyone in Currawong to do a line-up.’
‘Yes,’ said April sarcastically, ‘because that would be dozens and dozens of people.’
‘Eight thousand people live in Currawong,’ snapped Constable Pike. ‘Plus five thousand out-of-towners registered for the race. Plus all the people travelling with them who were there as spectators.’
‘It wasn’t a spectator,’ said the bank manager. ‘It was definitely someone covered in mud.’
‘But anyone could have rolled in a puddle of mud and joined in the race halfway through,’ said Fin.
‘Or been hit by one of your flying m-m-mud balls,’ added Joe.
‘So we’ve got fifteen thousand suspects,’ said Constable Pike.
‘That’s a very defeatist attitude, Constable,’ said Loretta. ‘I’m sure we can narrow it down. For a start, you can rule out anyone who would never allow themselves to be covered in mud. So anyone with a mud allergy, or a sense of dignity.’ Loretta smiled. She had competed and managed to come away with only a few tiny mud spatters on her trousers.
‘Only you could find a way of cheating that allowed you to stay elegant,’ grumbled April.
‘It’s all about prioritising what’s important to you,’ said Loretta.
‘It can’t be that many people,’ said Fin. ‘It has to be someone who finished the race ahead of April, because they ran out of the bank and joined the race.’
‘W-w-what if they ran the other way?’ asked Joe.
‘Then everyone would have noticed them,’ said Fin. ‘No, they came out of the bank and ran in the same direction as everyone else to blend in.’
‘And I didn’t overtake many people,’ said April. ‘Not with me dragging Mr Slowcoach, here.’
‘I’m vision-impaired,’ Tom reminded her.
‘Yeah, your eyes are impaired, not your legs,’ said April.
‘How many people finished the race ahead of April and Tom?’ asked Loretta.
‘Only twelve people,’ said Fin.
‘One of them was Constable Pike,’ observed Loretta.
‘You can’t rule him out,’ said April. ‘He’s so needy. He probably robbed the bank to give himself something to do.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ snapped Constable Pike. ‘I actually care about law and order. Who else was there?’
‘I’ve got a list,’ said Fin, taking a folded piece of paper from his pocket. ‘Maya Dharawal, Joe Peski, Loretta Viswanathan, Dimitri Popov, Sam Nash, Nigel Blumstein, Erick Mwangi, Daisy Odinsdottir …’
‘Daisy Odinsdottir was in the top twelve?!’ asked Joe, horrified that he had been that close to her and not realised. Daisy had romantically pursued Joe when he first arrived in Currawong, but there had been nothing romantic about the pursuit itself. It was more like a great white shark pursuing a sardine. Relentless and merciless.
‘Well, she was chasing behind you,’ said Loretta with a wink. ‘That would have motivated her.’
‘There you go then. Problem solved. It was Daisy,’ said April. ‘She did it. She’s ruthless enough to rob a bank. And clea
rly mentally unhinged enough if she’s in love with my brother.’
Joe nodded frantically in full agreement.
‘There was also Klaus Hellner …’ continued Fin.
‘Who’s that?’ asked April.
‘The chef from the Good Times Cafe,’ said Loretta.
‘Okay, I revise my position. The chef did it. He’s a psycho,’ said April. ‘He tried to throw me out once.’
‘I think that is a normal human reaction to spending time with you,’ said Tom.
‘And Ingrid Bjorg,’ concluded Fin.
‘Ingrid?’ said Joe. ‘Dad’s Ingrid?’
‘Your future stepmother,’ said Loretta with a smile. ‘She’s very athletic. I believe she was on the rowing team for Stockholm University. Or perhaps it was the wrestling team. No wait … I remember, it was both.’
‘And Brad Peddler,’ said Fin.
‘How can he enter the race if he’s the organiser?’ asked Joe.
‘It’s a lot of prize money,’ said Loretta. ‘He probably didn’t want to give it to anyone else.’
Constable Pike had jotted down this list on the back of a now muddy deposit slip. ‘All right, I’ll get them all together. Then you two can try and identify our robber.’
Half an hour later Constable Pike had gathered a line of suspects. They were all standing in a row along the finish line. There weren’t many people about now. Just a few spectators waiting for the last couple of stragglers to finish the race.
Thousands of paper cups littered the street and mud dripped off everything. All the other athletes and spectators had gone home to clean up. The town looked like it had suffered some sort of mud-related natural disaster. In a way, it had. Although the mud run was really more of an unnatural disaster.
Just then, one of the remaining spectators broke into bellows of delight. ‘That’s it, Val! You can do it. Come on, nearly there!’ It was Russ Pilsbury, the man who’d had a heart attack in Mr Lang’s office.
On the course a brown shape was moving towards them. Not at great speed, but at a steady, exhausted jog.
‘I’m so proud of you, Val!’ cried Russ.
‘Val? Isn’t that Mrs Pilsbury from boot camp?’ asked Tom. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘She looks like a mud-covered zombie,’ said April. ‘But she’s still moving.’
‘Good on ya, Mrs Pilsbury!’ called Tom. He called this in entirely the wrong direction, but it’s the thought that counts.
Mrs Pilsbury staggered across the line and fell into her husband’s arms.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t supportive of your fitness goals,’ said Russ. ‘I just missed your face at breakfast every morning.’ He leaned in to kiss his wife, but then thought better of it. That could wait until after she’d cleaned the mud off.
‘Oh, Russ,’ said Mrs Pilsbury. ‘I never cared about getting fit. I just wanted an egg and bacon roll that I didn’t have to make myself.’
Now Russ did kiss her. He had married a good woman.
There was a loud sob. The Peski kids turned around to see Ingrid dabbing away tears. ‘This is the most romantic thing I have ever seen,’ she blubbed.
‘Really?’ asked Loretta. ‘I mean, it’s nice, but Val and Russ are no Romeo and Juliet.’
Dad put his arm around Ingrid and she wept into his shoulder. ‘There, there,’ said Dad awkwardly. ‘Um … would you like a handkerchief?’ He pulled a gardening glove out of his pocket and Ingrid blew her nose on it.
Not all the suspects were happy to wait patiently while the investigation took its course.
‘This is an outrage,’ protested Maya. ‘This town is practically out of the dark ages. You so can’t stand to see a woman win your race, you’ve dragged me into a police line-up.’
‘It’s not because you’re a woman,’ said Constable Pike, trying to stay calm and patient, which was hard because it was not in his nature. ‘It’s because you were in the top twelve finishers ahead of the people in the bank at the time of the robbery.’
‘You say that,’ said Maya, ‘but Indigenous people are nine times more likely to be detained by police.’
‘The person identifying the criminal is blind,’ said Constable Pike. ‘He literally can’t see what colour the suspects are.’
‘Besides, they’re all brown,’ said April.
Maya gasped. ‘That’s racist.’
‘No, it’s a fact,’ said April. ‘The robber was covered in mud.’
‘Fortsätt bara,’ Ingrid muttered in Swedish.
‘We all know you can speak English now,’ said Fin. ‘You might as well say what’s on your mind.’
‘I said, just get on with it,’ said Ingrid.
‘Okay,’ said Constable Pike. ‘I’m going to bring our eyewitness out here.’
‘Earwitness,’ corrected April. ‘He’s an earwitness not an eyewitness.’
‘I’m going to bring the witness over,’ continued Constable Pike. ‘As we go along the line and I point to you, I want you to say the phrase …’ He glanced down at his police book and read out the words, ‘Hand over the money.’
Constable Pike went over to his car, where Tom was waiting.
Maya got out her phone. ‘I’m calling my lawyer.’
‘It’ll take him hours to get here,’ said Fin.
‘But it will only take him seconds to alert the national media to the travesty of human rights violations taking place,’ said Maya.
‘Put it away, you will hold things up,’ said Ingrid testily, which is a show of great anger for a Scandinavian. Unfortunately, Maya had not spent much time in Scandinavia and was unfamiliar with the warning signs.
‘I will not be treated …’
She didn’t get to finish her sentence because Ingrid plucked the smartphone from her hand and lobbed it into the ornamental fish pond in the middle of the garden.
‘Why did you do that?’ demanded Maya.
‘Because it was easier than picking you up and throwing you in the fish pond,’ said Ingrid dispassionately.
‘Fight!’ said April happily. She started so many fights herself, she was always keen to see others do the same.
‘How dare you!’ yelled Maya. ‘I’m a national icon.’
‘You are a pain in the rear,’ said Ingrid.
‘That was a $2000 phone,’ said Maya.
‘Then you are a pain in the rear who pays too much for electronics,’ said Ingrid.
‘If you don’t want me to press charges, you owe me …’ Maya started to cough, but she managed to get out, ‘… two … thousand … dollars,’ between wheezy breaths.
‘Not going to happen,’ said Ingrid.
‘You will …’ began Maya, but she had to stop talking because she couldn’t control her coughing fit. She was gasping for breath between coughs.
‘If it will save the trouble, I can help,’ said Dad, pulling out his bulging wallet.
‘Do not give this woman anything,’ Ingrid said firmly to Dad, taking hold of his hand.
‘Are you all r-r-r-ight?’ Joe asked Maya. She was bent over and supporting her ribs as she coughed now.
‘It’s just asthma,’ gasped Maya. She pulled an inhaler out of her pocket and took two puffs.
‘But we don’t want any more trouble with the authorities,’ said Dad, glancing nervously at Constable Pike.
‘Just hand over the money,’ demanded Maya.
‘That’s him!’ declared Tom, pointing towards the sound of Maya’s voice. ‘I’d recognise that deep gravelly voice anywhere.’
Maya was still coughing, but she managed to splutter out, ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘It is her!’ agreed April. ‘I recognise the voice too! I knew it. Anyone that good at sport can’t be trusted.’
‘A Ventolin inhaler briefly lowers a person’s voice,’ said Fin. ‘She must have had a puff right before she entered the bank.’
‘You have no evidence against me,’ coughed Maya. ‘He’s blind. No jury will believe …’ She coughed a few more times. �
�… him.’
‘No,’ agreed Loretta. ‘But what have you got under your shirt?’
‘Loretta,’ said Joe, blushing.
‘This is no time to be squeamish,’ said Loretta, peering at Maya’s chest. ‘I may be a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, but I know a lot about underwear.’
‘It’s true,’ agreed Dad. ‘She bought the ones I’m wearing now and they’re very comfortable.’
‘This woman was a B cup yesterday,’ said Loretta. ‘Now she’s a D cup!’
‘I can’t arrest someone for that,’ said Constable Pike, turning red with embarrassment.
‘You can if the reason they’ve gone up two cup sizes is because there’s $10,000 stuffed in their bra,’ said Loretta.
Everyone stared at Maya’s chest.
‘You can’t search me unless you arrest me,’ said Maya.
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Constable Pike. ‘I’d just have to get a lady constable over from Bilgong, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got justifiable cause for a search.’
‘You wouldn’t do it,’ said Maya. ‘The newspapers will have a field day. Police brutality. That’s how they’ll describe it.’
Constable Pike paled.
‘I don’t have a problem with brutality,’ said Ingrid, stepping forward and reaching out to grab Maya.
But Maya was a two-time Olympic silver medallist. She had skills. She sidestepped Ingrid and took off running across the park.
‘Quick, after her!’ cried April, sprinting after Maya herself, Pumpkin close on her heels.
Maya had already leapt over the picket fence, demonstrating perfect Olympic hurdling form.
Constable Pike was on the radio calling Bilgong for backup. He was a man who knew his limitations, and an inability to outrun Olympic athletes was one of them.
‘She’s getting away,’ said Joe. He took off running too.
‘Not on my watch,’ declared Loretta. ‘Come on, Daisy.’ She grabbed the reins of her water buffalo and leapt up on its back.
‘You named your water buffalo after Daisy Odinsdottir?’ asked Fin.
‘It seemed appropriate,’ said Loretta mischievously. ‘Come on, Daisy, giddy-up!’ The water buffalo took off galloping.