I felt like I was giving up but I couldn’t spend another night in that apartment alone. Why hadn’t Harry come home? Or at least called? ‘That’s a promise,’ he had said. ‘I love you.’
Magic licked the palm of my hand as the first floor slipped past.
Scarlet had been right, too. About going to the police. I was annoyed when she said it. Crime reporters didn’t just squeal every time something went wrong. They sat tight. They showed determination, patience, mindfulness. They evaluated all evidence. Commandment number ten. But one thing I had discovered in the past nineteen-and-a-half hours was that I was not a crime reporter. I was a twelve-year-old boy. Mum reckoned boys didn’t grow up till they were twenty-five and some of them (a silent, ‘like your father, for instance’) never did.
I felt like I was betraying Harry by going to the police. Which was funny, because he’d betrayed me my whole life and probably was again tonight. But I couldn’t help feeling that something had happened to him. Part of me almost wished that something had happened just so it wouldn’t mean that he had broken his promise.
Go back, go back, go back.
The lift shunted to the ground. I pushed open the thick metal door and looked around carefully. Magic led the way out, pulling me along behind her. We moved quickly across the dirty-red-carpeted foyer.
Go back inside.
I could already feel the man’s hands on the back of my neck and the knockout blow delivered to my head with a bottle or the butt of a gun, like in Tintin or Crime Smashers. I reached for the front door of the building. He would be standing there and he’d say something like, ‘Looky what we have here,’ or ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ or ‘Wiseguy, see?’
But there was no one outside. Just wind and sideways rain pelting the dark, lonely street, and burnt-orange leaves blowing up in gusts and flopping down into puddles. I planted my rubber crutch-bottoms firmly on the path and launched myself down the three stairs.
Magic hauled me along the street, carving through the wintry night, my crutches reaching and launching my body forward in a blur of movement.
A car would pull up at any moment, I knew, and bundle me inside. A goon in a fedora hat would grab me and wrestle me into the back seat where the perp would be waiting. And with hardly anyone else on the street, no one would see. No one would ever know I’d been taken. Apart from Magic. And her English wasn’t so good.
I needed to slow my mind, to breathe. My fear and panic needle was edging into the red. I am not in a comic book, I told myself. This is real life and in real life there are no goons. In my entire twelve years, three-hundred-and-sixty-four days I have not encountered a single goon in a fedora or any other kind of hat. This made me laugh on the inside and brought my fear-ometer back to orange.
The glowing blue-and-white Police sign was fifty metres away. Safety had been this close the whole time. I ignored the pain in my leg, the agony in my armpits and hands. Once I was inside that building, there was nothing anyone could do to me. I charged along the footpath, in and out of long shadows and pools of streetlamp light. My hair was stuck flat to my forehead. Rain ran rivers into my eyes.
Footsteps approached quickly from behind and I twisted hard. A jogger ran by, a lady – blonde, in a black rain poncho, about twenty years old, I figured. She looked back at me, startled by my quick turn, then she continued.
I reached with my crutches and swung my legs forward. Reach and swing, reach and swing, until I felt the warm interior light of the police station on me and Magic sniffed the narrow gap between the heavy glass double doors. She shook from side to side, her ears flapping loudly against her cheeks, showering me with fine dog-stink spray.
Inside, an officer was working on a computer at the counter. I pushed open the door and crossed the threshold from danger to safety and I knew that everything was going to be okay. It was warm and smelt like fresh coffee and disinfectant and security. There was a sea of deserted desks behind the tall front counter. I crutched across the flat brown carpet of the waiting area and collapsed into a plastic chair against the wall. I breathed hard and looked back out into the darkness.
‘That’s a very nice dog,’ the officer said, ‘but you can’t actually bring dogs in here unless it’s a guide dog. You’ll have to take him outside.’
I pulled myself up on my crutches and hopped the four or five steps to the tall black counter, taking Magic with me. The officer had light-brown hair in a bun and olive skin. Her name tag read:
SENIOR CONSTABLE
KATE PINNEY
I noticed now that there was another officer sitting at one of the thirty or so identical desks behind the counter and another couple walking around the open-plan office space. There were six or seven glass-walled offices at the back of the station. I was surprised by how busy it was this late at night. But with people being thrown from buildings and disappearing all over the place, I figured I probably shouldn’t be surprised.
‘I need to report a crime,’ I said.
‘And what crime is that?’ She peered over the counter at Magic, who panted and looked up at her with a smile. A long string of drool hung from the side of the dog’s mouth, making a damp patch on the carpet.
‘A murder,’ I said. I almost didn’t believe the word as I said it. I’m not sure Senior Constable Kate Pinney believed it either.
‘Right. And where did this take place?’ She shifted a notebook across the desk and grabbed a pen.
‘Just up the street. About a hundred metres from here.’
She studied my face, probably searching for body language cues she’d learnt in training. I’d read about the techniques officers and detectives used to decide if a witness was telling the truth or not. Breaking eye contact, crossing arms or turning your body away told them you were lying. I did none of these things. Stretching and yawning wasn’t great either. Police officers analysed the speed of the person’s response and the tone and volume of their voice, too. I was aware of all this as I spoke to her, which probably made me seem totally suspicious.
‘When was this?’
‘This morning,’ I said. ‘Just after two o’clock.’
‘And why haven’t you reported the crime till now?’
I shook my head. ‘I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Where are your parents?’ she asked.
‘I’m staying with my dad but I don’t know where he is.’
‘Tell me what you saw. Actually, can you wait here for one moment? I’d like to have a more senior officer present. You can take a seat again if you like and we’ll come around there. Can I get you some water?’
I shook my head once more.
She turned and strode towards one of the offices at the back of the station. A ball of hot acid burnt away at the lining of my stomach. I felt light-headed, exhausted, glad it was almost over. I hopped to the left to turn around and saw Kate Pinney knocking on the door of the glass-walled office in the far right corner.
I heard a big, meaty cough, like a man had gravel caught in his throat, and I saw someone inside the office that made my breath stop dead.
TWENTY-THREE
RUN
The office windows reflected the fluoro lights from the main part of the station but I could still see him. I leaned in, squinted to sharpen my focus, my certainty. Kate Pinney opened the door and the man looked up.
He turned and stared right at me. His face was as white and full as the moon. I dropped down low behind the counter. I scrambled across the carpet towards the front door, dragging Magic, sliding my crutches along the floor. I tried to protect my right knee but in that moment I felt no pain. I pushed open the glass door and the cold night slapped me in the face. I pulled myself up on the doorhandle, staying as low as I could, and ducked to the right, across the slippery tiles at the entrance and out of sight. I did not look back.