‘That’s like thirty metres or something. Are you sure–’
‘It was him.’
She raised one eyebrow. ‘I don’t know what police officers are supposed to do in the Blue Mountains but here, in the city, their job is to help people.’
‘That’s what I thought but–’
‘And I told you that the Hills are in Queensland. No one’s even living in that apartment.’
‘Well, there was someone there last night.’
‘Are you sure it was that balc–’
‘Yes, I told you! It was the balcony next door.’ I pointed outside, raising my voice.
‘Shhhhh.’
‘Sorry,’ I whispered.
Scarlet continued scratching Magic. She watched the TV screen. Another old rap video with three guys wearing thick gold chains. We didn’t talk for a while. Scarlet just sat there.
I looked at her silver bracelet. It had the words ‘Nanakorobi yaoki’ engraved on it and some Japanese characters underneath. Well, they looked Japanese. I figured Scarlet’s mum or dad or both might be from Japan.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked.
‘Fall down seven times, stand up eight. It’s about resilience,’ she said, and without missing a beat: ‘Last night, did you actually see the face of the man while he was speaking? Or did you hear his voice and see his face separately?’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘Just… did you?’
I thought about it. I had heard the voice upstairs although not exactly what he was saying, and then, later, I saw the man’s face down below, those eyes looking up at me. But I hadn’t actually seen his face when he spoke because he was up on the balcony.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I heard his voice. Then I heard the footsteps and the lift. And then I saw his face down there.’
‘But did you ever actually hear that voice come out of his face?’
‘No,’ I said. Magic had settled in under Scarlet’s legs, the traitor. ‘But what difference does it make? I know it was him.’
‘Right,’ she said, looking at me like she was waiting for me to say something. ‘I know it’s a crazy idea but what if the man you saw last night was a police officer?’
‘He was!’ I said. ‘That’s what I’m telling you.’
‘But what if it wasn’t his voice that you heard above, the person who did the pushing? What if, when he was standing over the body, holding the umbrella, he was there on police duty? What if he lives in this building or the block next door or what if he was walking past and heard the guy fall and went to help him?’
‘Help him?’ I said. ‘He wasn’t helping him.’ I started to hate Scarlet in that moment.
‘What makes you so sure that you’re the only person in the world who saw him fall?’ she asked. ‘I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense if other people had seen it, too? There are fourteen apartments in our block and heaps next door on either side. You’re not in the Mountains any more.’
Anger bubbled up in me. I had to keep my head, though. ‘Why would he follow me upstairs? And break into the apartment? It was after two in the morning.’
‘Did you see him break into the apartment?’
‘What?’
‘Do you know for sure that it was him? Did you ever see him apart from when he looked up at you from the yard?’
I hesitated. ‘No.’
She looked at me like she pitied me. ‘So, one possibility is that they were two different people. Or maybe he thought you pushed the guy.’
‘What?’
‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘Two in the morning. A man is pushed from a building. A policeman goes to help him. He hears a noise from above and looks up to see a face at a window, someone taking a photo. The face disappears. What’s he going to do? He’s going to radio for someone to come investigate the scene and take the body to the morgue or something and maybe he’s going to go up and try to arrest whoever was at the window. Maybe he did break into your apartment. Maybe you’re the prime suspect.’
‘What?’ I snapped at her. ‘Firstly, he’d need a warrant to enter the apartment,’ I said, but it didn’t make me feel much better.
My head was swimming. How could she reverse everything I had worked out? I’d been thinking this through for twenty-something hours and she had taken two minutes to tear it all to pieces. How was it possible that I hadn’t seen him speak? I had played back the sound of the argument over and over again in my mind. I had replayed the image of the man’s face, I had looked at the blurred photo on my phone. When I was hiding in the cleaner’s cupboard I had been so close to him that I’d felt the floorboard lift as he stepped on it. And then I had seen him at the police station but, in all that time, I had not heard him speak and seen his face at the same time, which meant that… maybe the man I saw was not the man I heard in the apartment above.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t other police come to investigate the crime scene?’
‘You were in the cleaning cupboard all night, weren’t you?’ she asked. ‘Maybe it happened while you were in there.’
‘But the body was already gone before I hid in the cupboard,’ I said.
‘Look, I don’t have all the answers. It just seems like there are holes in your story. Maybe you don’t have all the answers either.’
I would have screamed at her if her argument didn’t make more sense than mine. If her logic was correct, I was accusing a police officer of a serious crime. Had I had put two and two together and made five?
Scarlet looked at me with those steady eyes. ‘I feel for you, Sam. I know what it’s like not to have a dad around but to have him go missing must make you feel really scared.’
I hated that word ‘scared’.
‘But that’s why you have to go back to the police. It sounds like the man you thought was the murderer might actually have been trying to help. And you should tell your mum, and tell her that your dad is gone. Do you want me to tell my mum? We could go down there with you now and talk to the cop.’
I hung my head. All the tiredness and pity and anger washed over me and I had no energy at all. Scarlet stood and put a hand on my back. I hated that. It confirmed that I was the little kid and she was the smarter, older girl. I had fooled myself today into thinking that I was more mature, more in control than I had ever been in my life. Now I felt like a baby. Or like everything Mum had said about me taking stupid risks, not thinking things through, being ‘ruled by hormones’ was right. I felt so tired. How stupid to try to be a crime reporter, using techniques from comic books, when an actual crime had been committed and I needed to tell someone.
‘It’s all right,’ Scarlet said.
But it wasn’t. Nothing was all right. I bent down and picked up my backpack, wiping my face and turning away from her.
‘Magic, come.’ I crutched across to the hallway.
‘Why don’t I tell my mum and–’
‘No. Don’t. It’s okay. I can work it out. Thanks.’
‘But if your dad’s not home…’
‘He might be now.’
I moved quickly and quietly down the darkened hall to the door.
I tried to open the latch, but couldn’t. Scarlet reached past me and opened it easily. Another dent to my pride.
I went across to the top of the stairs.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to–’
‘I’m fine,’ I said firmly.
‘Okay, well… I want to help you. Just knock if–’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I will.’
She watched me for a few seconds longer and then clicked the door closed, leaving me there in the empty stairwell with my smelly old dog. A few moments passed before her footsteps padded away up the hall.