Through the Cracks (19 page)

T
hey stood in front of the TV in the lounge room. The female reporter was in front of Joe’s gates, talking into a microphone. She wasn’t as close as she first appeared to be. A police car pulled up on the road behind her. She was standing on the footpath across from Joe’s. Joe’s gates were open. Police tape was across the gap and officers were ducking under the tape to get in and out of the yard.

‘What is becoming clear is the sense of desperation,’ the reporter said, ‘with each hour that passes . . . it’s in the air, Mike, I can’t describe it . . .’

‘Any sight of Gerard Laziro?’ the man at the desk in the newsroom said.

‘Not yet. After the Fisher family, it’s hard to imagine a more emotional arrival here.’

‘Absolutely, Liz. While we wait, we’ll play the footage of him breaking the news last night.’

‘Okay, Mike, I’ll get back to you soon.’

The face of the man at the newsdesk filled the screen. ‘Here’s retired Senior Detective Gerard Laziro, the detective originally in charge of the case, brought in as a special advisor, reading the initial statement last night.’

It switched to footage of a man standing in front of a grey wall. He was dressed in a suit. Lights were shining on him. He had a deep voice and a bushy beard. He read from a sheet. ‘At ten a.m. yesterday, police and firefighters attended a shed fire. A woman at the property was found in a serious condition and admitted to hospital. A vehicle at the shed was traced to the home of a recently deceased man. Arriving at the man’s property, officers discovered evidence of a break-in. The woman regained consciousness and was able to assist police with their enquiries. This assistance has led to the discovery of a body inside the burnt-out shed and fresh information about the 1974 abduction of Nathan Fisher.’

He paused. Lights flashed. Someone shouted a question: ‘Is Nathan alive?’ Gerard didn’t answer. He held up a picture, the sketch of Adam’s face, the one on the front page of the paper.

‘In relation to Nathan Fisher, police are asking for anyone who may have seen this boy to come forward. He is described as being one hundred and sixty-five centimetres tall, pale complexion, blue eyes, slim build with light-brown hair. If anyone has seen this boy, please call the number on the screen.’ A phone number scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

‘Is it Nathan?’ a reporter shouted.

‘Are they looking for more bodies in the shed?’

‘The circulation of this picture and any information about this boy is what the police are focusing on at the moment,’ Gerard said. ‘They’re appealing to the public for help. Anyone with any information, please call . . .’ he began to recite the number.

The program cut back to the man at the newsdesk. ‘That was last night. This morning police have confirmed that they believe the boy they are searching for could be Nathan Fisher, the boy snatched from Golding’s Farmers’ Market ten years ago. The sketch was drawn from a woman’s eyewitness account of seeing a boy, possibly Nathan, outside a house in Barbary Street, Melbourne, as recently as Sunday. Liz,’ he said, ‘you spoke of a sense of desperation in Barbary Street.’

The report switched back to the woman. ‘And disbelief, Mike. Shock.’

‘Have the police there spoken any more about the man seen with the boy?’

‘Very little information on that man, Mike.’

Scotty wouldn’t stop staring at Adam’s face. He was looking in such a fixed and persistent way, at Adam’s features, at his hair, his eyes. Not into his eyes, though. It was like Scotty couldn’t see beyond the surface, like Adam was a reflection, not a person.

The TV camera panned over to the castle house. Police were on the porch. The door was open. Men in suits were walking over the footbridge.

The reporter was saying, ‘In this wealthy suburb, this quiet street, was Nathan Fisher, all this time, hidden and held captive alongside families going about their everyday lives?’ The reporter lowered her microphone as someone spoke to her. ‘Mike, are you getting that? We’re crossing to the hospital . . .’

Mike was looking down at a piece of paper being handed to him. ‘We’re crossing to the hospital,’ he repeated.

The footage swapped to the hospital. There were sounds of a helicopter. Police cars lined the street. A police caravan was parked on the sidewalk.

Adam didn’t, at first, recognise the woman, because she wasn’t dressed in a nurse’s uniform. As she spoke, though, he realised it was the young nurse. The silver bluebird was around her neck. Three different microphones were pointed at her. Reporters were jostling for position, crowding the footpath, blocking her way.

‘I’m not allowed to answer any questions,’ she was saying.

‘Do the Fishers believe this boy is their son?’ a reporter said.

‘Have you spoken with the parents?’ another shouted.

‘Are you the nurse who recognised his sketch on the news?’

‘Let me past,’ she said.

A police officer was running down the road towards the huddle. The reporters quickly fired off more questions.

‘Was his condition life-threatening?’

‘Why was he discharged?’

‘Were medical records used to confirm his identity?’

‘A birthmark,’ the nurse suddenly said. She touched the back of her neck. ‘The doctor who examined him saw . . .’

The policeman jogged up. He pushed the reporters back. He turned the nurse away and led her off.

A male reporter stepped in front of the camera. ‘I’m not sure how much of that you got, Mike, but that was one of the nurses called in to speak with the Fisher family. We know the family is inside right now.’

‘Dennis,’ Mike said, ‘the nurse mentioned a birthmark?’

‘Yes, I don’t think a birthmark has been mentioned before, has it?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘A detail withheld for identification purposes, perhaps.’

Scotty tried his best not to look too pointedly at the back of Adam’s neck. He leaned to the side, slowly craned his head. Billy pulled Scotty into the kitchen. Adam followed.

The radio was reporting the same kind of news as the TV.

Billy slapped the kitchen table.

‘What the hell, Billy?’

‘They’re going to blame me.’

‘Why are you still with him?’

The paper remained open on the table. Billy leaned down over it, scrunched the page. ‘Look how they’ve drawn me. Look at that. You look at that and you tell me what they’re gonna do. Look at it, Scotty!’

‘I’ve seen it.’

‘They’re gonna put it on me.’

‘Who?’

‘Everyone.’

‘Put what on you?’

‘They’re gonna find a way to lay the blame on me.’

‘Sit down.’

‘It’s bullshit! They didn’t have to come at me. I’ve said nothing about the church.’

‘Come at you? What are you talking about?’

‘The Mission is threatening me. They’re saying they’re gonna blame me.’

‘Settle down. Sit down.’ Scotty roughly pulled a chair out. ‘Sit down,’ he ordered.

Billy sat. He splayed his upper body on the table, buried his face into the crook of his good arm. He was like a child for a moment, muttering things into his sleeve.

‘What’s the Mission saying?’

Billy dragged the heel of his hand beneath his nose. ‘Say anything about the church and I’m done.’

‘What have they got to do with it?’

‘Fucking nothing! They’re sticking their nose in because I’m involved.’

‘Stop shouting . . . Why didn’t you take him in like I said?’

‘I just didn’t, okay! I know it was wrong. I was about to do it. Today I was fucking doin’ it. But the church want me dead; that’s what they want, I swear, they do.’

‘They’re threatening you?’

‘Yes! They think I’m gonna put them in the shit.’

‘So don’t put them in the shit and there’s no problem, right?’

‘The cops will blame me and the church will get on board no matter what. They won’t stop this time. This is their chance. They want me buried.’

‘You’re getting carried away.’

‘You don’t know them, Scotty.’

‘Why do they care so much? Why do they do this to you?’

‘Because they don’t just beat kids.’

‘What?’

‘They didn’t just beat me.’

One look at Scotty’s confused expression and Billy pushed himself up and away from the table. The chair tipped backwards. He stormed off down the hallway.

‘
Fuck!
’ he screamed.

Scotty looked across at Adam, smiled tightly. ‘Hanging in there okay? We’re gonna get you to your mum and dad real soon.’ He spoke like Adam knew them.

‘Can I use your toilet, Scotty?’

‘Sure.’

Adam couldn’t hear as much in the toilet. The TV and radio didn’t reach that far. Voices in the house were muffled. He sat down against the toilet wall. Magpies were warbling in the gum trees outside the vented window. Wrens and songbirds tweeted. Adam noticed how his jeans had stretched. He could comfortably sit with his knees up now. After a few minutes he looked at the poster. The woman on the car looked different from that angle, misshapen. It was only when sitting on the loo, looking at her front-on, that it was clear how beautiful she was. Adam stayed on the floor. It wasn’t the right time to look at her. It was probably a strange thing to think, but he wanted to save her, for better moments, not for when he felt like this.

He pressed his knuckles to his lips.

B
illy was sitting at the table again. Scotty was talking. They glanced up as Adam entered.

‘Because he was gettin’ interviewed early this morning,’ Scotty was saying, ‘as the expert on street kids and the homeless, and you know what he said . . .’ Scotty spread his hands and smiled tight-lipped, ‘no one knows who he is. The description doesn’t fit with any of the street kids he knows about. And he reckons he knows them all. That picture in the paper is a joke, but you can’t tell me that the church doesn’t know it’s meant to be you.’ Scotty’s voice was winding up, getting faster. ‘They can’t have it both ways – have they got all this stuff on you or haven’t they? Do they know you or don’t they?’

‘They’ll just say the picture didn’t fit.’

‘They’ve got you spooked because it’s big. But it’s big for them too. Keep quiet and they will.’

‘But I didn’t take him straight to the cops.’

‘Nathan,’ Scotty said.

Adam looked blankly at him.

‘What are you gonna say to the police?’

‘About what?’

‘About Billy.’

‘I’m not going to tell them about Billy.’

‘Hey?’

‘Scotty, you don’t get it. When they ask for real, if I have to tell them I stole a car,
two
cars, I broke into places, stole money, a fair bit of money, I didn’t report a fire . . .’ His eyes clouded. He swung his head. ‘Nup.’

‘You saved the Market Boy, that’s all they’re going to care about. They’re not gonna pile a heap of petty shit on you. You’re a good kid. People are gonna see that. What else are you gonna do? There’s nothing else to do. Take my car, drive to the hospital. Tell them you saw it on the news, you panicked a bit and then you brought him in . . . How’d you get here?’

‘I took Brother Hayden’s car.’

Scotty squeezed one eye shut and twisted his head away.

‘I couldn’t take a taxi!’

‘You’re in a church car?’

‘What could I do?’

‘How did you figure stealing a priest’s car was gonna help you?’

Billy spun off down the hallway again. ‘See!’

No one called him Adam. He was
The Market Boy
or
Nathan Fisher
. Adam knelt close to the TV and watched old footage from the farmers’ market. They showed the search for him. The market backed onto a reserve. The reserve led down to a river. The searchers walked through the low scrub. Dressed in waders, they searched the river. He wasn’t found. It was a sunny day. His mother and father appealed at a press conference. They sat side by side, red-eyed, puffy faces, their hands clenched in their laps, sometimes staring down, sometimes staring ahead, occasionally looking at each other. His mother begged, ‘Please, please . . . anything . . . any little thing could make a difference. We just want our little boy back.’ She glanced at a policewoman beside her. The woman encouraged her. His mother kept going, but it was hard, you could see that. ‘His name is Nathan Fisher. He’s four years old. He likes Matchbox cars and playing in the sandpit. He has two older sisters. He’s frightened of the dark. His favourite bedtime story is
The Poky Little Puppy
. His favourite food is . . .’ she seemed to be undecided on what it was, or whether or not to say it, ‘. . .  ice-cream cake.’ Next to her, Adam’s father had broken down.

Gerard, younger, without the beard, was filmed angrily dismissing that Adam had drowned in the river. He counted off on his fingers: ‘One: child-sized footprints walking away from the bank. Two: the river too shallow and slow-flowing to sweep a body away. Three: no animal large enough to carry away a drowned body. Four: no evidence of any blood or dragging. Five: unexplained vehicle marks on the other side of the river. Six: extensive forensics finding not one shred of evidence to support drowning . . . Do you want me to keep on going? Nathan Fisher was lured away from the market. He was abducted. It was premeditated. Planned. More than one person was involved. People out there know who took this boy. We need one of them to come forward.’

Billy and Scotty were at the window. The stripy bedsheet pulled aside. They were looking out at Brother Hayden’s car.

‘How do you do it?’ Scotty said. ‘How do you manage every time for it to be like this?’

‘Don’t blame me.’ Billy’s voice was small.

‘You knew something wasn’t right. I told you something wasn’t right. I don’t understand why you couldn’t have just done what I said.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Billy said wetly. ‘I didn’t know it was him.’

‘Anyone could see he needed help. You go at things so backward. I don’t understand the angles you take. It’s like you come at every fucking problem from the absolute bottom. This stuff you reckon the church will say about you, is any of it true? Are they just making up that you took kids from the Mission?’

‘I didn’t take them for the reasons they’ll say.’

‘Why are you always with these sorts of boys? Start sayin’ somethin’, Billy, cause it’s not adding up.’

Billy crouched. He held his head. ‘I get them out. I was only ever saving them. I was trying to help them. Anything is better than in there . . . I made it as safe on the street as I could for them. I never made them do anything they didn’t want to. I didn’t take their money. I stayed with them to stop them getting hurt. If they went with someone, I stayed with them to protect them, not to make them do it or take their money.’

‘You sayin’ these kids were pimpin’ themselves?’

‘I protected them.’

‘Jesus Christ. How is anyone gonna see it the way you see it, when you see it so fucking backwards?’

‘I thought he was just another homeless kid. I thought if I took him to the police they’d put him somewhere or give him to the church. No one believes what they do, Scotty . . .’

Scotty had folded his arms and was staring out the window. ‘He wasn’t right. I saw it. You saw it. You still took him out there and you’ve done I don’t know what . . .’

‘They had him at the hospital . . . wouldn’t you think at the hospital they would know? I swore I thought he was just another kid. That mark on his neck, no one had ever said anything about a mark . . . I was
sure
it wasn’t him.’

Scotty unfolded his arms and frowned down at him. ‘What do you mean you were sure it wasn’t him?’

‘I was gonna take him in, but I didn’t think it would be like this – on every station, in every paper, how could I know it would be like this? It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was taking him in – I was. It was gonna be all right . . .’

‘What are you saying – you didn’t think it was him? When?’

Billy was crying. ‘It all stops, everyone stops and looks for him.’

‘Did you know he was the Market Boy?’

‘Everyone caring, everyone looking . . .’

Scotty lowered his voice to a growl. ‘When did you know?’

Billy cried harder.

‘When?’

‘Don’t hate me, Scotty.’

The backpack was on the floor by the armchair. The TV was turned up. Billy was sobbing now. Scotty’s voice got lower. Their backs were turned to Adam. They weren’t looking at him. Adam unzipped the backpack and took out the gun. He walked with it down the hallway, to the bathroom this time. He didn’t want the woman in the poster to see this or to be in the room with this. The shower was best. Adam shut the bathroom door, pulled the shower curtain closed. He sat down with the plughole between his legs.