Shooting Star

3

The room next door explained why there weren’t any books in Pat Carson’s study. It was a library, a striking room, mellow parquet floor, four walls of floor-to-ceiling books, ladders on wheels, armchairs covered in faded fabrics, a long, narrow library table surrounded by upright chairs, stern chairs.

I sat at the table, ran my fingertips over the green leather inlay, unhappy at being bought, tempted to find Noyce and tell him I’d changed my mind. These people were capitulating in the hope that it would save a girl’s life. It probably wouldn’t. And I was complicit, not abetting them, no, but certainly aiding them, taking money to carry their money. Why? Broke and prospectless, that was a good enough reason. If not me, then someone else.

I got out my book and found the number of Corin McCall, garden designer and lecturer in horticulture, my date after class. It had taken me five months to find the courage to ask her out, five months of doing all my homework, spending hours formulating intelligent questions, shaving before my night class.

‘McCall.’ She had a deep voice for such a lean and wiry person. A little electric jolt went through me the first time she spoke to the class.‘

Corin, Frank Calder.’ It occurred to me that I’d never said her name. I coughed. ‘Listen, I couldn’t get to class…’

‘I noticed,’ she said. ‘And you can’t make it tonight.’

‘Called out for an urgent job. I’m really sorry, I’d turn it down, but…’

She said, ‘That’s fine, Frank, happens to me all the time. I mean, I do this to people.’ Pause. ‘Anyhow, I’m exhausted, wouldn’t have been good company.’

‘Can we make another time? Next week? Any night.’

‘I’m in the bush on Monday and Tuesday, possibly Wednesday.

You could give me a call mid-week.’

‘I will. I’ll call you.’

‘Yes, call me. I await your call.’

‘I await calling you. I’m sorry I spoiled your evening. You could’ve taken up another offer.’

Corin laughed. ‘It’s early, I may still.’

‘Goodnight. See you next week.’

‘Goodnight. Call me.’

‘Mid-week. Goodnight.’

Repeating myself, breathing too shallowly. What kind of teenage nonsense was this?

A sallow man in a white jacket was at the open door pushing a small serving trolley. Supper was grilled fish, tiny tomatoes and roasted eggplant. I had just finished it when there was a knock: a big handsome man in a dark suit, fortyish, fat coming on, neat short hair. Dennis Whitton, Pat Carson’s driver, the girls’ driver. I’d questioned Noyce about him. Ex-cop, excellent credentials, four years in the job.

‘Mr Noyce said…’

I got up and shook hands, closed the door, sat him at the library table, sat opposite him.

‘Bad luck this,’ I said.

He nodded, rolled his head ruefully, scratched the back of it. He had pale blue eyes, wary. ‘Let em talk me into it,’ he said. ‘Went in the first coupla times, hung around, pretend I’m lookin at the CDs. You feel like a perv, no one more than sixteen in the place. Second time, a bloke come up to me, he’s about twenty. He says, I’m the manager, we’d be happier if you looked at CDs somewhere else. After that…’

‘How long’s this been going on?’ I said.

‘This term, that’s all.’

‘Every day?’

‘No.’ He was indignant. ‘Only on sport days. Tuesday and Thursday. It’d be six, seven times.’

‘Who talked you into it?’

‘They did, the girls.’

‘Both of them?’

‘Yeah. They worked on me. I gave in, I’m an idiot, what can I say?’

‘Who suggested it? Whose idea?’

He shrugged, put up his big hands. ‘Jeez, I can’t remember. They talk all the time, they tease me, shave your head Dennis, no, he should grow his hair, Dennis, PE teacher said she thinks you’re a spunk, Dennis, how old were you when you did it the first time? They go on like that all the time. You wouldn’t think they were fifteen. Not like kids at all.’ He sighed. ‘I dunno who asked first.

Really don’t know.’

‘The times you went in, they talk to anyone?’

‘Sure. There’s other kids from the school there.’

‘Girls?’

‘And boys. That’s what it’s about. Boys.’

‘That’s what what’s about?’

‘Goin there. The record place. Triple Zero.’

‘Triple Zero. That’s its name?’

He nodded.

‘They went there to meet boys. Any boys in particular?’

‘Dunno. I said, only went in twice, didn’t really notice.’

‘But they were talking to boys.’

‘Well, yeah. In a group like, boys and girls.’

‘The time. How long were they in the store?’

‘Twenty, twenty-five minutes.’

‘You tell anyone you were doing this? Taking them to this place?’

‘No.’ Quick response. ‘Who would I tell?’

I got up, put my hands in my pockets, looked at a pen-and-ink drawing on the wall above the writing desk: a cobbled street, shops on either side. Somewhere in Europe. It was signed A. Carson. In the glass, I could see Whitton. He was rubbing his jaw with his right hand, looking at the ceiling.

I turned and walked around the library table, perched close to him so that he had to lean back and look up at me.

‘They’d kick your tyres a bit before you got a job like this,’ I said.

‘Cop in WA, that’s right?’

‘Right.’

‘Quit to be a security man at Argyle. Diamond mine pay better?’

‘Lots, yeah.’

‘And then the Hanleys. Big move. Perth to Melbourne.’

‘Married a Melbourne girl, she wanted to come back. Kept on about the green grass, all that. Never stopped.’ He shrugged. ‘What can you do?’

‘How long in that job?’

‘Hanleys? Nine years. Done all the driver courses, done one in England. Brands Hatch. Hanleys sent me. Ten days. Blokes from all over, America, Italy, you name it. Then Mr Clive Hanley died. Mrs Hanley wanted me to go to Sydney with her, she went to live in Sydney. Couldn’t go, the wife wouldn’t go, her family’s all here.’

‘England. So you know all the stuff. Unpredictable routes, evasive actions, emergency drills, that sort of thing.’

A slight blush crept up from his collar, tinged his jowls. ‘Yeah, all that.’

‘Put it into practice, driving the girls?’

‘Sure, yeah.’

‘So you’d never take the same route from the school to Armadale? Use different cars?’

He hesitated. ‘That’s right.’

I didn’t say anything, sat with my fingers on the table, still, expressionless, looking over his right shoulder.

‘Not worth much if they know where you’re going,’ he said. ‘All that stuff.’

I didn’t comment. ‘Know about the other Carson kidnapping?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Think about it before you gave in to the girls?’

He sat forward, shoulders hunched, eyes on the table. ‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘Jesus, not enough.’

‘So you told no one.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you’re not involved in any way?’

‘Christ, no.’

‘Mr Whitton,’ I said softly, ‘you’re pretty much finished in this line of work. But things can get much worse. Whatever happens to this girl, even the best result, you are going to be gone over by people who will look into every pore of your skin, stick a probe up your arse and look at your eyes from the inside. If you’re involved, they’ll find out. Believe that, believe it. And then you’ll be finished in all lines of work. Listening?’

His eyes were still on the table.

‘Look at me,’ I said.

His head came up. His eyes were watering.

‘I’m asking you again, Mr Whitton. Tell me the truth. You’ll be glad you did. Are you involved in any way?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. No.’

The telephone rang at a writing table between the French windows. It was a flat black high-tech device and its ring was a gentle warbling sound, a sound suitable for a library.

Noyce came in without knocking. ‘Wait in your quarters, Dennis,’ he said.

Tom Carson was in the doorway, Barry behind him. They stood back to let Whitton leave. Then, not hurried, Tom went to the writing table. He sat down, took a fountain pen from an inside pocket, removed the top, fitted it to the back. He picked up the receiver.

‘Tom Carson.’

We watched him listen and write on the broad white tablet in front of him. He said only one word: ‘Yes.’

When he’d put the receiver down, Noyce went over to the table and pushed a button. We listened to the ringing, to Tom saying his name. Then a harsh, grating, high-pitched electronic voice said:

Make sure you’ve got two hundred thousand dollars in notes by twelve noon tomorrow. Fifties. If you contact the police, we’ll know and the girl dies.

Straight away. Got that?

Tom’s voice: Yes.

Wait for a call.

They were all looking at me.

‘That’s pretty straightforward,’ I said to Noyce. ‘Purely out of interest, ask your friends at Jahn, Cullinan where the call came from.’