So were you, I thought, but I didn’t say it. ‘He was just a boy, no experience.’
On the way back to the sunroom she stopped in the kitchen, swivelled, and headed towards a drinks tray on a pine sideboard. ‘I’m going to have a whisky. Would you care for one, Mr Hardy?’
‘I would. Thank you.’
‘Ice?’
‘Just water.’
‘Quite right.’ She poured two solid belts of Cutty Sark, added water from a cooler and took the drinks through to where we’d been sitting.
‘Cheers, and thank you for your help. That big lump of a boy could have hurt me.’
‘He was more frightened than anything else, but he did need discouraging.’
She smiled. ‘You do have a nice way of putting things. Sarah is an uncontrolled and uncontrollable little hoyden. I don’t know what I’m going to do with her. She’s been on the brink of expulsion from St Margaret’s many a time.’
‘Unlike Justin.’
‘My word, yes. He was an exemplary… oh God.’ She took a strong pull on her drink and stroked the side of her face with her free hand. ‘I must have sounded so cold before. It’s the way I was brought up. Don’t show your feelings, remain in control. I do, but sometimes I want to scream.’
I drank some scotch and gave her a minute, then I said, ‘You’ve got a lot on your hands. I’ll only ask one question and then I’d like to see anything of Justin’s you can show me. What did you mean when you said his disappearance was your husbands fault?’
She knocked back the rest of her drink. ‘Paul had always gone on about the military tradition of the Hampshires-the Boer War, World Wars I and II and all that, plus his own service in Vietnam. He filled Justin to the brim with the idea of Duntroon and the military. Justin and I had an argument about something or other and I told him that Paul had served briefly as a supply officer in Vietnam before being invalided out. He never fired a shot in anger or had one fired at him, never left the base. This was after Paul had deserted us, making noises about American business deals, promising to look into scholarships to West Point.’
‘So Justin…?’
‘I’m guessing. He and I never spoke about… personal matters, not really, not manly-you know? I’m guessing he went off to do something brave, unlike his father, to prove to him and himself that he was a man. God knows what, and he hasn’t been heard of since
Her pain was palpable now but I had to ask one more question. ‘Did you tell any of this to the police?’
‘No, I was ashamed of the mess we were in and it was just a guess. What good could it do?’
I had the feeling that she wanted to say a lot more but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She lowered her dark head, strands of grey showing at the crown, and pointed. ‘Second door on the right is Justin’s room. Take all the time you need. Thank you again, Mr Hardy. I’m going to lie down.’
I didn’t recognise the music coming from behind Sarah’s door and didn’t want to. Justin’s room wasn’t one of those shrines to the departed you hear about. It had been tidied and I had the impression a good deal of the paraphernalia had been removed. It was basically just a bedroom with posters on the walls-standard teenage stuff-and marks where other stuff had been stuck, perhaps too affecting to be allowed to stay.
There wasn’t much in the desk and didn’t look as if there ever had been-no diary, nothing taped to the underside of a drawer, no hollowed-out cavities. A bookshelf held a few textbooks-history, English, human movement, agricultural science-and there was a well overdue school library copy of Series biography of Monash along with paperbacks of Waugh’s Put Out More Flags and a couple of Clancys and Forsyths. Oh for the days of blotters with indiscretions scribbled on them and discarded carbon papers. A calendar for the year Justin went missing was taped to the side of the bookcase, effectively hidden from view. The date of his mother’s missing person report was 18 September. The date the HSC exams were to start was circled in red, but further back, on 1 August, was scribbled ‘Ag Sci Ex’.
I took the Serle book down and something fell out from it-a reader’s ticket to the Mitchell Library. I left the room and knocked quietly on the door almost opposite. No response. I knocked louder and the music stopped.
‘What?’
‘I’m a private investigator looking into the disappearance of your brother. I want to talk to you.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Any message if I run into Ronny?’
‘Tell him to fuck off, too.’ The music kicked in-loud!
I went back to the sunroom, drained my scotch and left my card near the glass. I had to hope Sarah wouldn’t tear it up.
It was raining, making the steps treacherous. I went down gingerly and hurried to the car. A U-turn and I was back heading south, away from the big houses and boats that are no protection against the worst kinds of trouble. A couple of hundred metres along I spotted Ronny. He was hunched up inside his jacket, with one hand in his pocket and the other thumbing for a ride. Seemed to be favouring his right side a little. I drove a short way past, stopped and opened the door. He got in and grunted his thanks before he identified me. By then I’d reached across him to close the door and had the car moving.
‘Take it easy,’ I said, ‘it’s pissing down. You need a lift and I need to talk to you.’
The rain was lashing the windscreen now, the wipers barely coping. He shoved both hands into his pockets and gave me a stare that was supposed to be hard but ended up sullen. ‘Who are you, then? The mother’s new bloke?’
I told him who I was and what I was doing as I drove carefully on the narrow road. His only response was a shrug. On closer inspection, he was a presentable kid-tall, lean and dark, trying for a beard and not quite making it yet. His clothes were the standard uniform but not bargain basement-New Balance high-tops-and he wore an expensive-looking watch. He examined the interior of the old Falcon and was unimpressed.
‘Have you got a smoke?’ he said.
‘You might find some in the glove-box.’
He opened it up and took out a crumpled packet of Marlboros. ‘Three in it.’
‘You can have ‘em,’ I said. ‘And the lighter. Someone left them behind.’
He put a cigarette in his mouth.
‘You can smoke when you get out and after you answer a few questions. Okay?’
He wanted to ask me what Sarah had told me but with the rain pelting and the cigarettes available he decided to play it cool. Me too.
‘You need to learn a bit about fighting, son. You had a go, which I admire, but you should always keep your head moving and punch for the body. Bigger target.’
The cigarette in his mouth jiggled as he nodded. ‘If you say so.’
‘And you shouldn’t have pushed the woman. I know you were scared-’
‘Who says I’m scared?’
‘I do. You’re scared a lot of the time. I was at your age. How far’re you going?’
‘Mona Vale.’
‘I’ll drop you. Did you know Sarah’s brother, Justin?’
‘Yeah, I knew him. Went to the same fucking school until they chucked me out.’
‘What was he like?’
‘He was an arsehole.’
‘Explain.’
‘Always crapping on about the heroes in his fucking family. Grandfather and great-grandfather dying in battle, how he was going to be an officer and all that shit. Who cares?’
‘What else?’
‘He used to try to protect Sarah from blokes like me. Not that she wanted protection, and when he pissed off, wow, did she cut loose.’
‘Still at school, isn’t she?’
He sniggered and pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to scratch at a new-looking tattoo of an image I couldn’t identify. ‘Not a lot. Look, she basically goes for the drama classes. She wants to be a fucking actress and she’s acting all the time. Anyhow, she wasn’t at school today. We thought her old lady was out till late.’
‘Any more to tell me?’
‘No. Yeah, that car. Man, if I had a car like that what wouldn’t I do, but him-went fucking surfing and skiing and even went down to Canberra to look at some fucking museum. Nerd.’
‘When was this?’
‘Not long before he went, or whatever.’