Page 45 of Down the Track
‘I’m just wondering why,’ said Clifford, ‘when all Cocker has done is, in his own words’—she flipped a couple of pages back in her notebook and read aloud—‘“been a good freaking Samaritan and reported a bloke who’s gone missing in the middle of a summer heat wave”, he’d then go and call his best mate and brother-in-law and ask him to hightail it out here to Yindi Creek?’
Wow. There was a lot in that statement and now didn’t seem a good moment to mention Charlie had diagnosed himself as having a few roos loose in the top paddock. ‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘I’m not just his best mate and brother-in-law, I’m also his business partner. Secondly, he was upset about the man not turning up in case something bad had happened to him and thought he might like a bit of time off to deal with that. Charlie’s a family man, constable, as well as a small business owner, and he and I have got financial commitments to keep so that this business keeps bringing in enough money to support that family.’
‘So you weren’t called back to help him cover up a crime?’
Far out! He really needed his whiteboard. Maybe the whole pick-up bookingwasa red herring. ‘I’m not covering up any crime,’ he said. ‘Charlie has committed no crime. Charlie doesn’t havetimefor crime: he’s got a wife and two kids and a third kid just about ready to drop.’
But someone must have committed a crime; at least, the police must suspect someone of committing one. Or else, why were they here, en masse, in the office with a police dog?
But what crime?
TYSON: Crime. Sniffer dog. Drugs. Join the dots, genius.
Hux cleared his throat. ‘Look, the only reason I flew out to the same place was because I was directed there by the Cracknells and Dr Joanne Tan. As they will tell you if you ask them.’
‘And you’ll come into the station and make an official statement saying exactly that?’
‘Yes,’ Hux said, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
‘Good. Send Ms Kong out, will you?’
He wasn’t sure why he felt so pissed off as he left the shade of the shed doorway. Should he have answered her questions? Should he have lawyered up? It seemed mad that he’d have to.
The officers conducting the search were just leaving the donger and heading for the helicopters, their sniffer dog not bothering to respond to Possum’s wagtail overture.
‘Clifford wants to talk to you, Phaedra,’ Hux said.
He waited until she’d left and it was just him and Charlie left in the donger. ‘Those police take anything with them from the office?’ he asked.
‘They took the original paperwork Dave filled in, which I’d already scanned and emailed over to the police station. Don’t know what good that will do them.’
‘Fingerprints, maybe.’
‘Dunno.’
‘Have they taken your prints to exclude them from the paperwork?’
‘Yeah,’ said Charlie. ‘And Phaedra’s.’
If Charlie’s shoulders drooped any further they’d hit the beige fuzz of the carpet tiles. Hux put Possum down and the little bloke headed straight for Charlie’s feet as though he could sense there was someone in the vicinity who needed emotional support, but at the last second swerved to investigate whatever smells the police dog had left all over the filing cabinets.
‘Phaedra reckons it might be time to call a lawyer,’ Hux said.
‘What are they expecting to find here? I just don’t understand.’
‘Yeah, me either, but until Acting Constable Coldheart out there is willing to share whatever it is she’s thinking with us, we need to play along. We don’t want to get any bad press over this, or the business may take a hit it can’t recover from.’
No need to mention the hit that the Huxtable family—which included Charlie—might not recover from if the media or the police started looking up old town stories and began connecting the dots … A possibility that was becoming more and more likely by the hour.
Charlie put his head in his hands. ‘Shit, Hux. Can you believe this has happened? Like—we take a booking, some random guy’s a no-show, and now we’re suddenly facing financial and emotional ruin?’
Yeah. Life was like that. Randomly good and randomly shit and everything in between. ‘Charlie,’ he said, ‘we’re going to get through this no matter what. Only—when you go home and tell Sal what’s happened this afternoon, I’d recommend you use a lot more sugar coating. Alot.’ The last thing they needed was Sal going into labour a month early.
A deep, booming woof made them look at the window. The search had moved over to the R22 and the police dog had dropped into a sphynx-like pose in the footwell of the aircraft.
‘What now?’ said Charlie.
‘No idea. Let’s go find out.’
