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  ‘So the alternative is they’ve been abducted?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But who – who would do that? At an accident? That’s just sick.’

  The detective was expressionless. There was some feat or trickery in that practised nullity, Lawrence thought.

  ‘I’ve been told that Ava’s mother – Vanessa – lives close by, in Malvern? Would she be home?’

  ‘I – think so. Probably.’

  Hawkins had returned and was standing against the wall with his arms folded and large hands splayed over his sleeves. Lawrence caught a hint of his deodorant and recognised the cheap brand: an acrid commercial concoction favoured by teenage boys. A kitten rubbed its head against the detective’s ankle and he pushed it away with his foot.

  Lawrence picked up the kitten and held it on his lap, stroking between its shoulder blades with his forefinger. There was so little to it. Bones and fur and a thin layer of flesh. As he scratched the kitten clinging to the knee of his jeans, he noticed that Ballard was looking up at the glittering jet-black chandelier hanging above the window. A house in Camberwell, a chandelier, a bay window. Was she sizing up signs of wealth? His thumb moved over the ribs on the kitten’s back. How could the kitten both cling and relax without even letting her claws prick through the fabric? He was comforted by her soft purring.

  ‘So, Lawrence, two mornings ago an eyewitness claims you left your and Ava’s house in the small hours of the morning. Can you confirm you were there despite your IVO?’

  Lawrence bowed his head over the kitten. ‘Okay, this is awkward.’

  ‘You don’t deny it?’

  ‘No. I don’t deny it. But I didn’t go inside. I didn’t disturb anybody . . .’ Lawrence raised his head. His eyes were moist. ‘The thing is, I used to be confident. Everything came my way. I’m considered good-looking; I’m intelligent. I used to boast about my high Mensa score – Ava stopped me doing that. She said my lack of humility was my greatest fault. She was good for me, Detective Ballard. I acknowledge that. But the double whammy: trouble at work, Ava kicking me out – it’s messed me up. I’m not trying to hide that.’

  ‘What were you doing at Ava’s house at that time?’

  ‘I was missing her. Missing the kids. I got out of the car and stared at my house. It’s kind of surreal to not be allowed inside your own home. You wonder how it all happened, how you got yourself into this hole, you know?’

  Lawrence’s voice was quiet and apologetic. He remembered how the darkness had lain richly all around him as he stood before the house with his children inside. A home barred to him. When he’d been served with the intervention order by the police, the rage he’d felt was akin to lightning: a bolt sharp and pure and electric.

  That night he’d walked up the driveway, he didn’t understand what he was feeling. Every blind was pulled shut and all was dark. What was he hoping for? To see Ava gazing out of the window? And if she’d been awake, if she’d seen him, what would he have done? Thrown a rock through the glass or sunk to his knees? He went through the side gate and into the backyard and lay down in the sandpit. The crunch of sand under his head seemed to echo through his skull.

  ‘I was so tired,’ he told Ballard now. ‘I just wanted to look at them, but of course I couldn’t. I miss them so much. How long have you been a detective for?’

  ‘Coming up fourteen years.’

  ‘You will have seen many men like me then. I hope you aren’t prejudiced against us. When the state takes an action against an individual, when a man can’t see his own sons, those lovely links with humanity are broken.’

  Ballard wrote something down. Her face stayed impassive. ‘You understand that breaching the IVO is a serious matter.’

  ‘It’s a minor breach, surely?’

  ‘A breach is a breach. It can mean a hefty fine. Sometimes jail. This will get reported. You may receive a summons.’

  ‘Really? My sons are missing—’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. So what happened next?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. I just . . . lay down and rested. Even Ava – she’s a kind person really – wouldn’t have denied me that. Not if she knew how I felt. I lay down in my own forbidden garden. It was good to be there, lying in the sandpit I had made for my sons. I’d laid the railway sleepers and wheeled the heavy bags of sand in the barrow and poured them out. I fell asleep, and when I woke up I felt sick with sadness.’

  Laying his head on that bed of sand was his answer to the injustice of what he was experiencing. It did something to ease his anger. Who could stop him? No-one! When he slept he dreamed he was kayaking over white rapids. All things in their passing kept changing, the trees, the water, the spray. He said nothing of the dream to Ballard.

  ‘When I got up out of that sandpit, my skin was so tight,’ he said.

  He wondered what the detectives were making of his words. He’d breached the intervention order, yes, but he’d hurt no-one. It must happen all the time.

  ‘I was sweating. My heart was racing. I knew I was doing the wrong thing, even though a part of me is still stunned that Ava would go so far as to get an order against me. I walked back down the driveway and left like an outlaw from my own home, stamping and shaking the sand from my feet. All I wanted – all I still want – is for things to go back to how they were before. The only way forward I can see is to say I’m sorry. There is only one thing left for me now – absolute humility. When my boys are found – and they will be found, they must be – I’ll give it everything I’ve got.’

  As the police were leaving, Lawrence half closed the front door and paused to watch as Ballard emptied her cigarettes into his mother’s rubbish bin, pulled a stick of gum out of her breast pocket, and put it in her mouth. He watched her walk around to the driver’s side of the car. She was muscular and bow-legged and now that she was moving he could see that she emanated physical strength, like a rugby player.

  He overheard Hawkins say: ‘For God’s sake, chew with your mouth closed, Ballard.’

  The detective laughed, a short sound like a bark. ‘Chewing helps me think,’ she said.

  ‘If you need to chew to think, you’ll never lose that fat gut,’ replied Hawkins, and Ballard laughed for longer this time, a raucous, uncultivated, unself-conscious rattle of a laugh.

  This was just another job to them, thought Lawrence. A kidnapping was all in a day’s work.

  MAX

  Max fixed his eyes on the figure of his mother as she ran towards the smoking plane. Teddy let out a huge wail. He sounded like an animal being attacked during the night. Whenever Max heard one of those awful yowls he could never guess what creature was making that noise – a possum, an owl, a cat? It was bloodcurdling. He liked that word.

  ‘Shh, Ted. ’Member what Mum said? Have to be good.’

  ‘Mummy,’ said Teddy. ‘I want Mummy.’ He wriggled and kicked, tugging at his seatbelt buckle with fat fingers.

  ‘Stop it!’ Max shouted. ‘Mum will be back soon.’

  But she wasn’t. Max’s tummy was full of something wobbly.

  He saw another car pull over, then a truck. The truck with all the logs, wasn’t it? The driver had made a rude sign at Mum which made her say a swear word. Arsehole. He’d never heard his mum say that word before. He’d heard it on telly. They said it on telly all the time. Americans said it a lot. Australians not as much. They said a lot of other bad words. Mostly beginning with s and f and sometimes c.

  Max heard sirens. They sounded far away. But still. That was good. ‘Hear that, Teds? Hear the sirens? That means the police are coming. The police will fix everything, Teds! Then Mummy will come back.’

  Teddy sniffled.

  Then Max saw smoke coming from the plane and got frightened again. His tummy flopped. Did that mean the plane was on fire? He hated fire. A big fire could burn off your fingers in a minute! Or your hair. Like Dad’s eyebrows when the barbecue exploded that time on Christmas Day and he had to go to hospital. He put Winks on th
e seat beside him and leaned forward to try to see more.

  Was Mum safe? Yes, she must be. She knew all about smoke and fires, and falling buildings, and deep water, and dangerous surf, and swamps and helicopter rescues. She was a Rescuer. And she knew she had to come back to them, to him and Teddy. They were her Main Ones, she always said, the most important people in the world to her. Max felt confident about this. It was the truth that his whole childhood had been built around.

  She always, always came back, he told himself. But what if she didn’t? What if she was stuck? It might happen.

  He wanted to undo his seatbelt. He wanted to go and look for her. He was old enough to find her, wasn’t he? He was getting older now, he was big, she kept saying that. What if she was hurt, what if she needed help?

  His heart beat faster. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. He put his hands on it.

  She wouldn’t be cross if he went to help, would she? But no, he mustn’t move. She’d said stay, and stay they must.

  He looked at the sky. He didn’t want to look at the fire. Just look at clouds instead, he told himself. The clouds were skinny and looked like a kind of writing but he couldn’t read it. Two lines tipping together. Could it be the letter A? A is for apple. A is for acorn. A is for aeroplane.

  Teddy’s bawling had started up again and was getting louder, his cheeks dark, tears streaming. Max’s ears throbbed. ‘Quiet, Teddy!’

  Stay in the car, that’s what Mum had said. He believed she would be back soon. It wouldn’t be much longer now, if only Teddy would shut up!

  ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ he shouted.

  To his deep relief, he heard the driver’s door open. She’d come back! He knew she would.

  But it wasn’t his mother. A strange woman smiled at him over the seat. He hugged Winks.

  ‘Hello, Max,’ she said. Her mouth was full of long teeth like a horse’s teeth. She smelled of strong perfume. ‘Aren’t you a brave boy, waiting here for your mum?’

  The woman was pretty the way a cartoon woman is pretty. She wore lots of makeup. Teddy stopped crying and stared.

  Max said, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Kirsty. I’m a good friend of your mum and dad. Your mum’s Ava, and your dad’s called Lawrence, right? I live near here, and your mum rang me to come and get you.’

  ‘We’re not allowed to leave the car.’

  ‘Well, you’ve been very good. But your mum said to say it was alright. I’m a safe person. You can come back to my house and your mum will come and get you, okay?’

  She went around to Teddy’s door and opened it, undid his seatbelt and lifted him out of his booster seat. Holding Teddy, she went around to Max’s side. ‘Quick, quick. My car’s in the way here.’ Kirsty’s big car was beside them, on the edge of the road.

  Max slowly got out, peering around for his mother. He couldn’t see her. And there was so much smoke. Smoke was streaming to the sky. Smoke was covering people’s heads. Smoke was hiding the sea. Smoke was flowing upwards, dark and horrid and all over everything. Where was Mum? Come back now! Quick! He didn’t know what to do. Smoke, smoke, smoke. He hated the smoke. He didn’t want to go with this woman.

  ‘There’s no child seat for Teds,’ he said. Did he really have to get into this strange car?

  ‘That’s okay, we’re not going far,’ Kirsty said.

  ‘Mum said to stay here.’

  ‘In you get. I promised your mother I’d take care of you, and that’s what I’m going to do!’

  Max got into the car and dragged Teddy to the middle of the seat so that they were next to each other. He pulled the seatbelt over Teddy and clicked it in. Kirsty had already started the car and pulled out onto the road before Max had his own seatbelt on, and he slid towards the door.

  ‘No, stop! I think we should get Winks. She’ll be scared.’

  ‘Your mum will take care of Winks.’

  He saw a fire truck. They heard an explosion and Max jerked upright and cried out: ‘Mum!’

  ‘Your mother will be fine, Max,’ said Kirsty, glancing in the rearview mirror. ‘I keep telling you, don’t worry. It’s all fine.’

  Max did up his own seatbelt. He didn’t feel good. He sneezed a few times. Kirsty’s perfume was even stronger in the car. It was getting into his nose and making his eyes itchy. And the car had another smell – salt and vinegar chips. He craned his neck to the left, trying to see something, anything. The road had already curved away from the field where the plane was, and he was looking at long grasses leading to steep gold cliffs and the sea.

  Wait till you see the waves crashing against the rock, his mother had said. I can’t wait to show you! And now he was seeing them without her.

  ‘Please, can we go back and check that she’s okay? Please?’

  Kirsty said no, they couldn’t stop now.

  ‘Please, please? She might be hurt.’

  ‘Of course she’s not hurt! I spoke to her on the phone only a few minutes ago.’

  Max felt a bit better when he heard that. He sneezed again and wiped his nose on his cuff. It must be alright then. It must be. He didn’t look at the cliffs. He looked up through the car window. The racing clouds were a dark greyish and violet blue. Was that the smoke? Or was it a storm coming? What was that colour? Fish colour. Stone colour. Some of the clouds were as big as whales and others were smaller, more like dolphins, swimming through the sky. One of the clouds even had that smiling look of a dolphin.

  Teddy had his thumb in his mouth and was making a sucking noise, soft and slurpy and regular like a ticking clock. No, wetter – a dripping tap. Yes, just like a dripping tap.

  Kirsty turned on the stereo and Max recognised the music. It was The Beatles. His mum sometimes listened to them. The song starting was ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ – Max was interested in this song because it was about someone who had his name. But halfway through his mum would always skip to the next track.

  Kirsty did not do this, and Max heard the lyrics for the first time. It was about making someone dead with a hammer.

  Kirsty didn’t know to skip those words, thought Max. She doesn’t know much about children. Not as much as Mum.

  He studied the back of Kirsty’s head. Her hair was a deep red with little strings of gold in it. It reminded Max of the hard copper wire they used in Craft to make a radio. It wasn’t hair you’d want to touch, even though the red was very pretty, like the bark of a river red gum, and the darker bits were the same colour as hard sap. Max preferred dark hair, fluffy and wavy, the hair of his mother and Teddy; or the shining lightness of his father’s hair, as gold as a knight’s hair in a storybook.

  He’d never heard his mother mention Kirsty. There was a lady called Kirsty at their local bakery at home. But the lady from the bakery was round with rosy cheeks and glasses that she called her ‘specs’ and she didn’t have great big chompy teeth like this Kirsty.

  ‘Hold on, kids,’ Kirsty said, making a sharp turn. ‘This is a bumpy road!’

  The car turned onto a pebbly track. The tyres clanked and shook and hummed. Soft puffs of dust billowed up. Max’s teeth rattled. He grabbed hold of Teddy’s hand and squeezed it. Where were they going?

  Max looked up at the sky again, hoping to see the smiling dolphin, but the clouds had shrunk into small creatures with curling tails, like something – like what? Like scorpions. He’d never seen a real, live scorpion; he’d only seen them in books or on the telly.

  When they had been driving for some time, he said: ‘Excuse me, Kirsty? I thought you said we weren’t going far?’

  ‘Did I? Well, we haven’t gone that far, have we?’

  She reached over the back seat with two bottles of lemonade, glass necks pinched between thin red fingers. ‘I’m sure your mum won’t mind if I give you these. Are you thirsty?’

  Max accepted the lemonade, his excitement tinged with suspicion. They only ever had lemonade at parties. Mum always said it had a silly amount of sugar in it and that sugar actually made you thirstier.
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  Max unscrewed both lids, and gave one bottle to Teddy, who drank eagerly and said: ‘I LOVE lemade.’

  The lemonade was cold and wetted Max’s mouth pleasantly. ‘Thank you, Kirsty. It is delicious,’ he said.

  Kirsty looked at him in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were like the beads on his old toy zebra. Tiny glass balls with plastic eyelashes. ‘Well, you’re polite, that’s something.’

  They turned off the track and back onto a sealed road. Max was glad – that bumpy track made his teeth and cheeks hurt.

  Kirsty drove through a little town with hardly a tree or a flower anywhere and blinds closed over the windows of the houses and shops. No-one seemed to be about. Mum had said the shops shut on Saturday afternoons in the country and stayed closed for all of Sunday.

  Max saw someone getting onto a bus and that was all. The quietness seemed unfriendly. The closed blinds of the houses made them look like they had their eyes shut. He would be sad to live in a town like that. He thought of the little house on Wallace Street that had always been home. There were often lots of people on Wallace Street. There was old Lou up the road and his giant dog, Scruff, and that made him think of Winks. Would she be sad and scared by herself? He wished he’d brought her with them. Kirsty didn’t slow down the car. She was driving so fast! Much, much, much too fast.

  Max saw dry paddocks, a few chickens pecking the ground beside a farmhouse, a burnt-out car. They turned into a set of streets where the houses were close together, unfenced, with gardens that were mostly dry lawn. He saw a lady watering a single rosebush with a hose.

  When would they stop? Kirsty was driving too far away from Mum. It was wrong. Max needed the bathroom and his mouth was drier than before and he thought that, yes, his mother was right, sugar made you thirstier. His mouth felt ever so dry. His tongue was gritty and tight. He pressed it against the roof of his mouth. The car had a funny smell.

  At school the teacher had said you can survive for quite a few days without food but only a day or two without water and then you would die. They’d need a real drink soon. He’d have to explain to Kirsty that Teddy needed a glass of water when they got to wherever they were going.