II.
Several
days later, I was leaning against my shop counter staring at Josh’s face,
looking back at me from the front page of the Blue Mountains Chronicle, the local newspaper that Tom works for.
It was the very same picture that I had displayed in the front window; that I
had, and practically everybody else in the village had, including Huynh, now
that he understood what was going on. I was vaguely musing whether this was the
only decent photo that had been taken of Josh in recent times and what he might
think about its applicability in summing him up for the rest of the world. I
started to think about the last time I’d had a photo taken of myself and
whether or not – were I to suddenly go missing – they’d choose to use that
blurry, vampire-eyed photo of a long-haired me gleefully miming pouring a bottle
of wine over a much hairier Tom, passed out on a violently-coloured couch. Most
likely people would just give up searching immediately...
The front door jangled and halted my
cogitations. An elderly woman in a smart dress suit tricked out with a large
diamanté brooch, stood looking about my sun-drenched merchandise. She sniffed,
then turned to face me.
‘I’m led to believe that you sell books,’
she stated.
‘Whenever I can,’ I said, keeping my poker
face intact.
‘...And these books,’ she said, flicking
a gloved hand at my shelves, ‘are they new or...used?’ there was a distinct tang of distaste stressing this last
word.
‘My stock is second-hand and
antiquarian,’ I said, ‘but I can order in new books if you have something
specific in mind?’
Her hand had flown up to hover in front
of her mouth as I said this; she nodded, checked quickly around herself to make
sure that she had everything and stepped towards the door. I moved to open it
for her; or rather, to hold it closed until I could fathom what was going on
here.
‘Perhaps there’s a particular title
you’re after...?’
‘I do not read other people’s books,’ she
said with emphasis; she looked around conspiratorially then leaned in close,
‘some people read,’ her voice dropped an octave or two and I had a sudden “Exorcist” flashback, ‘on the convenience.’
‘Okay,’ I said and opened the door wide.
As she fled my septic premises, Tom swerved around her and slipped into the
closing gap.
‘I hope you’re wearing your Hazmat suit;
it’s pretty toxic in here,’ I said to him over my shoulder while I walked back
to the counter.
‘Sorry?’ he said, freezing and looking
around nervously.
I waved a hand to indicate that it was of
no consequence. ‘Howard Hughes’s grandma just dropped in for a spot health
check. What’s up?’
‘I just thought I’d let you know that
they’re going to be door-knocking your part of town this evening. The State
Emergency Service has joined the search for our missing tourist and they think
he might be hiding in someone’s property without them knowing.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Not that I mind, or that
I have anything to hide, but doesn’t that breach some privacy issues?’
Tom waved his hand. ‘It’s not a
search-and-seize operation: they’re just going to ask if you’ve seen anyone
about your place and to think of places on your property where someone –
especially someone hurt or suffering from hypothermia – might have access to if
they crawled onto your premises.’
I nodded. ‘Okay. You know this guy is
really making a nuisance of himself, isn’t he? I mean everyone seems to be
focussed on his whereabouts. I was getting a coffee from Michaela this morning
and she said that she heard he’s trying to avoid some industry heavies and is
just laying low, ‘til the heat cools off.’
Tom snorted disdainfully. ‘A junior
manager in an insurance company? That’s right up there with the one I heard
about how he’s just doing a runner on his girlfriend because she’s trying to
pressure him into Popping The Question. No: he’s in trouble out there, wherever
he is; that is, if he’s still alive. No-one stays out in this weather on a
whim.’
I nodded again. ‘Is everything being done
to find him? I mean, is what they’re doing enough?’
Tom tapped the newspaper on the
countertop. ‘Like it says, they’ve got sniffer dogs out – although the rain
last night has made that option less effective; they’ve got helicopters in the
air with infrared scopes checking the valley walls and floor; they’ve got a
command post set up in the grounds of the Ridgemont Hotel – where he
disappeared from – to co-ordinate efforts. It’s full on. They’re even tracking
the GPS system on his mobile phone – at least they were before it went dead’
‘Sounds pretty intense.’
‘Sure. Remember about four years ago when
that Canadian guy went missing? They searched for ten days straight, without
half the technology they have nowadays, and, after giving him up for dead, he
staggered out of the jungle on Day Twelve, a little worse for wear but still
alive.’ Tom shook his head: ‘They don’t want a repeat performance of that
fiasco.’
‘You don’t think this new guy is going
for the record?’
Tom sniffed. ‘He’d better not be, that’s
all I’m saying. There’d be some pretty pissed-off people around here...’
Again, I nodded. ‘Oh! That reminds me,’ I
said, ‘Louise’s book came in.’ I ferreted the parcel out from under the
counter.
Tom’s hand dove into his pocket, looking
for his wallet. ‘What is it this time?’ he asked, ‘Dion Fortune’s guide to
candle magic? Sybil Leek’s secrets of the witch’s kitchen?’
I held up a warning finger. ‘You might
want to let Louise foot the bill for this one,’ I said, ‘it’s not exactly
inexpensive...’
Tom froze, eyeing the parcel
suspiciously. ‘How “not exactly”?’
‘Well it’s a 1932 edition of the Society
for Psychical Research’s Blue Book;
their operational procedure manual for when one investigates a haunted
premises, as compiled and edited by Harry Price.’ I named the three-figure
price tag.
‘Okay,’ said Tom wincing, ‘I can run to
that. But it’ll be baked beans on toast ‘til next pay day.’ We concluded our
business in silence.
‘Well, I’m off,’ said Tom tucking
Louise’s book away in his backpack. ‘I want to get home before the cold front
moves through. They say we’ll have frost tonight.’ He waved as he jostled
through the door and into the fading sunshine.
I pushed shut the till and remembered
reading in the news report that the lost guy had last been seen wearing a
short-sleeved shirt over jeans with a leather jacket. I hoped, for his sake,
that it would be warm enough.
*****
At
this stage I need to tell you about Wallace Henderson. He’s no great mover and
shaker; just a local retiree, my neighbour in fact, who had the bad luck to
have a hip replacement go bad.
Wal (as he’s known) is an avid reader of
what I refer to as “blokey fiction”. He used to work for the railways and,
since there was plenty of standing-around in his daily routine, waiting for
trains to show up, he spent much of that time reading. His tastes run to things
by Alistair MacLean, Wilbur Smith, Jack Higgins and the like, with a bit of
Leon Uris and Bryce Courtenay laid by for when he’s feeling a bit
“intellectual”. We met the day he came into the shop looking for something to
graze on and was appalled when he discovered I had nothing in the way of his
reading spectrum. Accordingly, he showed up the following week with a box of
“finished withs”, stuff he’d read into the dirt and was happy to pass along, to
make my place more like a “real bookshop”. Every couple of months another
boxload would arrive: I would normally offer to pay for these contributions,
but Wal would insist that they were a donation, with the full sense of
improving my stock and my readership.
Of course, the reason that these authors
don’t appear on my shelves is that they take up valuable space which I need for
“real” writers (and yes, I know that my snobbery is showing); still, nothing
ever stopped me from dropping his books onto my ‘specials’ table out the front
and selling them off like hotcakes for five or six dollars apiece: I still need
to eat, you know.
(And I’m not completely mercenary: the
times when he dumps collections of Arthur Upfield, or Vince Kelly, or Ion
Idriess on me, I most definitely insist on paying him for the privilege of
selling-on these increasingly collectable titles.)
What I’m wending my way towards is the
fact that, when Wal went in for his hip-replacement replacement, he left me in
charge of his dog, a black Labrador named Patsy. She is a standard type of her
species and, if you know anything about them they are companionable, generally
lazy, and impossible to feed to the point of satiation. My job, as I figured
it, was to keep her from starving while at the same time preventing her from
turning into a velour-covered balloon.
The Marquis, of course, disapproves
entirely of dogs; but the good thing about the arrangement was that, living
next-door, Patsy didn’t have to intrude upon my cat’s territory: feedings and
walkies were all administered from Wal’s place, so neither of them had to meet
face-to-face. Still, The Marquis was suspicious that something was Going On,
and he kept a close eye on my comings and goings; it was a relief, therefore, that
he had decided to spend his nights at the shop of late, rather than come home.
Patsy’s fearsome bark welcomed me as I
walked through the gate and around the side of Wal’s house. Like many people on
my street, his faith in solar-powered lights was extensive and many tiny and
muted patches of dim fluorescence served in no way to guide me through the
darkness in which his house was enveloped: I relied mainly on memory and
Patsy’s woof-beacon.
Her bark being far worse than her bite, I
found her quickly, the motion-sensitive light above the rear patio revealing me
to her in a blinding flash. I’m aware that some of our other neighbours are far
less accommodating of Patsy’s noise than I am so I always try to hush her up as
soon as possible. As I reached for the lead, she started her play-bow greeting,
accompanied by much whiney-growling and a scatter of claws on the hardwood
decking.
Once we were tethered together, we headed
out into the fast-falling evening. We strolled at a good pace to the top end of
the street, then headed south towards the valley. This road was the main one
that ran along the top of the cliffs then back towards the village: the further
out you went, the larger the houses and their blocks of land before petering
out entirely; as you headed back towards town, the grand houses appeared again
and gradually reduced in size and value as you neared the highway once more. At
its furthest extent, this loop of road enclosed nothing but dense bush; just
past the last property, a short trail led at right angles to the tarmac down to
a steel gate, beyond which stretched a fire trail, a cleared bulwark against a potential
bushfire incursion into the exclusive holiday-homes of the Sydneysiders.
This trail is about 50 metres wide and
runs the width of the road loop, following the profile of the landscape. The
open area of it is littered with lopped limbs and trunks of Banksia scrub,
livid branches of bloodwood mulching down into the rocky soil. Rugged grass
predominates along the trail, scored across with the walking paths of various
locals, like me, who enjoy walking their dogs here. At the margins of the
trail, softly rounded walls of Banksia and grevillea close in, shaded in all
the permutations of muted green: all you can see is the stony ground, the bush,
the sky and the towering eucalypts beyond. At various points, the ground gets
boggy and soft, thick with oozing mud and dotted with the fuzzy scarlet of
sundews: it’s a full-time job keeping Patsy’s churning paws away from them.
As we stomped our way along the trail,
our feet rattling across the stony paths, I noticed that Patsy was less than
enthusiastic about her exercise this evening. Normally, she would sniff and
snort her way along, tracing the trails of wombats and other canine peers;
tonight, she stayed beside me, her head hanging low, darting fretful glances
into the scrub on either side. Apart from our footsteps and the occasional gust
of wind, the evening hush was broken only by Patsy’s infrequent growls and the
soft “zzzz-zzzz” of her retractable leash cord.
About halfway along the trail, I stopped
and looked around, trying to see what was bothering her. The bush was hushed
and the intensity of the quiet gave it a poised quality, as if it was waiting,
ready. On either side the green walls seemed tensed: it felt as if they would
close in upon us at any moment like waves. Beside me, Patsy whined and stamped
her paw on my foot.
‘Okay girl,’ I said, ‘Let’s get out of
here.’
The wind had risen sharply by the time we
gained the far end of the trail and turned towards home. As we entered our
street, blue, red and white flashing lights split the darkness, hiding rather
than revealing the trucks on which they were carried. We moved carefully past
two fire engines and some State Emergency Services vans before turning in at
Wal’s front gate, whereupon Patsy began to growl fiercely.
A shadowed figure in yellow turned from
pounding at Wal’s front door and called out when he saw me:
‘Hey! SES! Do you live here?’ He began
pacing towards us.
I held my thumb down on the lock of
Patsy’s lead to stop her charging forward. ‘No,’ I answered, ‘but she does.’ I
jerked my head towards Patsy.
‘Hey girl!’ The yellow-clad man crouched
down, his foul-weather gear crunching and creaking, and rubbed Patsy’s head
fondly. In the flashing motley of lights, he was revealed as a smiling young
fellow in his late twenties or so, with a gingery beard. He stood up and held
out his hand which I shook.
‘Gareth’ he said, ‘SES volunteer’. He
jerked his thumb at the logo on his jacket by way of confirmation. ‘We’re doing
a house-to-house search for this missing tourist...’
‘Yeah; I heard. Any luck?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Let me get Patsy sorted out and I’ll
give you the tour.’ We moved around the back of Wal’s house.
‘Perhaps you know the person who lives
next door,’ said Gareth. ‘I’ve been knocking but there’s no answer. The TV
seems to be on though...’
‘That would be my place,’ I said, ‘we’ll
head over there next...’
*****
To Be Continued...
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