Day 25

A complete fucking waste of time

Monday morning, Detective Senior Sergeant Frank Lambert’s back at the office, still looking for the missing kid.

CC-TV footage from the Queensgate shopping centre doesn’t turn up anything of much interest.  The images show the boy entering the shops at 9.47 a.m. and leaving at 10.26 a.m.  Each time he’s alone.  There’s also footage of him inside the shopping centre, several instances in Big W.  The boy is alone in every frame.  He doesn’t speak to anyone, doesn’t deviate from his chosen path through the nondescript selection of shops.  There’s nothing on the tapes that looks like it will help track down what happened to Peter Johnson.

Lambert clicks stop on the remote control and sighs.  He turns back to his desk and thumbs through the reports of potential sightings and information from the door knock done by uniform in the days following the boy’s disappearance.  The usual collection of well meaning citizens — mostly old folk, usually living alone — and nutters.  The nut cases are always attracted to this sort of thing.  There’s something about the disappearance of a kid that brings out those who want to confess or use their psychic powers to track down the perpetrators, and everything in between.  Nothing looks promising, except for the couple who have reported sighting a car cruising the streets near the boy’s school in the weeks leading up to his disappearance.

Harry and Jane Fitzpatrick live opposite the school on Caulder road.  Frank Lambert’s got nothing else to go on so he decides to pay them a visit.

But the Fitzpatricks were a complete fucking waste of time.  They couldn’t give a clear description of the car, didn’t get a licence plate.  The closest they could come was a Ford, silver, maybe a Focus, or maybe a Mazda, “they look similar don’t they?” or something like that, and it had taken a bit of prompting to get that much out of them.  Detective Lambert had thanked them very much for their time and got out as fast as he could.  The old dears meant well, he knows that, but he’s got nothing to show for his day so far except a wasted two hours and a cup of overly milky tea.

Back at his desk, Lambert wipes the sweat from his face.  Just getting from the car to the air-conditioned interior of the police station is getting more intolerable every day.  Time was when suburbanites used to boast about how hot it got around here in summer.  No longer.

Lambert shuffles through the papers on his desk.  He’s got nothing.  He puts the missing boy back in his manila folder and gets on with the other crimes and tragedies that make up his case load this week.

He wonders whether he could get away with a quick squiz at some girls while he’s thinking things through, but he knows all Internet traffic is monitored and reviewed regularly by the Ethical Standards Unit.  It’s not worth the risk.

The way only a female newsreader can

The top story on Six News tonight is Peter Johnson’s disappearance.  Before she begins reading the bulletin, Bob Mullen, Tiffany’s news director’s running through the story in her earpiece one more time, reminding her to emphasise that some hope remains even though we all know that the missing boy’s never coming back.

“Some bastard’s done for him,” the voice in her ear says.

And the human interest story tonight?  Tiffany can hardly believe it.

“A man has been admitted to hospital suffering frostbite and dehydration after wandering lost in the streets of New York City for five days.  Damien Montoo, 32, from Chad in Africa, became lost after leaving his brother’s apartment in Brooklyn without money or identification.  His brother, Stephen, explained that Damien had only arrived in the US the day before, but had been too afraid to ask for help as everyone seemed so busy and he had heard stories about the dangers of the streets of New York.  Although he has permanent residence in the US, Damien told authorities he was too afraid to go to the police for assistance because he feared he might be detained as an illegal.”

Tiffany’s switches on her intimate look for the camera, addressing each of her viewers individually: “We can only hope that sort of thing never happens here.”

As she reads the story down to the ad break, Tiffany Robson thinks back to this morning at the sea-side civic hall.  She’d emceed an awards ceremony for teachers who got good results teaching kids how to read and write.  Isn’t that what they get paid for anyway?  And the Education Minister was in her ear again while she was sitting next to him between announcements watching the videos of the nominees.

“Fucking media doesn’t report any good stuff.  Why are you lot always running me down?  What does it take to get a good story reported in this state?  And that newspaper.  Bastards the lot of them.  That fucking education reporter. What would she know?  Just because she went to school herself once, thinks she’s a fucking expert.”

On and on and on in between her announcements:  “The winner is …”  She hates these gigs.  Pay well, but she’s still not sure if she doesn’t feel a bit funny about taking a fee for the community service part of her contract with the TV station.

She’s bored. She needs to get out of this, but what else can she do? When she was a kid, she’d wanted to be a model; but then what little girl doesn’t? There’s thousands of models who’d kill for her job now.

“Back in three, two…” she feels like ripping out her earpiece, instead brushes her hair behind her ear, almost seductively, as she turns to look the camera in the eye.  Just the right amount of gravitas, still smiling, the way only a female newsreader can.

Bit of a pity that, really

Chris thinks for a moment about New York as he watches the newsreader on his widescreen.  She’s the only person in the house with him.

“Must be bloody cold there this time of the year.”  He’s not sure whether he thought the words, or said them.  Doesn’t matter, Tiffany keeps reading anyway.  And she’s not looking him in the eye any more.

Chris is still in his work clothes, shirt and trousers, tie loose around his open top button.  He’s sitting with his feet up on the coffee table, not long home from work; got the TV volume up so he can hear it above the air conditioner.  He watches the newsreader as she goes through her lines, studies her movements.  The HD picture shows her flawless skin and Chris wonders how much time she has to spend in make up to get that look, not a thing out of place.  He rewinds to watch her again as she turns back to look at him after interviewing some reporter, pushing her hair back behind her ear.  He does it himself, straight after, practicing the move for some future time, only he’s got no hair to push back.  Bit of a pity that, really.

By the time he drifts back to listening to her words, the newsreader’s moved onto another story.  Chris decides to go and get changed.  Before he gets up, he takes careful note of Tiffany’s lipstick, almost bare, but definitely there.