Three Hours Late Page 17

  He could just keep quiet about it and let Alex sort it out, but the boy sounded a bit down—well, more than a bit really. He wouldn’t do anything stupid, though, would he? Nah, Alex would take the kid back soon and then the cops couldn’t do anything. Frank would call him later and they would have a talk. In the meantime, he should just leave well enough alone.

  He really needed to get this door handle done. He tried another screwdriver but it still wouldn’t work. The screw extractor was at work. The repair would have to wait whether or not Barbara liked it.

  He needed a smoke but he didn’t feel like going outside. Barbara had recently decided that they should only smoke outside. The house stank and Luke didn’t like coming over because of it. Barbara had really taken to Luke like he was her own grandson. He was a brilliant little kid and it was so much easier to relax when you weren’t responsible for the big stuff. Luke liked to follow him with his plastic tool set when he fixed things and he talked all the time. He didn’t mind if you answered him or not. He just liked to talk.

  The kid had been so excited when Frank had given him the plastic tool set. His eyes had lit up like he’d been given the moon. The boy had such a great smile. Alex told him the kid slept with the plastic tool set for three days. Luke looked just like Alex too. It made Frank remember the good times, before Margaret had left.

  What if Alex was really in a bad way? If something happened the cops would know that Alex had called him. Big Brother was everywhere these days. He wouldn’t want to be the person who could have done something and didn’t. No one wants to be that person. Maybe it would be better to tell someone what Alex had said. He probably didn’t even have a gun.

  Frank sighed. All he had really wanted to do was watch the match and have a quiet beer.

  He would call Liz and mention the gun, just in case. He didn’t want anything to happen to the boy.

  If Alex got angry later he would say that he had just been taking precautions. ‘I know you wouldn’t do anything stupid,’ he would tell Alex. ‘But you sounded . . . you know, upset and I was just playing it safe.’ Alex would understand.

  He went downstairs to the living room where Liz’s mother’s number was in the book. He was just taking precautions, just playing it safe. It was good to play it safe. He would just mention the gun. Alex would understand. He would keep the conversation short. It was her fault, really—all of it. She was the one who had upset Alex. She was the reason he bought a gun. Jesus, he really hoped the boy wouldn’t do anything stupid. He cleared his throat, ready to speak. He would just mention the gun and then he could relax.

  The phone barely got to finish its first ring. Her mother answered and he didn’t make small talk. He just asked to speak to Liz.

  ‘Hello, Liz, this is Frank. I think there’s something you should know.’

  Two hours late

  Robert put his cup in the sink. Liz was sitting in the armchair again and her eyes were closed. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. They had well and truly messed up. He didn’t know how the father had heard Dave cough. They hadn’t really been taking this seriously enough. They hadn’t been treating this like a hostage negotiation and maybe it was.

  But just maybe it wasn’t. The father had sounded upset and more than a little whacko but he could just be mouthing off. There could be other stuff going on. The press would love that. He could almost see the headline now: POLICE WASTE TIME AT DOMESTIC WHILE SHOPKEEPER MURDERED, or something like that.

  Robert had been relieved when the phone rang, hoping that the father would say he was bringing the kid home, but when Liz had hesitated he’d mouthed that she should agree to whatever he wanted. Then it had all gone wrong anyway.

  Liz looked worn down by years of confrontations with the man. Sometimes marriage was just tiring. You came home to the same person and the same argument dressed up as money or the kids or the holiday you needed to have but it was all basically the same. Sometimes you came home to a fist and Robert could see how Liz would want to avoid that now that she had managed to leave the arsehole.

  But leaving the arsehole didn’t always mean leaving the confrontation and the fist. The pile of AVOs the court had to get through every day could attest to that.

  Robert speaking to the man might have done some good in this situation. There was a chance that Alex would have got a bit of a fright knowing the police were involved. Most of these men were only filled with bravado until another man stepped in. Out in the world they were cowards who truly believed they got pushed around. They went home to find someone they could stamp all over and make themselves feel like men again. It was pathetic really, but the ego was bound up in everything.

  Of course, if Alex was in a dark place then nothing anyone said could change what he was thinking or planning.

  After the call, Robert had let the station know that the bloke had threatened his wife.

  Lisa told him she would radio the rego number to everyone on duty. Not that ‘you’ll be sorry’ actually constituted a threat. Natalie had told him he’d be sorry every day for at least a year before they separated.

  Legally the guy had still done nothing wrong. If he walked in right now they could caution him or drag him down to the station and throw him in a cell for an hour or so, but being late and being a complete dickhead to your wife were not crimes, else they’d all be in jail.

  If Liz hadn’t bothered to call the police an hour ago and only just called now she would have probably had to wait awhile for someone to come out. Shift change was coming up and the situation was only urgent to Liz.

  But here they were, and now that he had heard the guy on the phone, now that he could see how anxious Liz was, he was glad they had come. At least now Liz felt like they had tried to help.

  The press loved to make the police out to be a bunch of slackers. Every time something happened and they weren’t on the scene within five minutes there would be articles about how long it took them to get there or how long it took them to put out an alert or how long it took them to catch the guy. The public wanted you there before it happened, and now here they were and Robert could sense the situation unfolding. He didn’t know which way things were going to go yet but he had a feeling, just a twist of the gut really, that told him it wasn’t going to end well.

  So now everyone was looking and maybe they should have been looking before but he didn’t want to get the rest of the force involved without a good reason.

  He had radioed in the guy’s mobile phone number and Lisa was trying to get a fix on the nearest tower. That would give them a better idea of where the guy was now. He had switched off the phone again but they’d get close enough.

  Dave came into the kitchen.

  ‘What are we going to do, Rob? Our shift is over soon. Do we stay? Do we tell the night guys to come and relieve us?’

  ‘Fuck, Dave, I just don’t know. This feels like something— doesn’t it feel like something?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Dave. ‘But the chances are we’re just in the middle of some argument the dickhead and his wife have been having for the last five years.’

  ‘She says he’s always on time. She keeps stressing that. I don’t think he’s ever been late before.’

  ‘Being late is not a crime,’ said Dave.

  ‘I know that, Dave, but we need to think this through. The guy is never late and from what she says he’s all about control. Why would he be doing this now?’

  ‘He’s just trying to piss her off.’

  ‘No,’ said Robert. ‘I think it’s more than that. He sounded really weird on the phone. He sounded like he was losing it.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we still need to go back to the station and put together some kind of report.’

  ‘Yeah, probably best if we check in. You can go on home after that. I’ll come back here and see how this pans out.’

  ‘I’m not going to let you go it alone, Rob. If you come back I’ll come back.’

  ‘I’ve trained you well.’

&nbs
p; ‘You’ve trained me to appreciate a cold beer.’

  Robert laughed. ‘Okay, let’s go and tell them.’

  In the living room the friend called Rhonda was explaining to someone on the phone that she wouldn’t be home.

  ‘I’m not asking you to keep them for longer, Dan, I’m just telling you to drop them at Mum’s place. Yeah it is important and no I’m not going to explain it. Do me a favour and try to be less of a wanker—and before you tell me that you’re going to smack me head in why don’t I pass you over to the nice policeman next to me and you can explain it to him? Thanks, Dan, I thought you’d be happy to drop them at Mum’s.’

  She ended the call and raised her eyebrows at Robert, who put up his hands.

  ‘One problem at a time,’ he said to her.

  ‘I’m not asking for your help,’ said Rhonda. ‘I figured out a long time ago that I was basically on my own.’

  Robert sighed and shook his head. He turned to the woman in the armchair.

  ‘Look, Liz, we’ll go back to the station now and see if we can get any more information on the car. We have people looking and we’re trying to use the mobile phone towers to get a fix on his location. He still hasn’t done anything we can charge him with, but we will try to get him to come home when we find him. I’m sorry, but at the moment it’s the best we can do.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Liz. Her voice was low and drained of emotion.

  He could see that she didn’t want them to leave.

  ‘Everyone on duty is out looking, Mrs Harrow,’ said Dave. ‘They’ll find them. He can’t have gone that far and the chances are that when your son needs dinner and needs to get to bed, he’ll bring him home.’

  ‘You have both our numbers,’ said Robert. ‘We’ll be back in about an hour. If he calls you or returns the boy, please let us know right away.’

  She nodded and Robert could see that she was hanging on to every word they were saying.

  She was holding her mobile phone and when the home phone rang she nearly hit the roof.

  It wasn’t her ex-husband. Her mother gave her the phone and she greeted the caller formally, politely and without any warmth. Her mother stood next to her trying to hear what was being said.

  Robert and Dave lifted their hands to say goodbye and went to the front door. Robert felt bad about leaving now but they weren’t getting anything done sitting here.

  Alex Harrow sounded like an educated man. If he knew the cops had been called he probably knew it would be a good idea to get the kid home.

  The sun was setting and the autumn cold was getting everyone ready for winter. Robert could almost taste a cold beer in a warm pub but he would have to put that off for later. He wondered how long this would go on. He wasn’t up for spending the night in the house trying to get everyone to calm down.

  ‘I was supposed to have a date tonight,’ said Dave as they closed the front door behind them.

  ‘Yeah, well, if she’s going to date a cop the sooner she gets used to dates being cancelled the better.’

  ‘Jeez, jaded much,’ said Dave.

  Robert gave him a grim smile. Dave was so young.

  They were halfway down the front path when the door opened and Liz came running out. She was still holding the cordless phone. ‘Wait,’ she called, her voice high and anxious.

  Her face was milky white against the orange afternoon and her lips were trembling. She was holding the cordless phone out to them, offering them her explanation.

  Dave ended his call to his pissed off date and walked towards her, catching her as she stumbled.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Robert asked.

  ‘The phone . . . it was Alex’s father. Frank. Alex called him.’ She was speaking quickly, stumbling over the words. ‘Alex called him a few minutes ago. He called to tell him . . . to tell him . . . Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, my little boy.’

  ‘Mrs Harrow, please,’ said Dave. ‘Tell us what he said.’

  ‘Alex has a gun,’ she said. ‘He has a gun.’

  ‘Fuck,’ whispered Dave. He stepped forward as Liz’s legs buckled beneath her, and helped her up the path towards the house.

  ‘Fuck,’ thought Robert. ‘Game changer.’

  He radioed the station. ‘Hey, Lisa,’ he said. ‘We need to get some choppers in the air. Things just got serious. I’ll call you back in a few minutes. Get them up there now, Lisa—the guy’s got a gun.’

  Inside the house Robert and Dave could hear Liz’s mother shouting and her two friends talking in soothing voices.

  ‘Fuck,’ thought Robert. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

  Liz was still holding the phone and Robert could hear a man’s voice on the other end.

  ‘Hello, Liz? Liz, are you there?’

  ‘This is Senior Constable Robert Williams—can you tell me who I’m speaking with, please?’

  ‘Ah . . . well . . . it’s Frank, Frank Harrow. Alex is my son.’

  ‘Mr Harrow, how do you know that your son is in possession of a gun?’

  ‘He . . . ah . . . he told me and I just thought you . . . well I thought Liz should know.’

  ‘When did he tell you, Mr Harrow?’

  ‘Now . . . just now. Well, about twenty minutes ago. He called me and we were talking and he told me about the gun.’

  ‘Did he mention his son? Did he mention Luke?’

  ‘Yes . . . yes he did. Luke is with him. They’re in the car but he didn’t say where. He told me he has a gun in the car and I got worried for him and for . . . for Luke.’

  ‘Mr Harrow, did he sound upset to you? Did he make any threats?’

  ‘He didn’t make any threats but yes . . . yes he is upset. It’s that wife of his, you see. I told him he would be better off without her but he didn’t seem to want to listen.’

  ‘Mr Harrow, did he threaten to harm Luke or himself?’

  The man on the other end of the phone gave a long sigh. Robert could sense that he was buying time, trying to figure out the correct answer.

  ‘Mr Harrow, you have to tell me the truth. Your grandson may be in danger and your son may be a danger to himself. You have to tell me the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Frank Harrow and Robert heard him swallow quickly. ‘I just . . . he seemed so upset. He seemed really sad and he said he doesn’t know how to live without Liz. He’s not good. He told me he wasn’t good.’

  ‘Mr Harrow, do you have any idea where he might be? Any idea at all? Is there a place he likes to take Luke to that Liz doesn’t know about?’

  ‘No . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know. I know they like the park but it’s too cold now to be outside. Alex wouldn’t have Luke outside. He’s a good dad. Alex is a really good dad and he loves Luke. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. I know that he loves him too much to hurt him. He’s just feeling a bit sad at the moment because of the divorce and all. He’s a good boy is Alex. He’s never been in trouble before except for the usual boy stuff and now he’s just a bit sad. He’ll bring Luke home soon. I tried to get him to come here but he didn’t want to. I said we could have a beer.’

  ‘Mr Harrow, could you give me your address, please? I’m going to send over some other constables so they can be with you if your son calls again.’

  Robert wrote down the address and handed it to Dave, who was already on the phone talking to the station. At least they were here. At least people were already looking. At least there was a chance they’d find this kid before his father did something to him or to both of them. Why the fuck did this keep happening? If you put together the gun and the things the man had said to his wife you had real threats and real problems. Just having a gun meant the bloke was up shit creek. At least if he came home now they would be able to hold him for longer.

  Maybe the man wasn’t just blowing hot air. Robert rubbed his face and wished the cold beer goodbye. He would need to call the higher-ups and it might not be a bad idea to let the media unit know. They could put the word out. Might as well have the whole state looking for
this dickhead.

  Liz had resumed her position in the armchair. For such a tall woman she seemed to have shrunk into the soft leather. She wasn’t crying. Robert didn’t know if it was shock or something else but she wasn’t crying.

  ‘Now you’re going to stay,’ she said. Her voice was flat. It wasn’t a question. It was just a fact and in it were all the other things she wanted to say. Now they were going to stay so they would be with her when they found her son and they would be with her when he came home or when he didn’t come home. Now they would stay even though now it could be too late. Now they were going to stay.

  14

  ‘Can I get you something else to drink, Mrs Harrow?’ said Dave.

  Liz looked up at him. She had been thinking about cake and he startled her into shame. She should have been thinking about Luke. Instead she had been thinking about the cake she had eaten with tea this morning when she and her mother had thought they only had a few hours until their lives were once again subject to the demands of a child. She had felt guilty about the piece of cake but now she wondered briefly if she would ever eat again. Her mother had pushed the diet this morning but now seemed only interested in getting her to open her lips for food. Ellen was in the kitchen making one sandwich after another, filling platters and plates with perfect triangles.

  It was the nature of a mother to feed her child. Liz had never understood it until she had Luke, but now she knew that if Luke was eating he was basically fine. When he was off his food it was time to call the doctor. Her mother needed her to be fine, even though they both knew that it was never going to be fine again. Rebecca kept throwing positive clichés out into the air but no one was listening anymore.

  No one knew what to say about the gun. Guns belonged on television shows and on the news. Guns belonged in the Cross where drugs were sold. No one knew what to say about the gun.

  ‘What a difference a day makes,’ thought Liz without a trace of humour.

  The police officers had covered themselves with a professional veneer after the phone call from Frank. They had begun to ask difficult questions and even to push her a little bit. Liz wanted to shout, ‘Where was all this concern before?’ but her throat closed over and she swallowed her words. They had only been doing the right thing. They had asked the questions, but now the gun had changed everything. A gun meant that Alex was not just a threat to himself and to Luke but to the wider public.