Now he wore a white business shirt tucked into a pair of beige slacks with brown boat shoes. I wondered if he’d worn the outfit to look professional at the ID or if this was now his usual get-up. I was about to produce my badge when he recognised me.
‘Rubens? Rubens McCauley?’
‘Yeah, hello, Will.’
We shook hands and I saw that his eyes were bloodshot, his face pale and drained.
‘This is . . .’ he stammered. ‘I’m sorry, it’s been a bad day.’
‘Yeah, I know. Is there somewhere we can talk?’
‘Sure, follow me.’
He led me down a hall towards the rear of the building, past a reception desk and another hallway. Posters advertising different welfare services hung on the walls. The building was old and musty, and eerily quiet. Floorboards creaked under our feet. Stopping, Novak gestured for me to enter an office that overlooked a courtyard surrounded by bench seats and a garden with people standing in the shade, smoking cigarettes.
He eased into a chair behind a desk stained with coffee and old age and offered me a seat in a chair opposite.
‘What a day,’ he said, staring out the window, looking slightly dazed. ‘Good to see you again. Shame it’s not a happier occasion.’
I nodded. I’d first met Will Novak while working a case in which a parolee was wanted for the rape of a local prostitute. Novak knew where the offender was hiding and tipped me off, and we arrested the guy without much delay. Around the same time I’d moved into my flat and was in the process of pulling down a wall between the entrance and the lounge. I ended up hiring Will’s brother – a carpenter – to do the job. The wall turned out to be load bearing and required a few hands on deck, so Novak – who was himself quite handy and often laboured for his brother – helped. A year or so later Ella hired them both to remodel the ensuite in her own apartment.
‘How’re you holding up?’ I asked him.
‘Well, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, I’ve been through this several times over the years, but never with somebody like Dallas.’
‘He was a client of yours, I take it?’
A weary nod. ‘I guess there’s no harm in discussing him now, is there? I mean, it’s different when they’re . . . when they’re still with us.’
‘Wanna tell me about him?’
Novak nodded and clasped his hands together. ‘Dallas was one of my success stories. I first began seeing him when he was eight. He came to live here at the age of ten. For the first few years he was a great example of what can be achieved with positive care and the right support structures. I made some genuine inroads, but it wasn’t easy. We tried placing him with foster parents a few times, but he rebelled. Later on, he went through bouts of early drug use, including heroin at the age of fourteen, before ending up in Malmsbury for an armed rob.’
I made a note to contact Juvenile Justice about Dallas Boyd’s stint in kiddie prison.
‘What happened when he got out?’ I asked.
‘He was referred back to me by one of the outreach programs we’re affiliated with in the juvenile centres. Anyway, he came back here and got clean. I helped him find his own accommodation and, as far as I knew, things were going well for him. He hadn’t used in over a year and . . .’ Novak tore a tissue from a box on his desk and wiped his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just you work so hard to help these kids, and just when you think they’re in the clear, they relapse and in a second it’s all over. It’s a bloody tragedy.’
I looked out the window, giving him time to compose himself. Outside, a young woman squashed a cigarette in an ashtray and walked towards a doorway on the other side of the courtyard. She wore pyjamas so I figured she was a live-in client and the doorway led to the accommodation rooms.
‘Why were you asked to formally identify the body?’ I said when Novak was finished with the tissue. ‘Why not his family?’
‘Family?’
‘His parents live in Collingwood. In the commission flats.’
‘Well, Dallas might have had a biological mother and a stepfather, but I wouldn’t call it a family.’
I waited, suspecting there was more.
‘Like most of my clients, Dallas was also a client of the Department of Human Services, you understand? Child Protection, to be