Squad – I’d learnt that in most cases of teenage drug abuse there was usually something important missing from the kid’s life. Love, discipline, guidance, self-esteem. Something. I’d seen it on a personal level too. Jacko had been a good bloke, a victim of circumstance, and I wondered whether the same could be said for the kid in the loading bay. What kind of life had Dallas Boyd lived?
Draining my orange juice, I stepped back into the relative cool of the lounge room, where I removed an old photo album from the television cabinet. At the kitchen bench, I wiped dust off the cover and opened it to the photos of my family. In one shot, my mother and father stood beside an HT Holden on their wedding day, proud as punch, with the family home in the background. It had been too long since I’d seen my mum. My father too, for that matter. In another photo my older brother, Anthony, and I stood like burnt lobsters, waving to the camera from the edge of the local swimming pool. The photos brought a smile to my face but they weren’t what I was looking for. I flipped through the album, past pictures of myself and Anthony getting older, until I came to a series of shots taken during a camping trip on the Murray River. I scanned the shots until I found the one I was looking for: three boys and two men beside a boat with the river in the background. Like a lot of the other photos in the album, it was heavily faded and yellowed at the sides.
I studied Jacko’s face, remembering the cheeky gap between his front teeth, how his baseball cap was always lopsided, strands of hair covering his ears. And I thought again about why he’d decided to leave Benalla in the first place. Something missing.
Closing the album, I noticed the red light on my answering machine flashing. I’d turned the ringer off before bed, which was why I’d missed the calls. I clicked the play button.
‘Yeah, McCauley, it’s Ben Eckles. Just thought I’d check in. Heard you were a bit off with the OD this morning. Listen, I’ve got you down for the morning shift tomorrow. Anyhow, you’re probably asleep now, so just give us a buzz when you get up to confirm the roster can stay as it is.’
I held my finger on the pause button, thinking. Finetti must have said something to Eckles, the senior sergeant temporarily in charge of the St Kilda Criminal Investigation Unit. The counsellors had warned me about this: that some of them would want to babysit me and ease me back into the casework. They’d even advised me not to return to the CIU. Take a less active role, they’d said. Something with less pressure. The primary school liaison team, perhaps. Yeah, right. The initial forecast was eighteen months, yet I’d passed the medical and psychological assessments in just over twelve. I drummed my fingers on the bench, unsure how to take my boss’s message. I wanted respect, not sympathy.
I smiled at the next message, from my brother. ‘Wakey-wakey, hands off snakey. Mate, Anthony here, s’pose you’re still asleep, slacker. Anyway, just confirming this arvo’s appointment. Don’t forget, three o’clock at the usual. And do your stretches. Real stretches, too. Fifteen seconds each grouping. I don’t want you suing me. See ya.’
The ‘usual’. He made it sound like a drink in a pub.
The third message was from Ella. ‘Hey spunksta, it’s me. Still on for tonight, I hope? I finish at six, probably be at your place about seven. Give me a call, let me know what to bring. If you can’t get hold of me, leave a message with the triage nurse, she’ll pass it on. Ciao!’
I dialled the Alfred Hospital switch but missed Ella on a lunch break, so I left a message and thought about our plans for the night. Nothing special, she’d said, just a DVD and a bottle of red. I was still adjusting to the kind of date you had with your wife post-separation-possible-reconciliation. What was the word she’d used last time? Rebuilding, reconnecting? A DVD was a safe option, I supposed. Maybe she just thought I was too much of a tight-arse to take her to the movies.
I double-checked my daybook and saw a notation reminding me to see Anthony at three and be home for Ella at seven. Inside the diary were loose photocopies of the notes