Peter Corris - The Black Prince

I located Hillcrest Street and drove slowly along it looking for the right number. The street could have crested a hill once, but the spread of houses, a couple of blocks of units, the bitumen, cement kerbing and guttering and lines of lampposts along the major streets had obliterated the original, topography. A few residents had left decent sized gum trees and wattles on their blocks, but most had embraced the shrub, Clinton Scott’s house was a standard post-World War II fibro box with an iron roof, skimpy front porch and small windows. The slight lurch to the left of the whole structure suggested decayed stumps; the broken-down fence and overgrown garden shrieked cheap rent. I parked and walked through a gate wide enough to admit a car. It was held open by a brick. Tyre tracks showed where a car or cars had been parked but there weren’t any in evidence. The front yard was scruffy, although efforts had been made. At a guess, the grass had been cut roughly with a hand mower fairly recently and some of the more aggressive weeds and thistles had been pulled up and put in a heap.

The mist was thickening towards rain as I walked up the gravel path to the front of the house. I knocked, got no response and tried the door. It opened and I went in, making as much noise as I could. There was a threadbare carpet runner down the passage on top of linoleum. It was a lino kind of house. A bedroom off each side of the passage; a kitchen-cum-sitting room after that with a bathroom and toilet off to one side. The back porch ran the width of the house and had been built in with masonite lining and louvre windows. Everything was very basic-the plumbing, the two-bar radiators, the small television, the portable CD player-but the place was clean and tidy. A few cups, plates and dishes had been washed and stacked in a plastic rack to dry; a pedal bin in the kitchen was lined with newspaper and there were two spare rolls in the toilet.

It was easy to tell which bedroom was Clinton’s-golf clubs, a squash racket, battered size 12 Reeboks. The books on the shelves were about anatomy, pharmacology and physiology as well as sporting biographies, a few paperback novels and a history of Australian football. A poster on the back of his door showed a huge man in a red and white jersey flying high over a pack of other players to catch a football. It was signed in thick Texta colour ‘Best wishes, Clint-Plugger’. Like Wesley, I didn’t understand Aussie Rules, but you couldn’t live in Sydney in the last few years without hearing about Tony Lockett.

I turned the room over thoroughly and became convinced that Clinton had either left voluntarily-no wallet, some empty clothes hangers, no socks or underwear, a docket for a new pair of sneakers but no sign of them, no carryall-or someone had tried very hard to make it look that way. The room was tidy, but not unnaturally so. His university notes, neatly enclosed in labelled folders, were on the small table that served as his study desk. I flicked through them but it was all gibberish to me. There were three essays in a drawer, one for each of his subjects. He’d got two A-s and a B+. Academic failure wasn’t his problem. Not much in that to reassure Wesley.

I searched all the obvious hiding places, tapped for loose floorboards, found nothing. The bathroom, clean like the kitchen, was minimally equipped on first inspection-one of everything only. A closer look showed that a few things like goanna oil, tinea cream and elastic bandages had been tucked away in a cupboard. At a guess, the other kid in the house had done that. The cabinet that held the mirror had been moved up thirty centimetres from its original position. I remembered that Clinton was almost as tall as his father. The old holes had been neatly filled and painted over. Good kid.

‘Where the hell are you, Clinton?’ I said out loud.

I left the bathroom and was about to go into the other bedroom when I heard a noise outside. A car pulling up. I went into Clinton’s room and looked through the window. A light blue Holden Commodore pulled up beside the house, windscreen wipers working against the heavy rain. A tall, thin young man got out, deposited a couple of plastic shopping bags on the ground, and strode quickly back to the gate. He kicked the brick aside and closed it. He wore jeans, a bomber jacket and boots. His black hair was long and lank and he flicked it back with a toss of his head as he headed for the porch.

He opened the door and I stepped out into the passage. He dropped one of the bags and I heard glass break.

‘What… who’re you?’

I moved forward. ‘More to the point, what’re you doing driving around in Clinton Scott’s car?’

For a young person who’d had a considerable shock he showed a good deal of poise. He took a step and lowered the other bag to the floor before closing the door behind him. He stared at me and flicked back the hair again to get a better look. I did my best not to look threatening and he evidently decided that he wasn’t in danger from me because the stiffness went out of him.

‘I can explain that,’ he said. ‘Can you explain what you’re doing here?’

I admired his cool. I moved to one side. ‘That’s a fair enough question. Let’s go and sit down and talk. I could do with a cup of coffee.’

He didn’t look pleased but he nodded and lifted the bags gingerly. We went through to the kitchen and he put the shopping on the table. He lifted out the contents, tinned food mostly, and groaned when a can of baked beans came out covered in dripping thick red fluid. ‘Shit, the tomato sauce’s busted.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. I opened out the other bag and freed two bottles of cheap red wine. ‘Better that than the plonk.’

He grinned. ‘Yeah. You’re right. Hang on, I’ll just clean this up a bit and put the kettle on.’ He shrugged off his jacket and put it neatly on the back of a chair. He went about the business of wiping the tomato sauce off tins and packets and stowing them calmly and efficiently in a cupboard. I sat and watched him, thinking how unusual this was. When you enter a house illegally and surprise the occupant you don’t normally encounter a polite and competent young person who makes you feel rather clumsy. He filled an electric kettle, plugged it in and spooned instant coffee into two mugs. He got milk from the fridge and set it beside the mugs.

‘Sugar?’

‘No,’ I said, almost rudely. Unusual circumstances are all very well, but I didn’t want this to turn into a tea party. I opened my notebook and looked at the notes I’d taken on what Wesley had told me. ‘You’re Noel Kidman, is that right?’

That startled him. ‘I thought you were a friend of Clint’s or something, not a policeman.’

‘You were right the first time.’

The jug boiled. He made the coffee and brought it to the table. He sat down and fussily rearranged his jacket on the chair. ‘Clint hasn’t paid any rent for four weeks. I’ve had to pay the last two lots myself. It’s been hard. I felt justified in using his car to save on fares. And I suppose because I’m pissed off with him.’

‘Okay.’ I passed one of my cards across the table and took a sip of the coffee. ‘I’ve been hired by Clinton’s father to find him. This is the obvious starting place. Have the police talked to you?’

‘No. There was a cop car here yesterday when I was coming home but I waited until it went away.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t trust the police.’

‘I see. I understand you saw Mr Scott a couple of days ago?’

‘That’s right. He was very aggressive.’

‘He’s upset.’

He drank some coffee. ‘Well, so am I bloody upset. I’m in my final year. I’ve only got three units to get but they’re bloody hard. Plus I’m doing two part-time jobs. It’s tough. The rent here’s cheap and I can’t afford to move, but I can’t afford to pay it all myself. I’ll have to get someone else in and that’s not easy at this time of year. Clinton’s left me in the fucking lurch.’