Tristan Bancks - The Fall

I grabbed the back of a dining chair and awkwardly dragged it across the floor into the bedroom, in front of the old timber wardrobe. The chair wobbled as I swung my good leg onto it. I took a deep breath and pushed up, grabbing the top of the wardrobe for balance. Magic licked my toes.

‘Stop!’ I whispered sharply but she didn’t listen.

I felt around the top of the wardrobe. I was close to the ceiling, which meant I was close to the floor of 6A. Is anyone up there right now? I wondered. Magic continued to lick between my toes.

I couldn’t see what was on top of the wardrobe but I ran my fingertips through inch-thick dust, searching for anything Harry may have hidden.

My thumb scraped something flat and metallic. My heart skipped as I pried the object off the timber. A key. A very dusty key. Not from Harry, though. This key had been here a long, long time and my father had only lived here a month or so. I sneezed, wiped the dust on my shorts and lowered myself off the chair. I felt the sting of my stitches pulling and the deep throb of the staples grinding against my bones. I sat on the floor and pressed myself flat to the timber so that I could look under the bed.

Nothing. Just more dust bunnies. Not as thick as on the wardrobe. They were more like dust rabbits up there.

I sat up and looked at the brassy-brown key. It had a serial number carved into it. It was a regular key, not an old one. I twisted around, placed my hands on the edge of the bed frame and pushed myself up. My arms were so sore. I kept my leg straight, grabbed my crutches and hobbled out to the kitchen bench, where the busted lock was sitting with a hunk of splintered timber still attached. I picked it up and tried the key but it wouldn’t fit.

I went to the windows, trying to protect my red-raw armpits from the tops of the crutches. The windows didn’t have locks. I couldn’t think of anything else in the apartment that did. The key was no good to me for now.

I wondered if any of my evidence or photos had anything to do with the crime that had been committed. Maybe none of it was useful.

I continued to search the apartment – through every drawer, inside every book, under every cushion and pillow and mattress. The only thing that seemed to be gone was the electricity bill that had fluttered to the floor when I grabbed Harry’s laptop off the dining table. This played on my mind. Maybe Harry had picked it up, taken it with him. Possibly. But what if the man had picked it up? He would have Harry Garner’s name linked to this address. I thought about messaging Harry but decided not to bother him. I didn’t want him getting annoyed with me. I would tell him after work.

I searched the medicine cabinet, the fridge and oven. The walls were lined with timber from floor to chest height, then there was a small ledge and plasterboard up to the ceiling. I tapped the timber part of the wall, hunting for some kind of secret cavity. The fire hose reel cupboard was set into the other side of this wall but it mustn’t have taken up the whole space because, over by Harry’s front door, the wall sounded hollow. I tried to get my fingertips in between the boards but they were all nailed in tightly – there was no way to check what was behind them.

I decided to make a note on my phone of all my father’s personal items:

• 1 toothbrush, green and white, cheap, bristles chewed and splayed

• 1 tube Macleans toothpaste, almost empty

• 1/2 packet of Quick-Eze indigestion tablets. Use-by date: 2/2/13

• Fridge: rotten pear; empty pizza box; jar of chopped chilli

• Cupboard: packet of Uncle Ben’s Instant Rice; tin of Heinz baked beans; tin of Edgell red kidney beans; Saxa picnic salt; an onion with a green stalk growing out of it

• Wardrobe: 2 pairs of grey trousers; 2 white, long-sleeved button-up shirts (one with a pink stain on front); 6 pairs of underpants, all white-ish, two with holes near waistband at back; 1 pair of shoes

• 1 laptop and charger

• 1 hunting knife

I had to admit that the last one worried me. I found it in a very thin drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe between two larger drawers. Why does my father need a knife? He owned barely anything but he had this long, jagged knife with a black handle. Reporters in comics had guns. But my dad had a hunting knife. What was he hunting? Criminals?

What if he was involved in this crime? Is that how he knew something? Is that why he ignored me when I suggested going to the police?

I pushed the thought aside. It was stupid.

But was it? I hardly knew Harry, only a made-up, comic-book version of him. I met him six days ago and, before that, he was a fantasy to me. I had pictured calling him ‘Dad’ but instead he made me call him ‘Harry’. I imagined we’d have all these really big talks but, a lot of the time, he wasn’t even home. He had promised Mum that he would take the week off but he just kept working. ‘I haven’t had a day off in forty years,’ he told me. I believed him but I also thought that meeting his almost-thirteen-year-old son might be a good enough reason to have one. Sometimes it felt like he was avoiding me on purpose, like he didn’t know what to say or do when he was around me. That’s why he went out last night.

‘Crime reporter’ would be the perfect job for a criminal. He could know what the cops were thinking and he could feed that information into the underworld. His fourth commandment of crime reporting was:

Sometimes criminals will try to make you see things their way. These are dangerous and often charismatic characters. You need to be clear with people which side of the law you sit on.

But what if Harry hadn’t been clear? He had been reporting crime for forty years. That’s a long time to interact with these ‘charismatic characters’ and stay clean. Maybe he started out on the right side but at some stage he slipped. But that sounded suspiciously like a crazy plotline for one of my comics. It was ridiculous. My father was a crime reporter, not a criminal.

A sound popped out from the general background hum of traffic: the rev of an engine close by. I crutched over to the window and looked into the yard. There was an old guy down there with long silver hair but a bald patch on top. The caretaker of the building. He was climbing out of a rusty white ute parked right next to the bin shed, near where the man had fallen. The caretaker was wearing grey overalls, the kind that cover your arms and legs. I’d watched him come and go a couple of times during the week. When you’re stuck in an apartment by yourself every day you get to know the rhythm of the place. His shoulders were rounded, neck bent forward. He reminded me of a tortoise, especially on the day, earlier in the week, when he had worn the backpack for weed-spraying.

He clicked the door of the ute shut then walked back out of the gate and hauled all the bins in, two at a time, parking them in the bin shed. When he was done he poked his head out of the shed, looked around the yard, then up at the building. I pulled back from the window. I left it a few seconds, then I looked down again.

The man went into the shed and was out of view for maybe half a minute. I watched and waited. He emerged carrying a couple of black plastic bags. I wondered if they had been in there when I went through the shed last night or if they had been put there since. I slid my phone out of my pocket and took three quick shots of him as he threw the bags into the tray of his ute. He looked around and up again, then walked towards the building. I had to press my face right against the glass to keep him in view. I tried taking another shot but it was all reflection and windowsill. I wanted to open the window but was worried the noise would alert him.

He opened a door or a gate at the base of the building. I had seen him put a lawnmower in there earlier in the week. On Tuesday, I thought. The gate made a clink-screek sound as it opened.