Tristan Bancks - The Fall

‘What?’ I snapped at her. ‘Firstly, he’d need a warrant to enter the apartment,’ I said, but it didn’t make me feel much better.

My head was swimming. How could she reverse everything I had worked out? I’d been thinking this through for twenty-something hours and she had taken two minutes to tear it all to pieces. How was it possible that I hadn’t seen him speak? I had played back the sound of the argument over and over again in my mind. I had replayed the image of the man’s face, I had looked at the blurred photo on my phone. When I was hiding in the cleaner’s cupboard I had been so close to him that I’d felt the floorboard lift as he stepped on it. And then I had seen him at the police station but, in all that time, I had not heard him speak and seen his face at the same time, which meant that… maybe the man I saw was not the man I heard in the apartment above.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t other police come to investigate the crime scene?’

‘You were in the cleaning cupboard all night, weren’t you?’ she asked. ‘Maybe it happened while you were in there.’

‘But the body was already gone before I hid in the cupboard,’ I said.

‘Look, I don’t have all the answers. It just seems like there are holes in your story. Maybe you don’t have all the answers either.’

I would have screamed at her if her argument didn’t make more sense than mine. If her logic was correct, I was accusing a police officer of a serious crime. Had I had put two and two together and made five?

Scarlet looked at me with those steady eyes. ‘I feel for you, Sam. I know what it’s like not to have a dad around but to have him go missing must make you feel really scared.’

I hated that word ‘scared’.

‘But that’s why you have to go back to the police. It sounds like the man you thought was the murderer might actually have been trying to help. And you should tell your mum, and tell her that your dad is gone. Do you want me to tell my mum? We could go down there with you now and talk to the cop.’

I hung my head. All the tiredness and pity and anger washed over me and I had no energy at all. Scarlet stood and put a hand on my back. I hated that. It confirmed that I was the little kid and she was the smarter, older girl. I had fooled myself today into thinking that I was more mature, more in control than I had ever been in my life. Now I felt like a baby. Or like everything Mum had said about me taking stupid risks, not thinking things through, being ‘ruled by hormones’ was right. I felt so tired. How stupid to try to be a crime reporter, using techniques from comic books, when an actual crime had been committed and I needed to tell someone.

‘It’s all right,’ Scarlet said.

But it wasn’t. Nothing was all right. I bent down and picked up my backpack, wiping my face and turning away from her.

‘Magic, come.’ I crutched across to the hallway.

‘Why don’t I tell my mum and–’

‘No. Don’t. It’s okay. I can work it out. Thanks.’

‘But if your dad’s not home…’

‘He might be now.’

I moved quickly and quietly down the darkened hall to the door.

I tried to open the latch, but couldn’t. Scarlet reached past me and opened it easily. Another dent to my pride.

I went across to the top of the stairs.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to–’

‘I’m fine,’ I said firmly.

‘Okay, well… I want to help you. Just knock if–’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I will.’

She watched me for a few seconds longer and then clicked the door closed, leaving me there in the empty stairwell with my smelly old dog. A few moments passed before her footsteps padded away up the hall.

Idiot, I thought. I am an idiot.

Magic bent down and licked her own bottom.

I turned and looked at the door of 6A. Murky grey like all the others, a brassy handle and a couple of locks. Had I, somehow, dreamt the whole thing? Could I be as wrong as she said I was?

Magic looked up at me as if to say, ‘Can we go?’

We moved off towards the stairs and something shiny caught my eye at the edge of the door of 6A. I moved as quietly as I could towards it, trying to stay out of view of the peephole.

It was tape. A small piece of sticky tape near the top of the door. One end was stuck to the door, the other to the doorframe.

Huh, I thought. Why would an elderly couple place a piece of sticky tape on the door? I had seen police use this in a Crime Smashers story called ‘Underworld Rats’. The officer stuck a small piece of tape on the door so that she could tell if someone had entered her apartment while she was out. But would the Hills, a nice, elderly couple travelling in their caravan, do that?

Probably not.

A police officer would, though. One with a secret.

I sat on the floor, my back against the wall of the dark room, my face lit up by the phone screen. It was 11.17 pm. Magic was lying on her side next to me, doggy-dreaming – growling and yipping, her paws twitching. The door of my hiding space in the wall was on the ground next to her. I had built it during the day, using two timber boards from the wall behind the wardrobe to connect the four boards that I’d removed from the lounge room wall. I’d re-used the rusty nails to run one length of timber across the top of the four boards and another along the bottom. There was no hammer in the flat, so I’d bashed the nails in with the handle of Harry’s hunting knife. The job was far from perfect but I felt ready. I sure hoped Harry didn’t mind me ripping his apartment to pieces.

I had locked the front door deadlocks. I had practised getting myself and Magic into the wall. Magic hated it but I could get us inside, fully concealed, in thirty seconds if the man came back here.

He won’t, I told myself.

He will, I replied.

I thought about the knife in the cupboard, but I left it there. I didn’t know how to handle it. He could use it against me. I thought of all those news stories about kids in America playing with their parents’ weapons and hurting themselves or a friend or a family member. I hated those stories.

My phone pinged.

Sorry Sam. Busy night.

Still awake? What do you

need to tell me?

My skin tingled all over. She would come get me, could be here by 1.15 am.

Can you come get me now?

I’m in trouble

I hit ‘send’ and the screen immediately went black. I pressed the home button but nothing happened.

I hit the power button. Nothing. The battery was dead. How, in all that waiting, had I not plugged the phone in? I tried not to think the word ‘idiot’ again but it was difficult.

Did the message go? Did she get it?

I checked the wall for power points. There were none near my hiding spot, so I took Harry’s laptop and my phone charger cord out of my backpack. I flipped the laptop open and tried to plug the cord into the side of the computer but my hand was shaking. She’ll be waiting now, worrying. Or not. Did it go? I used both hands to guide the plug into the slot. I watched the black phone screen, urging it to life, my face bathed in blue laptop glow. The computer screen read:

Please Enter Your Password

I want to, I thought. I had already tried a bunch of passwords earlier. The cursor winked at me, daring me to try something else.

I shook the phone but that didn’t seem to help.

Please Enter Your Password

Who is my father? I wondered. Born 23 September 1954. Crime reporter. Cranky. Not a big talker. A bit reluctant to have me stay with him these past thirteen years. Secretive. Not that tech savvy.