seventeen

Fact: The police are looking for Lyndon.

Two constables came to our school that afternoon, doing the rounds of each of the home rooms. We were sent to ours twenty minutes before the bell was rung for the end of the day. Miss Ingleton was standing at the front, her rollcall book open on the desk in front of her. She ran her finger down each of the names, checking us off when she saw us, calling out if the person wasn’t immediately visible. Daniel wasn’t there, but she didn’t say his name. She would have known he’d been sent home, and when I thought of him in that huge house, with Roxie drunk in the lounge room and Amanda’s bedroom untouched, I wished I could do or say something to change the way it was for him.

‘It’s one of the hardest things in life,’ Dee had told me, ‘learning that often we can’t do much and the difference we can make, if any, is usually very small. But the fact that you listened to him and that you tried to offer help isn’t completely meaningless. I’m sure it would have given him some solace – even if it was simply to let him know that people do care.’

I hadn’t been so sure. But that lunchtime, when I’d seen him lying on the ground and sobbing, I knew that the fact I’d been to his place made it easier for him to tell me why he’d been so angry with Cherry. It wasn’t much but it was more than nothing.

I took my seat, and began to pack my books into my bag, while Miss Ingleton finished marking off our names.

Everyone was talking, wanting to know why we’d been called back, the words spinning around the room in a blur of unfocused chatter. In the back row, Dennis White threw a tennis ball up and down, catching it with a soft thwack. The last throw went too high, hitting the low stucco ceiling and bouncing back down onto his head.

‘Jeez.’ He leapt up, his chair clattering to the ground behind him.

Everyone laughed. Someone called him an idiot. Miss Ingleton clapped her hands, and then, when there was no response, she took out her playground whistle and blew it, shrilly, into the room.

The silence was immediate.

‘I need you all to cooperate,’ she said, as there was a knock on the door. ‘We have a special announcement, and I want you all to listen.’

The afternoon sun was white, a shaft of hazy light, as she stepped back to let in the two policemen. They were at least a foot taller than her, one had his cap on and the other held his in his hand. Each was in full uniform, the steel-blue shirts, the navy gaberdine trousers, the polished black shoes and the glint of the badges on their chests made them both look indistinguishable from each other. I looked at each of their faces in turn, both stern, and I wondered what it would be like to be in the force and to have to deal with people who were bashed and died and stole and lied and cheated and ran, and I knew it was a job I would never want.

The one with his cap on stepped forward to talk to us. He was Constable Conroy, Miss Ingleton told us, and he was one of the officers investigating the very tragic death of Amanda Clarke.

He sat on the edge of her desk, one leg crossed over the other. He said he needed our cooperation and our help.

‘There’s been a significant lead in our enquiries,’ he said.

Everyone was still, sitting upright, eyes fixed on him.

‘Yesterday we received information that the deceased was meeting someone at around the time she died. We had believed this was the case for some time but we had no concrete confirmation of this fact.’

I looked down at my lap. I was digging my nails into the softness of the palm of my hand because I didn’t want to hear what I knew he was going to say next, I didn’t want to believe that someone we knew could be capable of something so awful.

‘A young lady from this school came forward and told us that the deceased had mentioned the meeting to her. We have every reason to believe she was telling us the truth.’

From outside the window, I heard another classroom door open and the voice of a teacher calling out to a student as they crossed the oval towards the admin offices. The bell would ring in a moment, I thought. It would be the normal sound of the day ending and yet there wouldn’t be the immediate clatter of desks and the slap of bags on concrete, followed by shouts and laughter, at least not from our classroom, not until the constable had finished uttering words I didn’t want to hear.

‘This young woman confirmed what we had suspected.’

I wondered why he was speaking so formally. Was it to impress upon us the gravity of the situation, to scare us, or was it because he had forgotten how to speak in a way that showed he was really one human talking to another? I wanted him to get on with it.

‘Miss Clarke had an appointment to meet a fellow student from her year, a young man she had been having a secret relationship with.’

Next to me, Cassie coughed, a rough scrape from the back of her throat, designed to get me to turn and look at her, so that she could raise her eyebrows to let me know she had been right all along.

‘This young man is Lyndon Hayes.’

There was no gasp, no rush of whispering. Just complete silence.

‘Some of you may know him, others may not. In any event, we are leaving a photograph with Miss–?’

He looked across at Miss Ingleton, who whispered her name to him.

‘Ingleton. I’ve asked her to keep this image at the front of the classroom so that those of you who don’t know who he is can have a good look.’

Why on earth was he doing this? It was like Lyndon was guilty, the image of him something we could all gawk at, our gossip like a dirty slick across the smooth photographic paper. I thought of Lyndon telling me he was Amanda’s friend and I felt sick. He was a person and he wasn’t here to speak for himself.

‘We have been trying to contact Mr Hayes. We want him to come into the station and talk to us in the light of this new information. But to date we have been unsuccessful.’

He hadn’t been at school. I wondered whether he’d been at home. It was unlikely if the police hadn’t been able to find him.

‘We are therefore asking everyone,’ and he leant forward now, trying to impress upon us that this was important, ‘to assist us. If you know where Mr Hayes is or might be, please come forward and tell us. If you see Mr Hayes, let us know. Don’t approach him yourselves, just tell your parents and make sure they contact us.’

Everyone was shifting in their seats now, looking at each other, squirming and wanting to talk.

Miss Ingleton stepped forward: ‘Are there any questions?’

Mine was the only hand, my elbow crooked, unsure; the words I wanted to speak were only half-formed, but I had done it now and when Miss Ingleton said my name I uttered my thoughts out loud.

‘It doesn’t necessarily mean you think he did it though, does it? I mean, just because he was meeting her doesn’t mean he would hurt her. That’s not what we should all be thinking.’ I looked around the classroom. Everybody was staring at me.

Constable Conroy had turned to face me. He waited for me to finish stumbling through what wasn’t really a question before he responded.

‘At this stage we’re not at liberty to say who is officially a suspect and who isn’t. All we are saying is that we would like to talk to Mr Hayes about this alleged meeting in the hope that he will be able to shed some light on what happened that afternoon.’

It was Mikey who now had his hand up. ‘If he didn’t do it, you reckon he would have come forward and told you guys about arranging to see her. He wouldn’t have disappeared.’ And he glared at me.

The bell rang loudly and from outside, across the basketball courts, I could hear some of the other classes being let out, the buzz of voices no doubt dissecting what we had just been told.

‘Yeah,’ Cassie was talking now. ‘I mean it looks highly suspicious if you just vanish.’

Louise Anderson was speaking next: ‘I always thought he was a creep. It’s scary to think he’s out there somewhere.’

Jason Marsh interrupted her. ‘Why did it take so long for that person to come and tell you about the meeting? That’s weird.’

The policeman had given up trying to answer the questions. He rose from where he had perched on the edge of the desk, smoothing down the side of his trousers before putting his cap back on, the peak shading his face to such an extent that it was virtually impossible to see him.

He thanked Miss Ingleton for her time, not bothering to thank us, and then he and the other policeman, whose name we’d never learnt, left, the door wide open after they had gone, the shaft of white light a dancing ray of dust particles across the worn classroom floor.

Everyone was pushing their chairs back and picking up their bags when Miss Ingleton blew her whistle again.

‘SIT.’

The fact she had shouted was strange enough to make us all stop for an instant, giving her just enough time to tell us that we were not excused. She wanted our attention for a few minutes more.

There were slumps and sighs as we took our seats again.

‘Can we see the photo of Lyndon?’ It was Jason calling out again. ‘Please, Miss.’

I had never seen her look so serious.

Arms crossed, she stayed perfectly still as she told us all that we needed to think and behave responsibly.

‘In this country and in this classroom, I would like to think that there is a presumption of innocence. Does anyone know what that means?’

Surprisingly, Sonia put her hand up. ‘You’re not guilty until you’re proved guilty in a court of law.’

‘Good. And that’s the case with Lyndon. The police simply want to talk with him. No one has said he’s done anything and I don’t want any of you to say he’s responsible for Amanda’s death. Judging someone without evidence, and especially in their absence, is wrong.’

‘So, if we see him, Miss?’ It was Dennis, this time.

‘Then you tell your parents, or you tell me.’

Outside, it seemed as though no one had left the school grounds. Kids were clustered in their various groupings, heads bent together, as they talked over and around the visit from the police. I could hear them, Lyndon’s name a frequent hum in the conversation, as was Amanda’s, their voices like the buzzing of bees, an insistent droning as I walked towards the gate with Sonia and Cassie.

‘Don’t say it,’ I told Cassie when we left the classroom.

She was taken aback.

‘Miss Ingleton is right,’ I insisted. ‘We shouldn’t be judging him.’

I was surprised when Sonia backed me. But then she qualified her support: ‘Even if it does look likely that he was involved.’

I glared at her.

‘You have to admit it.’

It did look bad for him, I agreed, but I also hated the thought of him having done it. ‘I mean, we know him. He used to stay at our house when he was little.’ I couldn’t articulate the doubt I had. ‘It’s just so easy to think he did it. Imagine if everyone thought you’d done something awful and you hadn’t.’

‘I just hope he comes forward and talks to the police and it was all a misunderstanding,’ Cassie eventually said.

‘Really?’ I smiled at her. ‘Detective Sergeant Cassie O’Donnell?’

She grinned. ‘Well, after seeing those two blokes in the classroom, I don’t know if I’m so keen any more. They weren’t the sexiest things on two legs.’ She giggled.

As we stood at the gates, I saw Cassie look around, her eyes wide and anxious, her laughter continuing a little too long and a little too loudly. It took me a moment to realise she wanted to see Grant Benson. She was hoping he would be there, ready to walk home with her.

He wasn’t.