The Fall Read online

  NINE

  TRUST ME

  I heard a loud bang. And another.

  I didn’t know where it was coming from at first. I wasn’t deep enough asleep to be dreaming. I was still diving into the well of it. Bang. Hearing the noise, I tried to slow my fall and, for a moment, I didn’t know which way was up or down. I heard Magic bark for the first time since I’d arrived and I fought my way to the surface. Not such a bad guard dog after all, I thought as my eyes flicked open. I sat up.

  Bang. The armchair and coffee table shunted back. I stood, grabbed my crutches and started towards the bathroom to hide as quickly and quietly as I could.

  I heard a man grunt as the door was rammed again. It opened a crack and the tip of a hat appeared. The armchair and coffee table inched back across the floor. A head and body squeezed through the narrow gap. I stopped, the tips of my fingers resting on the bathroom doorhandle.

  He stood, panting. Short, lopsided – one shoulder lower than the other. Dirty grey hat. Shirt untucked. Scuffed black shoes.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  Tears spat from my eyes. I tried to stop them but couldn’t. I felt so thankful and angry he was home. I crutched across to the door and hugged him, something we had never done before. His body was stiff and I didn’t know if he wanted me to hug him or not but I didn’t care. At the same time, I kind of wanted to scream at him for leaving me alone. But he must have had a good reason or he wouldn’t have left me. Surely. If it was Mum I’d have yelled at her without a second thought, but it’s easier to be angry at people you know.

  He smelt like alcohol, which was strange because he said he hadn’t had anything to drink in nearly a year.

  Magic ran over to us, skidding on the kitchen lino. Harry broke the hug and scruffed her neck, checking out the wreckage in the apartment. ‘What happened?’ he repeated.

  ‘Where were you?’ I asked, wiping tears away. ‘You said you were going for milk.’

  He shuffled inside, shoved the door closed and looked around at the chair and table rammed up against the door, the deadlock lying on the floor. I noticed him sway a little and he rested a hand on the bench to steady himself. He was Captain Haddock in Tintin after too many whiskies.

  ‘Somebody broke in,’ I told him.

  ‘What?’ He squinted as though I was speaking another language. He looked crumpled and grey and old. He was older than any other kid’s father in my class. Old enough to be my grandfather, really. Mum had warned me but I had still been surprised when I first saw him in the flesh. The little square photo they used for his feature articles in the Herald must have been taken in about 1992.

  ‘And a man died,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Out there,’ I said. ‘He was pushed.’

  Harry’s face fell straight and serious. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A man was pushed from up there.’ I pointed towards the sixth-floor balcony.

  ‘When? Tell me what happened,’ he said.

  I relayed everything I had seen and heard. I acted out parts of it. I pointed to where the man had landed. I showed him the receipt and the arm of the glasses. He drank a steaming, three-bag, four-sugar tea, black, as there was still no milk, and listened carefully. I showed him my photos – the blurry one taken when I bumped the window, and the close-ups of the indent in the earth and other evidence at the crime scene. I watched his reactions carefully. I wanted him to say I’d done well, but he didn’t. He did not take notes. My comic-book Harry wasn’t a note-taker either.

  He went to the small, round dining table. ‘Where’s my laptop?’

  I grabbed my backpack and gave it to him. ‘I was trying to look after it.’

  Harry opened the laptop, turned the screen away from me and sat down. ‘And the other man?’

  ‘I didn’t really see him that well. He had a sort of high-pitched voice and he sounded small. I think he was small, but I couldn’t really tell from up here.’

  He tapped some keys and stared at the screen.

  ‘What are you looking up?’ I asked.

  He ignored me, tapped some more, stared at the screen again for another minute or two.

  I was desperate to know.

  ‘Oh, god,’ he said, still watching.

  ‘What?’ I asked, trying to see.

  He closed the lid and looked at me, wide-eyed, as though he was staring right through me.

  ‘I’m sorry I went out.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said, even though I didn’t really think it was okay.

  ‘Do you think anyone else saw what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. It was just me. Is it something to do with your story? Should we go to the police?’

  He gazed out the window, his eyes bleary and hair a mess, unshaven, unwell.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Did you have something to drink?’ I asked. ‘I thought you didn’t –’

  ‘I slipped up,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a lot to think about this week. And before you ask your next question, can you just give me a moment?’ He hobbled over to the armchair that had been wedged against the door and flopped into it. Magic rested her head in his lap. Harry took off his shoes and socks. His feet were road-mapped with thick blue veins. The skin on top of his feet was thin, the soles hard and yellow and crusty. I would never draw the Harry Garner in my comics like this. He looked way too real.

  My Harry, superhero crime reporter, was an expert in jujitsu and boxing. He was a polyglot, which meant that he knew lots of languages – nineteen, in fact, including Swahili, just in case I decided to set a story in Kenya or Mozambique. He was rich and he travelled the world without even taking a suitcase. He could ride a motorbike, scuba-dive, fly a helicopter and captain a submarine in a pinch. He was a computer hacker and arms expert. He skied in Switzerland and climbed live volcanoes in Hawaii for exercise. Women loved him and men wanted to be him.

  But sitting here, drunk and old, in this tiny apartment with peeling blue paint on the walls, was the real HG. My dad. Maybe the next issue of Harry Garner: Crime Reporter would be called ‘The Real Harry Garner’ and he’d have sore knees and a fat brown dog. At least I didn’t have to worry about people cancelling their subscriptions. That was the one advantage of me being my only reader.

  ‘Do you think we need to go to the police?’ I asked again.

  ‘No,’ he snapped. I think he realised how sharp his voice sounded and he softened. ‘Not right now. Listen, how would you feel about going home a day early?’

  ‘Home? Why?’

  ‘I have to go to work today.’

  The thought of him leaving me again sent adrenaline racing through my veins.

  ‘It’s not safe for you here,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your telling me all these details but I think you’d be better off at home. I’ll give your mum a call. Maybe I can put you on a train this morning rather than tomorrow.’

  He hoisted himself out of the armchair and limped towards the bedroom. He had a short leg and crooked spine like mine, but worse. He was what Dr Cheung had said I would become if I didn’t have the operation. And he seemed even more crooked after being out all night.

  ‘Please,’ I said to him. ‘I don’t want to go home yet. Can I stay?’ Even as I said the words, part of me regretted them. What if the man came back?

  Harry took a fresh shirt from the wardrobe, turned and looked at me from under his thick, grey brows.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Please.’ I crutched towards him. ‘I can come to work with you. I won’t bother you.’

  ‘I don’t do the kind of work where I can –’

  ‘I’ll stay out of your way.’

  ‘You can’t come with me, all right?’ he said firmly, shrugging on the shirt.

  ‘Well, can I stay here?’

  He motioned towards the mess at the front door, the lock lying on the floor. He pulled a fresh pair of pants from the wardrobe and pushed t
he bedroom door closed.

  ‘He won’t come back,’ I said, raising my voice so Harry could hear me. ‘We can put another lock on the door. I want Mum to think this went well. She won’t want me to come back here if you send me home early. Please, it’s only one night. I won’t be any trouble. I’ll go home tomorrow like we planned.’

  I waited. He said nothing for a minute or two and I knew that he was going to say no. Eventually the bedroom door swung open and he stared at me.

  ‘Why would you want to be here with me?’ he asked.

  I wondered if it was a trick question. ‘Because you’re my dad,’ I said.

  He stared at me for a moment. ‘Please don’t hold me up as any kind of hero. Your mum deserves all the credit for the way you’ve turned out. You make sure you’re good to her.’

  I nodded. ‘I will.’

  ‘You promise me?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘If you see or hear anything even slightly suspicious you’ll call me or send me a message right away?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He rubbed his face with his hands.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You can stay till tomorrow morning.’

  TEN

  SOLVE IT

  Harry drove the final screw into the deadlock and mopped sweat from his forehead with a dirty tea towel. He had been to the mini Mitre 10 on the corner the minute it opened, bought two locks and a screwdriver and spent forty minutes fixing the locks to the door. They looked a little bit crooked to me, maybe because he had been drinking, but judging by the number of times he swore, it seemed like Harry didn’t do a lot of DIY. But it was done. I would stay till tomorrow morning.

  ‘I’ll be back by six,’ he said. ‘Hopefully before. Don’t open the door for anyone. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And are you sure you can be back by six because –’

  ‘I’ll be back by six. You have my word. And are you sure you can send me a message if you need to? You’ve got enough credit or whatever?’

  ‘Enough for messages.’

  ‘Well, I’m only a few blocks away. If you hear or see anything …’

  I nodded. I wanted to suggest again that we go to the police. He must have read my mind.

  ‘Give me today,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I finish work and I’ll tell you more then. I just need some time to check some things. You’ve played hard, done good, telling me this information and now you have to trust me, Sam. Can you do that? Can you trust me?’

  I wanted to. I really did.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can trust you.’

  He unlocked the two new deadlocks, opened the door and said, ‘See you tonight.’

  I wanted more than anything to go with him. I felt tired and like I might start bawling again so I just said, ‘Okay.’

  Harry slipped out the door. ‘Lock it up,’ he said in a low voice.

  I pushed the door closed and twisted the brass knobs. He tested the door and then said, ‘I love you.’

  ‘Huh?’ I asked.

  I heard his quiet footsteps fade down the staircase.

  Then it was just me and Magic again.

  I love you? I thought. He had never said that before. Sure, he had said it through a door and then scurried away, but he had still said it. Hadn’t he?

  I kneeled on Harry’s unmade bed and peered through the dirty window and down Victoria Street. I waited for him to appear, hobbling along in his coat and hat.

  The young homeless lady in the purple puffer jacket was on the corner of the street diagonally opposite, breathing clouds of steam through cold air, shaking her paper coffee cup, asking for donations. I’d seen her on a couple of other days when I’d watched Harry leave. The lady was outside Pan, the bakery that Harry had gone to more than once during the week. The last few orange leaves fluttered down from the almost-bare tunnel of trees over the street.

  Harry crossed the road towards Pan. I desperately wanted to go down in the lift and follow him. I did not want to be here alone. Watching him from above, I saw how bad his limp was, how bad mine might have become if Mum hadn’t forced me to have the operation. He heaved open the heavy door of the bakery and, a moment later, a woman – chocolate-brown hair, knee-length black coat – exited, coffee and brown paper bag in hand. Harry followed her out. His girlfriend? I wondered. That made me angry. I don’t know why. Why shouldn’t he have a girlfriend? Still, the uncomfortable feeling stayed with me.

  ‘Watch the bad feeling but don’t engage with it.’ That’s what Margo would say. She was a therapist Mum had been sending me to. I called her my coach. Her voice was annoyingly soothing but I kind of liked her anyway. She read comics, especially The Phantom, and she talked with me about them. Not in a fake adult way where she pretended to be interested just to make me have a conversation with her, but in a real way where she actually knew stuff.

  ‘Don’t push the anger away or act it out,’ she would say. ‘Just let it sit there. What’s behind it? Moods are like clouds passing the sun. Let them pass.’

  In that moment, watching this lady coming out of the bakery with my dad, I felt really annoyed. He said he had to go to work and that he couldn’t stay with me or take me with him but he seemed to have time for her. As soon as I noticed that I felt annoyed, though, and I named it, the feeling kind of drifted away, like a cloud. It was one of the first times that I’d been able to do what Margo suggested and it actually worked.

  I pulled out my phone, switched to camera, zoomed in and took a bunch of pictures. The woman looked much younger than Harry. Was she another journalist or maybe a cop? She could have been either. A criminal? Maybe. Probably not. She didn’t look like a criminal. But what was a criminal supposed to look like? A scar on her face? Shifty eyes and rubbing her hands together, like a bad guy in an old movie?

  Commandment number six: Never assume anything. And don’t convict people. That’s the job of the courts. Just report the facts. Be as objective as you can. Innocent until proven guilty.

  Harry and the woman walked off up Victoria Street, turning right at a little laneway with a backpackers’ hostel on the corner and disappearing from view. I wanted so badly to follow them. Where are they going? What is he going to do till 6 pm? Had he planned to meet her? Is he telling her about the crime I witnessed? Or is it totally unrelated?

  I looked back through the pixelly, zoomed-in photos on my phone, then turned and looked around Harry’s dimly lit bedroom.

  Solve it, said a voice in my head.

  I didn’t feel sleepy at all now. I felt jumpy and alive.

  Solve it.

  7.57 am.

  Harry was due to put me on the 8.01 train back to the Mountains tomorrow morning. I only had today to find out more. When Harry came home at six I would show him the fresh evidence I had found. He would be pleased. I could be useful to him, like a researcher or an assistant. He would love me for it. Maybe we could find the perpetrator of the crime and the man who fell. I had always wanted to be a crime reporter. Maybe this was my chance.

  ELEVEN

  HARRY GARNER’S TOP TEN COMMANDMENTS OF CRIME REPORTING

  God is in the details. Gather as many details as you can about the crime. Observe colours, sounds, textures, smells, even tastes.

  Make contacts. You have to know crime fighters as well as criminals. You need sources of good information on underworld dealings.

  Watch what you say about people. Build trust.

  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.

  Don’t keep everything on a phone. It can be hacked for content and the digital trail you leave can be used as evidence in court by both police and criminals. Phone towers know where you are.

  Never assume anything. And don’t convict people. That’s the job of the courts. Just report the facts. Be as objective as you can. Innocent until proven guilty.

  Alwa
ys be authentic. Don’t make things up or sensationalise the story.

  Is the crime part of something bigger? Does it reflect changes happening in society? What does it say about us as humans?

  Curiosity killed the cat. Be careful of becoming too obsessed. Sometimes a story can eat you up and take you to dangerous places, physically and mentally.

  Show determination, patience, mindfulness. Evaluate all evidence.

  TWELVE

  SNOOP

  I sat on the windowsill and stared down through the bare tree branches. Fragments of what I had seen and heard last night flickered through my mind. That flash of black. His voice. The slunching sound of impact. The bang of my phone on the window. The round, white moon of the man’s face emerging from beneath the black umbrella.

  The yard didn’t look as scary during the day. Trains snaked by, in and out of the city. Rain still fell. I could see where he had landed but not the shape of him, not from up here. But I could imagine it.

  I felt a gut impulse to go back down there. I knew it was stupid but I wanted more than anything to find more evidence to show Harry.

  I had promised to stay inside. He made me promise.

  I turned away from the window, pushed the temptation aside.

  I looked around the apartment. Harry had cleaned up a bit but there were still bits of broken bowl swept into the corner and open books spread across the floor like dead birds.

  How can I help Harry? I wondered. Maybe the man had left DNA evidence in the apartment. I couldn’t test it but I could gather it. I had read stories about a single hair being used to convict a criminal even forty years after the crime had been committed.

  And if this crime had something to do with the story Harry was working on, maybe there were notes or photos hidden somewhere in the apartment – if the man hadn’t already found them in the night. I could use them to help my own investigations.