“I didn’t go near the tree.”
He would curse that oversight for the rest of his life. Percy had been standing on the edge of the scene when they’d made the discovery. He’d been watching the police photographer, a thin young man with dark-rimmed glasses and a tan suit, sent from Adelaide torecord images of the picnic: a wide view of the setting, a close-up of the crumbs left on plates. This wrist, that ankle, each kicked-off shoe. He’d been waiting to wake up and learn he’d dreamed the whole thing, when from beneath the willow there’d come a frantic call:It’s empty! The baby’s gone!
“You noticed the crib, though, Mr. Summers?”
“I saw a hanging basket, but I didn’t think—it didn’t occur to me to look inside.” Percy’s throat was dry. “Once I realized what had happened, I couldn’t think of anything but getting help.”
“So you went straight to the Hughes house?”
Once again, they had been through this. “I knew Alastair—Mr. Hughes—had a car and a telephone and that he and Esther were likely to be home.”
“Alastair Hughes is the local solicitor, I think you said?”
“That’s right.”
“So you rode down Willner Road to number”—Sergeant Duke checked his notes—“one hundred and six, and found both Mr. and Mrs. Hughes at home.”
Percy had knocked frantically on the door. When Esther Hughes answered, peering at him through her cat-eye glasses, she’d guessed immediately that something was terribly wrong. She’d gestured that he should join her inside and called for her husband to come quickly. Alastair had appeared from a room off the hallway, still holding a pen. He’d been wearing odd socks, Percy remembered.
“Can you tell me again what you said to Mr. and Mrs. Hughes?” asked Sergeant Duke.
“I told them what I’d seen.”
“The words you used, if you don’t mind, Mr. Summers. Can you tell me the exact words you said to Mr. and Mrs. Hughes?”
Percy closed his eyes, concentrating. “I told them that Mrs. Turner and her children were by the water hole. That there’d been some sort of accident. That Mrs. Turner wasn’t breathing.”
“An accident.” Sergeant Duke tapped the pen against his chin.“I wonder.” He leaned back in the chair, his gaze shifting to rest on the elaborate plaster cornice that joined wall to ceiling. At length, he seemed to remember that he was mid-interview, glanced at the face of his wristwatch, and said, “Go on, Mr. Summers. You were at the Hughes house.”
“And then Alastair—Mr. Hughes—telephoned immediately to the police station for help.”
“And you both returned to the scene?”
“Alastair drove us back, and we arrived in time to meet up with Sergeants Kelly and Doyle.”
Hugo Doyle nodded grave encouragement from where he stood against the wall as the sergeant turned back a few pages of his spiral pad. “Bear with me,” he said.
Behind Sergeant Duke, on the other side of the window, the world was almost dark. The lightbulb above the desk reflected yellow in one of the four mottled panes of glass. In the gap at the bottom of the sash, where the window was partly open, Mount Lofty’s ridgeline appeared at intervals as flutters of lightning flared against the deep navy sky.
The range had been a compass all his life; Percy could have drawn the outline of its scarp in his sleep. The Kaurna people of the plains believed that once upon a time, a great ancestral giant had been killed, his body collapsing to form the ridge, his ears becoming the twin summits of Mount Lofty and Mount Bonython. Jimmy Riley had told him that a long time ago, when the two of them were camping out near Cleland. His face, lit by the flickering campfire, had worn an expression on it of loss and pride.
Jimmy would be with the search party. He was the best tracker this side of Alice Springs. Young Eric Jerosch had some fine skills, too. Only a few years older than Percy’s eldest and still a probationary constable, but he volunteered as scout master for the Piccadilly Valley group and knew the Hills almost as well as Percy had as a lad.
The wind outside had picked up and Percy could hear the scritching noise of fine twiggy branches scraping against the iron roof. Awarm gust brought with it the smell of fresh rain hitting parched earth. Somewhere, not too far off, it was already coming down. Percy was impatient. His time would be better spent helping to find the baby than it was sitting in this stuffy room.
A clutch of cockatoos took flight, screeching on the wing as they soared across the dark sky to shelter, and as if receiving a signal Sergeant Duke closed his notepad. “That’s enough for tonight, Mr. Summers,” he said. “I’m sure you’re ready to get home. I know my wife will be wondering where I am.”
Percy eased himself out of the chair. His muscles were tight from the ride and the heat and the day’s tension, the distress of what he’d found. He stumbled a bit as he gathered his saddlebag from where he’d put it by the base of the desk.
“And Mr. Summers—leave a note of your boot type and size at the front, if you wouldn’t mind,” Sergeant Duke said with a final nod.
“I’ll walk you out.” Hugo Doyle placed a solid hand on Percy’s back as they left the interview room and headed down the narrow hall.
Neither man spoke a word until they reached the front office, where Doyle said in a low voice, “Sorry, Perce. They’ve sent the top brass up from Adelaide for this one.”
Percy nodded that he understood. “Anything I can do to help.”
“Hell of a thing. All of them just lying there like that. Last thing a man expects to find.”
