“Steph?” I called, “can you climb up-” but she was already stepping on to the roof behind me. I waved her over then shone the light at something on the floor. She knelt down beside me, then reached forward, picking up a tiny piece of foil. She looked at me, held it up, its unmistakable w-shape highlighted by the torches’ beam. She slowly began to uncurl it, carefully trying not to tear it. When she finished and the shiny piece of wrapping was flat and open, she held it up. It was a juicy fruit wrapper. When I smelt it, the distinct aroma filled my nostrils.
“This possum catcher,” I began but Steph was shaking her head.
“Bushy Bill is the pest man around here, Jim, and Bushy Bill has no teeth.” I shone the torch around some more, looking deeper into the cavity. We could see drag marks in the dust, like someone dragging themselves through the space. I climbed into the roof, asked Steph to wait and she sat, holding the tin up far enough to watch me. There wasn’t a lot of space in there so lying on your belly was the only possible way to move around. I also noted it was the quietest. I shone the torch before me and followed the drag marks. They stopped directly ahead of me and I noted some vents in the ceiling, scattered around the space, light seeping through some of them. When I reached the spot where the drag marks ceased, I saw a vent directly beneath me. I didn’t need to look through to know which room sat below me. As I peered through the grating, the Chief’s desk now clearly visible, I slammed my fist into one of the timber beams, the pain shooting up my arm.
“Jim, you OK?” Steph yelled to me but I was already crawling back. She held my arm as I manoeuvred myself back out onto the roof and told her what I had seen. “I’ll call it in. Get the guys to keep an eye out for Clancy. We’ll find him.”
“Wait, Steph, this isn’t Clancy.” I said to her.
“But the wrapper,” she began.
“Even if the wrapper was Clancy’s, and if we find out that the person that crawled up into that roof to eavesdrop on the Chief was him, someone put him up to it, Steph. Someone is leading him, getting him to do these things. And I’m not sure that Clancy would be capable of inflicting that damage to those people. They aren’t small animals.” She began to nod again, understanding my point. If we were going to get to the bottom of all this, we needed to find out who was guiding him. “OK, let’s put the call out for him, see if anybody can pick him up. Worst case is we get to question him. I’d prefer to catch him ourselves. Be a lot easier to question him in private without someone looking over our shoulder.”
“I’ll make the call,” she said and began to climb back down the tree. A few minutes later, I followed.
11.
After she had contacted Chief Richards, we climbed back into the patrol car. We wanted to go by Clancy’s house and see if he had returned. It was a long shot but Clancy was feeble minded and he may just be stupid enough to return home. I asked her to swing by the hotel first. I wanted to pick up a jacket and also to see Tami quickly, to fill her in and also ease her mind in case she had already heard. I wasn’t sure if she had returned to work and gossip in a small town, regardless of how delicate it was, had a way of making the rounds quickly. Sometimes, too quickly.
She dropped me out the front and told me we would meet back in 15 minutes. She wanted to duck home and check on Mrs. Wong and Judith. I jumped out of the car and watched her drive down the street, then raced up the stairs, three at a time. I retrieved my jacket from the room, used the bathroom, then headed back down. The bistro was empty and the main bar only had half a dozen or so patrons, quietly sitting around with beers before them. It was just another quiet Sunday night in Cider Hill.
I went back outside and waited for Steph by the lamp post. I was leaning against it, running the previous hours’ events through my mind when I heard a noise off to my right. I looked and barely made out a shadow standing across the street from the far side of the pub. Because I was standing under the light and the shadow was standing in darkness, it was impossible to see who it was. I took a few steps out of the light but the shadow began to walk down the alley, its head never turning, as if watching me. As I stopped, it stopped. I took another couple of steps and the shadow took a couple as well. I started getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, panic setting in. The lane that he was standing on was where Tami lived. If he was watching me, then maybe he was planning something.
Without thinking, I sprinted to the corner, rounding it just in time to see the shadow jump one of the fences that fronted the line of flats. There was at least a dozen or so and, in the dark, found it difficult to know exactly which one he had jumped over by the time I had reached the spot. I was only a couple of doors away from Tami’s and could see her kitchen
