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mother and sister. A couple of the neighbours had also been interviewed and some of the boy’s friends. The police had followed up on a few of the matters raised—a surf carnival up the coast at around the relevant time, a ski lodge where Justin had stayed a year before he disappeared. A draft copy of his letter of application to Duntroon Military Academy had been found in his wastepaper basket, torn in half. The two pages were now sticky taped together.
    Gunnarson watched me as I read through it. The letter was correctly spelt, the grammar was accurate and the points were made clearly.
    ‘Torn in half,’ I said.
    ‘What do you do with drafts?’
    ‘Crumple them or use them as scrap paper.’
    Gunnarson shrugged.
    I read three faxes from Hampshire in California. In the first he said he was coming back, in the next he claimed to be delayed, in the third he said he couldn’t make it due to business commitments but would write supplying every detail about his son he could summon up.
    ‘Where’s the letter?’
    ‘Never arrived.’
    ‘Did you contact the Californian cops?’
    ‘You think we’re amateurs? Of course we did. Hampshire was up to his balls in complicated real estate deals. Legitimate but involving . . .’ He snapped his fingers. ‘What’s that finance crap young Warwick Fairfax stuffed up over?’
    ‘Junk bonds, whatever they are.’
    ‘Right. But there was no sign he was harbouring a runaway son.’
    ‘Still, the kid had a passport.’
    ‘We checked the ports, and I mean sea and air. Nothing. And nothing from New Zealand where he could’ve gone without a passport and used it as a jumping off point, in case that was what you were going to ask. Sorry, but we didn’t feel a need to bring in Interpol.’
    I shuffled the papers in front of me. ‘Nothing from the school here.’
    ‘We talked to some students and some teachers but, youknow, private school, sensitive parents, lawyers from arsehole to breakfast. Can’t show you any of that.’
    ‘But no useful leads?’
    ‘Nope. The kid shaped up as Master Clean.’
    ‘So what d’you think happened, Sarge? Speculate.’
    ‘I haven’t a clue. Like it says, he took off in his Honda on a Saturday morning before anyone else at home got up. He took a few clothes and other bits and pieces. Sold his skis and his surfboard and skateboard and snowboard the week before. The kid was a balance-at-speed freak. It’s a wonder he didn’t have rollerblades and ice skates. He bought petrol locally and that’s the last anyone saw of him or the car.’
    ‘No bodies’ve turned up, no burnt-out Hondas?’
    Gunnarson shook his head. ‘He could be scallop fishing in Bass Strait or riding the fucking rabbit-proof fence.’
    ‘You don’t think he came to harm?’
    ‘It’s possible of course, but he was a well set-up kid with a fair bit of money. No history of drugs or dodgy behaviour, and he’d obviously planned it. Turned eighteen within a few months of leaving. An adult.’
    ‘Did you ask yourself why?’
    ‘Over and over. The way you will.’
    I made some notes from the papers I’d been allowed to see, thanked Gunnarson and left. Way too early for any theories, but not for being thoroughly intrigued.
     
    It was after one pm when I left the police building with my permit well and truly expired. Time to fill in before the appointment in Church Point. It was not an area I was familiar with—I’d have to do some work in the
Gregory’s.
I decided I’d earned some food and went to a pub inWilliam Street where they did a fair counter lunch. Like all the best old pubs they had sporting pictures on the walls and the bar staff were mature, friendly females.
    I bought a middy of Old and ordered the shepherd’s pie. I wished Gunnarson had let me photocopy some of the papers I’d seen but he drew the line at that. He had to protect his arse against any fallout, and that headline about me and threat of a charge hadn’t boosted my standing with the cops.