Free Vanishing Point by Alan Moore Page A

now with staff and —’
    â€˜Stick to the point, please, Mal,’ Murray sharply interrupted.
    â€˜Yeah, okay. Well, I was away for the weekend, gone fishing at Smoky Bay. Only Mary was here, and she told Mr Thompson to come back Monday.’
    Alec broke into the story, impatiently adding, ‘I tried to find another garage, anybody who could give me a lift back to Katherine and organise a tow or some repairs, but no other garage was able to help. There were no workshops open, no mechanics to be found —’
    â€˜Weekend,’ interrupted Harrison.
    â€˜Eventually I organised a cabin at the Foreshore Caravan Park. I was desperate for a shower and some food. I’d walked all morning from first light then all around town looking for a mechanic or open garage!’
    â€˜Did you walk all the way from where you broke down?’ Murray asked.
    â€˜Essentially. When I got to the main road I hitched a ride with a truckie. I’d been walking on the main road for a couple of hours by then. No-one would stop.’
    Harrison again interrupted. ‘Well, you can’t blame the truckies for not picking you up. You must a looked pretty ugly, unshaven, all covered in dust. People are a bit nervous after that hitchhiker who killed the couple in WA. Even Mary was a bit nervous of you when you came into the garage —’
    â€˜Do you remember any details about the truck? Name of company, licence number, anything at all?’
    â€˜Not really. The name of the driver was Dave. The truck was mostly red, a semi. I think it had WA registration, but I don’t remember anything else.’
    Murray turned to Harrison, ‘Please tell me what happened when Mr Thompson first contacted you, Mal.’
    â€˜Come Monday morning Mr Thompson here, looking a bit fresher, was on the doorstep at seven in the morning waiting for us to open up. He explained what had happened and, even though we had work lined up for a month, I took the truck and went looking for his wife and kid.’
    â€˜So, Mal, what happened then, when you and Mr Thompson went off together?’ Murray asked.
    â€˜Well, it’s like I said. He was here real early Monday. He’d told us what happened so I took the tow truck to go look for the Kombi. I mean, seemed important if there was a young baby out there for the whole weekend. All the work I had could wait. By the time we got going it was about nine. We drove down the main drag to Oorla Tank track, then up to the track along the dog fence. We went to where he thought he’d left his car, but it weren’t there.’
    â€˜I knew it had to be the right place,’ added Alec, ‘because there aren’t too many big trees out there and I’d stopped under one for shade. Also there was the pit I’d dug. It simply had to be the right place.’
    Harrison continued. ‘So then we drove on ‘bout another couple of miles looking for the Kombi in case it wasn’t the place he thought he’d left it. But after passing the track up to Googs Lakes without seeing it we turned round an’ came back. Mr Thompson thought that maybe his wife had got it going an’ driven on to town. Then we saw it ‘bout thirty yards off the track. Pretty hard to see if you driving along the track ‘cause some scrub was stacked in front of it an’ the tracks into the bush was partly hid. Looked like the sand was brushed to make the tracks hard to see.’
    Not wanting to be just a passive listener Alec took up the story. ‘The battery was totally flat. Mr. Harrison decided that the problem was probably the generator so the battery must have run down to zilch while we were driving. No wonder the thing wouldn’t start! So he hooked up to the truck and towed it back to town.’
    â€˜Anything else I should know?’
    â€˜No, don’t think so.’
    Sergeant Murray turned to Tommy. ‘Okay there, Tommy? Seen