Kate Wild - Waiting for Elijah

WAITING FOR ELIJAH

Kate Wild is an investigative journalist whose work with distinguished teams at the ABC has been recognised with three Walkley Awards and a Logie. Her reports from Darwin, where she lived from 2010 to 2016, laid the groundwork for a Four Corners story on juvenile detention that prompted the calling of a Royal Commission. Like Elijah Holcombe, Kate grew up in country New South Wales; she now lives and works in Sydney. Waiting for Elijah is her first book.

Scribe Publications
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2 John St, Clerkenwell, London, WC1N 2ES, United Kingdom

First published by Scribe 2018

Copyright Kate Wild 2018

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

Quoted material in ch. 31 from The Old Fools by Philip Larkin reprinted here with the kind permission of Faber & Faber; in ch. 33, the line from Part IV of The Spirit of Place. Copyright 2016 by the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. Copyright 1981 by Adrienne Rich; also in ch. 33, the line from Poem IX of Twenty-One Love Poems. Copyright 2016 by the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. Copyright 1978 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., from COLLECTED POEMS: 19502012 by Adrienne Rich. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

9781925322736 (paperback edition)
9781925548914 (e-book)

A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia

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To Kay Masman

There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.

Bryan Stevenson

PART ONE

PROLOGUE

The image I keep returning to is of a car parked on a quiet street in a country town. The windows are blank with condensation. A young man lies curled up on the back seat, slowly waking. The air outside is as cold as stone.

In another street in the same quiet town, a second man wakes. Senior Constable Andrew Rich gets dressed and joins the day. This is when things could have turned out differently. When everything could have been all right. Its 6.30am. Tuesday, 2 June 2009.

2009

Elijah walks swiftly, pulling his jumper over his head. The right sleeve snags, and he tugs it free. The jumper lands with its arms outspread, misshapen, like a puddle on the asphalt. It is close to 2pm, 2 June 2009, and the people around him are heading back to work. Cinders Lane is a thoroughfare linking Armidales mall to municipal buildings and a car park. Elijah crosses the lane and passes a woman in a bright red coat. She raises a thin arm and calls out, pointing to the ground. Elijah does not respond. A different voice is at his back male, commanding, and closing in.

Drop the knife, Elijah! Drop the knife!

Elijah slips between cars in the open car park.

Elijah, stop! Put down the knife.

Elijah hesitates, slows, looks back and sees the gun. He stops and turns around.

Joan Whitburn watches from an office window. Voices had drawn her to the glass doors of her building, which fronts onto Cinders Lane. When she saw two men pass outside and up the lane, she followed them from window to window. Now she drags a phone along the desk towards her. She is metres from them, watching behind the glass.

The younger of the two men is standing still. His hands are in the air, his arms outstretched. The expression on his face is odd. The second mans back is turned to her, but Whitburn sees his wide-legged stance. He is training a gun at the young mans chest. Her mind works like a camera taking shots. Arms, face, torso, black gun. The young mans face, his messy hair.

Dont shoot, she whispers to the empty room.

Watching from his office above the street, Ambrose Hallman sees a man in a white baseball cap in the middle of Cinders Lane. Hes pointing what looks like a handgun at another man.

Lay down on the ground, Hallman hears the gunman say. The second man is holding something dark and straight at shoulder height. Hallman stares, transfixed.

Joan Whitburn clenches the phone to still her hands. She dials emergency. Wrong number. There is shouting outside, but she cant discern the words; she dials a second time.

From his eyrie, Hallman hears the command again.

Get on the ground, the gunman yells.

Whitburn watches; the young man doesnt move. Hallman sees him sprint towards the gun. They hear a shot, and the young man falls face forward on the road.

A woman outside screams, You didnt have to do that!

Hallman and Whitburn watch a circle grow like a shadow on the young mans chest.

Whitburn whimpers in the silent room as the gunman kneels to touch the prone mans neck.

This is triple zero. Police, fire, or ambulance?

P-p-p-police, Joan Whitburn stutters.

When Senior Constable Greg Dufty reaches the corner, he sees his partner at the far end of the lane. So this is where they got to . He spots a strange shape on the ground at Richs feet. Richies pulled his jumper off or the guy has had a seizure . Maybe Richies knocked him out ? Dufty sprints, arriving as Senior Constable Andrew Rich leans the shape against the gutter. Rich is shaking.

Oh Duff, can you help him? Dufty hears him say.

Rich is pale. As pale as the face of the body propped against the kerb. Dufty straightens, confused. His nostrils fill with gun smoke. A growing bloody circle comes into focus. Reality settles on his senses, and Richs voice begins to float in Duftys ears.

Youre going to have to put pressure on that wound.

Dufty sees blood on Richs hands and trousers, bright and sharp.

Are you alright, are you cut? Dufty asks his partner.

Rich leans forward, gasping in great breaths. He shakes his head, and Dufty hears the scream of the first siren.

I had no choice, mate, I had no choice.

Jordan is sitting on the kitchen counter beside a pile of cut-up pumpkin when the phone rings in Wee Waa, two hours later. She locks eyes with her sister Laura is closer. Jordans heels clap on the cupboard door. She holds her perch and wins.

Hi, Dad. Whats up? she hears Laura say.

What? Laura shouts into the phone, and the air around the two girls changes.

Their mother races from the living room and wrenches the phone from Lauras hand.

Jeremy, have they found him? Their mother begins to shake.

Why? Why would they shoot him? Tracey Holcombe screams.

Jordan falls to the kitchen floor. Laura walks outside. The clothesline in the backyard is a skeleton holding hankies. Traceys wail streams through the door and across the lawn. It winds and tightens like a noose.

Theyve shot my boy, theyve shot my boy

The day after Elijah was shot in Cinders Lane, an image of three people giving CPR to a young man in the gutter filled the front page of the Armidale Express .

A man carrying a knife was shot dead by undercover police in the centre of Armidale early yesterday afternoon. The shooting, which occurred around 1.50pm in Cinders Lane, came after a chase through the CBD streets the Express reported.

The dead man was thought to be in his early twenties. He was possibly from Narrabri, but the paper did not name him.

The bloke had something in his hand and the two coppers asked him twice to drop it. But he charged them, one cop shot him and down he went, a witness told the paper.