The Girl Remains (Detective Corban)

by Katherine Firkin

‘A small town outside of London, where Mr Lucas grew up.’

  ‘Right.’ Bryce looked far from impressed. ‘Only, I’m taking you off the team.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It seems this new witness may be a quack. His story’s not adding up. And I already have some of my best detectives on the case. Briggs can’t possibly need another body.’

  ‘But I . . .’ Emmett heard his voice whine.

  ‘Don’t get all defensive.’ Bryce drew his chair in closer to the desk. ‘I want to keep you free for something else. Bones have been found out on the Mornington Peninsula. Forensics are there at the moment. The public line we’re giving is that it’s too early to say whether the remains are human or animal . . .’

  ‘But we suspect they’re human.’

  ‘Not only human, they appear to be a child’s bones.’

  ‘A child?’ Emmett paused before a deep chill ran through him. ‘The Blairgowrie girl?’ he whispered.

  ‘Impossible to say until the testing is done. But that was my initial thought as well.’

  Emmett’s heels bounced on the floor as his mind danced over the few details he knew offhand. It was a long time ago – probably over twenty years, a little before he’d joined the police academy. Three teenage girls had been on a beach holiday together when they’d decided to venture out one evening. Only two returned.

  ‘There were rumours, weren’t there?’ His fingers tapped the edge of the couch. ‘A local man . . . arrested?’

  ‘And then released before a trial ever got underway.’ Bryce nodded. ‘All charges dropped.’

  ‘Because of an alibi?’

  ‘Rock solid – supposedly.’

  ‘No other suspects?’

  ‘Not really. Of course, there was speculation. Some said the girls had arranged to meet with boys that night, others said they’d had a fight themselves. But in the end, there was nothing. The leads went cold.’

  ‘So, if this is her . . .’

  ‘Don’t jump to conclusions.’ Bryce raised a hand. ‘Whatever this is, we need to keep it firmly under wraps until we know more. Whether it’s the Blairgowrie girl or not, a child’s bones turning up on a beach is going to send the public into a frenzy. We need to be on the front foot for this one, before the hysteria starts.’

  Emmett took the liberty of scribbling a few thoughts on a notepad that was lying nearby, internally grimacing at the quiet buzzing of his phone in his jacket pocket yet again. If that was Nicholas’s school calling back, it meant they hadn’t been able to get onto his wife, Cindy.

  ‘I’ll start looking over the details of the case.’

  ‘Good. And expect a call from forensics. I’ve told them you’re across it until further notice.’

  The house was silent, eerily so, and Warren found himself paralysed, perched on the edge of the bed in an awkward squat. From this position he could see through the doorway and down the length of his small house. Aware of any visitors.

  Shifting from one buttock to the other, he let out a long, slow breath. Perhaps he was being stupid. Aside from that man at the grocery store – who he was sure had looked at him too closely, taken his debit card and stared at his name a little too intently – there’d been nothing. Was it finally over?

  His eyes landed on the front door: the mail slot that had long been sealed off. That’s where most of the hate mail had arrived, the brazen vigilantes not satisfied with leaving their poisonous thoughts in his letterbox at the street. One time, and he hated to remember this, a pair of youngsters had been so bold as to urinate through the opening. Warren shuddered as he recalled hastily mopping up the mess, the liquid still warm and menacing as it seeped through the tea towel.

  A clang came from the next room.

  He stood up, recognising the sound of the sliding door in the laundry being pushed. Someone trying to get in.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, shuffling down the hallway and to the right. He knew who he was about to see.

  Sure enough, the white door scraped open, a gap just sufficient for the small body to emerge. Intruder was back. ‘Meerrow?’ The mangy orange cat looked at him expectantly.

  Warren bent down and stroked his friend. ‘Just in time for dinner.’

  Intruder had appeared one hot December afternoon. Dehydrated and confused, the kitten had stumbled out of the laundry, looking every bit as unkempt and unwanted as his surprised host. How he ever got in there was a mystery, but since that day he was a regular guest, appearing most evenings and sometimes even deigning to grace Warren with his company through the night.

  ‘Tuna?’ He sorted through the neatly stacked cans in his pantry. A brush of soft fur against his shin indicated agreement.

  Once they were both settled with their respective meals, Warren allowed himself to flick on the television. A brief scan through the different channels showed no immediate coverage of any discovery on the beach. But still . . .

  He rubbed at his chest where heartburn was building. Had he imagined the police on Koonya Beach?

  No. He sipped his water. An odd aftertaste. The painful scratch on his right shin was proof of the officers huddled on the sands, the unexpected sighting causing him to almost topple from his bike as he’d hurried past. But perhaps it wasn’t what he’d thought?

  Warren reached down and scooped up his friend, comforted by the gentle weight of the body nestling into his lap. He was being paranoid, he realised, allowing his fingertips to run the length of the orange fur, the slow movement eliciting an appreciative soft purr. The bastards could have been there for any number of reasons. There was no use in fretting.

  He grabbed the remote and turned the TV off.

  The tightening in his chest was too much. He couldn’t do this. Not tonight.

  If it was her, he’d find out soon enough anyway. The mob would be back at his door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The case file on Cecilia May was enormous and Emmett’s back strained as he lugged the four heavy boxes of evidence from the boot of his car. He’d checked them out of the Collingwood archive facility on his way to collect Nicholas from after-school care, a move that now seemed utterly foolish.

  Unpacking the first box, he sectioned the paperwork into neat piles across the kitchen table, stacking the evidence photos separately before turning to the summary, which was clipped onto official statements and the initial police report.

  On the morning of Wednesday, 23 September, 1998, fifteen-year-old Cecilia Lee May was reported missing. The teenager had been staying in Blairgowrie with two schoolfriends, at a property on Koonya Avenue. This property was identified as belonging to Sergeant Leicester Reyes of the Southern Peninsula region.

  Sergeant Reyes had been hosting his daughter, Scarlett, and her friends, Gypsy Chu and Cecilia May, over the school holidays. The three girls had taken an evening walk on Tuesday, 22 September, when they became separated. Gypsy Chu and Scarlett Reyes re-met at the Koonya address early the next day. Cecilia May never returned.

  Sergeant Reyes became aware of the situation when he arrived home from his overnight shift and immediately reported the missing child to his colleagues at the Sorrento station.

  Emmett read the details slowly. He remembered the connection to the local sergeant – that particular piece of information had been heavily reported on at the time, the press only too happy to inflate what few facts they’d had.

  He continued:

  Upon initial interview, Gypsy Chu said she became disoriented in scrubland after wandering off Coppins track. Scarlett Reyes said she was making her way home with Cecilia May when she tripped and fell somewhere between Koonya Ocean Beach and Spray Point. Cecilia May hadn’t noticed her lag behind, and the pair subsequently lost contact.

  Both Gypsy Chu and Scarlett Reyes stated that at various times during the outing, they felt as though someone had been following them.

  Emmett frowned. Three girls out in the dead of night. One by one, they’d become separated. It seemed . . .

  ‘Dad?’
A pathetic cough sounded from the lounge room.

  . . . improbable, he decided, putting the summary down and moving in the direction of the small, wiggling shape that was bundled up on the couch underneath a knitted yellow blanket. ‘You okay?’ He placed a hand inside the cocoon of material to find his son’s sweaty forehead.

  Nicholas coughed again.

  ‘You’ve got a fever. Finish your dinner and then let’s get you to bed.’

  After coaxing his sickly child upstairs, Emmett returned to the kitchen, surprised to find a dark figure peering over his papers.

  ‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’ He deliberately lowered his voice.

  Cindy jumped. ‘Gosh you scared me.’ His wife laughed, unburdening herself of her backpack and moving around from behind the table. ‘What’s all this then?’

  Emmett wrapped her up in a quick embrace, pecking her on the forehead.

  ‘Well, the bad news is I’ve been moved off the Lucas investigation. The good news, if you can call it that, is that we may be reopening a cold case from 1998. A missing girl on the Mornington Peninsula.’

  ‘The bones on the beach!’ Cindy’s eyes lit up. ‘They’re human, aren’t they?’

  Emmett hesitated, his mouth tightening as he watched her rifle through the backpack, carelessly plonked atop his perfectly sectioned notes.

  ‘See?’ She retrieved her camera and thrust it in his face. A small, sandy bone glared out at him through the viewfinder. ‘What would that be then? An arm bone? Something from a wrist?’

  Emmett rubbed his forehead. What were the chances his wife had been sent to cover this particular assignment? His eyes swept across the pages of confidential information he’d stupidly brought home. We need to keep this firmly under wraps . . . His boss’s warning words rang in his ears.

  ‘Actually, I’m not all that convinced about those bones that were found today . . .’ He took the camera, purposefully squinting at the image again, before flicking to the next. ‘I mean, they do look an awful lot like animal remains, don’t they?’

  Cindy’s face fell. ‘Really? You don’t think they’re human? But there was such a heavy police presence.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Emmett shrugged. ‘But Bryce didn’t seem that interested in it. And he only asked me to look over this old case as a precaution. He’s probably just keeping me busy. You know what he’s like.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cindy pulled out a chair and sat down with a thud. ‘I really hoped this might turn out to be something more exciting. I was the first person there. I got all these exclusive shots. This could have been a bit of a break for me.’

  ‘Sorry, honey.’ Emmett let himself look anywhere but into his wife’s eyes. ‘I’m sure you’ll get plenty more chances.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ she whispered, but mercifully let the conversation slide.

  It was only after they’d eaten, and Cindy had gone upstairs to run a hot bath, that Emmett allowed himself to return to the case files.

  He scanned the pages of documents. As many as six investigators had tried – and failed – to solve the disappearance of Cecilia. What were the chances he’d be the one to crack the case? He sighed, took a seat at the table and flipped dauntedly through the many formal statements that had been collected over the years: Scarlett and Gypsy’s first-hand accounts; neighbours and locals who all felt they might have possibly, maybe, seen something; the random passers-by; the well-meaning holidaymakers . . . Emmett shook his head.

  The key to solving cold cases is almost always found in the original case file. Those were the words of his mentor, repeated ad nauseum through the induction process last year, when he’d made the sudden but welcome move from missing persons to cold case.

  It had seemed like sage advice at the time – he’d just never anticipated the original investigation could be so convoluted.

  Putting aside the formal statements, he turned to the evidence photos. The three teenage girls were strikingly different from each other, but all shared the glowing radiance of youth. And they seemed close; the many photographs of the trio showed them linking arms or huddled shoulder-to-shoulder, their exuberance for life almost bursting from the images.

  Gypsy was the smallest of the three, he noted, with a petite frame that was perhaps in part due to her Asian heritage. Scarlett was tall and lanky, and she looked a little moody: pouting and posing in many of the pictures, her auburn hair often arranged to partly cover her right eye. And then there was Cecilia.

  Emmett shuffled through the many solo images of the young victim.

  How to describe the starry-eyed teen that grinned back at him? He shook his head, assessing the athletic girl: lithe, tanned, glowing. His chest tightened. She was practically luminescent.

  Smiling sadly, he stacked the photos of the teenagers together, lining the corners. Perhaps he was getting old, but there was an innocence to the three girls that modern-day teenagers didn’t seem to share; something that hair straighteners and teeth whitening and brow-plucking had stolen from them.

  The next series of images was taken after the disappearance. They showed Scarlett with bruising to her face and a nasty cut under her left eye, and close-ups of Gypsy’s hands, where multiple scratches had pierced the skin. The injuries were far from severe, but they were evidence enough that something had gone wrong out in the darkness that night. Poor things. He moved to a separate pile of photos, immediately feeling his stomach drop. A weedy looking man stared back at him, pale, with a sharp nose and thin lips. Insipid, Emmett decided, as he read the detail scribbled on the back: Warren Turton, October 1998.

  So, this was their main suspect? He tensed as he stared at the many glum images of the man, whose expression was always the same: vacuous bemusement.

  Beneath the portrait shots were surveillance stills: Warren carrying bags of groceries, getting into his car, looking over his shoulder at a petrol station. Emmett squinted at the black-and-white pictures, trying to read something more from the man’s demeanour.

  ‘You coming to bed?’ Cindy’s head peered around the balustrade; her fresh face dappled with beads of water.

  ‘Good idea,’ Emmett nodded, happy for the interruption.

  He stood up, wincing as his right knee twinged.

  ‘You really should see someone about that,’ Cindy chuckled. ‘Why don’t you try booking in with a physio this week?’

  ‘It’s just old age. I’m not sure they have a cure for that yet.’

  Upstairs, he rummaged through the bathroom cabinet for his tube of muscle ointment, applying the cream liberally to the back of his knee. As he waited for the oily substance to work its magic, Emmett made a mental note to spend the next day looking into Warren Turton’s ‘rock-solid’ alibi. Whoever had vouched for Mr Turton so confidently back in 1998 could now very well feel differently. Alliances changed.

  He stared at his tired reflection in the mirror.

  That was one of the few benefits of time.

  She held her breath, watching the figure move through the darkness. Was it him? It had to be.

  Scarlett waited, knees jiggling.

  Go. The voice in her head urged. She slumped lower in her seat, cranking the car heater up. I can’t.

  He was dragging a bin, moving it to the side of the kerb with an ungainliness she didn’t remember. Older. Worn. Back across the front yard the man trudged, face creased as another bin was unenthusiastically lumbered to the street, a heavy kick at its base inching it closer to the gutter.

  A spark of light.

  Go.

  He was leaning against a pole, a cigarette at his lips.

  Her fingers gripped the door handle at her side. Now.

  ‘Dean?’

  The cigarette fell. Red flecks on the ground.

  It took a second, maybe a few, then his face broke into a nervous smile.

  ‘Scar?’

  They stood apart, assessing each other from either side of the road, through the shadows and haze of time. How long had it b
een? Twenty years? More.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Dean darted a look to the house behind him before crossing over to her, arms opening awkwardly.

  Scarlett shuffled forward, allowing herself to be wrapped in a quick, tentative embrace. He was taller than she remembered; softer around the gut too. She straightened up, fingers entwined with his.

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  He smiled. The same dizzying grin from the first day they’d met. ‘Me too.’

  It was Scarlett’s turn to look to the house this time. ‘I take it you’re married?’ She didn’t need an answer. If the modest dwelling didn’t scream domesticity, the pram at the doorway sure did.

  Dean nodded. ‘Couldn’t wait forever.’

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘Just the one. Four months.’

  A stabbing pain.

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’ He smirked.

  ‘No. I don’t.’

  If it hadn’t been for the headlights suddenly illuminating the street around them, they might have stayed that way forever. But the spell was broken, Scarlett first to pull away.

  ‘Your wife’s home?’ she asked, once the car had passed.

  ‘Unlucky for you.’ Dean ran a hand through his hair. ‘So, what brings you back to this neck of the woods? I was starting to think you must’ve disappeared too.’

  Scarlett crossed her arms. ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘Wasn’t meant to be.’

  In the silence that followed, Scarlett became aware of the familiar smell of seaweed and tea-tree, the insistent call of the ocean, teasing her from only a few blocks away. Tuning in to its rhythmic hum, she pictured the waves racing towards the shore, the white foam dancing on their crests. She closed her eyes, and then quickly reopened them. She didn’t want to imagine the two skinny figures at the water’s edge or see herself running to join her friends, the way they so often had – the three of them giggling hysterically and squealing at the impact of the ice-cold water on their shins. You go in first. No, you go. No, you! Scarlett shivered. It did no good to remember those days. They were long gone.