The Girl Remains (Detective Corban)

by Katherine Firkin

  Right. Because everyone’s a winner these days.

  Emmett started the ignition, tapping the details for the Aberfeldie sports ground into his GPS. ‘What’s your first event? The 400-metre sprint?’

  ‘Yep. But before that we have to watch the big kids do the high jump and the sandpit one.’

  ‘The long jump?’

  ‘It’s not fair they get to do more than us.’

  ‘You’ll have your time.’ He smiled, watching his son’s earnest face in the rear-view mirror. The long-awaited athletics carnival had been almost the only thing Nicholas had talked about in the past week, and Emmett was grateful he’d managed to keep his promise to go, his colleagues holding fort at the station for a few hours without him.

  But bloody Lanh. He squeezed the steering wheel, tension building in his shoulders. The young detective was getting briefed on the undercover operation that morning, and he was anxious about not being there to oversee it.

  Make sure all your conversations are out in a public setting. How many times had he said that to him during their long phone call the previous night? Yet his partner still didn’t seem clued in to the importance of the point.

  ‘But what if he invites me into his home? He might be more comfortable talking there.’ Lanh had countered.

  Emmett gritted his teeth. One of the benefits of working in Victoria was that, unlike in other states, secretly recorded conversations were legally admissible as evidence. But this only applied to conversations held in public. The rules around anything recorded in a private setting became far more complicated.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes, mate?’

  ‘Why won’t Mum be watching me today?’

  ‘Mum had to leave early for a job.’

  ‘Taking photos?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Nicholas stuck his tongue out, arms crossed. ‘Phffft.’

  ‘Is that the best you’ve got?’ Emmett stopped at a red light and turned to lock eyes with his cheeky son. ‘Take that.’

  His very average attempt at blowing a raspberry caused Nicholas to lose himself in a fit of giggles, and the rest of the trip was spent competing on who could make the silliest sounds.

  ‘Dad, Dad, Dad!’

  ‘Hang on, I think this is it.’

  ‘But I’ve got a good one. Guess what noise—’

  They pulled into a driveway, a dusty-red running track appearing as they crawled along, children everywhere.

  ‘Woah.’ Nicholas’s eyes were wide.

  ‘Pretty cool, isn’t it?’ Emmett smiled, slowly navigating past a woman with a pram and pulling into one of the last free car spaces.

  Once his son was happily grouped with classmates, Emmett strolled the athletics ground alone, nodding to the few parents he knew, but not overly keen on indulging in schoolyard gossip. He pulled out his phone. The quick snap he’d taken of Nicholas and his classmates, beaming in their team colours, was quite cute. A weight pressed on his chest.

  Thought you’d like to see our silly boy ready for his first event. Hope the drive was okay. Love you.

  He sent the text, wishing he could do more than dance around the edges of their problems. Cindy had been distant since their argument on Monday night, his attempts at reconciliation largely ignored.

  Thanks. Give him a kiss from me. Also, I just got here and all the news crews are camped outside Warren Turton’s place. Apparently they’ve been here all night. Thought you’d like to know.

  Emmett baulked reading the text. He knew his wife was heading back out to Blairgowrie today, and it was hardly surprising other media were there too – it was pure wishful thinking to imagine they’d let the year’s biggest story lie quietly. But he hadn’t considered that they might descend on Koonya Avenue, potentially impacting his operation.

  Can you let me know if anything changes?

  He sent the message and flicked through his contacts, finding the details for Greg Brabham, the sergeant at the Sorrento station. If the media stayed where they were, Warren was likely to remain indoors. He needed him out working, as normal, for their plan with Lanh to have any chance of succeeding. So how to get rid of the reporters?

  A smiled formed on his face. A decoy.

  But would the sergeant be willing to help? Probably, Emmett decided, hitting the call button.

  ‘On your marks, get set . . .’ The first race was starting.

  As he listened to the dial tone, Emmett looked at the line-up, making sure it wasn’t Nicholas’s event he was missing. No. Only older kids were crouched down.

  ‘Go!’ A whistle shrieked.

  ‘Detective Corban?’ The heavy voice came down the line.

  Emmett took a breath, slowing his heartrate before diving in.

  ‘Brabham, hi. I have a bit of a favour to ask . . .’

  It was certainly worth a shot.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘How’s everyone doing?’ Emmett poked his head into the boardroom, where a stony-faced Lanh appeared to be getting grilled by Bianca and Calvin. He’d managed to stay for almost all of Nicholas’s sports events, but a delay in starting the three-legged race meant he had to leave before finding out whether his son did in fact achieve his goal of all four coloured ribbons.

  ‘We’re getting there.’ Calvin swivelled in his chair. ‘The gas company is on board – well, they are now that we’ve explained to them that they don’t really have a choice.’

  Emmett chuckled. ‘Good work. Does that mean we can get started tomorrow?’

  ‘Yep. Ambers is drafting an email, which they’ll put on company letterhead and send to Warren tonight, alerting him to his new trainee. Then, it’s just a matter of working out the best location for them to meet up. I was thinking it might be safest if we have Detective Nguyen wait at the first house on the route, which is in Rye.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘It does, except for one small issue that’s come up. Warren cycles his entire route, and we’ve just discovered that—’

  ‘I don’t know how to ride a bike,’ Lanh muttered, pouting.

  ‘You’re kidding me?’ Emmett didn’t mean to sound quite so patronising, but, really, even Nicholas had upgraded from three wheels to two.

  ‘Yep,’ Bianca nodded, doing a poor job of hiding her bemusement. ‘So the question now is do we hire a car for Nguyen to drive, with the hope that Warren agrees to travel with him, or do we instigate a crash course in cycling?’

  ‘I can’t see Warren agreeing to travel with a stranger. And if he doesn’t, that greatly restricts the potential for conversation.’ Emmett looked to the experienced detectives, aware they were all about to break out in laughter. ‘So, does anyone know where the nearest velodrome is?’

  Lanh crossed his arms. Bianca snorted loudly.

  When they’d finally calmed down, Emmett walked around the table and placed a hand on his young colleague’s shoulder. ‘In all seriousness, it’s not that hard. I’ve taught my son how to do it. I’ll get you up to scratch in no time. You can come to my place after work and we’ll take my bike to the park. Worst case, you can have Nicholas’s old training wheels.’

  ‘Hilarious.’

  Leaving the trio in the boardroom, Emmett headed for his office, the delight of poking fun at Lanh lessening as he considered the mountain of work that awaited him.

  His brief chat with Greg Brabham had filled him with renewed hope about triggering Warren into talking. But there were obvious, gaping holes in the investigation that he needed to solve, like, where were Cecilia’s remains being kept before the bones were moved? How had Warren managed to coerce the Reverend into making a false statement? And, perhaps most importantly, what motivation was there for Warren to attack Cecilia?

  ‘Got a minute?’ Flynn appeared at the door.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘These new calls in to the public hotline.’ The detective paused, looking over a sheet of paper. ‘Nothing much on Cecilia herself, but there’s a witness who says she sa
w a man “lurking” around Dogs Head a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Thin, Caucasian, wearing a headlight and black-and-yellow reflective gloves.’

  ‘Okay, that does sound unusual.’

  ‘Also,’ Flynn continued, ‘supposedly he was carrying a large black sports bag.’

  ‘Full of bones, no doubt.’

  The detective scoffed. ‘That certainly appears to be the imputation.’

  ‘What date was this?’

  ‘She can’t recall exactly, but she says it was at least a fortnight ago and late in the evening. Her dog had suffered some sort of gastro incident, so she had taken him out for an extra walk, later than normal, to, ah, clear his bowels.’

  ‘Right. Well, it sounds like she’s worth speaking to. Can we get her in for a photo fit?’

  ‘She didn’t want to drive to Melbourne, so I’ve requested she go to the Sorrento station this afternoon. We’ll have to alert the members there, but she’s happy to make a statement, and anything else we require.’

  ‘Well done,’ Emmett nodded. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘That’s about it for now. I got an email off to Momentum Gas – you probably heard they’re in on the operation?’

  ‘Yes.’ Emmett did his best not to conjure any more images of Lanh hopelessly trying to cycle after Warren.

  ‘Oh, and I also thought it might be worth going back through historical sex attacks, reported kidnapping attempts, anything to do with predatory behaviour towards teenagers around the peninsula region in the years prior to Cecilia’s disappearance? Don’t know if it’d uncover anything relevant, but there’s a chance whoever attacked Cecilia had at least attempted to offend before that incident.’

  ‘Hm.’ Emmett rubbed his forehead. ‘Tell me something. Do you think a man who abused a male student in his care would then go on to assault a teenage girl?’

  ‘Could do. Sex offenders aren’t always gender specific. Take Allan Netherfield – the child rapist in Sydney.’

  ‘True,’ he frowned, struggling to remember much from that case, other than the horrifying details he’d seen on the news. ‘And we don’t even know if the attack on Cecilia was sexually violent or not. It could have been something entirely different.’

  ‘Mm, though when a girl disappears and a sex offender lives on the street where she was staying, it does seem the obvious answer.’

  Emmett exhaled dramatically. Was that their problem? Was everyone too fixated on what was obvious and not looking left or right?

  ‘You know what?’ he said, the thought springing to his mind. ‘Let’s try and get the two survivors in together – at the same time. We won’t warn them of the other’s presence, though. I’d love to see their reactions.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Flynn laughed. ‘Scarlett was extremely hostile when we suggested coming in for an interview. And we have no reason to force her to comply.’

  Emmett slapped a hand on the table, then quickly withdrew it, hating that he’d imitated the man he so vehemently disliked. ‘Well, let’s find a reason to bring her in. It can’t be that hard.’

  His colleague looked shocked by the sudden aggression. Emmett lowered his tone.

  ‘All I’m saying is, we have to try. The only thing we’ve comprehensively established is that this case isn’t being solved by standard policing methods. So, let’s be creative. We need to do something different.’

  Having to jostle with competing media outlets outside Warren Turton’s house had got the day off to a rocky start. Now, the sight of the blue-and-white police vehicle cruising up the single-lane road told her things were about to get harder. Why couldn’t she catch a break?

  Cindy stepped back, moving onto the grassy, vacant land opposite, ready to capture the confrontation she was certain was about to happen.

  ‘Alright, you need to clear this area, you can’t be blocking the road.’

  She cringed, recognising the young voice that was calling from inside the car. Zooming in, her camera settled on the face of Tobias Haigh, sitting stiffly beside an older officer. She hadn’t heard from the junior policeman since plagiarising his photos and, though she hadn’t asked, she was sure he knew what she’d done – he had to, the bloody pictures had ended up everywhere.

  ‘We’ve had complaints from locals, you need to be respectful of their wishes – this isn’t a circus.’

  It was the female officer that spoke this time, the woman flinging her door open before stepping onto the road, where she was immediately surrounded by journalists.

  ‘This is public land.’

  ‘We’re not trespassing.’

  ‘You have no right to move us along.’

  ‘You’re causing a safety hazard.’ The officer managed to look both bored and annoyed at the same time. ‘This area,’ she moved her arms as though performing breaststroke in a pool, ‘needs to be clear. Where you go outside of this space doesn’t interest me in the slightest.’

  To a general chorus of grunts and moans, the reporters repositioned, moving tripods and bags to the grass beside Cindy.

  Bloody hell. Now they’d all have exactly the same shots.

  They stayed there a while, camped out like schoolkids waiting for a bus. Every so often one of the journalists took a turn walking over to the desecrated home of Warren Turton, dramatically stalking the front yard, camera or photographer in tow, knocking on the front door and returning with no luck.

  ‘Coffee run?’ the cheeriest of the photographers eventually suggested, going person-to-person for orders and cash.

  ‘No, I’m good, thanks.’ Cindy shook her head.

  There was little point in her staying there much longer. For one, Warren Turton didn’t seem intent on leaving his home, and secondly, even if he did, there wasn’t a sliver of a chance any of her shots would be getting bought by outlets today. Why would they pay for something they had themselves?

  ‘I might head off.’ She gave up, making a half-hearted wave in the general direction of her sort-of colleagues and returning to her car, which she’d left parked down the hill. It was odd the police were being so protective over the roadway; she’d seen one, maybe two cars the entire morning.

  Plonking her gear beside her on the passenger seat, she considered her next move. Being without a reporter gave her freedom, but where should she go?

  She fiddled with her mirror, noticing the blue-and-white vehicle by a fence several houses along. As though reacting to her stare, the cop car suddenly took off, the female driver making a hasty U-turn away from the media and back out towards Melbourne Road.

  Cindy frowned, feeling her fingers twitch on her keys in the ignition. Why not?

  She started up, accelerating to keep it in sight.

  It wasn’t a long trip at all, the police car taking a sharp left followed by another left at the next street. We’re headed back to Koonya Beach. Cindy craned forward, excited and nervous. More bones? A new witness?

  The police stopped in the lower carpark, so she stayed back, pulling up on the side of a house, just close enough that her long lens would pick up the action.

  Excitedly, she set up, heart pounding a little as she rested against the bonnet, gently twisting her camera to find focus. Oh. She was disappointed to spy Tobias and the older woman closely inspecting a brown car, parked weirdly in front of the access to the shrub trail. The left passenger door was open, one rear tail-light on.

  The officers were circling the vehicle, peering into the windows and taking note of the number plate. Cindy watched Tobias put his phone to his ear. How boring.

  She took a few more pictures before giving up. So this was what uniformed policing involved? She laughed, shaking her head. No wonder Emmett had been so desperate to get out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The waiting room was bland: white walls with the odd floral print hung up in a cheap black frame. Not at all like her clinic. Gina flipped through a magazine disinterestedly, skimming the contents of a piece on ‘e
asy’ family roasts and weight loss menus. She hated being a patient herself. It was so tedious.

  ‘Any idea how much longer Dr Valerie will be?’ She hadn’t bothered getting up and walking over to the receptionist – the young woman was doing an appalling job of keeping everyone notified of their wait times, and she wasn’t the only one who’d called across the small room.

  ‘Five more minutes?’ The receptionist seemed entirely unsure.

  Gina dropped the magazine on the stand beside her and reached for a newspaper instead.

  LITTLE GIRL LOST. The front page screamed at her. HOW THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CECILIA MAY UNFOLDED.

  Really? She glared at the headline, wanting to look away but finding herself thumbing through to the double-page spread. Her young face stared back at her.

  She twisted the paper, adjusting it on her lap so she could assess every detail of the picture. The photo they’d chosen had been taken at her own sixteenth birthday party, in the driveway of her old family home. It showed the three girls arm-in-arm, smiling sweetly at the camera. A fun afternoon together, the caption read. How odd it was, even after all these years, to see them portrayed by the media in such a sickeningly innocent light. Gina shook her head. If the photo had been taken a few hours later, it would have shown them sharing cigarettes and alcohol by the dumpsters at the local shopping centre, hanging out with a group of deadbeat guys they’d met in the back row of the movies.

  And hadn’t Cecilia ended up pashing one of them? She shrugged. It was probably for the best that the press stuck with the sweet schoolgirl line. Better than the alternative.

  She skimmed the accompanying story, which seemed heavy on opinion and scant on new detail. Why were they still so focused on the guy on the hill? Hadn’t the police cleared him? Gina pictured the weedy man, whom she’d last seen telling them off outside his house when they’d snuck out that night.

  Oh no, hang on . . . She squeezed her eyes closed, just for a second. He’d also called around to the house the day after Cecilia vanished, hadn’t he? Gina tried to remember; everything about that time was such a blur. She’d been in the bedroom, feeling seedy and sick and desperately wanting to avoid all the people coming and going. Yes. She remembered clumsily bumping into him in the skinny hallway as she’d ducked to the bathroom. Why had he been there? Helping with the search?