It’s Saturday. Stephanie’s lying on the sofa with the TV on. It’s a quiz show. She watches every quiz show because what she’s found is that trying to think up answers for the questions fills up space in her head and stops her thinking Gemma Gemma Gemma. She’s trying to work out how many American states start with the letter S when she hears the wild, high-pitched wailing coming from Gemma’s room. She’s up and running through the house.
They’ve found her and she’s dead.
Minna’s crouched, half-lying, half-kneeling on the floor. She’s holding Gemma’s dress tightly against her body. Gemma’s best dress, the one Aunty Bella bought in Sydney, red with white elephants printed around the hem, buttons like tiny white raindrops running down the back.
‘She wanted to wear it to the picnic. Why didn’t I let her wear it? Why didn’t I let her?’
Dave kneels beside Minna, tugs at the dress, tries to take it. He wraps his arms around Minna and he’s crying. Great gusting sobs bursting out and exploding around and around and around the room. Gemma’s room. Gemma’s room with the matching curtains and quilt, lemon with little white spots. Gemma’s room with the pretend stove, the books and the Barbies and the mobile of pink butterflies fluttering slowly and gracefully in the faint, warm wind.
Gemma’s room with Mouse on the bed.
5.
Everyone old enough and fit enough to search meets each morning at 6 a.m. in the Community Centre. There’s a gigantic map up on the wall showing the areas already covered. They’ve moved across acres of land nearest to the lake, working close together in rows, meticulously searching from the flat areas immediately beside the water, up over the rocks and into the hills among the pine trees and tussock. Late, at the end of each day they come back through the dusk smelling of sweat and thyme. They walk slowly, their faces grim.
There’s not enough space at the local station so the police have taken over the supper room at the Community Centre and turned it into a conference centre. They assemble there at the end of every day, sifting over what they know, what’s been found out, going over and over it for something that might lead them to Gemma. Though what they’re looking for now is a body. It’s day eight. Zilch chances of finding her alive now.
She’s gone. Vanished into thin air. Nothing’s been found. No clothes, no shoes, no Barbie doll, nothing. Nobody saw anything. Nobody knows anything. It was just another school picnic. The Andersons are just another family like all the families here: reasonably happy, reasonably affluent, nice kids. Normal. Absolutely normal. And nobody can remember noticing Gemma after her brothers left her behind in the area by the pines. That is if you can believe what you’re told. Either someone’s not telling the truth or they’re not asking the right people or asking the right questions. Because something must’ve happened. Someone must know something.
Matt Hayes and Chris Warwick are the only ones left at the end of the evening. They’re feeling the pressure. Two decisions to make almost immediately: where to look next, when to call off the search. There’s raw, raging emotion all up and down the country. The talkbacks are full of it. It was Teresa Cormack last year. They still haven’t found who did that one. This time they can’t even find the little girl.
It’s up there on the news, prime television every night. Gemma Anderson. Gemma Marie Anderson. There she is, filling the screen, this pretty little girl with the thick, shining fringe of hair cut so straight and sharp you know she’s cherished and cared for, above those wide, dark eyes. That sweet, trusting grin. Jesus. If it happened to her it could happen to any kid, could happen to yours. Last night they had Sophie Patterson on, her mother sitting close behind, tears rolling down her face. Gemma’s my friend, please tell us where she is.
Touching. But how’s it going to help? The kind of low-life bastard that’d take a kid’s not going to be affected by a few tears. Brought on by them, more like. That is if someone has taken her and that’s not even certain. All this media frenzy is doing is to get everyone saying the police force is incompetent. The talkbacks are full of it. Why weren’t they better organised? Why wasn’t the search started sooner? Why did the police from Dunedin not get there ’till the next morning? Why the hell can’t they find her?
It’s eleven o’clock. Nothing doing. Nothing making any sense.
‘Okay. One more time,’ Matt says.
Chris shrugs. He’s been over the same scenarios too many times. It’s speculation, all bloody speculation and they’re moving round and round in a continuous circle. What he’d like to do right now is pick up a takeaway. Get a bit of food and a couple of beers into him and get his head down back at the motel. He’s been here since 6 a.m. He’s bloody tired and this is a waste of time.
He counts the possibilities off on his fingers. ‘One, Gemma went off on her own, fell into the lake and drowned. A possibility but unlikely since the body would almost certainly have turned up by now. Two, she wandered away and got lost. Also unlikely. A four-year-old couldn’t get that far away and she’d have been found by now. Three, she could’ve gone up onto the road, been hit. Driver panicked, picked up the body and took it away, got rid of it somewhere else. Possible but there were so many people leaving the picnic area that he almost certainly would have been seen. Four, abduction. It’s the most likely scenario but, again, you’d think somebody would’ve seen something.’
‘Right. And we can’t altogether rule out some freak thing, some accident. Remember that kid in the UK? Went off, climbed a tree and got wedged between a couple of branches. Nearly dead by the time they found him.’
Chris keeps his voice even. He’s just about had it with Matt. Any weird possibility, doesn’t matter how doubtful, Matt will chuck it in. He’s sick of that and he’s sick of this good cop, bad cop crap. He doesn’t agree with Matt’s decision to push the family and he doesn’t like being cast in the tough-guy role.
‘He was found, though, within three days. And he was thirteen. Gemma’s a bit young to be climbing trees.’
‘I’m talking general, not specific. But you’re right. It’s most likely she’s been taken.’
‘Yeah, and by someone she knew.’
Matt frowns. ‘Not necessarily. Could’ve been someone passing. Saw all the kids. Stayed round and took his chance. Everyone says she was friendly.’
‘I’d put my bet on it being someone she knew. Sure, everyone we’ve talked to describes her as friendly but Minna said she was generally shy around people she didn’t know. As well as that, she said she’d told Gemma about never going with strangers.’
‘Yeah, but we know how easily kids can be fooled. If she was on her own near the pines she was vulnerable, maybe upset about being left behind. She could have been taken in by someone seemingly being kind to her. Or she could have been grabbed. There’s plenty of places around the trees where someone could hide.’
‘You’d think if she’d been frightened she’d most likely have called out. There were people nearby.’
‘Not if someone had his hand around her mouth and she was taken suddenly. She was just a wee thing. Remember the Bryant case? Lucy Bryant was taken off the street right near her house. There were people about there too and she was a lot bigger and stronger than Gemma Anderson.’
Chris sighs, glances at the clock. It’s unlikely he’ll be out of here by midnight. The takeaway will probably be shut, there’s nothing to eat at the motel and he’s hungry, bloody starving. But he’s got no choice. Matt’s his superior. Even though, in Chris’s opinion, he doesn’t know shit, Matt’s his superior.
‘Yeah, well, it’s possible. Like I’ve said, my gut feeling is it’s someone she knew.’
‘What about the family?’
Bloody hell, not this again. ‘I’ve said. It’s hard to work them out.’
‘What about Stephanie?’
‘Far as I can see she’s a straight-up, bloody nice kid. From what everyone’s said and from what I’ve seen of her myself, I think she loved that wee girl to pieces. Yeah, I know you ca
n never be sure but I can’t see her doing anything to hurt her sister. She probably got sick of looking after her that much but I don’t think she’s got anything to do with this.’
‘What’s that all about, though?’
‘What’s what about?’
Matt taps his notes. ‘What was Minna doing all that time Stephanie was looking after Gemma?’
‘Most likely going a bit stir-crazy with four kids.’
‘Attractive woman, Minna. Looks the type that might not want to be stuck around the house.’
‘Yeah? So? What are you saying?’
‘What I’m saying is on the face of it we have this normal family. Enough money, nice house, nice kids, everything. But there’s something not right. Minna and Dave, you notice they never touch, hardly talk to each other?’
‘People react in different ways to things like this. They’re in shock. This is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.’
‘Yeah, well, my feeling is we’ve got to look more closely. Most times when kids get hurt it’s from someone they know and more often than not it’s someone from within the family.’
Chris keeps his face impassive. This textbook stuff Matt keeps chucking at him. Okay. Maybe sometimes true, maybe even most times true. But in this case he’s sure it’s not. Hell. He knows it’s not.
‘You could be right but I can’t see it.’
‘What about Dave?’
Chris shuffles through the papers on the desk in front of him. They’ve been through it already but he’ll have to play along. ‘Says here he had an open home from two till just after three, then he was in his office for the rest of the afternoon getting up to date with paperwork.’
‘Anyone verify that?’
‘There was definitely an open home at that time, it’s been checked out. There was no one else around at the time he said he was in the office but he went for a coffee around four. The woman who served him in the café confirmed that.’
‘That’s at four, though. Far as we know, Gemma went missing after that. It’s not much of a distance from his office to the lake. According to anyone I’ve spoken with he’s not much of a father. Works late hours, takes off on hunting weekends with mates, that kind of thing.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘There’s something not right in that family. I’m sure of it. I’m going to bring him in again. Now, what about the Kings?’
‘Nothing. I’ve talked to them, checked out their stories. They were together all afternoon, seen leaving around five, all of them. The kids and Betty and Lizzie King walked home together and the men called in at the pub for a beer or two, played pool, picked up fish and chips and got home around seven. It all checks out.’
‘What about those two younger guys? They with them all that time as well?’
‘Yep. According to everyone I talked to.’
‘Any records?’
‘The younger one, Mike. Minor, though. Got done for breaking and entering, trying to get petrol out of somebody’s car. Drunk and he was fairly young then. Nothing since.’
‘They were the only outsiders. That family could be covering something up. Get him in.’
‘Right.’
‘And that kid. Casey Wilson. He’s a strange one. We’ll call around and see him again.’
‘Whatever you say.’
Minna and David are careful with each other. They say only what is necessary, go to bed separately, lie apart at the far edges of their bed and are watchful they do not touch as they lie unsleeping in the darkness.
But on the tenth day after Gemma has been lost Dave comes slamming through the door, pounds into the living room, comes right up to Minna and stands over her, his face flushed and his eyes red and glaring.
‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘Oh, Jesus bloody Christ. Fuck.’
Minna staggers up. She grips onto the edge of the chair where she’s been sitting waiting for news, waiting for anything. She holds onto it as if she will fall without it to hold her up and her face is drained of colour and her eyes staring as she looks at him.
‘What? Have they, have they—?’
‘Jesus, Minna. Jesus, what have you done?’
‘What? What have they said?’
‘Fucking bastard. They—’
‘What’s happened? Dave, I—’
‘They think I did it. That I bloody did it.’
There’s a fleeting expression of relief running across Minna’s face, then she reaches out her hand to tentatively touch Dave’s shoulder but he flinches away.
‘Asking me if I liked little. If I looked at. If I’d ever wanted, ever touched my—’
‘David?’
‘My own kid. My own little girl. Christ.’
‘Dave. It’ll be. No one would believe—’
His face is blazing. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you look after her? Why the fuck couldn’t you look after her properly? It’s all you had to do, all you ever had to do, why didn’t you watch her? For fuck’s sake why couldn’t you watch your own bloody kid?’
Day fourteen. Someone’s thrown a brick through the Kings’ window. There’s shit smeared across the porch.
There are two full rubbish bags by the gate. The doors and windows are wide open, gaping out onto this perfect summer day. They left in the night, loaded everything into the truck and took off. Billy and Lizzy and old Mr King and Betty and Miri and Tama and Georgie and the two younger guys with the tats nobody knew.
6.
The sun continues to shine. Relentlessly, day after day it beats down on the town, filling the houses with such heat they’ve run out of fans at the local Mitre 10. There are kids in the lake again. After the school picnic, after the search was called off, it was silent down there right through almost till the end of December. There were only flowers, gaudy rags of colour left where the kids had stood that day crowding together to watch the plane. At first they covered almost all that part of the lakefront, blooming out among the stones, messages attached with ribbons. We love you Gemma. Then there weren’t so many and what had been left soon died in all that heat and the council gathered them up.
All through December the local pool was so full it was standing room only but in the end it was just too hot to stay away from the lake. Kids aren’t allowed to go there any more on their own, though, not even the older ones. Brothers and sisters used to take the younger ones down but now the lakefront is lined with parents watching, keeping their eyes carefully fixed on the small, moving bodies. Still, those cries of kids, the slap of oars and putt-putt-putt of motor boats almost convinces everyone that everything’s back as it was.
She sticks to it. She never cries. All through Christmas, all through those baking days of the holidays, Stephanie never cries. Because if she does it means she’s given in. It means Gemma won’t come back.
They go to the farm for Christmas. It wasn’t what they’d been supposed to do, Christmas was supposed to be at their place this year. But it’s better this way. Better to get away. They drive all the way, Minna and Dave in the front, Gran and Stephanie in the back and nobody talks. When they come to a town Dave asks if they want an ice cream and nobody answers for a moment and then Minna and Gran say no thank you, swiftly and very politely, but Stephanie says yes because she knows Dave is trying so hard to make everything right. He buys her huge cones crammed with sticky chocolate, raspberry, hokey-pokey, caramel ice cream, anything he thinks she might like.
She licks a cone and the syrupy, gooey richness sticks to her tongue and the roof of her mouth. When it starts to run down her hand she opens the window and very gently and quietly throws it into the road.
Minna cried all the time she was wrapping up the presents and packing them into the boot. Stephanie wanted to shout at her to stop it, to shut it all away, shut Christmas out. Because if Gemma wasn’t there to open her presents, to solemnly tug at the ribbons and tape, to place each layer of paper aside so slowly and gently you were nearly shrieking with waiting to see if she liked it. If Gemma wasn’t ther
e to pick at the lamb and gobble up the pavlova. If she wasn’t there getting a bit hyper because she’d had too many sugary drinks, then it wasn’t right. Christmas wasn’t right and it shouldn’t come.
They bring the boys home with them and Gran goes back to Wanganui. Every day passes, one after another. The phone rarely rings any more. But it rings one morning when Stephanie and Minna are on their own and it’s almost time for lunch. Dave has gone back to work now and the boys are in the back yard on the trampoline don’t you go outside the gate you hear me? You stay where I can see you.
Stephanie watches Minna as she picks up the phone and warily holds it. She stands motionless, listening. Then she whispers something, something urgent never ring me again. She glances at Stephanie as she hangs it up.
‘Is it about—? Was that about Gemma? ’
‘No. It was nothing.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Nobody.’
‘But—’
Minna’s face is pale and strained.
‘It was a wrong number. Okay?’
Mr Peters comes to the house. It’s early evening, still stifling hot but he wears a suit. He stands at the door and wipes at his face. He asks to see Minna, Dave too if he’s there.
Stephanie goes into the kitchen, stands behind the counter. She can hear him, see him if she likes, but he can’t see her. He’s in the living room, sitting across from Minna. She’s given him a cup of tea and he purses up his mouth, puts his lips against the cup and sips the tea up like he’s drinking from a straw, like the cup’s too little and delicate for him to drink out of properly. He puts it down onto the coffee table and shifts about in the chair. His neck is dark red around his collar as if the shirt is too tight for him.
‘I’m sorry I missed Dave. I hoped he might be here as well.’
Hunting BLind: It's Every Family's Deepest Fear Page 5
