‘Does that mean we can keep digging around, look for more information?’
‘No, that’s not what it means.’
Christine brushed off Lee’s resistance. Tried to stay bright, bubbly and positive and not lose her nerve. She chose a different tactic.
‘Annabelle was so funny,’ she said warmly. ‘I used to laugh so hard my cheeks would hurt.’
Lee smiled despite herself. ‘Yes, she could spin a yarn.’
‘She had this way about her. Funny, sarcastic, and on point. She would have us girls in stitches, time and time again.’
Lee’s hackles went up again. Girls? The thought of Annabelle sitting around with a bunch of prostitutes, telling jokes, sent her cold. ‘Anyway, thank you for calling but I don’t think there’s much more to add.’
‘Please don’t hang up Lee,’ Christine pleaded. ‘I still miss her. I still wonder about her. And maybe, just maybe, I can help put some pieces together to help find her.’
Lee sighed, and a tiny glimmer of hope made her eyes water. ‘I’m not sure what pieces are left. The detectives have been very thorough; I think that everything worth finding has already been found.’
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Christine said with obvious enthusiasm. ‘It was a long time ago, and people who wouldn’t come forward back then might come forward now. If someone knows something, or someone has given them a piece of information, they might think enough time has passed to share it. And with technology, we can reach more people. Through social media and all that. We could start a Facebook page for her. Put posters up around Kings Cross. Try and jog people’s memories.’
Lee shook her head, frustrated again. ‘All that has been done, well, apart from the Facebook thing.’
‘Well, there you go,’ Christine said, matter of fact. ‘Then it hasn’t all been done, has it?’
After several silent minutes Lee spoke, carefully. ‘I am not sure. There’s a lot to think about. A lot to take in. I don’t know much about Facebook. From what I hear it’s just people sticking their noses into other people’s business. Don’t care much for that myself. I’ve had enough people sticking their noses in over the years. I don’t want to go out looking for it.’
‘I understand,’ Christine was also careful with her words. ‘People talk. People are unkind, and people will always stick their nose in where it’s not wanted. Maybe it will provide something new which Rhiannon and Andy didn’t think of back then. Maybe all that’s needed is some fresh eyes on it?’
‘Fresh eyes? I don’t know, Christine, I just don’t know.’ Lee felt her stomach churning. She remembered words of her neighbor, who recently lost a lifelong friend to an aggressive cancer that caught everyone by surprise. ‘Grief is a twisted feeling.’ Lee’s twisted grief hovered on the surface with nowhere to land.
‘I don’t know if I can go through it all again to be honest with you. After all that exposure for Missing Persons Week, all that attention and reigniting our hope, it was a big letdown when nothing came of it. I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was like the wind stopped blowing. After all that effort everything went still and nothing changed. We were exactly where we were before we did this. Nowhere, absolutely bloody nowhere!’
She didn’t know why she was spending so much time talking and sharing her feelings with this girl, who was now a woman, who had led her Annabelle astray. For so long she’d been furious with the prostitute named Christine and the pimp named Bessie.
Lee felt tired. She had to get off the phone. Christine was talking; Lee tried to focus and take in her words.
‘I’m not on the streets anymore, I just want you to know that. Neither’s Bessie. We’re both living quiet lives. Annabelle changed us both, made us rethink what we were doing. Where we were heading. Not long after she disappeared I got a proper job, in a jewellery store. I’m still working in jewellery, I’m in Melbourne now. I’ve got a really good job. A quiet life. A nice partner. I’ve left all of that behind.’
Lee wasn’t sure if it made a difference to the way she felt. What did it matter that Christine had changed her life and got back on the straight and narrow when Annabelle was still missing? That twisted feeling again.
‘That’s good. Good.’ Lee couldn’t find any other words. ‘Look, I’ve got to go, I’ve got an appointment to get to.’ Before Christine could protest or say anything more, Lee hung up. Her legs gave way beneath her and she grabbed the kitchen chair to stop herself falling to the floor. It groaned under her weight and the thought flashed through her mind she must try Weight Watchers again.
While she’d had the phone pressed tightly to her ear, she hadn’t noticed any other sounds, but now they greeted her all at once. The kitchen clock, dogs barking, birds twittering, the washing machine spinning out of control, the monotonous drone of the television in the next room. And a whishing sound in her head which threatened to paralyse her and pin her to this spot, in this dreadful never-ending nightmare, for the rest of her days.
…
When she felt she’d recovered enough, Lee picked up the phone again and dialled a number imprinted in her brain.
‘Kings Cross Police Station, can I help you?’
‘Yes, yes, it’s Lee Brown. Can you please put me through to the Detectives?’
‘One moment, please.’
‘Hello, Louise Whadary speaking.’
‘Can I please talk to Andy Cassettari?’
Louise did a double take. Another call for Andy? What was going on?
‘Who’s calling please?’
‘My name is Lee. It’s about my missing daughter.’
Louise’s senses went into high alert. ‘I might be able to help,’ she offered, side stepping Lee’s request for Andy. ‘When did you last see your daughter?’
‘Twenty seven years ago,’ Lee spoke softly and it took a moment for her words to penetrate Louise’s brain. ‘I’m Lee Brown, the mother of Annabelle Brown, she disappeared from The Cross in 1988.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry. How are you Lee? I’m Louise, Louise Whadary, I am familiar with your case.’
‘Yes, thank you. Louise, is it?’ Lee glossed over the considerate tone in Louise’s voice. She was on a mission, she wanted to speak with Andy. Rhiannon too, but she wasn’t as easy to catch these days and hadn’t been in contact for ages. Lee tried to remember how long, but the months and years just blended into one another. She thought Andy would be the best starting point, he’d established a long time ago that there would be no shifting him from these streets.
‘I’m sorry Lee, but Andy is is…’ Louise wasn’t sure how to break the news about Andy’s death. ‘Is there anything I can help with?’
‘Where is he?’ Lee was suspicious.
‘I’m afraid I can’t say,’ Louise said carefully. ‘But maybe I could help?’
Lee went into a tailspin. She had to speak to Andy. He was the only one apart from Rhiannon who knew the full history of Annabelle’s case. Be damned, after all these years, if she was going to repeat herself to this young woman on the other end of the line, who she didn’t know from a bar of soap.
‘No, I don’t think you can. Maybe I can call back, when will he be in next?’
Louise paused, unsure of what to say. The simple truth was, Andy would never be back. She was reeling: she had no idea if she was authorised to tell Lee about his death, but Lee was not going to let up.
‘I’m really sorry that I’m a complete stranger and breaking this news to you, but Andy has…um, Andy has died.’
Lee cried out, she couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t believe it. Why, she had spoken to him not all that long ago. She was trying to remember exactly when, but she couldn’t pinpoint the date.
Lee was distraught, it was all too much in one day. ‘Okay, well what about Rhiannon McVee? You wouldn’t happen to know where she is working at the moment? I haven’t heard from her for a while, last time she said she was moving around a bit, working here and there. I thought she might be there?’
Louise hesitated again. ‘No, she’s not here, she’s on leave.’
There was an awkward silence, and Louise could hear Lee sniffing on the other end of the line.
‘Okay, well if you can get a message to Rhiannon, please tell her I want her to take a fresh look at things. I’ve had a call from one of Annabelle’s old friends from …from, down there…’ Lee couldn’t say The Cross or Kings Cross out loud. She didn’t want them to be part of her vocabulary when she spoke of Annabelle.
‘You have?’ Louise pricked up her ears.
‘Yes, I have. Christine. Her friend Christine. The one who reported her missing.’
Louise was extremely curious now about whether Christine had new information, something to spark a fresh look at things.
‘Okay, I’ll pass on the message.’ Louise didn’t want to give anything away or get ahead of herself, but as soon as she got off the phone she was going straight for Annabelle’s file. ‘Thank you for calling, Lee,’ she said gently, before she ran out of words. What else could she say? She couldn’t promise she’d pass on the message. Very few people knew where Rhiannon was or what she was doing. Her whereabouts were on a need to know basis only, and Louise was not on the need to know list.
Lee hung up the phone, feeling a sudden urge to throw it at the wall.
‘Bugger it,’ she said, stamping her foot underneath the table like a churlish child. She stayed irritable for the rest of the day, ruminating over the two frustrating conversations and a creepy, uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu.
Thankfully her husband Gordon, Annabelle’s stepfather, arrived that afternoon after a four week stint working in the mines in Western Australia. His timing couldn’t have been more perfect. She really didn’t think she’d survive the night, let alone the next day, without some company in the house, and she nearly bowled him over with the enthusiasm of her welcome home.
In bed that night, holding him close in her arms with her head on his chest, she eventually told him about her day. He stroked her hair and listened patiently. He could feel her tears on his chest and his heart tore in two at the anguish which came with any news about Annabelle. Eventually she lifted herself out of her bogged down, complicated thoughts, and spoke with her usual wry humour.
‘Here we go again, strap yourself in, we’re getting back on the Annabelle train.’
CHAPTER 20
Taking another look
2016
Louise waited until they were away from the police station, picked a time when there would be lots of waiting around and opportunities to chat to her supervising officer. No better place than the courthouse, waiting for his case to be read, to ask him about Annabelle Brown.
They were there for what was colloquially known as a ‘kiddie porn’ case, he had pursued it with his usual dogmatic approach while she stood on the periphery. Learning, watching, picking up on things she would never have thought of. He had more than ten years on her, but she was by no means a greenhorn. She’d done the crappy shifts, been everyone’s messenger girl, copped the flak from her superiors, scraped blood and guts off the bitumen and put up with being shifted from station to station. Since her short-lived marriage to who she thought was her Australian sweetheart hit the skids, she’d been drifting, unsure of which direction her career was heading. Then she arrived at Kings Cross and met Detective Sergeant Rafe Crane.
Rafe had been the one to discover the phone of the respectable school principal from an exclusive inner city boarding school filled with images of young children no adult male with any scrap of decency should be looking at, let alone carry around in their pocket. Rafe and Louise watched him walk past with his legal entourage.
‘Scum of the earth,’ Rafe muttered under his breath. So quietly, it was only Louise’s supersonic hearing, of which she was extremely proud, could pick up on.
‘Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more,’ she said firmly. He looked at her quizzically, surprised she had heard him.
‘Pretty good ears you’ve got.’
‘All the better to hear you with.’ She went out on a limb to say the words in her best wolf disguised as Grandma voice. He rewarded her with a tiny smile and a subtle shoulder laugh.
When nobody was looking, Louise had taken the file that had been languishing on Detective Senior Sergeant Andy Cassettari’s old desk, with Detective Inspector Rhiannon McVee’s name beside his on the cover. The file had been left forgotten, in the wake of their own tragedy. With neither of them here to pursue any possible leads, she was hoping Rafe would take it on, with her assisting.
Another ten minutes passed before Louise broached the subject which had been dominating her thoughts.
‘Detective?’
‘Yes?’
‘You know that old missing case from the eighties?’
‘Could you be more specific? You know how many people went missing in the eighties from around here?’
‘Well, not really to be honest,’ she admitted. ‘I was born in 1981 and I didn’t have a clue about things like missing people back then. I was more interested in My Little Pony and Cabbage Patch doll, which I could never have because they were so expensive, but I always wanted one…,’ she babbled, trying to cover up what he might consider naivety. ‘I can only imagine though, what do the statistics say?’
He sat up straight and looked away. She was losing him. Bloody hell, she seriously needed to work on her directness. It had never been her strong point. As a child, telling her parents another one of her long stories, she knew she started to lose them at the two minute mark. By six minutes they were talking over the top of her and despite her pushing on, determined to get to the punchline, they rarely heard it.
‘Annabelle Brown,’ she said quickly, trying to salvage the moment. ‘She went missing in 1988. One of her prostitute friends reported her missing. A big police investigation but nothing ever came of it. Poof, disappeared. Without a trace.’
‘Why are we talking about this now?’ Rafe decided to humour her, even though her constant babbling could get tiresome, as there was nothing else to fill in the time while they waited for his case.
‘I’ve had two phone calls recently. One from the prostitute, who’s no longer a prostitute and is some fancy schmancy jewellery designer in Melbourne. Christine Long, I googled her. All the rich people want her to design their engagement rings. Got a bit of a name for herself…’ Louise made a conscious effort to stop herself from talking. Too much detail – again.
Rafe waited impatiently.
‘The second phone call,’ she continued quickly, starting to get breathless, ‘…was from Annabelle’s Mum, Lee. She was trying to get onto Cassettari, then when I told her he wasn’t available she asked for McVee. Boy, did I have trouble fobbing her off then! What was I supposed to say? I firstly tried to give her the politician’s answer.’
‘Politician’s answer?’
‘Yeah,’ Louise was on a roll. ‘You know when you’re watching a journalist, say someone like Rebekah Brooks…’ Rafe interrupted. ‘Who’s she?’
‘Oh, I forgot, I’m not in England now. Okay, let’s say someone like Ellen Fanning or Jana Wendt, hard-nosed, direct, not intimidated. They ask a politician a simple, straightforward question and without blinking an eyelid the politician says a whole heap of stuff, none of it relevant by the way, and diverts the conversation in a completely different direction…’ Rafe interrupted again. ‘Get to the point, will you Whadary? Whad are ye trying to tell me?’
Louise blushed, unsure if he was being cruel or kind, but she couldn’t let his comment slide. ‘You’re not the first person to say that.’
‘Mmm, I imagine not. Anyway, get to the point,’ he said more kindly.
‘Okay. I gave Lee the politician’s answer. Otherwise known as the Clayton’s answer. You know?’
‘Yes, have a drink without having a drink,’ Rafe interrupted, starting to enjoy himself. As much as she took the long way round the short cut, the long way could be quite entertaining.
&nb
sp; ‘Right. Yes, right.’ Louise took a deep breath, determined to have him listen right through to the end. ‘I want to take a fresh look at this case. With you. The friend, Christine, said a few interesting things. I wonder if it’s worth speaking to her again. She might have a reason behind her call, new info, or something like that.’
‘Or it could just be a big fat waste of everyone’s time. They were pretty thorough on that case, from what I can gather,’ Rafe replied. ‘There were no flies on Cassettari, that’s for sure. Bloody good detective he was. We lost a real treasure there, a rough diamond, but a treasure all the same.’ He paused momentarily, reminded of how tough it was losing one of their own.
‘Then McVee, she’s like a dog with a bone when it comes to missing people. Rumour has it Annabelle Brown was her very first case, the one she could never solve, the one that keeps her awake at night.’
Louise raised her eyebrows. ‘Really? It’s like folklore?’
‘Yep. Something like that. We’ve all got one of those. Can’t prove anything. Can’t give black and white answers. The missing cases are the worst. And these old ones, they’re all just sitting there. Unable to be solved. No DNA back then, and the way we filed things, then how those files moved around over the years, well, it’s a bit of a bloody mess.’
Louise frowned, trying to understand how less than thirty years ago felt like the dark ages. Rafe was still talking.
‘So many people came to The Cross to disappear. They were already running away. So when they vanished, like this girl did, it’s hard to figure out if it was part of the running away act or if it was actually something real. Something more sinister.’
Louise was like a sponge. ‘Right, well, maybe whoever kept their mouth shut back then might open it now?’ Hope quavered in her voice.
Rafe sighed, something stirring deep inside, wondering if he should perhaps have a closer look. Just one look, if only to get Louise off his back, with her eagerness and long stories. Give her something to get her teeth into, see if she could see something others couldn’t.
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