Found

by Melissa Pouliot

  ‘Alright, but not at the sacrifice of the hot cases. Gotta keep on top of them, this is just spare time stuff, okay?’

  Louise wanted to hug him, but knew that would be entirely inappropriate. Instead she settled for a tiny, inconspicuous hand clap.

  ‘Thank you Rafe, I’ve got a feeling. A hunch. You know…’ she was on the verge of launching into another long story but he cut her off.

  ‘Righto, that’ll do. Just don’t spend too much time chasing around too many ghosts.’

  CHAPTER 21

  The Bone Room

  Louise had used every spare millisecond to review Annabelle’s case. Lunch breaks, after work and at work when nobody was watching (always when she was completely caught up of course). After a month of this obsessive determination she felt she was up to speed on everything that had been done in earlier investigations. She’d now started compiling a list of ideas of what she could do from here, things she felt someone had missed, people she could speak to and new places she could search. Like the Bone Room in the Glebe morgue. She’d been meaning to pay a visit; it fascinated her that all these bones had been gathered in the one place with no other place to call home. Boxes and boxes of unidentified bones, maybe Annabelle’s were amongst them?

  Rafe was sceptical. ‘If her bones were in the Bone Room, don’t you think someone would have matched them up by now?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. These things slip through, you said it yourself. The eighties weren’t the system’s proudest era, especially when it came to missing people. Destitute burials with no records kept, precious items like clothing and jewellery tossed into the garbage.’

  ‘Keep in mind Cassettari and McVee were at the top of their game, back then and since then. They didn’t slouch on cases, particularly McVee. She has a reputation which precedes her, for being a right royal pain in the arse when it comes to procedure and following the law to the letter. She’s pissed off a lot of people over the years, hasn’t always been popular for her strong opinions.’

  Louise couldn’t bite her tongue, and defended McVee with quiet steel in her voice. ‘Yes, but she’s solved a lot of cases that nobody else would give a second glance. She paved the way for a whole generation of female police officers with her refusal to back down when something wasn’t right, in what was a real boys club.’

  She quickly got down from her soapbox, not wanting to irritate him, and adopted a more conciliatory tone. ‘But you don’t need to tell me they’ve been thorough, because I know they have. It’s just that so much has changed in that time.’

  Louise paused before continuing, knowing she had to make sure it didn’t sound like she was showing disrespect to a more senior officer with what she was about to say.

  ‘But, from everything I can gather from the file, they haven’t been to the Bone Room… recently.’

  Rafe humphed. He was well known for his humph. He had a reputation for being standoffish, aloof, stiff at times. He was tough on crime and didn’t appear overly enthusiastic. He rarely smiled and always stood up straight to attention. Like his parents had always told him. Stand up straight, Rafe! You’ll end up a hunchback if you slump your shoulders like that! Another myth they fed him his whole childhood. Along with You’ll go cross-eyed if you cross your eyes! Eat your carrots, then you’ll be able to see in the dark! You’ll sink to the bottom if you go swimming straight after lunch – you’ll have to wait at least half an hour!

  Minutes ticked by and Louise waited for more words that didn’t come.

  ‘Right then,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ll head off then. Coming?’

  ‘S’pose,’ Rafe said, grabbing his keys. ‘I’ll drive.’

  Louise thought about arguing the point, she preferred to drive, but decided she’d let this one go.

  …

  They stood among the cardboard boxes filled with unidentified bones, listening to the warm, caring voice of Dr Jaclyn Young, who spoke of the bones like they were her friends.

  ‘It’s a slow process, and we’re well behind with the matching. We’re up to about 1982, all the missing cases, the cold cases,’ she explained. ‘Some of these bones are old, really old, but there’s quite a few more recently discovered. They have been found in creek beds, on sand hills, in bushland and national parks, buried in shallow graves by the sides of roads or washed up on the beach.’

  ‘Can you get us a list of all the places they’ve been found?’ Louise asked as she wandered among the room with its shelves with boxes and paper bags stacked to the low ceilings.

  ‘No problem, though I know most by heart. Tweed Heads, Forbes, Bondi, Canberra, Eden, Annandale, Mona Vale, Goodooga, Lord Howe Island, Kurnell, Bega, Ballina, Cape Solander, Armidale, Brady’s Gully, Katoomba, Bowraville, Barrington Tops, Watsons Bay and Narrabeen Beach.’

  ‘Spend a fair bit of time in here by the sound of it,’ Rafe offered, the first words he’d spoken so far. Jaclyn laughed.

  ‘For sure. It’s my second home. My extended family.’

  Jaclyn went on to explain about the Mitochondrial DNA Laboratory at Lidcombe where, for the first time, a fully dedicated laboratory was able to match the DNA of relatives of missing people to the bones.

  ‘As you’d be aware, any DNA samples from the relatives of missing people were sent to the US, it cost a packet and took ages to process. Now we can do it here but we’ve got our work cut out. The lab’s only been opened since January, less than a year, and it will take us five years at least to unlock all the secrets in these boxes and paper bags. It’s a mess, to be honest.’

  ‘So have you matched up any missing cases with bones?’ Louise’s stomach flipped over itself.

  ‘Just the one so far, a missing person from the eighties,’ Jaclyn said. Louise’s heart joined her stomach by beating quickly, making her breathless.

  ‘Really? That’s awesome. Wow.’

  Rafe interjected. ‘Just the one case so far? And how many sets of bones are here?’

  ‘Two hundred and fifty, thereabouts,’ Jaclyn replied.

  ‘Right, well at that rate you’ll be here a lot longer than five years,’ he said.

  ‘You may roll your eyes, Detective, but I try and stay on the positive side of life,’ Jaclyn refused to let Rafe’s jab burst her bubble.

  ‘When we matched that one case, it made me all the more determined to keep matching. It’s a breakthrough, a new tool, which we didn’t have before. Technology has come such a long way, and yes, we’re still learning, but we’ll get there. These bones aren’t going anywhere.’

  Humph.

  Louise took charge, going through the list of questions she’d prepared before her visit, and Rafe loitered in the background.

  ‘This is the case I’m really interested in,’ Louise said, handing a copy of the file notes to Jaclyn. ‘Do you think you might be able to take a look for me?’

  ‘Sure, Annabelle Brown. Her mother still alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have we got the DNA?’

  ‘Yes, we have. Got it years ago, it’s in the US, but I’ve requested for it to be sent back.’ Rafe raised his eyebrows, he didn’t realise Louise had been this organised.

  ‘Great, as soon as we have it I’ll start testing.’ Jaclyn looked at the shelves of boxes and bags. ‘Okay Annabelle Brown, where are you? Are you in here?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Louise said. ‘I have everything crossed.’

  Jaclyn smiled and patted Louise on the arm. Rafe watched the exchange, the connection between the two women. Something he could never manage. He became thoughtful. He could probably step into the background a bit, give Louise more responsibility. She had all the right qualities. Enthusiasm overload, well, maybe that needed pulling back a bit, but other than her super long stories and frustrating inability to get straight to the point, she had a good investigative head on her shoulders. She was tough, he had seen that in several tense situations, but had a softness about her that drew people in close. This created an element of surprise during interviews,
which he could see coming in very handy.

  She would be ideal for missing persons’ cases. She’d take all that trauma and emotion in her stride, and never appear callous. He wasn’t callous either but sometimes he felt completely inadequate when families of the missing poured out their deepest thoughts, their complicated feelings and their trauma that never ended.

  As she and Rafe walked to the car, Louise was silent. It wasn’t until they were belted in, and ready to drive off, that she spoke.

  ‘Does it sound wrong to say I hope Annabelle is in the Bone Room?’

  Rafe pondered her question, sensing it was important to her.

  ‘No Louise, it doesn’t. I think that after all this time, the best hope Annabelle’s family has of ever discovering the black and white truth, is that her bones are there.’

  ‘Yes, yes. The only other way of discovering the truth is if she walks up to her Mum’s front door.’ Louise was thoughtful, wondering if she wanted to say the words out loud without having cold hard facts to back them up.

  ‘But to be completely honest, I think that scenario is highly unlikely, knocking on the door that is. If she did go to all that trouble to stage her own disappearance from that bush campsite, she never intended to resurface again,’ she said.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You sure? Stranger things have happened, you know. Missing people have turned up many years later. Larger than life. With their own families, their own lives. And for whatever reason, whether it be regret or a niggle that never goes away, they’ve turned up out of the blue to let their families know they’re still alive.’

  ‘Stop it Rafe, you’re putting my mind into a spin. How can I possibly concentrate on one line of thinking when you throw so many others at me?’

  ‘Well, that’s just how it is Louise. You need to accept that these cases are fifty shades of grey.’

  Louise blushed. His reference to a book she would never admit to having read, and the possibility he may have read it too, tied her tongue in knots.

  ‘I mean it,’ he continued. ‘Solving these old cases is not as simple as you might think. I know you’re imagining you’re a white knight on a horse, sweeping in with all your new knowledge and new technology, thinking you’ve got all the tools to unravel the mystery.’

  Louise blushed again. How could he read her inner thoughts so well when half the time she wondered if he was even listening to her?

  ‘You need to understand what you’re dealing with here. The passing of time has its drawbacks. People’s memories fade. Dates get mixed up. Conversations get mixed up, and it becomes like a game of Chinese Whispers. Everybody wants to claim the story as their own. It’s partly about wanting to help, but it’s mostly about wanting to get into the mix of the drama. It becomes a name dropping exercise, and it’s your job to sort the wheat from the chaff.’

  ‘Now you’ve just got me totally confused,’ Louise said, with a hint of annoyance. ‘I don’t know what exact point you’re trying to make.’

  Rafe smiled a rare smile.

  ‘Chin up. Just passing on a bit of what I’ve learnt with these cold cases. It’s nothing like the television show and you’re not Lily Rush.’

  Louise didn’t reply. She turned her head away, staring sullenly out the window as they drove back to the station. By the time they arrived, although slightly carsick, she had regrouped and brushed off the uneasy feelings Rafe had stirred.

  She’d prove she wasn’t just some silly young wannabe detective thinking every case was like an episode of Cold Case, where all the pieces miraculously fell into place in less than an hour no matter how farfetched the evidence gathering seemed. She would prove she knew her way around the latest technology. She’d show him she could run rings around anyone else when it came to deciphering lengthy reports and matching data.

  Regardless of hurdles, gaps in information, faded memories and the oft-repeated phrase ‘maybe she just doesn’t want to be found’, her fresh outlook would bust this case open. She would write the last chapter in Annabelle Brown’s story, and finally give Annabelle’s family and friends an end point for their grief.

  CHAPTER 22

  Leaving The Cross

  December 1988

  ‘I know you’re disappointed Ant. I know you are trying to look after me. I just can’t be here anymore. In five years what will I have done with my life? I’ll still be in the same place, doing the same thing, with the same johns, with the temptation of the drugs you deal dragging me deeper and deeper into oblivion. I have to cut all ties.’

  Christine’s eyes glistened as she held back the tears.

  Ant was too absorbed in his own feelings to reply with kindness. His parting words were bitter and cruel. ‘Yeah, whatever. Go and live your life. You’ll never have it as good as what you had it with me.’

  She resisted the urge to wipe his tiny splatters of spit from her cheeks.

  Despite the words coming from his mouth, Ant wanted to beg and plead with her to start over, together, and live a clean life. But in his heart he knew he couldn’t follow through. This was the only life he knew. He was too far entrenched in Kings Cross to just walk away.

  ‘You’re not as hot shit as you think you are,’ she replied with steel on her tongue, his cruel stare making her pull a shield around herself to smother the hurt. ‘Just because I didn’t take money for you for sex a few times, doesn’t mean you’re any more special than any of the others.’

  Ant startled. Did she mean she’d been working the whole time they’d been together, that she’d lied to him about him being the only one? He was an idiot. Of course she was still working. Bessie wouldn’t have it any other way. She was a business woman after all.

  ‘I see. You’ve been lying to me this whole time.’

  She didn’t answer. She actually hadn’t been working since Annabelle disappeared, since she got together with Ant, but she’d dug herself too deep into this hole now. Maybe it would be easier if he just thought that was the truth; he’d never come after her now.

  She stared at him for a long time, challenging him. He stared back. When she felt herself starting to crumble, with her head high and shoulders straight, she turned and walked away.

  Despite the pain she’d just inflicted, Ant still needed all of his willpower to stop himself from running after her, grabbing her tight, telling her she was the love of his life and that he was coming, too.

  …

  January 1989

  Weeks later Ant still wished he’d gone after her. He looked for her on every street corner, in every bar. He detoured via Kellett Street at every opportunity, hoping for a glimpse, hoping she’d changed her mind.

  He started doing his drop offs to Bessie himself, instead of sending one of his lackeys. As Bessie let him in, she chuckled.

  ‘You again. Must want something, hey? Since when do you do all your deliveries?’ She was in a wicked mood.

  ‘Aw, come on Bessie. Isn’t a fella allowed to drop round for a cuppa with his favourite old pimp?’

  ‘Oy, who’s calling me old, you cheeky bugger.’

  Ant looked around the cheerful kitchen. His eyes wandered over to the fridge. The photo jumped out at him every time and made his heart stop. A smiling, carefree, young girl wearing a yellow shirt.

  ‘They still haven’t found her, you know,’ Bessie said quietly. ‘You know that’s why Christine left, don’t you? Because she couldn’t bear not knowing what happened to Annabelle. The guilt from leaving her at the campsite on her own. It turned her world on its arse.’

  She sipped her tea, and he his coffee, in silence.

  ‘She blames you, you know,’ Bessie continued.

  Ant felt a line of sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades. Bessie peered at him with eyes that knew everything and missed nothing. Wise eyes with crinkles around the edges, hooded by thick black eyebrows on the verge of becoming a monobrow if she didn’t get some wax to them shortly.

  He was unabl
e to speak for fear of spilling his guts, and confessing everything before she accused him of what he thought she knew.

  ‘I really miss her, you know, she’s a pretty special bird,’ was all he managed.

  ‘You’re never gunna see her again. Move on. She has. She’s never going to look back.’

  ‘How do you know that? We had something. We did!’ Ant protested.

  ‘You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.’

  ‘What’s a horse got to do with it?’ Ant said, puzzled by how one of Bessie’s famous sayings had anything to do with their conversation. It didn’t. It was just that Bessie sometimes got her sayings mixed up.

  They sat in companionable silence for a while longer. Ant took his last gulp and made moves to leave.

  ‘You really don’t think she’ll be back?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘No,’ Bessie’s sharp eyes went soft and misty. ‘No, I’ve lost my two girls. They’re both gone. Losing one was bad enough, but losing two, well I just can’t find the words.’ Bessie sighed a big fat Bessie sigh. Ant started to feel uncomfortable again. He had to get out of this kitchen before she dragged the conversation back to where she was taking it earlier, to tell him she knew what he’d done. That he was at fault. That he was to blame, for more reasons than Christine ever knew.

  He slipped out the door, leaving behind something uneasy in the kitchen which rattled Bessie for the rest of the day. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something wasn’t right with Ant. Maybe Christine had the right idea, getting away from it all.

  As she lay in bed that night the sadness she felt for Annabelle closed in, musing over how one person can have such a big impact on your life. A saying Annabelle used to whip out at every opportunity came to Bessie just before sleep wrapped her up safely.

  ‘Here for a good time, not a long time!’