Clear to the Horizon

by Dave Warner

  ‘That morning she was still here in her bed. I probably grumbled to myself about her sleeping in, leaving mess around. But I knew she was here.’ She threw a glance down the hallway. ‘Now, when they go, it’s so lonely.’ She looked as flimsy as tracing paper. I asked to see Caitlin’s room.

  ‘You just do what you did that day. I’ll be fine,’ I assured Michelle. She went off to do whatever that was.

  Like most Perth houses of its era, the bedrooms were high ceilinged and spacious. Caitlin’s had been left more or less as it had been that day. I knew the police had been through it looking for clues. Obviously they hadn’t found anything earth-shattering. The bed was a single, the spread blue with gold patterns. Once more I was hit by a wave of sadness. Caitlin had her whole adult life ahead of her. She’d barely left childhood behind. There was an Apple computer on a desk against the wall, textbooks and magazines neatly stacked. On her wall was a poster of Friends’ star David Schwimmer. Interesting choice. From the look it had been there since her school days. There were a handful of CDs on a shelf, artists I’d never heard of. I sat down on the bed and imagined her next to me.

  Help me. I didn’t say it aloud but I thought it. Caitlin had her mobile with her when she disappeared. It was a Nokia 1998 model. I hoped George Tacich would give me a list of all her calls. I sat there for a time trying to think like Caitlin. I was guessing her mind would be occupied by trivial things: what to wear, who would drive, what time they’d leave, a troubling pimple. Soupy the dog wandered in and checked me out. Then he slowly took himself out again. Maybe he’d heard the noise, hoped Caitlin was back.

  I found Michelle in the back garden, on her knees weeding.

  ‘This is when the weeds start,’ she said by way of explanation.

  ‘Did Caitlin use her mobile for calls?’

  ‘Too expensive. She always used the home phone unless she was out. She called Hanna about this time. They planned their day.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘I went shopping. She took Soupy for a walk.’

  Initially Soupy had stayed snug in his large dog bed near the back door, unbudging as an England opener on a flat track. But after I’d wiggled his lead in front of his faraway eyes and made breathless little exhortations, ‘Come on, Soupy, time for a nice walk,’ he finally raised himself on old legs and tottered with me to the door. Michelle had given me the route Caitlin had taken that morning, Soupy’s usual one, up the street to the north, around the block, clockwise. Once outside Soupy shed the years. He trotted and sniffed and cocked his leg from the edge of the driveway all along the street. I just hoped he wouldn’t poo but I had the bag ready in case. Outwardly I was just a man walking his dog but I was studying the houses, the cars, and wondering if a serial killer lived in one of them. After I turned east, Soupy encountered a miniature poodle. They sniffed each other. The poodle’s owner was an attractive woman my age in a designer tracksuit who looked like she’d seen much more of Umbria than I ever would.

  ‘Labs are gorgeous.’ She had dark wavy hair and smile lines. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘I’m guessing about ten. I’m walking him for a friend.’

  ‘She’s nine next year.’ She indicated the poodle.

  ‘Smart dogs, poodles.’

  ‘She knows how to get round me that’s for sure.’

  The dogs seemed to have lost interest so we smiled and went our separate ways. Pets, I thought. That was one heading I’d left off my spreadsheet of Caitlin. For some reason women always think they can trust a man with a dog, and Caitlin walked Soupy. Maybe she’d see somebody regularly when she walked Soupy? You pass them in the street even late at night, you smile, of course you do. I wondered which vet the family used – the one up on the corner of the street where she disappeared? Something to check out. The only other dog walkers I passed showed little interest in getting to know me or Soupy. One was an old boy coughing and spluttering and tending it with a handkerchief. He had a Jack Russell trotting obediently behind. The other was an elderly woman who crossed to the other side of the street before I got too close. She had one of those yappy silkies.

  I got back to the house with the poo bag still unused. Nellie and her father had returned. They’d gone for a walk along the beach. Gerry was giving his car a quick vacuum. I asked about Soupy’s vet and he confirmed using the one at Bay View Terrace. I followed him into the house.

  ‘Listen, we rang Hanna’s parents and asked if she would mind coming over to speak with you. Is that okay?’

  ‘No, of course.’

  Michelle O’Grady pulled into the driveway with shopping. Everything is different I thought, she’s shopping for three now, not four, and she must sense that every time she scans the shelves of the supermarket. There was no cricket to watch but some Games soccer was underway even before the opening. Gerry and Nellie sipped at it as they went about their separate business. Half an hour later Hanna arrived and we were introduced. She was a good-looking girl, brown shiny hair, slim, confident. She accepted the juice Michelle offered. I went with tea. We sat on the back veranda, the smell of spring rising with the heat of the morning.

  ‘Are you best friends?’

  ‘Kind of. I mean we used to travel to uni together and have lunch together.’

  Hanna was an arts student. She ran through their close group of friends. No weirdos, no creeps.

  ‘If I’d gone with her that night, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘No, it probably would have happened, maybe not to Caitlin but to some other girl. Do you know Emily or Jessica?’

  Hanna knew of Emily through friends of friends but she’d never met either of the other missing girls. She’d gone to PLC so hadn’t known them from school. I asked her to tell me about Caitlin. Her description was near identical to everybody else’s. A nice girl, friendly, smart but liked to socialise, loyal to her friends, open, not duplicitous, not into drugs.

  ‘Was she loud?’

  ‘No. I’m the loud one.’

  ‘Were you guys together the night before?’

  ‘On the Friday I started in Fremantle and then moved on, to The Sheaf actually, with other friends. That’s why I didn’t really want to go out the Saturday. Caitlin went to a movie with friends and then came home for an early night.’

  ‘Could I ask you a favour?’

  ‘Anything to help.’

  I asked if she was free this afternoon to take me through things as they had been that day.

  ‘I was going to get my hair done but I can cancel.’

  ‘We could do it another time.’

  ‘No. No I want to help.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  She finished her juice. I was aware of the O’Gradys hovering, understandable, but I wanted Hanna to be as free as possible with me. Other questions could wait.

  ‘So, three at the OBH lounge,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to pick you up?’

  ‘No, I’ll meet you there.’ She picked her glass up, put it down, staring at it because she couldn’t meet my eyes. ‘But please make sure you’re there first. I don’t want to be by myself. It’s still scary. I don’t go out anywhere nearly so much, and always with a friend.’

  The Ocean Beach Hotel was an institution. Generations had revived themselves with a glass of cold beer after a swim in the Indian Ocean. It was particularly popular with imports. In my pub-going days, most locals had preferred the Cottesloe Hotel and its beer garden up the road but I didn’t know if that still held. The OBH was about three quarters full. Noisy chatter fuelled by beer and amplified by open space and the sound of aluminium furniture being shuffled gave it a sense of urgency. The set now seemed younger than I remembered but I guessed that was just because I was a middle-aged married man. I’d made sure I was there fifteen minutes early. Just as well it wasn’t longer – the price of a glass of beer was higher than a reggae bass-player. I’d have to pace myself. I wandered through the main bar and out to the pool room, which was as packed as I remembered. The best players on
the coast hustled here, and more often than not brawls used to break out over somebody skipping the queue. At the table nearest me a couple of surfer dudes were taking on a pair of crew-cut, muscular guys, likely SAS whose barracks were just down the road. I checked my watch and made my way back to the entrance by 2.55. Hanna arrived ten minutes later and was relieved to find me. I felt guys turning to watch as she came towards me.

  ‘If anybody asks, I’m your uncle from Sydney and you are showing me around. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Orange juice will be fine.’

  I settled for a light beer to look the part.

  ‘Can you show me where you guys were that day?’

  She led me over to a section near the heart of the room, which was relatively free compared to the bar.

  ‘Was it busy that day?’

  ‘Busier. We’d just had Australia Day, it was kind of the last fling of summer, you know?’

  ‘How long were you here for?’

  ‘About two hours. I had a few ciders. Caitlin didn’t drink alcohol that day. She was driving.’

  I gazed about me. There were plenty of vantage points where somebody could have watched the girls over that time: from the bar, nearby tables, even near the gents, which serviced the adjoining pool room. If the girls had been engaged in conversation they wouldn’t have noticed.

  ‘There was nobody that day you felt was staring at you? Or came over to bum a smoke?’

  ‘If there was, I don’t remember.’

  There’d been three other female friends, and they had been with two boys, one a boyfriend. The boys’ friends and other girls had dropped over from time to time to say hello. All in all, Hanna thought there could have been close to twenty people circulating directly by Caitlin’s table.

  At the table closest to us were three young women, well gone on vodka or tequila, one of those clear drinks that makes everything unclear. They were quite raucous and I could hear lots of what they said. One was leaving for Bali the next week. It would have been easily possible for somebody to overhear where Caitlin was going that night.

  ‘Suppose Caitlin had bumped into one of the guys she’d met here that day. You think she’d have accepted a lift?’

  ‘She didn’t know any of them well enough.’

  ‘Not even the guys directly at the table?’

  ‘No. I really don’t think so.’

  ‘Had you girls talked much about Emily Virtue?’

  ‘A little bit. I mean, we knew she had disappeared but we weren’t like …’

  She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I tried to help.

  ‘You thought it might have been a personal thing?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  Young people didn’t go to bars these days to drink. They hadn’t for a long time. You wanted to drink, you’d go to a bottle shop and get three times as much alcohol for the same price. People came here to meet somebody that at some time in the future they might have sex with. I watched the constant circulation of guys in tank tops and tees moving to tables of girls and other guys, edging in on the perimeter, trying to find a niche. I was relieved I didn’t have to do that anymore.

  ‘Was Caitlin a regular at Autostrada?’

  ‘Over summer, for sure, I mean, it’s close, you know? We’d go there or The Sheaf probably two weekends out of three.’

  ‘So you get to see the same faces?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Would she trust any of them enough to accept a lift?’

  She thought about it.

  ‘Guys she knew really well, that she’d known from school days or who were part of our group. But not guys she’d just danced with or bar staff.’

  I asked her about herself, her family, how she’d found uni. All the time I was taking in the dynamics of the place. The guys were always checking out the girls between shouting rounds at the bar, or wandering in from the pool room. The girls were also checking out the guys. After about forty minutes I said, ‘Well, that’s probably enough.’ I offered to walk her to her car.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘I’ll do it anyway.’

  After Hanna had driven away I walked across the street and gazed out over the ocean. It was still sunny, dusk only now shuffling towards its carriage. The blue water rippled in a moderate breeze. How could wickedness live in the heart of something this peaceful?

  CHAPTER 3

  A young uniform cop laden with files kept trying to not stare at me as we rode in the lift to the Homicide Division at Police HQ. By now, I had pretty much mapped out all the areas of Caitlin’s life I would have to investigate. Some things I’d followed up with the O’Gradys but whatever I might try and do, I knew it was fairly hopeless without deeper knowledge on the other missing young women. So far I’d not checked out Autostrada or The Sheaf firsthand, reasoning it would be better to wait until after this meeting. For instance I was sure George Tacich would have run the microscope over all the staff and I didn’t want to blunder in on some train of inquiry that might be in progress. The door opened and the uniform waited for me to exit first. A mainly open-plan space with various individual offices at the far wall, the room didn’t look that different to how it had twenty years earlier, except for the computers. There was one on almost every desk. At first glance I counted three young women and six or seven men but I couldn’t say who was a cop and who was civilian. I caught sight of George in an alcove, figured it was the kitchenette and started towards him. He was in the company of an older man in a suit. The uniform who had gone on ahead of me handed him the files he’d been carrying. He must have mentioned me, for I saw George look up quickly in my direction. But before I could offer a friendly wave, I had jammed in front of me the face of a guy bitter with what life hadn’t handed him.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Richard Lane …’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  He flexed on his toes ever so slightly. Had to be a cop. I guessed he was a shade older than me. He struck me as the kind of guy whose weekend highlight would be washing and polishing his car. I could hear him on the sidelines at soccer criticising his kid’s teammates.

  ‘I’m here to see the Inspector.’ I indicated George, who was starting over. My guy wasn’t aware and was not shifting his ground. A short blonde with a sizeable backside moved in to support him. She looked like she’d offer some mean wing defence Saturdays at Matthews Netball Centre. George’s voice climbed over their shoulders.

  ‘It’s alright, Collins. This man is a legend: Snowy Lane.’

  Collins didn’t tell his boss he knew who I was. By now they were all watching me. I could almost hear the laughter in their heads. Legend? This guy?

  One of the policewomen, fine features, dark hair, lighted on my name and whispered to the guy beside her. Put it this way, it wasn’t exactly a cheer squad but after Collins, it felt like one.

  ‘G’day Snow.’

  George put out his hand and I shook it. The older man he’d been talking with had followed him and was at his shoulder. For the benefit of the others, George added, ‘This man is one of the best detectives I ever worked with. He’s been engaged in a private capacity by the O’Grady family on Caitlin’s disappearance. Snowy, this is Michael Unwin, he’s our media officer on the Autostrada Task Force.’

  The task force had been named after Caitlin’s disappearance but before Jessica’s. I shook his hand. We both eyed each other carefully but without judgement.

  George said, ‘DS Garry Collins.’

  Collins didn’t offer his hand and I didn’t offer mine. Somewhere a phone rang. One of the crew went to it.

  ‘I won’t introduce the others because you won’t remember the names anyway. You want a tea or coffee?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  George addressed the wing defence. ‘Jill, you hold the fort.’ He turned to the uniform who had ridden up with me. ‘Daniel, thank Roy and ask if he could go back as far as ninety-six. Snowy, come through.’ George indicated a door on the other side
of the room. I trailed in his wake. He gestured the others follow. This surprised me. I’d assumed that some of them at least would be assigned to other homicides or major crimes. George opened the door marked with a sign AUTOSTRADA TF and ushered us into a large windowless space that was clearly the engine room of the investigation. At its centre was a long trestle table – on closer inspection two trestle tables, joined, with what must have been twenty chairs. I could see only two desktop computers, one at each end of the room at separate workstations but laptops littered the table like napkins after bridal cake. There were two large whiteboards, one to my left at the short end of the rectangular room, the other behind me as I walked in. They’d been flipped so any writing was hidden but the maps of Bay View Terrace, photos of the missing women and various printed time lines and facts on the three women were displayed on the wall ahead of me. I noted red string had been used to cross-correlate items underneath each of the women’s photos. At a guess there were nine or ten strands. A large empty space on one wall marked with blu-tack suggested some display recently removed. My guess: photos of persons of interest taken down prior to my arrival.

  ‘Please, Snowy, sit.’

  I picked out a chair and the others settled in around me. George read my thoughts.

  ‘There are more than twenty of us all up. Five work the night shift.’

  ‘Other cases?’

  ‘We manage okay most of the time. If something major comes up we have to hive off some of these guys.’

  Unwin spoke for the first time. ‘Naturally we don’t want any specifics of manpower being made public.’

  What Unwin and his bosses actually didn’t want was some opposition politician claiming the task force was under-resourced.

  George addressed the room. ‘You guys don’t know Snowy. I do. He will not leak anything or compromise our investigation in any way. Right?’