The Ones You Trust

by Caroline Overington

  From there they would progress to truth and fantasy questions, designed to ascertain whether these children knew the difference, and from there, Vee would scale up, to more direct questions as to the whereabouts of Fox.

  There was no point saying, ‘Has anyone told you to keep a secret?’ Or, ‘Did you see anything that nobody is supposed to know about?’

  As Vee explained to Franklin, as though he didn’t know, the process of extracting information – the truth – from a child was more subtle, and at the same time more complex. Franklin nodded. The interview techniques Vee was talking about had been refined over many years: no interruptions. Listen carefully. Follow the clues. Encourage recall, without planting new information. State your name and where you’re from. Help the child understand the importance of telling the truth. Ask the child: Do you have questions? Then, when it was over, thank and reassure them.

  Emma was permitted to show them into Hudson’s room. Hudson was sitting on the floor, looking subdued. He had a figure-eight racing set with two cars – one red, one blue – on the tracks. He kept one hand on the red racing car, even as the grown-ups crowded in.

  Emma spoke first, keeping her voice small, her tone reassuring. ‘Hey, Hudson. This is Jack and Vee. They’re just going to ask you some questions, okay?’

  ‘What questions?’

  ‘You’re not in trouble,’ said Vee, smiling encouragingly. ‘They won’t be hard questions. It’s not a test.’

  Hudson paused, then finally nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said.

  Jack and Vee moved further into the room, with Jack taking up position by the wall, and Vee getting down, somewhat awkwardly, onto her knees, by the racetrack.

  ‘My name’s Vee,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Hudson.’

  ‘Is this your room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you decorate it? I see a lot of race cars.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Hudson pushed the red car back and forward on the tracks a few times, like he maybe wanted to know if it was okay to keep playing. He looked up at Jack Pan, standing by the wall. Jack Pan said nothing.

  ‘Do you want to show me how you race?’ asked Vee.

  Hudson raised one slim shoulder. ‘It’s not hard,’ he said.

  ‘Why don’t you show me?’ suggested Vee.

  ‘Okay.’

  Hudson positioned the car on the track, and with the trigger, got it going.

  ‘You’ve very good,’ said Vee. ‘Hey. Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Is there a duck sitting on my head?’

  Hudson looked startled.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I said there was a duck sitting on my head would that be the truth, or a lie?’

  ‘A lie?’

  ‘Yes, it would be a lie. Or else something made-up. Something pretend. That’s right, Hudson. Hey, if I forget to ask you something you want to tell me, will you let me know?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Hudson.

  ‘Did you go to school yesterday?’ Vee asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Hudson had started the car racing again.

  ‘Did Seal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did Fox?’

  Hudson shook his tousled head. ‘Fox doesn’t go to school,’ he said. ‘She’s too little.’

  Vee said, ‘Oh, I see.’

  The car jumped off the tracks. Hudson scooted over on his knees to fetch it, saying: ‘They always jump if you go too fast.’

  ‘I see.’

  Vee watched as Hudson set the car back on its tracks and got it racing, more slowly this time.

  ‘You’re good at it,’ she said. ‘Does your brother play cars?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is he as good as you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you play after school yesterday?’

  ‘Cars? No.’

  ‘Who brought you home from school yesterday?’

  ‘Lena.’

  ‘Who’s Lena?’

  ‘Our nanny.’

  ‘Did Seal come home from school with you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you go to the same school?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The car jumped the tracks a second time. Hudson picked it up, turned it over, and plucked a piece of fluff off the sensor.

  ‘Did you come straight home after school?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Who was home?’

  Hudson put the car back on the track. He pressed the trigger. The car began to race. He did not speak.

  Vee tried again, ‘Who was home?’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Not Mum?’

  ‘Mum works.’

  ‘Was Fox home?’

  ‘No.’

  The car jumped. Hudson went to get it.

  ‘You played with Seal but you didn’t play with Fox after school?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Yeah, you did play with Fox or you didn’t?’

  ‘Fox wasn’t here.’

  ‘Okay.’ Vee paused. ‘Do you like playing with Seal?’

  ‘Yeah. Sometimes Seal annoys me.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘He comes in my room and leaves things in a mess. He broke my Power Ranger.’

  ‘Do you get mad at him sometimes?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What about Fox? Does Fox break things?’

  ‘Fox breaks everything,’ said Hudson. He looked up, suddenly engaged in the conversation. ‘She can’t come in here because she steps on my racetrack and Lena says I’m not allowed to shout at her. She throws her food on the floor from the high chair and Dad tells her off.’

  ‘My goodness,’ said Vee. She paused a second time, then added, ‘Can you remember the last time your dad got mad with Fox?’

  Hudson hesitated. ‘No.’

  ‘Did he get mad lately?’

  Silence. Then, ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know when your dad is mad at Fox?’

  ‘He shouts.’

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What does he shout?’

  ‘Just, “Fox, don’t throw the food on the ground. I’ve got to pick it up one hundred times.”’

  Vee smiled. ‘Do you get mad with Fox when she breaks things?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What do you do when you’re mad?’

  ‘I go, “Fox, don’t step on my things.” Dad gets mad with me.’

  ‘He gets mad with you?’

  ‘Because Fox is just a baby.’

  They sat quietly for a few moments, watching the car go around and around.

  ‘Do you know where Fox is, Hudson?’

  ‘No. Only that Dad forgot to get her.’

  ‘He forgot to get her?’

  ‘From daycare. He was supposed to get her from daycare and he forgot and Mum got mad and now she’s lost.’

  Hudson stopped the car. He began to cry and Emma shuffled over on her knees, took his head against her breast.

  ‘Okay, Hudson,’ said Vee. ‘Thank you for talking to me.’ She looked up at Jack Pan and raised her shoulders. His face remained impassive.

  Seal was sitting on the nautical bed in his own room, playing in a sad way with his iPad. Emma gently took it from him, saying the grown-ups wanted to talk. Seal immediately threw himself against the mattress. He didn’t want to cooperate with the grown-ups. He did not want to talk to them. Emma took him by the wrists – gently, gently – and tried to reason with him.

  ‘I know, it’s not fun, but there’s just a few things they want to ask you, Seal. We’re really worried about Fox. The police are hoping you can help them. Can you maybe help them, for Mummy?’

  Finally, sulkily, he agreed, but only if he could stay sitting on his mum’s lap, as she sat crossed-legged on the floor.

  ‘Can I do that?’ Emma implored of Jack Pan. ‘He’s so little.’

  ‘I think it will be okay,’ he said.

  Vee crept clo
ser on her bulky knees. She repeated the pattern she had established with Hudson: easy questions to establish rapport; tricky ones to establish honesty; direct ones, to see what, if anything, he might know. The conversation moved faster than it had with Hudson, maybe because his mum was right there, sitting under him, urging him on.

  ‘Dad forgot to get Fox,’ he said, bluntly. ‘Mum was angry.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Vee.

  ‘We have to find her because she’s little. She’s not allowed out in the night time.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘The police are helping.’

  Vee nodded, like she understood. Emma reached down and stroked Seal’s blond head.

  Vee made a face, like she was considering something. Then she said, ‘You know, sometimes children don’t want to tell the truth because they don’t want somebody to get into trouble.’

  ‘Yeah. Dobbing.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vee. ‘Dobbing. Is dobbing good or bad, Seal?’

  ‘Dobbing’s bad.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Vee. ‘You know, that’s sometimes true. Sometimes dobbing is bad. But sometimes dobbing can be good. Like if somebody knows what happened to Fox and they don’t tell because they don’t want to dob then everyone stays worried.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Seal.

  ‘Or if somebody doesn’t tell the truth because somebody told them it’s better to lie, or not to dob. That’s not good, is it?’

  ‘You shouldn’t lie,’ Seal said solemnly.

  ‘No, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t lie. And you know, Seal, sometimes people make mistakes. Brothers and sisters can make mistakes. Mummy and Daddy can make a mistake. Sometimes when somebody makes a mistake the best way to help them is to tell somebody. Because you can’t get into trouble if you tell the truth.’

  Seal didn’t respond.

  Vee said, ‘Do you know anybody who made a mistake lately?’

  Seal didn’t immediately answer. Then he nodded quickly, and tears formed in his eyes.

  ‘Why are you crying now, Seal?’ said Vee, moving closer.

  ‘Dad forgot to get Fox and she doesn’t like the dark.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Yes, we know that. It’s okay to be worried about that.’

  ‘But I miss Fox,’ he said, and dissolved into tears.

  ‘Oh baby,’ said Emma. She held him close as his body began to heave. ‘Oh my sweet baby boy. We’ll find her. I promise you we’ll find her.’

  Jack Pan, watching from the sidelines, signalled the end of the session, and abruptly left the room.

  Franklin had patiently been waiting the sessions out in Brandon’s office, with Panton scrolling dutifully through calls and tips from the hotline, while Maven lurked nearby. Franklin got to his feet. Brandon stood up beside him.

  ‘Anything I need to know?’ Franklin said.

  ‘They know their sister is missing,’ said Jack Pan. ‘Whatever the outcome here, they’re going to need a lot of help with that.’

  ‘Obviously they know she’s missing. Do they know what happened to her?’

  ‘If they do, they aren’t saying.’

  ‘Meaning they might know or they don’t know?’

  ‘They might,’ said Pan. ‘They might not.’

  ‘Oh, this is great,’ said Maven sceptically, rolling her eyes. ‘They might, but then again, they might not! Don’t you just love psychology, Detective Franklin? So helpful, or not.’

  Tuesday 13 October

  Noon

  ‘Well, it’s coming up for twenty-three hours. Police always say, in a case like this – a missing person – the first twenty-four hours are crucial, and we’re at twenty-three hours now . . .’

  Maven stepped out of Emma’s front garden into the street. She had applied a fresh coat of red lipstick and a pair of oversized sunglasses. She held up a hand to shield herself from the blaze of flashes.

  ‘I’m not here to announce anything. I’ve just come out to make a call,’ she said.

  She lit a lilac-coloured cigarette, and dialled Jock’s number. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m still trying to get into the fucking street,’ Jock said. He’d picked up on the car Bluetooth, and he sounded exasperated. ‘Why did I buy this car? It’s the size of a truck. Everyone knows it’s me.’

  ‘You’re in the Cadillac? Good, let them know it’s you. Wait, I’ve come out to help you. How far away are you?’

  ‘Not that far, but Jesus. There’s cops everywhere, all the roads are blocked, not one car is parked legally. Have they had any breakthroughs?’

  ‘No. They’re still looking for the fat woman on the CCTV and the niece,’ said Maven. She was striding away from the media pack, talking with her hand over the phone, and a cigarette between two fingers. ‘Brandon has also started popping up on CCTV which is interesting. Apparently he was at Gallery Main Street getting meat. They’ve got Lindt Ball Man – the stalker – in custody. And they keep going on about Airlie – that’s the niece – as if she’s the best lead.’

  ‘Can we find her first?’ asked Jock, yanking one side of his walnut steering wheel down, as he jerked the Cadillac into Emma’s street.

  ‘We’re trying. I’ve got the entire newsroom on it. But hush-hush,’ said Maven, moving further still from the media pack. ‘The cops are obviously going to want to talk to her before she gets ambushed by us. But how can it be her? I’ve seen Airlie. It looks nothing like her.’

  Jock grunted. ‘Fair enough. But did you see Brew’s got that Roaring Leo lunatic on, raving about a ransom? I thought I was paying the ransom?’

  ‘Nobody’s even asked for a ransom. That’s freaking me out a bit, I’ve got to be honest with you, Jock. Why is there no ransom demand?’ Maven paused to cough. ‘I hope the kid’s all right. How far away are you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t see anything. There’s fucking media everywhere, and I say that as the man who owns a media company.’

  ‘Okay wait, I see you,’ Maven said, as the long front bonnet of Jock’s famed Cadillac nosed into view. ‘I’ll come get you.’

  Maven stepped onto the road. Police had blocked the street directly outside Emma’s house, allowing cars to only come so far, before being forced into a detour, down a side street. Maven went as far as the barrier, and told Jock to stop. The row of cameramen outside Emma’s house turned their lenses in her direction, determined to capture whatever was going on. A reporter who recognised the Cadillac rushed up, ‘Why is Jock Nelson here?’

  ‘Why do you think he’s here?’ replied Maven. ‘He’s here to support a member of the Cuppa family.’

  She glanced around for one of her minions – the place was by now crawling with them – and said, ‘I’m getting him out. You get behind the wheel and take the car down the detour.’

  The minion’s face took on a horrified look.

  ‘Oh come on,’ said Maven. ‘You’re not here to socialise.’

  Jock stopped the Cadillac and struggled to get out as the media came running down Emma’s street to swarm around him. He was wearing a crumpled suit, and a business shirt that had come out of the front of his pants. He stretched the shirt over his extended stomach and tucked it back in, smoothing a yellow tie over the buttons.

  ‘Jesus, you’re like flies,’ he said, as reporters shoved microphones in his direction. ‘Can you get out of my way?’

  Maven took him by the elbow. She had just begun to say, ‘Now, Mr Nelson is going to say a few words to demonstrate our support for Emma . . .’ when they heard it.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Jock. ‘What was that?’

  But Maven knew instinctively. It was Emma, screaming from all the way back inside the house.

  One million dollars.

  The ransom demand was for an amount so big and round and so fucking predictable that Franklin straightaway thought, Okay, this isn’t good. They’re dickheads. They’re amateurs. They don’t know what they’re doing. They think they’re in a police drama. They’re going to get somebody killed.


  Because there was no way he could pay it. No protocol that would allow it.

  Still, it gave them something to work with. Some curious bloody things: The ransom demand had come not in any ordinary kind of way – phone, letter – but in a weird way, as an email, sent not to Emma, or Brandon, but to a link on the NSW Police website, to a place known as the Online Reporting service.

  ‘What even is that?’ asked Maven.

  Franklin hadn’t felt the need to explain police procedure to her, but he needed Emma to know, and so he spelt it out: Online Reporting was a link, on the police website, back to Crimestoppers.

  Do you have something to report to NSW Police? Click HERE.

  All anyone then had to do was fill out the form – there’s a truck stuck in the Sydney Harbour tunnel, for example – and press send. All very good in theory but nobody, or hardly anybody, ever used the bloody thing because who does that? Reports something online? Everyone still preferred Triple 0, or else just calling up the cops, or dropping into the cop shop.

  And yet, there it was: an email, presumably from a bunch of kidnappers who had the whole bloody country’s attention, demanding money. And not only that, they’d attached a photograph of Fox to the email, to prove they had her.

  ‘Let me see,’ Emma insisted desperately, after Franklin had explained. ‘I need to see my daughter. Where is she?’ She fought to get closer to the screen, her movements rapid and desperate. ‘I need to see her.’

  Franklin turned the iPad in Emma’s direction. She staggered on the spot, and Brandon grabbed her by the elbow to keep her steady. It wasn’t a particularly good photograph: Fox was curled up, apparently asleep on a faded pink sheet, with her pink mouth partly open, and her dark eyelashes resting on flushed cheeks.

  ‘She’s okay, she’s fine,’ said Panton.

  ‘Is she really?’ asked Emma, as her eyes darted across the image, trying to make out what she could.

  ‘How can she be fine?’ Brandon objected angrily. ‘Fuck. Is that a bed she’s on? Who does that? I’m going to murder these freaks.’

  ‘Let’s concentrate. There are clues in the background,’ said Franklin.

  ‘What clues?’ asked Brandon.

  ‘Things on the wall. A fringe from the bed. Do you recognise anything? See that photo frame, on the wall? Black aluminium? Are they dolphins, coming up out of the water? Do you know anyone who has a picture like that on their wall? And the bed frame: it’s pink, maybe powder-coated metal. And you can see the corner of the bedspread. Purple, or would you call that lilac? Old-fashioned fringe.’