The Ones You Trust

by Caroline Overington

  ‘Which is why we are here as a group. Christ, look at you, shitting yourself.’

  ‘You must be fucking kidding me.’ PJ backed away from the Humvee. ‘No way, Maven. This is too dangerous.’ He glanced towards Brandon. ‘You can’t be up for this,’ he said. ‘Let’s just, I don’t know, think of something else.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Maven. ‘Pull yourself together. You’ve always wanted to be a proper journalist.’

  PJ’s eyes widened. ‘Maven . . .’

  ‘Oh come on,’ she said. ‘Man up! I’m giving you the story of a lifetime.’

  Brandon, exasperated, took control. ‘Fuck this. Tell me which house, Maven.’

  Pap hoisted his camera bag onto his shoulder. Maven shook her head, like she was disappointed in PJ.

  ‘Pap knows,’ she said. ‘PJ, you’ve got about ten seconds to pull yourself together. I’m about to call the cops. So you’ve both got about as long as it takes them to get here – which I reckon is about three minutes – to get in there and steal the show.’

  Pap pointed towards Liam’s house. Brandon asked, ‘The pink one?’

  Pap nodded, and they both took off, with only PJ hanging back.

  ‘God you’re a pussy,’ said Maven.

  Brandon was already pushing through the gate. Only later would he tell the police that he had not seen the cheap plastic sign, held in place with plastic ties, the one that had a cartoon picture of growling guard dogs and the word ‘Beware’ printed on it. And even if he had seen the sign, he probably wouldn’t have stopped. His daughter was inside this house. She had been missing for hours. He was determined to get her out of there.

  They reached the porch together. Brandon stepped to one side and put his hand up to the glass. The faded curtains were open, and he could see inside. The room was furnished with chairs, and a glass display cabinet, for dolls of the world; and there was Fox’s pink and purple backpack, and her floppy-headed rabbit, on the swirled carpet.

  But no Fox.

  ‘She was in here when I saw her,’ said Pap. ‘You feel good about knocking?’

  ‘I’m not knocking,’ said Brandon. He moved away from the window to the front door, took a step back, and slammed the sole of his boot against it.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Pap, jumping back.

  The door had given way, and Brandon stepped inside. There was a hallway running from the front door, right down the middle of the house, with rooms on both sides, to what appeared to be the brown-tiled kitchen at the back. The place smelled of dogs and dust. Brandon strode inside, passing the empty room with the scattered dolls on his left, before stopping dead at the first doorway on his right. A chunky woman in three-quarter pants was sitting side-on to him, in a flowery upholstered armchair. She was wearing what Brandon recognised as noise-cancelling headphones, designed to allow her to listen to the TV without drowning the rest of the house in noise. She seemed not to have heard Brandon kicking her front door in, and thundering down her hall. He turned his gaze to the TV and saw that she was glued to the coverage of his daughter’s disappearance. Brandon took a step towards her but in the same instant, he heard a squeaking sound from further down the hall, maybe the kitchen – like the sound of somebody in the kitchen, sliding a door back on its rails.

  The yard behind Liam’s house was a perfect rectangle of dry grass, with paling fences on three sides. There was a plum tree in full blossom, and a Hills Hoist. In the far right corner was a tall cage made of steel poles and chicken wire.

  It took Brandon less than a second to see what was inside. There was Liam, wearing a faded khaki shirt, faded pants and boots. He was partly bent over, his Adam’s apple thumping above his collar and his biceps prominent below rolled sleeves, and he held two dogs by their studded, leather collars.

  ‘Okay, steady,’ said Brandon, raising his hands.

  Liam had a firm grip, but the dogs were strong, and apparently desperate to get free. They were large, with bony skulls and muscled chests, and they were snarling and growling in Brandon’s direction. He locked eyes with one of them, and did not like what he saw. He shifted his gaze to Liam, and took a step towards the cage with his hands raised.

  ‘Okay, Liam,’ he said. ‘I just want my daughter.’

  ‘Stay back,’ Liam shouted over the growling of the dogs. ‘What’s going on? Where’s Emma?’

  ‘Okay, Liam,’ said Brandon. ‘Don’t be stupid. Where is Fox-Piper? I know she’s here. Just tell me. Where’s Fox?’

  And then he heard her.

  Daddy!

  Brandon turned on the spot. And there she was, standing alone, barefoot, on the porch, arms out towards her daddy, face alive with happiness.

  ‘Don’t move, baby,’ Brandon said, putting a hand up in her direction, but having seen her daddy, Fox was not to be stopped. She stepped forward, still grinning, apparently oblivious to, or at least unconcerned by, the snarling dogs in the cage with Liam.

  ‘Daddy!’ she cried again.

  ‘No, baby,’ said Brandon.

  Pap whirled around to take more pictures. Fox took one wobbly step off the rickety wooden porch. In that instant, the chunky woman rushed forward and scooped Fox off her feet.

  ‘No! Daddy!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ the woman said. Her expression was a mixture of fear and confusion, as Fox kicked in her arms, saying, ‘Daddy, daddy, daddy!’

  ‘Hold on there, honey,’ said Brandon. He was still standing at the halfway point in the garden, with one hand up in the direction of Liam and the dogs in the cage, and the other up in the direction of the woman with his daughter on the porch, when he heard another voice he recognised, shouting, ‘No.’

  He turned to look. PJ had come down the hallway. He pointed over Brandon’s shoulder.

  Brandon’s eyes darted back to the cage, in time to see Liam letting go of the studded collars, and in time to see both crazed dogs jumping forward; in time to see Liam reaching for the bolt on the cage gate, and while nobody would ever know for certain what would have happened had Liam got the gate open, Brandon was taking no chances. He reached behind his back, extracted his father’s handgun from the waistband of his pants, and said, ‘It’s okay. I got this.’

  AFTER

  ‘Just repeating . . . we have unconfirmed reports that there has been a development in the case of the missing child, Fox-Piper. We would like to stress that these reports are unconfirmed at this time, but we are hearing reports of shots fired at a home in Sydney’s west . . .’

  Tuesday 13 October

  3:20 pm

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ said Franklin. He had just taken a call from the District Officer at the Triple 0 call centre: ‘We’ve got a report from a woman . . . she says she’s at the bodyguard’s house . . . There’s been a shot fired, they’ve got a man down, and she’s saying they’ve got the child . . .’

  Franklin took Emma by the hand and helped her to her feet. ‘Where is your husband?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Emma, frantic. ‘Why? What’s going on? Have they found her?’

  ‘Come with me,’ said Franklin. They stumbled through the house – past duty officers on their mobile phones with their mouths open, many of them having heard the same report on the police radio – out the front door, gathering up Panton as they went.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ said Franklin.

  ‘This way,’ she said, taking Emma’s hand from his and racing towards a patrol vehicle parked near the kerb. Panton fumbled with her keys, threw on lights and sirens, and took off, as the reporters – clearly aware that this was Emma Cardwell, barefoot in her white suit, being dragged from her house – began scuttling for their own vehicles in an effort to join the chase.

  ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God, can somebody please tell me what is going on?’

  ‘Go, go!’ said Franklin.

  ‘Which way?’ asked Panton. Franklin kept his phone pinned to his ear, shouting directions as they whirled through red lights and startled traffic, down
the freeway, over the bridge, and into neighbourhoods unrecognisable to Emma.

  ‘Where are we going? Have they found her? Please, please tell me what’s going on? Is she okay? Is she okay?’

  Franklin motioned with his finger – shhh – as Panton swung the patrol car into Liam’s street.

  Emma, looking wild-eyed out the passenger window, cried, ‘My God, that’s Maven’s car! That’s PJ’s!’

  Panton jerked the patrol car up to the kerb. Franklin opened his door, telling Emma to wait.

  But Emma could not be stopped.

  She fell out of the passenger door, almost into the gutter. She collected herself, twisting an ankle as she tried to get up. She could see Maven standing on the front porch of a pink house with a wide-open front door, and she headed for her, making a sound that Franklin recognised from a thousand different accident and crime scenes.

  She was a mother, in despair. She was roaring like a lion.

  Emma reached the front porch just as PJ stepped outside the house. His face was white with shock. Behind him was a man Emma recognised – Pap! – with a camera up to his face. Emma pushed past them, catching sight of Brandon, standing with his back to the faded wallpaper at the end of the hallway. His eyes were closed. He had Fox in his arms. He was crying.

  Fox had her little legs wrapped tight around his waist and her arms around his neck and her blonde head was buried in his shoulder.

  Emma howled out her little girl’s name.

  ‘Mum-ma?’

  Fox lifted her face from her father’s neck. She looked dazed, like she was half asleep, but her eyes opened wide as Emma rushed forward, and she stuck her hands out like pink starfish.

  ‘Mum-ma!’ she said.

  Emma reached them in an instant. ‘Oh my God, Fox,’ she said. ‘You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.’

  Franklin was two steps behind Emma. He stopped dead and watched as she threw her arms around her baby, and her husband.

  His first thought: she’s alive.

  It’s Fox, and she’s alive. She looked exactly like the little girl in the picture – impish, delightful – and she was alive. He watched as Fox put her small hands on Emma’s crying face, and he watched as the little girl smeared her mother’s tears. Then he straightened.

  ‘Where is Liam?’ he asked.

  And then they heard it. One gunshot. Then two.

  The ambulance came flying off the main road into Liam’s street, lights and sirens wailing. The driver skidded into the gutter, and two paramedics jumped out and thundered towards the open gate, one of them carrying a lockable plastic box, the other with an oxygen tank under his arm. The crowd parted, then turned as one towards the sound of more patrol cars roaring into the street.

  Amazing developments here . . .

  Maven stood back by the Humvee, watching as PJ arranged his features into something approaching professional calm for the Stellar cameraman. Fox was safe, and they were live on the scene, which pleased her. She had taken one of Pap’s memory cards and slipped it into her pocket, with the aim of getting its contents downloaded onto a Stellar computer as soon as one of her minions arrived. Then it would have to go back to the police, of course, because probably some of it would be needed as evidence. But in the meantime, best to secure it. Because unless somebody got a court order, which nobody was likely to do in a hurry, Maven had every intention of putting as much as was suitable to air.

  Ellen Painter was sitting at the pine kitchen table, hands clasped. A uniformed officer was sitting beside her with one hand on her broad back. The portable TV atop the fridge was showing scenes from outside the house, live crosses from reporters assembled just beyond the gate.

  Glancing through the back door, Franklin could see Liam’s body laid out on the ground, at about the mid-point of the yard. There was a drag mark in the dust behind his head, leading back towards the open gate of the cage. A female paramedic was pressing on Liam’s bloodstained chest, while a male paramedic held an oxygen mask over his face.

  Franklin watched as they pressed and squeezed, stopped and started again, stopped, and shook their heads.

  He stepped outside. Panton was sitting distraught on the back step. Her partner, Sullivan, having arrived in one of the patrol cars, was sitting beside her, rubbing her back.

  ‘What happened?’ Franklin asked.

  Panton didn’t respond. Sullivan looked up. ‘She had to shoot the dogs. They couldn’t get the body out.’

  Franklin glanced further back. The dogs – Chaos and Havoc, as he’d later be told – were sprawled where they had fallen, already gathering flies.

  Franklin pulled one of the cottage-style chairs out from under the kitchen table, and sat opposite Ellen.

  ‘My name is Paul Franklin,’ he said. ‘I am a detective. CIB.’

  Ellen looked up. She was not crying but her face was a riot of grief.

  ‘I saw you on the TV,’ she said.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘When Emma was supposed to do the press conference. I’ve been watching. I saw you there.’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened here?’

  ‘Liam’s dead, isn’t he?’ Ellen said. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I was on the porch. I saw it. He shot him. Emma’s husband. Fox wasn’t in danger. Never.’

  She opened her hands and closed them around an old mug. She picked it up and looked inside but it was empty, and she put it down again.

  ‘Can you tell me how Fox came to be here?’ asked Franklin.

  ‘Liam was a good person,’ said Ellen. ‘He wasn’t going to hurt that little girl. I would never let him.’

  ‘But why was she here?’ asked Franklin.

  Ellen’s chest heaved. ‘I had a few dramas with Liam when he was at school,’ she said, deciding perhaps that was the best place to start the story. ‘But lately he’s been doing good. I don’t know what got into him.’

  She recounted their tale: Ellen had been a single mum when she had Liam. His dad had never been around. There had never been much money but he had never gone without. He’d gone to the local school. Other kids had picked on him a bit. He hadn’t coped well with rules. At age sixteen, he’d got caught riding a stolen BMX and the school counsellor had suggested TAFE, or maybe the army. He’d tried TAFE but that was just more books and homework, and a supervisor who had given him the shits. Ellen’s brother had been in the army and it had been the making of him, so Liam had agreed to give it a go. The basic training hadn’t bothered him. He liked working out. He could have seen himself staying there, but he’d damaged an eardrum during a training exercise, and had to be discharged. He’d taken up security work with an agency – pubs and clubs and shopping centre patrols – and he’d been good at that, too, and then he’d landed the job with Emma.

  ‘I told him, this could be your meal ticket,’ said Ellen. ‘This is better than night patrol. It’s not hard. It’s not as dangerous. You do this right and there will be other big stars.’

  ‘But can you tell me how Fox ended up here?’ asked Franklin again.

  Ellen closed one hand over the other. ‘It started a week ago,’ she said. ‘Liam told me, Emma wants us to look after Fox for her. Just one night. He said she had a cockroach problem, and don’t take that the wrong way! It’s got nothing to do with how clean her house is, or anything like that. He said the best people were coming to bomb the house, and they couldn’t stay there. It was just for one night. At first I thought, what, they’re all coming here? Why don’t they just go to a hotel? Because Emma’s got a lot of money. He said the boys – she’s got two boys – were going camping with their father, and Fox couldn’t go because she was only a baby and he wanted some kind of boys’ adventure time. And Emma had to work, so Liam said we would take care of Fox.’

  ‘But did that ring true?’ asked Franklin. ‘Had you met Emma before?’

  ‘I’d never met Emma,’ said Ellen. ‘I’ve seen her on the TV. But I am a foster carer. I’ve looked after seventy-two children – tha
t’s in twelve years. And Liam has been working for Emma for a year and she trusts him with her life. And he told me Fox had a lot of nannies.’

  Franklin encouraged her to go on.

  ‘Liam told me that Fox would go to daycare – this was yesterday – and I should pick her up, and bring her back here. He said, go at one o’clock, and I was right on time. I found her backpack, I signed her out. I waved her toy rabbit like Liam had told me, so she would know it was me. We went into the shopping centre, and that’s when I lost her.’

  ‘You lost her?’

  ‘She ran away,’ said Ellen. ‘I had her by the hand. We were standing next to the lift, the doors opened, and she got in, and I got in, and then she let go of my hand and ran out, and the door closed. I tried to put my hand out, to stop the lift, but I pulled it back. I didn’t want her to get trapped between the doors, and I was frantic, running around looking for her. I thought, Emma trusted me and I’ve lost her. But I found her quick. She was talking to that security guard.’

  Franklin glanced towards the back door. He could hear movement, and suspected that it was the paramedics, loading Liam’s body onto a stretcher, or into a bag.

  ‘I brought her home,’ Ellen said. ‘I gave her some biscuits and milk. And then Liam came home, maybe around 5 pm, a bit later than normal. I asked him where he’d been, and he said he’d had to take Emma to lunch and then back to the station.’

  ‘And once you had Fox here, did you think to call Emma?’ asked Franklin.

  ‘No, because Liam said she was working. She had another shoot on. And I never had Emma’s number anyway. Where she lived and everything was supposed to be secret because she had that stalker, which is how Liam got the job in the first place.’

  Franklin nodded. ‘So Fox stayed with you last night?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And Liam was here?’

  ‘Yeah, but he wasn’t himself,’ said Ellen, gripping the empty mug. ‘Something was up. He was asking me, how long did I stay in the shopping centre with Fox? But I just figured he was jumpy because it’s a big responsibility to take care of Emma’s daughter. But then he got a call. I don’t know who called him but he went out, and he didn’t come back until this morning, and by the time he got back I already knew something wasn’t right, because it was all over the news. I watch Cuppa. Since Liam started working there I’m the biggest fan. I turned on Cuppa and that PJ was on, saying Emma’s daughter’s missing. And as soon as Liam came in, I said, “What is going on?” and “You’d better ring the police and tell them everything.”’