Gone by Midnight

by Candice Fox

  The young officers strode down the small incline towards me, and their lifted chins and smirks didn’t give me much confidence that this was a friendly visit. I turned on my heel and started walking back around the side of the house.

  ‘Hold up, Conkaffey!’

  I went straight to my phone, which I’d left on the cane lounge on the porch. Celine ran over to the officers and did a tight circle of them, sniffing and barking good-naturedly.

  I picked up my phone and typed a quick message to Amanda. Three letters.

  SOS.

  I knew it was all I had time for. And I was right. In seconds the two officers were boxing me in against the wall of the porch.

  ‘Ted Conkaffey?’ snapped one of the officers, a square-headed guy with tattoos poking up from his collar, and a name badge that read Frisp.

  ‘You know who I am,’ I said.

  ‘We’re here to escort you to Cairns. Please hand me that phone and do not resist arrest.’

  This was my nightmare. The moment I had played and replayed a thousand times in my sleep, the moment that pressed into my consciousness sometimes hourly, no matter where I was or what I was doing. Fear of rearrest. It was happening. All I could hope for was that the action plan I had put in place for this very scenario would make the experience as painless as possible.

  I had never been acquitted of the charges laid against me. They had simply been dropped due to a lack of evidence. When the tables started to turn in the courtroom the state had decided they didn’t want to proceed with my trial, for fear of my being acquitted and them never being able to charge me again. I’d gone to bed every night since my release knowing that it might be my last free night, that a piece of evidence or a witness out of the blue might reopen my case at any time. Although recently the New South Wales police had released an official statement saying that I was no longer a ‘person of interest’ in the abduction and rape of Claire Bingley, few news outlets had given the statement much coverage. It’s hard to turn the great ship of public opinion around. Most people tend to believe an accusation as terrible as mine couldn’t possibly fall on the completely innocent. If I wasn’t guilty of Claire’s assault, I was surely guilty of something.

  I had briefed my few allies on what to do if I was ever arrested again.

  Step one, Amanda would receive my distress signal. She would open an app on her mobile that traced the location of my phone. She would then call my lawyer, Sean Wilkins, who would make plans to get to where I was being held as soon as possible. Amanda would then call my friend Dr Valerie Gratteur, who would go to my house and oversee any police searches that occurred there to make sure they were performed properly.

  While all this was happening, I would say nothing of consequence to the police and try to make sure my rights weren’t trampled on. It was a good plan, one I’d worked on carefully over a series of months. But of course it hinged on everyone following the script, and the two young cowboys standing before me didn’t look like they planned to do that at all.

  I held on to my phone and backed into the corner of the porch.

  ‘I will not comply without an arrest warrant.’ I held up the phone and turned the camera towards them as I thumbed the screen. ‘I’m recording this, which is my right. I want to see the warrant and –’

  Gamble, Frisp’s squat, long-armed partner, faked grabbing at the phone. As I swung it away from him, Frisp snatched it from my hand. My plan was already going awry. Celine stood on the edge of the porch, terror in her big black eyes, the hackles rising along her wide back. She gave a low, groaning growl, a sound I’d never heard her make. Dangerous, from the pit of her belly.

  ‘Celine, it’s okay, honey,’ I assured her.

  ‘Hands on the wall.’ Frisp pointed.

  ‘I want to know what I’m being arrested for. That’s my right.’

  ‘If that fat fucking dog goes for me, I’m going to swat it.’ Gamble had a hand on his baton, Celine tracking him as he stepped back from her.

  ‘You touch my dog and I will end you.’ I looked Gamble in the eyes, my whole body trembling with rage. ‘I mean it. I will fucking. End. You.’

  Gamble must have seen something in me that turned him. He glanced at Frisp for encouragement, but found none. Trying to breathe, I put my hands on the wall, still talking for the sake of the officers’ body recorders, which I hoped were turned on.

  ‘I have not been read my rights,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen no arrest warrant. My property has been unlawfully confiscated. I don’t know where I’m being taken or why.’

  ‘Save the victim act for the courtroom, Conkaffey.’ Frisp cuffed my hands behind my back, ratcheting the metal bands too tight.

  My mind was crashing. I needed to stay calm, stay ahead of the game, but blood was rushing into my neck and face. I couldn’t swallow. I let them lead me to the car to avoid upsetting my animals any more than was necessary. As I turned the corner at the side of the house, I saw the geese were on their feet at the end of the yard, beaks high with distress, wings splayed out from panting breasts. Celine followed us, whimpering and growling, until I stopped beside the driveway.

  ‘Celine, it’s okay. Go to your bed and stay.’ She took uncertain, fearful steps back towards the porch. ‘Good girl. On your bed.’

  In the car, Frisp tossed my phone into the centre console, which was stuffed with cigarette butts. There was a pressure in my chest and back like hands pushing against my ribcage, squeezing the life out of me, making my eyes bulge. I sucked in air and tried to stay calm, tried to rationalise the situation. Amanda would already be putting the SOS plan into action. There was nothing I could do now to stay free, but I could do things to get free again. Time to change tactics. Gather information.

  As far as I was concerned, there were three possibilities.

  First, that my charges for the abduction, sexual assault and attempted murder of Claire Bingley had been brought again. If that was the case, then I had a plan. I knew who had really assaulted Claire, and her father did, too. Months earlier, I had watched helplessly as Dale Bingley had murdered her attacker, a young man named Kevin Driscoll, in a Sydney warehouse. To prove my innocence to him, at least, I’d helped Claire’s father find the real perpetrator. And he’d enacted his brutal revenge. A diary had been found in Driscoll’s car that implicated him in Claire’s attack. I would use that to defend myself in a new trial. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  That brought about the second possibility. The New South Wales police had questioned me extensively over Kevin Driscoll’s death. They had bits and pieces to go on – my phone had been in the area of the crime scene, and I had communicated with Claire Bingley’s father in the lead-up to the murder. He had come to my house, slept on my porch, drunk my whiskey and then been found at the scene, calm but unwilling to cooperate with police inquiries. Dale was in the same position I was – no one could prove that he had done more than stumble into the warehouse where Kevin Driscoll was killed. There was no murder weapon, no physical evidence to link him to the crime. His charges were dropped, but not dismissed. Maybe things had changed. Maybe I was being arrested now because they’d found something that could definitively put me in that warehouse on that awful night.

  The third possibility was that something completely new had happened. That at some time in the past twenty-four hours a child had been stolen, assaulted or abused, and I was being brought in as a suspect. It was possible that a new accusation against me had emerged. It had happened before. If that was the case, I needed to think about my alibi. I’d spent the whole night at home, only leaving to visit the vet at 3 am. But I’d sent messages and made phone calls, used the internet. I was sweating, my brain thrumming with ideas, trying to form and consolidate strategies.

  I was distracted from my turmoil as the patrol car rolled towards Cairns, gliding down Kenny Street. I expected the car to turn left for the police station nestled in the heart of the tourist district, but they continued along Wharf Street, past palm-lined beaches
, the newly risen sun just beginning its onslaught on the pavement. They continued past the sprawling, empty parking lot of the convention centre towards the blazing-white blocks of the White Caps Hotel.

  The back car park entrance was blocked with police cars. As we approached I caught a glimpse of a huddle of press at one of the side entrances, where more police officers stood guard, stern-faced and unaccommodating.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  They ignored me.

  ‘Hey, shitbird.’ I nudged the wire mesh between Frisp’s seat and mine. ‘I asked a question. What’s going on?’

  ‘What’s going on is you pushed your luck too far this time, kiddie-fucker.’ He glared at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘You should have quit while you were ahead.’

  He went into the bathroom off the staff dining room and briefly made sure there was no one in the stalls, still trying to catch his breath. The air wouldn’t come, his efforts only bringing oxygen into the top of his lungs. The supervisor’s words in the men’s change room only minutes earlier rang in his head like a bell being struck over and over, a blinding, painful sound.

  ‘They’re not having any luck finding the boy. Things are getting serious. The boss wants all staff in conference room eight, right now. Leave your things and go.’

  The man knew he should go to the staff meeting. He needed to be seen there, looking shocked and horrified with the rest of them at the child’s fate. He was shocked and horrified, but he was not surprised. He already knew what had happened, could picture it in his mind like a video on playback. He went to the sink, bent and gagged, but the sickness refused to rise. What he wanted to do was go back to where it had happened. To see the awful reality for himself.

  He looked at his reflection in the mirror, wiping sweat from his face with calloused hands. It was typical of him to have done this. He knew exactly how his father would have reacted if he was still alive, watching the events unfold the way he used to watch him play when he was a child: an army sergeant surveying one of his troops with his arms folded, eyes heavy-lidded, lip curled with distaste. The man in the bathroom could see his father at the edge of the sand, the surf washing at his thick ankles, pointing with his impossibly big finger at his work.

  ‘Don’t put that there. It’ll collapse. All right, put it there and see what happens. See? See? You don’t have any understanding of structure. You’ve got to learn, you idiot.’

  He could feel the structure of his life collapsing now like the sandcastle, hand-moulded edges sliding and falling under the weight of his stick and rock embellishments. All his hard work crumbling. There had been no warning, no cracks or shudders. He crouched now, holding the edge of the sink with one hand, even his legs unable to take the weight anymore. He was shaking so badly the huge ring of keys on his belt was jingling.

  How could he have done this? How could he have let it happen again?

  I was marched through a foyer packed with police officers standing in groups, looking at maps and talking on phones, the seating area and a huddle of tall tables completely swamped by blue uniforms. There was a queue of worried-looking people who appeared to be checking out of the hotel, but instead of doing so at the reception counter they were being taken one by one into rooms and having their suitcases opened on a large table. Every face in range turned towards me. I walked straight and tall between the cowboys as we turned left off the foyer and down a hallway into a large boardroom stuffed with the older, harder faces of non-uniformed cops. The only face I recognised was that of a visibly stressed Damien Clark, the chief superintendent of the Crimson Lake police.

  ‘Chief, we’ve brought you Ted Conkaffey, as requested.’

  Chief Clark looked at me, his mouth slightly parted in shock.

  I stared back, my jaw set. ‘I want my lawyer,’ I said.

  ‘Would you …’ Chief Clark glanced around the men and women he’d been meeting with, the mass of papers and maps on the boardroom table before him. ‘Would you all excuse me for just a minute?’

  Chief Clark marched past me, bumping Gamble on the shoulder. The two cops looked at each other. We followed Clark down another hall into a smaller boardroom, this one crammed with chairs stacked against one wall.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ Clark snapped at Frisp.

  ‘We …’ He looked at Gamble for support. ‘You asked us to bring you Ted Conkaffey. You said, “Get Conkaffey. Bring him in.”’

  ‘Yes, I said, “Bring him in!” Not “Bring him in.”’ Chief Clark squeezed his brow, making the skin above his eyebrows pucker. ‘I literally meant bring him here, to this place. Not arrest him and march him in handcuffs past a hundred officers. Holy fuck. Did any press see him?’

  The cowboys looked at each other, then at the chief. Then all three men looked at me.

  ‘I want my lawyer,’ I said.

  I was uncuffed. I sat in the small boardroom and listened as Chief Clark roared at the two officers on the other side of the door. I winced as he slammed the wall between us with his palm to emphasise his words.

  ‘Did you honestly believe that if I thought Conkaffey was a person of interest I’d have sent two fuck-knuckles in a squad car to pick him up?’

  ‘Well, I mean –’ Frisp said.

  ‘You didn’t even have an arrest warrant!’

  ‘We thought …’ Gamble struggled with his words. ‘You know. With his history and all. We just assumed …’

  I rapped my fingers on the boardroom table and fantasised about poking my head out the door and requesting a coffee. When Chief Clark came back into the room he had my phone, which he set on the table between us as he sat down, taking a moment to rub his face hard with both hands. His stubble made a rustling sound against his rough palms.

  ‘There has been a terrible mistake,’ he began.

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘All I can do is offer you my apologies. I didn’t bring you here because I believed you were a person of interest in the case I’m dealing with.’

  ‘Well, that’s just dandy.’ I smiled, taking my phone from the table between us. ‘Have a nice day, Chief.’ I stood and turned to leave the room.

  ‘There’s a boy missing,’ he said.

  I paused, my hand on the polished chrome doorknob. The phone was vibrating as messages, no doubt from my lawyer, came through. I waited.

  ‘He went missing from a room upstairs that had three other boys in it,’ the chief continued. ‘Last night, around midnight, we think. The boys were all sleeping. Their parents were downstairs in the restaurant. We’re approaching seven hours, and there’s no sign.’

  I let my hand fall from the door.

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ I said. ‘Child goes missing. Those shithead officers assumed you’d pick up the local paedophiles, give them a shake, see what falls out.’

  ‘We’ve looked at you already.’ Clark sat back in his chair, folded his arms, shrugged.

  ‘You had no legal cause to do that,’ I snapped. ‘I’m no longer a person of interest in the Bingley case. To you I should be just a regular, law-abiding citizen.’

  ‘Tough luck,’ he said. ‘I did it. Of course I did it.’

  I sighed.

  ‘Someone at your address was using the internet to stream a movie until about 11.30 pm,’ he said. ‘And someone used your phone at that location to play a game called Candy Crush until about 11.45 pm. The phone was idle then until 3 am, when it was transported to a veterinarian’s office. Your credit card was used there.’

  ‘Sick bird,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry to hear it,’ Clark said, the sentiment totally devoid of warmth. ‘At the end of the day, the timeline doesn’t fit. You didn’t have enough time to get to the hotel to abduct the boy.’

  ‘Unless I had someone use the phone and internet at my place as an alibi,’ I said, for some reason.

  ‘Did you?’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look, I’m satisfied it’s not you,’ Clark said. ‘We don’t have your car
on CCTV in Cairns. We don’t have you on the hotel cameras. And your former accusation, however unproven, involved a teenage girl. I’m sure you know most paedophiles tend to stick to a certain type.’

  I felt my back teeth lock together.

  ‘You haven’t been my concern,’ Clark continued. ‘Crimson Lake is where bad people come to disappear. I’ve got every kind of scumbag you could imagine on my beat. There are runaway rapists, drug dealers, wife-killers and retired hitmen in my jurisdiction. The place is a fucking jungle. A quiet accused paedophile who lives on the edge of the lake fifty k’s from the nearest kid doesn’t interest me.’

  ‘Then why am I here?’

  ‘The boy’s mother has requested you.’

  I pulled out the chair I had just been sitting in and sat down. We both knew I wasn’t going anywhere yet. ‘Seven hours. She’s calling in back-up already?’

  Clark shook his head, weary.

  ‘Why does she want me? Are you going to allow it?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know why she wants you. She didn’t tell me. It could be all the press you got over the last case. Maybe she’s one of your … fans.’ He looked me up and down, his lip curled. He meant the league of supporters I’d accrued over the time since my arrest, a group assembled around a podcast that professed my innocence.

  ‘If you agree to take on the case,’ Clark continued, ‘I’ll allow it on the proviso that you report anything and everything of interest you uncover to me. You’ll be the closest person to her in the investigation, and you’re not police. She may let something slip to you that she doesn’t want us to know.’

  I put my elbows on the table and held my head. I needed sleep. Coffee. A minute’s reprieve from the screaming fight-or-flight panic still thumping through my brain that hadn’t quietened since my ride in the squad car. A thought pushed through the chaos, that today was the day my daughter was arriving from Sydney. If I took the job I’d be trying to find a missing child while I was supposed to be spending time with my own. The selfishness of the thought didn’t escape me. My phone was still going mad in my hand. I slipped it into my pocket.