The Way Back

by Kylie Ladd

  Terry straightened his cuffs, then, not satisfied, straightened them again. That was better. He carefully clasped his hands in front of him and settled them on the desk a safe distance behind the microphone. There. Now to hold the position. Who’d have thought that the media training the new Commissioner had foisted on them a few years back would ever come in handy? Don’t fidget, he told himself. Don’t scratch or cough. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind his nose started itching. He tried to ignore it, glancing around the room to see how many TV stations were here, but it only got worse. Bugger. They hadn’t started yet. Maybe if he just quickly rubbed his nose against his shoulder, then he could leave his hands as they were, like he’d been instructed.

  ‘And on in three, two, one,’ somebody called from the side of the room, and if Shell was watching at home the first glimpse she’d have had of him would have been with his face buried in his jacket.

  It was his first press conference. No wonder he was so nervous. Almost thirty-five years in the force, and he’d never had to stump up to the media room at the Victoria Police Centre in the Docklands. Hell, he’d never even been to the Docklands before today, and it had taken him a while to figure out how to get there. Along with Crown, it was part of a Melbourne he didn’t know, and didn’t care to. If Terry came into the city it was for a match at the MCG or maybe a special dinner at Flower Drum, then straight back home again. He and Shell made the trip less and less often these days. He’d asked her if she’d wanted to join him this morning, maybe get lunch afterwards, but she’d declined. Who could blame her? Melbourne was too much for them now, too big, too loud, too fast. He’d take their little valley in the north-east over the whole sprawling mess of it any day of the week.

  But then no one wanted to be here today, did they? Terry glanced along the table, past CIB Cayden and his offsider, Rhett, to where Matt and Rachael Johnson were sitting, and immediately detested himself for worrying about anything as trivial as how to place his hands. Three full days their girl had been missing now, three days and three nights. He wondered if they’d slept at all when he’d finally sent them home from the pony club yesterday afternoon. Rachael hadn’t wanted to leave—of course she hadn’t; it was quite clear that she still expected Charlie to turn up any moment now. Matt had got it, though. He had blanched when Terry first suggested that they might be dealing with an abduction, but he’d followed Terry’s reasoning; he’d understood that the best thing he and Rachael could do for their daughter was to drive home, shower, get some rest, then front up first thing Tuesday and tell the story to a pack of hungry journalists. The SES would continue to search for Charlie.

  Terry sighed to himself. The media, one of his colleagues had once crudely remarked, were like women: can’t live without them, can’t leave them by the kerb when you’re done. Did the Johnsons have any idea as to how much worse their life was about to get? Once the pack got a whiff of this, took one look at that photo, they’d be onto it like starving jackals. They’d run banner headlines and quote unsourced scuttlebutt; they’d make up stories if they had to and attribute them to ‘a friend of the family’; they’d shadow the Johnsons until they were reunited with Charlie and whisked straight to 60 Minutes or collapsed and died of grief. As CIB Cayden droned on, Terry looked down at the press release in front of him. What a photo it was: Charlie radiant and smiling astride a chestnut horse, her long ash-blonde hair catching the light and creating a halo around her face. That was the other reason he’d sent Matt and Rachael home, to select a photo for today: something that would engage the pack, that would make Charlie front page news; something that might just bring her home.

  The missing girl looked a damn sight better than her parents did. Matt was speaking now, doing his best to ignore the three boom mics shoved at his face. There were blue smudges under his eyes, which were drawn and tired, but his hands were steady and he answered the questions put to him politely and with resolve. Rachael, however, was a wreck. She was yet to speak, though the press conference had been going for almost twenty minutes. She stared at her hands in her lap. Her hair looked as if it had not been brushed since Saturday night. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing, Terry thought. The public preferred their mothers dumb and suffering, incoherent with anguish. Look what happened to Lindy Chamberlain when she didn’t cry.

  He glanced down again at the picture of Charlie. Girls and horses; horses and girls. It was ever thus. Katy had gone through it too—the pony posters covering her bedroom walls, the mooning around paddocks, the relentless campaign for one of her own. They’d given in eventually, of course, and the memory of presenting her with Magpie just after dawn one Christmas morning could still bring a lump to his throat. How she’d thrown her arms around Shell and him, how she’d loved that little piebald. Always feeding him, grooming him, schooling him, riding out every weekend with friends—until the year she turned 15 and lost interest overnight. Shell had cautioned him a number of times that it wouldn’t last forever, that the girl-equine bond was a developmental stage, a form of preparation for the intense attachments, driven by hormones, yet to come. He’d believed her, because Shell always knew what she was talking about, but he hadn’t believed her at the same time. It just didn’t seem possible. Katy and Magpie were always together, right up until the sunny Saturday afternoon that she first went off on the back of a motorbike instead of her mount.

  She was in her late twenties now, but Terry still didn’t like to think of her with boys. Men, he corrected himself. They were men now, the ones she brought home occasionally for them to meet. Men with beards and pierced eyebrows and, on one really bad day, a full sleeve of tatts. Shell had caught him staring and kicked him under the table as she passed the gravy. Later, after Katy and the inked one had left, she’d laughed and told him that he should have seen his face, then, stacking the dishwasher, that he shouldn’t be so quick to judge. Plenty of psychopaths wore suits, she’d said. Terry shifted in his seat, covertly eyeing the duo next to him. Plenty of nancy boys too. There was a gold ring on Cayden’s pinkie; Rhett’s aftershave must be knocking out at least the front two rows of journos. Even their names were as shiny and artificial as everything else in the Docklands.

  Terry folded his arms across his chest, forgetting his training. Maybe he was just bitter. The CIB always took over missing persons operations, he reminded himself. That was protocol, not personal, and no reflection on him. He’d been permitted to stay on the case at least, which didn’t always happen. Bloody hell, though, did they have to be so young? It was like taking direction from a puppy. As if he’d read Terry’s mind, Cayden turned to him and said smoothly, ‘I think Sergeant Peters would be the best person to answer that.’

  Terry scrambled to remember what had just been asked. He’d tuned out over the last ten minutes, as the gathered scrum had made it clear they were only interested in what the parents or the shiny boys had to say.

  Cayden didn’t miss a beat. ‘Would you mind repeating the question?’ he asked a woman to the left of the stage. Terry would have to buy him a beer later. He might even let him finish it before he killed him.

  The woman was the six o’clock news type: big hair, big teeth, oversized statement necklace. ‘Have you excluded all potential suspects?’ Terry stared at her blankly. ‘Everyone in the area, I mean,’ the woman amended, ‘or who knew’—she peeked at the press release—‘Charlie. The pony club manager, for example. People from her school.’

  Terry leaned towards the microphone. ‘We don’t know who was in the area at the time,’ he said. ‘It’s mostly national park, with some pretty dense bush. We put a call out yesterday asking for anyone who was there to get in touch, but so far we haven’t had any responses. We’ve also spoken to the manager of the club, but we have no reason to believe that she, or indeed any of Charlie’s friends or contacts, are linked to this in any way.’

  Gia had been instructing at the time that Charlie went missing, which she’d pointed out as soon as Terry had interviewed her. She’d
been nervous, of course, despite all her bluster. People were always nervous the moment they were asked to sit down opposite an officer and the door was closed behind them. Gia had a cast-iron alibi, though, and Terry had never seriously suspected her, anyway. No motive. Same with Ivy, who had had to be ruled out as the last person to have seen Charlie. Ivy was ruthless and a little frightening, true, but Terry had believed her when she’d told him that it would have been far too boring to walk all the way home with Charlie after Tic Tac went lame, so she had just left them. And then there was Liam, whom Ivy had told Terry was Charlie’s boyfriend. Liam himself had denied the claim when brought in for questioning, but then the whole concept was probably a little fluid given he was still only twelve. The poor child had been so terrified that he could barely speak, squirming on a chair between his mother and father. In the end Terry had taken pity on him and let him go. He’d clearly been closer to Charlie that he was letting on, but that only made him unlucky, not guilty.

  Ms Six O’Clock News thanked him and nodded to her crew. It seemed like a signal: around the room reporters began dismantling mics and recording equipment, started glancing towards the door. ‘Are there any more questions?’ asked CIB Cayden, then thanked them all for coming. Rhett moved off to speak with the Johnsons; Terry lingered in his seat, unsure if he’d been dismissed. ‘Let’s hope that brings in some leads,’ Cayden said, collecting up his papers. ‘I’ll make sure it gets on Twitter once we have a link.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Terry mumbled, hoping he sounded convincing. Twitter, like the casino, was something he didn’t really get.

  There was a Subaru in her spot. In the gloom of the museum car park Rachael only saw the offending vehicle at the last minute, as she was already swinging into her assigned bay, and had to brake hard. She sat there, staring at it, fuming. How dare they? Couldn’t they read? The sign on the wall behind it was clear: Reserved parking. Museum staff. Then, in smaller letters, Senior Curator. Whoever had taken her spot had probably told themselves that it was the weekend, so no one would notice, no one would be in. Rachael clenched the steering wheel in irritation, her foot twitching on the accelerator. How easy it would be just to rev it a little, to sail smoothly into the rear of the wagon, to knock out its indicators, crumple its bumper. Easy to explain too: she hadn’t seen it, she wasn’t expecting it, clearly she was distracted. Temptation coursed through her as she counted to ten, then slowly, reluctantly, put her own car into reverse. It wouldn’t do to dent it any further. She’d need it to be working when the call finally came and she had to race to get Charlie. Rachael slowly drove away, scanning the crowded rows for somewhere else to park. If she could total the Subaru without damaging her BMW, she would gladly go back and do it right now.

  She was still upset when she reached her office, hand shaking as she tried to get the key in the door. But then she would be, wouldn’t she? Finally in, she sat down behind her desk and dropped her head into her hands. A week. Seven days and seven nights that Charlie had been gone. A week in which she’d slept five, maybe six, hours total, and none of them consecutively; a week in which all she could recall swallowing was a few pieces of toast and endless cups of coffee. A week and no news. Nothing. It was as if her daughter had simply been swallowed up by the bush, had been spirited away from the earth itself.

  Charlie was the headline story on every news bulletin on every channel, but after a day of watching them all obsessively Rachael had turned off the TV and shut down the wifi. It was just the same thing, over and over—missing girl, thirteen, pony found, blonde hair—and not the news she was waiting for. That would come from Terry or the CIB, but though they both called every day, often more than once, so far they had had nothing more to add either.

  Rachael closed her eyes and went over it all one more time. Cooking dinner on Saturday evening almost this time last week; the phone call from Gia; her mad dash out to pony club; hitting that tree. It occurred to her that she’d never mentioned the accident to Matt, and he hadn’t said anything about the scratches on her car. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. They’d had other things on their minds. Saturday, Sunday and Monday at pony club—the orange SES overalls, Terry’s watchful eyes, the smell of chaff and leather, and those long, long hours waiting for news. Returning home on Monday night, the house cold and somehow reproachful, the chickens clamouring to be fed. The porch light had still been on, just as she’d left it, and Matt had gone to turn it off but she’d stopped him. It was a gut instinct, and hard to explain. It had to stay on for Charlie, she’d told him, so she knew they were expecting her, waiting for her, whenever it was she came back—with them, or Terry, or all on her own. Matt had looked at her as if she was mad, but had done as she’d asked. Then the press conference on Tuesday, a bad dream she couldn’t wake up from, but since then nothing.

  Matt had gone back to the pony club, although this time he had insisted that Dan stay home and take a break. The two of them had spent the last few days combing the hills with the few remaining SES volunteers, coming home every night for meals that friends and neighbours had dropped in and that none of them could touch. Matt had asked her on the Wednesday if she’d wanted to go with them, and she’d started to get ready but then declined. She hated that place. She couldn’t go back to it. The grey-green trees stretching beyond her vision, the relentless empty horizon. It overwhelmed her, it taunted her. She needed to be home for when Charlie showed up. Imagine, if she came back and no one was there, the house shut up and locked? Charlie didn’t have keys, or rather, she did, but she hadn’t taken them riding. Rachael had pointed this out to Matt and he’d given her that look again, the one that said she was losing it, and maybe she was. Matt, in contrast, was holding it together. He spent his days calling Charlie’s name until he was almost hoarse, then spent his nights marking off grids on a map of the national park. He looked crap, like she did, and he wasn’t sleeping or eating either, but he hadn’t yet just sat down on the couch and sobbed, as Rachael seemed to do hourly. Thank God for Matt, determined, steadfast Matt.

  And for Dan too, for going with Matt, for being beside him when Rachael couldn’t. Whenever she thought of Dan, Rachael felt a twinge of guilt. She had hardly spoken to him in the past week; she hadn’t once asked him how he was coping or what he was thinking, but she pushed the thought away. Dan was alive, breathing, moving among them, and she had far more pressing things to be feeling guilty about. She shouldn’t have let Charlie go riding in the bush. She should never have signed that form. She’d had no idea just how big the park was, how easily it could engulf a tiny girl on a pony, but she should have found out, damn it, she should have known. She should never have let Charlie ride a horse at all. She should have made her stick to netball or do dance, like all the other girls her age. She shouldn’t have been thinking about work when the call came in. She shouldn’t have worked. If she’d been a better mother, home more often, more attentive, Charlie would never have gone missing.

  Rachael took a deep breath and made herself pull her chair up to her desk. She was being stupid. She was losing it. Resolutely she switched on her computer and reached for the pile of messages on her desk. Dan had stayed home today, somebody was there for Charlie, so she had decided to come into work. All her staff knew what had happened and no one expected her to be there, but the new exhibition had opened and they must need some support—there would be questions to be answered, calls to return. More than that, though, she had hoped that it might distract her, if only temporarily, from her endlessly looping thoughts: the guilt, the worry, the fear that Charlie was dead and the almost worse fear that she wasn’t. She prayed that her daughter was alive, of course she did, but if she was then she would be terrified, possibly injured, cold, hungry, alone—and maybe someone had taken her, maybe he had her right now and he was reaching for her and pulling at her clothes and holding her down … panic sparked in Rachael’s throat like a bushfire. The screen came to life and she opened her inbox: 567 unread emails, many marked as urgent. She pushed back her chai
r and stood up, shaking. She couldn’t do this. It didn’t matter. She had to get home to Charlie.

  He was outside the door again. Charlie could hear him shuffling his feet and scrabbling with the lock, trying to get the key in. Instinctively she sat up and backed away to the furthest corner of the stable. Mixed with her fear she felt a flash of derision. How many times had he opened that lock? At least twice a day every day that she’d been here, and that must be eight or nine now. So why did it always take him so long? How stupid was he?

  The bottom half of the stable door jerked open and daylight bled into the stall. Charlie blinked, willing her eyes to adjust, and pulled herself into a crouch. If the man pushed it just a little further ajar, if he bent down to leave her some food or to pick up the bucket he’d provided her with in lieu of a toilet, maybe she could get past him, maybe she could make a dash for the sliver of sky behind his shoulder. She’d been planning this; she’d thought it through. The stable, though old, was too strong to break out of, and he clearly had no plans to let her go. Taking him by surprise was her only chance, knocking him over if she had to and bounding away into the bush.