The Vale Girl

by Nelika McDonald

  In the car, he rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment. His heart was working overtime, a mad thumping racket in his chest. He took a bottle of pills from his pocket and swallowed a couple down dry. He had forgotten the frustration of working with other coppers, and incompetent ones at that. Crane was alright, he supposed, but the man appeared to have more time for lunch than he did for Sarah Vale. Sergeant Henson had also forgotten what it felt like to be the person charged with finding someone who was missing. The one responsible for her rescue. The weight felt like a bag of wet concrete lying across his shoulders. Sarah Vale could be anywhere by now, anywhere at all. And he had to find her. It was his job.

  The sergeant thought of the girl with the puppy in the Ford Falcon at the service station in Sydney, and the girls after her. Missing girls, dead girls, girls who were alive but wishing they were dead. Every one of them was tattooed across his mind, their names imprinted into his consciousness forever. If you asked him now, he could recite them, in order, one by one – a litany of his failures. Maybe there hadn’t been that many, statistically. He was good at his job, he knew that. Very good, in fact. But that took its toll. He might not have had any biological offspring, but Sergeant Henson had his children. And yet one more of them was missing as he sat there in his car.

  The sergeant drove across town and parked at the school. He planned to retrace the route Sarah had taken on that Friday morning, stopping in at every house between there and the creek. He had a map and a list of the residents occupying the houses. Someone must have seen something – and if they had, he would wring it out of them, so help him God.

  The first house, opposite the high school, belonged to the Montgomerys. They owned an antique dealership in Main Street, and had two children at the high school, Kirsten and Evan. Kirsten opened the door. She was younger than Sarah, but looked a little like her – though a healthier version. Her hair was gathered in a bouncy ponytail and her eyes and teeth shone. This was what Sarah would have looked like if she had regular meals cooked for her. Kirsten smiled at the sergeant.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi, Kirsten. Is your mum home?’

  Kirsten let the door swing open. Behind her, Henson could hear the low hum of a vacuum cleaner somewhere in the house.

  ‘MUM!’ Kirsten hollered down the hallway. The vacuum cleaner noise stopped. Mrs Montgomery appeared, wearing an old tracksuit, a headband, and glasses. Henson had never seen her in glasses before; he supposed she must wear contacts when she went out. It always surprised him how polished this particular set of women in Banville were, dressing up to do the grocery shopping or pick their children up from school. He thought how tedious it must be for them not to feel like they could just leave the house as they were, warts and all. But that wasn’t the Banville way.

  ‘Sergeant Henson, please come in,’ Mrs Montgomery said, smoothing her hair back behind the band.

  ‘Well, actually, I can’t stay, Carol. I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about Sarah Vale, Susannah Vale’s daughter. The young girl who’s gone missing.’

  Kirsten caught his eye from the hallway and then ducked through a doorway and vanished.

  ‘The other policemen have already been.’ Mrs Montogomery folded her arms across her chest and looked past the sergeant out to the street, as if to check if anyone was listening.

  ‘Yes. I’m just doing a follow-up.’ He held out the photo of Sarah.

  Mrs Montgomery leant forward and looked at it briefly.

  ‘I don’t know anything about her.’

  Sergeant Henson frowned. ‘So you didn’t see her pass by here on Friday morning?’

  ‘No. And neither Kirsten nor Evan is permitted to associate with her. Terribly sorry – I’m not much use to you, am I?’ Mrs Montgomery unfolded her arms and tugged at the hem of her t-shirt.

  ‘Right, well, thanks anyway,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘Say hello to Gertie for me.’ Mrs Montgomery couldn’t close the door fast enough. A moment later the vacuum cleaner started up again.

  Henson crossed the Montgomery house off his list. At the next house, Clive Fitzgerald didn’t even put down the saw he was using to trim back the branches of the mango tree in his front yard.

  ‘Sorry, Sarge, those bloody kids all look the same to me,’ he said. ‘Feral little monsters.’

  ‘Don’t like kids, then?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘Thieves, the lot of ’em. Raid my fruit trees every morning and my cider still at night, they do. I know it’s them, the kids from the high school. I’ve seen them.’

  ‘I see.’

  Clive stared at him. ‘I’ve just told you about a crime being committed. Aren’t you going to do anything about it?’

  The sergeant held the photo of Sarah under Clive’s nose. ‘Your fruit is not a priority.’

  Clive sniffed and climbed back up his ladder.

  The next house belonged to the Montepulcianos, but they were not at home. After he had tried the doorbell for the third time, the sergeant paused for a moment on their front verandah to consult his list. A dark brown cat appeared and wound itself around his ankles. The sergeant shook it off. He didn’t like cats; they were too sneaky and mysterious. They were like the cleverest con artists of the animal kingdom. Dogs were more straightforward, like the bumbling bank robbers who dropped their driver’s licence on their way out of the branch they had just burgled. He bared his teeth at the animal and went on.

  Next door, Monica Wilkinson and Barbara Swann were visiting with Edna Stewart on her front verandah. All three ladies stood to greet him.

  ‘Sergeant Henson,’ said Edna. ‘How lovely. Can I get you a cup of tea?’ Her verandah was crowded with pot plants and knick-knacks, and hanging baskets dangled from hooks along the eaves. Sergeant Henson had to stoop as he made his way to the table.

  ‘No thank you,’ he said, brushing the leaves of a maidenhair fern from his cheek.

  ‘Scone?’

  ‘Jam roly-poly?’

  ‘Lemon meringue pie?’

  The woman fired suggestions at him.

  ‘Thanks, no, I really only stopped by to –’

  ‘Ah. You’re more of a chocolate slice man, then. Wait here.’ Edna bustled past him and into the house, and the other ladies sat back down. They were gathered around a small table with a quilt spread across it, and each held a section in her lap, doing some sort of needlework on it inside a small wooden frame. Barbara Swann gestured to a chair next to her own.

  ‘Christina’s getting married. This is for her glory box.’ She indicated the quilt.

  ‘Christina?’ The sergeant racked his brain.

  ‘My granddaughter. Beverley and Abe’s girl.’

  ‘Of course.’ He nodded and leant over the quilt. There were at least seven women called Beverley in Banville and he had no idea which one was Barbara’s daughter.

  ‘Is the pattern . . . marine-inspired?’

  ‘Marine?’ Barbara peered at him. Monica Wilkinson took a sip of tea.

  ‘Yes, the, uh, seahorse?’ Henson pointed.

  Monica coughed and set her teacup down on the saucer with a clatter.

  ‘That’s a rose.’ Barbara looked sour.

  Edna reappeared with three pieces of chocolate slice on a plate. They all exchanged pleasantries about the weather, the upcoming Grevillea Festival and the quality of the lamb legs at the butcher, and then Edna and Barbara each gave comprehensive accounts of the state of health and sporting achievements of their various grandchildren. By this time, Sergeant Henson had long ago finished his chocolate slice and downed at least three cups of tea. His left knee jiggled up and down impatiently. He had tried to interject and raise the point of his visit several times, but the women artfully wove their conversation around him like great skeins of wool, inviting his comment, asking for his opinion on this or that inconsequential matter until he felt like they had wound him up completely and he was stuck, pinned to his seat. He glanced down at his clipboard, and at the photo of Sarah
Vale. Enough. Time was being wasted. He stood up, and all the ladies stood with him.

  ‘Is there anything else we can get you, Sergeant?’ said Edna, as though he had, in fact, been invited for the purpose of an afternoon tea.

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, there was something,’ Henson said. ‘I wanted to ask you particularly Edna, but all of you really, if you knew anything about the Vale girl who has gone missing. Sarah.’

  ‘Me?’ Edna pointed at her own chest. ‘Why would I know anything about anyone of that family?’

  ‘Why would any of us?’ Barbara said. She gave her friend a consoling pat on the arm.

  The sergeant kept his voice level. ‘Because she passed this house on the morning that she went missing. Twice.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t see her,’ Edna said. ‘It’s a disgrace to this town that a woman such as Susannah Vale calls it home. And her a mother, too. I can only wonder what kind of influence she has been on her daughter. I’m just glad her own mother is not alive to see her beautiful house gone to ruin in such a lewd fashion.’

  ‘Lewd,’ agreed Barbara. ‘I make it my business not to encounter anyone associated with that establishment.’

  Sergeant Henson had to bite his lip. In some parts of Sydney, there was a brothel on every street corner. Butcher, baker and candlestick maker alike, not to mention lawyers and politicians and plumbers and train drivers, visited them. Men of every ilk. Henson did not know exactly how wide Susannah’s customer base was here, but he suspected Edna could not pass a day in Banville without encountering someone ‘associated with that establishment’. There were many faithful family men in this town. And many men who were neither of those things. Sometimes the people of Banville believed their own fiction.

  ‘And you, Monica?’ asked Henson, looking to Mrs Wilkinson, who was usually so effervescent, but had not breathed a syllable since she greeted him. She had followed the conversation though, a slight sneer of distaste on her face.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, smoothing down her skirt. ‘I know who the girl is, of course, but she and my Marjorie aren’t chums so she’s not really on my radar, I’m afraid.’ Her hands continued to smooth down her skirt until she caught one in the other and folded them neatly in her lap.

  ‘Right, then. Thank you all for your time.’ Henson made to leave, and each of the ladies stood up. ‘Before I go, there is another young chap at the school, a lad by the name of Cameron. Cameron Wolfe. Do any of you know him?’

  ‘Cameron Wolfe? Never heard of him,’ Barbara sniffed.

  ‘Yes you have, dear,’ Edna said. ‘One of Gilbert Wolfe’s boys. Cameron is the youngest, isn’t he? Mother runs the hairdresser’s in Main Street. Not Sharon’s, the other one.’

  ‘Oh, well I’ve been going to Sharon’s for years.’ Barbara patted her blue rinsed helmet of curls.

  ‘Yes, Sharon’s the only one who knows how to handle my hair,’ Edna agreed, tossing her limp bob.

  Oh, no you don’t, thought Henson. Soon they would be reminiscing about Sharon’s grandfather, and then his horse, and then his horse’s bloody grandfather, and then another hour would have passed and he would still be here.

  ‘But you don’t know anything about the boy himself?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ Edna and Barbara shook their heads and started to gather up the tea things

  ‘Mrs Wilkinson?’ The sergeant turned to Monica, who had slumped back down into her chair, an odd expression on her face, as though she could smell meat that had gone bad.

  ‘Monica, dear, you’re white as a sheet!’ Edna said.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Monica. She stood up and swayed in her spot and Edna took her by the elbow and guided her back down into her chair. ‘The heat,’ she said, and fanned at Monica’s face with her quilting frame.

  ‘It is very hot,’ Barbara said.

  ‘Very hot,’ echoed the sergeant. ‘Have some water.’

  ‘Yes, water.’ Monica reached for her glass. Edna filled it and Barbara offered a handkerchief to Monica, who dabbed it at her brow.

  ‘It’s just that I thought you might often sit out here,’ Henson persisted. ‘Watching the world go by.’

  The ladies took umbrage at this. ‘Well, I’m terribly busy, actually,’ Edna informed him. ‘I certainly don’t have time to just watch the world go by.’

  ‘Of course, of course. It’s just that she’s only fifteen, you see.’ Sergeant Henson slapped the photo of Sarah down on the table. They all looked down at it, and Sarah glared back.

  ‘Mmm, very young,’ murmured Edna and Barbara.

  They went back to gathering the tea things. Henson waited. These people were not made of stone. If they thought about that photo for long enough, the youthful, unlined skin of the girl in the picture, the wideness of her eyes, maybe they would be reminded of their own grandchildren. Maybe they would remember something.

  ‘Susannah’s father Winston was a very civic-minded man,’ said Edna. ‘Most generous. The Rotary could not have managed without him.’

  ‘And Susannah’s mother was a dear, too.’

  ‘Oh, Susannah, Susannah, Susannah!’ Monica stood up, dropped Barbara’s handkerchief on the table and pushed aside the quilt. ‘Must we talk of that – that wanton floozy and her wretched daughter and spoil a perfectly pleasant afternoon?’

  ‘Monica!’

  ‘Really, I’ve heard quite enough.’ Monica exhaled. ‘Is it any wonder that something like this would happen eventually? To the daughter of a house such as that one? A woman such as that one? After all she’s done, why are we even discussing it?’

  They all stood in silence for a moment, staring at Mrs Wilkinson. Finally, Barbara shook herself out of her stupor. ‘Monica, you’re ill,’ she said, taking her by the elbow and propelling her into the house. Sergeant Henson and Edna watched them leave. From the frangipani tree next to the verandah, a flock of mynah birds squawked and chattered at a circling tiding of magpies in what looked like a territorial war. The mynahs were refusing to give ground, screeching with ear-piercing volume. Monica’s section of quilt lay discarded on the floor and Edna bent to pick it up, lowering her crooked body down.

  ‘Let me,’ said Henson. He set it back on the table.

  ‘Thank you,’ Edna said. Her eyes were pink and watery.

  Henson put on his hat and turned to leave.

  ‘She only means that it’s too awful to think of,’ Edna said to his retreating back. The sergeant turned and nodded to her, then continued down the stairs and out onto the street. Of Edna and Barbara, he believed that. That the only way they could cope with the thought of a teenage girl who was missing from their town was not to think about it at all. Sweep it under the carpet, put it in a jar and screw the lid on. Paint over it, whitewash; that was Banville all over. But in the case of Monica he wasn’t so sure. She had reacted so strangely, right from the beginning, and then that outburst – she seemed to think Sarah somehow deserved her fate, because of who her mother was. ‘After all she’s done,’ she had said. As though any daughter of a prostitute had it coming to her, and it was only a matter of time. Could she really think that?

  Sergeant Henson didn’t exactly approve of Sarah being brought up in a cat house. He was pretty sure it was not what Child Services would call a nurturing home environment. But there was no evidence that any of Susannah’s customers was connected with her daughter’s disappearance. There was no evidence that they were anything more to Susannah or Sarah than just that: customers. Sergeant Henson took off his hat and rubbed at his forehead where the band had pressed against his skull. He looked back at Edna’s house, and up to the sky, where the magpies circled still, darting low down to the frangipani and then soaring up again, taunting. The mynahs kept up their twittering from the boughs, guarding their tree.

  Unless that was what the people of Banville were suggesting, after all? Sergeant Henson frowned. Perhaps they knew more than they were saying? Perhaps someone who visited that house was more than just a customer of Susannah’s. Maybe some
one had taken a bit of an interest in Sarah instead? The sergeant tapped his finger against his temple, wondering. Well, I’ll be, he thought. Maybe, just maybe, in their veiled, coy and infuriating fashion, the citizens of this town were giving him a great big nudge towards the truth. Maybe he had been too quick to judge. Maybe the afternoon hadn’t been a waste of time after all.

  chapter eighteen

  On Wednesday morning, Tommy woke at sparrow’s fart.

  He had trained himself to sleep through the coldest hours of the morning and only wake when the sun was starting to gain strength. If he woke too early, when the grass was still dewy, glinting in the weak buttery light, he found himself staring right into the face of those hours that were hardest to pass. This morning was one of those mornings. His mind cried out for more sleep, but his body insisted he get up and move around. So, he walked.

  Down into town, past the library and the church, past the sweet hot wheat scent of the bakery and the stale beer fug of the pub. He crossed the street then, in case anyone was still sleeping it off on the verandah. Drunks were not pleasant company in the morning, he had found. Walking, walking, just movement, without too much thought behind it, one foot in front of the other and then again, simple and constant like the rotation of a wheel. Tommy stopped at the railway station for the arrival of the first train from Sydney. He leant against the fence, trying to appear nonchalant. When the train arrived, he looked through the windows and scanned the faces of the weary travellers blinking at the morning, wondering how in hell they had ended up here. None of them were familiar to him. Tommy watched as the passengers drew the blinds down over their windows and tucked their faces back into their pillows. Nobody got off the train.

  Tommy took a piece of paper out of his pocket and the stub of a pencil, and drew a stroke in the tally printed across the page. He did not allow himself to look at the strokes that came before this one. He knew they did not yet reach thirty. Thirty was the magic number. His father had promised him he would never be gone for longer than thirty days. How he had reached that figure, Tommy did not know. His record so far was twenty-six days. Tommy would never have let his father discover that he counted them so carefully. He tried not to let his father know that he minded his absence at all. But in the furthest reaches of his self, he wished he was not alone so often. Sometimes he stayed overnight at Sarah’s, bunking down in the hammock on the verandah, or he went out camping with his hammock and a billycan. But he always went home the next day so he could be there if his father returned. Tommy headed back out towards the street. Albert, the stationmaster, nodded at Tommy as he went past the ticket office and opened the door to the platform. Tommy nodded back.