Charlotte Pass

by Lee Christine

‘Oh, they’re just posts with plastic mesh hung between them. The snow builds up behind them, so it’s easy for the groomer to pick it up and distribute the snow where it’s needed. The mesh lets a little bit of snow through, though, so the weight doesn’t push the fences over.’ She paused, realising that most of what she’d just said couldn’t possibly be relevant to what he was interested in.

  The detective didn’t seem to mind, though. He nodded, then asked, ‘And while you were doing this, you found the bones?’

  ‘Yes. I was rolling out the plastic fencing. It got away from me and rolled down the slope a bit. I called for one of the young lifties to come and help me roll it back up. That’s when I saw them. The liftie said they were probably animal bones, but I knew they were human. I radioed Terry, and he called the village doctor.’

  ‘The doctor said you were adamant they were human bones. And he did confirm that to be the case.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, watching the detective. He hadn’t written anything down. Maybe he was one of those people who committed everything to memory.

  ‘Was it because of your training that you were able to identify them as human?’

  Vanessa shook her head. ‘We only need first aid. Our most important skill is being able to ski all over the mountain in any sort of weather. We have to be able to reach people and bring them down safely so they can get proper medical attention.’

  He frowned. ‘So, despite limited medical knowledge and the absence of a skull, you were convinced they were human?’ He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Lucky guess?’

  Vanessa smiled. He was smart. Perceptive, too. ‘This is going to sound ridiculous. But I grew up on a farm, and our family doctor in town had one of those full skeletons in the corner of his surgery. I was fascinated by it as a kid. Every time I went in there, I’d study it. He appreciated my interest and began showing me parts of the skeletal system. It went on for years. Sometimes he’d quiz me to see if I remembered.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe he hoped I’d go into the medical field.’

  The detective leaned back. The typist chair groaned under his weight. ‘I’ve heard a lot of ridiculous things in my time but that isn’t one of them.’

  Warmth crept back into Vanessa’s face. Serious he might be, but the detective had a nice way about him. She liked his old-fashioned manners, too, though he was probably only half a dozen years older than her. He was nothing like the guys she had dated. ‘Do you have any idea who it is, Detective?’ she asked, forcing her mind back to the subject at hand.

  He sighed. ‘A couple of people have gone missing over the years and never been found. We’ll know more once the pathologist gets here in the morning.’

  He consulted what looked like a police report. ‘Tell me one thing …’ He looked up. ‘Earlier, I had to walk up the slope to get to the site. It’s steep and treacherous. If you’re carrying fence posts and rolls of fencing, do you take it all up on the triple chairlift and come down that way? How on earth do you get down there?’

  The detective’s words dragged her back in time and brought her wailing six-year-old self into sharp focus. ‘How did you get all the way down here, Vanessa?’ Strong arms reached for her and she clutched her Jemima doll closer to her chest. The man had a kind face and wore a uniform. Her arms went around his neck as he settled her on his hip and brushed leaves and twigs from her hair and cardigan.

  Strange—usually it was the subtle scent of eucalypt or the faint aroma of a dried-up creek bed that awakened her earliest childhood memories.

  A gust of wind slammed against the inn’s windows and she jumped. The detective glanced at the creaking roof like he feared it might be torn off again. His eyes returned to her face. ‘How did you get down there?’ he asked again.

  ‘Normally, if I was going up there without any extra gear, I’d take the triple chair up to Kangaroo Ridge and then hike across the top towards Mount Stillwell and ski down. But this morning the groomer took the posts, fencing and us as far up the hill as he could, and we carried them the rest of the way.’

  ‘Was anyone else around?’

  ‘I don’t remember anyone in particular.’

  ‘Just the groomer?’

  ‘Yes. He was smoothing out the section of hill underneath where the old chairlift used to be, not far from where the fencing was going in.’

  ‘Old chairlift? There was another one here at some stage?’

  Vanessa nodded. ‘It used to run at right angles to the present one. The trees are sparser under where it used to be. It’s the perfect place for the new inflatable tube run to go in.’ She and Libby were looking forward to having a go in the giant inner tubes that would shoot them down the slope. The instructors were already placing bets on who would make it to the bottom first.

  The detective’s frown deepened, and his gaze moved to the file on his desk. ‘When did the old chairlift operate?’

  Vanessa shrugged. ‘Ages ago.’

  ‘How close is the run under the old lift to the site where you found the bones?’

  ‘About fifty metres, I guess.’

  ‘Can you take me?’

  Vanessa blinked. ‘I’m sorry … what?’

  ‘Can you take me up there, I mean, in the morning? Show me where the tube run’s going in.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ Vanessa swallowed. ‘I’m probably not the best person to help you, though. I think the Alpine Ski Club have lots of historical information on the area and a ton of old photographs. They’ve put together a display for Aidan Smythe’s return.’

  Aidan Smythe needed no explanation. The skiing legend’s return to Charlotte Pass after his incredible European season fifty-something years ago was bigger news than Eddie the Eagle returning to Calgary thirty years after his famous ski jump. The detective might not be a fan of snow sports, but he would have to have been living under a rock not to have heard of the celebrations.

  ‘I’ll speak to the alpine club,’ he said, his gaze lingering on her face.

  ‘There is one thing I can show you.’ Vanessa stood and moved to the window. Drawing aside the heavy drapes, she listened to the sound of him sliding his firearm into one of the desk drawers. She tapped a fingernail on the window as he joined her. ‘That building over there, where the lights are on, it’s called “Long Bay” because the rooms are the size of jail cells. It’s staff housing for ski instructors, ski patrol and mountain operations.’

  ‘Is that where you’re living?’

  ‘Yes, if you could call it living. It’s more like boarding-school accommodation. Shared bathrooms, claustrophobic and overcrowded. Anyway, that’s not the reason I’m showing you. See how it’s the only building on that side of the creek? All the lodges and hotels are on this side. That’s because Long Bay was originally the bottom station for the old chairlift that went up Mount Stillwell. I don’t know when it operated, but there are people here who still remember it. I can write their names down for you if you like?’

  ‘Okay. That would save me time. Thanks.’

  ‘Of course.’ Vanessa took a deep breath. The anxiety that had kept her on edge all day was slowly seeping away. The wait was over, and now she could do something to help. ‘I want you to find out who the bones belong to, Detective. Their family’s torment …’

  His eyes cut to hers and he gave a brief nod. ‘I understand.’

  Vanessa watched his reflection in the glass as she closed the drapes. He was turning back to the desk, where he picked up a pen and finally jotted something down.

  ‘He’s arriving tomorrow, right?’ he asked when she turned to face him.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Smythe.’

  ‘He’s already here, at the inn.’ And then the words slipped out before she could stop them. ‘Going to ask for his autograph?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I’m worried about the media. I don’t want them reporting anything about the case. We may have relatives to contact.’

  Heat crept up Vanessa’s face, and she silently berated herself for her silly remark. ‘Of
course. It would be awful for them to hear something on the news.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He didn’t say anything more or sit down again.

  ‘Well, if that’s all …’ she said, taking that as her cue to leave.

  ‘Yes, you’ve had an eventful day. You should try to get some sleep.’ He stood aside so she could lead the way out of the makeshift office.

  As Vanessa stepped into the living room, she couldn’t help but glance into the main bedroom, where a black overnight bag and zip-up suit bag sat on the end of the bed.

  ‘Where should I meet you in the morning?’ she asked, turning to face him. ‘There’s patchy mobile reception in the village. They’re working on improving it, though.’

  ‘Hmm. Quaint.’

  ‘You can thank the National Parks and Wildlife. Still, a lot of guests like it. They come here to unwind. Part of that is unplugging for a week.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m sure they do. What’s the earliest you can meet up?’

  ‘Around seven-thirty, after I’ve had a look at the mountain. The bridge over the creek is a good place to meet.’

  ‘That suits me. I’m sorry I had to interrupt your presentation.’

  ‘Oh, the kids will keep,’ she said, surprised he’d given her safety talk a second thought. ‘And one other thing. I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this but the wi-fi has a habit of crashing around four when everyone comes inside and logs on. If you need to use the internet, do it while everyone’s out on the hill.’

  ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’

  She smiled. ‘See you bright and early at the bridge, Detective.’

  ‘You will indeed.’

  Three

  Day 2

  In the freezing hour before dawn, Ryder and Flowers waited on the uneven slope above Stillwell Lodge and watched the pathologist at work. Harriet Ono, recently arrived from Canberra, was crouched beneath a set of portable lights that illuminated the cordoned-off area brighter than Circular Quay during the Vivid Sydney festival. Beyond the police fencing, snow gums clung to the hillside, their trunks smooth and streaked from shedding their bark, their boughs twisted into eerily ghostlike shapes.

  Harriet took hold of the final bone from where it lay partially entangled in strawy snow grass. She held it aloft, turning it this way and that in her gloved hand until she was satisfied, then she put it down next to the others, lowered her protective face mask and spoke to Ryder over her shoulder. ‘I’d say it’s the body of a small, adult female.’

  He knelt beside Harriet on the rubber matting, his heavy duty police gear keeping out the cold, though the frigid air pierced his cheeks like a hundred needles. He stared at the bones. The femur, pelvis and three-quarters of a rib cage were laid out on a strip of felt fabric like pieces of jewellery on a counter top.

  ‘It’s the shape of the pelvis.’ Harriet ran a latex-covered index finger around a curve in the bone. ‘Female.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say with what I have here. There’s no evidence of osteoporosis but that doesn’t prove anything. It’s not present in all older people, and young people can have juvenile osteoporosis.’

  Ryder thought of the smiling young woman in the black-and-white photograph on file. Celia Delaney had been twenty-one when she’d disappeared without a trace in 1964.

  ‘So, it’s not the male hiker you hoped it would be.’ Flowers stamped his feet, folded his arms and stuck his hands under his armpits. ‘That sucks. I was hoping we’d wrap this one up quick and get back on the Hutton case.’

  Ryder got to his feet. ‘Personally, I was hoping they were animal bones. Whoever this person is, they lost their life up here, so show a little respect.’ He gestured over his shoulder. ‘Go and look through the file. Find out Celia Delaney’s height.’

  Harriet lifted her camera and took a photograph of the bones. ‘Still your charming self, I see,’ she said as Flowers trudged off in the darkness.

  ‘He’s a self-absorbed pain in the arse, most of the time.’

  ‘Go easy, he might surprise you. Then you’d have to eat your words.’

  ‘If Flowers picks up his game, I’ll gladly eat my words.’ He looked at Harriet, her bulky layers covered in protective overalls. She was one of the best pathologists in the business, and he’d been pleased she’d agreed to come to Charlotte Pass. ‘How long do you think she’s been up here?’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘Take a guess—an educated one.’

  ‘Decades.’ Harriet lowered the camera. ‘Do you think it’s her?’

  Ryder nodded slowly. ‘It’s looking that way. She went missing in a storm back in 1964 when the Australian ski industry was in its infancy. Strange, though, isn’t it, how the bones were just lying there?’ To Ryder, it looked like someone had put them there. Or maybe an animal had interfered with them.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t know,’ Harriet said. ‘We’re on a pretty steep slope. Soil erosion over time could have exposed some of the bones. These ones could have been washed away during a storm.’

  ‘So, the rest of the skeleton could be further up the slope?’

  ‘Not much further up. There’s another possibility: the bones could be those of an indigenous woman.’

  ‘Can you tell if it is?’

  ‘Nope. I need a skull.’

  ‘So, what are you saying, Harriet? That you suspect an Aboriginal woman died right here sometime in the last, what, forty or fifty years?’

  Harriet blew out an exasperated breath. ‘I’m not saying anything, Pierce. You’re the detective. You work it out.’

  Work it out? What he should be working on was the manhunt for Gavin Hutton. Where was that bastard now, anyway? Probably as warm as toast, tucked up inside the two sleeping bags he’d pilfered from the hikers. Still, Harriet had a point. The mountains were sacred to many clans. For thousands of years they had trekked from the east coast of New South Wales to the Snowy Mountains to set up camp at Dead Horse Gap, where they held ceremonial rituals and feasted upon the protein-rich Bogong moths. It was a possibility he hadn’t considered.

  Ryder looked to the horizon where the sun was beginning to lighten the sky with a gentle glow. Despite what Harriet said, his gut was telling him this was Celia Delaney. The Traditional Owners had extensive knowledge of the land and how to survive the seasons. Celia Delaney had no such knowledge. She was a dental nurse who’d gone missing during one of the biggest snow dumps in Australian alpine history. Seven years after her disappearance, the Coroner’s Court found she had left Charlotte Pass on foot after an argument with her musician husband. Taking into consideration the extreme weather conditions and the balance of probabilities, the court had found that Celia had perished. They concluded she had most likely become disoriented and wandered off the roadway between Charlotte Pass and Perisher Valley. Lost in the back country in that weather, she would have frozen to death within hours. Only Detective Constable Roman Lewicki had been convinced otherwise. He’d always suspected that Celia’s husband had played a hand in her disappearance.

  Ryder shivered as icy air seeped inside his jacket. Across the valley, he could just make out the spot where the road into Perisher met the driveway winding down into Charlotte Pass village. If this was Celia Delaney, how the hell had she ended up here?

  ‘Go back to what you said before, Harriet. What makes you think she’s been up here for decades?’

  Harriet unzipped the plastic evidence bag and took out the femur that she had carefully packed away. ‘It’s interesting. There are no signs of bleaching. That tells me the bones haven’t been exposed to the sun. Water does a massive amount of damage, as does ice, but unlike the rest of the world our alpine areas don’t have glaciers.’ She pointed to patches of discolouration on the femur. ‘See these differential patterns of staining? That happens over time. The green ones could be from sphagnum moss. The brown ones are probably from the bones interacting with broken-down plant and animal matter in the soil.’
r />   ‘Soil?’ Ryder’s heart kicked against his ribs. ‘She was buried?’

  ‘These bones were. I don’t know about the rest of her.’

  Sweat broke out on the back of his neck and he groped in his pocket for the nicotine gum. This was the first solid indication that what Lewicki had been saying for decades might be right—Celia’s death wasn’t an accident.

  Craving the sensation of flimsy cigarette paper clinging to his lower lip, and the peppery taste of smoke hitting the back of his throat, he put a piece of gum in his mouth and chewed hard. Was this isolated mountainside the final resting place for Celia Delaney? He hoped so, for Lewicki’s sake. And for her parents, who were still alive and had never recovered from their only child’s disappearance.

  Turning up his collar, Ryder adjusted his stance on the rocky slope and waited for the horrible stuff to work. Relief came quickly, the nicotine flooding his bloodstream via the lining of his mouth. He blew out a breath. Jesus Christ. His addiction never waned, stalking him like a jilted lover, keeping him edgy during the day and awake at night. He looked at the bones again. Who had left her here, all alone and buried in the dark?

  He watched as the small, white coffin covered in baby’s breath was lowered into a black hole in the earth. Teary mourners clutching flowers between their fingers moved forward as he retreated. Someone touched his shoulder—

  ‘Pierce?’ Harriet was standing beside him, her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I spoke your name three times. Are you all right?’

  ‘Apart from freezing my arse off?’ He took another deep breath. As he blew it out he watched the small cloud of mist form and wondered if he could still blow smoke rings. Anything to distract himself. ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

  Harriet raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  ‘I said I’m fine.’

  ‘Okay, keep your hair on. I’m just about done.’ She set about packing the individual evidence bags inside a large Rossignol ski bag, the canvas emblazoned with a red ‘R’ on the side.

  ‘Pierce? Are you ready?’

  ‘Give me the bag, you take the torch,’ he said when all the bones were safely inside. He pulled the zipper closed and picked it up. There was something sad about the lightness of it.