by Megan Norris
We finished our tea and thanked her for contacting the police. Perhaps the police should now be looking for two missing girls? Surely with all the posters around the other girl must have seen at least one. Why hadn’t this other girl come forward?
We arrived at the corner of Williams Road and High Street and were met en masse by Rosa, Robert, Manni, Kylee, Shaun, Carlo, Tate and Richard.
Carlo and Tate had arrived first to scout around. Tate considered there was a suspicious-looking business in the middle of the shops because the inside was screened off and there were cameras pointing out, not in. We went around the back, where Mike started opening dump bins again. I hated him doing this but he reminded me that he was looking for Rachel’s dance bag.
He disappeared into the darkness, down a narrow walkway behind the shops. I started to follow, sliding my hands across the wooden fence as I groped along. My open sandals standing on rubbish I could not identify. Used syringes? Don’t think about it, I thought.
Memories of Saturday night returned.
I could just make out Mike’s shadow when I saw him stop suddenly. Was there another figure in the shadows? I stood very still. What were we dealing with here?
Mike and Tate came towards me, laughing. Tate had already been investigating the back and was returning when he walked into Mike. They had both received a fright.
‘There’s definitely something going on here,’ said Tate. ‘The back entrance to the shop has a very high fence. I couldn’t even jump to see over the top.’
‘Snoop,’ I said, jesting.
‘Elizabeth, it’s the only high fence. What are they hiding? She could be in there,’ said Tate. ‘Have you thought that the person Rachel was with on the tram could be the person recruiting from Richmond?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ said Mike.
‘Too right it is,’ answered Tate, excitedly.
‘No, the girl Rachel was with is too young, and Alison felt Rachel knew her.’
Tate and Mike weren’t listening. They had found a rubbish bin and were taking it down the walkway to stand on and peer over the fence.
This was a silly game, very nearly dangerous.
I don’t know how many rolls of thick tape we used putting up more posters. We put them on the traffic lights so they could be seen in every direction. We walked down Williams Road and High Street in all four directions. We walked down neighbouring streets. Normanby Street. Newry Street. Trinian Street.
Mike was told by two local business owners that the business we were interested in was fairly new. ‘Telemarketing agency,’ they said with a smile.
‘Corporate business?’
‘Telemarketers, you know, escort.’
‘You mean, women?’ I said.
They smiled again.
‘See, I told you,’ said Tate.
We gathered around the corner to discuss what our next move should be. Contact police? And say what? No, we would keep watch. Richard excused himself and said he’d keep an eye on the website that Carlo had set up.
Manni and Kylee disappeared into High Street. We couldn’t believe it. Kylee climbed onto Manni’s shoulders and, as he ran past the business, she jumped up so she could see inside. They wanted to look like two kids larking around.
‘Hardly an undercover surveillance,’ said Rosa.
Robert started keying in car numbers on his mobile phone. It became evident that there was a steady flow of female traffic. As the night progressed women were being escorted elsewhere, and later returned. We must have staked out this corner for three hours or more.
Rosa and I decided to drive to a local petrol station and look through the Yellow Pages for the names of escort agencies. The young attendant asked us what we were doing. I told him I felt my daughter was being held captive in an escort agency and I needed to find out the phone numbers and addresses of agencies in the area.
‘Well, you won’t find any addresses in there,’ he answered. ‘You need to be looking in the girlie magazines.’
He picked up a couple from the shelf and flipped through. ‘See, there’re lots of them.’
I looked at the price. ‘Could I perhaps borrow them?’ I asked. ‘I’ll bring them back. They’re not really the type of magazine I’d normally buy.’
He was a bit hesitant. ‘You can trust us,’ said Rosa.
‘Yeah, all right,’ he said. ‘But just see if you can return them before seven. That’s when I finish. I don’t want to get into trouble with my boss.’
We bought a couple of chocolate bars and said thank you.
I drove around the block. I wasn’t intending to park directly in front of the agency but I noticed a laneway opposite so I reversed in as far as I dared, and turned the headlights off. Forgetting our white car must have looked like a beacon. Through my rear-vision mirror I could see someone riding circles on a bicycle, down the end of the lane, in the street lights. A light switched on in the red-brick house on the other side of the fence.
Rosa and I slid back the front seats, and lay flat so we wouldn’t be noticed, and started to flick through the girlie magazines with a torch. Boobs and pubic hairs winked back. We couldn’t help but laugh. It was like a scene from a sitcom. We sat there for at least half an hour, not having achieved anything with the girlie magazines, so we started to write down descriptions of the girls sitting in the upstairs windows over the road.
Rosa freaked out. ‘Someone’s opening the door.’
A woman spoke to Manni and Kylee.
Kylee was still on Manni’s shoulders. I could almost see the strain on his back muscles while the woman spoke to them. He grasped Kylee around the knees.
They told us later that she said, ‘Would you mind not peeping in our windows, please?’
Kylee had answered, ‘Oh, we’re just waiting for a tram.’
‘At two o’clock in the morning?’ The woman was not pleased.
The kids retreated, unable to control their laughter.
A short while later a woman in the upstairs window, smoking a cigarette, seemed alarmed and was pointing in the direction of where I thought Carlo and Tate were standing. The woman opened the front door and appeared to be searching. She had a mobile phone in her hand.
‘Elizabeth,’ said Rosa apprehensively. ‘This lane’s a dead end. I think we should get out.’
We started to wind up our seats. Carlo and Tate walked past, quickly.
My seat got stuck. A black car, one we’d noticed before, drove slowly past the laneway and continued down High Street. Mike suddenly came into view, looking for us, and quickened his step.
‘Get out of here, quick!’ he said, opening the door and jumping in.
I couldn’t believe it.
‘They’ve spotted you!’
‘No kidding,’ said Rosa.
‘Where’s Shaun?’ I yelled.
‘He’s running to his car. We’ll pick Robert up on the corner. I don’t know about the others. Quick. Move it!’
Scared plus. I had visions of those great big burly men, dressed in black and looking like pub bouncers, in their big black cars, bouncing us out of history.
I drove the car out into High Street as another black car came from the opposite direction and made a quick U-turn, while the woman in the street pointed out Shaun’s car.
‘He’s going the wrong way!’ I yelled.
The black car followed and chased him, picking up speed.
I’m sure Robert jumped into our car while it was still moving. Thank God the green light was with us.
The Carellas’ car was left behind, to be picked up the following day.
In my rear-vision mirror I just caught sight of Carlo’s red sporty car making a quick turn into Williams Road followed by yet another great black charger, or was it the same one?
‘Stop,’ yelled Rosa. ‘The kids!’
My God, there they were, totally stranded. They had made a run for it. I did a U-turn to collect Manni and Kylee and they clambered into the back seat.
&n
bsp; A police van drove past, turned around, and came back in our direction.
‘Look as if you’re strapped in.’ I didn’t dare look to the right. The police van came alongside. Kylee was hidden under Manni’s legs in the back. Four people in the back seat, front seats halfway down. I’ll lose my licence, I thought. The police drove on and stepped up their speed. They were after someone else. I couldn’t believe my luck.
I turned into a side street, thinking I’d be able to turn right, stay hidden for a bit and come out into High Street further down.
‘It’s a dead end,’ shrieked Rosa.
No place to turn in this narrow street with cars parked on either side, so I reversed towards High Street and took the next road. I didn’t want to stay on High Street. Nobody was following us now but that didn’t alter the way I felt.
‘It’s another dead end,’ cackled Rosa.
Everybody was laughing in the back seat. I was too scared to laugh. This was movie stuff. How did I know they wouldn’t suddenly appear in my rear-vision mirror and block us in?
There wasn’t enough room for people to sit properly. Rosa and I wound the seats back up and fastened our seat belts. How could they laugh when we didn’t know if Shaun had made it clear, or if Carlo and Tate had got back? I couldn’t for the life of me work out why the police had not stopped us.
‘We’ll have to go and look for the others,’ I said.
‘How?’ said Mike. ‘Where?’
Somehow I ended up back in Williams Road. As I drove past the petrol station Rosa said, ‘The girlie magazines.’
‘I can’t, Rosa,’ I said. ‘I’m too scared someone will catch us. I’ll ring him from your house.’
We drove back towards Richmond to take Kylee home to her unit, but when we got there she was too scared to stay. Couldn’t blame her. We drove on to Moonee Ponds with me still freaking I’d lose my licence. I was convinced we were a marked car.
‘Elizabeth,’ said Kylee, rather sheepishly, ‘do you mind if I tell you something the detective asked me. He told me not to tell you because he didn’t want to worry you.’
‘Whatever is it?’
‘He asked me what Rachel’s bra size was because the detective who’d seen the girl counting money in Richmond said she was chesty.’
‘Chesty,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ said Kylee. ‘Well, I just laughed and said Rachel’s like me.’
Rachel’s bra size was 10A. Why couldn’t he have just asked? This has got to be a male thing, I thought. But then there was a woman detective. The detective’s identification of Rachel could have been quite easily disproved the same Thursday morning. For any man, detective or not, to have noticed a girl was chesty while driving along in a car, the girl would most certainly have needed a bra cup larger than a 10A, push-up or not.
I found out later that Shaun had been chased first by the black car and then by a police car. He had turned into a street, where they did a figure eight in the middle of the road, cutting him off. The police got out of their cars with a megaphone and demanded that Shaun come out and place his hands on top of his car with his feet apart. Shaun obliged.
The escort agency had reported us to the police. The police wanted to know what we thought we were up to. Shaun showed them the poster of Rachel. Apparently they knew of Rachel’s disappearance. It was to their station that Rachel’s dance friend had made her report.
They relaxed towards Shaun when he explained that he was Rachel’s cousin and that we had reason to believe Rachel was inside the escort agency. The police told him they knew the agency ran a legal business. We need have no concern that Rachel could be there.
Shaun said they were very understanding. Before they left he asked them for directions home because, as he told them, he lived in the country and had absolutely no idea where he was.
12
A GUT FEELING
Day 8: Tuesday, 9 March
Ashleigh-Rose was frightened by many dreams the Monday night. She dreamt over and over again of Rachel coming home, everyone being happy. I found these dreams puzzling. Why should they frighten her? But deep down, even for this eleven-year-old, she sensed that her dream of Rachel coming home would probably never be.
Heather’s unscheduled ‘fishing’ holiday with her Aunty Robbie was beginning to lose its ‘good excuse to be away from school’ feel. At first Heather preferred to think of a simple explanation for Rachel’s disappearance: she’d gone off with her friends, and isn’t she going to be in trouble! Heather could see no reason to fear the worst.
This Tuesday Robbie had organised a special day at the beach. Her seven-year-old son Sam and Heather were looking forward to it. Robbie’s girlfriend and her small daughter joined them. The children were having fun playing and making sandcastles. Robbie leant across to her friend and said, ‘This is probably the last time Heather will go to the beach thinking she still has an older sister.’
For Robbie there was no hope. ‘Knowing your family and knowing Rachel, there is no way Rachel wouldn’t come back if she could,’ she said.
Soon after this, Heather’s attitude began to change as the gravity of Rachel’s disappearance began to creep up on her. Perhaps Rachel was lost. Why hadn’t she been found? If parents look for their children they should be found. Why hadn’t her parents found her sister? Robbie almost went demented trying to keep the looming seriousness of Rachel’s disappearance from Heather.
On Tuesday morning we received a phone call from Richmond police asking us to come in. They were ready to do a media release.
I was feeling very nervous of the Richmond police now, more so because of my Saturday afternoon antics. I asked six-foot-two Drew to accompany us. He would be a protective barrier for both parties.
My brother refused to come at first because he said we wouldn’t listen to him.
‘We will,’ I said.
‘You won’t,’ he growled. ‘You don’t listen to me when I tell you to come home at night. When I tell you to rest. You’re not going to help Rachel if you both end up dead.’
‘Please,’ I urged. ‘We’ll behave ourselves, won’t we, Mike?’ Silly thing for a forty-year-old woman to be saying to her fifty-one-year-old brother, in front of her fifty-two-year-old husband, but I did not trust us. I did not trust myself. I knew I would become irrational. And I knew Drew could stop me.
Finally Drew agreed because Mike agreed, and he drove us to the police station.
We were waiting at the Richmond watchhouse for the detective senior sergeant, when a phone call came through on the mobile from a David dePyle of the Missing Persons Unit, wanting to speak to us before we spoke to the Richmond police. The phone call broke up. I tried to ring out but couldn’t.
‘I’ll ring him after,’ I said to Mike.
‘The message was – before,’ he answered.
‘Ask to borrow their phone,’ said Drew.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I was in a real quandary. I stood up.
‘What are you doing?’ Drew put his hand out to me. ‘Don’t you leave this station!’ he said in an authoritative voice.
‘The detective senior sergeant’s not here. I’ll ring from a phone box,’ I said, and ran out before Drew could protest. Mike followed.
David dePyle, the analyst from Missing Persons, told us he had seen a poster at his railway station on the way to work. When he arrived at the office he had spoken to Neil Paterson for some time. He thought the story of Rachel’s disappearance would be a classic for the television program ‘Australia’s Most Wanted’.
‘But what about the Richmond police?’ I asked. ‘They’re going to do a media release today. Can we do both?’
Apparently we could. David told us to tell Richmond police that ‘Australia’s Most Wanted’ were interested.
When we returned to the station Drew was in a foul mood. We had left him to deal with the detective senior sergeant, who appeared to be agitated by our absence. Drew said he would not go to the detective’s office with us because it w
as obvious that we would not take his advice. With yet more persuasion he came.
The detective senior sergeant sat behind his desk. Mike and I sat in front. I cannot remember where the other two detectives were, but I felt safe with Drew there. He was offered a chair but said he preferred standing. Bravo, Drew.
We were told again that they were going to do a media release.
I said words to the effect, ‘I realise we have both disagreed about the reasons for Rachel’s disappearance but couldn’t we just keep to the facts? Rachel said goodbye to her dance friends at 5.45 p.m. on Monday the 1st, and only last night a witness remembered seeing her an hour later getting off a tram at the corner of High Street and Williams Road … You do know about that?’
The detective senior sergeant inclined his head. He knew. I also had a feeling that he knew what we’d been up to as well.
He let me ramble. ‘Do you think there could be two missing girls? Is it possible that another police station is also investigating a missing girl?’
No other police station was investigating another missing girl. The detective senior sergeant remarked that Rachel was the first missing person he had investigated. He had wanted the Missing Persons Unit to do the investigation but pointed out again that there was no evidence of foul play.
‘Please don’t say that she’s a runaway.’
He considered the possibility she still was.
‘We’ve disproven the notes. Runaway is a pair of cross-trainers.’
He showed me the note. It quite clearly stated ‘running away’.
‘Yes, but Rachel isn’t good at spelling. It’s a pair of shoes.’
I could see there was no convincing him.
I remembered I had brought a copy of the March issue of Women’s Fitness Australia. I opened the page to a photo of Rachel. ‘Is this what you call chesty?’ I demanded. ‘Why didn’t you ask me?’ I was becoming heated. Drew reminded us we had to understand the position the police were in. The detective senior sergeant was pleased with his presence, too.
I told him that ‘Australia’s Most Wanted’ were interested in Rachel’s case. He told us they must be short for a story. He rang Victoria Police Media Liaison and repeated what he had just said to us.