With heavy heart I’ve imagined you in my sights.
Today is the day. One year since you broke it off with me and I began living my life as a shadow, watching, dreaming, wishing. Our anniversary, but not the anniversary I wanted.
I watch as you leave work and walk to the bus shelter. You stand and wait with the usual crowd for the 5.46 to take you home. As always, you’re oblivious to my presence. As always, I’m near the small cluster of shops across the road. Only today the pistol is in my hand and I know what must be done.
You’re wearing your hair loose today, my favourite of your styles, and a gentle breeze lifts it. Those large green eyes are looking a little sad today and I wonder if, instinctively, you know.
I grip the pistol firmly and raise it slowly.
My finger is on the trigger. My hand is remarkably calm.
I take one last loving look at you.
I place the barrel against my right temple, my finger poised on the trigger.
And I pull.
A CANDLE FOR CARRIE
Max Crichton couldn’t believe his bad luck: there was a storm coming. The air was heavy, the clouds sweeping in across the sky and greying the landscape. Gusty winds growing stronger by the minute.
He pulled on his jacket and stepped out into the chill of early morning. A light rain had fallen earlier. It was meant to be a rostered day off for Max. A Friday, and the kind of morning for sleeping in and lazily reading newspapers over a late breakfast. The 7.40 call from the police dispatcher had been lousy timing. But then that was the norm with police work. Lousy, lousy timing.
The body had been spotted by the local newsagent, George Rush, as he’d gone about his morning paper run. It was twenty minutes since his phone call to the police. Now this quiet stretch of road in the farming community of Pioneer Hill was besieged by activity.
The local sergeant and two constables were scouting for any trace evidence at the scene. The girl had been strangled. A dark-haired young woman was nearby, talking with the newsagent. Max noticed she had a notebook in hand. He walked over. ‘Press?’ he inquired.
The woman offered her hand. ‘Yes. Donna McEvoy. I’m with the Chronicle.’
Max introduced himself. ‘I haven’t seen you around before,’ he commented.
‘New in town. Sort of. I’ve been away at uni, then in the city for the past seven years. But I joined the local paper this week. Wanted to be close to the family again.’
Max nodded. He turned his attention to George Rush. The newsagent was clearly distraught. ‘Nasty shock, George.’
‘I’ve done this route five days a week for the past fifteen years. Never expected anything … like this.’
‘We’ve got your statement, George, so go on home. Take it easy. Can your weekend guy finish the rest of this morning’s run?’
‘I’ll give him a call. Thanks, Max.’
‘Take it easy.’
Crichton turned his attention back to Donna as George ambled off. He didn’t want to see the newsagent accosted any more by a story-hungry reporter. ‘So you’re a local girl.’ Max considered this a moment. ‘Not the McEvoys who run the hardware store?’
Max didn’t know them well, but he’d met Bill and Barbara McEvoy from time to time at the local church. He vaguely remembered something about a daughter who was living away from home.
‘The same,’ she said. The wind whipped the dark hair about her face. ‘Can you tell me anything about the situation here? Could I quote you?’ She was forthright and very eager – over-eager, city-style, he thought – but the wide, warm smile smoothed away any of the hard edges in her manner.
‘Too early for that. But I can assure the people of Pioneer Hill that every stop will be pulled out to catch this poor girl’s killer.’ Max excused himself and turned towards the sergeant, Bob Hadley. ‘Have you been in touch with the coroner?’
‘Yeah. Gordon’s on his way.’
‘Damn.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought I’d call in an out-of-towner on this one. Never mind.’
The two men turned as Gordon Stevens’s van pulled up. There had been only one other murder of a teenage girl in Pioneer Hill – and that had been ten years earlier, before Bob Hadley had come to the town. That had also been the strangulation of a girl aged around sixteen. She’d also been found in the early morning.
That girl – Carrie Stevens – had been the coroner’s daughter.
• • •
Max Crichton sat in Gordon Stevens’s office.
‘The pathologist’s report says that lividity in the corpse makes it clear the body was taken to that spot after death and dumped,’ Gordon reported. ‘Whatever the vehicle might’ve been, the wind and rain washed away any tyre marks. No trace evidence at the scene. Except for this.’
Max leaned forward as Gordon tabled a plastic evidence bag. It contained a single strand of hair.
‘It isn’t hers,’ Gordon said. ‘We found it underneath her blouse, pressed into the nook of her shoulder. It must’ve been shed by the killer at the time of strangulation, slipping down beneath her collar line as she struggled.’
‘It isn’t much,’ Max observed, ‘at least, not without a suspect with whom to match it.’
He leaned back and appraised Gordon. The coroner was a large man with strong blue eyes. He wasn’t showing any signs of strain, but Max knew Gordon was a man who hid his true feelings easily. ‘You should’ve let Radcliffe from Stoneyvale handle this one, Gordon.’
‘No, no. This may be too close to home, but I have to deal with these things. I’m a professional.’
You’re also a father who lost his daughter, Max thought. He said, ‘How’s Margaret?’
‘Oh, she’s fine. Keeping busy.’ All of a sudden, a lone tear welled in the corner of Gordon’s left eye. ‘We still mourn her every day, Max, but life has to go on. After all, we have two other children. They need us and they’re important too.’
‘Of course they are.’
Gordon regained his composure. ‘Any word on the girl’s ID?’
‘Not a thing. No fingerprints on file. And Missing Persons has no listing that meets the description.’
‘Perhaps we can expect a visit from those candle people.’
Max shot him a puzzled look. ‘Candle people?’
Gordon managed a half smile. ‘You just aren’t well read enough, Max,’ he said. He rose from his desk and moved over to the filing cabinet. A moment later he’d placed a folder, which held several newspaper clippings, in front of the detective. ‘I was intrigued enough to keep these. Just three months ago, over in Ridgley, a 14-year-old, unidentified girl was found. Throat cut. It was the third time these candle people had turned up in such circumstances.’
Max flipped past the Ridgley clippings and glanced at the others. Six months earlier, in far northern New South Wales, a woman in her twenties was found. Also unidentified. She’d been strangled. Two months before that, another teenage girl, shot at point blank range, no ID.
The only link between these cases was that all the victims were youthful, and unidentified. And in each case the candle people had travelled to the scene.
• • •
Two days later the situation at Pioneer Hill had not changed. No-one had reported a girl missing locally. The national Missing Persons lists offered nothing further. Donna McEvoy’s story in the local paper was accompanied by an illustrated likeness of the girl. However, no-one came forward to say they recognised her.
‘It’s as if she never existed,’ Gordon said to Max. ‘But she was about sixteen years old. She had to have had parents, friends, teachers – someone, somewhere who’s missing her. Where the hell are they?’
The question was aimed at no-one in particular. The coroner had been visiting the senior detective’s office, inquiring about progress on the case. Max sensed that, on a subconscious level, Gordon Stevens was reliving all those traumatic days, ten years earlier, when his daughter had died.
Carrie Steve
ns’s murder had never been solved.
Both men looked up as young Constable Ryan Micaleff appeared at the door. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said to Max, ‘but the desk sergeant wanted me to let you know we have a situation just outside the station.’
They went to the front of the building and out onto the footpath. Max had half-expected this might happen, but he hadn’t expected the numbers. He reckoned there were close to forty people there – men, women and children of all ages, but mostly women aged thirty plus. They were crowded into the small reserve that stood at the centre of the town, directly opposite. The people were clustered into groups of four or five, some sitting, some standing. Gordon remained behind, watching with interest, as Micaleff accompanied Max over to the park.
Max recognised the woman standing closest to the station side, at the head of one of the larger groups. But, even if he hadn’t seen her photo in one of Gordon Stevens’s news clippings, Max would have noticed her.
Celia Rossington was an attractive woman, with long, thick red hair, strong features and a wonderfully vivacious smile. She looked younger than he expected. She saw the detective as he approached and came towards him, making a point of greeting him first.
‘Senior Detective-Sergeant Crichton, I presume?’ her voice was throaty, commanding, warm.
She’d obviously done her homework before arriving in Pioneer Hill, Max thought. ‘That’s right.’ They shook hands. ‘And I know of you, Ms. Rossington, by reputation.’
Her manner became reflective. ‘Not a reputation any mother wants.’
Max nodded his understanding. ‘I appreciate the concern that you and your friends have,’ he said, ‘but it would be better for all if you were to go home. This is a small town, not much room here. And everything that can be done is being done.’
‘Has the girl been identified?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You’re aware of our success rate, Detective-Sergeant?’ There was nothing reproachful in her tone. Quite the opposite. A casual observer would think we’re old friends, Max thought.
‘I am.’
‘Then I think we’ll hang around for a little while yet.’
It was Crichton’s role, as a police officer, to discourage large groups gathering in public on occasions like these. However, secretly, he welcomed anything that might help in identifying the girl.
‘Won’t be long before it’s dark,’ Celia Rossington stated, ‘and I think we can expect some company from the media. I’ve seen to it that word is about.’ As if on cue, a TV news van from the regional network pulled into the street.
Max stifled a smile. ‘I see what you mean.’ He was on his way back across to the station with Micaleff, when he encountered Donna McEvoy.
‘I’ve heard of this Rossington woman,’ Donna said, ‘but I never expected her to turn up here, in Pioneer Hill. Wow, what a story.’
Max said, ‘What do you know about these candle people? I gather this is the fourth or fifth time they’ve gathered near a crime scene investigation.’
‘More, actually. The first few times only received very small and scattered media attention. It’s an incredible story. Celia Rossington is a widow and the mother of a murder victim. Her daughter was travelling in North America when she died. But she’d been stripped of all ID. As she wasn’t in regular contact while travelling, it might have been a very long time before she was identified if it wasn’t for a local youth group. One of the kids was the son of the district’s coroner. The group held a week-long candle vigil for the unidentified girl. The local paper ran the story and – as luck would have it – the article was picked up for syndication by one of the large international news groups there. The article also carried an artist’s picture of the girl and when it ran here in Australia, Celia Rossington saw it.’
‘So she was able to identify her daughter,’ said Micaleff. ‘Was the killer caught?’
‘Yes. Knowing her identity, the police were able to trace her last hours and, as a result, made an arrest.’
In his office later, Max related the full story to Gordon Stevens. ‘Celia Rossington never forgot how those kids in the States helped her. Then, about eighteen months ago, she heard about the unidentified body of a young murder victim in Sydney. She wanted to help, just as she’d been helped. So she and a few friends held their own candlelight vigil at the scene and alerted the media.’
‘I see,’ said Gordon, ‘and it grew from there.’
As if to greet the candle people, the chilly weather disappeared. Warm air swept in from the west, bringing with it the return of birdsong and the fresh scent of flowers. Night fell and the visitors rolled out their blankets and sat beneath the stars, in large groups, each and every one of them with a candle.
‘I never realized how special something this simple would look,’ Donna observed, ‘or how moving.’ She was watching from the police station steps, with Max and others.
New crews milled about and came and went. Celia Rossington had been granting interviews throughout. Her words, overheard by Max from Donna’s interview session, stuck in his mind: ‘Our vigil generates news coverage these cases don’t always get. As a result, the chances increase that someone, somewhere will recognise the victim. That’s all we can achieve. After that, it’s still up to the police to bring about justice.’
Many of the locals had gathered about the park to witness the vigil. Max saw the newsagent, George Rush, standing nearby with Angela, his wife of twenty years, and Gordon and Janet Stevens.
‘How are you holding up, George?’ Max asked, strolling over.
‘I’m fine, Max.’
‘He’s a liar, Max,’ Angela protested. ‘He’s been getting the shakes. Keeps reliving the moment he found that poor girl.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ the newsagent insisted. ‘But how about this, eh?’ With a sweeping gesture he indicated the people in the park. The soft glow from more than 100 candle flames flickered over the faces of the visitors, creating a calm, magical ambience to the mood of the night.
‘You wouldn’t think something as beautiful as this could come from something so tragic,’ said Janet Stevens, clutching her husband’s hand tightly. She was a small woman with expressive eyes and an air of fragility. ‘Of all those candles out there,’ she added, ‘I wish just one could’ve been for my Carrie.’
Gordon hugged her, and they moved a little closer to the vigil.
After a while, Angela Rush turned to Max. ‘You think this might help you identify that poor lass?’
‘I very much hope it will.’
• • •
Max thought of that reply forty eight hours later when the phone call came through from Sister Margaret Melliford. She’d seen a news report about the candle people arriving in Pioneer Hill and solved the mystery with just a few short sentences.
‘I’m afraid that I must ask you to come here and make an official identification of the body,’ Max said.
There were two people Max felt he should confide in straight away. The first was the coroner. The second was Celia Rossington.
‘Her name is Rebecca Featherstone,’ he told her. ‘The reason she couldn’t be identified locally was because she was a student at a girl’s boarding school interstate. The Sisters Of The Faith College in northern Victoria. The Head Sister there saw our police drawing of the girl on the news report.’
‘What was this girl-Rebecca-doing here?’
‘Not certain. But I’d say we’re dealing with a runaway.’
‘A runaway? And the sisters from this school didn’t know she was missing?’
‘No. It’s school holiday time, and the school believed Rebecca was spending the vacation in England with her parents. They’re living there at the moment.’
‘And now it’s been discovered there was no such arrangement for her to join her folks overseas,’ Celia guessed.
‘That’s right. But we don’t know why she misled the sisters or what she was doing up here in New South Wales.’
Celia fli
cked back a strand of her red hair and stared off, past Max, as though gazing into the subtle depths of a wall painting somewhere behind him. ‘I’d say there was a boy involved.’
Sister Margaret Melliford arrived the next day and identified the body. She also informed Max that, after contacting some of Rebecca’s friends earlier, she had learned that Rebecca had a secret boyfriend, who’d moved to a place somewhere on the Queensland border.
‘Doesn’t seem much doubt then,’ Gordon Stevens said to Max after the Sister had left. ‘Rebecca had decided to try hitch-hiking, intending to visit this boyfriend – something neither the school nor her parents would’ve allowed. So where do you go from here?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ Max moved from behind his desk and scrutinized the New South Wales road map that covered most of one wall. ‘Your autopsy showed Rebecca was killed elsewhere, then dumped in Pioneer Hill. Also that she’d been dead just half an hour, placing her death at approximately 6.45am. Quite early.’
‘Correct.’ Gordon leaned forward, intrigued.
‘We now know the girl was hitch-hiking,’ Max continued, ‘and that she’d left the school in Victoria the previous morning. We can assume she’d been on the road, in one or more cars, all of that day.’
Gordon nodded in agreement.
Now Max’s finger pointed to the place on the wall map where the main road passed through the outskirts of Pioneer Hill. He traced his finger to the spot nearby, where Rebecca Featherstone’s body had been found.
‘She’d been dead just half an hour and she’d been travelling north from the direction of Victoria, which means at the time of her murder she would’ve been around here.’ His finger followed a trail to an area called Cromwell Junction.
‘The Junction,’ said Gordon. ‘There’s a rest and refuelling spot for truckers there.’
‘Yes. And not a lot more apart from an all-night café and a hotel with rooms for rent.’
Gordon rose and began to pace, continually looking over at the spot on the wall map. ‘You think she stayed overnight at the pub, then rose at dawn to hitch a ride from one of the passing truckers?’
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