Perfect Victim (4 page)

I sat up straight. ‘She’s not dead. I don’t feel it. I would know. We would know.’

Mike didn’t reply. He wasn’t asleep.

‘Ring Ted. Michael! Ring Ted.’ I grabbed the phone.

It was so early. I don’t remember how early. But we rang Ted.

Ted and Betty are as near to family without actually being family. We met them when looking for land in 1982 and continued to be close when we moved to Glen Alvie, a country hamlet between Korumburra and Wonthaggi close to the south-east coast of Victoria. That was when Rachel was six months old. Then, when Rachel was two, and both Mike and I were working at the Lance Creek Reservoir, our Rachel was cared for by Ted and Betty, as day carers. Betty would meet me and Rachel at the Reservoir gates at 10 a.m. and later in the day we would collect her from their dairy farm.

Rachel had a joyous year. She would walk into the dairy and stand on the dairy gate. She’d watch the milk tanker come, and bulls riding cows’ backs, and calves born and poddy-fed. She’d throw scraps to the chooks, and search for extra eggs hidden in the garden. She milked the goat, played with kittens and puppies, and talked to the pet cockatoo. She was fed full-cream non-pasteurised milk, fresh vegetables, eggs, home-made cakes and the farm’s own meat.

Mike also helped Ted with milking. A bartered employment. In exchange we received evening meals, vegetables, eggs and milk. I learnt how to make perfectly good-tasting butter in a food processor and be left with buttermilk to make delectable scones, which I served with homemade jams made from greengage plums picked from roadside trees, and cream skimmed from the milk and whisked.

Ted and Betty had once helped pay for Rachel’s ballet fees. They saw Rachel like a grandchild and loved her dearly.

Seven years ago Ted collapsed in a coma at the dairy. He was rushed to hospital where he ‘died’ in casualty. His busy farming lifestyle prevented Ted from seeking medical attention when he felt unwell. He was an undiagnosed diabetic. Now he was dead. Betty was beside his bed but the doctors did not give up. They resuscitated Ted.

Ted’s life changed from that day. Ted would say he was
told
things. He said he experienced a foretelling of people’s lives. I haven’t always been able to go along with this but now more than anything I wanted him to have
seen something
.

‘Rachel’s missing,’ I said to him over the phone on that early morning.

Ted had sensed nothing. He said he’d do his best. He said we should keep him in touch. Pray and keep strong, we were told.

It was then I realised that I had not prayed at all. This confounded me. How many times, in the past, had I prayed? I’d prayed when I was a child for the times I would forget to pray as an adult. I’d prayed for God to save me from persistent bullying in my first two years of secondary school because my youngest sister had Down’s syndrome. I’d prayed when my parents divorced. I’d prayed for God to take my vivacious grandmother after a series of strokes left her with a death rattle, and bedridden, at seventy-four. I’d prayed for good results in exams. I’d prayed for God to bless our marriage. I’d prayed in bushfires. I’d prayed for my sister Robbie when her little boy Jonathon was stillborn at full term. I’d prayed during childbirth. I’d prayed for my children when they were happy and when they were cross, and when they were sad. Yet now my grief was so overpowering I had simply forgotten to pray. But I knew God would know my despair, and recall the prayers from my childhood when as an adult I forgot him. I prayed.

We found my mother out on the back veranda, under an overcast sky, and sat beside her sipping tea. We sat silent for some time. She thought it was an idea if she stayed until Rachel was found. We had taken this for granted. She thought it a good idea if Robbie came and collected our youngest daughter Heather, and took her back to Wonthaggi. We thought perhaps Ashleigh-Rose should stay home from school. Thoughts became plans. Decisions were made.

Family and friends were ringing. No one had any idea where Rachel might be.

I rang the Box Hill police station and spoke to the sergeant again. I explained to him what had happened the previous day. The shop walk, the disturbing story from the dress-shop girl, the story in the
Age
. He knew about this because of the contact from the Richmond police. He said somebody from the Box Hill police would visit the dance school later in the morning.

Our first contact with Neil Paterson of the Missing Persons Unit was at around this time. Neil was very helpful. He phoned to say that at this early stage the unit could not do anything. But he did sound concerned for Rachel and said he would contact the police station to see that everything that could be done would be done. He said it wasn’t possible for the Richmond police to transfer the investigation because this was the responsibility of the officer to whom it was reported. I persisted. ‘Could I perhaps go to the Box Hill police to take it off them? Then I could make a fresh report with the Richmond police.’ The answer was that it didn’t work like that.

It rained on Wednesday morning. We said goodbye to Ashleigh-Rose and Heather. Said we’d do our best to find their sister. I rang work, for a second time, and explained that Rachel had not come home. Said I must look for her. They wished us the very best and would be thinking of us. Told us to keep positive.

Yes, our daughter was living, somewhere. She was not dead. We would find her. We
must
find her. How could our daydreaming butterfly cease to exist?

We searched through the back streets of Richmond again. Down small streets, hidden behind Bridge Road shops and bluestone churches. Streets only wide enough for single lanes of traffic. Tiny single-storey terraced houses with rusting tin roofs, flaking paint and collapsed front veranda posts. Battered red and navy vinyl chairs sitting by themselves on front porches.

‘Rachel, Rachel, RACHEL!’ Two parents calling, for their first-born, walking down each side of the lanes. An odd sensation. So much of Rachel’s disappearance was surreal. We were beginning to live a life that should not have belonged to us.

Looking over fences. Walking through into unit carparks.

For the first time Mike began to open dump bins.

‘Don’t do that!’ I snapped. The thought was too final.

‘Elizabeth, I must.’ Pause. ‘If she’s been grabbed … someone may have dumped her bag.’

Some time later we gave up looking and returned to the dance school, hoping the Box Hill police were doing their bit. Vicki, the dance teacher, was distressed. The police had not been to visit. Vicki had called the Richmond police twice this Wednesday morning, to inform them the Box Hill police had not arrived. We were all trying desperately to make someone notice.

Vicki suggested I ring Neil Paterson again.

Once again Neil sounded sympathetic. He repeated what the Box Hill police had said – generally speaking ninety-seven per cent of missing people turn up within forty-eight hours. And if not, at least by the end of five days.

I thought, so that’s it. The police will get serious after five days. She should have been the daughter of a Prime Minister or been related to someone wealthy and famous. It didn’t matter she was our daughter. She didn’t warrant enough attention. Rachel’s life was cheap. To them she was just some fifteen-year-old kid who had decided to clear off for a few days. Well, that’s how it seemed anyway.

Neil had been concerned about the
old female friend
story and suggested we start writing down the names of Rachel’s friends. Not just present friends but old school friends. So the first of many lists began.

I found it difficult to remember all her friends’ surnames so it was suggested I ring Canterbury Girls Secondary College. I rang and explained Rachel had been missing since Monday night and although Rachel had not been a student for the last six months could they perhaps provide me with a list of her friends’ surnames. I was told they could not give out this information and suggested I ring the local police to make the request.

I put the phone down, understanding their situation, and phoned the Box Hill police. And again I needed to tell the story of Rachel’s disappearance to yet another officer. The policewoman told me she didn’t know where the school or I had got the idea that the police could request a list of names from the school, because they couldn’t do it.

It really did feel as if, apart from family and friends, we were receiving little support. Did they expect us all to go home and wait? Wait to see if she would return? Wait to see themselves proven right that her life had never been in danger?

Wait
. What sort of waiting game is this when one waits until it
is
too late? Wait until her body is found? Wait to hear them say, we were wrong, she wasn’t a fifteen-year-old statistic who chose to go of her own free will.

It was now midday on Wednesday. We had made our first contact with the police an hour and a quarter after Rachel’s disappearance, but the only police help we’d apparently received were a few well-meaning comments.

We discussed ringing the newspapers and television news without the help of the police, but something stopped us. We feared,
really feared
, for her life. If someone was holding her against her will and saw the press, could they panic? Kill her?

While we were still at the dance school we received a phone call from Richmond police asking us to come to the station to make a statement. I felt a new surge of adrenalin! We did not know what activated this fresh interest, but, thank God, at last someone was listening. Immediately I began to feel better. Now the police were taking us seriously, we would surely find her.

Vicki, her dance teacher, had lent us her mobile phone, so we grabbed it and left a message at the dance school for Vicki to follow: if an independent person gave a character reference of Rachel the police would no doubt realise it wasn’t just over-reacting parents who feared for her safety.

At the police station we met a new face behind the counter and found ourselves retelling the story,
again
. This officer disappeared for a moment, returning to say the detective senior sergeant would speak to us shortly. We sat waiting while people filed into this toilet-sized watchhouse. It didn’t feel like a welcoming place.

There were statutory declarations signed. Complaints against parking tickets, a lost handbag and some complicated story about a lost licence. A middle-aged man came in verbally abusing the police officer, who remained remarkably calm.

Mike asked how long we would need to wait. It felt as if we were doing too much of nothing. The police officer tried to explain about police procedures while we were waiting and then I remembered that we’d left Vicki’s mobile in the car. Mike decided to go and collect it.

While Mike was out the detective senior sergeant came through. I told him that Mike had just gone to collect the mobile phone from the car. The detective senior sergeant thought this an excellent idea because of the high theft rate from cars. I suggested we wait for Mike, but he said Mike could just follow us up. I was led through the first of many glass security doors that we’d encounter over the next two weeks and walked up two flights of wooden stairs. We went through to an office where I again asked if we could wait for Mike.

The detective suggested I start with my statement and explained that this type of report is not usually investigated by CIB. I gathered something had been going on in the background – I sensed he wasn’t particularly pleased. However, he appeared to be very thorough and I was glad that we had someone taking us seriously.

But I was embarrassed by Mike’s absence, mentioning on a number of occasions how concerned I was. The detective senior sergeant told me not to worry. Mike had probably just been held up. I gave my statement as objectively as I could, so we didn’t look like hysterical parents. I gave him details of our own investigations. Names of shops and shopkeepers, and the description of the woman approaching young women. But I kept thinking,
where’s Mike
? I felt as if Mike had deliberately taken a long time so it would all be over on his return. I was concerned with how this must have appeared to the detective.

When the statement was finished the detective senior sergeant excused himself. Shortly after, another detective came through and offered me a drink. And finally, Mike came through with another detective.

‘Where have you
been
?’ I uttered, agitated.

‘I’ve been downstairs.’

‘All this time,’ I answered in disbelief.

When Mike returned with the mobile phone Vicki was already waiting. Before he’d had a chance to speak, the constable behind the desk questioned him aggressively concerning the presence of Vicki, claiming she had already phoned twice that morning. Mike said Vicki was there to verify Rachel’s character and show that she was no runaway, something no one in authority seemed to want to believe.

The constable replied that if and when the police wished to talk to Vicki they would make that decision and not Mike. He followed this statement with yet another description about the correct procedures when dealing with the police and how things were done, and in what order.

Mike said that every time he tried to say something he was told to hold on because he, the constable, was talking. Eventually Mike became so tired of this that he raised his voice and said, ‘No,
you
hold on. If you don’t mind, I would like to get a word in.’ Mike explained again why Vicki was there, and said, ‘I don’t really care about the right or wrong way of doing things. I have a daughter missing and finding her is the most important thing to me and I don’t appreciate being attacked for it.’

The constable immediately backed off and suggested that Mike sit down and calm down. ‘I
am
calm and I should be with my wife giving a statement,’ he said. But the constable insisted, so Mike sat. Some time during this trauma Vicki withdrew and returned to the dance school. Eventually Mike was shown upstairs to discover I had already given the statement.