Promise (14 page)

Sabine smiled. ‘Yes. Why not?’

Anna stood and scraped half her meal into the compost bin as Pat wandered outside. Over at the raised veggie beds, he tossed the banana skin into the bushes and bent to pick something from a plant. Anna watched him and wondered why he let Sabine do the talking. Had he and Sabine disagreed about it? Was there the same uncomfortable, unbreachable territory between Pat and Sabine today that she and Pat had experienced all those years ago?

Charlie wiped a finger over her plate and licked it. ‘I want a
Frozen
birthday cake.’

Anna said, ‘An ice-cream cake?’

Charlie smiled at her and shook her head. ‘No.’

‘It’s a film,’ said Sabine. ‘A kid’s film.’

‘Where’s your TV?’ asked Charlie, looking around.

‘No TV,’ said Sabine. She spooned in the last of her muesli and stood up, still chewing. She stretched out a hand to Charlie. ‘You can have more food later, Charlie. Take a banana if you need. Let’s go to look at Avril’s computer.’

As Charlie slid off the chair, her sarong slipped down.

‘Hang on,’ said Anna and knelt to retie it. ‘Sabine, do you have an old t-shirt or something we could put on her?’

‘Of course. Wait.’

Sabine reappeared with a purple t-shirt. ‘Try this.’

‘Thank you.’ Anna fed Charlie’s arms through the sleeves. She smiled at Charlie. ‘It’s a bit big, isn’t it?’ She tucked the dandelion back behind the girl’s ear.

‘Good.’ Sabine picked up her dressing-gown belt from the floor. ‘Let’s go.’

Anna followed Sabine and Charlie onto the verandah and stopped to slip her shoes on. Charlie didn’t have shoes; she had shorts, a t-shirt and a smelly toy rabbit. Her urine-soaked shorts and the towel were still in the boot of the car and would be stinking by now.

Sabine called to Pat, ‘Bye,
liebe
, back soon!’ Her voice was breezy, as if this excursion wouldn’t dictate whether Anna and Charlie could stay.

‘Bye,’ he called from the veggie bed. Behind him was a track that Anna knew led down through the forest to the rocky creek and waterhole. She had spent whole days lying around on the big, smooth boulders down there.

As she crossed the clearing, the lawn squelching under her shoes, Pat called to her in a quiet voice, ‘Anna.’

He walked over to her, wiping his hands on his shorts. ‘If it ends up that you have to get on the road again, we’ll give you food and clothes and a tent . . . Whatever you need, I’ll set you up.’

Her throat tightened at the thought of heading out of the valley, back down onto the plain. ‘What about a hut or something I could rent for a while? I have cash with me.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, that’s a possibility.’ He glanced over to the forest. ‘Sabine got pretty freaked out last night about the cops turning up. She really wants to help Charlie but she’s always been a bit anxious, and it’s even worse now. She’s afraid of losing the baby, afraid of us breaking up . . . but mostly afraid of being caught . . .’

‘I really can’t imagine they’d put a pregnant woman in detention.’

He shrugged. ‘You’d hope not.’

The sound of cicadas swelled and thrummed around them until it reached a painful pitch. Anna caught a glimpse of Charlie’s blue sarong as the girl disappeared into the forest.

Pat smiled. ‘Well, hopefully you made a clean getaway.’

‘I hope so. I’d better catch up with them.’

She hurried across the clearing and into the dim forest. The dirt path was narrow and wound between the tall trees. All around, the air was wet and loamy, and rain dripped from the forest canopy above, the droplets bouncing the big leaves and making the delicate ferns shiver. It was such a benign landscape. No, it was more than benign, it was abundant and cocooning. Which was why she was desperate to stay and not head out into open country.

Anna once read that people were meant to be feel most at home in the landscape of their childhood, but she found the countryside around Orange uninviting. Here, the forest burst with life, everything moist and fertile, vines looping from tree to tree, ferns and palms sprouting from the smallest crevice. When she was nineteen and Pat first drove her up into the hills in his old van, the forest getting denser around them by the minute, the thought kept running through her head,
I’ve come home, I’ve come home.
She didn’t tell Pat, afraid that he’d think her presumptuous, or that he’d think it was about him.

A
nna caught up with Sabine and Charlie. They were crouched on the path, examining a frilly orange fungus growing from a fallen tree branch.

Charlie touched it and looked up at Anna. ‘It’s hard,’ she said.

‘But so pretty,’ said Sabine as she stood and hitched her dressing gown out of the mud. ‘Like a little skirt.’

The sound of a child laughing reached them, and a moment later, three children came into view at the top of the hill. The boy in front was bare-chested and barefoot, and looked about eleven. He called, ‘Hey ho! Hey ho!’ as he jogged towards them, a long stick in one hand. He veered off the path to pass them, and sent leaves sliding down around their feet.

He grinned. ‘Hi Sabine! Hi! Hi to you, too!’

Straggly brown hair fell below his shoulders, and he lifted the stick over his shoulder like a spear. The other two hurried behind him, a younger boy and a girl of about Charlie’s age. She had blonde pigtails, and her round face was serious with the effort of keeping up.

‘Hi,’ she panted as she trotted by.

Charlie turned and watched them disappear down the track, and kept looking until long after they’d gone. Finally, she looked up at Anna. ‘Who are
they
?’

Sabine said, ‘Beatie and Will’s kids. They’re probably going to the waterhole. Come on, let’s keep going.’

Charlie said, ‘Where do they live?’

‘Just over the hill,’ said Sabine and set off.

The path branched in two and Sabine took the left fork. A few metres along, Charlie stopped walking and Anna nearly ran into her. The girl pointed up the hill. ‘What’s on the other side of the trees?’

‘What do you mean?’ The path traversed the side of the mountain, forest stretching as far as they could see in all directions.

‘What’s past the trees?’

‘Well, there are more trees. The trees go on for quite a while.’

Charlie’s eyes widened.

Anna said, ‘And then maybe some paddocks and houses and roads and eventually the edge of a city.’

‘A city?’

‘Yeah, but not for a long way.’

Charlie peered into the forest. Anna wondered if the girl wanted to set off until she reached civilisation. She was a city child. Perhaps the endlessness of the forest was frightening. A caravan was a particularly small and known world.

‘Let’s go and catch up with Sabine,’ said Anna. Charlie reached for Anna’s hand.

At the top of the hill, the path descended a dozen steps to a mudbrick house set in a small clearing, its tin roof pulled low. Sabine was over at the house, opening a pair of glass doors.

Anna squeezed Charlie’s small hand.
Please let there be nothing in the papers. Please let us stay here
.

They crossed the lawn as a wind chime bonged gently somewhere and a dirty white chook wandered by.

Sabine waited for them at the door, beside a line of shoes, including half-a-dozen kids’ shoes.

‘They’re away. In Melbourne,’ she said. She pointed to the towel mat just outside the door. ‘Give your feet a bit of a wipe, eh, Charlie?’

Anna shucked off her own sneakers and knelt beside Charlie. The mud had squeezed through the girl’s toes and spattered her calves. Anna rubbed the worst of it off with the towel, then stepped into a big sunlit room that smelt of onion and dust. Plaits of garlic hung from the ceiling, and the shelves were jammed with jars of beans and rice. Gleaming in the middle of the bench was a big, new-looking, stainless-steel stove. The air felt undisturbed, heavy.

Anna hated being in a stranger’s home uninvited. She hoped the owners weren’t about to walk in. ‘When are they back?’

‘Not for two weeks.’

Sabine sat at a desk up one end of the kitchen. She bent to turn the PC on, and it hummed and trilled. Charlie wandered into the living area.

Anna stood behind Sabine, trying to steady her breath as the computer screen came to life.

‘Here,’ said Sabine. ‘You look.’ She stood up.

On the
Sydney Morning Herald
website, Anna scrolled down. Nothing. On the
Daily Telegraph
site was a heading:
Girl Abducted
. And a photo of Charlie. It was an old photo; she looked about three, with very short hair. Anna clicked through to the story as Sabine bent to read over her shoulder.

At the top of the story was the same photo of Charlie, but much larger. And a photo of Anna. She had to close her eyes for a moment; she felt sick. Hundreds, no, thousands of people were seeing this photo of Anna, and knew she’d abducted someone’s child. And where did they get that photo of her at her brother’s wedding? Facebook? Her dad? She guessed her dad would have no choice but to supply a photo if the cops asked. She swivelled the screen away from Charlie, who was edging along the bookcase towards them.

Police hold serious concerns for the welfare of a missing Sydney girl, last seen at her Mascot home on Saturday afternoon. Five-year-old Charlie Seybold is believed to be with her neighbour, 37-year-old Anna Pierce, and police have reason to believe the woman and girl may be in the central-west area of New South Wales, near Orange.

Relief flooded Anna. Pat would let them stay.

Police are appealing for public assistance in locating the girl. She is of Caucasian appearance with short blonde hair and blue eyes. She is of thin build and approximately 110cm tall. Anna Pierce is 170cm tall, medium build with long, dark-brown hair and brown eyes. She may be driving a silver Toyota Corolla, registration CVX127. Anyone who sees them or believes they know of their whereabouts is urged to call CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.

Anna slumped back in the chair and exhaled slowly. They were safe. But what if that woman – the walker – saw this article? She might let the police know that Anna and Charlie were not, in fact, anywhere near Orange.

Sabine finished reading and straightened up with a small laugh. ‘Okay. You fooled them. That’s great. And why do they say around Orange?’

‘My dad lives there. I grew up there. And I drove west out of the city.’ Was it really only two nights ago?

‘Open some other stories too,’ said Sabine.

‘Why?’

‘So it looks normal. Like we are reading the whole paper. They can see exactly what’s going on over the entire net.’

It was madness to think that the cops would be somehow monitoring every single computer in the state. But she clicked on a story about a pile-up on a motorway then one about a gorilla born at some zoo.

Charlie inched closer to the computer, something clutched in her hand.

Anna said, ‘What have you got there?’

Charlie held up the small yellow bowl. Anna touched a finger to the shiny glaze.

We can stay. We can stay.

Charlie rested a hand on Anna’s thigh and whispered, ‘What are you looking at?’

Anna smiled. ‘We’re just looking for a news story. Everything’s fine.’

Sabine bent down and shut down the computer. ‘We can check again tomorrow. See what they are saying. You must not go onto your email or anything. Don’t search for her name. Don’t go to the police website. Nothing.’

‘Okay.’

Charlie put the bowl back on the shelf. ‘I need to wee.’

Sabine said, ‘The grass outside or toilet at the end of the hall.’

In the bathroom, Anna helped Charlie onto the toilet seat. The girl balanced, her small bottom poised mid-air. Anna leant against the vanity and looked down at Charlie – her ears poking out through her hair, small hand gripping a square of toilet paper – and hoped she could sense Anna’s relief. Surely a kid like her would have learned to pick up on people around her.

Now that they could stay, Anna should turn her mind to their practical needs. Clothes. A toothbrush. What did a five-year-old need? She tried to remember herself at that age, but had only fragments – starting school, her kindy teacher with long hair, Luke patiently teaching her to tie her shoelaces. What memories – if any – would Charlie have of this time with Anna?

Anna flushed the toilet and lathered the girl’s hands with rose-smelling soap.

‘Who are they?’ asked Charlie as she dried her hands.

‘Who?’

‘Them.’ She pointed to the hallway and the framed photos of two brown-haired girls and their mother.

‘Um, the mum’s name is Avril. That’s all I know.’ Anna hung the hand towel back on its hook. ‘I’ve never met them.’

‘Do they know we’re here?’

‘In their house, you mean?’

Charlie nodded.

‘No, I don’t think so. But they’re good friends with Sabine. Do you feel a bit funny being here?’
Like me
.

Charlie shrugged and started down the hall, then paused in a doorway. The room was dim because the curtains were drawn, but it was clearly a kid’s bedroom, with soft toys jumbled on the single bed and a horse poster on the wall.

Charlie bent down and exclaimed, ‘I have blocks like this!’ She held up a blue plastic cube. ‘The same.’ She looked around the room and Anna figured she was scanning for other familiar objects. The girl tucked the block inside a fold of her sarong and Anna didn’t have the heart to tell her to put it back. She could retrieve it later. Charlie slipped past Anna and down the hall.

In the kitchen, Anna poured herself a glass of water. Through the window she saw Charlie sit next to Sabine on a long wooden bench facing the garden. Anna felt flat; she guessed the rush of adrenaline was fading – that righteous adrenaline she’d been filled with – and now she had nothing to buffer her from the hard fact that she was here with someone else’s child and the police were after her.

One step at a time. One step at a time. Go back and confirm with Pat that we can stay.

She drank the last of the water and rinsed out the glass. As she pulled the double doors shut behind her, she heard Sabine say, ‘So, how did your arm get hurt?’