Chapter 4
The sun was lower over the vineyard by the time they’d finished dinner and loaded the boxes of appeal flyers into Charlie’s Land Rover.
Rita and the kids came to the front door to say goodbye, Henry already wrapped in a bath towel.
Raco kissed them, then climbed into the back seat next to Zara as Charlie fired up the engine.
From the passenger seat, Falk watched Rita wave as they pulled away. Her smile didn’t dip, but he knew her well enough to spot the hint of stress. He couldn’t decide if she was relieved or sorry not to be joining them.
Charlie didn’t say anything as he drove. The boxes of flyers slid in the trunk with a gentle thump as he turned out of the vineyard and onto the road. Last year they’d driven this same route, but the trunk had been clinking instead, loaded with a couple of crates of Charlie’s own shiraz.
“I make a few bottles most years,” he’d told Falk back then as they’d loaded those crates into the trunk. “See how it turns out.”
“It’s not a big part of your business?” Falk had asked, and Charlie had laughed.
“Not even a small part. A few of the wineries buy pretty much everything from the vines, but I keep a bit back myself for fun. Bottle it up. Sell it at the festival, couple of the farmers’ markets, that kind of thing. Give it to friends, whether they want it or not.”
Falk had reached into a crate and picked up a bottle, turning it over in his hand, looking at the vineyard’s logo on the label. He’d tried to imagine creating something like this from scratch, from grapes to crate. “Does it come up well?”
“It does.” Charlie had grinned. “If I do say so myself.”
Falk had put the bottle back. “You didn’t fancy following in the family footsteps, then?”
“No, I did not,” Charlie had said with such vigor that Falk had had to smile.
The Racos were a police family, and the three brothers had grown up watching their dad oversee this very town as the long-standing local sergeant.
Keeping the place firmly shipshape by all accounts, until he’d finally retired fifteen years earlier and moved away with their mum to soak up a bit of Queensland sun.
He’d died a couple of years ago, Falk knew, but two of his three sons had continued his legacy with careers in the force.
“Never appealed to me at all,” Charlie had said. “You’ve got to be a certain type, I reckon. No offense.”
Falk had laughed. “None taken.”
“I’m a little offended,” Raco had said mildly as he straightened up a crate.
“I know, mate. That’s because you’re exactly that type,” Charlie had said and grinned back at his brother as he’d slammed the trunk.
There was no joking in the car this year as they drove toward the festival site, barely exchanging a word.
Marralee’s streets were already heavy with tourist traffic and they hit a slow crawl well before they could see the grounds themselves.
The site was only a few kilometers from the vineyard, Falk remembered from the previous year.
Close enough for them all to walk, had it not been for the boxes of flyers stacked in the trunk, but no one complained.
They were edging into the parking lot when Zara finally broke the silence.
“Do you think this will work?”
Raco shifted in his seat. “The appeal?”
“Yeah.”
Falk glanced at Zara in the side mirror. She was running her eyes over the cars in the next lane, scanning the occupants carefully. He wasn’t sure what she was expecting or hoping to see.
“I think it depends on what you’re expecting, mate,” Raco said. “Will it shake some memories loose, maybe help fill in the timeline a bit more? Yeah, hopefully. Are you going to come away knowing what your mum did, step by step? Unlikely. I’m sorry, I wish—”
“No. I know. It’s okay.” Zara’s face was still. Only her eyes continued to move, darting from one car to the next.
The approach to the site looked exactly the same as Falk remembered.
Even from inside the car he could hear the lilt of a band playing somewhere in the distance, the faint notes mixing with the familiar low, steady hum generated by hundreds of people converging in one place.
Parking attendants in sunglasses and high-vis vests directed cars into a single file and herded them past rows of earlier arrivals toward an open field.
Last year, it had been Charlie who had spotted Kim’s car.
He’d been a little quiet on the drive then, too, but his face had relaxed a notch as they’d crept along with the traffic.
“Hey,” he’d said then as he’d eased the car forward. “Looks like your mum made it.”
“Where?” Zara had raised her head from her phone as Charlie pointed to a silver family sedan parked to their left. A man—Rohan Gillespie, Falk had guessed rightly at the time—was beside the trunk, trying to wrestle a stroller into shape.
“Oh. Good.” Zara’s eyes were already drifting back to her screen.
Charlie had beeped the horn lightly, and Rohan had looked up from the stroller. Charlie touched the brakes, but another horn had blared from the line of cars behind, and a harried parking attendant had urged them onward with a jerking motion.
“Yeah, all right, mate, I’m moving,” Charlie had muttered and rolled forward. He’d glanced in the rearview mirror at his daughter, a small frown forming behind his sunglasses. “Make sure you catch your mum inside, yeah?”
Rohan had been shielding his eyes from the low sun, squinting at their car. Seeming to recognize them suddenly, he’d lifted his hand as they’d trundled past, then put the stroller down and leaned around to call something through the sedan’s passenger door.
“Zara?” Charlie had said again. “You heard me? About Mum?”
“Yeah. I will.”
She’d sounded distracted, though, and in the mirror Falk had seen her eyes fixed on the back of her mother’s car as they pulled away.
Someone had put stickers on the tinted rear window.
A chalk-drawing stick family of three—mum, dad, and baby.
Zara had blinked once, then dropped her gaze back to her phone. Her thumb moved fast across her screen.
Rohan Gillespie had later told police his family had arrived at the festival site at around 7:15 p.m. Zara had pinpointed that moment to 7:19 p.m., confirmed by the text she’d sent a friend as they’d driven by: Here now. Parking.
The last alleged sighting of Kim fell somewhere between 90 and 130 minutes later, Falk knew, depending on whether you put more weight on the statement from the kids’ face-paint artist or the overworked bartender. Or, as some people decided, neither.
Twelve months on and the parking lot was still as slow-moving as Falk remembered it, and Charlie had to park some distance away from the entrance.
They each took a box of flyers from the trunk and made their way through the sea of cars.
The same wide, bright banner Falk had seen the year before swayed gently overhead in the warm evening breeze: Marralee Valley Annual Food and Wine Festival.
Est. 1951. Strings of lights created a canopy leading up to the entrance, which glowed a warm gold in the encroaching twilight.
At the turnstiles, a pair of gray-haired officials in matching fleeces kept an eye on crowd numbers, opening the side gate every few seconds to let through a family with a stroller or wheelchair.
Admission was still free, Falk noted, which he remembered thinking added to the community feel of the event.
Beyond the entrance he could see volunteers collecting gold coin donations for a charity.
“Where are we meeting everyone?” Charlie called to Zara as they joined the bottleneck for the turnstiles. “The main stage?”
“No, our stall.”
“Okay.” Charlie mouthed thank you as one of the officials spotted the boxes in their arms and beckoned them through the gate instead.
“I thought you might not do the stall this year?” Raco said to his brother once they were inside.
“Yeah, I could do without it, to be honest,” Charlie said. “But we’d committed to three years on that spot, and in the end, Shane agreed we may as well.”
“Is he coming tonight?” Raco asked.
“Should be there now, hopefully. Setting the casuals up.”
Charlie led the way through the crowds, and before long Falk saw the distinctive crimson branding up ahead.
The Penvale Vineyard stall had a long table along its front, with several bottles already open for tastings.
A friendly young woman who looked like she could be a uni student was pouring small measures for a family group, while another pointed out something printed on the bottle’s label.
Behind them in the dim back half of the stall, a large bloke was breaking down empty boxes, his shoulders and chest broad enough to stretch the fabric of his vineyard T-shirt. He’d been there last year, too, and although Falk hadn’t been formally introduced, he recognized the face.
“G’day, guys.” Charlie nodded to his staff and cleared a space at the end of the table for Zara to put down her flyers.
The stall looked to be more or less in the same spot as last year, Falk thought as he glanced around.
He didn’t claim to know much about retail exposure sites, but this seemed well positioned for foot traffic.
They were right at the top of the main drag between the entrance and the exit, meaning most people had to pass by on their way in or out.
Perfect for crowd-watching, too, as it had been last year.
Falk had wondered for a while, at the time, if that might end up proving useful.
It hadn’t, in the end, other than to suggest that on the balance of probabilities, Kim Gillespie hadn’t left the grounds by the main exit.
Falk supposed that was useful information in its own way.
“Oh, great. Dad, that journalist came,” Zara said, and Charlie put his box on the table and looked to where she was pointing. “There. Talking to Rohan and Sergeant Dwyer.”
Falk placed his own box down and turned as well.