Chapter 4 #2
Rohan Gillespie was on the other side of the wide path, standing beside a tall, gray-haired police sergeant.
They were both leaning in a little, straining to hear over the noise as a woman with a notebook asked something.
Nearby, a photographer with ill-fitting jeans and an equipment bag near his feet waited patiently.
The reporter finished her question and the police officer nodded in response, indicating back toward the entrance at something above the canvas roofs of the stalls.
Falk looked up to where he was pointing and saw a CCTV camera fixed high on a pole.
That was new. They’d had cameras on only the main exit last year.
Rohan’s eyes drifted down from the camera and back to the stall, with a flash of relief as he spotted the Racos there. He murmured something to the journalist, who was scribbling fast, then threaded his way across the busy path toward the stall.
“Hey. Good to see you, guys. Zara, that reporter’s very keen to chat to—” He stopped as his gaze landed on the boxes.
The lids were unsealed, and after a beat, Rohan reached out and took an appeal flyer from the top of the pile.
He held it in his hand and stared for a long moment at the picture of his wife and the words beneath.
“Thanks again for doing these, Zara.” His voice was tight, and he gave a tiny nod. “They’re…”
He searched for a word but didn’t find it.
“Where’s Zoe?” Charlie asked.
“Oh. With my parents,” Rohan said, still distracted by the picture. A frown flickered across his face. “Bit of a nightmare drop-off. They’re all—” He stopped again. Shook his head. “Anyway, doesn’t matter. I had to be here.”
“You’re always welcome to leave her with us,” Raco said. “We’ve got all the baby stuff, so it’s no extra hassle.”
“Thanks, mate,” Rohan said, but his eyes had fallen back down to his wife.
Raco seemed about to say something else, but stopped as the police sergeant began to weave his way toward them, the reporter and photographer in his wake.
“G’day, all,” the officer said as he reached the stall. “Good to see you, mate. Welcome home.” He shook Raco’s hand, then turned to Zara. “And how are you?”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Yeah? Then you’re doing better than most would be.
” The officer gave her a small smile and picked up a flyer, pulling a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket.
He was probably in his late fifties, Falk guessed, but his wiry, outdoorsy build suggested he enjoyed the cholesterol and blood pressure readings of someone ten years younger.
The name tag on his pocket read: Sergeant R. Dwyer.
“These have come up well, Zara. Good job.” Dwyer peered over his glasses at her. “Listen, that journo wants a word before you move off, but the volunteers are here and ready, so if you and Rohan are right to go, I reckon we get this started?”
Rohan’s face automatically firmed into a look of attentive determination.
Falk regularly saw that same expression in high-level professional meetings, where it felt crucial that the right decisions were made.
It was usually bullshit. Bravado masking fear and self-doubt.
He had a version of that expression himself.
Zara was counting the few dozen volunteers milling around the edges of the stall, talking among themselves.
It was a mixed bag, old and young, and one or two families.
Falk vaguely recognized a handful of them as friends of the Raco family.
They probably all were, in some way or another, and from the tense, eager way they waited for instruction, he could see that the events of last year still cast a shadow.
Falk hadn’t been there to witness the aftermath himself; once the shoe was found and the history of antidepressant prescriptions began to seep out, Kim’s death had taken the shape of a very intimate family tragedy.
He had suddenly felt in the way. No one had said as much, not at all, but he could tell his bed in the guesthouse would be more useful freed up for the relatives now arriving by the day.
Falk had checked in with Raco and, separately, Rita—both already turning inward to their family pain—and less than seventy-two hours after he’d arrived, they’d waved him off with mutual understanding on both sides.
“All right,” Dwyer said now, raising his voice over the crowd noise. “If you’re here for the appeal, please step in a little there, so we don’t block the path. Yep, perfect.”
He gestured for the flyers to be passed around as the crowd formed a loose circle.
“Right. Thanks, all, for coming out,” Dwyer started.
“I recognize a lot of faces, and I know a lot of you knew Kim well. But there’ll be plenty of people here tonight at this festival who didn’t know her as well, or at all.
And it’s them—anyone who was here at the opening last year and might have seen her—those are the people we want to talk to.
“We’ve got leaflets here—yeah, thanks, grab a handful each—and our aim tonight is to get people to have another think about that night.
What they might have seen or noticed. Maybe it didn’t seem important at the time, but I’d rather know about it and make that call myself.
I’ll be around all evening, or can be contacted through the station.
“All right.” He clapped his hands. “We’ll be on the main stage a little later for an appeal and a short tribute from Kim’s family, so please encourage people to be there.
It’s scheduled for—” He looked to Zara and Rohan for confirmation.
“Eight thirty? Yep, eight thirty.” He kept his eyes on the family.
“Anything either of you would like to add?”
Rohan glanced at Zara, who blinked. She wavered a moment, and when she shook her head, he cleared his throat. “Look, we’d like to thank everyone for being here. We—”
“Actually,” Zara cut him off. “Sorry. Sorry, Rohan. I think I do want to say something.”
“Yeah? Okay. Of course.”
Zara still seemed uncertain as all eyes turned to her, but took a breath.
“I know most of you were here last year and know what happened. So you’ll probably have heard that my mum had postnatal depression.
And that’s true. You’ve probably also heard how she abandoned my sister in her stroller, and went down to the reservoir drop and—” Zara stumbled over the words and stopped.
She took a second to gather herself. “That bit is not true.”
Falk saw a few among the crowd shift their weight and throw a glance to the person next to them.
No one seemed quite sure how to best react to that, and the atmosphere took on an awkward undercurrent.
Raco and Charlie exchanged a look, a silent communication passing between them.
They both slid their eyes back to Zara, who had also sensed the ripple in the crowd.
Rohan had felt it, too, Falk could tell.
The man had been listening to Zara with his head bowed, staring at a spot on the ground, but now he glanced up.
The professional face had faded, and he simply looked disappointed.
He ran his gaze lightly over the gathered group, sending several pairs of eyes skittering away, then took a small but distinct half step toward Zara.
It barely closed any distance, but the instant effect was one of solidarity.
He gave Zara a little nod of encouragement, and she looked relieved.
Charlie, Falk noticed, looked like he wished he’d done the same, but the moment had passed. It was too late now, and he knew it.
“Yes. So,” Zara recovered her train of thought and her momentum, “what I’m saying is, my mum would never have left Zoe. Or me. She loved us, and she would hate to see what we’ve all been through this past year.”
A subtle movement at the back of the crowd caught Falk’s eye, and he tilted his head to see better.
A lone teenage boy was standing a little apart from the group, his arms folded across his chest as he watched Zara speak.
He had a flyer in one hand and was listening with a hint of a frown on his face.
Falk felt a faint stirring of recognition. He didn’t know the kid, though. He didn’t really know anyone here other than the Racos. The boy had close-cropped hair and looked about eighteen. He was all angles, with the lean coat-hanger look of a growing body trying to keep up with itself.
“I know what everyone believes happened.” A note of urgency had crept into Zara’s voice. “And actually, I can understand why. But my mum did not go down to the reservoir. Someone—a witness—who was working nearby all night has told police that she never went through the reservoir exit.”
The teenage boy barely reacted. He kept his gaze firmly on Zara as several heads turned his way, but everything about his stance morphed into something instantly defensive.
So that was him. Falk felt the pieces click together now. The one who’d been stuck out at the first-aid post near the back end of the site. Who’d given his statement and—Falk guessed from the mutinous look on his face—presumably stuck to it over the past twelve months.
“Something else happened to my mum that night,” Zara went on. “Either someone made her leave the festival, or her mental health was so bad that she agreed to go, or got tricked, or, I don’t know—”
Raco and Charlie exchanged another look. Zara caught it this time.
“But Mum should still be considered out there somewhere, until we know for certain otherwise.” Her words turned sharp. “So here are the things we need to know: the timeline of what she did that night—”
Falk glanced at Sergeant Dwyer. He was yet to meet a cop who enjoyed being told how to do their own job, but rather than seeming skeptical or annoyed, the officer’s face was determinedly neutral.
“—we need to know who she spoke to and when—”
As Falk watched, Dwyer’s head inclined in a near-imperceptible nod, almost to himself.
That was interesting. Sergeant Dwyer had been on leave last year when Kim left her daughter in the stroller bay underneath the ferris wheel.
Falk wasn’t sure he’d ever known exactly why Dwyer was away—some family reason, maybe?
—but he did remember being surprised that the sergeant had been granted time off during what had to be one of the town’s busiest weeks.
Whatever the reason, Sergeant Dwyer hadn’t been around to deal with what happened.
Falk wondered if he felt the need to make up for that now.
“I miss my mum and I love her and—” Zara sighed. She suddenly sounded very tired. “And look, the fact is, someone knows something. That person might be here tonight. We need to find that person, so we can find Mum. So if everyone could please take some flyers, that would be great. Thank you.”
Sergeant Dwyer saw his opening and stepped in. “Thanks, Zara. Everyone, let’s make a move. Get yourselves into pairs, groups, whatever, and we’ll head out. See what we can get back.”
A buzz of chatter rose as loose groups formed and began to drift away, flyers in hands and varying degrees of enthusiasm on their faces. Falk looked over to Raco, who was still in the same spot, watching Zara as she shook the journalist’s hand.
“You want me to grab some flyers?” Falk said, and Raco nodded slowly.
“Thanks, we should, I suppose.”
Falk walked over to the nearest box, waiting his turn as other volunteers reached in. Nearby, he could hear Rohan being accosted by a couple of older men who were asking about his dad’s health.
“—thank you, yeah, so far he’s still ignoring pretty much everything the doctors want him to do,” Rohan was saying. “But Mum’s keeping him in line, lots of veggies, no booze. So, fingers crossed.”
Over by the stall, Falk could see the large, broad-shouldered employee had come out from behind the table and was now standing with Charlie.
They had been joined by a petite blond woman who was wearing a crisp white shirt that opened low at the neckline and was tucked at her waist into dark skinny jeans.
The three of them talked softly while pretending not to watch Zara as she thanked the reporter and photographer, then extracted herself neatly from the crowd and headed directly over to the teenage boy.
The boy straightened as she approached, and she reached up and they hugged briefly. Zara handed him some leaflets and said something Falk couldn’t hear but could guess from the body language.
Was that okay?
The boy nodded. Yeah. Good.
Neither smiled. Zara pointed somewhere toward the east of the festival site, and the boy gave a small shrug of agreement.
Falk reached the front of the line and grabbed a stack of paper from the box, then headed back to Raco, whom he could tell had also had his eye on Zara’s exchange.
“Here.” Falk passed him a handful of flyers.
“Thanks, mate,” Raco said, without glancing at them. “Listen—” He was still watching as Zara and the boy walked off together. “I reckon there are enough people covering the grounds. Let’s head down to the reservoir. See what we see.”
“Yeah, okay,” Falk said, a little surprised.
He shuffled the flyers straight in his hands, looked once more at Kim’s face gazing out, and took half a step toward Raco.
He angled his head, so Charlie and the others couldn’t see what he was saying, and lowered his voice.
“Mate, is something about all this bothering you?”
Raco was still looking past him, his eyes following Zara as she and the boy weaved their way through the festivalgoers. “It’s bothering her.”
Not answering the question was sometimes the same as answering it, Falk thought, but he didn’t push it.
“All right.” He turned in time to see Zara disappear into the crowd, and nodded to Raco. “Then let’s go and take a look.”