Chapter 21 #2
“You watched the footage?” Falk asked.
“Yep. Six hours’ worth.”
“The recording was complete? No edits?”
Raco shook his head. “Time-stamped. All looks right. It’s legit.”
Falk frowned. “And no sign of her at all?”
“None. I mean, there’s a bit to get through and there are a lot of people, but the footage is clear.
Good quality. If you take your time, you can see the faces.
Dwyer’s watched it, too, obviously. Charlie as well.
And Zara. A few times, I think. If Kim had come this way, one of us would have spotted her. ”
“Okay,” Falk said. “So she didn’t come out this way.”
“No,” said Raco. “Unless you’re seeing something I’m not.” He looked down at Eva, who was busy gathering long stalks of grass into a makeshift bouquet. “Or you, mate.”
Eva just smiled benignly, but Falk shook his head. He stepped up to the exit and ran a hand over the chain-link fence bordering it.
“Can we follow this the whole way around?”
Raco nodded. “We can try.”
It wasn’t easy, though, Falk realized quickly. The fence ran close to the back of the stalls, which were in turn packed deliberately close to discourage casual visitors from wandering behind and messing with supplies or the electrical wires that snaked across the ground.
They picked their way along in single file, Eva between them, Falk stopping every now and again to examine the mechanism joining the fence links.
The boundary may have only been temporary, but it was sturdy, slotting together smoothly.
As they made their way through, stallholders popping back to grab fresh stock or snatch a breath of air threw them curious looks.
Eventually, they emerged from the back of the tents and Falk felt the relief of stepping out into the open again.
He blinked, the sudden daylight harsh after the shade from the canopies.
Up ahead, he could see the east exit, the rope slung across it as always.
The first-aid stand nearby was currently staffed by a woman in a wide-brimmed hat.
Falk looked back up along the fence they’d just followed. At two meters, it was reasonably high all the way around.
“I guess theoretically it’s possible Kim felt up to scaling a fence six weeks after giving birth.” Raco read his thoughts. “But I know Rita couldn’t have.”
“No, I think you’re right,” Falk said. “Not even the physical factor, but with all those stallholders coming and going. They’d have noticed her doing something like that. Plus some of them must have known her.”
Raco nodded. “It’s exactly the same down the other side.” He squinted, pointing a finger to where the fence picked up again on the other side of the exit and continued around the grounds.
“Maybe there was a gap?” Falk said. “She could have slipped through?”
Raco shook his head. “I checked.”
“Last year?” Falk was surprised.
“Yeah, walked the whole route the next day. Like we did just then.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were at the station giving your statement,” Raco said. “I probably didn’t mention it because, I dunno, it seemed a bit paranoid. Especially because there was nothing to see. The fence was complete, same as now.”
“Right.” Falk’s eyes ran along the boundary, settling inevitably on the only gap. The first-aid volunteer near the east exit had her head buried in a novel.
“Joel’s a good kid,” Raco said. “Serious, conscientious, for sure. But he is still a kid.”
“Yeah.” Was the word of a teenager stronger than a solid chain-link fence? Falk wondered. Probably not, no matter who it was.
Eva sighed dramatically, hot and losing patience. “Can we stop investigating and go on a ride now?”
“What do you reckon?” Raco said to Falk, who nodded.
“Yeah, Eva. Let’s go,” he said. “I think I’ve seen what I needed to see. Thanks for your help, mate.”
“No worries,” she said, skipping ahead a little as they turned away from the exit. They headed back into the heart of the site, the music and laughter growing louder as they neared the rides. Falk glanced over at Raco, keeping his voice too low for Eva to hear.
“What about cars? Ones with on-site access. Could someone have driven her out, maybe hidden in the back seat or trunk? A few hours later, when it was quiet?”
“There’s access through the main exit, but it’s only for emergencies during festival hours,” Raco said.
“I checked with Gemma last year, and she says no vehicles entered the grounds at all during the actual festival that night, and there would’ve been almost none moving about.
Too many pedestrians and kids to do it safely.
Vehicles could technically have driven in later, but it would’ve probably been after Kim was discovered missing.
In which case, where was she during the initial search of the site?
” He gave a shrug. “I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened, but it wouldn’t have been easy. ”
Falk walked on for a minute, running scenarios in his mind. “Doesn’t really feel right, either,” he said at last. “How would it work? Drag her into a vehicle, even with people around?”
“It’s easiest if she’d gotten in willingly.” Raco’s voice had dropped so low it was hard to hear. “But that raises a whole lot of other questions. I mean, whose vehicle? And does that mean it was a mentally sound decision? Because if so, why not also decide to leave Zoe with someone she trusted?”
Falk thought about that. He pictured Kim, with her new baby tucked up in her stroller, and tried to play it out in his head. His eyes fell on Eva, running in front of them, and something dark slowly crept into his thoughts.
“There’d be one easy way to make Kim get into a car. Or to hide somewhere. Do anything, really,” Falk murmured. He nodded at Raco’s daughter. “Threaten her child.”
Raco blinked. Long and slow, his face instantly tight. He didn’t respond, but his eyes locked on Eva as she picked up pace and ran a few steps ahead.
“Eva!” Raco’s voice was unusually sharp and she turned, hurt.
“What? I can see Mummy.”
“Oh.” Sure enough, a little farther up the path stood Rita. She was holding Henry against her chest, her hair falling down her back as they both craned their necks up. The little boy lifted a chubby hand to the sky, marveling at the ferris wheel creaking and clanging above them.
“Wow, can we go on that?” Eva called, running toward her mother, who broke into a smile as she saw Raco and Falk following.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“As expected,” Raco said, and Falk nodded. They came to a stop on the path by Rita, and Falk looked up himself.
“Whereabouts was her carriage?” he heard Raco ask quietly, and Falk pointed.
“Right near the top. Around where that one is, or the one next to it.”
Raco tilted his head back and shielded his eyes. Falk watched the top carriages move and thought, yet again, about those few seconds a whole year earlier. He tried to slow the scene down, freeze it in his mind to examine it more closely.
What had he seen? There had been the stroller bay, near the base of the ride, where Zoe Gillespie would be found alone two and a half hours later.
The path ahead. Gemma had been there, of course, talking to Naomi—the whole reason Falk had stopped walking at all.
He’d seen Rohan, too, underneath the ride, talking to those Queensland tourists before looking up.
Falk gazed up at those carriages now and wished—not for the first time—that he had focused a little longer when it had mattered.
If he’d been less distracted, would he have seen something that would have made a difference?
Any clue as to what had been going through Kim Gillespie’s mind, in those final few hours?
“Dad.” Eva was pulling at Raco’s hand. “Can we please go on this one?”
Raco was still squinting up, his face hard to read. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, Eva. Let’s go on this one.”
They bought three tickets and joined the queue, waiting among couples and families until the attendant directed them into a carriage of their own.
Falk sat on one side and Eva and Raco on the other as the attendant locked the door behind them, enclosing them safely in the capsule.
The wheel started to turn and Eva shifted in her seat, making the carriage sway gently as she pressed her face to the vertical safety bars.
“Here we go,” she called as they lifted into the air.
Falk leaned against the bars himself, watching the view change as they glided upward. They were nearly at the top when the ride slowed and shuddered to a halt to let people on and off below. Not far from where Kim and Zoe’s carriage had been, Falk guessed, when he’d seen Rohan wave from the ground.
Had Kim hesitated at all before waving back?
Falk really couldn’t be sure. But gazing down, he could understand why she might have.
It felt even higher up here than it appeared from below.
The people seemed small and much farther away than he’d expected.
Falk could believe it might take a moment to notice what was going on.
And there was a lot going on, he realized.
Turning in his seat, Falk could see right across the festival grounds.
All the way, from the main entrance to—he twisted in the other direction—the distant white flash of the first-aid station tent visible near the back exit.
Beyond that lay bushland and the reservoir.
“I can see Mummy, and I can see Henry.” Eva pointed them out in turn, then thrust her arm through the bars and waved. On the ground, a handful of people waved back. “Daddy, look.” She tugged at Raco’s sleeve with her free hand. “You’re not even looking.”
“Sorry,” Raco said, with a cursory glance down.
Eva had been right, Falk saw, Raco hadn’t been looking at his family. Instead, he’d been doing exactly the same as Falk. Running his own gaze right across the wide, expansive view beneath them.
Falk didn’t need to ask why. A year earlier and a couple of dozen meters lower at ground level, Falk might not have been able to make out much at all. But from this height … his eyes met Raco’s over the top of Eva’s head. They were thinking the same thing, he could tell immediately.
Up here, from the vantage point of this bird’s-eye view, Kim would have been able to see everything that was going on below.