Perfect Victim (9 page)

On Friday night we decided to extend our search to the Grand Prix. We had planned just to walk around but found the place surrounded by what seemed like three-metre-high wire fencing. So we went to St Kilda and drove around the red-light district, very slowly. We didn’t even bother looking at the street map.

8

Q
UANTUM
L
EAP

Day 5: Saturday, 6 March

Our friend David had been producing more posters overnight. He rolled up on our doorstep early this Saturday morning. We plastered posters on the inside of our car windows. We gave him a list of people who wanted to distribute more. He would be delivery man.

We mulled over the words ‘running away’, ‘running away’. We knew Rachel would never run away, yet the detective senior sergeant had shown us these words written in Rachel’s handwriting.

‘Running away … Running away … Runaways,’ said Mike. ‘Perhaps she meant runaways. Sounds like …’

‘Shoes,’ I said. ‘That’s it. They’re gym shoes. You know her preoccupation with shoes.’

And suddenly, after trying so hard, I remembered something Rachel had been telling me about her day at the modelling school. She had handed me the sheets to read. I had turned over the notes and read on the back, ‘running away’.

‘What’s this?’ I’d asked.

She’d laughed. ‘It’s a pair of shoes.’

But this would not be enough for the police. We had to find the shoes.

Alex, a friend, called in with two mates. They had decided to doorknock Church Street. Before they left we discussed the problem male friend. I told Mike about the photographs he had given me a few months before which I had thrown in the bin, because they seemed really off. Scary almost. Photographs of places, empty chairs, where we had consumed legitimate cups of coffee on the way home from business meetings.

This man had progressively made me feel more and more uncomfortable. It wasn’t all his fault. Mike tells me I have an infectious and sometimes flirtatious smile. I enjoyed his company and assumed we could be friends, like girlfriends.

Rachel knew he made me feel uncomfortable. She didn’t like him. She had seen him turn up at the dance school, looking for me in the pizza shop, where I would sometimes eat and read a book, while I waited for night classes to finish.

He would turn up at my workplace. He would sit in his car waiting for me to leave work. Sometimes I would get to the car and discover his business card on the windscreen. Once I found a card sitting on the steering wheel when I had forgotten to lock the car.

Two weeks before Rachel’s disappearance I was home alone and so nervous that I closed all the curtains and would not answer the phone. Sure enough, he arrived. Mike’s car was not in the drive. He rang the front doorbell as he dialled his mobile. Our phone rang. I went into Heather’s bedroom. He walked around to my bedroom window, trying to look in, and dialled once more. Our phone rang again. He went back to the front door and pushed the bell again. I sat where I was, hiding. Eventually he left. I rang Mike.

Later in the day the phone rang. I decided to pick it up and not talk. If it was Mike or my mother, or someone from work, they’d speak. No one spoke, for a long time. Then, ‘Elizabeth … Elizabeth.’ It was him. I hung up, waited a minute and picked the phone up. He had not replaced the receiver. I pulled the plug from the wall. This was a game I didn’t like.

It was such a hot day this Monday. After school Ashleigh-Rose, Heather and I had had a swim. I had been showering, and came out dressed to discover him in the kitchen. Heather had let him in. He said, ‘Your phone appears to have a problem.’ Enough is enough, and this was enough. Ashleigh-Rose and Heather stood looking at him.

‘My phone is not out of order. I just didn’t want to speak to you. In fact I am fed up with you following me around and I think I should ask you to leave the house. Right now.’ Silence. His body language was awkward. I do believe he was genuinely surprised. He said goodbye and left the house.

This was two weeks to the day that Rachel went missing. I had not heard from him since.

‘Elizabeth, you must report him,’ Alex said.

‘It’s only a game to him,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t hurt Rachel. You know that, Mike.’

Mike didn’t answer me.

‘Mike.’

Alex stood up with his friends. ‘Look, we’ll go to Church Street now, and then report our findings to the police. Elizabeth, think very carefully about this man. I think you’re acting very naively.’

We sat on the couch. Mike’s silent mood disturbed me. ‘We must tell the police,’ he said.

‘Mike, you know he wouldn’t hurt Rachel. It’s not in his nature.’

‘But going after other men’s wives is?’ he answered. ‘You shamed him in front of the other children. You haven’t heard from him in two weeks. And what does he give you every birthday, Christmas, or even Mother’s Day … a small present?’

‘So?’ I said.

‘So what if he told Rachel his business needed a model or dancer for the night? What if he said they would provide the clothing? If he told her it was okay with us, she’d probably believe him. What if he thought you would phone him to say Rachel is missing? Then he could miraculously find her and bring her home on your fortieth birthday, tomorrow.’

‘Michael.’

‘Listen,’ said Mike. ‘We don’t know that by not ringing and asking him for help we haven’t backed him into a corner. Now he can’t come to your rescue. He can’t be your knight in shining armour …’

‘Oh, Michael,’ I interrupted, thinking how melodramatic he was sounding.

‘How do you know he just won’t decide to give her back to you, dead. A present for your fortieth.’

I started to sob. ‘You can’t be serious. He wouldn’t do that. Rachel’s not dead.’

Mike shrugged his shoulders.

‘Don’t you give up on her. Don’t you!’

My mother interrupted. ‘Elizabeth, it does sound feasible.’

‘It’s a game to him. Just an annoying game.’

‘Dulcie didn’t think so,’ said Mike. ‘We’re telling the police. I think he would too, in similar circumstances.’

This just couldn’t be possible, but Mike was creating such a strong image of what
could
have been. Even so, the story didn’t seem to agree with Rachel’s account to Manni. This man was not an
old female friend
. Rachel would recognise him. How could he possibly get away with holding her for a week?

Mike reminded me that this man’s family owned a holiday house. Perhaps the house was empty. And what about the memory-loss drugs we had learnt of?

By midday I was convinced we needed to inform the police. Rachel’s survival could depend on us discovering her today.

My cousin Michele arrived and offered to drive us into Richmond. Before we left, Alex returned. He and his friends had doorknocked Church Street and had not received a warm welcome at Richmond police when they reported their results. The police were annoyed that we were still carrying out our own investigations.

Michele drove us to the Richmond police station. We asked Mum to continue ringing shoe shops and Mike suggested she try some shops in Moonee Ponds, where Manni lived.

We received a phone call from Mum at about 2 p.m. A shoe shop in Moonee Ponds sold a range of cross-trainers called Runaways. They cost from $50 to $100 and there had been a display of them for some months in their window.

We walked into the Richmond police station feeling that we had exonerated Rachel of the runaway note theory. It reaffirmed our sense of urgency.

But we were told by a policewoman that no detectives were available. I explained that the detective senior sergeant had said there
would
be detectives. She said they left at 2 p.m. and ‘like everyone else were entitled to time off. You have already had a lot of police hours this week and you’re not the only parents of missing persons.’

A lot of police hours. You’ve got to be kidding.

I tried to explain that we had new information. She didn’t appear to want to deal with us. We were a nuisance. We were parents of a ‘runaway’ who wanted the police to find their naughty child. This was not their job any more.
Go home … seek special counselling
. This was the feeling, the perception.

The knot of anger and despair gripped my chest. A single atom multiplied in a second. I ran from the police station and, standing on the steps, wrenched my handbag from my shoulder, aiming it at a stationary police car window. Then I stopped suddenly and ran into the street.

I screamed, ‘They’re going to let our little girl die! They’re going to let our little girl die!’

I was cheap entertainment for the Saturday afternoon coffee minglers, sitting outside cafés at tables for two. Street fumes mixed with inhaled smoke. Cigarette ash flicked into the dusty, grimy gutters. Chairs appearing to teeter on the edge.

Michele followed me. Wrapped her arms around me. ‘Elizabeth,’ she pleaded, ‘come back. She said she’ll listen.’

I looked to the upstairs window of the detective’s office. Were you up there looking down at me?

Mike and the policewoman met me on the step. She asked me what this new information was, insisting that I could tell her on the street.

‘There’s this man,’ I began and stopped. How
could
I tell her on the street? I tried to explain about one of our best friends betraying us. It sounded so ridiculous. I felt invaded, as if
I
had committed a crime. Could she think we were trying to come up with just any reason to keep the police investigation open?

We left, dissatisfied. Michele drove us to Dulcie’s.

Dulcie rang Neil Paterson of the Missing Persons Unit to tell him we were not happy with the response from Richmond.

‘Look, even if Rachel hated her parents, she’d still come to dance,’ I heard her say.

Whether our fear was justified or not we now believed one hundred per cent that my fortieth birthday was crucial to Rachel’s survival. We
had
to find her tonight.

Dulcie was told we could contact the Ethical Standards Department, or the Ombudsman, or the inspector at the Victoria Police Centre, Duty Office Region One. We rang the number for the inspector. Labour Day long weekend. No one there. I left a detailed message. It was impossible to give up. We just couldn’t say, ‘Oh what the heck, let’s go home. See if Mike’s wrong or right.’ What if we did receive a large package, sent by courier? What would the policewoman say then?

We all decided to go back to the police station. Maybe the policewoman would be off duty.

The policewoman was still there. We repeated our request for a detective. No, no detective available. So, crime didn’t happen on long weekends. My suppressed anger tried to speak to her in a controlled but loudening voice. I told her we’d left a message on the inspector’s phone. We were taking matters higher. I told her I had nearly thrown my handbag through the police car window in frustration. I was emotional. Extremely noisy. I was becoming one of her worst nightmares.

The policewoman cautioned me: she could put me on a charge if I continued in this manner.

‘Go ahead then!’ I yelled, baiting her. ‘It’d be a very good idea.’ How good would it look to jail the mother of a missing girl. The press would love it. ‘YOU FUCKHEAD!’ I screeched. I can still remember the shock of hearing my own voice.

I was delirious. Crying and swirling in circles. Michele tried to hold me tightly. I have little recollection of Mike and Dulcie during this, only enough to know they witnessed the sad scene.

When I calmed down, the policewoman said she would take a handwritten statement at the front desk but if the phone rang she would need to answer it because she was the only one there. And then she would offer her opinion. I agreed.

For the first time, I now realise how fortunate I was not to have been charged. If I had been a police officer I wonder how I would have responded.

I spoke very slowly and deliberately. I needed to be careful with the story because now, under the circumstances, this male friend of mine, with his silly game, had incriminated himself. I remember saying we weren’t having an affair, because I thought it could have appeared so. Mike had never been threatened by our friendship. This man and I were best friends, that’s all, until his hide-and-seek game started. A bit of harmless fun for him, I’m sure. He had told me once that he was steadfastly stubborn and always got what he wanted.

The policewoman looked several times at the clock.

Finally, after a long half-hour at the watchhouse counter, I finished the statement.

‘I’ll run a check on him.’ And she disappeared.

‘They won’t find anything,’ I said.

‘His name is clear,’ said the policewoman when she returned. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

We were stumped. I thought the police should come up with the ideas.

‘Maybe you could contact his local police station. An officer could make general inquiries at his house, like … Rachel Barber went missing this week and we’re just asking people who knew her whether they’ve seen her.’

We were told this was not possible.

She said, ‘I feel you are making a quantum leap. You are not just talking about a missing person here, you are talking about an abduction and murder.’

9

G
ROWING
F
EAR

It was Saturday evening. We dropped Dulcie home and Michele drove us to St Hilary’s. This was Rachel’s church, where I had seen ourselves as Rachel’s guests. She had been a member of the Balwyn Baptist Church, but when she started at Canterbury Girls Secondary College, her friends introduced her to the St Hilary’s youth group, Wipe Out. I thought the church needed to know about Rachel’s disappearance. Since we moved to Heathmont, a forty minute drive away, she had only attended spasmodically. She had made me promise I would still drive her to Wipe Out and the Sunday evening youth service, where she was also a member of the choir. Work-tired, I had broken my promise.