Disappear (14 page)

Brian. Where were you all those years?

‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil …’

Several kilometres away, on a popular bike track, which ran through a section of a national park reserve, Park Ranger Jane Montague reached the bend the young bushwalker had directed her to.

‘Down there, in the scrub along the slope,’ the bushwalker said. He was twentyish, wide-eyed, scraggy haired, a large backpack dwarfed his thin frame.
Like a tortoise shell
, Jane had thought to herself as she’d followed him along the trail. The genuine, concerned type. He’d gone to the ranger’s office to report his sighting. Looks like a body, he’d said. He wasn’t certain; he hadn’t gone too close. Didn’t want any trouble. He was a traveller, he told Jane, originally from Western Australia.

Jane inched down the slope. She was an athletic young woman, short brown hair, lots of freckles.

The backpacker was right. It was a body. At close range she saw it was a teenage girl, slim, fair-haired, dressed in jeans, jacket and boots. Another bushwalker. A canvas shoulder bag lay beside her.

Jane looked back up the slope where the young man watched with inquisitive eyes. ‘A girl,’ Jane called out. ‘I’m afraid she’s dead.’ She watched the backpacker cross himself.
Catholic.

She knelt down beside the corpse. The girl’s skin had a ghostly pallor and there was a bluish tint to the lips. An ugly red welt circled her throat. Her eyes were open - and bulging. Jane’s attention returned to that red line. It had a clean, straight look to it, like a ring around the throat. Had she been strangled?

About to spring back to her feet she noticed the bracelet around the girl’s wrist. It had an inscription on the metal plate. Jane remembered she’d had a similar item of jewellery when she’d been a teenager. She felt a twinge of curiosity. She lifted the girl’s arm and read the engraving. ‘Monique. All my love, Craig.’ There was an inscription of a date, eighteen years earlier.

Eighteen years ago? This girl didn’t look old enough to have been born then, let alone have a boyfriend.

Jane pushed herself back up the slope. ‘I need the police,’ she said. ‘Looks like a murder.’ She was surprised at how calm and authoritative she acted. She’d never had to deal with a situation like this before and never would’ve believed she’d handle it so well.

‘Murdered?’ The young man was aghast. ‘God, no.’

They hiked back along the trail, a twenty-minute trip back to the ranger’s office. They were half way there when the word Jane had been searching for popped into her mind. ‘Garrotted,’ she said.

‘What?’ asked the bushwalker.

‘That poor girl’s been garrotted.’ It was a chilling thought and there was a sense of unreality to the whole scene. Murdered teenage girl, here in the midst of a beautiful, peaceful sweep of natural countryside.

The queasiness came suddenly, erupting from the pit of her stomach. ‘I’m sorry. I think I …’’She darted into the surrounding forest, buckled over. The young man watched helplessly as she dry retched again and again, until finally a thin stream of liquid trickled from her mouth.

‘ … For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’

There came a momentary pause as the Reverend de Castellan allowed the weight of the words to settle into the hearts and minds of the gathering.

He turned, nodded to the pianist at the side of the podium. The musician, a middle-aged man, commenced playing a passage from the Requiem. Mournful, lilting, aching with the bittersweet nuance of melody, it filled the church.

Jennifer was inwardly pleased at the skill of the pianist. This recital was full of emotion, an appropriate passage that contained a dramatic element. To Jennifer it signified the high and low dramas of life, as remembered by those left living. She had always believed in recalling the special moments, and was reminded of that philosophy now.

The wishing pool at the house she’d left so long ago, was at the heart of those memories. Jennifer reflected on the wishes, the five-cent coins, the laughter, the romance. She was both surprised and pleased by the positive swell of her feelings - she had no anger towards Brian, no bitterness that he’d been alive all that time.
That’s not how it was
, she thought.
He didn’t walk out on me. Not of his own accord …

The police would find out where he’d been - and why - and unravel the reasons for his sudden return and death. She’d make sure of it. She needed to ascertain that Brian wasn’t responsible for his actions.

For the rest of her life, Jennifer wanted to go on remembering Brian with the same fondness she had these past years - without this blemish, without the inexplicable question mark.

At the conclusion of the musical piece, Reverend de Castellan resumed his eulogy. ‘We are all aware of the mystery surrounding Brian Parkes’ re-appearance and death,’ he said, ‘but I do not wish to dwell on that. Nor should you. He is in the house of the Lord now. He rests. It is Brian’s life - his love of his wife, his good nature, and his value as a friend - that we remember, and which we rejoice in. Those who knew him are better for it.

‘Please bow your heads then, in prayer with me, and rejoice in Brian’s life, the light, not the dark, as I read from The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran, one of Brian’s favourite pieces : “You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl, whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

‘In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond “…’

Detective Sergeant Morris Glenfield, northwest Sydney region, ran his finger down the information listed on the computer printout. The subject’s name was Monique Brayson. She had been officially listed with the Missing Persons Unit almost two decades ago. She was described as 120 centimetres tall, of slim build, blue eyes, blonde hair. Eighteen years of age.

He stopped pacing, placed the printout on his desk and sat down. He cast his eyes for the tenth time over the girl’s personal effects. The bracelet with the inscription. The purse, which contained her library card, still in mint condition, no discolouring, no dog ears. Issued eighteen years before. The lipstick, in the purse, Glenfield had identified as a brand that had ceased manufacture in the early 2000’s.

Only a few minutes ago the bushwalker and the park ranger had given him their statements. The young man had left. Jane Montague had gone to the Ladies. She was back now, standing in the office doorway.

‘I’m on my way, then, Detective Glenfield,’ she said. ‘You will let me know what you find out?’

‘I’ll be in touch. Thanks very much for your help. Will you be all right to see yourself back to the park?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Terrible shock for you. Finding the girl like that.’

‘Yes. I feel that I’d like to … know more about her.’

Glenfield didn’t intend revealing that the girl had been missing for many years. He smiled politely. ‘Of course,’ he said, and the woman left.

The corpse would be at the coroner’s lab by now. Glenfield picked up the photos taken at the crime scene. He was totally mystified. He was looking at the face and the body of a teenager. Monique Brayson should have been thirty-six years old. It can’t be the same girl, he thought. But if not, then who? Some street kid who’d rolled the real Monique and stolen her clothes and possessions?

Glenfield looked up from the pictures as Constable Jeff Hyrose breezed in.

‘The mother died four years ago,’ Hyrose said. ‘But the father is alive, still living in the area.’

Glenfield rose from his desk and sighed. ‘We’d better go see him.’

‘ … “And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the King, whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour” …’

It was amazing, Roger Kaplan thought, as he sat and listened to those words, how clearly he pictured Brian Parkes in his mind’s eye; and how untainted his memories remained.

Roger wondered how different things might have been if Brian were still around. Throughout their Uni days, he and Brian had been a couple of knockabout lads. Brian was a brilliant accountant, a wizard with figures. When Roger had gone to work as a senior executive with his father’s corporation, he’d relied on Brian to formulate financial structures for new business development plans. Those structures worked well and had won praise for Roger.

But Brian had done most of the work. He had a vision. With his father’s blessing, Roger employed Brian’s fledgling accountancy practice to work on specific projects.

After Brian’s disappearance, Roger was on his own. There’d been no more financial coups. Would we be in this mess now, he wondered, if Brian had been here, consulting me, when the times got tough? The long and pronounced recession had called for a financial whizz like Brian. Someone with his nous …

Roger had relied on his father’s right hand man, Harold Masterton, whom he believed had his finger on the financial pulse. But like all the others, Masterton had missed the signs of impending disaster. Roger realised now that Masterton didn’t have the entrepreneurial flair that Brian had shown.

His focus drifted back, through the haze of memories, to the reverend’s words, ‘ … “Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the King? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun” …’

A police officer sees cruelty every day, in a dozen different ways. Morris Glenfield knew it was something you learned to deal with. But how did anyone deal with this? This was cruelty with a timeless quality to it; a rotten, ravaging thing that kept coming back to eat away at everything decent and pure.

The poor man was seventy years old. Frail, shrunken, white haired, suffering from MS. Thomas Brayson had been a widower for four years, after thirty-five years of marriage. Now he was being led into a mortuary to identify the body of his long lost daughter.

All the grieving he’d done years before had been brought back again. No escape. No respite. No one, Glenfield thought, deserves this.

‘I’m only glad my wife, God bless her soul, isn’t here for this sad day,’ the old man said, ashen faced. ‘Our little girl coming back to us, after all this time, only to have her life snuffed out.’

‘It is your daughter, then, Mr. Brayson?’ Glenfield asked.

‘It’s as if she died twice,’ Brayson mumbled, fixing his gaze on the detective.

He’s rambling, Glenfield realised. ‘Can I get you something, sir? A cup of tea?’

‘Yes … oh, yes. That would be nice.’

Glenfield led him into the outer office, brought him tea. ‘You’re quite certain it’s your daughter?’

‘Oh, it’s her all right. It might be eighteen years but I’ve looked at that face every single day. Lovely photograph we have of her, Mr. Glenfield. It’s always had pride of place on the mantlepiece at home. She hasn’t changed a bit … not a bit.’ He coughed, sipped at the tea, coughed again. ‘She was a very beautiful girl, our Monique.’

‘Yes, she was, Mr. Brayson. But your daughter would be much older now than the girl in there.’

‘Should’ve been.’

The old man didn’t seem concerned about that. Is he partially senile? Glenfield wondered. He looked to be a million miles away.

‘Of course, we can have a proper funeral now,’ Brayson continued, ‘I would’ve liked my wife here for that. Say good-bye proper-like. But, then, I guess they’re together now, aren’t they?’

Together now
, Glenfield thought. But where had the girl been for almost two decades? And if the corpse wasn’t really Brayson’s daughter, then who was she?

After the funeral the small group reconvened to Jennifer’s home for refreshments. The get-together lasted an hour and a half, until Roger was the only one left. He joined Jennifer on her back balcony for a final drink.

‘Dad told me you’d received the autopsy results but he was a bit vague on details. I gather you’re not happy.’

‘No.’

‘I don’t know if this is the best time to talk, but if you want to …’

‘The coroner couldn’t, or wouldn’t, verify the age difference. We already knew the cause of death. So nothing’s changed, really.’

‘What’s this business about a small hole in the neck?’

She told him about the incision.

Roger leaned against the timber railing and appraised her. ‘I’ve seen that look in your eye before. It says you’re going to take charge and get results.’

‘I have to do something, Roger, or I’ll go crazy. The police seem to be moving so slowly.’

‘What can you do?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. Maybe I can follow up on this cut to Brian’s neck. I want to speak to some independent medical experts, get some alternative opinions.’

‘I can help you with that.’

Jennifer’s eyebrows rose in an expectant arc. ‘How?’

‘Brian and I knew a medical student at Uni. I dated her a few times. I still play squash occasionally with her brother. Katrina is now the surgical resident at St. Vincents. I’m sure, as a favour to an old friend, she’d meet with us.’

‘I’ll call her.’

‘Leave it to me. I’ll organise something. Just one thing - stick to the known physical aspects of the coroner’s report when you’re talking to her. Don’t … insist that Brian hadn’t aged.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m just worried that, if you do, she might not take our other questions seriously. It is, after all, a way-out concept for a doctor to consider. Especially when they haven’t seen the body themselves.’

‘Point taken. I’ll take care how I broach the subject.’

‘I hope you didn’t mind me suggesting that.’

‘Of course not. And you’re right. The question of Brian’s unnatural appearance needs to be handled carefully. Perhaps that’s where I’ve gone wrong with the police. I don’t think they’re really taking my view seriously. Certainly the coroner isn’t.’ Jennifer’s focus on Roger became more intense. ‘What about you and Henry? Do you share my view that Brian hadn’t aged at all?’