Rachel

She called Tanya from Bridie’s bedroom, sitting on the floor, her back resting against the side of the bed. Making the call was one of the hardest things she had ever done. Tanya was the first person outside the household to be informed. This is really happening.

The shock and disbelief in Tanya’s voice, her frantic questions and casting around for different possibilities, mirrored Rachel’s own chaotic thoughts.

‘I didn’t realise you had different tickets from the kids’,’ Tanya concluded.

There it was. The root cause of what had happened. Rachel’s bad judgement and impulsiveness. She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘What was I thinking? Bridie and Emmet obviously weren’t mature enough to be left alone.’

‘They should be old enough.’ Tanya backtracked. ‘Remember what we were doing at that age?’

Sneaking into pubs and music venues. Getting drunk, smoking joints, kissing several boys on the same night out. Emmet and Bridie were a completely different species, happier to be locked in their rooms than sneaking out to venues, gorging on the internet rather than illicit substances. Another one of Rachel’s mistakes: believing they were safer.

‘What can I do?’ Tanya asked now. ‘Do you want me to call Mum?’

Their father had died from a heart attack six years ago; shortly afterwards their mother moved to Bathurst to be closer to her sister. Rachel yearned for her mother’s unfazed response to family disasters: ‘stay calm and the crazy will go away’. But the motto obviously didn’t apply to something as catastrophic as this.

‘Yes, please. I can’t bear to have this conversation over and over again.’

‘Who else do you want me to call?’

This was her sister’s forte: practical help. When Emmet was a newborn and Rachel was struggling with sleep deprivation and the nonstop demands of a new baby, Tanya had swooped in to do the grocery shopping and weekly clean. When Rachel was diagnosed with cancer, her sister had made casseroles, curries and cakes.

Rachel sighed. ‘I suppose Amy should be told.’

The last thing she needed right now was Amy’s tendency for drama. She wasn’t as practical as Tanya in finding ways to help. Her response to the birth of Rachel’s children had been identical to her response to the cancer diagnosis: an expensive bottle of champagne and an overconfident ‘you’ll get through this’.

‘Okay,’ Tanya said. ‘Amy and Mum. I’m on it.’

Amy would be offended not to be informed directly. But I’m her godmother, I should be the first to know. It was extraordinary how Amy cared about things like pecking order, even in times of crisis. Why were they still friends? Habit more than genuine fondness. History more than a current connection.

Female friendship was such a complex thing.

‘Hey, Tanya. Can you talk to Imogen, too? She and Bridie have been hanging out a bit. She might have some insight. Maybe Bridie confided in her?’ She sounded desperate even to her own ears.

‘Of course,’ Tanya said briskly. ‘Leave it with me. Talk soon.’

~

Rachel was going through Bridie’s wardrobe, checking to see if any clothes were missing, when she heard the front door open and Rory’s voice ushering the detectives into the kitchen. Once again reality hit her with force. There were detectives downstairs, and presumably a squad car parked outside the house. Neighbours would see the car and deduce that something was wrong. Another circle of people, beyond family, would learn the terrible truth: they’d lost their beautiful daughter at the concert.

And, to add to it all, Emmet was point-blank refusing to come home, despite their pleas and ultimatums. Rory had texted to say that he’d tried everything short of manhandling Emmet into the squad car.

Rachel and Sean came out to the landing at the same time. They nodded at each other, which felt like a truce but she didn’t care either way: Sean’s feelings were at the bottom of her list right now. She doubled back to get Bridie’s laptop: Rory had mentioned that the detectives wanted to check it. Sean continued downstairs and Rory was introducing him as she arrived in the kitchen.

‘As I mentioned, my brother is staying with us this week …’

Rachel saw Detective Campbell write ‘Sean Sullivan’ in her notebook as she pulled out the seat next to her. If they ran a background check, Sean’s name wouldn’t come back clean. There had been a few court appearances over the years: urinating in public, failing to ‘move on’, and at least a couple of nights in the cells for being disorderly. What would the police read into his less-than-exemplary record? Would it cause them to look at Sean more closely? Had Rachel and Rory looked at him closely enough?

All family members were scrutinised in cases like these, she knew, and she straightened to face that scrutiny. The table was overcrowded, with five instead of the usual four. Detective Mani sat across from her, next to Rory. Sean sat at the head of the table.

‘This is Bridie’s laptop,’ she said, placing it on the table like the opening card in a game of poker. ‘The password is on the post-it note stuck to the screen. I already had a look at what tabs she had open. Just the usual stuff. YouTube. Netflix. An online book club. Some research for a biology assignment.’

Bridie’s Messenger and email inbox didn’t hold anything unusual, except for a lack of messages. Probably explained by the fact that most kids used Snapchat, which they accessed through their phones. Rachel couldn’t think of anything more annoying or chaotic than a message deleting ten seconds after viewing.

‘Any clothes or toiletries missing from her bedroom?’ Detective Mani asked, his dark eyes looking straight through her.

‘Not that I could see.’

‘How about her passport?’

‘I’ll check.’ She scraped her chair back and hurried upstairs. She kept their passports in one of her bedside drawers. A friend had once recommended buying a safe, so that passports, birth certificates and house deeds would be protected in the event of a fire. An excellent idea that she had never got around to implementing.

All four of their passports were in the drawer. She opened Bridie’s and noticed that it had expired a few months ago. Good thing they hadn’t been planning on going overseas. She brought the passport downstairs and put it neatly on top of the laptop.

Detective Mani asked if Bridie had her own bank account – yes – and if she had a job – no.

What was Bridie’s main source of income? Occasional babysitting plus the Bank of Mum and Dad.

Did Bridie appear to have more money than usual? No.

Can you supply a recent bank statement for both her account and yours? Rachel could easily put her hand on the bank statements: some had arrived during the week and were still sitting in their sealed envelopes on the hall table.

Detective Campbell asked about Bridie’s friends and Rachel found herself going into detail about Lily and how Bridie had always been a ‘one close friend’ type of girl, and how that had backfired.

‘Bridie was devastated. Her social life completely collapsed. In the last few weeks, she started hanging out with Imogen, her cousin, who is a year older.’

Did Imogen know something? What about Lily? Had she and Bridie been in contact, even just a little? Was that too much to hope for?

Detective Campbell took down contact details for Lily and Imogen, and Rachel was slammed again by the horrific reality: they had nothing to go on, no clues or ideas or leads, and as a result two unsuspecting teenagers were about to have police knock on their doors.