When Falk and Carmen stopped after a couple of hours, the sky was fully light and the city lay far behind them. They stood by the side of the road and stretched as the clouds threw shifting shadows across the paddocks. The houses and buildings were few and far between. A truck carrying farming supplies roared past, the first vehicle they had seen for thirty kilometres. The noise startled a flock of galahs, sending them scattering from a nearby tree, flapping and screaming.
‘Let’s keep moving,’ Falk said. He took the keys from Carmen and climbed behind the wheel of her battered maroon sedan. He started the engine. It felt instantly familiar. ‘I used to have a car like this.’
‘But you had the sense to get rid of it?’ Carmen settled into the passenger’s seat.
‘Not by choice. It got damaged earlier this year, back in my hometown. A welcome-home gesture from a couple of the locals.’
She glanced over, a tiny smile. ‘Oh, yeah. I heard about that. Damaged is one way to put it, I suppose.’
Falk ran his hand over the steering wheel with a pang of regret. His new car was okay, but it wasn’t the same.
‘This is Jamie’s car anyway,’ Carmen said as he pulled away. ‘Better for longer distances than mine.’
‘Right. How is Jamie?’
‘Fine. Same as usual.’
Falk didn’t really know what the usual was. He had met Carmen’s fiancé only once. A muscular guy in jeans and a t-shirt, Jamie worked in marketing for a sports nutrition drink company. He’d shaken Falk’s hand and given him a bottle of something blue and fizzy that promised to enhance his performance. The man’s smile seemed genuine, but there was a touch of something else in it as he took in Falk’s tall thin frame, his pale skin, his white-blond hair and his burned hand. If Falk had had to guess, he’d have said it was mild relief.
Falk’s mobile beeped from the centre console. He took his eyes off the empty road to glance at the screen and handed it to Carmen. ‘That sergeant’s sent an email through.’
Carmen opened the message. ‘All right, he says there were two groups on the retreat. One men’s group, one women’s, both doing separate routes. He’s sent the names of the women in Alice Russell’s party.’
‘Both groups from BaileyTennants?’
‘Looks like it.’ Carmen took out her own phone and opened the BaileyTennants website. Falk could see the boutique accountancy firm’s black and silver lettering on the screen out of the corner of his eye.
‘Okay. Breanna McKenzie and Bethany McKenzie,’ she read out loud from his phone. ‘Breanna is Alice’s assistant, isn’t she?’ Carmen tapped her screen. ‘Yep, here she is. God, she looks like she could advertise vitamins.’
She held out her phone and Falk glanced at the beaming staff headshot of a girl in her mid-twenties. He could see what Carmen meant. Even in unflattering office light, Breanna McKenzie had the healthy glow of someone who jogged each morning, practised yoga with intent and deep-conditioned her glossy black ponytail religiously every Sunday.
Carmen took her phone back and tapped. ‘Nothing’s coming up about the other one. Bethany. Sisters, do you think?’
‘Possibly.’ Perhaps twins even, Falk thought. Breanna and Bethany. Bree ’n’ Beth. He rolled the sounds over his tongue. They sounded like a pair.
‘We can find out what the deal is with her,’ Carmen said. ‘Next is Lauren Shaw.’
‘We’ve come across her, haven’t we?’ Falk said. ‘Middle management something?’
‘Yeah, she’s – Christ, that’s right, strategic head of forward planning.’ Carmen held out her phone again. ‘Whatever that means.’
Whatever it was, Lauren’s thin face gave nothing away. It was hard to estimate her age but Falk guessed mid-to-late forties. Her hair was a medium shade of brown and her light-grey eyes gazed straight into the camera, expression as neutral as a passport photo.
Carmen turned back to the list of names. ‘Huh.’
‘What?’
‘It says Jill Bailey was out there with them.’
‘Really?’ Falk kept his eyes on the road but the bead of worry that had been lodged in his chest since the previous night pulsed and grew.
Carmen didn’t bother pulling up Jill’s photo. They were both familiar with the chairwoman’s heavyset features. She was turning fifty that year and, despite her expensive clothes and haircuts, looked every day of it.
‘Jill Bailey,’ Carmen said, scrolling further through the sergeant’s message. Her thumb stilled. ‘Shit. And her brother was in the men’s group.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep, Daniel Bailey, chief executive. It’s here in black and white.’
‘I don’t like that at all,’ he said.
‘No. I don’t like any of it.’
Carmen clicked her fingernails lightly on the phone as she thought. ‘All right. We don’t know enough to form any conclusions,’ she said eventually. ‘That voicemail is completely without context. In every sense – realistically, statistically – it’s most likely that Alice Russell has come off a trail by mistake and got lost.’
‘Yeah, that is most likely,’ Falk said. He thought neither of them sounded convinced.
They drove on, the radio stations dwindling to nothing as the scenery whipped by. Carmen fiddled with the knob until she found a crackly AM wavelength. The news on the hour faded in and out. The Melbourne hiker was still missing. The road gently swung to the north and suddenly Falk could see the hills of the Giralang Ranges on the horizon.
‘Have you ever been out here?’ he said, and Carmen shook her head.
‘No. You?’
‘No.’ He hadn’t but he had grown up in a place not unlike it. Isolated terrain, where trees grew thick and dense on land that was reluctant to let anything escape.
‘The history around here puts me off,’ Carmen went on. ‘I know it’s silly, but . . .’ She shrugged.
‘Whatever happened to Martin Kovac in the end?’ Falk said. ‘Is he still locked up?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Carmen tapped at her phone screen again. ‘No. He’s dead. Died in jail three years ago, aged sixty-two. Actually, that rings a bell, now I think about it. He got into a fight with an inmate, hit his head on the ground and didn’t wake up again, it says here. It’s hard to feel too sorry about that.’
Falk agreed. The first body had been that of a twenty-something trainee teacher from Melbourne, enjoying a weekend of fresh air in the ranges. A group of campers had found her, days too late. The zipper on her shorts had been wrenched apart, and her pack with hiking supplies was missing. She was barefoot, and her shoelaces were tight around her neck.
It had taken two more women’s bodies, and another reported missing, over the next three years before transient labourer Martin Kovac’s name was first mentioned in connection with the murders. By then the damage was well and truly done. A long and lasting shadow had been cast over the tranquil Giralang Ranges, and Falk was part of a whole generation that had grown up feeling a shiver when they heard the name.
‘Kovac died without confessing to attacking those three women, apparently,’ Carmen said, reading from her phone. ‘Or that fourth one who was never found. Sarah Sondenberg. That was a sad one. She was only eighteen. Do you remember her parents doing those appeals on TV?’
Falk did. Two decades on and he could still picture the desperation in her parents’ eyes.
Carmen tried scrolling down, then gave a sigh. ‘Sorry, it’s freezing up. The signal’s going.’
Falk wasn’t surprised. The trees along the side of the road cast shadows that blocked the morning light. ‘I guess we’re heading out of range.’
They didn’t speak again until they left the main road. Carmen pulled out the map and navigated as the track narrowed and the hills loomed large in the windscreen. They passed a short row of shops selling postcards and hiking equipment. It was bookended by a small supermarket and a lonely service station.
Falk checked the fuel gauge and put on the indicator. They both got out while he filled up, yawning, the early start beginning to catch up with them. It felt colder here and the air had a bite. He left Carmen stretching her back with a groan and went in to pay.
The man behind the counter was wearing a beanie and week-old stubble. He stood up a little straighter as Falk approached.
‘Headed into the park?’ He spoke with the haste of a bloke starved of conversation.
‘We are.’
‘Looking for that missing woman?’
Falk blinked. ‘Yes, actually.’
‘Had heaps of people come through for her. They called in the searchers. Must’ve had twenty people fill up yesterday. Rush hour all day. No better today.’ He shook his head in disbelief.
Falk discreetly glanced around. Their car was the only one on the forecourt. There were no other customers in the shop.
‘Hopefully they’ll pick her up quickly,’ the man went on. ‘Bad business, that, when someone goes missing. Bad for business as well. Scares people off. Too much of a reminder, I reckon.’ He didn’t elaborate. There was no need to mention Kovac, Falk supposed, not around there.
‘Have you heard any update?’ Falk said.
‘Nah. Don’t think they’ve had any luck, though, because I haven’t seen them come out. And I get them both ways. In and out. Nearest servo’s over fifty kilometres away. Further if you go north. Everyone fills up here. Just in case, you know? Something about being in there makes them want to be on the safe side.’ He shrugged. ‘Silver lining for us, I suppose.’
‘You lived out here long?’
‘Long enough.’
As Falk handed over his credit card, he noticed the small red light of a security camera behind the counter.
‘Are there cameras on the pumps?’ Falk said, and the guy followed his gaze outside. Carmen was leaning against the car, her eyes closed and her face tilted upwards.
‘Yeah, course.’ The guy’s eyes lingered a beat longer than necessary before he dragged them back. ‘No choice. I’m on me own here most of the time. Can’t risk the drive-offs.’
‘Did the missing woman come through with her group on their way in?’ Falk said.
‘Yep. On Thursday. The cops already took a copy of the recording.’
Falk pulled out his ID. ‘Any chance of another one?’
The guy looked at it, then shrugged. ‘Give me a minute.’
He disappeared into a back office. Falk looked out through the glass front doors while he waited. Beyond the forecourt, he could see nothing but a wall of green. The hills hid the sky. He suddenly felt very surrounded. He jumped as the man re-emerged with a memory stick in his hand.
‘Past seven days,’ the guy said, handing it over.
‘Thanks, mate. That’s appreciated.’
‘No worries, hope it helps. You wouldn’t want to be lost out there for too long. It’s the panic that gets you. Everything starts to look the same after a few days, makes it hard to trust what you’re seeing.’ He glanced outside. ‘Drives ’em wild.’