I found my feet when I became a cop. After years of teetering on the brink, wildly close to the edge, the force pulled me back to safety; I walked tall again. Dad said my uniform made me look strong. I think that I simply stopped looking at the ground when I wore it. In the beginning my days were reactive: traffic accidents, petty theft, lost property, broken windows. Over time they became more proactive: tracking known offenders, looking for patterns, getting inside their heads, attempting to predict and prevent their next move. We had a lot of grads from the city come and do stints with us. Typically, young cops need to do their time in the regional areas but it’s not reciprocal; I haven’t done more than a few weeks in the city, not since my training. Smithson and its surrounds are all I’ve ever really known.
A good four-hour drive from Sydney, it’s hot here in the summer and freezing in the winter, but I soon discovered that crime isn’t seasonal. Along with the wholesome country air comes a lot of booze, a lot of boredom and a whole lot of violence. Felix, fresh from the streets of London, assured me that the police skills we apply here are the same, it’s just the scale that is different. I’m sure that’s not true—I think he just didn’t want me to feel like I was missing out—but either way, I know that everyone would agree that I’m good at this. It suits me.
From the beginning I liked the hunt. The endless puzzles to figure out. The permission to focus on one thing and shut out everything else. It’s a profession sympathetic to selfishness. I found it relaxing after years of blaring noise to legitimately claim tunnel vision, to dive wholeheartedly into something, to have an excuse not to talk to people, to justify my mysteriousness.
Being a female cop in Smithson did come with its challenges, but in a way I revelled in those too. They gave me something hard and real to buck up against. A living, breathing obstacle that I could conquer; a stark contrast to the murky nothingness that was the deep well of my grief. The soundtrack of leers and put-downs that followed me around only made me more determined, more focused.
Jonesy had a soft spot for me from the start. His initial fascination at a woman being able to navigate the testosterone-soaked locker room extended to him being impressed every time I fronted up, calm and capable, to a nasty road accident, a messy suicide or a violent conflict. To his credit, he seemed determined to avoid typecasting me, often deliberately sending the others to break bad news to family members rather than assuming they needed my soft touch. I’d heard him talking on the phone a few months into my appointment, declaring to someone that I was ‘as tough as old tin’. It wasn’t a father figure I lacked, and he never overstepped the fence I had carefully built around myself, but I did get a bonus uncle in Jonesy, and I can’t say I minded. The guys in the station were brutal and his backing was not so overt as to make things worse for me; rather, he became a subtle and powerful—albeit bumbling—ally, and I yearned to make him proud of me.
It had been a long time since pride had seemed important; the grief that swarmed around Dad and me did not allow a normal parent–child relationship. Our focus was almost solely on survival. Dad never relaxed enough to enjoy parenting me most of the time; there were moments of nervous joy but generally he was too busy looking over our shoulders for looming danger. Having lived only with Dad since I was thirteen, I initially found the proximity of so many other people, particularly so many men, overwhelming. Their scent hung over the station; their constant hunger unsettled me. Their jokes were crude and cruel. I set my jaw and swallowed my frustration and, occasionally, my fear. I had very little on my side. Not only was I female but I was also young, keen and sharp: a dangerous combination.
About a month into my first year, I attended a robbery at one of the local garages with Keith Blight, a worn-out old boy who saw no place in the police force for women. He thought I’d be better off taking my feelings and my handbag straight to the nearest beauty parlour. The mechanic had managed to detain the thief, a scrawny, acne-scarred backpacker who spat on the ground approximately every sixty seconds. We arrived and I pulled out my handcuffs only to have the ferrety criminal smirk at me and then exchange a knowing look with Blight, who seemed equally amused. They both thought I was a joke. A kid cop and a girl to boot. I said nothing, knowing that any protest, any reaction at all, would simply be deemed emotional, giving them exactly what they expected from me. My face burned as I pushed the backpacker’s oily head down and shoved him into the police car. Anger raged through me, threatening to erupt into a scream.
And then, a few months later, the Robbie case came along and changed everything.
Chapter Four
Saturday, 12 December, 1.46 pm
Smithson in general is fairly leafy and George Ryan’s house is undoubtedly in the leafiest part of town. Smithson has always had a wealthy area to keep the rest of us in our place; it’s just that before the Carling plant was built, it used to be the retail franchise owners, a handful of bank managers and the former owners of successful family farms who lived at the base of the rolling hills on the edge of town, on the opposite side from Sonny Lake. Now it’s more likely that Carling’s top-tier executives are neighbours both at home and at the office.
‘Nice place.’ Felix ducks down to look up through the windshield at the full length of Rosalind’s old house.
‘Yeah.’
‘I imagine this house was party central back in the day?’
‘Unfortunately not. Rosalind kept to herself. Well, sort of.’ I try to explain. ‘She was popular but she was very private. I don’t know if anyone really went to her house.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not sure. She was unusual.’
‘Well, hopefully she’s got easier to work out since then.’
‘Yeah,’ I say again, though I doubt it.
I look up at the house too. I know her bedroom used to be on the second level to the left: I would occasionally catch her silhouette in the window as I watched from the other side of the street.
I shake myself back into the present and push my phone onto silent.
‘Okey-dokey,’ says Felix. ‘Let’s do this, then, shall we?’