The whole of Canberra was on high alert, looking, waiting, hoping, praying. They’d never seen a case like this where a child had simply disappeared. Occasionally, children were not returned after a visit with the non-custodial parent. In those cases, police had a name and a starting point. As they kept telling the media, abduction by a stranger was extremely rare. But it was those particular cases that haunted the nation. For more than fifty years, police had been investigating the disappearance of the three Beaumont children from Glenelg Beach in South Australia. Years of painstaking detective work, hundreds of witness statements and sightings, a million-dollar reward and ongoing phone calls to Crime Stoppers. Most recently, a forensic dig at an Adelaide factory once owned by a possible suspect. Nothing uncovered but animal bones. The children had seemingly vanished into thin air. Caruso didn’t want that sort of case; he had to find Bella.

The comms centre had received eight calls from people saying they’d seen the missing girl: one in the international terminal at Sydney Airport; another in a fish-and-chip shop in Wollongong; two in the centre of Canberra; one in Melbourne; another in New Zealand; one on the beach in Newcastle; and one down in Tasmania. Some of the callers had taken photos on their phones and sent them in. The sightings were checked by local police. All of the girls bore a similarity to Bella, but not one of them was her.

After the newspaper article on the first baby’s death, a number of callers had rung in about Marty: they’d seen him with a little girl last week; they’d seen him at the hospital; they’d seen him up on the ridge jogging. Nothing suspicious. Another reported that he’d seen Marty taking drugs without signing for them in the hospital pharmacy. An officer was following up, but as the caller had said ‘Dr Ross’, Caruso guessed it was one of Nurse Natalie’s gang trying to stir up trouble for the man.

Caruso took a sip of his coffee and ran a hand over his face. What else? Investigations on the red hatchback were ongoing. In the last three days, they’d doorknocked the whole of Merrigang, checked security cameras from vigilant household owners and talked to bus drivers. They’d interviewed everyone who’d been at the shops that morning and scrutinised their movements. They’d spoken to the eight protesters from Nurse Natalie’s anti-euthanasia group; none of them had been anywhere near Merrigang when Bella had gone missing.

Caruso drained his coffee then crushed the disposable cup in his large hand. One lead—that was all he needed; one lead to point him in the right direction. Pushing open the car door, he called across to Suze: ‘Let’s get back in there.’