So many photos for such a short life, chronicling every moment. As though they’d known that their son was going to die …

In the back garden, a senior constable was working with his cadaver dog. Caruso watched the English springer spaniel nosing about under the trampoline and then running into the nearby bushes. Three other officers were checking the flowerbeds and garden area for any recent digging. But they turned up nothing. No matching shoe, no bloodstains, no Bella.

Caruso had decided to let Suze tell the Parkers about the items found at the church. He was supposed to be their main point of contact but today they were angry with him. For good reason. Treating the victim’s family as suspects was one of the hardest parts of the job.

When Caruso walked into the lounge room, Suze was showing a photo of the shoe to the Parkers.

‘Yes, those were the shoes she was wearing,’ Lexie said softly.

‘What’s going on?’ her husband demanded. ‘Have you found her shoes?’

As Suze explained, the mother crumpled sideways onto the couch, her head in her hands, howling. Dr Parker moved to put his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

‘Do you think she’s dead?’ Lexie wailed.

Neither he nor Suze answered the question. Glancing at each other, they nodded in agreement, assessing the woman. She was obviously distraught, in real pain; could she really have arranged the disappearance? Or were they witnessing a different kind of pain—the fear of being caught?

‘We’re doing all we can to find your daughter. We’re following a number of lines of inquiry.’

Finally, the howling became a whimper as her husband stroked her back and whispered in her ear.

‘What about the water bottle?’ Suze asked gently. ‘It had Dora the Explorer on it. Was it the one you’d taken to playgroup that day?’

‘Dora the Explorer,’ the mother repeated and began whimpering again.

Caruso recalled the two shapes in their evidence bags. He ran through a scenario in his head. Lexie had handed Bella over to Brendan Parrish behind the playgroup. Parrish had taken Bella to the church and changed the girl into new clothes and shoes to avoid detection. The shoe and water bottle had been dropped in their rush to flee. Bella was then passed onwards to a trusted friend who took her to Sydney or Newcastle. Lexie would join them when she could. Escaping a violent husband. But could the teacher have been away from school for that long?

Dr Parker stood up and corralled the detectives away from his wife, towards the door.

‘No more questions. She’s too upset. Leave our house right now.’

36 MARTY

36

MARTY