The rest of the team would follow up on the CCTV lead and Bella’s hospital visit while Caruso interviewed a schoolteacher. The guy lived close to the playgroup so Caruso planned to meet him there, on his home ground. He’d been found with photos of Bella in his home.

As Caruso was driving to the teacher’s house, he had a call from Chatswood police station, near where the Parkers had lived in Sydney. He’d rung them yesterday but the Parkers hadn’t been listed on the station’s system.

‘We’re sorry it didn’t come through earlier,’ Sergeant Macintosh explained over the phone now. ‘I’ll send through the report straight away. The thing is, the Parkers changed their surname.’

23 MARTY

23

MARTY

MARTY WAS ON THE RIDGE FOR MOST OF THE DAY. HE TRACED THE ROUTE they usually took on Sundays, following it from their house all the way to the hill. The SES men were searching back over the ridge and down towards the paddocks and the dam on the other side. Joining them, Marty called out his daughter’s name into the quiet bushland.

‘Bella, where are you? Bella. BELLA.’

The men nearest him flinched but he kept yelling. Finally, one of them put a hand on his arm.

‘Don’t call out so often. We need to listen as well.’

The first time they found a young roo ripped apart, Marty bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from screaming. Despite the tail, he’d imagined that the blood and the organs were human. They’d come across another heap of entrails and fur in a small gully, and yet another hidden between rocks. Marty overheard two of the SES guys chatting.

‘Is it foxes or are there some feral dogs around here?’

‘Do foxes attack like that?’

‘I dunno, but there’s been no rain and a cull on the kangaroos. The foxes and the feral dogs will be starving.’

Feral dogs: his tiny daughter wouldn’t stand a chance against them. When he was growing up in Armidale, the local farmers had waged a war against packs of wild dogs that destroyed their livestock. Lambing season was the worst—lambs taken from their mothers in the night, often before the farmer even knew they’d been born.

Was Bella likely to be up here in the bush? Probably not, but Marty had to do something, feel useful. Down on the streets around playgroup, Marty’s thoughts had fixated on paedophiles and murderers. But up here, wild dogs and guns came to mind. What if a hunter had mistaken Bella for a roo and taken the shot?