“Go on.”
“Kim would be the first.”
16
Falk knew Zara and Joel couldn’t see him as he left the clearing and navigated his way down through the bushland, but he sensed their eyes following again as he approached the Drop.
“G’day.” Sergeant Dwyer was waiting by the safety railing. He introduced himself as Falk joined him. “Lucky to spot you up there. Can cross you off my catch-up list.”
“Right.” Falk squinted back up toward the trees. He couldn’t see any sign of the teenagers, but felt sure they were still there.
“A little higher.” Dwyer squinted himself, then pointed. He looked older in broad daylight than he had last night, his hair silver in the sun. “Find the fallen tree—you see it? There, looks darker from here—and straight up from there. Got them?”
Falk suddenly did. The blue of Joel’s jacket, the shadow of Zara’s hair by his shoulder. It wasn’t easy, though. The benefits of local knowledge, he supposed.
“Anyway, thanks for coming down,” Dwyer said. “I would’ve come up, but I try and show a bit of respect for the kids’ territory, when I can, at least. Not sure they’d agree, but there you go.”
Falk was tempted to believe him. Fit and wiry, Dwyer wouldn’t have had any trouble making his own way up that narrow path to the clearing in a matter of minutes if he’d wanted to.
“Like I said, just wanted a quick chat,” Dwyer said, in a tone very similar to one Falk often used himself when saying that exact phrase. “We didn’t get the chance to meet last night. Or last year, obviously.”
“No,” Falk said, curious rather than concerned. “That’s right.” He leaned against the safety barrier. Screwed into the wood between him and Dwyer was the small brass memorial plaque he’d noticed the previous evening.
In memory of Dean Tozer, Falk was able to read now in the sunlight. Loved and missed.
The paintwork along the railings on either side had been freshly graffitied. It was the mindless scrawl of kids with a black pen and too much booze and time on their hands, rather than anything targeted, Falk could see, but still unpleasant. Sticky food remnants were smeared on the wood, and there was a series of dirty boot marks next to the plaque where someone had tried to balance on the railing. Falk suddenly pictured Joel standing there earlier, his shoulders stooped as he presumably took in the sight of his father’s memorial plaque surrounded by all this mess.
“This all would’ve happened last night.” Dwyer followed Falk’s gaze down to the vandalism, his face set. “Kids come here every year, get carried away. Not my favorite annual event, by a long way. But—” He gave a deep shrug. “Being a cop here, it’s a balancing act. You’re AFP, I hear?”
Dwyer seemed neither threatened nor particularly impressed as Falk nodded.
“In town for the christening, that right? Godfather to Greg and Rita’s youngest.” Dwyer looked over. “So you must know the family well? Part of that circle?”
“Not really. Greg and Rita, yes. I’ve known them for a few years.”
“How about the others? Charlie, Shane McAfee? All their mates? Naomi Kerr, she’s godmother, isn’t she?”
“Yeah. I just met them, though. Don’t know them well.” Falk could tell his answers were being appraised, he just wasn’t sure why yet. He pictured Dwyer at the appeal the night before, and the way he had run his eyes over Kim’s family and friends. Falk shut his mouth and waited.
But Dwyer simply nodded, considering, then glanced back up to the bushland, his eyes following the downed tree up to the break where Zara and Joel had been. There was no sign of them now.
“Those two aren’t happy with me.” Dwyer reached out and rubbed a thin strip of dirt off the memorial plaque, then used his thumbnail to pick out a dead leaf caught between the metal and the wood. “They tell you their connection theory? Looking to link Dean Tozer and Kim?”
“They mentioned it, yeah.”
“They tell you I don’t take them seriously?”
“That seemed to be the feeling.”
Dwyer didn’t seem put out, simply resigned. “It’s not that I don’t take them seriously, it’s more that I think they’re wrong on that specific point.” He found a cleanish spot on the barrier to lean against. “You ever had any call to police a small town?”
“No, but I grew up in one.”
“Like Marralee?”
“More run-down. Doing it a lot harder. But the same where it matters.”
“So you’d probably get it. Place this size—you can get lucky for years and years, dodging those big incidents. But not forever, and when they happen they hurt us all. Not least because most people know each other, so when two separate things happen to two separate people, they can feel closer than they are.”
Falk thought he probably agreed with that. He looked out at the water. There was—the recurring realization always presented itself as new—so much of it.
“Joel said Kim would be the first person in a while not to have been recovered from the reservoir,” Falk said and next to him, Dwyer nodded.
“Yeah, and look, he’s not wrong, technically. But what’s the catch with stats? They can show anything.” The light bounced off the water, reflecting ripples across the sergeant’s face. “We haven’t lost anyone in the last fifty years, because in the last fifty years we started putting up railings and warning signs. And there’s better education about wild swimming, and kids all learn water survival at school. And if a drowning does happen, we’ve got better boats and techniques for recovering the body. Go back another hundred years, when this was just a lake and a glorified watering hole, and it’s a different story.” Dwyer ran a thumb over the edge of the plaque. “More than five months it took us to find Dean Tozer’s body. A bloody eternity for Joel and Gemma, believe me, I know. But we found him in the end.”
“No luck getting the driver?” Falk said. “No judgment, just interested.”
Dwyer sighed through his nose. “You know how it is,” he said eventually. “Sometimes you just don’t.”
Falk nodded. He did know.
“But we found Dean,” Dwyer said. “And I haven’t given up hope on Kim, either. She was a really nice woman. She deserves better, and I don’t like not having answers.”
Falk sensed that was true. Dwyer seemed both personally and professionally dissatisfied that this whole distressing episode was not neatly, if sadly, squared away.
“Anything come from last night’s appeal so far?” Falk asked, and Dwyer gave a noncommittal shrug.
“One or two things. Had a few people come forward, couple of potentially interesting sightings. One near the stroller bay looks promising, a mum who was getting her kids’ bikes out. Timing would work, so we’re checking that out. We’ll see.” He frowned. “Info’s never really been the problem, though; the issue’s always been more sorting through what’s useful. Woman in her late thirties or early forties, average height, medium build, brown hair, wearing dark pants and a light top? I’ve got a dozen people who saw someone matching that description at a dozen different places over the same hour. They can’t all be Kim.” He sighed. “But you never know. New things do come to light. They have before.”