The Fall Between

On an icy fifteen-degree September morning in Orange, New South Wales, four people unknowingly set off a chain of events that would lead to a major homicide investigation and three dead. The first person kicked off the event when they broke into Summer Street Jewellery Store, helping themselves to enough fashionable watches and bracelets to keep their drug habit in full swing for the next few months.

The second, the owner of the jewellery store, continued the momentum when they saw an opportunity to cash in on the insurance claim after a poor year of turnover, by stashing away a considerable amount of valuable items before the cops arrived.

The third domino was kicked over when a police officer on general duties weighed up their pending retirement, dismal superfund, long service and holiday leave, and figured a few precious stones and rings would soften the blow of departing the force earlier than planned.

The ripple effect was finally completed by the fourth person, who witnessed the cop filching the items.

Three months later, this would lead to the first recorded death and the formation of Strike Force Oona.

~

Now, on a hot November morning, more than three hundred kilometres from the jewellery store, the first body lies naked and partially submerged in a cattle trough.

The air in the lungs has kept her chest floating above the sur­face of the murky water. Her legs are heavy, wound tightly together with rusty barbed wire, like two needlefish caught in a net. Her ankles have sunk into the soft sludge. The skin on her neck has been scrubbed and peeled away. Two of her fingernails have been removed by force. And while she has only bled a little from her nails, and a few grazes and cuts, the ground around the cattle’s drinking trough is soaked in blood. A wallaby has been gutted and its blood and entrails scattered.

It will be another two hours before rigor mortis sets in. Until then, the slim fingers will float below the water’s surface, gently bobbing, beckoning Detective Giles to come and find her.

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The mother wakes to dust speckled in sunlight. She throws back the bedsheet, stirring the stale air. She needs to put the kettle on. A coffee first. Inject some caffeine into the system and wipe the sleep from her eyes before getting the kids up for school.

She’s surprised she’s out of bed before her two girls, but perhaps that’s because for once she’s had a proper night’s sleep. Last night there were none of the usual bed-time antics from Kayleen. The bullshit routine of, Tuck me in, I can’t sleep, I need to pee, I’m cold, I’m hot, I’m thirsty, I need to pee again. And – for the first time in a long time – she’s not woken with a dry mouth and a headache. She had put the cap back on the bottle of bourbon after just three drinks.

Atta girl, she tells herself.

The mother stands on the back veranda, where the sun doesn’t smash her in the face and the neighbours can’t perv on her braless tits under her ratty t-shirt.

She drinks her coffee and sneaks in a ciggie. She doesn’t like her kids seeing her smoke, and out here on the back deck she can hear them coming down the hall, giving her enough time to flick the cigarette butt into the garden bed below.

The mother puffs away slowly, making the most of it. There’s only two left in the pack, so she needs to space them out until she can get to the shops. She relishes having five minutes to herself; it gives her time to get her head together.

Mornings are normally peaceful, but with the blaring heat, the sound of a distant car engine revving and the relentless barking of the dog next door, the mother knows any chance of dawn mindful­ness is fucked.

Recharged, with caffeine in her veins and tobacco on her breath, the mother turns on her bare sticky heels, disentangling herself from the morning clatter. It’s time to wake her girls.

Inside, her youngest is already up. She’s snuck into the kitchen without the mother hearing a single footstep. At the breakfast bench, Mikaela pours apple juice into a plastic princess cup.

‘Mornin’. Is your sister up?’

‘Dunno.’

The mother shuffles down the hall to Kayleen’s bedroom and finds it empty. She feels the mattress – it’s cold. She notices her daughter’s school uniform and a blue disposable lab coat, scrunched up in a pile on the floor beside her school bag. The mother pokes the flimsy gown with her toe, then checks the bathroom and her own bedroom.

‘Kayleen.’

She looks under the bed and in the wardrobe.

‘Kayleen?’

The mother feels her chest tighten. She doesn’t have the patience or sense of humour for games, but she’s hell-bent on not losing her temper. Not this bloody early in the morning.

Back in the kitchen, she asks, ‘Where’s your sister hiding?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Kayleen?’ calls the mother, but the house is quiet.

Fuck. Where is she?

The mother heads out the front door, letting the flyscreen slam behind her. Other than the endless barking next door, and the shrill of cicadas, the street is quiet. She blinks for a moment into the morn­ing sunlight, lifts her hand to her brow, shielding her eyes from the glaring sun. She looks up and down the street, at fibro houses and half-restored cars abandoned more from lack of enthusiasm than money.

That’s Pipeline Avenue for yah, thinks the mother. The pipeline of shit.

‘Kayleen? Kayleen!’

A neighbour from across the road is dressed in her supermarket uniform, her peroxide hair whipped back into a messy bun. As she’s about to climb into her car, she pauses and calls out to the mother, ‘Can’t yah keep control of yah bloody kids?’ Her face is a smirk.

The mother says, ‘Fuck off and mind your own business.’