Perfect Victim by Megan Norris, Elizabeth Southall Page A

circles. Michele tried to hold me tightly. I have little recollection of Mike and Dulcie during this, only enough to know they witnessed the sad scene.
    When I calmed down, the policewoman said she would take a handwritten statement at the front desk but if the phone rang she would need to answer it because she was the only one there. And then she would offer her opinion. I agreed.
    For the first time, I now realise how fortunate I was not to have been charged. If I had been a police officer I wonder how I would have responded.
    I spoke very slowly and deliberately. I needed to be careful with the story because now, under the circumstances, this male friend of mine, with his silly game, had incriminated himself. I remember saying we weren’t having an affair, because I thought it could have appeared so. Mike had never been threatened by our friendship. This man and I were best friends, that’s all, until his hide-and-seek game started. A bit of harmless fun for him, I’m sure. He had told me once that he was steadfastly stubborn and always got what he wanted.
    The policewoman looked several times at the clock.
    Finally, after a long half-hour at the watchhouse counter, I finished the statement.
    ‘I’ll run a check on him.’ And she disappeared.
    ‘They won’t find anything,’ I said.
    ‘His name is clear,’ said the policewoman when she returned. ‘So what do you want me to do?’
    We were stumped. I thought the police should come up with the ideas.
    ‘Maybe you could contact his local police station. An officer could make general inquiries at his house, like … Rachel Barber went missing this week and we’re just asking people who knew her whether they’ve seen her.’
    We were told this was not possible.
    She said, ‘I feel you are making a quantum leap. You are not just talking about a missing person here, you are talking about an abduction and murder.’

9
    G ROWING F EAR
    It was Saturday evening. We dropped Dulcie home and Michele drove us to St Hilary’s. This was Rachel’s church, where I had seen ourselves as Rachel’s guests. She had been a member of the Balwyn Baptist Church, but when she started at Canterbury Girls Secondary College, her friends introduced her to the St Hilary’s youth group, Wipe Out. I thought the church needed to know about Rachel’s disappearance. Since we moved to Heathmont, a forty minute drive away, she had only attended spasmodically. She had made me promise I would still drive her to Wipe Out and the Sunday evening youth service, where she was also a member of the choir. Work-tired, I had broken my promise.
    The minister was out for the evening, but I left a message with their babysitter, so her youth group friends could pray for her. The church immediately became supportive, as did Balwyn Baptist. Rachel went down on many prayer lists, in many churches. Not only Christians responded. We have Jewish and Buddhist friends, too. There was quite a prayer network on the go.
    An hour later we drove slowly past the house of the man we had reported, in Michele’s car. Mike and I slid down the back seat. His car was not in the driveway.
    At home I rang a mutual friend and asked if she had seen this man during the week. If she had not seen him I would have been concerned. She had seen him twice and his behaviour was the same as always.
    My nephew Shaun and his girlfriend Renée arrived. We had not slept since the few hours on Monday night, and though we had found strength in our diet of adrenalin and coffee we had become incompetent drivers. Shaun was to be our wheels.
    Around seven o’clock Shaun decided to go with Mike and place the man’s house under surveillance. If his car was not there they would drive to his family’s holiday house.
    Michele, David, Renée and I drove to a supermarket and bought the largest torches we could find. Perhaps we should not ignore what police felt – that Rachel was a runaway. We certainly couldn’t sit at home, and with no new leads we