Mum knots the thread and breaks it between her teeth. She moves onto the second hole in my tights. ‘By the way, your dad called.’
I raise one eyebrow. When I was twelve I spent a whole summer practising this new expression for my new cynicism. Mum and Dad separated when I was eight and divorced when I was ten, but when I was twelve Dad went to Western Australia to work on the mines and didn’t come back for three years. He said he was doing it for Sam and me, to save for our futures, but instead he bought a house on the other side of town with his mate Jarrod, and I don’t see how that benefits us. The house has been the source of a lot of fights between Mum and Dad, but Mum seems to have let it go now.
‘Don’t give me that look, Chloe. Call him and have a quick chat. It won’t cost you a thing.’
‘Okay. Ma, okay.’ I wave Mum’s fussing away. Dad and I spoke on my birthday, which wasn’t that long ago. The senior detective is being questioned onscreen and I don’t want to miss it.
‘Are the police treating this case as linked to the Karolina Bauer abduction?’ asks a journalist.
‘That’s the exchange student who was taken a few years ago,’ I say.
The lead detective looks like the kind of man you’d see in a department store catalogue modelling clothes for older men, not a hunter of psychopaths. ‘At this early stage we’re examining all angles, including looking at previous cases.’
‘Early?’ says Mum. ‘It’s been four days—that’s way too long. The first 48 hours are crucial.’
Mum consumes a solid and unvaried diet of crime fiction—it’s her main hobby. She could probably have a decent stab at heading up a police investigation based on that alone.
A different journalist speaks up. ‘So you admit there are startling similarities between the two abductions. Is the investigation focussing on people with a connection to Balmoral Ladies College?’
The detective doesn’t take the bait. ‘We’re conducting a methodical and thorough investigation, as we always do. We’ll be able to bring you more information in the next few days.’
I think back to my conversation earlier with strange, intense Petra. ‘The police don’t tell the public all of the details, did you know that, Mum? They keep the important stuff to themselves.’
‘Yeah, that’s classic methodology, hon. The police use the unreleased information to eliminate suspects.’
I want to ask her how that can be fair—what if there’s information that could keep more girls safe, if only they knew it? But I swallow the question, because the last thing I want to be, or look to be, is scared.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling,’ Mum admits. ‘It reminds me of those Bayer kids. Before you were born. They got taken from their beach house. Never seen again. Vanished into thin air.’
They’re showing Yin’s photo again on the TV screen while the newsreader talks.
‘She doesn’t look like that now, you know,’ I tell Mum. ‘That photo is from Junior School, grade six or something. Why would they use an old photo?’
‘I don’t know…maybe it was the first one they could find? Her parents probably weren’t thinking straight.’
‘But if a witness sees her in the back of a car, or in a window, they might not recognise her.’
‘Maybe the public will be more sympathetic if she looks young and cute. If she looks older or closer to being a woman, then it’s too easy to say: oh, she was talking to guys online. Or dating older men, or going out and being a bad girl. You know…’
‘That shouldn’t matter.’
‘It shouldn’t, but—hon, it’s bleak, but she’s Chinese and already some people might not care as much. The more the public relates to a victim the better. And some people in our community don’t get as much attention when they go missing, from the media or the public or the police. If you’re homeless, or a sex worker, then you can forget about…’
My face must paint a picture, because Mum trails off. The world never ceases to surprise me with how messed up it is.
Mum crawls closer to put her arm around me. ‘I shouldn’t say things like that to you. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’ I rest my head against hers and sigh. ‘You can’t protect me from the bullshit, Mum. I’m gonna find out anyway.’
That makes her laugh a little. She drapes the mended tights over my legs.
‘I should warn you, your dad wants you to transfer back to Morrison. He always overreacts.’
Even though I’ve been thinking a similar thing, I can’t help being annoyed. ‘Dad never wanted me to go to Balmoral in the first place.’
He said it was a school for the elite and he complains every time he has to pay his half for field trips or uniforms. Mum thinks if she has those phone conversations in the laundry I won’t hear them, but I do.
‘Well, your dad wasn’t exactly supportive of my desire to have an education either.’ Mum picks up my sketchbook from the side table.
I want to ask her whether she thinks I should switch back, but the words stick in my throat.
‘You know there’s no reason to think that you’re in real danger, don’t you, Chlo? This kind of thing is so rare, even though it probably doesn’t seem like that right now.’
‘I know.’
And I do know. At least the rational part of me does. I wish someone would tell my body though, because I keep catching myself with my hands curled tightly, my shoulders tensed for no good reason.
I watch as Mum leafs through my carefully
