Reported Missing

By Diane Harding

Di Harding’s novel is set in a very contemporary Sydney, taking in multi-layered sights and sounds, from the northern beaches to performances at the Sydney Opera House.

The plot spans the complications of what a woman must consider if she is to save her children from domestic violence. And the main character has good reason to hold

• Language: English
• Publisher: 31556151122
• Release date: Jul 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9780994544124

Book preview

REPORTED MISSING

Diane Harding

First ebook edition: Sydney 2016

Publisher: Sydney School of Arts & Humanities

15-17 Argyle Place Millers Point NSW 2000

www.ssoa.com.au

ISBN: 978-0-9945441-2-4

Copyright ©Diane Harding, 2016.

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. Nor may it be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or with any cover other than that in which it is published by this publisher as an ebook or a print book, without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Ferdinando Manzo. Text design by Ferdinando Manzo. Typeset in Times New Roman. Printed and bound by Lightning Source as a POD paperback.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Harding, Diane, author.

Reported Missing / Diane Harding.

978-0-9945441-2-4

Fiction – domestic violence – crime fiction – Sydney novel – Australian fiction

Dedication

For Rex – with love

Acknowledgements

Without a doubt this work of fiction, my first novel, would not have been published without the encouragement, positive support, brilliant feedback and attention to detail in the editing by the Director of Sydney School of Arts & Humanities (SSOA), Dr Christine Williams, and her team: in particular, Ferdinando Manzo for cover design and formatting and Sharon Dean for proof reading. I would also like to thank my creative writing group for their enthusiasm and positive critiques when I began this endeavour.

Chapter 1

I wasn’t suspicious at first when I couldn’t make contact with our daughter, Jenny. I just thought it was Jenny being her busy self as usual.

But somehow, and I don’t know why, after the third call I began to feel uneasy. Why that was, I couldn’t say. After all, I often called her and received no answer, or she did not return my call for a few days. But this time was different.

It was only on the third call to her mobile that I heard John’s voice message:

‘Jenny’s phone is being disconnected at the end of the week and all business calls should be directed to my phone at 4041 942 8374’.

I thought back to the last conversation I’d had with Jenny. Had she mentioned that she was disconnecting her phone? Surely she would have mentioned it. The last time we’d talked had been about preparing an event for her birthday due in a fortnight. We’d chatted about the rental property they were moving to and I had forgotten to get the address and new phone numbers.

Now I didn’t know where they lived. I couldn’t find her.

My mind went into panic mode. This was my daughter, my lovely bubbly thirty-year-old Jenny – and her husband and two wonderful children – and I didn’t know where they all were.

For a moment the world was spinning out of my control. Then I pulled myself together and told my mind to stop worrying and being silly.

I decided I’d phone John on the work number he’d provided on his phone message. But first I talked with my husband of thirty-seven years just as I always shared any worries over our daughter and her family.

‘Mac, I can’t get Jenny. Her phone has been disconnected.’

Mac stood in the kitchen doorway. ‘Well, phone John then and get the new number,’ he said.

‘Hmm. You know what he said the last time I phoned him at work. He was so cross.’

‘Just do it, Lilli. Forget about his crossness and just do it.’

I picked up the phone and dialled.

Immediately I was connected to an administrative assistant who asked politely how she could help me.

‘I’m after John, John Stanford. Can you put me through to him?’

There was a pause before she said, ‘I don’t have him on my list of personnel here. You must have the wrong number.’

I was flabbergasted. ‘This is the number he has given me,’ I said. I could hear the whine in my voice.

‘Sorry,’ she answered. ‘But he doesn’t work here.’

I put the phone down in its cradle with a bang and yelled out to Mac. ‘Guess what? He doesn’t work there, if he ever did.’

Life had changed for me the previous October when I’d arrived to do Jenny’s administration books and mind the children, who were aged just two and four and a half. This was my three-day-a-week job which I did for free, to help her with her swim school business.

Of course I loved being busy and helping out, and I loved minding the children. But I would have been happy not to have to think about quarterly tax and GST, paying staff and balancing the books … so that when, three months before, she’d announced she was selling the swim school and moving to the Blue Mountains, my first thought was, ‘No more business work for me!’

Then I’d noticed that Jenny’s eyes were welling up with tears and I’d realised that this was a big move for her. We commiserated together for a while until I got over the shock of it all, and she said, ‘I’ll miss you.’ And then in her baby voice that she’d always used to get what she wanted, she asked whether Mac and I would think of moving to the mountains to live nearby. After all, we’d loved the mountains and spent quite a bit of time there. We had even owned a holiday home for a while in the main mountain town, Katoomba.

I’d rushed home to Mac that evening and told him the story.

Jenny’s knee had twisted while she was running and although she’d had an arthroscopy, the knee still gave way sometimes at work. She felt she couldn’t run the business with this injury so she’d decided to sell.

She explained that if she didn’t have a job, they’d be stretched to pay the mortgage with only one wage coming in. They had always loved the mountains and they wanted to move before Chiara started school the following year. An almost unheard of flat block of land had become available in the mountains with lovely views, so they’d purchased it immediately. They would be renting until the house was built. Jenny was going to act as the owner and builder-manager.

Mac and I talked about how silly they were to leave Sydney as they might never be able to afford to come back again, what with the rising prices of houses. When I broached the subject of selling and going up there too, Mac said I was too emotional about it all to think straight. We had all our friends here and our social lives and our son and daughter-in-law lived nearby. What would it be like for him if we showed a preference for one child over the other?

I calmed down then and started to examine the idea sensibly.

We loved where we lived on Sydney’s northern beaches. Although I’d miss Chiara and Ryan, I could visit them weekly. Time would go by quickly and soon they’d both be at school. Then they’d be busy with friends and I would have them come to stay in the school holidays.

Suddenly it didn’t seem so bad. At least I wouldn’t have to do the business books ever again. Mac and I had a life to lead too.

Mac was a much more sensible person than I was. I had met him when we were at university together. A crowd of us had formed into a small group that met for coffee and debate after class. Mac was always called Mac as his name was Stanley Ambrose McGregor. I still call him Mac unless I’m very cross. Then I call him Stanley Ambrose.

Back then in those Uni days, after a couple of months we’d begun going out on dates and I discovered that we thought alike about many things and enjoyed laughing together about most things. My dad had always said that if you find someone who you can laugh with, then you’re on the way to finding a lifelong companion. A wise man, my father.

Soon our group accepted that we were ‘an item’, as they said in those days. Our names began to be linked together. ‘Let’s invite Mac and Lilli,’ they’d say, or ‘What do Mac and Lilli think?’

Both of us liked walking and spent lots of time outdoors. Mac was also in the local rugby football team in those days and I would go to watch his games, although I often didn’t know who was who on the field so I missed some of Mac’s best tries. Luckily, he was tolerant when he’d ask if I’d seen his try and I’d confess that I hadn’t. Now, after all these years, Mac was still the tolerant one.

After my surprise phone call about the mystery of where John worked, I resolved to go hunting. I searched my mind for any information about the rental that Jenny and the children were going to.

I remembered that she’d told me a suitable place had been hard for them to find in time for the move from their old home. The new owners had given them two months to move out which was quite generous, and now they had to go. The fall-back position was that they would stay with us and commute to the mountains to organise the build and start Chiara in school. But we all felt this would present quite a lot of difficulties for all of us.

Luckily, after denying they had a dog and almost denying they had two children, they were eventually offered a rental that suited. I could remember Jenny saying that it was in Blaxland and it was one half of a duplex, but that was all.

I began to worry.

Why can’t I get her on the phone? I’ve left dozens of messages. She’s never this long phoning back even if she’s forgotten to look at her messages, or if the mobile’s battery is flat. It’s been five days. Where is she?

Of course, Mac thought I was paranoid.

‘Stop worrying. She’ll get back to you and probably say she lost her phone or the kids were playing with it or something like that.’ And he turned up the sound on the DVD he was watching.

So I tried to stop thinking about the situation, but it kept creeping back into my mind. It felt like the times when Jenny was little and had hidden amongst the dresses in Warringah Mall, and for a minute there I couldn’t find her.

She’s my child still and I need to hear her voice, I persuaded myself. I don’t need to be stressed like this.

So in desperation, I phoned John on the message machine number again.

This time there was a pause and a click as if the phone was being redirected. John answered with his business tone of voice.

‘John, it’s Lilli. I tried to phone this number before but they said you didn’t work there. Thank goodness I’ve found you at last. Sorry I’m phoning you at work as I know you don’t like personal calls, but I can’t seem to get onto Jenny and hoped you could give her a message for me, or, if she has a new phone, you could give me the number.’

I was pretty breathless after this long explanation.

‘I don’t know where she is,’ he said, and I could hear the change from business tone to frigidity in his voice.

‘What, what did you say?’ I stuttered, although I’d heard perfectly well what he’d said.

‘Just what I said,’ he spat down the phone line. ‘She’s left me, so don’t phone again,’ he said and hung up.

Chapter 2

Now I was worried.

Where would Jenny go if she had left John? It seemed to me that her first port of call would be us, her mum and dad. We would be the obvious ones to offer her comfort, support and beds for her and the children. Where else would she go with her two little ones?

I thought about my two lovely grandchildren. Ryan, a cheeky, constantly laughing boy, with curly hair that fell over his forehead in a riotous tangle of red. And Chiara, a lanky nearly-five year old with blue sparkly eyes full of curiosity, and an interest in stories and reading, even though she wasn’t yet at school.

I worried about them all night, getting up at least three or four times and disturbing Mac as I did.

‘Stop worrying and get back to sleep, Lilli,’ was all he could mutter. But still I went over and over John’s words in my mind.

Then I thought of our son, Tony. Perhaps she’d gone to him. Brothers and sisters often told each other things that they couldn’t tell their parents. I decided I’d phone Tony at his work. Even though tomorrow was Saturday, he worked at the business six days a week.

When I called him the next morning, he answered in his professional voice and asked how he could be of help.

‘Hi Tony,’ I said.

‘Hey,’ he replied. ‘Nice to hear from you, Mum. But you never phone me at work. Is something wrong? Is Dad all right? Are you?’

I could hear the concern in his voice and knew without a doubt that he was not hiding anything from me about Jenny.

‘I’m just checking on whether you’ve seen or heard from Jenny recently.’

‘No, Mum, not since our last family dinner. Why?’

I told him the story of trying to call her and then talking to John.

‘Poor Jenny. Where is she now?’

‘I don’t know,’ I wailed. ‘I thought she might have come to you for help or at least spoken to you.’

‘No, I haven’t heard a thing. I’ll phone John and see what else I can find out. I’ll get back to you asap.’

He hung up and I just sat by the phone with nothing to do but worry about my daughter.

Jenny had always had two very good friends, Annika and Callie. They had been friends since infants’ school. The three of them used to walk to school together as we and their parents all lived in adjacent streets. As teenagers, they’d giggled over boyfriends. They’d been bridesmaids at each other’s weddings. Perhaps Jenny had gone to them for help. After all, they had children too and would give her children a stable and happy change, almost like a holiday without the drama of seeing their parents separating. I went straight to the online directory and found both the girls’ mothers’ numbers because I couldn’t remember their married names.

What could I say? I didn’t want to confess that I didn’t know my own daughter’s number. I didn’t want to say she’d left her husband and I didn’t know where she was.

Finally I decided what to say.

‘Hi, this is Jenny’s mother here. I’m trying to contact Jenny at your daughter’s place and Jenny’s phone is dead. Could I have your daughter’s number? It’s a bit of an emergency as her aunt is very ill.’

Both the girls’ mothers were kind of old-time friends as we’d had quite a lot of contact while they were growing up, so they were willing to give me the numbers. Then came the next difficult task of asking Jenny’s friends if she was there. Again, I worked out an explanation for my call that sounded plausible.

‘Hello, Annika? It’s Jenny’s mother here. I’ve just had news that Jenny’s aunt is very ill and I’m trying to contact her. Of course her phone would be dead at this time and I thought she was visiting you. Could I speak to her please?’

‘Oh, Mrs McGregor, she’s not here. I haven’t heard from her for a while as we’ve only just come back from a holiday in Fiji. In fact, I haven’t heard from her in two months. Not since our daughter’s birthday party in April. But if I hear from her, I’ll let her know you called.’

Then I tried Callie with the same weak explanation. Her husband answered the phone and when he heard my story his reply was,

‘Sorry Mrs McGregor, but Callie has been in hospital for the past two weeks with a severely broken leg. You’re just lucky you got me, as the kids and I have been living at my mother’s place in Sutherland, and I just came home to get a few clothes and toys for them. Sorry, but I can’t help you.’

So I couldn’t do anything more until I heard from Tony.

Just then the phone rang and I snatched it up with a reflex action that was so fast I dropped it and had to catch the swinging cord.

‘Mum,’ Tony said, ‘I rang John but he was very angry and hardly spoke to me. I was only able to find out that Jenny left two weeks ago and took the children with her. She didn’t say where she was going. Just got in the car and went. Mum, I got a bit cross then and asked him what he’d done to make her leave, and added that if he’d been abusing my sister I’d be round there to knock his block off. He didn’t take kindly to what I said, but answered that he hadn’t done anything like that. He said he loved Jenny and wanted her back, and his kids back too. I believe him, Mum. He sounded very distraught to me.’

Two weeks ago! I was shocked.

‘Where is she then? I’ve phoned her friends Annika and Callie but they haven’t seen her. What’s happening, Tony? Something’s wrong I know it.’ I could hear the fretting tone in my voice.

‘Hey, Mum. It’s okay. You’ll see. She was probably so upset that she went off to recover on her own. She’ll contact you soon. Go talk to Dad about it. He’ll have some ideas about what to do.’

And with that Tony was off. ‘Got to go, Mum – the office is calling. Phone me with any news,’ he said before abruptly hanging up.

Tony didn’t seem to be worried. I was becoming frustrated with people who didn’t think the situation was strange.

I almost ran down the hall from the kitchen to the lounge room where Mac was flicking through TV channels. He’d been at a bit of a loss since he’d retired three years before and was starting to watch soaps and reality shows during the day.

I filled him in on everything I’d done and everything the people I’d contacted had said. It was beginning to sound more shocking to me as I explained it. Where would she go with two children aged nearly five and two?

What could have made her leave? Has she been hurt and can’t contact anyone? Has John thought of this possibility? Has he phoned the police? I can’t leave it like this.

Even though he’d expressly said not to phone him, I decided that was what I needed to do.

Thank goodness it was a Saturday and I could phone him on his mobile at home. He might be more amenable at answering questions when he was not at work.

I punched in the numbers and waited through a few bars of Lord of the Rings before I heard his voice.

‘John, it’s just me again, Lilli. I was so shocked to hear Jenny had left that I forgot to ask you some questions. Did you see her leave? She hasn’t contacted us. Could something have happened to her? Have you phoned the police?’

I could hear John taking a deep breath before he answered me.

‘No, Lilli, nothing has happened to her and I haven’t phoned the police because she’s not missing or in danger. She left me a note to say she was leaving because she’d found someone else. She’s taken all her clothes and the children’s clothes and left without a forwarding address or phone number. I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want you interfering. I just want to be left alone.’

I suddenly felt sorry for the man. It seemed that my daughter was wrong this time. It was a terrible thing to do. It was not the way we’d brought her up at all.

I was slowly putting the phone down on the hook when I heard a voice in the background saying, ‘Nanna, Nanna,’ and then the connection was broken.

What did I really hear, I asked myself. Was it just wishful thinking that I heard a child’s voice? Was it just the dog whining or the sound of wind in the background, or even John crying on the other end of the phone?

I tried to recapture the moment, and finally decided that, yes, that voice had been Ryan’s. It