There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Eighty Two

Sunday August 21

'Hello, this is Detective Harper Lewis, Camberwell Station.'

'Yeah, ah... Detective Lewis, this is Sergeant Aaron Handley at Apollo Bay station. I'm calling regarding the APB you put out earlier this afternoon.'

Harper Lewis rolled her eyes at no one in particular. Another country hick cop trying to be helpful. Probably had his hand on his dick as he spoke.

'Yes, Sergeant. What do you have for me?' She still found it difficult to be short with people even though her goose was cooked for the day. She cringed as she reflected on how shallow it seemed. For me.

'Well I want to send you through come CCTV footage I've found. One of the local shopkeepers, a bloke named Pete who runs the hardware store, thought he saw something suss a few days ago and told me as we were at the servo just an hour ago.'

Lewis paused for him to go on.

'He described a bloke with a young kid, nothing unusual except for the fact that he saw them get off the bus and he took her to the park and left her there while he crossed the road to get some stuff from the shop. He just thought it was weird for a bloke, assuming he's the father, to leave a really young kid in a park while he does the shopping. When he was telling me I remembered getting the APB and so I went to have a look at the footage from the camera on the street. I think you're gonna like what you see, Detective. I've sent it through on the system for you.' Aaron Handley waited for a response but still he got nothing.

At the other end of the line Harper Lewis had put the receiver down and put the phone on speaker. Handley could hear the thin clicks of the mouse and the occasional snap of the keyboard as she opened the file and scrolled through.

She knew before she zoomed in that it was Vincent and Lola in the vision. She was just a blonde ball of playfulness in the background but she saw the sharp jaw line and refined features of Vincent Sampson just like she had first felt herself flutter over in the interview room the night Avery had died.

Except this time it wasn't attraction, it was sadness. But with the same verve.

'Hello, Detective Lewis – are you there?' Aaron Handley was getting from careful to frustrated quickly enough now.

'Yes, yes, Sergeant Handley that is fantastic, thank you. I... I think that they may well be the people we are looking for.' She kept her tone moderate but inside all she wanted to do was grab the keys to the car and head down there right away. 'Fantastic work, Sergeant we thank you very much. Can I grab some details about the incident?'

And for five minutes Handley went through the time of the bus, the service number, where it had come from and gone to, how Pete the hardware store owner described the scene. She took his details as they spoke and loaded up the LEAP system again to look for any possible target in the Great Ocean Road region.

'And Sergeant, can you give me any indication as to where they were last seen heading?'

'Well that's the funny thing Detective. Honni who runs the grocery store tells me he bought a range of food and gear that made it seem like he was going camping. I mean, people do that around here, even at this time of year.'

'So why is that funny, Sergeant?' Lewis had lost any sense of annoyance as she realised just how critical this information was.

She'd even forgotten about Dean McCoy for the last ten minutes, despite the nature of what she was dealing with.

'Well he didn't have a tent or anything. No sleeping bags, no swag, nothing. So unless he's gonna build a hut or has a holiday house out there somewhere they're gonna have been cold as hell out there.'