As John walked into Australian Federal Police Headquarters in Canberra's city centre early the next morning, he wondered how Toni was able to keep doing her job year after year. Her position in the Online Child Sex Exploitation Team meant she could maintain a discreet distance from the victims and the perpetrators, but she still had to cope with viewing the worst that human beings could inflict on children.
To his surprise, she was waiting for him in the foyer. 'I've arranged clearance for you,' she said and walked with him to the front desk to get his visitor ID. 'Our Missing Persons centre is already trying to identify the girl, but as you have first-hand knowledge you could pick up something we mightn't recognise as being relevant.'
She led the way, the walls echoing the staccato clicks of her shoes. He understood her need to separate herself from him. He was the past, the memory of pain and grief, and if he had never been able to forgive himself, then how could she?
'The other team members won't be in yet,' she said as she opened a door several minutes later.
The room smelled like he knew it would. Of paper and computers, coffee and fast food, sweat and dedication. Of occasional moments of triumph. Of many moments of horror and disbelief at what people inflicted on children, though the word 'people' implied human beings, and John could never see any humanity in the suffering wrought by paedophiles.
Toni stopped in front of a desk, sat in the swivel chair and typed her password into a computer. She gave John operating instructions and told him she would be working nearby.
John began ploughing through the database of missing children. He searched the files of girls in the same age bracket as the dead girl, then began working backwards, aware of how much children could change in a short space of years, but hoping to spot some resemblance, however slight. He heard Toni give a brief explanation of his presence as other officers came into work, but he stayed focused on the screen.
A mug of steaming coffee appeared on the desk a couple of hours later. He looked at the number of files he'd scanned and realised the futility of searching further. He stretched back in the chair, reached for the coffee, and answered Toni's unspoken question. 'No luck.'
She offered him a white cardboard box. He looked at the selection of cakes inside and chose a lamington. Her gesture surprised him, but he guessed her new-found happiness was the cause of the difference in her attitude towards him. Although in the past her tight, almost bitter, expression had conveyed the appearance of a much leaner physicality, her features now seemed softer, rounder, almost younger.
'Perhaps you should look through the files of kids who've been sexually abused.' She gestured towards the computer with a half-eaten chocolate slice. 'I can show you the cases we've worked on in the past year, as well as the current ones. If our programs haven't come up with a match to your girl, you might recognise something that will help.'
An hour later he almost wished he hadn't eaten. 'How do you do it?' he asked Toni. 'How do you stay sane when you're confronted with this every day?' In his work he encountered evil, but he doubted he could maintain his detachment if faced with predators who took delight in abusing children.
'It gets to you,' she admitted, 'but every time you nail one of the bastards and save a kid it makes you more determined to try to save another one.'
He kept clicking through the case documents, scanning the photos and notes, hoping to see a resemblance, looking for anything that might provide a clue to the girl's identity. The muscles in his shoulders began to bunch with tension, and he stretched back in an effort to ease them.
A face in the background of one of the photos caught his attention.
He increased the photo size and zoomed in on it.
Yes, he'd seen that face before.
CHAPTER 5
John read the case notes attached to the photos on Toni's computer screen. Kate Maclaren, 31, US citizen, had contacted the Sydney police and registered her sister-in-law Melanie Maclaren, and niece Cindy Maclaren, as missing persons. She'd given a photo to the police and it had been entered into the missing persons database. The photo showed a thin, brown-haired woman, a blonde-haired woman, and a young girl with similar colouring holding onto a small quilt sprinkled with butterflies and bears.
'Odd case, that one,' Toni said as she walked up next to him. 'Kate Maclaren' - she pointed to the blonde woman - 'said she made the quilt for her niece Cindy, and that the girl wouldn't have parted with it. It's a cot quilt so it's not very big, and the girl apparently carted it around with her.'
She clicked the screen onto the next page, which showed a photo of a young girl, naked, a red plastic flower in her dark hair, the fear in her eyes giving lie to her blatantly sexual pose. Underneath her was a quilt sprinkled with butterflies and bears.
'All photos get scanned for pattern matching,' Toni said, 'and this quilt matched the one in Maclaren's photo. Because it was hand-made, it was easy to get an exact pattern match.'
John scanned the data forwarded by Taskforce Argos in Brisbane. 'The records say the photo was in a virus email a member of the public received and reported to the police.'
'Yes. It was one of those worms that trawls through your drive and forwards random photos to email addresses in your address book and to random mailing lists, using your ISP's server or its own built-in mail engine. It analyses the host computer's security and blends in with normal traffic.'
John glanced up at Toni. She was in her element here, he realised. The consummate professional. Her technical expertise and knowledge a perfect buffer for what he knew must be a continuous reminder of the past.
'They were able to trace the computer the email originated from,' Toni continued, 'but it was a dead-end after that. It was obviously sourced from an anonymous network, and anonymous re-mailers won't pass on where it came from.'
'And the owner of this computer?'
She made a small sound of annoyance. 'By the time the police traced the IP address the email originated from, the owner had disappeared. He must have been tipped off because he'd taken the computer with him. They're still looking for him, but it sounds like their chances of locating him are slim.
'Maclaren contacted the Sydney police about the missing sister-in-law and child, but when they investigated and found the sister-in-law had sold up and moved out they didn't consider them to be missing persons. But then our system discovered the match with the quilt.
'We could find no connection between Cindy Maclaren and the girl in the photo. She may have come by Cindy's quilt in a dozen different ways. It might even belong now to whoever took the photo. There wasn't anything about the photo that could give a clue to where it was taken, but our experts are still working on it. The flower in the girl's hair is plastic, made in China and distributed worldwide.'
'So what's current?'
Toni settled herself on the edge of the desk. 'This is where it gets interesting. When the Sydney cops asked Kate Maclaren about the quilt she said she'd made it herself, so there was no doubt it was the same quilt. She also said she'd found out that Melanie and Cindy Maclaren had joined a church in Kings Cross called the Loving Hand,' - she indicated an old brick building in the background of the photo - 'and that she was going to look for them there.
'We made some enquiries into the Loving Hand and when the Sydney cops went back to see Maclaren to see if she'd found out anything she brushed them off. Thanked them politely and said she was sure her relatives were fine and she was going to stay in Australia and have a holiday.'
If John had antennae, they would have started twitching. He glanced back at the on-screen photo. 'So the cops decided to check her out?'
'They tailed her for a few days. Long enough to see that she'd joined the same cult her sister-in-law had. They're still trying to keep an eye on her but you know how limited resources are. Those photos show her entering and leaving the church.'
The photos showed