Perfect Victim Read Online Free Page A

land in 1982 and continued to be close when we moved to Glen Alvie, a country hamlet between Korumburra and Wonthaggi close to the south-east coast of Victoria. That was when Rachel was six months old. Then, when Rachel was two, and both Mike and I were working at the Lance Creek Reservoir, our Rachel was cared for by Ted and Betty, as day carers. Betty would meet me and Rachel at the Reservoir gates at 10 a.m. and later in the day we would collect her from their dairy farm.
    Rachel had a joyous year. She would walk into the dairy and stand on the dairy gate. She’d watch the milk tanker come, and bulls riding cows’ backs, and calves born and poddy-fed. She’d throw scraps to the chooks, and search for extra eggs hidden in the garden. She milked the goat, played with kittens and puppies, and talked to the pet cockatoo. She was fed full-cream non-pasteurised milk, fresh vegetables, eggs, home-made cakes and the farm’s own meat.
    Mike also helped Ted with milking. A bartered employment. In exchange we received evening meals, vegetables, eggs and milk. I learnt how to make perfectly good-tasting butter in a food processor and be left with buttermilk to make delectable scones, which I served with homemade jams made from greengage plums picked from roadside trees, and cream skimmed from the milk and whisked.
    Ted and Betty had once helped pay for Rachel’s ballet fees. They saw Rachel like a grandchild and loved her dearly.
    Seven years ago Ted collapsed in a coma at the dairy. He was rushed to hospital where he ‘died’ in casualty. His busy farming lifestyle prevented Ted from seeking medical attention when he felt unwell. He was an undiagnosed diabetic. Now he was dead. Betty was beside his bed but the doctors did not give up. They resuscitated Ted.
    Ted’s life changed from that day. Ted would say he was told things. He said he experienced a foretelling of people’s lives. I haven’t always been able to go along with this but now more than anything I wanted him to have seen something .
    ‘Rachel’s missing,’ I said to him over the phone on that early morning.
    Ted had sensed nothing. He said he’d do his best. He said we should keep him in touch. Pray and keep strong, we were told.
    It was then I realised that I had not prayed at all. This confounded me. How many times, in the past, had I prayed? I’d prayed when I was a child for the times I would forget to pray as an adult. I’d prayed for God to save me from persistent bullying in my first two years of secondary school because my youngest sister had Down’s syndrome. I’d prayed when my parents divorced. I’d prayed for God to take my vivacious grandmother after a series of strokes left her with a death rattle, and bedridden, at seventy-four. I’d prayed for good results in exams. I’d prayed for God to bless our marriage. I’d prayed in bushfires. I’d prayed for my sister Robbie when her little boy Jonathon was stillborn at full term. I’d prayed during childbirth. I’d prayed for my children when they were happy and when they were cross, and when they were sad. Yet now my grief was so overpowering I had simply forgotten to pray. But I knew God would know my despair, and recall the prayers from my childhood when as an adult I forgot him. I prayed.
    We found my mother out on the back veranda, under an overcast sky, and sat beside her sipping tea. We sat silent for some time. She thought it was an idea if she stayed until Rachel was found. We had taken this for granted. She thought it a good idea if Robbie came and collected our youngest daughter Heather, and took her back to Wonthaggi. We thought perhaps Ashleigh-Rose should stay home from school. Thoughts became plans. Decisions were made.
    Family and friends were ringing. No one had any idea where Rachel might be.
    I rang the Box Hill police station and spoke to the sergeant again. I explained to him what had happened the previous day. The shop walk, the disturbing story from the dress-shop