There are many problems with writing as many stories as I have over the years, not the least of which is finding new storylines. Another is how to begin a new story, I can't use the same method each time. This stems from the fact that the inspiration of each story is different, some I have the ending before I start, while others I start at the beginning. Some I begin with the ending (Out of the Mist) and develop the storyline to show the protagonists' lives in their journeys from point A to . . . point A.
If I'd wanted to prostitute my art I would have signed a contract to churn out trashy romance novels where the heroine is a teacher/governess/nurse/florist, who falls for the dashing Lothario who is a racing driver/soldier of fortune/rock star/whatever, throwing over her steady boyfriend who is a construction worker/vet/teacher/doctor. After a torrid affair with a lot of hinted at bosom heaving sexual activity, she realises the error of her ways and returns to the waiting arms of the solid as a rock boyfriend who forgives her and they live happily ever after.
All that I would need to make my fortune is a computer-generated formula storyline and blanks for the variables. But this is not me, I would rather be an impecunious struggling author with dignity.
GOING WITH THE GUT.
One of the more common TV crime situations is for the investigating officer to state that, while he has no proof, his gut tells him that a person of interest is guilty. Invariably his gut is proven to be correct.
I wouldn't normally have been called out for a missing person case, but someone thought that this case was in need of my homicide experience.
It was my day off and I had been sent to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains to join a search operation for a woman who hadn't been missing for more than a couple of hours, but the person who reported her missing was insistent and persistent.
In real life, I have not in the past relied on my gut to solve a crime. Gut feelings do not hold up in court, so why is my gut telling me that there is something amiss with Byron Spencer's story?
"Emma and I had lunch together and when I told her that I would need to go back to the hotel and finish up some work for Monday she got upset. She told me that the reason that she had agreed to come away with me for the weekend was to get me away from work. I told her that I simply had to get this done, and that was when she told me that I was selfish, unfeeling and impossible and stormed off. I went back to the hotel fully expecting her to return when she had calmed down. When she hadn't returned by five I tried calling her mobile phone but it went straight to voicemail. That's why I called you guys."
"Do you have any idea where she went?" I asked.
"She was heading for the Giant's Stairway. I thought of going down to see if I could find her, but then I thought that it would be better for me to wait here and contact you. You have the resources to find her quicker than I could on my own."
"How do you know that she was heading for the Giants Stairway?"
"That was one place she wanted to see, and the last I saw of her was at Echo Point."
"There are several walking trails that start from Echo Point, she could have taken one of those."
"But she was keen on that one in particular."
"What was she wearing?"
"She was wearing jeans and a light blue hoodie, blue sneakers and a blue knitted beanie. According to the Weather Bureau, the temperature is going to drop down close to freezing overnight, she's not dressed for that."
"You're right there. The sooner we get organised the better. It will be dark soon and I don't want the searchers out there in the dark."
This is where my gut kicked in. The searchers were sent off to cover as many trails as possible. In the time since she was last seen she could be in any number of places, but the soon to be famous gut was telling me that she didn't get far. My backpack contained a laptop and my new toy. It was a drone with a small thermal imaging camera connected wirelessly through the remote control. If I found anything that could be an indication that she was nearby I would send the drone up and look around.
That sign was just off the trail about twenty metres from the valley floor. It was her beanie caught up in a bush a metre from the track. I would never have found her by just searching, but my toy found her within minutes. I scrambled through the bush to where she lay, barely conscious. "Emma, can you hear me?"
"Mmmmm, what, where am I? Who are you?"
"Name's Scott, Scott Bevan. Don't move, let me check you out first." She had a sizeable lump on the side of her head and her hair was caked in dried blood. I checked her arms and legs for fractures, one arm had a simple radius and ulna fracture. She had scratches on her face consistent with having crashed through the underbrush. I took a look at the surrounding brush, there was a trail of broken twigs leading from the trail, but there was something odd about this. If she had stumbled from the path the damage would have started at the trail, but it didn't. The first damaged brush was a good two metres from the trail, it almost looked as if she had been picked up and thrown from the trail.
"Rest here for a moment or two while I check the surrounding area."
I sent the drone up again and set it to carry out a grid search, photographing every centimetre of a search area of five metres either side of the trail and five metres up and down the trail, and recording it on my mobile phone. After completing the search the drone returned and landed at my feet. I packed it away. Checking the video, something caught my attention, it was on the other side of the downhill track, I marked it, photographed it with my mobile phone, bagged and tagged it and placed it in my backpack. "Apart from the lump on your head and your broken arm, your injuries are superficial. Can you tell me what happened?"
"Not really. I remember having an argument with the bastard and storming off. I came down this trail and I was almost at the bottom and then, nothing."
"When you say 'the bastard', do you mean Byron Spencer?"
"Yes, you got it in one. I suppose that he's spun a yarn about how I had a hissy fit and stormed off for some minor reason."
"You could say that."
"We came away for the weekend to take a break from our work and it was strange from last night. We had dinner and were about to go to bed for what I expected to be some quality loving and he just wasn't interested. I asked him what the problem was and he refused to tell me, until this morning that was. After trying to interest him in sex I gave up and we went out for lunch, and that's when he accused me of being a prostitute. He accused me of, and these were his disgusting words, 'hawking the fork', of having sex for money. I was shocked that he would think such a thing, after all, I have not had sex with another man, or woman for that matter, since we got married, but here he was accusing me of not just having an affair with another man, but having sex with many men."
I lifted her to her feet and very carefully removed her hoodie. I put it back on her but this time her damaged arm was inside the torso with the sleeve hanging loose.
"We'd better get you out of here, do you think you can walk up the trail, or should I call for assistance?"
"If you call for help he'll expect me to return to the hotel. That's not going to happen."
"I need to let the search teams know that you're safe, and I don't know how I'm going to do that without him finding out." I thought about it for a while. "Do you think you can walk around to the Scenic Railway? We can catch that up to the top and I'll call an ambulance from there to take you to the ER. If, when he finds out, he asks to see you I'll tell him that you're suffering from exposure and concussion and will not be well enough to see anyone. That'll keep him away for a while. We'll transfer you to Sydney this evening and 'find you' in the morning."
"But he'll want to see me in the morning."
"I'll call him in for interrogation, that'll keep him away for a while, especially after I ask him about his whereabouts yesterday afternoon. I'll check the hotel for his movements to see if there are any discrepancies in his story." I pushed a path through the brush to the trail on the valley floor.
We took it slowly and made it to the railway before they shut down for the night. When we got to the railhead I called for an ambulance When I got back to the assembly point I spoke with the search leader and got the searchers to stand down for the evening. "Emma has been assaulted and needs hospitalisation. I believe that Byron Spencer is responsible, so I think he should be kept away for the time being. We'll resume the search in the morning and 'find her wandering dazed and disoriented' and in need of urgent medical attention. In the meantime, I want to question Mister Spencer about his movements this afternoon. I'm going over to his hotel to check on CCTV to see if he left the hotel after arriving back at lunchtime or if he never made it back as he told us."
"Why do you think that he's involved?"