Exiles (Aaron Falk #3)(30)

If Rohan noticed, and Falk couldn’t imagine he’d missed it, he didn’t react.

“Thanks, Zara,” he said simply, and he took her place as the screen changed back to the standard missing person photo. No emotive montage for Rohan. It was the right decision, Falk thought. What had seemed moving and heartfelt from Zara could have easily come across as manipulative from Rohan. Instead, the man’s wife simply gazed out. Have you seen me?

“I sometimes feel like I got to meet my wife for the first time twice.” Rohan launched straight into it. “The second time was on a Sunday afternoon on Glenelg Beach. I was going for a run along the sand, and Kim was there, in the sea with her daughter, Zara.” It felt like a moment where Rohan might have naturally paused to remember, had he been telling this story to friends. But he was not, and this crowd—while not hostile—was certainly keeping their acquaintanceship at arm’s length, for now. He carried on.

“I’d known Kim for a lot of years. We were at school together—that’s where I met her for the first time—and we were friends then, part of the same big group.”

Charlie didn’t react to that, his arms folded and chin tucked down into his chest, but Falk saw Shane nodding.

“Kim and I went our separate ways after school, with uni and first jobs and things,” Rohan continued, “until that afternoon on the beach when I saw her again. And I knew straightaway it was Kim because she had this way about her that drew you in. It’s hard to describe, but everyone who remembers her knows what I mean.”

Charlie reacted that time: a tight instinctive dip of his head in agreement.

“So Kim was standing knee-deep in the sea,” Rohan said. “And I stopped running and probably said something smooth and witty like: ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’”

A light but genuine laugh flitted through the crowd. It was smart of Rohan to humanize himself, Falk thought. Calculated or not, for an appeal to work, people needed to care.

“And Kim probably said something genuinely smooth and witty back. I wish I could remember what, because it worked, and that was it for us. We were together for three years, we have a daughter who’s just turned one—”

Raco leaned in, his eyes still on Rohan. “I tested that gap in his night myself. In case you were wondering.”

Falk smiled. He had in fact been wondering exactly that. “The eight minutes?”

“Yep,” Raco said. “It was only six, actually. Sergeant Dwyer checked it out, too, I know. But I walked it myself, anyway. Once with Zara. A couple of times on my own.”

“To put her mind at rest or—?”

“Pretty much. And mine, I suppose. Just in case. I mean, I like Rohan. So I’m not saying anything by this, but—” He shrugged. “Spouses, statistically, you know? Gotta check ’em. You can’t not check them.”

“No. Obviously. How long did the walk take you?”

“Seven minutes thirty, at a steady pace. I did it in the high sixes a couple of times. So no detour. If anything, he hustled.”

“Couldn’t have gotten back here?”

“To the grounds? No way. Not possible. So that was—” Raco sighed. “—a relief, I suppose.”

Falk watched Rohan on the stage. His wife’s face still loomed large behind him. “Does he know?”

“That I checked him out? I doubt it. Not specifically. But he was obviously questioned at the time, so he’d know Dwyer would’ve. I think he sort of welcomes it, though. You’d have to feel a bit guilty for leaving Kim alone, don’t you reckon?” Raco paused. “Plus, he’s not an idiot. He knows he’s bloody lucky it’s only six minutes and not more.”

That was true, Falk agreed. He could still recall Rohan Gillespie’s official movements from a year ago, partially because his own had helped corroborate them.

After Falk had seen him at the base of the ferris wheel waving goodbye to his wife and child on the ride, Rohan Gillespie had continued chatting to the Queensland tourist couple and their tired toddler for a few moments more, and when they’d asked about the shortest route back to town, he’d offered to show them. They’d all walked together through the festival grounds and were captured on the CCTV camera at the main west exit. They had carried on through the parking lot and strolled toward the main street, a fifteen-minute walk.

At the edge of town, Rohan had taken the couple’s phone to snap a photo of the family in front of a vertical floral wall. The image was time-stamped 8:17 p.m. He had then pointed them toward their hotel the next block over, wished them a good stay and—here fell the gap—continued on alone. Six minutes later, he was again captured on CCTV, this time walking up the steps into his parents’ favorite Italian restaurant. Surrounded by forty other diners, he and his parents had sat for more than two hours over three courses and picked through the implications of Rohan’s father’s recent cancer diagnosis.

Shortly before 10:30 p.m., Rohan had put his parents in a taxi, stood on the street outside the restaurant, and phoned his wife. When the call had gone through to voicemail, he’d sent a text instead. Are you still up? On my way back now. In fact, he’d gone back inside to pay and spent a further five minutes chatting with the owner and her husband. He was showing them pictures of newborn Zoe when his phone rang to let him know his daughter had been found at the festival grounds, alone.