Limbo by Amy Andrews Page A

metal gutter attached to the whiteboard.
    ‘Hailey,’ he said, jabbing the pen at her picture, one of the ones that had appeared numerous times on the six o’clock news bulletins. Hailey beaming at the camera in her wedding dress just eighteen months before. So happy and alive. Very different to the picture that Joy had of her in her mind’s eye. To her Hailey would always be a dead woman with a hole in her head or a frantic ghost begging for help to find her daughter.
    ‘She disappeared on the eighth of January this year. She left the house just before eight-thirty that night in her white Prado four-wheel drive with Isabella, who was five and a half months old at the time.’
    Dash tapped on the picture of baby Isabella.
    ‘Hailey and her husband Martin,’ he tapped on Martin’s picture, ‘had just had an argument and in Martin’s statement he told police that Hailey was going down to the local shops to buy some bread and milk because they were running low and she hoped that the car drive would put Isabella to sleep. Isabella, according to both Martin’s statement and some neighbours who were across the road at the time, was apparently screaming as Hailey strapped her into the car.’
    ‘And they were never seen again,’ Joy said.
    ‘Almost right,’ Dash nodded.
    ‘Almost?’
    ‘This,’ he said, tapping a photo of a grainy picture of a Night Owl, ‘is the local shop that Martin assumed Hailey had gone to. There’s no CCTV in the shop but there is a dodgy one outside that had been tampered with at some stage without the shops owners knowing. It managed to capture a ground-level view of a white Prado pulling in that night around eight-thirty.’
    ‘You’ve seen it?’
    He nodded. ‘I have. It’s on my PC, I’ll show you later.’
    ‘How’d you manage that?’
    He shrugged. ‘I was a cop for seventeen years. Let’s just say I know people who owe me favours and I’ve called every one of them in.’
    Joy supposed that should be disturbing but she was just grateful that Dash had favours he could call in. ‘So, when you say ground level, what do you mean?’
    ‘The image only shows the driver’s side to about half way up the door and a partial plate which matches the Richardson’s Prado.’
    ‘So it was Hailey?’
    Dash nodded. ‘Yes. We see feet and legs to just below the knee get out of the car. The feet are wearing thongs with white plastic daisies along the straps and Martin confirms in his statement that although he hadn’t taken any notice of the shoes his wife was wearing, she did indeed own a pair of thongs with white plastic daisies which couldn’t be located anywhere in the house. Apparently they were her favourite.’
    Joy glanced at Martin’s picture, the one from the wedding day. He looked so happy and content. Like he’d just gotten everything he could ever want. She recalled his face from Sunday. He’d looked like a man who had been to hell and still hadn’t found his way home.
    ‘We don’t see Hailey go to the back door and open it to get Isabella out of her seat. Isabella’s car seat was directly behind the driver’s seat.’
    ‘She left her in the car?’
    ‘It would appear so.’
    ‘Maybe she was finally asleep and Hailey didn’t want to disturb her?’ Joy doubted she was the first mother to do that and she felt like she had to defend Hailey for some reason. She may have only met her that once but she could tell Hailey loved her daughter. There had to be a good reason for her to leave Isabella unattended. ‘Was she in the shop long?’
    He shook his head. ‘Less than a minute later we see the same legs with the daisy thongs come back and get into the car.’
    ‘So she could have just ducked in and quickly got what she needed?’
    Dash nodded. ‘But the shop assistant on that night denies that Hailey bought anything from him. He admits she could have come in while he was out the back. There was music playing over the PA system which makes it difficult