The Devil's Garden Read Online Free PDF

faultlines that placed extreme pressure on the investigating police officers and the DPP.

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    Police target rogue taxi drivers, getting them out of business and off the road. Cut-out stickers and two magnets slapped together on the roof with the 'taxi' sign could convert a vehicle into something that resembles a cab within 15 seconds. Demand for taxis from people spilling out of nightclubs in Claremont is always high, creating a perfect cash industry for people prepared to take the risk and pose as a reputable driver. With women making up more than 50 per cent of the user group, it could also prove a lucrative killing field. The order comes from both the taxi industry and the police: shut down every rogue driver, right now.
    Don Spiers descends into a black hole of chronic depression, from which he has to fight and claw his way back, over and over again. He resorts to anti-depressants to reduce his stress, requiring 32 times more than the medication usually prescribed for a patient to feel normal. The crank calls are just as bad as clairvoyants. Anonymous people with malice in their voice call and accuse him of murdering his own daughter. Letters sent to the police from armchair detectives offer bizarre theories.
    Life is a torment of unanswered questions and a bottom-less, aching emptiness but the family are also the recipients of random acts of kindness from strangers. Shortly after Sarah goes missing, a man knocks on their door and gives them his mobile phone. 'Take it,' he says. 'It will give you more mobility in your search.' The Spiers family tries to adjust, taking counselling, advice and help but nothing alleviates their pain. In an open, full-page letter in The West Australian two months after she disappears, headed 'Please, tell us where Sarah is', they open their hearts to the public.
    It is eight weeks since Sarah went missing and our lives have been absolute hell ...Sarah was part of a close and loving family and showered us with her love. We miss her so much ...The lack of information is worse than the worst possible news...We don't know what to do other than to hope someone comes forward and is willing to say what happened to her. At least one person knows and I urge that person, if they have any feeling for the anxiety and suffering they have caused us and Sarah's friends, to please ease some of it...This is the worst feeling any parent could have – being absolutely helpless and not being able to do a single thing for our daughter.
    The phone rings incessantly following publication of the open letter, but none of the calls take the family any closer to finding Sarah's whereabouts. Perth remembers Sarah, shock and sympathy spilling out in letters to the press and warnings to take special care. And the young people do. For a time.
    Summer turns to autumn, leaves turn russet and gold and temperatures plummet as the hot, still nights become clear and chilly. But as autumn passes the baton to winter, memories fade.
    And another girl goes missing.

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    The Rimmer family has lived in their modest, spotlessly clean home in leafy, politely affluent Shenton Park, ten minutes from Claremont, for 35 years. Jane, 23, was the youngest: her sister, Lee, is six years older; her brother, Adam, is three years her senior. Family pictures jostle for supremacy on the sideboard: the entire family at Adam's wedding; Jane as a young girl; Jane with her siblings. They are a close-knit family who always gathered at home every Sunday for an anticipated roast lunch or dinner. Protected and adored, Jane was a quiet girl, placid by nature who became a popular scallywag as she grew older. 'Janie', as they called her, finished her mandatory education at Hollywood High and never wavered in what she wanted to do. Her dream was to work with children, babies through to toddlers. And she fulfilled it. Bouts of depression dogged her in her early 20s, born of a lack of self-confidence, but by the time she disappears she is living independently in