The Gaps by Leanne Hall (classic literature list .TXT) 📕

commenting even now. You can’t top these true crime nerds for detail and going the extra mile, and it makes sense how Petra of all people got sucked into this world.

There are replies with the precise details of Steve’s convictions: locations, victims’ first names and ages, charges. Details of which prison he served his term at. Someone has provided a blurry photo of a man, well-built, wearing a tracksuit. It’s hard to see his face, but he’s good-looking, sporty, not at all what I expected.

Thump thump thump.

I’m about to abandon the thread when I see a new comment: Aceventura*666 thinks they’ve cracked ‘Steve’s’ real identity. As evidence they have posted a scanned original court document, and right there at the top is the name of the accused: Samuel Pulpitt. I scan the document but it’s sixty pages long and full of incomprehensible language and I’m not my mother the lawyer so I quickly give up.

I re-read the article.

Samuel Pulpitt. The name burns a bright scar in my brain.

I start searching, trying every combination of words possible using the details from the comments.

Samuel Pulpitt gymnastics coach/Samuel Pulpitt Doctor Calm/Samuel Pulpitt suspect/Samuel Pulpitt 1996 convictions/Samuel Pulpitt sex crimes/Samuel Pulpitt Warrawood/Warrawood rapes 1990s/Warrawood Milltown crimes 1990s/Gym coach sex crimes/Pulpitt prison sentence release/ Pulpitt gymnastics/Pulpitt rapist court case/Serial criminal Warrawood Milltown…and on and on and on.

Somewhere along the line there’s a click in my brain and I return to the original article where they describe ‘Steve’ outside his Stockton home that has been searched dozens of times over the years and Stockton’s not so far from school, so then I google ‘Pulpitt Stockton’, and I find Samuel Pulpitt in the Australian Business Registry, located in Stockton, and then I click on the next search result which happens to be the plain old telephone directory and all of a sudden my heart is leaping out of my chest and I have this: Pulpitt, S. 316 Mewling Road, Stockton.

What the hell.

What the hell.

Could it really be him?

There’s a phone number, so I could just call and ask, but what if he has caller ID and then he has my mobile number?

I’m so pumped full of adrenaline that I might fly off the play equipment and shoot into the sky. I’m so sick of doing nothing. I’m so sick of sitting still.

‘Samuel,’ I boom, scaring a nearby pigeon. ‘I’m coming for you.’

I get a reply from Chloe while I’m on the train but I don’t read it because I am a laser now, every part of my being from my heart to my fingertips focussed to a pinpoint of energy that says: Samuel Pulpitt of Stockton, I’m coming to get you.

Chloe has been spending her holidays in productive ways and she would approve of my sleuthing and I don’t need a European trip to be exciting because I am finally doing something for Yin and all the other women and girls that have been hurt at the hands of men. I keep reading on the train. Pulpitt’s oldest victim was thirty-three and the youngest fifteen. It’s hard to believe you could do things that horrible to eight girls and women and only get eleven years in jail.

Eleven years versus always being scared, always looking behind you.

My fists itch to hit someone.

I get off at Stockton station and follow the blue line on the map towards Mewling Road. I am exactly like Senior Detective Hillary Burns from Devil Creek in that my outfit is terrible and also I can be an ice-cold bitch. I imagine I’m an assassin on the way to my target, a Wingdonian assassin with extra-sensory perception perhaps, who can fry man-brains to a crisp with one point of her finger.

Houses in Stockton are welcoming and well-kept, even if they aren’t nearly as fancy as those in South River. There are trampolines in several front yards, natives growing on the nature strips, four-wheel drives in driveways.

What will I do when I get there?

On the train I thought about writing a letter about Pulpitt’s crimes and sending it to everyone on his street, or putting up posters around the neighbourhood so everyone could share in making his life hell. I guess I can still do those things if I want to but I need to keep moving to feel all right.

What will I do when I get to the house?

I’ll just look. I’ll see for myself what the house of a sicko looks like. Maybe it will tell me something. Maybe if I look at it I will get a sense of whether Pulpitt has anything to do with Yin’s abduction, maybe I’ll just know.

The Mewling Road sign informs me that it is named for one of the town’s earliest councillors.

I am faint.

My boots make clomping noises on the footpath and I try to bring back that fizzy Detective Burns Wingdonian assassin feeling.

I pass two apartment blocks, a small park, and the local primary school. The kids have decorated the front fence with welcome messages in different languages, and there is a convicted sex offender living within walking distance from where they play so isn’t life wonderful.

And then, quicker than you’d think possible, I’m at number 316.

A narrow house, weatherboard, pale green, more rundown than some of its neighbours. A moulting paperbark tree on the nature strip, a beaten-up silver station wagon parked out front.

I keep walking past, on the other side of the road, while I figure out what to do.

The article said his house had already been searched. It’s not like Yin is in there, right now, that’s not possible.

On my return stroll I check out the red side gate, the front window. The curtains are drawn. There’s a caravan parked in the backyard, and a thick vine taking over the carport.

My mind is cold, clear.

I imagine reaching quickly into his letterbox, to see if there’s anything there.

I imagine knocking on his door and getting a glimpse into his house.

I imagine sneaking a look into his windows, seeing what’s in his