Behind scrub on an otherwise nondescript South Australian highway lay a battered grey suitcase. It had been abandoned and largely forgotten, yet its presence was incongruous enough in this vast, unforgiving landscape that it was noticed by at least several motorists, some who'd even stopped to 'poke around'.
Last month, one passer-by was so disturbed by what he found after peering inside that he contacted police. What this anonymous man realised — and perhaps what the others did not — was that just off the Karoonda Highway in Wynarka, in South Australia's Murray Mallee region, a terrible secret had lain in wait.
Inside that suitcase were the remains of a young child. A vigorous post-mortem found that the child was female, most likely Caucasian, aged between two and four and she had died as far back as 2007. Toddler clothing and a distinct baby blanket were also found with the remains, yet police remained baffled as to the child's identity.
So far sightings of a neatly dressed elderly man holding a similar suitcase a month before the discovery have unearthed only speculation and conjecture.
Days turned into weeks and I slowly realised that something elementary about the case wouldn't let me go. Was it a general melancholic curiosity or was it more profound? I didn't know, but there I was, staring at my laptop often late into the night, embarking on my own lone, desperate search for answers.
In the absence of any real evidence or leads I, too, found myself grasping at the intangible. Who was this little girl? As a parent, I simply couldn't accept that she'd never been loved with the unguarded, fierce imposition of new motherhood.
What had happened in the intervening months and years as the little girl grew into a curious and undoubtedly challenging toddler — a period in any child's life where pushing boundaries and a parent's sanity are par for the course — I couldn't say. Let alone dare to imagine.
Perhaps the worst of it was the overwhelming silence. She had most likely disappeared around 2007, eight long years ago. So why had no-one reported her missing? Why hadn't a parent or guardian come forward to claim her? Why hadn't they faced the cameras, clawed at their chests, implored the heavens?
Didn't they know that staying mute simply reinforced the unfathomable notion that this once living, breathing, beautiful child never existed?
But she did exist.
She still exists, not only in