When hope fails

By PHIL TAYLOR in FEATHERSTON

They did away with the fun and the games at the Friday Club in Featherston this week. The happy faces were sombre. The pool table, air hockey, table soccer, games over which the children of the South Wairarapa town usually swarm, were going begging last night.

The reason? Coral-Ellen Burrows, a member of the club for the past year, wasn't there. She'd vanished three days before. Or, more to the point, three cold, rainy nights ago.

The only sign of the chirpy, cheeky 6-year-old had been the wrong kind: the discovery of her school backpack sweeping towards Lake Wairarapa in the swollen waters of Abbot's Creek, which races down from the Rimutaka Range and across the flats behind Featherston.

The club is run by the Assembly of God church in an old factory and Coral and her brother Storm, 8, were regulars among the 100 who turn up for the hour-and-a-half sessions.

Organiser Eileen Traill, wife of pastor John Traill, explained how yesterday was to be different.

"We will pray for Coral, the family, the searchers and whatever way we can we will get the children to talk," Traill told the Weekend Herald. "Some will have fears that bad things do happen but we'll explain it doesn't mean it will happen to them."

Traill and I spoke on Thursday, the day police announced the discovery of Coral's backpack. The day hope died. The backpack was fished from the creek more than 3km from South Featherston Primary where she was last seen about 9am on Tuesday.

Such was the torrent that those in the helicopter who spotted the navy-blue pack with its red net pouch watched it sweep half a kilometre before the aircraft could turn and they could fish it from the water.

How long it had been in the creek, how far it had travelled, who could tell? But it's likely it came from high in the Rimutakas.

That's become the focal area of the search which everyone here thinks, but can't bear to say, must now be for a small body.

It's 6km from Coral's school to where divers began their search of the creek in the damp, blackberry and gorse-strewn hills. A solid hike for a fit adult; surely an impossible journey for a little tyke such as Coral.

The change of mood in the town was palpable as news got around about her backpack, her uneaten lunch inside underlying how her daily routine had suddenly been cut off.

Town life went on, but it was different. Police shepherded school pupils on to the bus home. Red-eyed parents protectively ushered their children into cars.

The kids didn't besiege Barbara Kirkland's dairy as they usually would, drawn by her impressive array of sweets. The chatty Englishwoman says it's as if a pall has descended over the town.

"Where are the kids?" she says, indicating the empty road. "It's not the same today."

It goes with the territory that mysteries have limited facts. The discovery of Coral's backpack is one. That she made it to school seems another. She and Storm were running late, apparently because Coral did not want to go that day, and missed the school bus.

Their stepfather, Steve Williams, drove them, and police say a few pupils have reported seeing Coral on the school grounds. One was Cherie Keast's daughter, Jessica, 12, who said Coral was in the school playground in the rain.

"She saw her playing on the slide. My daughter said [Coral] was a bit sad. She asked her if she was all right and Coral said she was."

The playground is in the middle of the school grounds, in full view of the three classrooms.

With the rotten weather and the bell about to ring in the new school day, none of the teachers noticed Coral in her red tights and teal blue and pink jacket.

It was hoped she had decided not to go to class and had wandered off, perhaps heading home.

The school grounds and neighbouring paddocks are bordered by wire fences, an insurmountable hurdle, you would think, for a little girl lugging her backpack. Perhaps she made her way back under the pergola, through the swing gate with the blue and white notice which states: "This is a kids' safe area".

Had she somehow made it into the nearest paddocks, the grass, chewed low by stock, would have afforded her little cover. On rough ground made boggy by ongoing downpours and strewn with water-races, walking across country would have made slow going for a small girl in school shoes.

South Featherston Rd passes a few metres from the school gate. Turn left and it leads south towards Lake Wairarapa about 8km away. To the right it leads toward State Highway 53 and the way home. In this direction, a row of tall flax and assorted trees would have hidden her from anyone in the school. Had she been carried off in a vehicle, it could have gone unseen along this 200m stretch.

Beyond the foliage is the village of South Featherston, a cluster of some 20 houses built for workers at a dairy factory long since gone. One belongs to Ray Woodley, who worked at the dairy company. He had a sense of dread after Coral was missing the first freezing night.

"Farmers are feeding out this time of year, they are up and down this road all day. A little girl wandering on her own would be seen. I think she's gone in a car."

Dire situations often draw the best from people. Volunteers and home-cooked food flooded in as news spread.

People came from around the Wairarapa, people such as Phil Gray, a deer farmer and hunter from Carterton, 30 minutes' drive up the road. He'd been out all Wednesday in the rain, one of about 100 searching farm buildings, gullies, stumps, waterways - anywhere Coral could have sheltered, hidden or fallen.

Gray, a father of girls aged 11 and 13, decided to do what he could when he heard Coral was missing. "It's a way of helping the community. You hope if the situation is reversed others would help you."

He has been on plenty of searches for lost or injured hunters or hikers. This is his first involving a child.

Builder Matthew Ticehurst, father of a 3-year-old, sacrificed a day on the tools. "When you've got your own kids, you realise how [Coral's] family is feeling."

Coral's father Ron Burrows knew. Wrapped in a heavy jacket and beanie, his goatee beard giving him a rugged appearance, he said he'd begun searching after arriving from Tauranga at 4am on Wednesday - 12 hours after she was reported missing, 19 after she was last seen.

He'd wanted to go in the helicopter but was told it was better that someone experienced in aerial searching take the seat, so he set off overland into the mist, constantly calling his daughter's name.

As light faded on Wednesday he was in no mood to talk, telling a reporter "it's getting crucial".

Police and Coral's family had the night to absorb the implications of the discovery of her pack. Though the public wasn't told until noon on Thursday, there were clues.

Searchers weren't dispatched at dawn as they were the day before and only professionals were required. It wasn't so much that the search area had narrowed, said a police source, as what searchers were likely to find.

Burrows was unhappy with police that morning, having learned that a homicide inquiry was running in conjunction with the official missing person's investigation.

"He's not adjusting well to the concept that his daughter may be dead," the source said.

Rod Drew, a detective inspector sent from Wellington to run the inquiry, was still not talking about a homicide inquiry yesterday, but said that considering foul play, drawing up a list of suspects and making inquiries about those on it, goes with the territory when a little girl inexplicably disappears.

Fifteen years ago he was officer in charge of suspects in the Teresa Cormack inquiry, a case with numerous similarities, from the little girls' reluctance to go to school to their dark tresses.

Towns, suburbs or regions where dreadful things occur are marked on the national consciousness. Wairarapa has its share. Among them are the killing of baby Lillybing in Carterton, and murderers Bruce Howse and Raymond Ratima, whose crimes put Masterton on the map for the wrong reason.

Featherston locals fear the case will set back the image of a town on the rise. South Wairarapa is one of the country's fastest-growing districts.

Featherston has been the poor cousin to its neighbours - Martinborough, fuelled by vines and olive groves, and Greytown with its restored buildings and city-style cafes - but is following in their upwardly mobile slipstream.

"Martinborough and Greytown have grown ahead of Featherston but now it's our turn," says South Wairarapa District councillor Porky Sexton. His own weatherboard home has appreciated more than 400 per cent in the 23 years he's owned it, a good proportion accruing in recent years.

Real estate agents Marilyn and Jan Lootsma report houses that fetched $60,000 two years ago are going for more than $100,000.

"Featherston has had an image problem but that's going now," the Lootsmas say. "You won't find a good three-bedroom house for under six figures anymore but there's plenty of value for money."

There's evidence in the main street of a town beginning to hold its head up - tasteful street lamps, the absence of overhead wires, a quality cafe and makeovers of buildings such as the town's old post office and the classical Royal Hotel.

Like anywhere, Featherston has its areas. A retailer names Underhill Rd as having some of the best properties. The other end of the market is towards the west - Coral's part of town.

She lived in a prefabricated house, with a notice warning to beware of the (terrier) dog, with her brother Storm, mother Jeanna Cremen and stepfather Steve Williams.

Police know the place. They raided it on Tuesday - the day Coral disappeared but before she was reported missing - apparently looking for drugs.

Detectives arrested Williams on Thursday, charging him with assaulting a man two weeks ago, an incident they say is unrelated to Operation Reef, the inquiry into Coral's disappearance.

The police were probably there, too, five years ago. The father of Coral and Storm, Ron Burrows, was charged with assaulting Jeanna and her parents, Sandra and Barry Cremen, who was on crutches having lost a leg in an accident.

The essence of the case, according to the sentencing judge, was an incident on Labour Day 1998, a day which Burrows spent drinking with Barry Cremen. An argument arose over the children and Burrows threatened to kill Sandra if she left with his children. Barry intervened and was beaten unconscious with a crutch.

Burrows got five months' preventive detention for assaulting and threatening to kill Sandra Cremen and was told by the judge - who said the events were disturbing and Burrows had run amok - that he was fortunate the jury gave him the benefit of the doubt regarding other charges.

Whatever her home life, Coral was outgoing, even precocious: one who would let you know what she wanted.

When the kids at the Friday Club were given a choice of activities they could enrol for, Coral signed up for them all - public speaking among them.

If only she was able to cry for help now.