This is the scenario Detective Robin Griffin (Elizabeth Moss, Mad Men) is confronted with in the compelling new transtasman television miniseries Top of the Lake. The series debuts on UKTV on March 25 and was filmed on location in Queenstown last winter.
Griffin, a child protection specialist, is summoned to help Detective Al Parker (David Wenham, Killing Time) interview a virtually mute pregnant 12-year-old named Tui (newcomer Jacqueline Joe), while caring for her cancer-stricken mother in her home town of ''Lake Top'', New Zealand.
The mystery of Tui's disappearance the next day proves to be just one shell of the Russian doll as Griffin delves between three camps - the boys' club of the fictional ''Southern Lakes police'' with Parker, who starts to warm to Griffin personally; a makeshift women's refuge led by the androgynous enigmatic ''G.J.'' (Holly Hunter, Saving Grace) and followed by Robyn Malcolm (Agent Anna) and Lucy Lawless (Spartacus), among others; and crime godfather Matt Mitcham (Peter Mullan, War Horse), whose eldest son Johnno (Thomas M. Wright, Balibo) shares a romantic history with Griffin.
''Top of the Lake is a classic mythic struggle,'' Academy Award-winning co-writer and co-director Jane Campion said.
''Even as Robin breaks, she maintains a light and love for the lost girl, but it takes her by surprise to realise the lost girl is also herself.''
Campion was impressed by such long-form dramas as Deadwood and realised a deeper story could now be told on television more than film. The series became her first work in her native New Zealand since The Piano, starring Hunter, 20 years ago.
Top of the Lake was very much a Commonwealth co-production with talent, funding and broadcast rights shared between New Zealand, Australia, the United States and United Kingdom.
Producer Philippa Campbell (Rain, No. 2), of Auckland, said the calibre of the talent in front and behind the camera and the location shoot made it feel like they were making three two-hour feature films, all at the same time.
Ms Campbell said Campion wanted to collaborate with another director on her project and she chose and mentored Australian Garth Davis.
Co-writer Gerard Lee was an old friend of Campion's from film school and they previously collaborated on the Australian comedy Sweetie (1989).
Even though Lake Top is a fictional, seemingly idyllic, waterfront town, the locations and nearby landmarks make it unmistakably Queenstown. The frisson of recognising interiors, buildings and landmarks in the show's otherworldly light will be part of its appeal to those in the know.
Lake Top is a curious community where everyone seems to be armed to the teeth and every home and office wall is not complete without the leering stuffed head of a deer hanging from it. Shot with a gritty, almost bleached palette by cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (Animal Kingdom), there is a timeless quality to the plot. It could have been set at any time during the European settlement of New Zealand.
Everything was filmed during four months in and around Queenstown last winter, with the occasional embellishment, such as the construction of the cabin lived in by Wolfie (Jacek Koman), a released convict Griffin grills.
''Mitcham's house ... is extraordinary, it was perfect. I had no idea where on earth we would find what was required and we found it,'' Ms Campbell said.
''Surprisingly enough, it was a big empty party house. When we started to rebuild it, people thought, 'Ooh, it's even better for our parties now than when it used to be'.''
The picturesque horseshoe-shaped Moke Lake, off the Glenorchy-Queenstown Rd, adopted the name ''Paradise'' from the real sylvan glade beyond Glenorchy and it became the site of a women's refuge - a circle of jarringly ugly shipping containers.
Malcolm said she and her fellow cast members at the refuge spent a lot of time together, whether the cameras were rolling or not.
''I remember Jane doing a lot of rolly-pollies on the tussock and we followed her,'' Malcolm laughed.
''We talked a lot and we improvised a lot and we got to trust each other because, with a story like this, you've really got to crack open your ribcage of whatever character story you're telling and for me it's about that - what happens when people break. There's a beautiful line that G.J.'s got about 'How are your knees? You're going to come down hard.'
''Most people in this story come down hard on their knees and to be able to play that you've got to trust everyone around you.''
Hunter said the Wakatipu landscape was ''diametrically opposed'' to the dark, lush jungle she and Campion used in The Piano.
''This place is filled with light and what you feel here is the sky. You almost lose a sense of proportion here because the mountains are so giant and the water is so calm and there is this real expansiveness.''
The role of troubled Robin Griffin was a world away from Moss' best known character, go-getting Peggy Olson, in Mad Men.
''Robin's a modern woman, she's emotionally and mentally stronger. She can handle a gun.
''But Peggy is often described as a mystery - you never really feel like you know what she's going to do - and so they have that in common.''
Moss drew a parallel to the plot of Top of the Lake when she said the lakes of New Zealand ''have this quality of becoming like glass on top - impenetrable, smooth and so beautiful.
''But you don't know what's underneath.''
- Top of the Lake screens on Mondays at 8.30pm on UKTV.
