by Anna Romer
Stay away from that horrible place.
I rubbed my face with trembling hands, and then let my fingers climb up through my hair, behind my ear to the crown of my head. To the scar. And then I was tumbling back through time to another April day twenty years before.
• • •
Sloshing through the rain, I backtracked along the muddy bush trail the way I’d come. My favourite pink jeans clung wetly to my legs, and my feet squelched inside my battered school shoes. I peered about me into the trees, hoping to see a familiar landmark.
When I entered the reserve a few hours ago through the campground I had taken note of a tall white tree trunk to navigate by. Now all the trunks looked the same. Grey from the water and blotched with purple, like cold, bruised skin.
A branch cracked nearby. I jerked around and glared into the trees. Nothing. What a ninny. I tried to laugh, but instead hot tears popped into my eyes. I’d been lost for hours. My stomach rumbled and my skin ached from the cold. Where was the track leading back to the campground? What if I never found it? What if I just kept going in circles forever?
‘Hey, kid.’
I whipped around, expecting to see one of my classmates or a teacher. But no one was there. I staggered in a circle, my legs nearly buckling. Then I pulled up. Which way had I been heading? The narrow dirt track looked the same in both directions: scattered with mud puddles and soggy leaves, blurred behind the curtain of rain. As I gazed into the wet haze, a figure emerged from the tree shadows – a ragged young man with something clutched in his fist. Something that gleamed dully in the low light. Was it an axe?
I tried to take a step back, to turn around and run. But I had frozen in place. My limbs were icy from the rain, and my breath came out in little gasps. My heart fluttered like a startled bird.
The man’s teeth glowed white as he moved nearer, but it wasn’t until he was too close that I registered his eyes. Brilliant blue, like kingfisher feathers. The bright clear blue of an autumn sky. Gemstone blue. Almost luminous, while the rest of the world was swallowed up in the dark.
3
‘Ah, Abby.’ Kendra Nixon-Jones smiled tightly from the other side of her desk. She patted a fair strand back into her topknot and regarded me with vague disapproval. ‘If you’re here to beg an extension for your festival piece, then I’m afraid you’re out of luck. I need that story by Monday as agreed.’
I tossed my flash drive onto the desk and sighed. ‘When have I ever needed an extension? There’s my story. Including new photos of the region’s best attractions.’
Kendra’s smile fell away. She tore the lid off a takeaway cup and drained the coffee, then lobbed the empty container into the bin. Staring down at my flash drive, she shook her head. ‘You know, it always amuses me how you deliver everything in person, including your research notes and photos. I mean, what . . . you’ve never heard of email?’
I ignored the dig. ‘Actually, there’s something else.’
She trailed her gaze over my casual attire, frowning at the Moulin Rouge tank, the well-worn Levis, the battered cherry Docs. My hair in a wild dark tangle that wasn’t quite a ponytail. Grabbing a pencil, she drummed it on the desk. ‘Well?’
‘I want to write a feature on Deepwater Gorge. About what really happened there, the truth. So people remember. And to break through all the hype about the old campground being haunted. Did you know there’s a company hosting torchlight ghost tours? They’re taking groups out at night, visiting sites where the victims were found. No council permits. No consideration for the victims’ families. It’s not only illegal, it’s in bad taste. And with the festival coming up, I think people need to understand the dangers.’
‘Abby . . .’
‘I’m sure you’re aware that school kids still go out there, daring each other to stay overnight. But it’s not safe. I was out at the campground this morning. Know what I found? An unconscious teenage girl with a head wound. I’m worried she was attacked. It looked like she’d been running from someone. But this morning when I reported it to the police, guess what they said? That she probably had a row with her boyfriend, and that this sort of thing happens all the time—’
‘Abby!’
I stepped closer, pulling a sheet of paper from my back pocket. ‘A feature in the Express will make people more aware. Look, I’ve sketched an outline. I could have it written and on your desk by mid next week.’
Kendra plucked the outline from my fingers. Balling it up, she hurled it into her bin. ‘No.’
‘But—’
‘Listen to me, Abby.’ She glanced at the wall clock. ‘I like your work. Our readers adore you. You give the Express a degree of class. But you need to remember that I call the shots around here. And if I tell you to leave this Deepwater business alone, then that’s what I expect you to do. Understand?’
I pressed my lips together. I understood all right.
We’d been at high school together, Kendra and I. She was several years ahead, one of the cool girls, popular and sporty as well as academic. Even back then she’d been perfectly groomed. Shoes mirror-polished, tunic pressed, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that swished and gleamed as she laughed with her besties. Hey Shabby Abby, can’t your old man afford to buy you decent shoes? Never mind, you can have these old things when I’m done with them.
Yet despite our dodgy history, I loved this job and I intended to keep it. Writing for the Express helped me to keep my finger on certain pulses in the community. Most people seemed to open up when they learned I was writing for the local paper. They became more willing to talk, happy to provide personal anecdotes and insights. And if one of my stories helped an isolated farmer or a frazzled single mum to feel more connected to their fellow humans, then I had done my job. I wasn’t going to let my pride, let alone my need to find out what had happened at the gorge twenty years ago, put all that at risk.
‘Yeah, I got it.’
Kendra opened her bulging organiser and flipped through. ‘Now, since you’re here, I have the perfect assignment for you. I’ve just heard that a big-shot Sydney writer has moved to the area. He recently bought a derelict property in the hills northwest of Gundara. Local estate agents are wetting themselves. They think it’s confirmation of the coming bull market.’
I slumped, already bored. ‘Anyone I’d know?’
‘His name’s Tom Gabriel. This,’ she said, sliding a printout across the desk, ‘is the last interview he did. It appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald all the way back in 2008. Tom’s a bit of a recluse, so they tell me. Notoriously hard to pin down for an interview.’
I jammed the grainy printout in my pocket without looking at it. I’d heard of Tom Gabriel – he wrote fictionalised accounts of true crime cases. His novels were mega-bestsellers across the globe, and most had been made into films or miniseries, but I’d always avoided them. Crime wasn’t my cup of tea; too much death and violence, too much darkness. Give me light and fluffy any day.
‘What makes you think he’ll talk to me?’
Kendra rubbed together manicured hands, giving me her smug, cat-who-got-the-cream smile. ‘I have every confidence that he won’t talk to you, Abby. He hates journalists. Hates them. Eight years ago he was sued for smashing a TV camera that some pushy news broadcaster shoved in his face.’
‘Nice guy.’
Kendra leaned back in her chair. ‘Get me his story, Abby. All the dirt, all the scandalous goss. Why his marriage bombed so spectacularly. Apparently he’s a real womaniser, so there’s a clue. And a drunk. I want to know who he’s currently dating. How much he earns. Why he’s taking so long with his new book. Everything. This man is big news. Big. News. And if we snare a scoop on him in time for the Autumn Fest, we’ll put Gundara on the map. I want photos, too. Lots of photos.’
‘What if he won’t talk?’
‘Oh, you’ll work something out.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
She regarded me from beneath lowered lids. ‘Because if you pu
ll it off, I’ll let you write your gorge story. Front page headline with bells on.’
‘You’re on.’ I spun on my heel and loped to the door, already planning my new outline.
On the threshold, Kendra called me back. ‘That girl you found this morning, who was she?’
My shoulders came up. ‘No idea.’
‘Let’s keep it that way, then, shall we?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t go shooting your mouth off, is all I’m saying. At least not until after the festival.’
‘Festival?’
‘Has it slipped your attention how many tourists it brings to the area every year?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Tourists with bulging pockets.’
‘You’re worried about money?’
Kendra sat back and peered along her nose. ‘Everyone’s worried about money, Abby. All of Gundara relies in some way on the tourist dollar. We can’t go printing stories of doom and gloom about one of our biggest tourist attractions. Lord knows, we don’t want to scare people off with horror stories before they’ve even arrived.’
‘I thought warning people was the whole point.’
‘You just worry about getting that Tom Gabriel interview. Leave the thinking to me.’
• • •
On the way back to my car I studied the faces of the people I passed. A couple were familiar and nodded greetings, but most were strangers to me.
I’d spent more than a decade away from Gundara. In that time, my hometown had grown from a dusty little backwater village to a town of eight thousand. Families and self-starters flocked here from Sydney, attracted by the cheap real estate. For a while, the town had prospered. Quirky little cafes popped up like cheerful weeds between the big corner pubs and solid stone buildings that dated back to the gold rush. Antique shops opened, and weekend markets filled the streets with people. But then several years ago the economy had taken a nosedive. Now, as I strode through the open mall, I noticed how quiet everything was. The bright autumn sun beat down on streets that were almost deserted. For ten o’clock on a Friday morning, that wasn’t a great sign. Nor were the vacant shopfronts, where failing businesses had been sold up and closed.
Rattling out my car keys, I cut behind the library and made a beeline for the Fiesta parked under a shady old oak tree. I understood Kendra’s concerns. The Autumn Fest was a big deal for Gundara. Town coffers relied on the tourist dollars it generated. Without them, roads would fall into disrepair, community services would undergo cutbacks, the rural fire service would struggle for funding; the entire town would suffer. An interview with a world-famous author who’d made his home here could only add to Gundara’s appeal. But what was the good of a community that thrived if it overlooked the possible attack of a young girl? I suspected that most people in Gundara secretly felt as I did: that the true story of Deepwater Gorge needed to be told.
When I reached my car, I happened to glance up.
On the other side of the carpark a man was watching me through the open window of a battered Hilux. He looked about seventy, with black horn-rims and a thatch of stringy grey hair that fell past his collar. A black-and-white border collie with long matted fur pricked up its ears in the passenger seat beside him. The man caught my eye and didn’t look away, and in a moment of wild panic I was sure he recognised me.
I threw myself into the Fiesta and cranked the ignition, buckling my seatbelt one-handed as I navigated between rows of parked cars towards the exit. I turned onto a narrow lane behind the library, my wheels spraying up gravel as I took the corner too quickly, cutting off another motorist.
All the way home, I could still picture him. His cheeks craggy and weatherworn, his lips downturned, his face framed by lank grey hair. And his eyes. Blue as the wings of a kingfisher; blue as an autumn sky. The exact shade of blue as my nightmares.
• • •
My stomach rumbled as I climbed the verandah steps of my cottage on the edge of town. I just wanted to strip off my clothes and hop in the shower, scrub away the morning. Devour a toastie and a bowl of frozen custard, then collapse on the lounge and spend the afternoon escaping into one of my dog-eared Mills and Boons.
‘Not gonna happen.’
Flinging my bag on a chair, I stalked into the kitchen; stood in the doorway a moment, marvelling over the shittiness of my day despite it barely being noon. First the girl at the campground, and then Kendra’s dismissal of my gorge story. And somehow the rotten cherry on the cake – seeing him in the carpark: Roy Horton. Dad used to say that bad things happened in threes. Which meant that the rest of my day would be rosy, right?
I went over to the bin and looked down at the brown paper parcel I’d tossed there this morning. My brother’s words haunted me. Why can’t you remember how great things used to be? Moving the paper aside, I took out the frame and removed the photo. Me, Duncan and Dad were all smiling. But it was Mum who stole the show. Her eyes alight, her plump face ruddy from the hike, the breeze catching her dark hair. And the megawatt smile that even now clenched my heart. I held my breath. What was my clearest memory of her? The way she used to giggle uncontrollably when my father tickled her, throwing back her head and going limp in his arms? The way she cooed our names in a funny voice when we hugged her? Or did I best remember her empty chair at the table, and Dad’s silence in the years after she left?
With steady fingers, I tore my mother from the picture and let her flutter back into the bin. Then, not knowing what else to do with the photo, I slid it into the pantry under the seaweed crackers.
I brewed tea and grilled a sandwich, and took it over to the dining table. When I was finished, I took out Kendra’s printout. The last thing I wanted to do was start researching some dusty old author. He might be a megaseller, but honestly, smashing a TV camera? Talk about overreacting. How was he going to respond to a small-town journo – namely me – rocking up to beg an interview?
I scanned the article. It was a behind-the-scenes story that painted Tom Gabriel as a drunkard and womaniser. A black and white author shot accompanied it.
Hmm. Not so old and dusty, after all. He wore a baseball cap and snug T-shirt and was frowning at the camera. Arms crossed tightly over his chest, shoulders rigid. Jaw clamped beneath a prickly shadow of stubble. He was only twenty-nine, according to the article, which meant that in the here and now he’d be approaching forty.
I bent closer, taking in the arrogant jut of his jaw, the vague hostility in his intense eyes. He was exactly the sort of man I habitually avoided: full of his own importance, set in his ways. The sort who shook a woman’s hand too hard, just to let her know who was boss.
‘We’ll see about that, then, won’t we, Mr Bigshot.’
I hurried along the hallway to the spare room, the room I called my ‘library’, although that was a laugh. It was more like a crazy person’s museum of natural history. Afternoon sun streamed in, illuminating my framed assemblage of moths and insects, my birds’ nests preserved under bell jars, a tuft of boobook feathers, and my miniature skull collection – mice, silvereyes, even a snake. Under the window, a tower of rare vintage gardening books.
Sitting at the desk, I booted my laptop, jiggling my legs as the internet resurrected. Then I typed in the name of my quarry: Tom Gabriel. A ton of links came up. I clicked on his publisher’s site, which had a brief bio. He had attracted the interest of a publisher while still at university, and his first novel had won industry awards and garnered huge press. As his career advanced, he became notoriously reclusive and hard to pin down for interviews or photo shoots. From Goodreads, I pulled up his back-cover blurbs. There was a chilling sameness to his themes: kidnappings, abductions, murder. Lots of murder.
I squirmed in my chair. ‘No wonder I’ve avoided you.’
That was about to change. There’d be some detective work to do; I couldn’t imagine his number was in the phone book, so I’d have to call in a few favours. But if securing my Deepwater feature – front p
age headline with bells on, no less – required me to first get an interview with the elusive Tom Gabriel, then an interview I would get. And too bad if I ruffled a few feathers in the process.
I saved my findings onto another flash drive, then shut down my laptop. Went along the hallway and through the back door, outside onto the verandah, glad of the cold air that swirled around me. As my head cleared, I gripped the railing and searched the horizon to the northwest.
Purple storm clouds, dark as bruises, moved over the distant hills. Somewhere below them, the Deepwater River carved a ravine through dense eucalypt forests. Locals called this vast kidney-shaped expanse of wild woodlands ‘the reserve’. Twenty years ago, campers in a remote part of the park had discovered the remains of a teenage girl. The body had lain in its shallow grave for at least a decade. Weeks later, police searchers found another body buried ten kilometres from the first; a second teenage girl thought to have been there for about five years. Runaways, everyone assumed, and the bodies were never identified. After the investigation petered out, life went on as usual. But when a local twelve-year-old girl, Alice Noonan, went missing the following year, people sat up and took notice.
Four weeks after her disappearance, Alice’s body turned up. Despite being missing for a month, she hadn’t been dead that long, only one or two days at most. She was grubby and malnourished, her hands bruised and her fingernails torn and bloody. Cause of death: starvation. Rumours flew that she had been kept prisoner somewhere. Police scoured the reserve and conducted door-to-door searches. Soon, a young local man was in custody. When they locked him up, Gundara breathed a sigh of relief and did its best to forget.
I shivered, tightening my grip on the rail. When I pictured Alice, it was still her living face that I saw. Her cinnamon-coloured eyes too large for her pixie face, her thin, inky hair scraped back in a ponytail. Hair that was not yet tangled with leaves and crumbs of earth, hands and fingers not yet scratched; her young body not yet robbed of life. I saw her the way she used to be, before she started haunting my dreams.