by Annie Seaton
Gavin stood casually and scooped them into his pocket on the way to the counter. The waitress was yakking to the cook in the kitchen.
Serve her right. She missed out on a sale. He might as well keep his money. He sauntered out, hit the ‘unlock’ button on the key holder and slid into the driver’s seat. He laughed as he drove off; by the time the woman got back to her seat, he’d be heading for the highway.
And in a car that had a full tank of fuel.
His day was finally looking up.
Hidden Valley here I come. Satisfaction coursed through him. It had been a long time coming, but his brother was about to get everything he deserved.
* * *
Hidden Valley, 6 am
As soon as it was light enough to see, Emlyn took a long drink from the spring and set off along the tube that led off to the right. Her inbuilt sense of direction told her she was heading to the north. Her back pain was tolerable and the slight headache had gone completely. Her sleep had been fitful, and she’d kept starting to wakefulness thinking she heard someone calling her name, but each time she’d listened there’d been nothing more.
A wishful dream.
The tube had many openings in the roof to the ground high above, and the further she walked the lighter it became. Some of the openings were at the side of the roof, and her hope increased that there would be a low one with a rock fall that she could climb to escape.
As she walked, her mind buzzed with thoughts, and she wondered what had happened at the research base. Did they know yet she hadn’t arrived in Brisbane? That she’d missed the meeting? What had David done when she hadn’t turned up?
And where was Gavin? That was her only fear about getting out of the caves. That he’d be waiting up there for her. He had serious mental-health issues; some of the things he’d said to her had been bizarre.
When she got out, she’d take extra care.
She nodded. Yes, when, not if.
An hour later, her confidence had slipped again as the roof began to lower and the gaps above became less frequent. There were no tree roots hanging down here, and the space ahead was narrow and confined. She stood there debating whether to turn around, or whether to keep going, but she decided to press on and explore this way fully. It would be stupid to go the other way and find nothing and then have to retrace her steps. There could be something ahead; there was still room to stand up, although it was very dark.
Taking a tentative step, she noticed a narrow strip of light appear a few metres in front of her. She stepped forwards and gasped as icy water filled her shoes and rose up past her ankles.
An underground lake.
She stepped back with a sigh, and very wet shoes. There was no escape that way.
Hidden Valley western gate, 6 am
Sergeant Brennan had briefed the searchers before they left the base camp, and everyone was familiar with the search area they’d been allocated. Eight groups of three—more police had arrived from Croydon overnight—as well as Travis and his boys. David had chosen to search with them and he rode in the front of the ute with Travis, while the boys sat in the back with Bluey.
Alison had called before they’d left; she and Cassie were on their way. Travis wanted more than anything to go down to Townsville to meet them, but he was needed here.
‘Bette is coming down to get us.’
‘Just keep an eye out for Gavin,’ he’d warned her.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I will be.’ Alison’s voice had been lighter than he’d heard it for a long time.
David was quiet as they travelled along the back road to the far boundary of the property. He stared through the window as though he was searching every second.
‘Have you been up this way before?’ Travis asked to make conversation.
David shook his head. ‘No. I haven’t been north of Hervey Bay before. It’s a very inhospitable landscape.’
Travis stared ahead, seeing the station from a different perspective. He was used to the brown and ochre around them. The only colour breaking the monotony was the occasional flash of yellow from the kapok flowers on the flat plains.
‘It looks boring, but you’ll find some of the most ancient geology in the state out here.’
‘Like the lava tubes?’ David turned from the window, and Travis figured while he could keep him talking he wouldn’t be dwelling on Emlyn.
‘Yeah, that’s a big part of it, but there’re also other volcanic formations to the north-west, past these sand plains. There was a gold rush back here in the nineteenth century.’
‘Interesting. I didn’t think there’d be enough water to support gold mining. It looks so dry.’
‘The Einasleigh River is just west of our boundary, and it flows into the Gulf. It greens up a bit when we get closer to the back boundary. There’s a swamp where drainage has been blocked by the lava flows, but you’re right. We’ve been fighting the advances of a gold-mining company for about eighteen months now. What little water we have would disappear if a mine went ahead.’
‘Fair enough.’ David turned back to the window and Travis left him in peace as they drove the last fifteen kilometres to where they’d left the three horses last night.
He parked the ute beneath one of the few shade trees near the gate, and Joel and Jase lifted a small bag of horse feed off the back of the ute.
‘Blue, you go on horseback with the boys and I’ll walk in with David.’ Travis pointed to the north. ‘We’ll head along that ridge where I was last night, and then work our way east. You three ride to the top of the ridge and then ride west.’ He walked around to the back of the ute and passed one of the guns he’d brought to Bluey. ‘Three shots if you find anything, and then we’ll radio in.’
David glanced at the second gun as Travis slung it over his shoulder and put some ammunition in the front pocket of his shirt. ‘Is that necessary?’
‘We’re a long way from any communication signals here, mate. It’s the only way we’ll hear a signal when we find Emlyn.’
David lifted his gaze and his eyes were bleak. ‘You really think we’ve got a chance of finding her out here?’
Travis held his gaze steadily. ‘I do. She’s a strong woman, and she won’t give up.’
David took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘When she didn’t arrive the other night, I thought that was it. It was my last chance of trying to talk her into coming home. And then when I heard she was missing, I thought she’d finally given up.’
‘Emlyn and I have been working closely together over the past couple of weeks. I’d like to think we’ve become good friends.’
David looked at him curiously. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘It’s not really my place to tell you, but I know it will make you feel better. We had a good talk the night before she left. She was looking forward to seeing you.’
‘Really? You’re not just saying that? When I first heard from John that she was missing, I thought the worst. I didn’t know how stable she’d been. I knew she’d stopped taking the anti-depressants and—’
‘David,’ Travis interrupted. ‘She’s been happy here. I’ve seen a massive shift in her attitude since she first arrived. And it’s not just because of the work and the project we’ve initiated. She seems to have come to terms with life. She told me how much she was looking forward to going home. She told me all about your house, and what you’ve done there. I’ve seen her come alive. I’ve listened to her, and I’ve watched some of the sadness leave her.’ Travis cleared his throat; he felt as though he was saying too much, and David would think he was intruding on their personal territory, but David stopped walking and put his hand on Travis’s forearm.
‘So … she told you about … about Sophie?’
‘Was that her mother’s name? John told me she’d lost her parents recently.’
‘Sophie was our daughter. She died in the same plane crash as Em’s parents.’
Travis looked away as David lifted his hand and brushed at his eyes.
* * *
Hidden Valley caves, noon
Emlyn made her way back to the spring, her footsteps slow as frustration filled her. She’d walked as far as she could in the long tube that led to what she was sure was the west. The compass on her watch wasn’t working and the battery was almost flat. Even though the roof on the tube was at least ten metres above her, there were very few gaps where the light came in. Numerous rock falls blocked her way, and a couple of times she’d considered turning back, but she’d clambered over them, always hoping for that glimmer of light ahead. She stood at the spring and drank thirstily. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger, but at least she had water.
Emlyn was not going to give up. She’d seen the maps of these tubes many times as they’d decided where to start their research, and again with Travis over the past few nights as they’d looked at the feasibility of locations for the proposed development; and there was always an entry where you could come in from ground level. She just had to find where it was.
If she let doubt set in, she might as well give up. There was no way she was going to give in and die down here like those poor children. There was a life out there to be lived, and one that she was determined to take up again.
David was waiting for her, and she knew he loved her. When they were old they’d sit and talk about the event that had brought them back together after the tragedy that had broken her for a while. The lava tubes would always be significant to her; it was where she had discovered that life did go on.
Emlyn rubbed her arms, aching for the feel of David’s arms holding her close, and refusing to consider that she would never feel them around her again. With a deep breath, she turned and headed back the way she had come; there were two side passages that she hadn’t explored yet.
A little tendril of fear rippled in her stomach as she headed that way; the passages she’d passed were both dark and narrow, and she’d only given them a cursory glance a couple of hours ago. She’d been so sure that the high cave would have a rock fall where she could climb up to the surface.
She shook away the fear; at the first sign of any bad air, she’d turn around.
More than three hundred metres along the wide tube, she stopped at the first narrow opening. Stepping in, she let her eyes adjust to the dim light, and sniffed the air.
Stupid really, because you couldn’t smell carbon dioxide. Her eyes widened as they adjusted to the dark. The sides of the opening were not vertical as they had been in all of the other caves; this wall was multi-layered and at a sixty-degree angle. At the top of the wall, about two metres above, were vertical spaces where shards of light shone through. She mustn’t be far underground; the fall had been going up at a slight angle over the past couple of hundred metres, but she hadn’t realised how far she’d climbed. If she squinted, she could see glimmers of blue sky through the rock wall above. The floor of the passage was at a steep angle, in alignment with the crenulations on the wall, but to her dismay, the passage narrowed as she stepped forwards. The light became brighter, but she barely had space to move forwards. Breathing in, she turned sideways and forced herself to push into the passage where the walls were pressing on her front and back. Fear came in waves, and light pricked at her vision, but she forced herself to breathe evenly until her heart beat slowed and the panic receded.
I won’t get stuck between the rock walls, she told herself. If she could get in there, she could turn around and get out.
With a determined lunge, Emlyn forced her body through the narrow space.
CHAPTER
33
‘Your daughter?’ Travis waited for David to compose himself.
‘Yes, Sophie was two. They were flying to a wedding.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Emlyn didn’t talk about her at all.’
David stood still and stared past Travis. ‘That was a lot of the problem. She wouldn’t listen to the counsellor, and she wouldn’t talk to me about her, either. I wasn’t even allowed to say Sophie’s name. It was as though she didn’t want her to have ever existed. The doctor said it was her way of dealing with her grief.’
‘I can’t imagine losing a child.’
‘As soon as Emlyn came home from the hospital—even though she was still in bandages after the skin grafts—she took everything away. She stripped Sophie’s room, the furniture, the toys, all her little clothes. I got home after work and it was empty. Four bare walls. Pink walls. I think if she could have taken them out, she would have. Emlyn was sitting on the floor. She looked at me without speaking and got up and walked out.’
David began walking again; it was as though he’d forgotten they were searching, so Travis scanned the bush around them as he listened.
‘I can’t lose her as well. I have to convince her that it wasn’t her fault.’ David’s words hit Travis in the chest as he walked along beside him. ‘I’ll never forget that phone call. I was on a boat because I wouldn’t fly over to the island. It was a family wedding. I told Emlyn to take Sophie in the plane so she could see the water. She loved the sea. From the day she could speak, it was all about water, and swimming, and fish. We used to laugh and say she’d be a marine biologist when she grew up.’
‘I think when we find her you’re going to see a much stronger woman than the one you’ve described. It’s not important in the scheme of things, or what you’ve been through, but Emlyn talked me through a problem I was struggling with. She knows what matters.’
The vegetation had thickened as they’d climbed towards the top of the ridge.
‘Thanks, mate. No matter what happens, I’ll hold that close.’
‘What’s going to happen is that we’re going to find her.’ Travis stopped and looked towards the top of the ridge as David kept walking. He hadn’t been this far for a few years and was surprised to see how many trees had fallen in the last cyclone that had come across from the coast.
‘She’s been missing almost two days, do you—’
‘David! Stop!’
The hill had levelled out on a false plateau before the top of the ridge. A thicket of vines had tangled around a fallen tree, and Travis had spotted the telltale gap as David had been about to step into it.
He grabbed for a tree, leaned forwards and looked down into the depths. ‘What is it?’
‘There’s been a rock fall, and it’s an entry point to one of the tubes.’
David’s throat worked, and his eyes were wide. ‘And you’re thinking that Emlyn could have fallen down one of those?’
‘She wouldn’t fall. She knows the terrain, but she could have gone in one to hide.’ The unspoken meaning behind Travis’s words made the anger rise in him, and his tone was brusque. ‘Come on, just watch where you’re walking.’
* * *
Gavin had to take the Hervey Range Road because the small sedan wasn’t capable of taking any of the bush tracks. He watched the fuel gauge get lower and lower as the vehicle struggled up the mountain road. It must have a bloody small fuel tank.
‘Fuck it,’ he muttered as he changed back a gear. At this rate, he’d be lucky to get to Greenvale before he ran out of fuel.
It was almost mid-afternoon by the time he drove into the small village. He pulled his cap down low over his face and parked by the bowser close to the road. He smiled as a large four-wheel drive towing a massive caravan drove in, blocking the shop from his view. He was hungry; it had been a long time since breakfast on the Strand, and he’d been in too much of a hurry to get back to the station to think about bringing anything to eat. The owner of the vehicle had kindly left a couple of bottles of water on the floor of the back seat, and he’d had to make do with them.
If things went to plan and he could make Travis see sense, then he could leave this car at the house and come back down in one of the farm utes. And then he’d be on his way.
Gavin filled the car, ignoring the caravan owner as the man tried to strike up a conversation. He put the fuel pump back in the cradle and drove out. As he drove
off, he glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Reg and the other customer were standing there watching him drive away.
Gavin laughed. Let them chase that number plate and send the lady the bill. Old Reg at the garage couldn’t call the cops to chase him because there were none between here and Mt Surprise. Besides, he’d spent so much money there over the past few months, the old bastard owed him a tank of fuel.
The road to Conjuboy was busier than usual and Gavin was surprised to see a couple of police Pajeros parked in the bush on the side of the road. He tapped his hand on the steering wheel as he drove past; he had to keep a low profile.
Jesus, all he needed to do was find Travis and make him transfer the money. He had no doubt he could talk sense to his brother, but if there were police sniffing around, he couldn’t risk driving to the house in daylight.
Impatience flooded through Gavin, and he swore again. Why couldn’t anything go right for him?
* * *
Parrots rose squawking, breaking the stillness of the late afternoon as three shots rang out below them. Travis and David looked at each other and took off at a run down the hill, back to where the ute was parked. By the time they reached the two boys and Bluey, they were both out of breath.
Travis looked around, but there was no sign of Emlyn.
David ran across to the ute and looked inside. ‘What’s happened? Has she been found?’
Bluey shook his head. ‘I came back here for a bit of a breather, and the detective radioed in. Travis, they’ve spotted Gavin. He drove through Greenvale about one o’clock.’
Travis looked at his watch as fear gripped his insides. It was just before five and would be dark soon. ‘Shit, he’s had enough time to get out here already. I wonder if the police have an eye on the house.’ All he could think of was Alison and Cass on the same road.
‘The policeman said not to worry. They’ve got everything covered,’ Bluey said.