Second Sight

by Aoife Clifford

  Tony comes over carrying a bottle of beer and two glasses. Now that I am here, I’m reluctant to start asking him questions in case the answers confirm what Tess told me.

  ‘I sat in this booth for my twelfth birthday dinner,’ I say. ‘It hasn’t changed at all.’

  ‘They remind me of a confessional.’ Tony raps a knuckle on the wooden partition behind him. ‘Same wood as the church. I told you all my secrets last time. Must be your turn for confession.’

  ‘I need to talk to you about the night Grace disappeared.’

  A complicated expression ripples across his face, like a wave that doesn’t break.

  ‘Two people told me that Grace was at the paddock party,’ I say. ‘Do you know how she got there?’

  He pauses, looking at me as though wondering how I will react. ‘She went with me,’ he says. ‘I was driving there from the beach and she was walking along the track. I told her to go back to you lot, but she didn’t listen.’

  ‘Was she wearing a necklace?’

  His face frowns thoughtfully. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Maybe. At least I think so. A gold one perhaps.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘We drove to The Castle and then through the back paddocks to the party.’

  ‘You could have driven along Ophir Road straight to the party.’

  He pauses before answering and I am almost counting the seconds. ‘We were running late and I still detoured that way. I guess I was showing off to her.’

  ‘Did you get out at The Castle?’ I ask.

  ‘Is this important?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Please. Did you get out at The Castle?’

  His head is shaking ‘no’ but then he stops. ‘Actually, we did. Not for long, a couple of minutes. Then we drove away.’

  ‘Was she wearing the necklace then?’

  He half-laughs. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘So it could have fallen off at The Castle?’

  ‘It’s possible, I guess. She didn’t mention it. What’s this about, Eliza?’

  But I ignore that because right now I’m only interested in his answers, not his questions.

  ‘What happened when you got to the party?’

  ‘She ditched me as soon as she could,’ he says.

  ‘Did she tell you what she was going to do next?’

  ‘No. I saw her talking to your sister.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Pretty soon after we got there. Half past one or so.’

  The missing sections are slotting into place. The gaps are narrowing. It fits with what Tess remembers about the party. If she’s right about that then it’s more likely she’s right about what happened next.

  ‘What is this about, Eliza?’ he asks again. ‘Grace left, pure and simple. She caught a train to the city.’

  I’m trying not to get upset but part of me wants to blurt out what Tess told me. It is too big a burden to keep to myself but instead I shake my head. ‘It’s not true. Jim made that story up. There was no train.’

  ‘Jim?’ says Tony. ‘What’s he got to do with it?’

  At that moment the lights flicker on.

  ‘Thought I heard voices,’ Janey says. ‘Look at the two of you sitting in the dark on such a lovely day. What can you be talking about?’ There’s an arch smile in her voice like she’s caught two canoodling teenagers.

  ‘Nothing important.’ I quickly stand up. ‘Just chatting.’

  ‘You got everything sorted, Mum?’ asks Tony, but his eyes are fixed on me.

  ‘Loose ends are all tied up,’ she says. ‘Just when you think it’s organised, there’s always something that pops up unexpectedly.’

  ‘Best of luck for tomorrow,’ I say, grabbing my bag.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ Janey smiles. ‘When are you heading back home to the city?’

  ‘Soon,’ I tell her. ‘Anyway, I have to go see Dad now.’

  ‘Say hello to Mick for us.’

  Tony frowns at us both and says nothing.

  • • •

  The nursing home is quiet. Mary isn’t sitting on the bench outside, for which I am grateful. I take Dad out to the empty garden and watch the birds. Flashy jewels of colour, they seem happy enough chirping and clattering in their cage. I think of the psychology of a man who loves their bright feathers and sweet songs so much that he must lock them up. The sort of man who makes false statements about a missing girl to the police. But it might be too late for Jim to explain his actions now. Maybe it doesn’t even matter because I have been given the answer. The problem is I don’t want it to be true.

  My eyes turn away from the birds and I watch my father instead. His skin is the colour of rain. I had thought Dad was waiting for me to find out who killed Grace, when in fact he knew all along. According to Ryan, hearing is one of the last senses to disappear so I choose my words carefully and speak them clearly.

  ‘Tess told me what happened to Grace.’

  For one awful moment I am so angry at him, at all of them, at myself, that my words start and finish with a clenched hiss and I sit there shaking, my breath catching in furious little puffs.

  I push myself to try again.

  ‘I didn’t want to believe her. She said at the start you didn’t believe her either.’

  I wait for a reaction from him, a twitch of the head, pressure on my fingers. Anything.

  ‘But in the end you thought she was right.’

  And then I whisper, ‘I think she is right.’

  There, I’ve said it.

  ‘Tess told me something else,’ I go on, and this is even harder to say aloud. I look around to make sure that no-one can hear us.

  ‘She told me you killed Travis Young because of what he did to her.’ The words are poured into my father’s ear.

  My father’s breath gurgles in his chest as the birds sing. I want to walk over to that cage, unlock the door and let them all escape. I want the same for my father. He has done terrible things to protect his daughters but I can’t condemn him for that. Dad thought I was better off without him and loved me enough to let me go. It’s time for me to let him go.

  I try to think about what will give him comfort now.

  ‘I forgive you.’ I pause, and then, ‘I want you to know that Tess forgives you,’ I lie. ‘She told me to tell you that.’

  His eyelids half open and my heart skips a beat. I squeeze his hand gently but his fingers are like ice so I tuck the blanket around him and wait. His eyes soon shut of their own accord. I wheel him carefully back to his room, tell him I love him, and then kiss him gently on the forehead. His skin feels hot under my lips. It’s me that is getting cold.

  • • •

  That night I sit in my bungalow at the Ocean Breeze Motel. I’m leaving in the morning. There is nothing more I can do here. The 11 pm news comes on the radio and I almost miss the report about Luke Tyrell’s death. A nearby car engine roars at the wrong time, headlights flash around the room and I hear only a sentence.

  The police are investigating.

  That doesn’t comfort me as much as it once did.

  I think about ringing Tess to tell her that if she wants to see Dad alive, she should go soon, but I have no words to talk about the rest of what has happened. Her story chases itself around my head. I try to flatten it out in my mind so I can find the weaknesses but it stubbornly refuses to fall apart. Aaron said he never wanted me to contact them again. Am I so much of a coward that I will cling to that as an excuse not to tell them? What do I tell Amy? If I choose silence then Grace’s family and friends will never know how their daughter died. The words I said to Dave come back to haunt me. What do I owe a young woman’s bones, dead over a hundred years ago, and a baby girl only days old?

  I sit at the window but don’t turn on the light. Resting my head on the sill, my eyes adjust, the lines of the flyscreen dissolve and I watch the world. Another vehicle comes closer, quieter and slower than the last one. No headlights this time – someone is being
more thoughtful of the motel’s sleeping inhabitants. As it slides past, the moon catches the face of the driver. It’s Alan Sharp. He takes the track up to Jim’s place.

  My phone buzzes and jumps like a nervous cat. In the quiet, I do as well. I grab it, expecting the nursing home but it’s Tony.

  ‘You’re awake,’ he says.

  ‘Alan Sharp just drove past, heading up to Jim Keaveney’s,’ I tell him. ‘Have you heard how he is?’ but Tony isn’t interested.

  ‘This afternoon you said something about Jim and Grace. What were you talking about?’

  ‘He told the police about driving her into town and Grace catching a train.’

  ‘But he wasn’t there,’ says Tony.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was Mum who drove Grace into town, not Jim. I asked her to.’

  My hand begins to shake so much I almost drop the phone.

  ‘Everything I said this afternoon was right but I saw Grace again that night. She left me at the party and I went and drank with some mates. Then it started turning pretty nasty.’

  He hesitates and I wonder if he was one of the boys who stood and watched what happened to Tess. For one black moment I almost hate Tony Bayless.

  ‘I knew I shouldn’t drive so I decided to walk back and sleep at The Castle. I was halfway there when Grace caught up with me. I phoned Mum and she came out. Told me to go back to sleep and that she’d take Grace into town.’

  As I’m listening to this, I switch on my light and hunt through my bag for the piece of scribbled-on paper.

  ‘What time?’ I ask.

  ‘It must have been around 2 am when I called. I remember I thought about waiting until after the pub shut at three but Grace made me phone straight away.’

  ‘What time did they drive back into town?’

  Never ask a witness a question you don’t know the answer to. I close my eyes. This could still all go wrong. That Grace got out of the car and said she’d walk into town. On the same road that Tess came speeding along. That Tess was later than she thought.

  ‘I was asleep by then, but it has to have been after four.’

  Tears spill onto a handwritten number that I have circled. Tess swore she was home before 2 am.

  ‘Are you crying, Eliza?’ Tony’s confusion crackles through the phone. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Are you sure about the times? Are you sure?’ There’s so much I don’t understand but all I can think about is that if Grace was still alive at 4 am, then Tess couldn’t have killed her.

  ‘Check Mum’s police statement if you need to know exact times.’

  ‘She went to Dad?’

  ‘No, Alan Sharp. When I heard Grace was missing, Mum and I made a statement to him straight away. Mum always blamed herself for not taking Grace home but Grace wouldn’t even tell her where she lived. She kept saying she wanted to be dropped at the train station. There was nothing Mum could do, really.’

  ‘Did Dad ever come to talk to you?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ I say. ‘Thanks for ringing.’

  ‘It’s no big deal. This is ancient history, right?’

  Not to me it isn’t. ‘Bye, Tony, I’ve got to talk to Alan,’ I say, and disconnect.

  Straight away my phone begins to buzz. It’s Tony again but I’m not interested. Alan Sharp hasn’t come back down the track yet and I need to talk to him straight away, to find out if my sister is innocent, to tell my Dad before he dies. Pulling on my sneakers and a jumper over my pyjamas, I head out the door. Behind me, my phone rings again.

  Outside is colder than I expected, lighter as well. The moon is almost full, chalky-white, with stars spilling out across the sky. I’m running up the hill along the track, listening for a car coming back along it. In the dark, the distance seems further and the bush wilder. Alan might still be reluctant to talk about it, but once he hears what Tess has been through all these years, what Dad feared, he’ll have to understand there are bigger issues at play. All I need is for him to confirm the times.

  A breeze rustles the leaves, but I can hear a humming noise as well. The bullet-riddled ‘no trespassers’ sign comes into view. The sound gets louder. It’s a generator. I move quickly past the line of dead foxes and keep running over the ridge. There is a small dark tumbledown house with a great big shed, all lit up, next to it. Two utes are parked outside the open shed door. One is Alan’s. As I move closer to the shed I can hear someone talking over the noise of the generator.

  Picking my way through the broken shadows, I peer carefully in through the door. Alan is only ten feet away, standing with his back to me. There’s a concrete floor, a table and chairs in the corner and an old filing cabinet next to them with a kettle on top. Warehouse shelves run from floor to ceiling. They are crammed full with bottles, tins, rusted equipment, cardboard boxes and other bits and pieces. A couple of hay bales are in front of large wire cages which are stacked in front of a rack of serious firearms, way beyond the standard shotguns farmers use. This is a serious arsenal, just like this is a serious warehouse, not just some bush shed where an old man comes to think and tinker. I step closer, stumble and bump into the door, which makes a loud metal clang against the wall.

  Alan turns in an instant.

  ‘Eliza,’ he says. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You drove past my window.’

  ‘Thought I better make sure Jim’s shed was properly locked up,’ he says. ‘He died in hospital tonight.’

  Whatever information Jim had about Grace is gone forever.

  ‘Did they work out what killed him?’

  ‘Bad fall,’ says Alan. ‘Jim had been getting unsteady on his feet.’

  Jim had looked pretty healthy to me last time I’d seen him.

  I walk further into the shed. ‘Anyone here with you?’

  ‘Just me talking to myself,’ he says. ‘Bad habits develop when you live alone.’

  I go over to the guns. Black, large and dangerous.

  ‘Quite the hoarder,’ says Alan. ‘Most of this stuff has been here since he closed the shop.’ He points at the cages.

  ‘Gavin needs to be told about those guns.’ I say. ‘They should be locked up.’

  Alan doesn’t reply and it occurs to me that perhaps Alan is actually looting the place.

  He nods. ‘Yeah, it’s not safe to have those lying around. I was just finishing up. You want a lift back to the motel?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I need to talk to you about something urgent.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Grace Hedland’s disappearance. Apparently Janey made a statement to you.’

  There’s the flicker of a frown.

  ‘You still asking questions about that?’

  ‘It’s important.’

  He makes a resigned face. ‘OK, wait outside while I turn off the generator.’

  Standing next to his ute, the rumbling noise finally stops and with it all the lights go out.

  ‘Alan,’ I call.

  There’s no answer.

  ‘Alan, are you there?’

  There’s a movement behind me and, as I half turn towards it, my head explodes with pain, my legs buckle and I feel myself falling and then nothing.

  31

  New Year’s Eve 1996

  Janey

  Jim Keaveney had commandeered the microphone and was taking requests. Janey kept a beer waiting for him to wet his whistle in between numbers. There was a momentary lull as ‘Auld Lang Syne’ ended to a smattering of applause. Jim stopped to recharge and that’s when Wes heard the ringing.

  ‘Phone,’ he called out to his wife, jerking this thumb towards it. He’d been behind the bar all night, unwilling to move too far from the till.

  ‘Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir,’ Janey muttered in Wes’s direction as she placed a stack of dirty glasses on the table and headed through the doors and out into the hall.

  It was Tony.

  ‘Hang on, love,
’ she said. ‘Bit noisy in here. Give us a sec.’ She unravelled the extension cord from behind the coat stand and pulled it along until she came to the cupboard, opened the door and popped inside, pulling it almost to behind her. She’d been asking Wes for a proper office for years.

  ‘Say that again.’

  She could tell he was upset. Had plenty to drink as well, she guessed. He kept stopping and starting but she heard the words ‘The Castle’ and there was a girl’s voice in the background, prompting him with details.

  ‘Who’s that with you?’ she asked.

  It was one of the girls who’d been with Eliza Carmody earlier on the beach, the tall one, if she remembered rightly.

  ‘No-one else?’

  A negative reply and then a question.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to bother them. I’m on my way. You two sit tight and don’t touch anything.’

  She waited until her son promised before hanging up the phone.

  ‘I’m heading out,’ she said to Wes. ‘Tony needs to be picked up.’

  ‘I’ll be single-handed here,’ he complained. ‘I’ve already sent the others home.’ He was perched up on his bar stool like it was a throne. ‘Tony can make his own way.’

  But tonight Janey wasn’t going to defer to him.

  ‘You’ll survive,’ said Janey. ‘Get them to pour their own drinks if you have to. Just make sure they pay for them. No more freebies.’

  Wes gave her a disgruntled look as she grabbed the car keys from the hook.

  Heading out the back door, Janey called out cheery hellos to those sitting in the beer garden looking a little worse for wear. Some were keen to chat, but Janey was well practised in extricating herself quickly from drunken rambling conversations. With her bag over her shoulder, she unlocked the car.

  ‘Mrs Bayless,’ came a voice.

  Janey jumped.

  It was that new constable, looming out of the darkness. So thin, he was like the bony outline of a person still waiting to be filled in.

  ‘Gavin,’ she said. ‘Whatever are you doing lurking in the bushes?’

  ‘The Boss sent me down here to keep an eye on the pub. To make sure the party doesn’t get out of hand.’