Silver

by Chris Hammer

Jay Jay Hayes stares at him, blinks, and blinks again. Then her shoulders relax and she smiles. ‘Oh yes. That. Of course. No problem. Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll have a shower, meet you at the office.’ He watches her as she passes him, progressing along the beach towards the naked couple, board under one arm. She must be at least ten years older than him—she was a champion surfer when he was still a kid—but she still moves with the nonchalant grace of a practised athlete; clad in its wetsuit, her body could belong to a woman half her age.

  The office is easy enough to find, fronting onto the deck in the old farmhouse. The door is locked, so he waits outside. He checks his phone, but there’s no reception; the beach is isolated from the world, beyond the digital province of Port Silver.

  A king parrot—breast scarlet, wings green—lands on the railing, joined almost immediately by his less florid mate. They edge sideways along the railing, cocking their heads one way then the other, tame and looking for food. He photographs them with his phone, capturing the intricacies of their feathers. They exchange a few musical chirps; he feels as if he can almost discern the meaning. Then they fly off, in search of more likely benefactors.

  Martin steps off the deck, looking up the hill away from the beach, towards the car park. The land behind rises steadily. It takes little imagination to see the topography through the eyes of a property developer. The natural rise of the land is perfectly suited to low-rise buildings in tiers up the hill, all overlooking the beach, all with the magical view up the coast, all protected from flood by the elevation. The amphitheatre is private and secluded, a hippie haven ripe for exploitation. He can see the development clearly, but for the life of him he can’t see the connection to Jasper Speight’s death. Perhaps the land is worth killing for, but what did his old friend know, what had he learnt, that could have incited murder? Martin stares out across the perfect scenery and sees no answers.

  He hears the door behind him open, causing a small bell to ring. Jay Jay Hayes is waiting for him when he enters, seated behind a desk. Her sandy hair, thick, blonde and streaked with grey, is wet and swept back above her tanned forehead. There is age creeping into this face, in its sun-etched crevices and the folding skin of her neck, yet her eyes are blue and crystalline as if a little of the sea has seeped into them. She’s wearing a singlet, her bare shoulders sculpted by years of paddling out through the surf. The shower seems to have washed away her concerns; there is none of the initial tension he sensed on the beach. ‘Martin, it’s nice to meet you.’ She stands, reaches across the desk, smiles warmly, shakes his hand. ‘Take a seat. You’re most welcome here.’

  Martin sits.

  ‘So how can I help you?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m trying to help a friend of mine, Mandalay Blonde.’

  ‘The woman in the papers, right? From your stories out west.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’ve met her. She seems nice.’ And she smiles, eyes teasing. ‘And she’s your friend, is she?’

  Martin, embarrassed by his poor choice of words, finds himself smiling shyly. ‘She’s my partner. I want to do whatever I can to help her.’

  ‘Jasper Speight,’ says Jay Jay, her voice even.

  ‘Yes. He was killed in her townhouse. The police are obliged to consider her a suspect.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  Jay Jay is no longer smiling; her mention of Jasper has brought a frown to her face. ‘Poor Jasper. I liked him.’

  ‘You knew him well?’

  ‘Well enough. He spent quite a bit of time out here.’

  ‘I was told he approached you about selling your land.’

  ‘He did. And if I ever was interested in selling, I would have sold through Jasper.’

  ‘Why?’

  She gestures with one hand, as if explaining the obvious. ‘He was a good guy. A bit troubled, but decent enough.’ Now she takes a deep breath, comes to some sort of decision. ‘About a year ago he tipped me off that the council was coming after me. He warned me to get the septic tanks in order, to check the quality of the drinking water, the cleanliness in the communal kitchen. Sure enough, a week or two later the health inspectors came through, including a bloke up from Sydney. In all likelihood, they would have closed me down if Jasper hadn’t warned me. A few months later, he told me the council wanted to up my rates. The advance warning gave me time to get the Green councillors on side, find out what the caravan park was paying and the backpacker hostel in town.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I have to pay more, but not nearly as much as they’d been planning to slug me. Less than the caravan park, more than the backpackers.’

  ‘More? But that place is smack in the middle of Port Silver, right on Town Beach.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s owned by Tyson St Clair, and he has clout on council. The council reckons the hostel’s footprint is much smaller, just one building. The caravan park and this place here have a lot more land.’

  Martin considers what she has told him. ‘Would it be fair to say that without Jasper’s help you’d be struggling to hang on to the place?’

  She shrugs. ‘That’s a hard one. At the very least, he saved me money and hassle. Gave me some breathing space.’

  ‘And Swami Hawananda? All the stories about drug use? Why hasn’t that shut you down?’

  Jay Jay looks irritated. ‘Because it’s bullshit. When the police raided us, they found nothing.’

  ‘You think they were put up to it?’

  ‘I don’t know. With all the media sensationalism, maybe they felt compelled to act.’

  ‘Health inspectors, a rates hike, a police raid. Sounds like an orchestrated attempt at intimidation.’

  Jay Jay smiles. ‘And yet, here I am.’

  ‘So why keep on the swami? Are you a follower?’

  She laughs at the suggestion. ‘I wouldn’t say that. But he’s a good money spinner. He has his side of the site, what happens there is on his head—but like I said, the police have found nothing.’

  ‘What do you mean his side of the site? I didn’t see any divisions.’

  ‘No. Everyone shares the kitchen, the showers, the beach. But this house is like a boundary. The cabins on the east side are reserved for him and his followers. He takes in twelve at a time for a fortnight’s retreat.’

  ‘How much does he charge?’

  ‘Five hundred bucks each, something like that. They pay me for the site, they pay him for his course.’ She smiles. ‘He’s harmless enough. A little eccentric but he’s kind and humble. I’m fond of him. People come here and meditate, eat vegan food and cleanse themselves. Stay for a fortnight, have a party at the end, leave happy. It helps pay the bills. It’s a win-win.’

  ‘So there are no drug parties and orgies?’

  She sighs. ‘His whole program is all about meditation and reflection and cleansing. It’s quite ascetic, almost spartan. But on the last night, there’s a ceremony, a celebration, to mark the end of the program and re-entering the world. There’ll be one this Friday. He makes up this ceremonial drink—a potion, if you like—and doles it out in a gold cup from an old wooden bowl. I don’t know exactly what’s in it, but as far as I know it’s just alcohol, fruit juices and spices.’

  ‘No ecstasy?’ asks Martin.

  ‘Not from him,’ she says earnestly. ‘People drink, smoke dope, no doubt some take other things. There’s often naked dancing. It’s great fodder for the papers, but not illegal.’

  And good publicity, thinks Martin, but he keeps the observation to himself. ‘And what about Jasper? You said he was here a lot; did he do the course?’

  Jay Jay laughs. ‘He did. Not sure how cleansed he got, but he seemed to enjoy it.’ The smile on her face eases. ‘Don’t be too cynical, Martin. I think he was looking for something, and what the swami offers seemed to help.’

  ‘Was he religious?’

  ‘Jasper? Not that I was aware of. Not in any formal way.’

  ‘When h
e died, he was holding a postcard. Of Christ or a saint. Did he ever mention anything like that?’

  Jay Jay frowns. ‘No. Not at all.’

  Martin is unsure where the conversation is heading, so he returns to the factual. ‘Did Jasper do anything else to help you?’

  ‘Yeah, he did. He said if I wanted to reduce my rates, get them much lower, I could place a conservation covenant on part of my land.’

  ‘A conservation covenant? What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a state government program. You place a legal covenant on part of your land, preserving it as a nature reserve in perpetuity. Even if you sell, the covenant holds, binding the new owner. In return, you don’t pay rates on that part of the land.’

  ‘That could stop this proposed development in one go.’

  But Jay Jay shakes her head. ‘Can’t see why it would. The part they want to develop is the land surrounding the beach here. I’m not planning to place a covenant on any of that. But if it reduces my costs, it makes it easier for me to stay on the place.’

  ‘I see. And the other land, the part slated for the reserve, is that valuable in any other way?’

  ‘No, not really. The trees are worth something, of course, but logging is banned in this shire nowadays. So no. There’s some land up along the clifftop that would be valuable, but I’d keep it out of any covenant.’

  ‘And you’re not considering selling?’

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  Martin considers this. If Hummingbird Beach isn’t in play, then the marina and golf course aren’t either. And yet Doug Thunkleton seemed to think the demolition of the cheese factory might happen anytime. ‘Did a man named Tyson St Clair ever approach you about selling?’

  ‘Sure. He and Jasper were representing the French company that wants to build one of their Longitudes chain of exclusive resorts. St Clair’s the one who wants to develop the swamp.’

  Tyson St Clair. Denise had mentioned his plans for the marina and golf course, but she’d given the impression it was only Jasper representing the French. Doug Thunkleton said St Clair already owned the cheese factory. ‘There’s something I don’t understand. If Jasper wanted you to sell, why did he warn you of rate increases and health inspectors, the very things that might have pushed you towards a sale?’

  Jay Jay shrugs. ‘He was a nice guy. Maybe he had different priorities.’

  Maybe, thinks Martin, recalling what she had said a few moments before: that if she sold, it would be through Jasper. He had helped her all right, but was it genuine, or was it simply a strategy to curry favour? ‘So was he competing with Tyson St Clair for the sale, or were they on the same team?’

  Another shrug. ‘I wouldn’t know. I told them both I was staying put. So it’s kind of academic.’

  ‘What can you tell me about Tyson St Clair? He’s a local developer, right?’

  ‘The biggest. I thought you might remember him.’

  ‘No. Why would I?’

  ‘He was a friend of your dad’s.’

  ‘He was?’ Martin can’t recall ever hearing the name. ‘Did you know my dad?’

  ‘Everyone knew your dad,’ she says flatly.

  He’s not sure how to respond to that. Instead he asks where he might find St Clair.

  ‘Nobb Hill. Drive up towards the lighthouse. His is the only house on the ocean side of the road. I hear he prefers to work from home.’

  He’s thinking of what else he needs to ask when a couple of backpackers enter. The young woman is wearing a flimsy white sarong made from loosely woven cheesecloth, leaving little to the imagination, while her boyfriend’s attire requires no imagination at all; he is completely naked except for a pair of sandals. Jay Jay looks him in the eye, unimpressed by his swaggering manhood.

  ‘Could you wait a moment, please?’ she says.

  ‘No. Sorry. We locked our room. Keys inside.’ His accent is from Central Europe.

  ‘Okay. I’ll be there in a moment.’

  ‘The gas cooker. It is on. Inside this cabin.’

  ‘Right,’ says Jay Jay, sighing with exasperation. ‘I’ll be right back,’ she says to Martin. She takes some keys and leads the couple out. In her absence, Martin looks about the room. The desk, some ancient filing cabinets, a bookcase full of dog-eared paperbacks, a rack of tourist pamphlets. To one side are shelves of food: cans of tomatoes, packets of pasta, cartons of long-life milk. Blocks of chocolate. There’s a fridge. Martin opens it: milk and beer, cheese and margarine. Martin wonders if Jay Jay has a liquor licence; he suspects not. On the wall, there’s a map of the district, some ancient surf posters, a scroll with the Desiderata printed against the backdrop of the ocean at sunset. Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence …

  Martin cringes and moves on. There are some framed photos, taken around the site, including one of a surfer cutting back into a wave with poise and power. Martin looks more closely. It’s a woman: Jay Jay Hayes. Martin looks again at the old posters; surely the bikini-clad woman exploding out of a curling tube, blonde hair streaming, is also Jay Jay: the champion in her prime.

  He’s moving towards the poster when he sees a cardboard box on the floor behind the desk. It contains large envelopes. They’re mostly white, professionally branded, too big for a filing cabinet. He crouches, takes a closer look. Scans: X-rays, MRI, PET, ultrasounds. More than a dozen of them, all addressed to Jennifer J. Hayes.

  The door bangs. ‘You right there?’ It’s Jay Jay, back from helping the Europeans.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Martin. ‘I was just looking around.’

  ‘So I see.’ Jay Jay appears seriously irritated. ‘I think you should leave.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ says Martin, but he’s halted by Jay Jay.

  She’s smiling, even though her voice isn’t. ‘Just go, Martin. No harm done. But go.’

  Martin is driving back into town, accelerating along the straight road, pondering property developers and hippie havens, when he sees it: the cross off beyond the verge. He checks his mirrors: there is no traffic, the road is empty, man-made symmetry imposed on nature. He negotiates a three-point turn, drives back, manages a U-turn and pulls over. The cross is made of wood, painted white, in need of a new coat, sitting slightly askew below the level of the road. Martin looks about him; this is where it happened. Such an unremarkable place, nothing special to it. Beyond the cross, the land dips down and the still water of the lagoon begins. There: that must be where the car entered the water. He’d always imagined it had happened on the other side of the road, the western side, where most of the water lies. He hadn’t realised the road sat on a kind of causeway, that the water was on both sides. Beyond the fatal site, across the water to the south-east, the land rises towards the cliffs, mangroves giving way to tea-trees and casuarinas and then to gums and palms and the myriad expressions of the rainforest. In the distance, the white lighthouse of Port Silver shines in the morning light. He’s alone, just him, the wind and the cross. There is a plaque attached to a rock at its base. In loving memory—Hilary, Enid and Amber. The words freeze him; in the heat of late morning, he’s motionless. His mother, his sisters. There is a posy of plastic flowers, recently placed, their colours yet to be bled by the sun. Vern. Vern must have built the cross, left the flowers. Martin considers the date. The anniversary of the accident was only a few weeks ago. Thirty-three years and a handful of weeks. How could he have forgotten it? Had he ever remembered it? Was it just something else he had blocked out, refused to remember? Was it always that painful? He doesn’t remember it like that, doesn’t remember it weighing upon him. He’d played with Scotty and Jasper, had fun, grown into a teenager even as his father deteriorated. Had it really been too painful to honour the dead? He had just turned eight when his mother and sisters died; he didn’t leave Port Silver for another ten years. And yet he’s never been here before, never in all that time, and never in the decades since. Had it been that easy, had he been that ruthless: shutting it out, compa
rtmentalising his mind? And his heart?

  He finds himself down on one knee, reaching out, touching the plaque, trying to connect. With what? His dead mother, his barely remembered sisters? Himself? A memory comes to him. He and Vern waiting in the empty house, happiness and anticipation seeping away, replaced by concern and a growing sense of dread, the fish and chips grown cold and soggy, the condensation on the champagne evaporating in the summer air, the expensive French bottle as unmoving as the Port Silver lighthouse. Martin remembers now: he had offered up a prayer to that bottle, the Veuve Clicquot, with its orange label and its promise of a new life, that talisman of hope with its foreign words and liquid joy. He had prayed that all was okay, that the car had broken down, that one of the twins was car sick and vomiting, that the celebrations would soon begin. But the champagne god had brought no joy, no deliverance. The phone had rung, Vern had answered, his voice low and sombre, and the rift in Martin’s life was made real forever.

  A van drives past, the one from Hummingbird Beach with its crude montage of tits and misogyny, shattering his contemplation and bringing him back to the present. He looks about as if seeing the scene with new eyes. What was his mother doing out here in the swamplands, so far from town, on a road leading nowhere? In the distance all he can see is the lighthouse.

  chapter eleven

  The lighthouse draws him to it: along Dunes Road through the mangroves, across the bridge over the Argyle, past the port and along The Boulevard, through the town and up the slope of Nobb Hill, past the trophy homes towards the shining white tower itself. And as Martin ascends the hill, the affluence rising with him, the lighthouse is whispering. It’s whispering money, that it’s all connected to money and land, the alluring mixture that captivates every coastal town on Australia’s east coast, from Sydney’s harbourside to Port Silver’s Nobb Hill, from Byron Bay to Noosa, from Bermagui to Port Douglas. It whispers the allure of paradise framed by triple-glazed windows and tempered by reverse-cycle air-conditioning, where tropical humidity is tamed by chlorinated plunge pools. Money and land and greed, it whispers, the silver in Port Silver. And it whispers death. Jasper’s death, the death of a real estate man, a trader in land and money and aspiration.That’s what killed him, it whispers: somehow, by the hand of someone, he was killed because of it. Silver. If only Martin can discover the vein, follow it to its source.