The Reach

by B. Michael Radburn

  An isolated town with a dark past …

  In secluded Devlins Reach, on the shores of the Hawkesbury River, three bodies are unearthed in an excavation site. When a wilderness expert, Park Ranger Taylor Bridges, is called in to assist local police, he soon discovers the town has an unsettling history – one to match Taylor’s own haunted past.

  But the quiet location and picturesque beauty of The Reach are hiding something darker than Taylor could have anticipated. Within the town’s tight-knit community of loggers, store owners and tight-lipped locals, someone is targeting the residents one by one.

  As a torrential storm surges ever closer, and the river swells at the levee walls, The Reach goes into lockdown. With no way in or out, Taylor finds himself in a race against the power of nature to find a desperate killer before the whole town goes under.

  Also by B. Michael Radburn

  The Crossing

  The Falls

  Blackwater Moon

  ‘There are places in this world that seem somehow tainted, no matter how

  beautiful. Like blood on a diamond. This was such a place.’

  Captain Samuel R. Devlin

  For Ron ‘Bill’ Jones.

  May all your seas be calm and your sails full of a gentle wind.

  You were loved, old friend.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Book Club Questions

  About the Author

  The Devil Inside Chapter Sample

  PROLOGUE

  Devlins Reach, Dharug National Park

  New South Wales

  A story is never far away … you just have to dig a little. The journalist tells the story, while the photographer shows it. But, given the right photo, that one glimpse of time can speak volumes. That was Brewer Hutch’s quest … to capture the picture that roared.

  Hutch struggled through the marina service station’s front door, his camera bag slipping from his shoulder and spilling hot coffee all over his hand. ‘Shit!’ he hissed, letting the screen door snap shut behind him as he eased the bag onto the veranda floor. Hutch sat, composed himself, licked coffee off his thumb and sighed.

  The morning sun, low on the eastern horizon, glimmered off the wake of the river ferry across the way. Its engine burbled faultlessly, a gentle drone in the crisp, quiet air. But the relative peace was soon disrupted by the squeal of brakes from a midnight-black Kenworth hauling logs from the mill in the high country. Hutch recalled the sign he’d seen coming into town yesterday: Big River Logging Co. The Kenny stopped at the ramp’s T-junction and turned off its motor with a monstrous exhale from the airbrakes.

  Hutch squinted against the light, fished a pair of Ray-Bans from his battered leather jacket, and polished them clean on the hem of his faded Motorhead T-shirt. He held the glasses up to the light, and observed the weary reflection staring back at him. His face appeared to be a decade older than his thirty-five years, the consequence of a restless night in an unfamiliar bed. He slipped the Ray-Bans on.

  Hutch knew this assignment wasn’t a Pulitzer-Prize-winning gig – far from it. But no one goes on assignment expecting to take a prize-winning photo. Those pics come from the mundane, in a burst of the extraordinary. He’d learned the phrase from his editor, Brendan Dahl at the Herald, and would never forget it. ‘They happen every day,’ Bren had told him. ‘The trick is being ready … sensing that moment just before it happens, because no one knows the weight of the accursed second more than the photographer. It can make the difference between a good photo and a bad one. Between being a Pulitzer winner or a putz.’

  Hutch glanced at his wristwatch, anxious for the phone call from Parks and Wildlife. He sipped his coffee, watched the ferry straining closer along its taut cable, a single cream utility parked in the centre bay. The pick-up looked old – a mid-sixties Ford, perhaps – but very much suited to the district. Devlins Reach was one of those towns stuck in time – a photographer’s dream, Hutch decided. There was something about it that the present could not quite touch … like a memory … or even a ghost.

  Hutch relaxed back and stared out over the vast river. ‘How about it?’ he whispered to the universe. ‘Is today gonna be extraordinary?’ But the universe remained tight-lipped about the whole matter, so he sipped his coffee and eased into the calm, looking around at the environment so different from the city, just two hours away. The Hawkesbury’s tributary of Devlins Reach cut its way through the lower portion of coastal ranges, its ridged fingers spreading through acres of plantation forests, filling the air with a perfume of pine, eucalyptus and brackish water.

  The sound of the ferry claimed his attention once more. It ground to a halt directly across from the service station, bow ramp milling against the road’s concrete incline with a squeal. Hutch wiped his lips with his jacket sleeve as the Kenny growled to life again with twin plumes of blue-grey poison coming from its exhaust stacks.

  Two boys wheeled their bicycles around the closed gates and off the bow of the ferry. Hutch guessed they were around twelve or thirteen. The one in a grey hoodie stopped to tie the vessel to the roadside bollard, then caught up with his fair-haired companion, who wore a sagging windcheater, a faded red against the diamond glimmers of the morning sun off the river.

  The Ford utility, doors and mudguards speckled with rust, eased off the deck behind the boys when the gates opened. The driver was an older woman with silvery hair tied up in a stringy bun. She stared at Hutch through cloud-grey eyes as she passed him. Hutch nodded, but received nothing in return, so turned his attention to the ferry as its waterline dipped deep into the river under the weight of the Kenworth’s logs.

  The two boys were climbing the rise towards the marina. Hutch sat upright on the bench. The boys leaned their bikes against two veranda posts, then stood in front of the Coke machine beside Hutch. He watched as the kid in the grey hoodie pulled a fistful of coins from his jeans pockets and flicked back his hood. He had the same fair hair, full cheeks and line of faded freckles across the bridge of his nose as the other boy. Hutch guessed they were brothers, with Grey Hoodie the eldest.

  The Coke machine delivered its bounty with a clatter of small change. Grey Hoodie cracked open the bottle and drank first, then passed it to his brother, who wiped the rim with the hem of his windcheater and drank deeply. These boys were used to sharing. Grey Hoodie caught Hutch’s eye and frowned with a What are you looking at glare. Hutch grinned as the small-town cliché played out before him. Welcome to Devlins Reach, he thought. Then his phone rang.

  Hutch plucked it out of his pocket, hoping it was his Parks and Wildlife contact with good news. He pursed his lips, disappointed at seeing his editor’s name on the screen. ‘Hey, Bren.’

  ‘Brewer … I’m looking around the office and don’t see you anywhere. I’m also looking in the submissions file and don’t see the pictures for the Sunday feature … Should I be worried?’

  ‘There was a delay yesterday,’ Hutch explained, ‘so I stayed the night. Parks can’t get me access to the excavation site without approval from the university. It’s the university’s dig and they’re in no hurry to get bac
k to me.’

  ‘I thought that was prearranged.’

  ‘So did I. Parks said the university would give them the okay before I arrived, but apparently it has to go before some board first. They can’t guarantee that’ll happen before the weekend.’ Hutch braced himself for the response.

  ‘Shit, Brewer! We’re already advertising the fucking feature for this Sunday. Do you have anything I can use?’

  Hutch glanced down at his camera bag, noticing the two boys were watching him. He turned his back on them. ‘I’ve got a ton of pictures of the surface mounds and entry hatches, but that’s it.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! You do know what a photo feature means, don’t you?’

  Hutch knew the sarcasm didn’t require an answer.

  Brendan continued, ‘Emma Hatfield has written a great piece on these buried riverboats, “Ghost Ships of the Hawkesbury”, but it needs your fucking pictures, man.’

  ‘I’ll get them,’ Hutch said. ‘Trust me.’

  There was a moment of silence, and Hutch turned around and looked at the kids. The older boy was now sitting on the end of the bench, the other’s eyes strangely focused on Hutch’s lips.

  ‘You know, sometimes it’s best to ask for forgiveness after the fact, rather than for permission before.’

  Hutch sighed. ‘I understand, Bren. Don’t worry. You’ll get your pictures.’ He ended the call.

  The younger kid patted his chest to get his brother’s attention, then fervently signed something with his hands. The kid was deaf – no, earing impaired, Hutch corrected himself.

  The older boy agreed with a curt nod to whatever his brother was saying. ‘Hey, mister,’ he said to Hutch, ‘if you need to get inside those buried boats, my brother and I can get you down there.’

  Hutch glanced backwards and forwards between the two boys. He didn’t like going outside the law, but where was the crime? He just needed those pictures. ‘You’re not shitting me, are you, kid?’

  The older boy looked indifferent. ‘Nope,’ he said tersely.

  Hutch smiled. ‘What are your names?’

  ‘The name’s Jayden Wiggins, but everyone calls me Jay,’ he said and nodded at the other boy. ‘This is Fingers, my brother.’ He gestured to the ferry carrying its heavy load across the river. ‘Our father is the ferry master. Everyone knows our dad.’ His lip turned up at the corner in an aborted smile. ‘Sooner or later, everyone has to. He’s the first and last face you’ll see on the Reach.’ He returned his stare to Hutch. ‘There ain’t no place on the Reach we can’t get you.’

  Hutch took a final sip of his coffee, then retrieved his camera bag. ‘Okay, let’s do this.’ He stood to go.

  Fingers patted his chest, and Jay turned to him, watched his hands dance in conversation. Jay signed back, not as fluidly, but just as quickly. They then nodded in unison. ‘It’ll cost you,’ Jay said.

  Hutch paused. ‘What ever happened to civic duty?’

  ‘What ever happened to earning an honest dollar?’ Jay replied.

  ‘What are you, forty?’

  Jay shrugged nonchalantly. ‘We can get you down there, or leave you here … Your call.’

  The kid meant it. ‘I’ll give you ten bucks for your service.’

  Fingers simply shook his head. He could clearly lip-read well enough.

  ‘Twenty,’ said Jay. ‘Each,’ he added.

  ‘You’re killing me,’ Hutch said. But forty bucks was a small price to pay for making his deadline. He retrieved his wallet from his jeans, plucked out two notes, handed one to Fingers and waved the other under Jay’s nose. Jay went to grab it, but Hutch yanked it away and slipped it in his jacket pocket. ‘That’s yours once you get me down there, okay? Shall we go?’ Hutch gestured to his car. Jay getting over his evident disappointment, signed to Fingers and they grabbed their bikes.

  ‘Keep up,’ Jay cried over his shoulder. He mounted his weathered Raleigh and rolled down the driveway to the road that led into town.

  Hutch smiled. He took his time starting his Mazda, pulled out leisurely and was soon behind the two boys, who were lucky to be doing fifteen ks. Keep up, huh? Then the kids left the road and turned sharply onto a track on the right. Jesus! Hutch missed the turnoff, braked hard. ‘Okay,’ he whispered, and reversed. ‘I get it.’

  The trail was barely a goat track, obviously unused in a long time. He turned onto it, coarse bush and tree branches squealing along the car’s paintwork as its narrow wheels slid over the loose surface at each bend. A fallen tree came way too close for comfort on the first tight bend. Hutch lost sight of the boys, pushing his luck on the trail, and was ready to give up when he caught a fleeting glimpse of Fingers’ red windcheater ahead. Then they were gone again. I’ll give you keep up, he thought, and pushed the accelerator a little harder – and his driving ability even more so.

  The track arced around the back of the service station and headed towards the river. This makes sense, Hutch decided. The boat hulks lay buried in reclaimed land north of the town. Maybe he didn’t need the kids after all. He relaxed a little, realising he had been holding his breath during the pursuit, and slowed down. Then he saw the kids in a clearing of she-oaks, and didn’t know whether to be angry or relieved. He settled for a little of each as he parked beside them.

  Hutch collected his camera bag from the passenger seat and stepped out. He rubbed his free hand along the scratches in the paintwork. ‘This little picnic just cost a lot more than forty bucks,’ he murmured.

  ‘It’s over here,’ said Jay.

  Hutch turned. The kid was pointing through the oaks to a single track. ‘Lead the way,’ he said.

  They walked in silence. The track squeezed through the crowded undergrowth, descending into the sound of lapping water ahead. Stipples of blue sky broke through the curtain of oaks – hinting at a clearing – and finally there was something Hutch could recognise: one of the earthen heaps that defined the dig site. He stood between the two boys at the tree line. It bordered a vast meadow of the university’s archaeology mounds – secured entries to the buried hulks below. The scene was very familiar, only this time he was inside the security fence, feeling empowered; not outside and ineffective, as he was the day before. Jay and Fingers crouched behind a modest deadfall of trees. Hutch followed suit. The site was clear all the way to the levee bank that skirted the water’s edge. They ducked lower as a logging truck rumbled past the eastern fence line, its trail of dust billowing across the clearing.

  ‘When was the last time the university people were out here?’ Hutch asked.

  ‘Last summer,’ said Jay. ‘One of the boats was exposed in a wash-away after the big rains. Place was crawling with triple-Os for a couple of months.’

  ‘Triple Os?’

  ‘That’s what our dad called them … Overpaid, Over educated and Over here.’

  Hutch smiled, remembered his father’s joke about archaeologists. ‘Hey, kid,’ he said. Fingers stared unblinkingly at his lips. ‘Why did the archaeologist go bankrupt?’

  He waited, but all he got from the boys was a bewildered shrug.

  ‘Because his career was in ruins.’

  The thinnest of smiles touched Fingers’ lips, but Jay remained stony-faced. Hutch let it go.

  ‘Why would someone want to bury a bunch of boats, anyway?’ Jay asked.

  Hutch had removed his Nikon from its bag and hung it around his neck. He recalled the first draft of Emma’s article, which he’d read before he left the city.

  ‘Captain Devlin made his money running a fleet of riverboats up and down this part of the Hawkesbury in the eighteen sixties, but when the roads came through, they killed his business.’ He pointed beyond the levee. ‘Devlin scuttled the useless fleet here, at the point, reclaimed the land on top of them, with the intention of developing Devlins Reach with his money, but the first major flood broke the banks and wiped out his fledgling town. That’s when he established it to the south – you know, higher ground – where it stands today.’

&nbs
p; ‘Still seems like a stupid idea,’ said Jay.

  ‘A stupid idea that makes a great story.’ Hutch considered the limited space he might have in the hulks and swapped his standard camera lens for a wide angle, but slipped the moderate zoom lens in his jacket pocket just in case. He tested the flash. ‘San Francisco Bay is partially reclaimed land, atop hundreds of scuttled ships and barges that were abandoned to rot after the gold rush there.’

  Fingers rubbed his watering eyes, no doubt still seeing spots from the camera’s flash.

  ‘You know something else,’ continued Hutch. ‘Those concealed boats in the States were often stumbled across by the tunnelling teams that built the subway system in the sixties, and now the trains run right through some of them.’

  ‘That’s kinda cool,’ said Jay. ‘But our boats are better.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s not as cool as this twenty-dollar note I’m holding for you,’ Hutch said. ‘So, how about we see these boats of yours?’

  Jay’s eyes lit up at the reminder of his money. ‘This way,’ he said, brushing past Hutch towards the fence. ‘A sinkhole opened up above one of them a few weeks back.’ He hugged the shade of the tree line. The wind, as slight as it was, had begun to whistle through the she-oaks’ slender foliage.

  The boys stopped at a drop-away in the earth, encircled by a cluster of poplar trees, a tangle of exposed roots crisscrossing the cavity. Hutch kneeled at the opening.

  ‘There you go,’ said Jay, his hand out, thumb and forefinger pinched together. ‘You owe me twenty.’

  ‘Nice try,’ said Hutch. ‘But we’re not in yet.’

  Jay rolled his eyes. He sat on the edge, legs dangling into the hole. ‘Okay. I’ll go first, then you, then Fingers.’ Having signed the conversation for his brother’s benefit, he slid into the opening with a dull thud.

  Hutch could see the boy’s face staring up at him in the dim light. It looked like a two-metre drop.

  ‘You coming down or what?’ Jay asked.

  Hutch held the Nikon over his head and slid down, a thin stream of dirt and stones following behind. The floor felt solid but a little spongy underfoot. A pungent, earthy dampness filled his nostrils. Jay pulled Hutch aside to make way for his brother. Fingers clutched the webbing of tree roots, hung there a moment, then dropped down beside them.