Whispers Through the Pines

by Lynne Wilding

  For my son, Brett Gumbley, with love.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  FOREWORD

  MAP

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Books by Lynne Wilding

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  FOREWORD

  Geologists claim that the upward thrust of a volcano from the Pacific Ocean floor to a height of 318 metres above sea level created Norfolk Island.

  Measuring eight kilometres by five kilometres, the island is approximately 1700 kilometres northeast of Sydney. For over three million years this island remained unnamed and uninhabited by anything other than developing flora and fauna. A stand of banana trees found during the first settlement indicated earlier occupation by Polynesians and additional evidence has confirmed this.

  In 1774, Captain James Cook, while sailing the Resolution from New Caledonia to New Zealand, discovered and christened the island “Norfolk” after the Duchess of Norfolk of that time.

  Six weeks after the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove in 1788, the first settlement of Norfolk Island began with a party of nine men and six women convicts, seven free men and a company of soldiers. This settlement was intended to provide produce for the people of Sydney Town; find a way to cultivate the flax found on the island; and, if suitable, harvest the Norfolk pine tree for ships’ masts. The flax and masts program failed and by the early 1800s produce for Sydney Town was not needed so the settlement was utterly abandoned by 1814.

  It wasn’t until 1825 that the British Crown decided to establish a penitentiary on Norfolk Island to house convicts who had committed second offences while serving their sentences at penal settlements in the New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land colonies. The decision made Norfolk Island, arguably, the most notorious place of punishment for 19th century British convicts. So terrible were the conditions and the cruelty meted out by those in control, that the island soon became renown as a place of infamy and dread.

  The most creditable achievement of successive commandments during the 1825 to 1855 second settlement period was, having an abundance of convict labour at their disposal, the construction of many fine buildings. These are now well preserved or restored and provide fine examples of Georgian architecture: the Foreman of Works’ cottage, the Surgeon’s cottage, the Engineer’s Office, the Commissariat store, the new and old Military Barracks, and stately Government House, as well as a variety of dwellings along Quality Row are all splendid. They are still occupied and testify to the skills of those who originally built them.

  In 1847, the British Government decreed that the penal settlement be abolished. And so, by the mid 1850s most of the population had left the island.

  The third and only lasting settlement of Norfolk Island began on 8th June, 1856 when all the descendants of the mutineers of the ship Bounty, who had lived on Pitcairn Island, were sent to inhabit Norfolk Island as a new homeland. To this day approximately half of the 1500 permanent residents proudly claim their descent from ‘mutineers’ stock.

  Today the only reminders of Norfolk Island’s brutal convict era survive in the picturesque remains of prison and hospital walls and the houses built by the convicts. Norfolk Islanders currently enjoy an enviable lifestyle. With virtually no unemployment, and a balanced budget, the island exports the indigenous Norfolk Pine and Kentia Palm (of Lord Howe Island origin) worldwide. It is almost self-sufficient in food production, and the residents pay no income tax, though indirect taxes are levied to produce a locally raised revenue of over $10 million per year.

  Self government has given the island a multitude of attractions, both scenic and historical, and tax free shopping help to make Norfolk Island a desirable destination for Australian and New Zealand visitors.

  As they say in native Norfolker: Si yorli morla. (See you there tomorrow.)

  Lynne Wilding

  MAP

  PROLOGUE

  Rain-laden clouds raced across the sky and in the distance thunder boomed.

  She looked up from her contemplation of rocks smoothed by the ceaseless ocean and the passage of time as a lightning bolt discharged itself into the roiling sea. The weather reflected how she felt, for her anger matched the fury of the approaching storm, and the rumbling sounds of nature at its most ferocious echoed her grim mood.

  Her gaze moved about the cove, registering the crash of mountainous waves hurling themselves against the rocks. The wind had whipped the tops into foaming crests which, for several seconds, peaked and then curled over to smash again, and again until all that was left were passive ripples.

  The ocean was restless, as she was, and ever moving. Had she not been watching such scenes for so long? Waiting. For too long. Waiting for a change in the pattern of life around her that would set her free. Finally.

  Her fingers curled into fists and the nails, some broken, others long, curved into her palm so hard that they tore the skin. Opening her fingers she stared at the damage she had wrought the skin and asked the question she asked herself every day. How long must I endure this? I have been waiting for an eternity, or so it seemed to her. Dear God, have mercy on me…

  She stood up, legs braced wide apart to withstand the buffeting wind, and then she pushed her arms above her head in a supplicating gesture to the heavens. Please, dear God, let there be an end to this, this emptiness, this void. The wind was her only answer. As if it were a living entity, it plucked at her clothes, whipping them about her limbs. It fanned her long hair across her face in a tangle which obscured the twisted agony of her expression. It whispered and whistled about her but denied the answer she craved.

  Her throat muscles constricted and a cry, inhuman in its despair, tore from her lips. ‘Help me. Someone, please help me.’

  A kilometre away from the shore, nestled in a grove of pines, a weathered timber cottage bore the force of the wind as it had for over eighty years. Behind the cottage stood a shed disproportionately large when compared to the cottage.

  Inside the shed three walls were lined with shelves containing pieces of pottery at various stages of completion. A woman sat at a potter’s wheel, her hands wet and clay-encrusted as she began to work the lump of clay into a wide, low fruit bowl.

  The fringe of Nan Duncan’s short cropped hair, once blonde but now flecked with grey, fell across her vision. She impatiently pushed the strands back, leaving a smudge of clay across her forehead in the process. Four and a half months away from her fiftieth birthday, she had raised four unruly children, all grown now and spread between Australia and New Zealand. An early widowhood and a struggle at times to make ends meet, even though she was a talented potter, were reflected in Nan’s face. It had been a life of ups and downs. Deep character lines crisscrossed her face and neck but, somehow, they did not detract from the outdoorsy attractiveness of her features. Grey eyes nestled behind bifocals and her
mouth, a little too wide, seemed to bear a perennial smile, despite her problematic life. Slim to the point of being rakishly thin, she wore her working clothes—an old sweater with denim patches at the elbows and frayed at the end of the sleeves, a plaid skirt, red striped socks and clay-spattered sandshoes.

  A gust of wind bent a high shrub to make a noisy tattoo against the many-paned glass window of the shed, which the family had laughingly dubbed her studio, but above the rat-a-tat-tat of the branches came a thin keening wail.

  Nan’s hands stopped their perpetual motion. The smile froze. Fingers that had begun to show early signs of rheumatoid arthritis stretched, stiffened. Her head shot up, her body stilled, her heartbeat quickened as the piercing noise wove its way into her brain, then to her heart and finally to her soul. Her foot eased off the pedal as the unnatural sound penetrated her concentration and distracted her from her task.

  She frowned as she sat, statue-like, under the beam of the strong neon light. The sound was familiar, she’d heard it before, many times—for as long as she could remember, in fact. Always it came with the wind from the south and before a storm. She remembered that too. Her mother, God rest her soul, had explained when she’d been small that the noise came from the wind whipping around the rocks of Cresswell Bay. A logical explanation, Nan agreed, but even so, the shrill whistling set her nerves on edge. It always did.

  Another gust of wind pushed against the old wall, making the timber joints creak, the tin roof rattle. And then the shrieking faded—within a few seconds—to nothingness.

  Nan’s head moved to one side as she allowed herself a moment’s reflection. One day, maybe, her brother Marcus, would find the source of the nerve-rattling noise. He had tried twice but had been beaten by the fierce weather, almost as if nature intended to protect its secret forever. He’d be here soon, when the current semester at Auckland University finished. A smile creased the lines in her cheeks once more. It would be good to see him.

  Slowly her fingers relaxed. She dipped her hands into the bowl of water by the side table close to the wheel and her foot pressed down on the pedal. The wheel began to spin, slowly at first, then faster as the pedal which controlled the motor picked up. Fingers lovingly worked the clay, out and up, out and up, smoothing, shaping, creating…the unnatural shriek of the wind stored in the back of her mind as she bent again to her task.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Atapered finger, nail filed and polished, pushed the elevator floor button. Six. She checked her watch. Twenty-five past eight am. Alone in the elevator she had time to check that her grey suit jacket was done up, the skirt straight, that every strand of chestnut hair was in place, with no locks creeping out from her smooth chignon style, as they were wont to do. As the sixth floor approached, she worked on her facial expression. Calm. Serene. Accepting. Yes, especially that. She took a deep breath as the doors opened, tightened her grip on her attache case and moved confidently across the foyer to the reception desk of Greiner, Lowe and Pearce.

  ‘Jessica!’ Faith Wollinski’s expression betrayed surprise as she recognised her boss. ‘I didn’t, we didn’t expect you in today. Ummm, yet.’ She bit her freshly lipsticked lips in distraction, not sure of what to say next, other than, ‘I’m so sorry…for your loss.’ Her sigh was an acknowledgement that the sentence was inadequate.

  Jessica Pearce held up her hand. ‘Please, Faith, I can read the expression in your eyes. I’m fine. The family agree. The best therapy for me is work and plenty of it.’ She pulled her mouth into the semblance of a smile, forced a touch of nonchalance into her pose as she leant on the reception desk and browsed through a pile of files. ‘David says there’s plenty of that around here.’

  ‘You’re not wrong, Mrs Pearce,’ Mandy, the twenty-year-old receptionist piped up. ‘Mr Greiner and Mr Lowe have really missed you these last few weeks.’

  ‘Well, no one has to miss me any more,’ Jessica said brightly. She picked up her case and headed down the corridor towards her office. Half turning back over her shoulder, she asked, ‘Could I impose, Faith? A cup of coffee, black…in ten minutes, after I’ve gone through the mail.’

  ‘Two sugars,’ Faith confirmed. ‘I haven’t forgotten how you like it.’ She gnashed her teeth at the triteness of the remark, aware of her inability to cope with the awkwardness of the situation. And she was quick enough to note Jessica’s half-smile, saw that it didn’t quite reach the eyes as she turned away. Her expression thoughtful, she studied Jessica’s retreating figure as her boss walked the eight metres or so to her office door. The shoulders were tense, spine stiff as a board. Just hanging on, she suspected.

  ‘Did you see her eyes—they looked strange,’ Mandy half whispered. ‘Do you think she’s okay, Faith?’

  Eight years of loyalty made the middle-aged Faith’s answer positive. ‘Of course. Jessica’s been through a dreadful trauma, but she’s strong. She’ll survive it.’ She glanced at the younger woman and added in an authoritative tone. ‘I’m sure that what she doesn’t want is people here hovering over her and looking worried. Buzz David and Max. Let them know she’s in.’

  Jessica, aware that she’d been holding her breath as she walked away from the two women, exhaled in a mighty burst as she closed the door behind her. She closed her eyes. First ordeal, contact—over. She allowed her body to rest against the timber door as if trying to gain strength from the solidity of the object.

  With her eyes still closed, she listened to the hum of the air conditioning, observing that it still had that annoying rattle. Outside the window muted sounds of peak-hour traffic as vehicles proceeded to build up along St George’s Terrace wafted up without noisy intrusion. Through closed lids she perceived light streaming in through the waist-high glass window from which an expansive view of the Swan River and part of Perth’s city skyline could be seen. Otherwise, there was silence, complete and utter, except for the ridiculously fast beating of her heart.

  Her lids slowly opened and she looked around the office that had been almost a second home to her for so many years.

  Everything looked the same as it had three weeks ago. The cedar-panelled wall behind her desk. A Pro Hart rested on the left wall, far away from her own watercolour of a bush scene painted near New Norcia, which had won second place in a state art competition when she’d been twenty-five. The two teak filing cabinets, the glass-topped desk, so neat, thanks to Faith’s pathological need to be tidy, and on the windowsill stood a lone bromeliaed about to flower. Photos of her and Simon taken at the Pinnacles Desert were the only adornment atop the filing cabinets. The wall opposite the window was a bookcase filled with legal volumes. The beige carpet, nice, thick, toned with the room’s neutral colours. Familiar. Comfortable. The same…

  Yes, the room was the same, but she was different, changed. Forever.

  Her limbs felt suddenly heavy, and it took a conscious effort of will to force herself to advance to the desk. She draped her jacket and purse over the hat stand behind the desk, sat in the padded swivel chair. Breathed in, breathed out. Control it, she told herself. Don’t think about him. Work, hard work’s the only cure for you, you know. It will numb the pain, the memories, that’s what her commonsense told her, what everyone had told her, but she wasn’t sure.

  She glanced at her in-tray. Several briefs enclosed by pink binding ribbon awaited her attention. A blank message pad stood at the ready, its corner tucked under the right-hand side of the leather-edged blotter. Messages rested in a neat pile and were tucked in an adjacent corner. Unopened letters sat to the right of the desk blotter. As she reached for them, she realised that her hand was trembling, noticeably. She curled the fingers into a fist for several seconds, then picked up the top letter and slit the envelope open. It was a handwritten note of condolence…

  Though the temperature of the room was a pleasant 22° Celsius, beads of perspiration formed across Jessica’s forehead and above her upper lip. She twitched as nerve endings under her skin pulsed erratically. She longed to scratch them to ea
se the irritation. Don’t, she commanded. Get to work. She pushed the pile of letters aside and reached for a brief, put it before her and opened the folder. The text blurred. Reading glasses, stupid! She took the gold-rimmed spectacles out of her attache case and put them on. She began to read…Smithers versus Smithers.

  Family Law was Jessica’s specialty within the firm of Greiner, Lowe and Pearce, and she had been appointed junior partner late last year. Over the previous five years, she had earned a reputation as a successful and fair-minded lawyer in the law courts of Perth. And, sadly, there was no shortage of cases. Divorces, property settlements, disputes over children’s visiting rights. The cases, the emotional stress clients brought with them were never ending.

  She made herself read the first three pages of the Smithers brief and then a renegade thought intruded upon her concentration.

  Her head snapped up. Her gaze roamed the room, searching every nook and cranny of it. Something was amiss. Something important was missing from the room’s interior, from the corner of her desk. A panicky, increasing heartbeat had her hands twisting together, pulling at her engagement and wedding ring as she sought the missing item. She got up, went over to the filing cabinets and pulled each drawer open. Not there. Then she checked every drawer in her desk. Nothing.

  The door opened and Faith came in with the coffee.

  Jessica, her gaze narrowing in suspicion, asked outright. ‘Where did you put it?’

  ‘Put what, dear?’

  Exasperation hissed in her tone. ‘You know. Did they tell you to hide it?’ She studied Faith’s bland expression and the frustration, the anger that had been building inside her grew. The nerve endings under her skin were driving her crazy, as if something were alive under the first layer. Unconsciously she rubbed the inside of her forearms. ‘The photo, Faith. Where’s the photo?’

  ‘Oh!’ Comprehension. ‘Yes. The partners and I,’ Faith noted Jessica’s increasing agitation and said in a rush, ‘we thought it best to put it aside for a while. Till you, until…sufficient time had passed and…’