The Survivors

by Jane Harper

  ‘Are you going for a swim?’

  ‘Can we not change the subject?’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to.’ Verity regarded him across the kitchen. ‘I was going to ask if you were coping okay.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kieran swallowed. ‘Yeah. I guess so. I mean, this whole thing with Dad is –’

  He tried to find the word.

  ‘Confronting?’ Verity supplied.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Kieran had been going to say really shit, but sure, that was close enough.

  ‘It’s –’ Verity started, then hesitated.

  Kieran waited, genuinely curious what she was going to say, here in her kitchen surrounded by half-filled boxes of rubbish-stained clothes, packed by a man who had stood by her side for forty years and now looked at her as though he couldn’t quite place her. Verity stared into her coffee mug with a hint of a frown on her face. For a long moment, the only sound was the ticking of the kitchen clock, coming from a box beside the counter, then she took a breath. When she looked up, her expression was back to neutral.

  ‘The thing to remember, Kieran, is that feelings of uncertainty or anxiety are completely normal ahead of big –’

  She broke off as Kieran stood abruptly. No. He had absolutely no interest in sitting through a natural to fear change session led by his mother. He’d had to do that one already, a few times in fact, with actual qualified professionals.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk about this,’ he said. ‘I may as well swim.’

  Verity was firmly serene. ‘I thought we were talking.’

  ‘Did you really?’

  They looked at each other over the boxes. Then Verity opened her mouth.

  ‘All right.’ The mask was still perfectly in place. ‘Be careful in the water.’

  Her words were as light as air. Kieran stared at his mother. She gazed back. He genuinely could not tell if she was having a dig. Slowly, he picked up his towel and walked out of the kitchen, making sure not to slam the door, in case that meant something.

  ‘Where’s Finn off to?’ Brian’s question floated into the hall.

  Verity didn’t bother to correct him.

  At the back door, Kieran ignored a small patch of sand he’d missed, scattering the grains as he strode out onto the verandah. He looked out at the sea, hoping to find Mia walking barefoot in the shallows, or lying on a towel with their daughter.

  No Mia. No Audrey. The beach behind their house was empty.

  Kieran took out his phone and sent her another text. Where are you guys?

  He walked down the thin but well-worn path through the back gate and onto the sand. He stopped when he neared the tideline and turned, shielding his eyes.

  To the north, the rolling waves fizzed white against the sand. A couple of distant boats drifted with the breeze.

  To the south – Kieran froze.

  To the south, just a few minutes’ walk away, a small crowd had gathered. They were standing very still and close together, their heads down and dogs held tight on leads as they watched something unfolding at the shoreline. Their distress pulsed across the sand.

  Kieran would have known what it was, even without the flash of a blue uniform. Even without the police tape flapping against makeshift stakes outside what he could now see was Fisherman’s Cottage. There was only one thing in Evelyn Bay that drew a crowd like that to the water’s edge.

  Kieran dropped his towel and started to run.

  Chapter 6

  It wasn’t them, Kieran knew, his heels sinking into the damp sand as he tried to pick up speed. It wasn’t Mia and Audrey at the feet of that crowd.

  It wasn’t them, because someone would have knocked on his parents’ door by now. Kieran would not have been allowed to sit exasperated at his mother’s kitchen table while this played out a few hundred metres away.

  It wasn’t them, because otherwise the largely forgotten but familiar faces of neighbours that turned towards Kieran as he ran up now would surely be softened with sympathy.

  It wasn’t Mia or Audrey, Kieran told himself as he drew to a halt with his breath burning in his chest, because he simply could not bear it to be them.

  He was right.

  The small crowd shifted and parted a little, enough for him to see what it was that had drawn this silent vigil. And it wasn’t them. It wasn’t Mia lying still, with her hair lank against the damp sand, her bare arms mottled with an unearthly blue-white bloom of cold. It wasn’t Mia sprawled lifeless at the shoreline, with the distinctive bright orange glow of her waitress uniform darkened by the sea.

  It wasn’t Mia. It wasn’t even Olivia, thank God, as the plastic police tape shuddered and glinted in the breeze, roping off the path leading directly to Fisherman’s Cottage.

  It was Bronte.

  Kieran’s immediate thought was a pure, shameful rush of relief. He ran both hands over his face, horrified that someone might notice. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Do they know what happened?’ he said to the woman next to him, whose name he knew he should remember. He could picture her on his parents’ porch, sipping wine at barbecues. The woman shook her head, her grey hair catching the wind as her dog strained at its leash.

  ‘They haven’t said. I heard her housemate found her.’

  ‘Olivia?’ Kieran could see the roped-off gate leading to Fisherman’s Cottage.

  The woman nodded but said no more, her eyes on the horizon. Kieran’s own gaze crept back to Bronte.

  She was lying on her side, lengthways along the beach with her back to the sea. Her arms were limp and her face was pressed against the sand. The careful highlights in her hair were dull and matted. Her baby-doll eyes were closed.

  Kieran had a sudden flash of her, so different from this. Running through the spray after Audrey’s hat, looking out at the sea and laughing in frustration.

  A single young cop Kieran didn’t recognise stood near the water with his boots damp and sandy, guarding the territory between Bronte and the onlookers who had gathered a respectful distance away. His palm was held out as though to ward off anyone attempting to get closer. No-one had moved.

  ‘Shouldn’t they get her out?’ someone muttered as the tail end of a heavy wave raced up the sand and threatened to lap at the edge of the girl’s orange uniform.

  The young cop had no idea what he should be doing, even Kieran could see that. The guy had almost certainly spent the summer dealing with lost wallets and underage drinking. The officer kept glancing desperately towards Fisherman’s Cottage and looked relieved as the back door suddenly swung open and a voice shouted out.

  ‘Oi! Bloody go around!’

  A second police officer had stepped out onto the porch and was thrusting a finger in the direction of a couple of dog walkers who had broken away from the crowd and were attempting a short cut along the cordoned-off path.

  Kieran definitely recognised this cop. He used to be the young nervous one himself. Twelve years ago, the man had been Constable Chris Renn, fresh-faced and overeager to please in his first posting. Now, approaching forty and the town’s sergeant, Renn looked neither fresh nor eager.

  Renn’s hair had been thinning prematurely even back then, and his now completely bald head shone with a light sheen of sunscreen. He had always been fit, and Kieran recognised his build as that of a fellow gym-goer, albeit one who probably had to work harder these days than he’d used to.

  Renn watched until the cowed couple skulked off, their dog straining at the leash. He shook his head once, mouthing something that looked like unbelievable, then disappeared back inside. The door slammed shut and at the water’s edge, the young cop’s face fell.

  Kieran turned back to Fisherman’s Cottage. A small window overlooked a sandy garden and rickety, weather-worn fence. The back bedroom, probably, if the layout of this place was anything like his parents’. Bronte’s room, then.
Her window looked onto the beach, Olivia had said the night before.

  She thought she heard something out the back of the house a couple of nights.

  Olivia had said that too.

  Kieran looked at the window and imagined Bronte staring out at the dark. Listening. He glanced at the young cop, then back at the house. They’d hear all that from Olivia, he supposed, and he jumped as his phone beeped in his pocket. He pulled it out to read the message. Mia. He felt a fresh giddy rush of relief.

  I’m near the Surf and Turf. Where are you? Almost immediately, a second message. Something’s happened at the beach.

  He tapped a reply. I know, I’m here. On my way now. Talk when I get there.

  The response was quick. What’s going on? Something bad?

  Kieran looked back at Bronte. Her feet were bare and she had painted her toenails pink. A strip of seaweed was plastered to her cheek. The edge flapped in a gust of wind and settled slick and brown against her lips. She didn’t move.

  Yes.

  Something very bad. Kieran turned and stepped away from the crowd, his legs feeling unreliable. As he crossed the sand, he thought he sensed movement in the house and gave a start. Where the bedroom window had been blank, he could now see a figure, obscured by the reflection of the glass.

  Kieran took another step and the angle of the light changed, and he could see that it was only Sergeant Renn. The officer was hunched forward, his phone trapped between his shoulder and chin. He was nodding stiffly and appeared to be scribbling something in a notebook. He listened a bit longer, then ended the call and straightened up.

  Renn was very still, staring out through the glass, across the sand and down to the water. Then, as Kieran watched, he lifted a hand and dragged it slowly over his face. Forget the young cop, Kieran thought. It had been a long time since Chris Renn had had to deal with anything even close to this.

  Perhaps thinking the same thing, Sergeant Renn stood watching a minute longer. Then he turned abruptly and the window to Bronte’s room was empty again, the glass reflecting only the sky, the sea and the crest of white water breaking behind a lone dark shape in the sand.

  Chapter 7

  Kieran found Mia waiting outside the Surf and Turf, with Audrey strapped in the baby sling across her chest. The restaurant doors were locked and the lights were off, but the path outside was getting busy. Small groups clustered, split and re-formed as the morning’s passers-by were drawn in by the solemn faces and hushed whispers. Kieran edged through the throng and pulled Mia and Audrey into a hug hard enough to make his daughter screech.

  ‘Sorry, little one,’ he said. ‘I’m just very glad to see you.’

  Kieran’s hand paused as he stroked her head. She was wearing the yellow floral hat Bronte had fished out of the lost property box. From the way Mia was fiddling with the cotton rim, Kieran could tell she had heard the news.

  A woman coughed. ‘You come from the beach, Kieran?’

  Kieran looked over at a middle-aged bottle blonde who had been making faces at Audrey. She was wearing the familiar orange waitress uniform and Kieran knew without reading the tag on her shirt that her name was Lyn. He couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t worked at the Surf and Turf.

  ‘Yeah. I was just down there.’

  ‘They’re saying it’s Bronte.’

  He nodded.

  Lyn’s mouth hardened into a line and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She took a step away from Audrey as she lit up.

  ‘She was nice,’ she said. ‘Bronte.’

  ‘Did you know her well?’

  Lyn shrugged, her shoulders tight.

  ‘A bit, I suppose. She wasn’t like some of them we get. These casuals who forget they’re here to work. That wasn’t Bronte. Even lately, even though she only had a couple of weeks left on the roster, she still turned up for her shifts. Good with the customers too, even the tricky ones. Especially the tricky ones, sometimes.’ Lyn took a short drag, her mouth falling back into its thin line as she exhaled through her nose. She flicked her cigarette ash in the vague direction of the beach. ‘It’s too bloody dark down there, I’m always saying. It’s not safe.’

  Kieran thought back to the night before, sitting by the water with Mia. The marina lights behind them and stretch of sand ahead disappearing into shadow. How Mia had been reluctant to walk home through the pitch black. And so they hadn’t. They had gone a different way instead. He could tell from Mia’s face that she was thinking the same thing.

  ‘We’ve taken it up with the council,’ Lyn went on, her fingers twitchy. ‘I’ve told them that we need some lights along there. Twice, I’ve told them that. It’s in the AGM minutes. But some of the residents don’t like it, you know? Say it would make it hard to sleep. But I told them, you’ve got people coming from all over – the mainland, wherever – they don’t know what the water’s like. I mean, Bronte was from Canberra. She could probably barely swim –’

  ‘They’ve got pools in Canberra,’ Mia snapped, and Kieran blinked. That was unusual for her. She was fiddling with Audrey’s hat again, taking it off and putting it back on.

  Lyn regarded her through a veil of cigarette smoke. She nodded towards the ocean crashing beyond the line of trees. ‘That’s not pool water.’

  Kieran shook his head. ‘I don’t think Bronte was swimming, anyway,’ he said and they both looked at him. ‘She was wearing her work clothes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lyn’s whole face tightened as she absorbed that. ‘Well, maybe –’ She blinked hard. ‘Maybe she …’

  Kieran could see Lyn trying very hard to think of a good explanation. A good, perfectly plausible reason why a young woman might venture into the sea, in her uniform, late at night. A reason that would allow them all to avoid acknowledging an alternative that was suddenly hanging thick and dark and heavy in the air between them. None of them gave it life by putting it into words.

  Thick, dark alternatives like that did not belong in Evelyn Bay. It wasn’t fair to say Evelyn Bay was a place where nothing ever happened – things did, of course; ask anyone who had been there for the storm. But not often, and not whatever this was.

  ‘She was a really lovely girl,’ Lyn said finally. ‘Really kind. She swapped with me last week so I could take my cat to the vet. And once –’

  She stopped as a silver four-wheel drive pulled up, slowing to a crawl near them. The driver clocked the crowd and, ignoring the empty parking space on the street right out the front, put on his indicator and made to turn into the side delivery entrance.

  Kieran, Mia and Lyn stepped back to allow the car through, the surfboard strapped to its roof juddering as the wheels crunched over the gravel. The car pulled to a stop outside the Surf and Turf’s delivery door and the engine cut dead. The driver didn’t get out immediately and Kieran could make out the glow of a mobile phone pressed to his ear.

  Kieran didn’t recognise the car, but he knew the man. Julian Wallis, manager of the Surf and Turf. Kieran had caught sight of him the night before, cutting the music at closing time and instructing a scowling Liam to fetch the mop, and been struck by the way some people really never changed.

  Julian still had the same grey buzz cut he’d had as long as Kieran had known him. He had the angular ropey build of a distance runner, but it was water rather than road that had honed his shape. Julian had run the Nippers surf lifesaving group for kids ever since Kieran himself had been a member, and his voice had the kind of natural authority that still made Kieran feel the urge to jump into line and pay attention.

  Kieran watched now as the phone screen went dark inside the car. Julian sat behind the wheel for what felt like a long minute before opening the door. When he did step out, he looked shaken. Not much, but it was disturbing to see any show of emotion on Julian’s notoriously granite-like features.

  Sean had once said the only difference between
Julian winning the lottery and running over his dog was a tiny upward or downward inflection at the corner of his lips. There was no question which way things were going this morning. The inflection was firmly down.

  He went to unlock the side door to the restaurant and for the first time noticed Lyn at the edge of the driveway, waiting in her uniform.

  ‘Lyn. Sorry.’ He shook his head, distracted. ‘I meant to call you. You may as well head home. I’ll let you all know what’s happening when I know myself, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ The waitress trapped the very tip of her tongue between her yellowing teeth and even Kieran could hear the question she was fighting not to ask. Will we still get paid? It wasn’t unreasonable, Kieran thought, not with the slow season approaching.

  Julian didn’t seem to notice as he turned back to the side door, swearing under his breath as he struggled to get the lock to slide free. He tried again, successfully this time, and disappeared inside only to re-emerge a minute later clutching a large bunch of keys. He slammed the door, got back into his car without another word, and reversed faster than was possibly prudent before driving back the way he had come.

  ‘Does he still own Fisherman’s Cottage?’ Mia asked.

  ‘Yeah. Gives Olivia – and Bronte, I guess – a staff discount on the rent.’ Lyn paused. ‘So I suppose Chris Renn will be needing to have a word with him.’

  ‘I saw Sergeant Renn down at the beach,’ Kieran said, picturing the broad police officer framed in the bedroom window. ‘He’s in charge still?’

  Lyn nodded and kicked her spent cigarette butt into the sandy ditch.

  ‘For now, anyway –’ She broke off, and before Kieran could ask what she meant, Lyn had turned her attention to the road, where a dark-haired man was approaching. He was frowning at his mobile phone, typing something furiously with his thumb as he walked.

  ‘Oh God.’ Lyn rolled her eyes. ‘Here’s another one who won’t be happy. He likes his routine. He’ll have to go to the library instead. George –’ She raised her voice as the man, still oblivious, climbed the steps to the Surf and Turf’s front entrance. He looked up in surprise when the locked door rattled in his hand.