The Survivors

by Jane Harper

  ‘Closed, I’m afraid, George, love.’

  The man blinked, and Kieran recognised him as the customer with the laptop who Bronte had served the night before. He appeared to have his laptop with him again today, only now it was encased in a battered leather satchel slung across his chest. He had turned up the collar of his light jacket against the sea breeze and, somewhat improbably, had an actual print newspaper tucked under his arm. The fact he was no older than early forties and had the world’s news on the phone in the palm of his other hand made the perfectly innocent object look like a nostalgic affectation.

  ‘Why is it shut?’ he asked Lyn, peering through the Surf and Turf’s darkened windows. Kieran saw Mia watching him with a faintly puzzled look on her face.

  ‘There’s been an accident. Down at the beach,’ Lyn said. ‘Something’s happened to Bronte.’

  The man turned at that. ‘Really? Is she okay?’

  ‘No.’ Lyn’s voice was tight. She lit another cigarette. ‘No. Sergeant Renn’s down there now.’

  The man looked at her, then nodded slowly, getting her meaning. He swapped his newspaper to his other arm and pulled out his phone again, tapping with a different intent this time, his expression sober as he scrolled. Kieran watched him, then turned as Mia touched his arm and pointed across the road.

  Ash, grey-faced and walking so fast that his dog had to trot to keep up with him, had his eyes down and his own phone pressed to his ear. After a silent moment, he dropped his hand and glared at the screen in frustration.

  ‘Ash!’ Kieran called, and Ash stopped. He blinked, as though he’d almost forgotten for a moment that they were back in town, then changed direction and headed over.

  ‘You’ve heard about Bronte?’ he was saying before he’d even reached them. ‘I can’t get hold of Liv.’

  ‘Renn’s over at the cottage,’ Kieran said. ‘I didn’t see Liv, though. Maybe she’s at the station.’

  ‘Right.’ Ash didn’t look much happier with that, and raked a hand across his unshaven jaw. ‘I heard Liv found her.’

  ‘Found Bronte?’ Mia said. ‘I thought she stayed at her mum’s last night?’

  ‘Yeah, she did. I dropped her off there myself.’ Ash shook his head and checked his phone again. The screen was still blank. ‘So, yeah. I don’t know.’

  Ash looked up now and saw that the man on the steps had stopped scrolling and was listening to them.

  ‘Jesus, do you bloody mind, George?’ Ash gave the bloke the blank-eyed stare that typically made most people immediately look away. Not this guy, though, Kieran was interested to note. He held Ash’s gaze before shrugging and turning back to his own phone.

  ‘Oh my God, poor Liv,’ Mia said. ‘Can you imagine what that would be like for her? Finding her housemate like that? Especially after everything with Gabby.’

  ‘This is a lot different from Gabby, though,’ Kieran said. ‘I mean –’

  Bronte’s body had been right there, for one thing. He didn’t finish the thought out loud. Wished he hadn’t started it.

  ‘It’s the same beach –’ Mia said.

  That was true, Kieran thought. But it was a big stretch of sand.

  ‘– And it was around this time of year, too.’

  ‘It’s a tragedy, that’s what it is.’ Lyn had lit a fresh cigarette and inhaled with force. ‘Bronte was a beautiful soul. And that beach is too bloody dark. It’s an accident waiting to happen.’

  She was still clinging to that then, Kieran noted.

  ‘Accident or not –’ the man on the steps cut in. He was reading something on his phone. ‘It sounds like someone was seen with her.’

  ‘How would you know that?’ Ash snapped.

  ‘Evelyn Bay Online Community Hub.’ The man regarded Ash. ‘You’re not a regular on the EBOCH forum then, I take it?’

  ‘No.’ Ash actually laughed. ‘If I want to know what my nan and her mates think about last week’s bin collection, I’ll pop down the retirement home and ask them.’

  ‘Fair enough. Although personally –’ The man shrugged, his eyes still on Ash. ‘– I always find it quite interesting what people care enough to bitch about.’

  An odd tension that Kieran couldn’t even begin to read passed between the two men.

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ He jumped in before Ash could respond. ‘You said someone was seen with Bronte? Does it say who?’

  The man scanned his screen, then shook his head.

  ‘Not yet.’ He dropped his phone in his pocket and headed down the steps. ‘But give it five minutes.’

  Ash looked like he was about to say something more when his own phone buzzed. He pulled it out, relief flashing across his face. Kieran watched his expression change as he read the text message.

  ‘Shit,’ he breathed as he read it again.

  What? Kieran wanted to ask, but all at once he found himself picturing Bronte. Standing knee-deep in the sea. Holding out the lost property box. Lying very still on the sand. And suddenly he didn’t want to be the one to ask.

  ‘Shit,’ Ash said again, turning the screen so Kieran could read the message. ‘From Sean. The person seen with her was Liam.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘Oh my God.’ Lyn broke the silence. ‘Liam.’

  She breathed out the name with a haze of smoke as they all looked at the darkened windows of the Surf and Turf, where twelve hours earlier Liam had been flipping burgers while Bronte served tables. Kieran waited for the rush of denial, the surely-not-I-can’t-believe-he-would-ever breathless astonishment, but Lyn’s lips stayed wrapped around her cigarette. She took a deep, slow drag.

  Ash was staring blankly at his phone, his thumb hovering above the screen, while Mia re-tied Audrey’s hat firmly under her chin, fumbling with the straps.

  Kieran’s own thoughts were lurching haphazardly through the night before. Through the drinks, the chat, the kind gesture from a casual waitress, before circling back to one specific moment.

  You kill someone – Liam’s words had floated from the kitchen hatch – you deserve all the shit that’s coming your way.

  Somewhere inside Kieran, deep beneath soft hoary layers of guilt, a mean worm pulsated and rolled over. He breathed in and out, and opened his mouth.

  ‘I suppose we should wait until we know more,’ he said out loud, because he felt someone should.

  They knew plenty more soon enough. The whispers and hearsay and heated exclamations were already bouncing from mouth to ear until, in fits and starts, the story seeped out.

  Kick-out time at the Surf and Turf was set in stone, and the night before had been no exception. At 11 pm, the music was cut, customers were shown the door and the mops and scrubbing brushes came out for the thirty-minute nightly clean and re-set.

  But it being the end of the summer and Julian Wallis being a reasonable man, the front-of-house and kitchen staff were one by one given the nod to head off early as they wrapped up their tasks.

  At 11.13 pm, Liam Gilroy was recorded on the main street CCTV cameras standing on the empty pavement not far from the restaurant’s entrance. Two minutes and forty seconds later, Bronte Laidler appeared in the frame. She stopped a few paces away from Liam. They appeared to be talking. Liam had pointed to his car, a five-year-old white Holden. Bronte had nodded. Four minutes and six seconds after he first appeared on camera, Liam climbed behind the wheel, Bronte got into the passenger seat, and they both shut their doors. The car drove out of sight. There were no other cameras to capture what happened next.

  Shortly before 11.30 pm, the neighbour who had bought the home to the left of Fisherman’s Cottage thirty-eight years earlier for a price that now sounded like pocket change, rose from her couch as the end titles of a James Bond film rolled, and moved to the window to pull closed a gap in her curtains. As she tugged the fabric together, she noted a vehicle that didn’t belong to any of th
e nearby homes parked on the street outside. Light in colour, was all she could remember.

  Some twenty minutes later, the same neighbour – teeth brushed and alarm clock set – opened her back door to allow her terrier-cross to stretch its legs for a final time. As she waited, she thought she heard faint voices floating from the direction of the beach.

  She was unable to commit to either a male or female tone, nor comment on the topic of discussion. They had been talking, she had insisted. Nothing more. Not arguing and certainly not fighting, or as an active member of the Evelyn Bay Neighbourhood Watch scheme she would have recalled her training and summoned the police.

  Either way, by the time she had called her dog inside and taken herself off to bed, she had forgotten all about it, until Sergeant Chris Renn had knocked on her door the next morning, and asked how well she’d known the young waitress who had been staying in the cottage next door.

  Ash’s phone rang at last.

  ‘Finally,’ he said, his features slackening with relief as Olivia’s picture flashed on the screen. He turned his back on the Surf and Turf and lifted the phone to his ear. ‘Are you okay? Where are you?’ Ash listened. ‘No, don’t.’ His eyes flicked to the growing crowd. ‘Look, Sean’s at the marina. Go there instead, I’m on my way.’

  He hung up and turned back to Kieran and Mia.

  ‘Can you come? Sean didn’t sound great and I’m not sure what Liv’ll need.’

  Kieran glanced at Mia, who was trying to soothe a fractious Audrey.

  ‘She needs feeding,’ she said. ‘You go. But tell Liv I’ll call her. I’ll find somewhere to sit and get this feed done and …’

  Mia hesitated as both she and Kieran looked down the road that led home. Past Fisherman’s Cottage, past the police tape. Past whatever had happened to Bronte on the shoreline.

  Kieran shifted, uneasy. ‘Are you okay to walk back alone?’ Was he okay with it?

  ‘Yeah.’ Mia shrugged. ‘I mean, yes. You know, it’s broad daylight. There are lots of people about. The police are probably all still over there.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She frowned. ‘So, I think it’s fine. Right?’

  They looked at each other, trying to work out exactly where the line fell between cautious and overdramatic.

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ Lyn said suddenly. She finished her latest cigarette and ground it out. ‘I’m going that way anyway.’

  ‘Really?’ Mia said. ‘You’re happy to do that?’

  ‘No worries at all.’

  She meant it too, Kieran thought. That was interesting. Lyn, who had barely said a word since Liam’s name was first mentioned, was really not worried, at all.

  Ash was already moving. ‘Let’s get going,’ he said to Kieran. ‘Liv’s waiting.’

  They headed out of town, each lost in his own thoughts. As they passed the police station, Kieran saw the few parking spots out the front and on the road were all now taken up by both patrol and unmarked vehicles. Reinforcements from Hobart, he guessed.

  ‘Hey, is Renn getting the boot or something?’ Kieran asked, remembering what Lyn had started to say earlier.

  ‘Whole station’s getting the boot,’ Ash said. ‘Budget cuts. Think the plan is to send a couple of cops over from Port Osborne in summer, but there’ll be no-one full-time over winter. I heard Renn was pretty pissed off about it. He could have gone to Port Osborne, but decided to quit instead.’

  ‘What, altogether?’

  ‘Well, when the station closes next month. He’s moving to the mainland. Going to work for his brother’s haulage business.’

  ‘That’ll be different.’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, I get it. He wasn’t the only one annoyed about the station closing. My mum’s on the Neighbourhood Watch and they petitioned and stuff, but it was a done deal. You know what it’s like, though, it’s only Renn and whatever sidekicks they send him for the summer. Probably costs more to keep the lights on than it’s worth.’ Ash thought for a moment as the marina came into view up ahead, the water gleaming in the late-morning light. ‘Although after last night, who knows?’

  The marina was close to deserted, with some of the boats already prepared for off-season storage, tarps strewn like shrouds across their decks.

  Kieran spotted the Nautilus Blue immediately. Sean was standing by the helm, his arms crossed as he stared far out to sea. Sean’s had been a close family even before the storm, Kieran knew. But afterwards, seven-year-old Liam had reacted to the death of his dad by clinging hard to his uncle. Sean, barely eighteen himself at the time and reeling hard, had clung back.

  It was interesting that Liam had been seen on camera with Bronte, though, Kieran thought. At the very least, it added a new edge to Julian’s caginess earlier, when the man had stopped by the Surf and Turf.

  Julian’s gentle courtship with Liam’s mother Sarah in the years following the storm had been one of the few positive things to emerge in the aftermath, and the will they–won’t they green shoots of romance had kept the entire town enchanted over a long winter. They had, at last, in a much-celebrated happy ending, and three years after losing his dad, Liam gained a stepfather.

  From what Kieran knew, Julian had embraced stepfatherhood with the same earnest dedication with which he approached any new challenge and, perhaps against the odds, he had won Liam over. It probably helped – Kieran pictured Julian hunched tense in his car outside the Surf and Turf earlier – that Julian genuinely seemed to give a shit about his stepson.

  Sean was the first to spot Kieran and Ash approaching and he said something to Olivia. She had been sitting on the dock, very still, her face down. Her head snapped up and she started to stand but Ash was already there, taking three large strides across the dock straight to her. She turned wordlessly and buried her face in his shoulder. From the heave of her back, Kieran could tell she was crying hard. Ash put his arms around her and waited.

  ‘What’s happening with Liam?’ Kieran said quietly to Sean as he climbed aboard.

  ‘He’s at the station with Sarah. Julian’s got a lawyer coming from Hobart.’

  Kieran waited for him to say something more, but Sean turned back to the water, his eyes unseeing. On the dock, Ash murmured something to Olivia, who gave a muffled reply.

  ‘Are you doing okay?’ Kieran asked Sean.

  ‘Yeah. I dunno.’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘God, this is all so wrong. What are they saying in town?’

  ‘Nothing important.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Sean turned back to the water. ‘I can guess.’

  Kieran looked over at Olivia, who was wiping her face with a tissue. Ash was rubbing her back.

  ‘She’d forgotten her yoga mat,’ Ash said to Kieran quietly, and Olivia looked up.

  ‘That’s how you found Bronte?’ Kieran said to her and she nodded.

  ‘Mum hadn’t slept well so we were going to the early class. They usually run out of mats, though, so we stopped by my place on the way. Mum waited outside in the car – oh my God.’ Olivia put her hands to her eyes. ‘Can you imagine if Mum had come with me and seen her?’ She looked ill at the thought. ‘I was only going to run in and out, but Bronte’s bedroom door was open, which was a bit weird because it was still early. And I couldn’t hear her in the house, so –’

  She stopped. The only sounds were the water lapping against the boats and the distant call of gulls.

  ‘I could tell from the back door handle that it was unlocked. So I went outside, to see if she was having a coffee or something.’ Olivia stared at the shredded tissue. ‘I saw her lying near the water. She was still in her work clothes. She must have been out there on her own, all night.’

  A silence followed.

  ‘Liv.’ Sean’s voice was quiet, his eyes still on the waves. ‘Did Renn say what they thought had happened?’

  ‘No.’
Olivia shook her head. ‘But at the station I overheard one of the cops from Hobart say they thought Bronte had been out on the beach for at least five or six hours, so I think that’s why –’ Olivia glanced at Sean, who didn’t look back. ‘– why they wanted to talk to Liam.’

  ‘Right.’ A shadow crossed Sean’s face. ‘Did they ask about anything else, or was it just Liam?’

  ‘Other things. They wanted to know if Bronte had a boyfriend. I told them about that guy she was seeing earlier in the summer.’ She looked at Ash. ‘You know, that tourist? Marco something. I couldn’t remember his last name.’

  ‘That Spanish bloke who was really loud in bed?’ Ash shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t even have remembered his first name. I’ve managed to block him out.’

  The way Ash said it made Kieran think he remembered the guy quite well.

  ‘He was Portuguese, not Spanish.’ Olivia looked down. ‘Probably doesn’t matter, he’s been gone for weeks anyway.’

  ‘Is there a chance that bloke had anything to do with Bronte hearing noises at night?’ Kieran said. ‘Maybe him coming around to visit her? Bother her?’

  Sean looked over at that, as Olivia frowned and shook her head.

  ‘I think he’d left before that started. The cops were very interested in why Bronte hadn’t reported it, though. Or me. I mean, God –’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘I said I obviously wish we had.’

  Ash frowned. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, Liv.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ A gust of wind blew through the marina and the empty masts whistled and swayed. ‘If I’d been there –’

  Ash shook his head sharply. ‘No. If you’d been there last night, who knows what might have happened?’

  ‘Maybe nothing would have happened.’

  ‘Yeah, or maybe it would.’