The Survivors

by Jane Harper

  ‘Right,’ Kieran said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No worries. I didn’t want him getting himself into any trouble.’

  Through the cottage windows, Kieran could see the outline of police officers moving around. He looked back, his unspoken question of whether or not Julian had shared this information with them answered by the shadow of guilt on the man’s face. He absolutely had.

  ‘Look, I told them straight,’ Julian said, reading his mind, his voice low. ‘I’ve known your folks for years, I’m not looking to cause problems for them. But I’ve known Liam his whole life. I love that kid like my own. Sarah’s devastated. We all want this sorted out. And not even for Liam, for Bronte.’

  When Kieran didn’t reply, Julian shrugged.

  ‘I mean it. Bronte was a good girl, the customers loved her, all the other staff too. We just want whatever bastard did this to her found before he’s halfway across the mainland. If he’s not already. I’m serious. The cops are wasting their time looking at Liam.’

  It was an echo of what Sean had said earlier and Kieran didn’t reply. He could see Julian’s silver four-wheel drive parked a little way along the road, surfboard still strapped to the top.

  ‘That’s the only reason I even told the cops about your dad,’ Julian said. ‘So they’d know that it was possible other people were around last night. People who weren’t necessarily seen, you know?’

  ‘I’m not sure Chris Renn needs your help reminding him what his own town’s like at night,’ Kieran said.

  ‘Maybe not, but it’s not him running this show, is it?’ Julian said. ‘They’ve got some woman over from Hobart.’

  Through the window, Kieran thought he could see Sergeant Renn talking to another officer. It was hard to tell from that distance, but Renn seemed to be watching them through the glass.

  ‘And who knows?’ Julian said. ‘Maybe your dad could tell them something that might help?’

  Kieran looked at him, annoyed now. ‘Have you seen the state of my dad lately?’

  ‘I have, mate, yes,’ Julian said pointedly. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Yeah, all right.’

  ‘Look. Sorry.’ He sounded contrite. ‘But the cops wasting time on Liam doesn’t help any of us.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kieran sighed. ‘Renn can sort it out. I doubt my folks would’ve really known Bronte.’

  Julian said nothing but his face made Kieran stop.

  ‘What? So she helped Mum clear out the shed once.’

  Julian nodded. ‘Your place has got a reasonable-sized shed, is all. Wasn’t a one-day job.’

  Kieran stared at him. ‘You’d better tell the cops that, too.’

  No response. He already had.

  Kieran opened his mouth, but his phone began ringing in his pocket, quiet and insistent. He checked the screen. Mia. It went to voicemail and immediately started ringing again.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ Kieran started towards home.

  ‘Give my best to your folks.’

  Kieran turned at that. ‘Seriously, mate?’

  ‘Yes, actually.’ Julian’s hand rested on the gate to Fisherman’s Cottage. ‘Whatever happened here doesn’t have anything to do with us, or you, or anyone from this town, I reckon.’

  Kieran didn’t answer, just began to walk.

  ‘We need to be looking out for each other, not at each other,’ the other man’s voice floated behind him.

  Kieran wasn’t sure yet if he agreed with that or not. But he found himself thinking about it, all the way home.

  Chapter 12

  Mia pulled open the front door before Kieran reached it, Audrey in her arms.

  ‘The police are here.’ Her voice was low.

  ‘Now? I just saw Chris Renn at the cottage –’

  ‘Not local. From Hobart.’

  The woman was waiting in the living room, looking out of place amid the boxes and clutter. She was wearing plain clothes and a sombre expression, and had her hands clasped behind her back as she examined a framed family photo still hanging on the wall. Brian, Verity, Finn and Kieran on the beach right outside their house, all smiles and sunlight, their arms around each other. The officer looked up as Kieran came in, and extended her hand.

  ‘Detective Inspector Sue Pendlebury.’ She was tall and her dark hair was streaked with strands of grey. ‘I was explaining – oh, wonderful. Thank you.’ She broke off as Verity came into the room with a tray of coffee mugs and Brian trailing behind her. ‘As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m here about Bronte Laidler.’

  ‘Right,’ Kieran said as Verity gestured for them all to sit. They did, other than Mia, who hovered near the door, jiggling Audrey.

  ‘Do you know what happened yet?’ Kieran said as Pendlebury accepted a coffee mug.

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’ She took a sip. ‘Did you know Bronte well?’

  ‘I didn’t know her at all,’ he said. ‘Mia and I met her for the first time yesterday.’ He hesitated. ‘She drowned?’

  ‘We believe Bronte was drowned.’ Pendlebury was calm in making the distinction. ‘She had some bruising injuries that indicate she was held under the water.’

  Audrey whimpered and Mia shushed her. Verity very carefully wiped a spot of milk off the coffee table.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ she said quietly.

  ‘She shouldn’t have been out on the beach alone.’ Brian’s voice rose suddenly from his armchair in the corner. They all turned and he blinked, surprised by the attention.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Pendlebury said.

  ‘I told her she shouldn’t have been out there. Not with the storm warning.’

  Kieran heard Verity exhale with a sharp shake of her head.

  ‘He’s talking about someone else,’ she said quickly to Pendlebury who, after a beat, dragged her steady gaze back. ‘We were hit by a big storm here. Years ago. He’s thinking of that. Sorry. He’s not well. Ignore him.’

  Pendlebury nodded slowly. She glanced at her notes. ‘I hear Bronte spent a few days here. Helping you clean, was it?’ Her eyes wandered over the boxes lining the walls.

  ‘Clearing the shed,’ Verity said. ‘She was collecting a few bits and pieces for a sculpture she was working on. We had a lot of junk. I said she could help herself.’

  ‘What did she take?’

  ‘Some wire, I think. Some sheeting from when we fixed the back decking a few years ago.’ Verity shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. It really was junk.’

  ‘And did you talk at all –? Sorry –’ Pendlebury’s phone vibrated silently against the coffee table. A photo flashed on the screen of her smiling alongside a grey-haired man and a girl and boy in their twenties who looked a bit like both of them. She pressed a button and turned the phone facedown. ‘Sorry. Yes, Bronte. Did she talk to you about her life here? Boys? Work? Her impressions of the town?’

  ‘She was very keen on her artwork. I know that,’ Verity said. ‘And her grandmother in Canberra has dementia. She talked a little about her and what that had been like. Bronte said they’d been close, you know, before.’

  Pendlebury looked over at Brian, still watching from his armchair, then back to Verity.

  ‘Did Bronte show you any of the pieces she was working on?’ Pendlebury said. She sounded genuinely curious to hear what Verity had to say. Kieran couldn’t tell if her interest was authentic or professionally honed, but either way it was smart, he thought. Pendlebury projected the kind of natural openness that made him want to pull up a chair and tell her things. Kieran crossed his arms and sat back.

  ‘She showed me a few drawings she’d done of places around here,’ Verity said. ‘They were lovely. Or I thought so, anyway. She was a good artist.’

  ‘She wasn’t an artist.’ Brian was frowning. ‘She was still at school.’

  ‘Brian, no. We’re talking about Bronte no
w.’ Verity’s words were clipped, and she turned back to Pendlebury. ‘Sorry. It’s been a bit difficult.’

  Pendlebury’s eyes stayed on Brian. ‘Who does he think we’re talking about?’

  ‘No-one,’ Verity said, at the same time as Kieran said: ‘Gabby Birch.’

  They exchanged a glance.

  ‘As in, Olivia Birch?’ Pendlebury said, frowning at her notebook as they nodded. She looked up again. ‘I’m sorry, so who is Gabby?’

  Who was Gabby? Gabby Birch was Olivia’s younger sister and Mia’s best friend and pretty much everything Kieran knew about her came from them. She was four years younger than him and shy to the point that he wasn’t even sure he knew what her voice had sounded like.

  On warm late evenings when Gabby was sent by her mother to fetch Olivia home from the beach or the Surf and Turf or wherever she was hanging out with her friends, Gabby would skulk up alone to deliver the message, inaudible and flush-faced.

  Gabby was a girl who by rights would have slipped through her teenage years completely unnoticed, except for the fact that at age twelve she developed over one rapid summer into the spitting image of her older sister. Her face lost its babyish curves and instead became one that attracted second and third glances. She grew tall and gently rounded and, clad in their wetsuits with their long curly hair tied up, it was hard to tell Olivia and Gabby apart.

  She was very easy on the eye, as Ash had pointed out in much blunter terms once when Gabby was taking off her wetsuit on the beach. Olivia, who had been within earshot, had punched him on the shoulder hard enough that Kieran could see it had hurt. She’s thirteen, don’t be disgusting. But Ash had been right.

  Kieran had never bothered to talk to Gabby, but he knew a couple of blokes who had tried, occasionally after being rebuffed by Olivia. They were wasting their time, though. Gabby would shrink into herself as though trying to vanish and would shuffle off flustered to find Mia, her best and only friend. The pair would hole up every lunchtime in the corner of the library, where they would whisper and read and draw pencil sketches of horses.

  Gabby Birch was a girl who had died in the storm. But before that, for three days, she was a girl who was missing. And before that, for fourteen years, she was a girl who was loved by her family, but did her very best to disappear around pretty much everyone else.

  Kieran looked at Pendlebury and her notebook.

  ‘Gabby was Olivia’s sister,’ he said. ‘But she died twelve years ago.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She drowned.’

  ‘Really?’ Pendlebury’s eyebrow moved a fraction.

  ‘It was during the storm.’ Verity frowned as Pendlebury’s pen began to scratch against her notebook. ‘It was a freak weather event. No-one was properly prepared. Our son drowned too. And another young man, Toby Gilroy.’

  ‘Liam’s dad,’ Kieran added.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Pendlebury said, like she meant it. She waited a respectful moment, then turned to a fresh page. Not unsympathetic, but a woman with a job to do and limited time. She looked at Verity.

  ‘I’ll get to the point. I’ve been told that your husband – you, Mr Elliott – you were seen on the Beach Road area around midnight last night.’

  ‘Why are you asking this?’ Brian snapped, a new edge in his voice. He turned to his wife. ‘Why is she asking all this again? I’ve already been to the station. I’ve told them what happened.’

  Kieran sensed Verity stiffen as Pendlebury leaned forward.

  ‘Mr Elliott –’

  ‘No,’ Brian said. ‘I’m not having you come here to my house like this. Upsetting my wife. We’ve just lost our son, isn’t that bad enough? I’ve already told you. I said hello to her. Told her to go home because the storm was coming. I’ve been through this down at the station –’

  ‘He was out last night,’ Verity cut in. Her face had shed its helpful mask and was now tight and alert. ‘For a few minutes. He gets confused. He goes out walking. I can’t watch him twenty-four seven.’

  Pendlebury’s eyes moved to her. ‘How long exactly was he out for?’

  ‘Not long. I was asleep and got a call at about quarter past twelve from Julian Wallis – he owns the Surf and Turf and Fisherman’s Cottage. He said Brian was on the road. I threw some clothes on and went to find them. They were only five minutes away – that way –’ She pointed firmly in the opposite direction to Fisherman’s Cottage.

  ‘The call woke you up? So you couldn’t know exactly what time your husband let himself out?’

  There was a silence. ‘No.’

  ‘Does he go out often?’

  ‘It happens a few times a month.’

  ‘Has he ever been found wandering on the beach, rather than the road?’

  Verity hesitated. ‘Last night he was on the road.’

  ‘Okay.’ Pendlebury sounded sympathetic. Kieran wondered again if it was a deliberate tactic. ‘Look, I’m not implying anything here. I know you think I am, but at this point I’m just trying to get a clear sense of what happened. There’s some chance that the person who was with Bronte may have been disturbed. Maybe had to leave in a hurry.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Verity was watchful now.

  Pendlebury paused, but Kieran thought he could guess. He was pretty sure Verity could guess too. Why would anyone leave a body in plain sight on the beach when with a few short steps it could be sent floating away with the ocean currents? Given the opportunity, Kieran thought, that’s what anyone in their right mind would do. Not one person in the room was looking at Brian.

  ‘The sand pattern suggests interruption,’ Pendlebury said neutrally and Verity simply nodded. Both pretending that made sense.

  ‘Either way,’ Pendlebury went on, ‘no-one’s come forward so far to say they saw anything. So, if your husband’s able to add something to the picture, now would be a really good time.’

  Kieran could sense Verity wrestling with herself.

  ‘Well, ask him then,’ she said, finally. ‘For what it’s worth.’

  Pendlebury attempted to look Brian in the eye. He didn’t co-operate.

  ‘Mr Elliott,’ she said. ‘I want to ask you about last night. Do you understand? Did you see Bronte Laidler on the beach last night?’

  ‘I’ve already said I did. I told her the storm was coming.’ Brian’s wandering gaze stilled suddenly and for the first time since Kieran had come home, he had the strange sense of the cloudiness almost lifting. Brian’s eyes moved again and when they settled this time, it was on Mia, still standing near the door with Audrey.

  ‘You should talk to Mia, here,’ Brian said. ‘They’d been arguing. Mia was with her on the beach too. You should have a word with her, if you’re having a word with anyone.’

  ‘Jesus, Dad –’ Kieran started as Mia was already shaking her head.

  ‘No, I wasn’t –’

  They both stopped. Kieran turned to Brian.

  ‘Mia was on the beach with Gabby, Dad. Not Bronte. And that was years ago. She and I were together last night. Here. We didn’t see anyone on the beach.’

  Pendlebury looked at Mia. ‘Is that right?’

  Mia nodded. Audrey was squirming in her arms, thrashing her head back and forth, and Mia tightened her grip. Pendlebury flicked through her notes.

  ‘Apologies, just to make sure I’m completely clear –’ She looked up and frowned. ‘What exactly happened to Gabby Birch?’

  Chapter 13

  It was a good question. It had been asked a lot over the years, and Kieran was as familiar as anyone in town with the last known movements of Gabby Birch, aged fourteen.

  On the day the storm would later hit Evelyn Bay, Gabby had been woken at 9 am by her mother, Patricia, who was leaving for her Saturday nursing shift at the town’s medical clinic. Gabby had promised to get up, but hadn’t, and was st
ill in bed an hour later when her eighteen-year-old sister Olivia got home from the gym. Gabby blamed her late start on the fact that she didn’t have her phone, which also served as her alarm. It had been confiscated by Trish a week earlier after a teacher had reported Gabby for texting in class. Gabby’s best friend Mia was suffering the same punishment in her own household.

  Gabby had eaten a bowl of cereal while she and Olivia briefly discussed plans for their mum’s birthday the following day. In what had become something of a tradition since their parents’ divorce six years earlier, the girls would bake their mother’s birthday cake. They would do it that afternoon while Trish was at work, they agreed, so it would be ready for the next day. Their grandma had booked a table for lunch at the big hotel in Port Osborne.

  Olivia offered to stop in at the supermarket to buy birthday cards, but Gabby said she wanted to make her own by hand. Olivia told the police later that Gabby had been very upset when her phone was taken away. She was hopeful that Trish, buoyed by the birthday celebrations, would feel inclined to return it.

  Both girls knew rain was forecast.

  Olivia went out at noon – to visit the shops and go for a walk along the cliff path – while Gabby was, not unusually, left home alone.

  Exactly what Gabby did between noon and 2 pm was unknown. She made no phone calls from the landline and was not seen leaving the house. A birthday card which read ‘Happy Birthday Mum!’ in glitter glue was later found drying in her bedroom. At 1.27 pm she used her mother’s laptop to log on to the internet, which she had been expressly forbidden to do while her phone was confiscated. She had spent a furtive twenty-three minutes browsing social media sites. She then grabbed her purple-striped backpack with a kangaroo keychain attached to the zip, filled it with library books due for return, and walked the eight minutes to her friend Mia’s home.

  The two girls left Mia’s house together, walking another twelve minutes to the Evelyn Bay Community Library. They had taken a one-day writing workshop there that summer and wanted to work on their short stories. They returned their books, borrowed some more, and got started. After nearly an hour, the librarian heard what sounded like a muffled argument from their table behind the shelves and asked them to keep it down.