The Survivors

by Jane Harper

  Mia fiddled with the partially chopped vegetables in front of her.

  ‘Gabby said she’d found out you and Olivia were sneaking around together. And I was so jealous, which was so stupid, because it’s not like I was even on your radar.’ She sighed. ‘But it was partly the way Gabby told me as well. We were supposed to be best friends but she was so gleeful. Like she knew it would hurt me but she couldn’t wait to tell me anyway.’

  Mia began chopping again.

  ‘Anyway, I told her I didn’t believe her, even though I kind of did really. She got upset, I got upset. I wanted to go home. She followed me. It was obvious I was annoyed and she spent half the time trying to convince me she was telling the truth and the other half apologising. And after all that, she was right. You told me yourself, you really were meeting up with Olivia.’

  Kieran had stood up and gone over to her. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Mia had wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. ‘No, it’s not your fault. And it wasn’t Gabby’s fault. I’m just sad that that was the last time I ever saw her. I wish it had been different.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the police this when they asked?’

  ‘Because I was fourteen. And both my parents were in the room with me the whole time I was being interviewed, and I was too embarrassed. And I knew if I’d told the truth my mum would have been worried because, you know –’ Mia shrugged. ‘None of the mums in Evelyn Bay were the biggest fans of you and Ash back then.’

  Kieran had pictured Mia’s mum. Regal, softly spoken, very kind. ‘I thought Nina liked me?’

  ‘She does,’ Mia said. ‘Now.’

  Kieran thought about this as he looked at Mia standing in front of Fisherman’s Cottage. The cellophane around the flowers rustled. The house looked lifeless once more.

  ‘But the police spoke to heaps of people in those days when we were all searching for Gabby,’ Sean was saying. ‘I mean, how many times was your dad called in, Kieran?’

  ‘A couple, I think,’ Kieran said quickly, not wanting to get into that again. ‘Liv said her mum had had a bit of trouble coming to terms with things. Maybe that’s all Trish really meant.’

  ‘Okay, but Jesus –’ Sean’s face darkened. ‘I know she’s been through a lot, but join the bloody club. We’ve all had to come to terms with stuff we didn’t want to.’ He took a breath. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. That sounded really harsh.’ He shook his head as though to clear it and looked at Kieran. ‘Are you guys going home? I was actually on my way to your place.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Kieran said. They started walking.

  ‘Your mum called me. Said she’s clearing stuff out and has a couple of life jackets she’s getting rid of.’

  Kieran pictured the cupboards still filled with all the trash and treasure that no-one had yet begun to tackle. ‘Yeah, not long left now until the move.’

  Sean didn’t answer. He was distracted, staring hard at the road in front of them as they walked. Finally he took a breath.

  ‘Listen, mate, I’m sorry to ask, but did Renn say anything else at all about this camera thing back there? Or Liam?’

  Kieran hesitated. ‘They asked us about Liam. Earlier at the station. Renn and Pendlebury.’

  Sean looked up. And? The unspoken question hung in the air.

  ‘I said I thought it could have been his car we saw on Saturday night.’ Kieran could feel Mia’s eyes on him. ‘Driving towards town, like he said.’

  ‘And that was it? That’s all they asked about?’

  Kieran didn’t look over. ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks mate,’ Sean said quietly. It seemed like he wanted to add something more, but stopped as they reached Kieran’s parents’ house.

  Verity was on her knees in front of a kitchen cupboard when they arrived, sweeping things into boxes.

  ‘Oh good, I’ll get those life jackets,’ she said when she saw Sean. She disappeared outside and returned holding them over her arm.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sean said. ‘I’ve got a few on their last legs after the summer, so this is great.’

  ‘It’s good you’ve been busy,’ Verity said. ‘It must be nearly time to open the wreck, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, getting close,’ Sean said. ‘Got the first clients in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘God, I used to love it down there when I was younger,’ Verity said. ‘Brian as well. That’s kind of how we met.’

  ‘Really?’ Sean said and Mia also looked over in interest. Kieran just waited. He and Finn had heard the stories plenty of times over the years.

  ‘Yeah.’ Verity’s smile changed her face and Kieran realised how long it had been since he’d seen that. ‘I mean, I knew who Brian was, I’d seen him around. But then a group of us began going out to the Mary Minerva on someone’s dad’s boat, and it was out there where I really got to know him. We started talking, and then we started diving together and then we started meeting up back on shore.’ Verity smiled to herself. ‘We used to go out there all the time together. Even when we weren’t diving. We’d anchor a boat near the wreck, swim over to the caves and spend the day on the beach.’

  Kieran remembered standing in that kitchen with Finn and hearing that very same story.

  ‘Oh God, please, I’m begging you. Just stop there.’ Finn had rolled his eyes good-naturedly as Verity and Brian exchanged intimate smiles across the table. ‘None of us needs to hear that I was conceived on that beach or anything, thanks very much.’

  ‘Not you, mate,’ Brian had said with a grin, throwing his arm around Kieran, who had groaned while Finn laughed.

  Verity looked at the old life jackets now in Sean’s hands.

  ‘Brian used to love it out on the water,’ she was saying. ‘We used to free dive. Not around the wreck, obviously, but in the shallows.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Sean laughed. ‘That’s pretty hardcore. Even I don’t do that.’

  ‘No.’ Verity’s smile faded and she touched one of the packing boxes with the toe of her shoe. ‘Well. It was a different time.’

  A muffled thump came from Brian’s study, followed by a barked swearword. Verity watched the door. When she turned back, her face seemed ten years older.

  ‘You should come,’ Sean said suddenly, and they all looked at him. ‘Tomorrow. Come for a dive. Conditions will be okay. I’ll be going out anyway, it’d be good to take a couple of people down. Do a practice run. Come. All of you.’

  Kieran saw Mia, who had never taken to breathing under water, already shaking her head. Sean looked back to him and Verity. ‘Or both of you, then. See it again before you leave.’

  ‘Well –’ Verity glanced again at the study door. ‘I suppose I could check if the respite carer is available but …’ She was tempted, Kieran could tell. There was another small thump from the study, and what was becoming a familiar shadow crossed her face. ‘But it’s probably not a good idea. Thank you, though.’

  ‘Yeah, no worries.’ Sean shrugged. ‘Let me know if you change –’

  He broke off as the study door squeaked open. As though feeling the heat of their collective attention, Brian stepped out. He stopped in the kitchen doorway when he saw them all standing there. His features folded with bewilderment, annoyance and something that looked very much to Kieran like fear. His dad didn’t know who they were or what was going on, and he was scared. Brian’s uncertain gaze darted around the room before fixing suddenly on Audrey, who stared back from Mia’s arms, unsure whether or not to burst into tears.

  ‘Everything all right, love?’ Verity aimed for light and airy but fell some way short.

  Brian pointed. ‘Who’s that baby?’

  ‘That’s Audrey, our –’

  ‘No. I meant, what’s it doing here?’

  ‘Brian –’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ His eyes clouded with confusion. ‘I thought that girl of
Finn’s decided not to go ahead with it in the end.’

  Verity looked like she’d been slapped. Her mouth hardened, and she shook her head, stiff and tight.

  ‘Audrey is Kieran and Mia’s baby. Our granddaughter. She’s visiting.’

  Brian stared at Audrey a moment longer, then made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. He dismissed her with a flick of his hand and, without another word, turned and shuffled back into his study. The soft click of the door echoed through the kitchen.

  The water was cold, Kieran knew, but he had stopped feeling it a while ago. He was neck-deep, his toes just able to scrape the sand during the dip between waves. The light was fading fast as the evening drew in. Kieran let the next wave lift him, treading water as it surged and passed. He had swum, long fast laps, and was tired now. But he couldn’t seem to make himself get out of the water.

  After Brian had returned to his study, Sean had gathered his life jackets and torch and made to leave.

  Verity, who had been staring glassy-eyed at the kitchen table, blinked. ‘Oh Sean, I’m sorry. He’s very –’

  ‘Come diving, Verity.’ Sean had stopped her. ‘Before you move. Any time you want. You know what it’s like down there. Focus, breathing, all that good stuff.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘Doesn’t leave too much space to worry about anything else.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll think about it,’ she’d said, in a way that suggested she actually might.

  Kieran had left Mia in their bedroom, re-reading a G.R. Barlin novel she’d found on his bookshelf while trying to persuade Audrey to sleep. He’d grabbed some empty packing boxes and started systematically stripping the clutter from every cupboard and shelf in the living room. After a little while, he’d heard Verity clattering with boxes of her own in the kitchen. He could hear nothing from his dad’s study.

  Kieran worked fast, making the decisions on first sight – box or bin, box or bin. He skimmed entirely over paperwork, boxing it blindly without reading it. He had made the mistake of looking too closely once before, two years after Finn had died, when Kieran had been searching for his own birth certificate. He’d instead stumbled across a worksheet that Brian had half completed during what could only have been a counselling session.

  Kieran’s immediate reaction had been utter astonishment that Brian had engaged with any kind of therapy at all. He wondered if Verity had bullied him into it or, more likely, Kieran suspected, Brian’s grief had manifested itself physically. It had happened to Kieran too for a while, with persistent headaches and stomach problems that seemed to have no real cause or cure. Brian Elliott would never have sought help to get his head straight, Kieran knew, but he might have if his body was letting him down.

  The worksheet had been marked ‘Confidential’ across the top, so Kieran had of course read it in its entirety. He wasn’t sure what the task had been, but Brian had filed his thoughts into two columns.

  Kieran was only eighteen, Brian had written. Kieran was old enough to have known better. Kieran made an honest mistake. Kieran put his brother in danger.

  The argument continued all the way down the page.

  Finn could make his own choices. Kieran should never have put him in that position. Finn would have done everything he could to save Kieran. Kieran needed his help.

  At the very bottom of the page, a conclusion: Kieran is

  Brian hadn’t finished. Kieran had spent the rest of that week ransacking the house trying to find a second page, or another worksheet, but if Brian had ever completed his thought, it had not been on paper.

  Kieran is … what?

  He’d returned to that question a lot over the years.

  Kieran had turned back to the task at hand and was about to shove another folder of documents into a shoebox when he’d heard movement in the doorway.

  ‘Thanks for doing this.’ Verity was running her eyes over the near-empty shelves. ‘You’ve made good progress.’

  ‘No worries. Can I do anything to help with Dad?’

  Verity gave a bleak smile. ‘I think that’s a bit beyond both of us, unfortunately.’

  She picked up one of the stacks of papers and leafed through them. A corner of a photo stuck out and she pulled it free.

  ‘That was a nice day,’ she said, turning the image so Kieran could see. ‘I remember that being taken.’

  Finn, Toby and the Nautilus Black. It wasn’t exactly the same photo as the one that had been pinned up on the Surf and Turf noticeboard for a year after their deaths, but it was a close variation. The composition was essentially the same – the two men, their arms around each other, the champagne, the new paint shining on the boat in the background – but it had been taken a few seconds earlier or later and the overall effect was weaker. The men’s smiles were a little less natural, and Finn’s eyes were hooded on the cusp of a blink. It didn’t have the buoyancy of the original but somehow seemed a little more real. Verity ran her thumb across Finn’s face.

  ‘We’ve got the better version in an album somewhere,’ she said, almost to herself.

  ‘Hey,’ Kieran hesitated. ‘What was Dad talking about earlier? About Finn and a baby?’

  He could tell that Verity was considering bluffing, but either the inclination or the energy fell away and she shook her head.

  ‘I honestly don’t know. Finn was always closer to your dad than he was to me.’

  She broke off as there was a clatter from Brian’s study. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. When she opened them, her face was tight.

  ‘Do you think you could call Sean?’ she said. ‘Ask if we can go diving tomorrow after all?’

  ‘Sure. If you want to.’

  Verity, ignoring another ominous thump, put the photo of Finn back on the pile, facedown. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think I do.’

  Kieran drifted up to his neck in the sea now, still thinking about Verity and Brian and Finn as he watched the twilight creep in. He had gone out deep and swum a few more laps back and forth between his parents’ house and Fisherman’s Cottage, and was now treading water somewhere in the middle.

  He had seen only two dog walkers – both male – on the beach the whole time he’d been out, but as he bobbed in the growing gloom now, he caught a sudden flash of movement of someone cutting down one of the side paths. Kieran stilled in the water as he watched. Not coming after blokes and babies, he told himself. He believed it, but he was still a little relieved when the figure came into view. Olivia’s mum, Trish Birch.

  She was wearing the same dress as earlier in the day when she’d confronted Sergeant Renn at the police station, but now she was holding something grey and bulky under one arm.

  The beach was deserted as she checked both ways along the sand, her gaze skimming right over Kieran, submerged to his chin in the waves under the darkening sky.

  He watched as Trish crossed the beach and picked her way over the flat rocks that cut out into the sea. The same rocks where Gabby was last seen by Brian Elliott, twelve years earlier as the storm clouds grew. The rocks were slippery then, and would be slippery now, Kieran thought as he watched the woman edge her way out, still clutching the bulky object. He frowned. What was she doing?

  Trish reached the tip of the rocks and Kieran was about to call out – a warning or something, he wasn’t sure – when to his astonishment, she took the bulk in both hands and, with some effort, swung her arms through a graceful arc and hurled it straight into the sea.

  Kieran’s mouth opened, letting in salt water. Locals never threw things into their ocean. He couldn’t remember the last time he had ever seen someone toss something in. Even the floral tributes to Bronte had been placed well above the tideline so the plastic wrapping wouldn’t float away. Trish watched the grey shape bob once or twice and then, with Kieran still wondering if it had somehow been an accident, she stepped away from the brink, picked her way back over the ro
cks, and walked straight across the beach to disappear the way she’d come. The whole thing had taken less than a minute from start to finish and the beach was deserted once again. It was like she had never been there.

  Except – Kieran swivelled now in the water, turning back to the outcrop. The grey object was still visible, floating out to sea. He’d made the decision before he’d even fully formed the question and was cutting through the water with long freestyle strokes. He could feel the current pulling him and did a quick check, head up, wiping the water from his eyes. The shape had drifted even further, well into the deep water. All around Kieran, the light was fading and the horizon to the east was a silvery line. He thought about Mia and Audrey and slowed.

  He could see the object was taking on water fast now, its air pockets leaking. It hung low and heavy in the water, barely breaking the surface. One try, Kieran decided. He put his face down and kicked hard.

  It was gone by the time he reached the spot. He drew in a full breath, upended his body and dove, fingers outstretched, eyes open but blind in the black water. His lungs were tight from the effort of the swim and he knew as soon as he was under that he hadn’t got enough air to go deep. He was on the verge of kicking up – back to the surface and the air, back to Mia and Audrey – when his fingers grazed fabric.

  A bag. Kieran swung his arm and caught a strap, clamping it tightly in his fist. He pulled. The bag was heavy and it jerked his arm, dragging him deeper. He tightened his grip, turned his face upwards and kicked.

  He gasped as he broke through to the air, treading water for a minute as he caught his breath. He ran his free hand over the bag. Some sort of backpack he could tell now. It felt like it was growing heavier by the second and at last, worried he would drop it, Kieran began battling his way back to shore.

  He carried the bag out, dumping it face up in the sand, and flopped down next to it, his heart pounding. It was an ordinary grey backpack, from what he could see in the dying light. It appeared in good condition other than being soaking wet. Possibly even brand new. Kieran kneeled next to it. He hesitated, but only for a second. He reached out, unzipped the flap and looked in.