by Jane Harper
‘All right.’ Pendlebury’s voice was calm. ‘I’m here in Evelyn Bay to find out what happened to Bronte Laidler. That’s it. That’s my whole job. This storm of yours, Gabby Birch’s disappearance, all this local gossip that’s getting put about online – none of that is why I’m here.’ She paused. ‘But part of asking questions means you tend to get answers. Things that aren’t necessarily relevant to me, but it doesn’t mean they’re not relevant at all.’
Kieran shifted impatiently. Mia was looking back and forth between them.
‘I’ve spoken to George Barlin a couple of times,’ Pendlebury said. ‘You know he’s a former journalist?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’ve read his books?’
‘Most of them,’ Kieran said and Mia nodded.
‘Me too,’ Pendlebury said. ‘Not my usual taste, but not bad at all. Anyway, since he moved here, he’s been doing a bit of research around the storm.’
‘For a book?’ Mia said.
‘He says mostly for his own interest. He was in town that year. He said experiencing that storm was something he’s never forgotten.’ Pendlebury shrugged. ‘Personally, it’s none of my business if he’s planning to write about it or not. And at first, I wasn’t too interested in what happened back then. Like I said, I’m here to worry about what took place a few days ago, not twelve years ago.’ She stared out at the water, tapping a finger absently on her knee. ‘But then George mentioned something that did strike me as interesting.’
‘What?’ Kieran said.
‘The accident that happened out here? With you and your brother and Toby Gilroy?’ Pendlebury turned to him now. ‘The timing doesn’t work.’
Kieran frowned and saw Mia do the same.
‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘What timing?’
‘The events on that day of the storm. You getting into trouble in the water, Kieran. The distress call, the attempted rescue. The drownings. It can’t have happened the way you think it happened.’
‘Of course it did.’ Kieran gave a laugh that sounded odd to his ears. ‘I was literally there.’
Pendlebury shook her head. ‘No. It didn’t.’
She opened her computer tablet again, squinting as she shielded the screen from the sun. Kieran waited, suddenly disoriented, like when a wave dropped out from under a boat. Momentarily airborne, followed by a jarring slam.
‘Are you going to tell us what you mean?’ Mia was saying. She got to her feet and came to stand next to Kieran.
Pendlebury held up a finger, nodding as she searched for something. Finally, she made a noise of satisfaction and looked up.
‘Right. So the accepted version of the accident – by you, Kieran, by everyone, essentially – is that you were here at the caves doing some route mapping work for your brother, the storm came in faster than you realised and you were swept into the sea. You’ve told me Olivia Birch was with you –’
Pendlebury stopped suddenly and glanced at Mia, who rolled her eyes. Of course she knew.
‘But as far as anyone else is concerned –’ the officer continued, ‘Olivia was on the cliff path, hurrying to get home in the rain when she saw you in trouble in the water. She made an emergency call, the word got patched through to Julian Wallis as head of the local search and rescue operations, and he put out an alert that was picked up by Finn and Toby. They confirmed they would respond, they raced out on the Nautilus Black from the marina, rounded the point here by the caves and were hit by a freak wave. The boat sent out a distress signal of its own, but nothing could be done and they drowned.’
Kieran gave a tight nod. ‘That’s about it.’
‘Right. The thing is, the time of every one of those calls and alerts was noted. They’re right there – fair enough, they’re spread all over the place across various official records – but they’re backed up by phone data, emergency signals. The individual times are correct, they’ve never been in dispute.’ Pendlebury looked over at Kieran. ‘The problem George Barlin picked up when he sat down with all those separate documents in one place and looked at them properly with his notebook and writer’s quill or whatever, is that the story doesn’t work.’
‘In what possible way does all that not work?’ Kieran said. He felt Mia shift next to him.
‘The only way the timing fits is if Finn and Toby were already out on the water in their boat when they got the radio message that you were in trouble.’
Kieran stared at Pendlebury, but she was looking past him now, out to the Nautilus Blue.
‘It takes, what, fifteen minutes – absolute minimum – to sail out here from the marina, correct?’ she said. ‘That’s what I understand.’
‘Yeah.’ Fifteen was pushing it, actually; twenty was much more typical.
‘Right. Well, from the time Olivia’s first emergency call was made – confirmed by phone records – to the time your brother responded on the Nautilus Black radio, just under four minutes had elapsed. Less than three minutes after that, the Nautilus Black’s distress signal was activated, with the GPS positioning them out there on the water beyond the caves.’
Pendlebury looked at Kieran now.
‘From when you were swept away to when your brother and Toby arrived, not even ten minutes had gone by. They can’t have been at the marina when the emergency call came in, they were already out on their boat.’
Kieran shook his head. ‘No. That’s –’
‘See for yourself.’ Pendlebury handed him the tablet. ‘The important bits are highlighted.’
Kieran took it, and Mia leaned in to see, her face close to his. He could hear her breathing as he tapped the screen. A phone record appeared, and another, then a string of official reports and records. Kieran flicked back and forth, again and again, trying to absorb what he was seeing, while Mia read over his shoulder.
Not trusting his own eyes, he glanced at her.
‘What do you think?’ He was surprised to find himself whispering.
She pointed at the screen. There, and there. And there.
The emergency call made by Olivia, the log report filed by Julian, the response by the Nautilus Black, the activation of the boat’s distress call.
Kieran tried to concentrate. How long had he been in the water before he was thrown onto the rock and caught that first glimpse of the Nautilus Black? It had felt like hours, but – Kieran made himself focus. But he had survived, so it could only have been minutes, at most. How many? He looked down at the screen. Less than ten, according to the black and white text in front of him.
Kieran opened his mouth. ‘If these timings are right –’
‘They are.’
‘Okay, but –’ He couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
‘Why has no-one picked up on this before?’ Mia said, but from her tone Kieran could tell she had also guessed the answer almost as soon as she’d asked. Because with everything else that had happened that day, the minutiae simply hadn’t mattered. Not to the traumatised crowd who’d gathered on the clifftop to watch two men drown. Not to townspeople faced with damaged homes and destroyed businesses. Not to the family of the missing girl, last seen on the beach with her backpack and then never again. Ash’s voice rang in his head. It was a crazy day.
‘So if those timings are accurate, that would mean Finn and Toby –’ Kieran was still not quite there yet.
‘That Finn and Toby were out on their boat and headed in this general direction before they even knew you were in the water, yes,’ Pendlebury said. ‘So whatever went wrong that day, Kieran, it wasn’t your fault in the way you think it was.’
Kieran opened his mouth, but felt like he couldn’t draw breath. He felt Mia’s palm on his back, rubbing in circles. He bent forward and buried his face in his hands.
He could almost see it, and felt sick with giddiness. He’d been carrying this weight for so many years,
he couldn’t imagine what it might feel like to be able to set it down. The lightness and the freedom. He could tell Verity. He could try to tell Brian. The thought of that flashed so tempting and bright it was almost painful.
But beneath the dazzle he felt something sliding and flickering. A question. Kieran tried to ignore it, but it turned over in his mind. Prodding at him, soft but insistent. He raised his head and thought from Mia’s face that she was wondering the same thing. The same question Verity would arrive at after the initial rush had ebbed away. The same one everyone in Evelyn Bay would eventually gossip about over their coffees and keyboards. Kieran knew what they would all ask, because he was already asking it himself.
Kieran could feel Pendlebury’s eyes on him. She seemed to know what he was going to ask even as he opened his mouth.
‘What were Finn and Toby doing out on their boat in the middle of the storm?’
Chapter 31
Pendlebury didn’t answer. Kieran waited but she simply gazed back, a faint hint of regret or apology or both in the air.
‘Why were Finn and Toby out on their boat?’ he tried again.
‘I don’t know that, I’m afraid.’
Kieran wasn’t sure if the dull rushing he could hear was the ocean or the blood pounding in his ears.
‘Finn knew the storm would be dangerous,’ he said. ‘He and Toby were two of the only people who realised how bad it could get. They were the ones warning us the day before to stay off the water.’
‘I understand that. But I still can’t tell you why they were out there.’ Underneath Pendlebury’s neutral tone, there was a note Kieran couldn’t place.
Mia was watching her. ‘Can’t or won’t?’
‘Can’t. I would be speculating. I’m sorry,’ she said to Kieran, who was leaning heavily against the safety rail. ‘This is obviously a lot for you to process. I hope I’ve done the right thing in telling you, but I feel in the end the truth’s usually the best –’
Pendlebury broke off and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Kieran hadn’t heard it ring, but she frowned at the lit-up screen.
‘I’m so sorry, I really have to take this.’ Pendlebury lifted the phone to her ear. ‘Just a minute, please,’ she said into it, then lowered it again. ‘Thanks for showing me around down there, Kieran. I’ll make my own way back to town. And, listen –’ Her full attention was on them and she was silent for a long moment. ‘If you have any questions, you know where the station is.’
Pendlebury raised the phone, dropped her head and turned away. Kieran didn’t move, unsure if this was her way of avoiding further discussion. He felt Mia touch his arm.
‘Let’s go,’ she said firmly and clicked the brake off the pram.
The lookout was out of sight behind them before either of them spoke again.
‘She knows why they were out there.’ Mia’s voice was low.
‘I think so too,’ Kieran said. ‘Or has an idea. There was something in the way she was talking, right? So why won’t she say?’
‘I don’t know.’
Their footsteps crunched along the trail as they passed the cemetery gates. Kieran marched on, barely registering the path in front of him. He kept trying to take a breath, but was finding it hard to fill his lungs. After a few more paces, he felt Mia slow.
‘Stop. Take a minute.’ She parked the pram. The path was deserted in both directions. From where they stood, the ocean was an unbroken flat plain.
Kieran turned to her, his chest still tight. ‘What did you make of that stuff she showed us?’
‘About the timings? I’d want to check it properly, but –’ Mia nodded. ‘What she was saying looked right to me.’
‘Me too. And also George Barlin, yeah? He spotted it on his own.’ Kieran ran his hands over his head. His heart was hammering like he’d been swimming for hours. ‘So –’ He was struggling to form his thoughts. ‘Is that it? Just like that? It’s suddenly not my fault anymore?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Mia said. ‘Yes. Maybe.’
‘So what now?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I don’t know either. Oh God, Mia. I am so tired.’ He covered his eyes. They were hot and prickling. ‘I am so tired of feeling guilty.’
‘I know.’ She put her arms around him. ‘It’s okay.’
‘But this means I don’t have to feel that anymore, right? That’s what this means?’
A pause. ‘That’s right.’
He pulled back. ‘So why don’t I feel any better about it?’
Mia looked at him, her hands still warm against his arms. She didn’t say anything, and he almost had the urge to smile.
‘I know you’re thinking the same thing as me,’ Kieran said.
‘And what’s that?’
‘You’re thinking that I don’t feel better because it’s bothering me why Finn was on the water.’
‘Okay, yes,’ she conceded. ‘That is what I was thinking.’
Kieran’s almost-smile faded. ‘And that if Pendlebury knows but wouldn’t tell me –’ He breathed out. ‘There’s a reason for it. So what’s the reason?’
‘It could be a lot of things,’ Mia said. ‘I don’t think you can draw any conclusions from that.’
‘Can’t I?’
‘No. You can’t.’ Mia fell quiet, then looked back along the path. ‘I was actually thinking something else too.’
‘What?’
‘That if Pendlebury does know why Finn was on the water, that’s some pretty impressive inside knowledge,’ she said. ‘Especially for a woman who’s not a local. She might be a good cop, I don’t know either way, but she’s definitely an outsider. She wasn’t here for the storm, she doesn’t remember it the way we all do. If Pendlebury knows something about what happened here twelve years ago – something that specific – it’s because someone’s told her. Someone who was here. It has to be.’
Kieran stared at her, the possibilities lining up like cogs on a wheel. Mia was right. If Pendlebury knew, someone else knew, too.
‘Who?’ He felt deep down he had the answer to this but his head was spinning too fast to focus.
But Mia was already nodding.
‘Well, it’s like Pendlebury told us herself, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘If we have any questions about this, we know where the police station is.’
Sergeant Chris Renn was dragging an empty filing cabinet outside when Kieran and Mia walked up to the station.
Kieran held the glass door open for him as Renn edged the cabinet out.
‘Thanks,’ Renn grunted. A corner caught on the door hinges and he gave it a whack to wrench it free. He picked the cabinet up without any trouble and slid it in against the brick wall, next to four others. ‘Someone from the school’s coming to collect them this afternoon.’
The sergeant dug a tissue out of his pocket and wiped the shine from his forehead.
‘What can I do for you two?’ He glanced down at the pram. ‘Three.’
‘Why were Finn and Toby out on the water that day?’ Kieran said, and he sensed rather than saw Mia roll her eyes. They had rehearsed this on the way down, but now he was here the subtleties had deserted him.
Renn didn’t ask what Kieran meant. He looked at them both for a long minute, then turned back to the station. He straightened one of the filing cabinets, and reached for the glass door.
‘Come in.’
The station felt even emptier than last time as they followed Renn through. The remaining desks were still cluttered and Kieran saw one of the uniformed officers from the community meeting nudging someone’s laptop precariously close to the edge to make space for his own. He stopped when he saw Kieran watching him. The map of Evelyn Bay had fallen down and stood on the corridor floor, propped up against the wall, its laminated corners curling inwards.
Renn showed Kieran and Mia into t
he same office as before. There was only one chair in front of the battered desk now, and they waited while he fetched another. When he came back, he put his hand over a small pile of photos stacked by the computer and turned them facedown. Pictures of Bronte supplied by her parents, Kieran realised belatedly.
‘Right, then,’ Renn said when they were all settled. ‘What’s all this about?’
‘Finn and Toby. On the day of the storm.’ Kieran crossed his arms over his chest and tucked in his hands to stop them shaking. ‘They were already out in the Nautilus Black before the call came in to say I was in trouble.’
Renn looked slowly from Kieran to Mia. ‘Who’ve you been chatting to? George Barlin?’
They shook their heads and Kieran saw a shadow of surprise cross Renn’s face. Pendlebury, then, Kieran could almost see him thinking. Whatever Renn made of that, he masked it well. He was such a far cry from the flushed constable who had followed Sergeant Mallott around town, jumping in fear and obedience at his every word. It was hard to believe he was the same man.
This Renn, older and in the boss’s seat now, squared his keyboard against the edge of his desk, buying himself a moment.
‘So what are you getting at, Kieran, mate?’ he said.
‘Finn and Toby didn’t go out on the water for me. The timing doesn’t work.’
A statement, not a question. Kieran braced himself for a straight denial, but Renn held his gaze.
‘Well, I’d have to double-check the records –’ Renn’s tone was measured, but Kieran saw a flicker in the sergeant’s face. It was as good as a confirmation.
Mia had caught it too. ‘I don’t think you need to check anything, Chris. If that’s how it happened, you would know.’
‘Okay,’ Renn said, still calm. ‘Well, if that’s the case, then what exactly is it you want from me?’
‘Why did you bury that?’ Kieran leaned in. ‘How about we start right there?’
‘Me?’ Renn stiffened a little at that. ‘Mate, I wasn’t in charge back then.’
‘Sergeant Mallott, then. And that’s a bullshit excuse. You were both on duty. Whatever went on in the storm, you’d both know about it. You two were the ones who dealt with everything.’