The Wave at Hanging Rock: A Psychological Mystery and Suspense Thriller

by Gregg Dunnett

“Well, get the list. Have a look.”

  The first officer re-wrapped his food and reached behind his seat to pick up a clipboard. He flicked through a couple of pages of notes from the morning’s briefing until he found what he was looking for. He scanned a finger across the page, then looked over at the car again.

  “Yep, that’s the one.” He glanced sadly at his half-eaten lunch then pushed the door open and climbed out, settling his hat onto his head.

  “You’re keen,” his colleague said, taking another bite of his kebab.

  “Well one of us has to fight crime around here.”

  As he approached the car his feet scrunched in a manner depressingly familiar and he swore out loud. Bloody thieving toerags. The passenger window on the Nissan was shattered, fragments of glass lay on the ground like thousands of tiny cubes. He glanced in. There was more diced glass, but here it was scattered across a pile of clothes on the front seat, as if someone had got changed to go for a swim or a surf, which was a common activity on this beach. Or to drown themselves, the officer thought to himself. Suicides weren’t unknown either.

  There was a parking ticket on the windscreen, a penalty notice. The officer craned his neck to see when it was issued, just a couple of hours previously. He looked around the car but couldn’t see any evidence that a pay and display ticket had been purchased.

  The passenger side door was unlocked so he opened it, then squatted down. He noticed the ignition hadn’t been broken - it was a break in, not a stolen car that had been dumped. The kids around here were getting picky about what they went joyriding in. He stared at the pile of clothes on the seat for a moment, just jeans, a t-shirt and a jumper. Then he stood back up, walked back to his car to finish his lunch and then called it in.

  thirteen

  A LITTLE WHILE later John turned up at the campsite early one Saturday. There wasn’t any swell, and nothing in the forecast. At least it wasn’t raining though.

  “Is your mum around?” he asked.

  “She’s gone into town,” I replied, still eating toast.

  “Good.” John walked out of the kitchen and into what was built as the living room but served as the campsite shop. We were open on Saturdays for two hours in the morning. I got the rest of the day off. He browsed for a while, collecting a chocolate bar and a small packet of cereal.

  “Got any milk?”

  “Use the stuff from the kitchen,” I replied knowing John wasn’t going to pay. “Mum’ll be less likely to notice.”

  “OK. Where’s Darren?”

  I shrugged from the doorway. “Guess he’ll be around soon. There’s no waves again.” I meant it like there was no rush.

  “Do you sell maps here?”

  I thought for a moment. “Uh, yeah, they’re in the drawer under the till. Why?”

  “Let’s have a look at one.” He opened the drawer and pulled out a map, checking on the back that it covered the area he wanted. “Come on.”

  We went back to the kitchen and he stuck the chocolate bar in his mouth while unfolding the map. It wasn’t the biggest table and he had to stop and get me to put all the breakfast things onto the side before he could open it properly.

  “So we’re here right?” He said, stabbing at it. I leaned in. I’d looked at the map before of course, but I’d never really studied it. We’d explored up to then just by wandering, seeing what was there. You didn’t need a map for that.

  John had his finger pointing at the campsite, behind the yellow crescent of the beach. To the north there was the small fishing harbour, and behind that the blue ribbon of the river cut into the green of the land, the little village spread out along its twin banks. Our world.

  “So what’s down here then?” John was now poring over the stretch of coastline to the south of the bay. Like I said, all the land down there was privately owned back then, from a few miles inland right the way down to the coast. There was no footpath like there is today either, just signs saying “Private, Keep Out” as you got to the end of the beach. Inland there was a brick wall built along the road that snaked the whole way round the estate, too tall to see over. But on the map the details of the land the other side were shown in just the same detail. You had the contour lines showing where the hills and valleys met the sea, and the actual coastline had different symbols showing how the rocks continued all the way until the next sandy beach, with various jagged inlets and headlands as it went.

  I joined John and began to study the section where the fine detail of the land was replaced by the simple colour blue of the sea.

  “We need to check out the bits where it faces south west, that’s most likely to get the bigger waves,” John said.

  “Or where there’s rock slabs that go out underwater. That’ll set the waves up and make them break properly.” I agreed.

  “If we look now, when there’s no waves, we’ll need to be able to spot where will work when a swell hits.”

  “Do you think we’ll be able to see?” I asked.

  “Yeah, course we will.”

  “Look here, there’s a bit.” I pointed at a little kink in the coastline, a small inlet in the rocks where a tiny stream had carved out a notch. “I bet there’s a wave that breaks there. I bet it’s awesome.”

  Darren had wandered in by now, and without a word he’d filled the kettle and put it on the hob, and dropped three tea bags into cups. I only noticed him when the kettle began to whistle.

  “What are we doing?” he asked.

  “We’re going to check this place out.” John stabbed a finger at the map, his voice filled with energy and enthusiasm.

  Darren came over, holding his head on one side to see better. “How?”

  “What do you mean how? We’re going to hike down there.”

  “But it’s private. We’re not allowed to go in there.” Sometimes Darren was able to forget things that had come before, it was like he reset himself.

  “What did I say to you last week Darren? It’s only private to tourists. And we’re not going to do any harm.”

  Darren considered this for a moment and his concerned look formed on his face, like it was John who wasn’t getting it. “But it’s owned by that old lord guy. He shoots people that go onto his land. My dad said so, and his friend used to work in there, so he must know. He saw it happen or something.”

  Darren rarely said this much, only doing so when he felt there was something urgent to say, and it stopped us for a moment.

  “Who is he? This lord guy?” I asked.

  “I dunno. He’s like this old mad guy whose family died. Apparently he just walks around all day with a shotgun shooting at people who come in. Everyone in the village knows about it.”

  For all that John knew about the village and the people that lived there, there was no question that Darren was the real local. His family had been there for generations, it was John and me who were the newcomers. And on this one, if Darren said it was a no go, I’d probably have believed him. Maybe we’d have gone fishing again. See who could chuck stones the furthest. The same shit we always did. But John was there that day. No way he was gonna be put off that easy.

  “You can’t shoot people, even on your own land. I bet he just shoots at rabbits.”

  “That’s not what my dad says.” Darren shook his head, trying to make out like it wasn’t open to discussion.

  “Your dad just doesn’t want you to go there. He’s just trying to control you.”

  “No. Everyone knows about it,” Darren said again.

  John was grinning at Darren now. He found it funny sometimes when people kept on arguing with him, it was always so obvious that John was going to win.

  “Well, if he’s old, he won’t be able to see very well so he won’t be able to shoot us. Will he?” Then he went on without giving either of us time to reply. “And he won’t be able to run after us. And there’s three of us, so even if he did we could overpower him.”

  “He might have dogs or something though. We can’t outrun dogs.” I
said. I didn’t mean to, it just blurted out. I didn’t like being in the middle of this but I knew the implications of the conversation. If John won - when John won - we were going there and I wanted to know what we were facing. I looked at Darren. “Does he have dogs?”

  John answered for him. “Course not. We’d hear barking if there were dogs. Like Darren said, it’s just one old guy who can’t see properly anymore. Everyone knows it.” But we both looked to Darren for confirmation. And Darren was too honest to lie.

  “I haven’t heard about any dogs.”

  “That settles it then,” said John. We all went back to looking at the map. This time I wasn’t just scanning it for potential surf spots, but surveying it like it was enemy territory.

  “But how will we get there?” Darren asked again, a little while later. There’s no path or nothing.” Like I said, this was before they opened the coastal footpath and there was no dotted red line to indicate that it was possible to walk.

  “Maybe we can just clamber along the rocks? We’d be out of view then as well maybe,” I said, hoping this was true. “How far is it?”

  John searched the map to find the scale and quickly transposed the distance using his finger. “About five miles to the next bay.”

  “I don’t think we can clamber that far,” said Darren.

  “Well, let’s see how far we can get,” John was getting tired of this now. “And if we can’t get any further, we’ll have to turn back.”

  And with this both Darren and me were out of excuses.

  “Come on. We’re going to need supplies and stuff. We’ll get some from Jesse’s shop and then you can close it up early. Since your mum’s away and all.”

  It was still early when we walked down the beach towards the rocks at the southern end. There was a little path out to the end of the headland, and lots of people used to walk out to it, but beyond that there were brambles and vegetation that had been allowed to grow out of control so that you couldn’t get beyond it. There was a big sign planted in the ground just in front with “Private” written in big red letters so there was no way you could miss it or pretend you hadn’t noticed. We waited until there was no one in sight on the beach and pushed past the sign, ducking under some brambles that had grown taller than we were. But only a few metres further on they were much thicker and we could go no further.

  Darren tried to push his way through it first, kicking at the stems to try and break them, but soon there were little trickles of blood running down his bare legs where thorns had scratched him. He gave up. “There’s no way to get through,” he said.

  But we hadn’t seen what John was doing, digging in his backpack. He pulled out a knife with a big curved blade, like the ones explorers used to use to hack through jungles. John had this thing about knives. He had a whole collection of them.

  “Stand back,” he said and begun to swing at the plants.

  Even then it wasn’t easy. He made us both help, carefully pulling the creepers back so he could hack at their bases, and then getting us to pull them through, until they untangled from the undergrowth and came free. Then we crawled out backwards and chucked them away, wiping the creamy white sap off our hands. John kept hacking away for ages and slowly he created an opening, more of a tunnel really, into the undergrowth. Once we got through the outer shell of the plants, they got much less dense, here it was just the thick main stems sticking up out of bare earth with most of the plant over our heads. The ground was made up of brown, dead brambles. There was no path, but by keeping to the inside of the bush we could move forward a long way, and John only occasionally had to swing his blade.

  In some places the roof of brambles was so thick it was almost dark, but up ahead we could see sections where more light got in because the plant was thinner. John went as far as he could go, and then began to slash away at one of these sections. He was swearing by now, I think he was getting pissed off with the thorns tearing at us. Then his head and torso disappeared in front of us, and then his legs wriggled and pulled him forward, then disappeared into the light. There was silence for a while.

  “John.” I hissed. I was the one behind him, Darren was behind me.

  Nothing.

  “John!” I called a bit more loudly, half expecting to hear the crack of a shotgun at any moment.

  Then a head appeared through the hole John had created. He held up a finger to his mouth to silence us, then beckoned.

  “We’re through!” he whispered “Come on.”

  I turned round to look at Darren and he shrugged then pushed past me and crawled through the gap. I didn’t want to be left behind on my own so I followed after them.

  You could see at once why we needed to be quiet. We’d crawled maybe thirty metres inside the brambles and come out on the other side of the headland. And the first thing we saw, up a small slope, was this big mansion-like country house. There were no more brambles in front of us to hide behind, between the house and the sea was mostly grass with patches where big grey rocks were poking out. The shoreline itself was mostly rocks, blacker here and less rounded, shot through with fissures and cracks. Where we crouched we were exposed. If anyone had looked from the house’s windows they’d have seen us. I felt like retreating back into the brambles.

  “Come on,” John was already out ahead of us. “Let’s get down by the rocks were he won’t be able to see us.”

  I couldn’t see anyone at the house but I still half-expected to feel the impact of a bullet in my chest as I ran down to where the grass gave way to the rocks and boulders of the shoreline. There were cracks and crevices in the bedrock where we could hide and sneak looks back at the house. There was still no one about, no faces at any of the windows, so going one-by-one we ran across the open bits until we could next drop down out of sight. You could see we didn’t have to go far until we’d be out of sight completely. It looked like we could do it.

  John was out in front of course, Darren was in the middle now and I was in last place, waiting until they both beckoned to me before dashing across the open land. There was one particularly big stretch where it took maybe a minute to clamber across this bouldery little beach, right below the house. John and Darren had already made it across and were calling to me, keeping an eye on the house from behind a rock. I was only half way across and caught right out in the open when I heard them calling to me urgently.

  “Get down!”

  “Stop! Jesse get down!”

  There was nothing to get down behind so I just dropped to the ground and tried to fit my body into it. I didn’t dare look towards the house but I could imagine the elderly aristocrat fitting the cartridges into the shotgun, his monocle scrunched up in his eye. I closed my eyes and prayed he was as short sighted as John said he was.

  “Jesse! Come on. Quick!”

  I opened my eyes again and saw them both beckoning urgently to me. I got up, I didn’t look, I just covered the ground as fast as I could, stumbling as the smaller rocks moved under my feet. I was out of breath when I joined the others behind the rock.

  “I saw someone,” said Darren.

  I looked at John for confirmation.

  “Yeah, there was a guy, he walked from that little building into the main house. I don’t think he looked this way though.”

  “Did he have a gun?” I asked, I wanted to know how close to death I’d come.

  “I didn’t see one.”

  From where we were it was quite easy to sneak a look at the house, and I did so now but there was no one about.

  “Come on, we can keep going now. We’re out of sight for this next bit.” John was right, there was a stretch of low cliff here and by keeping to the bottom, there was no way anyone from the house would be able to see us. And although it felt crazy to keep going further into the land, I was in no hurry to go back the way we’d just come.

  We made the next headland unseen, and once around it, the going was pretty easy. There were no more buildings in sight and we followed a sheep track along the co
ast. For some parts we had to drop down onto the rocky foreshore when the gradient was too steep, or the trail petered out, but mostly we could walk more or less normal speed in single file, John taking the lead and me still in the rear. The further away from the house we got, the more we all relaxed until, after about half an hour we came to a part where the coastline cut in. John folded out the map and smoothed it down in a small clearing on the floor.

  “This is the place.”

  We all gazed out at the sea, where small swells, far too small to surf, surged up against and over a shoreline of disorganised and ragged rocks, pushing water up through the gaps and then receding to let it fall back down again.

  “It doesn’t look much to me,” said Darren, sounding a little pleased about this.

  “It might be better when there’s actually waves though.” I said. But I wasn’t hopeful.

  John didn’t reply. He just stood up and hurled a piece of rock out as far as he could. It cracked off a gully in the rocks and bounced out into the sea, dropping in with barely any splash.

  “It’s no good. It’s all just rocks.” Darren said. “Let’s go back.”

  John drew back his arm and threw another rock, this time getting more distance and hitting the sea directly. If he heard Darren he made no sign.

  “We’ll keep going a little bit further. There must be something along here.” He set off and the two of us followed.

  The rocks got much steeper further along, and we found a section that looked promising for fishing from, since the water was much closer to the path. It was deep too. Although the water was clear so you could still see the bottom, it had that greeny tint that you only got when you looked through a lot of water. There were plenty of sheep here too and our presence unnerved them so that some kept running ahead of us, helping to show a way forward. There was another little headland ahead which was marked on the map as about midway between our beach and the next one to the south, outside the southern limits of the estate, and where another small village lay.