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

by Gregg Dunnett

  “I think we should turn back,” said Darren when we all paused. I might have agreed with him, but John had already pressed on.

  “Let’s just check out beyond this headland, then we can go back,” he called from ahead.

  Darren seemed reluctant to move but I slipped past him.

  “We’ve come this far, we might as well have a look,” I said to him.

  Up ahead John had now made the headland and stopped. He had a huge grin on his face when I got up to him. This look of triumph.

  “Check it out,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Down there!”

  The coastline was a bit different here. Actually it was a bit weird. We were looking at another small inlet where a valley met the sea, but the sides of this one were much steeper, more like cliffs than sides of a valley, it made a bay that was totally hidden from the land, almost from the sea as well. And there was a strange feature mid way along the cliff on the north end, one part of the cliff had slipped but not quite fallen so it looked like a huge column of rock was suspended in the air.

  “How cool is that?” said John, already striding forward to investigate.

  On all sides the earth had been eroded down around the rock leaving it resting on a tiny flat section. It almost looked as if you could push it over, but although we tried it was much more stable than it looked.

  “It’s like it’s hanging in the air.”

  “We should call this place Hanging Rock Bay,” John announced. “Let’s have lunch here.”

  So we sat on the grass beside the hanging rock and got out the chocolate bars and crisps that we’d taken from the store. And it was a real beautiful place, totally private. It felt like a closed little world. And we noticed that the north side of the inlet, the side we were sitting on, had this big flat, wide ledge of rock that stretched out into the sea.

  It was one of those really weird swells that day, where every half an hour or so you got one or two waves that would come in. You get that around here sometimes, I don’t know how it works, it’s like they come in at a different angle and find their way up past Ireland. It’s no good for surfing because you’d be waiting around for ever in between waves. But as it happened it turned out to be perfect for checking out the potential for new surf spots. Because there we were, munching on chocolate bars, when one of these waves came in, right in front of us. First of all we could see it as a swell out to sea, and John nudged us to watch.

  “Here, look at that.”

  As the swell approached the mouth of the little bay it grew quite distinctly, and where the sea had been totally flat, now a clean wall of water was lining up. It stretched in from the deeper water and bent towards the shore. And as it got closer it got steeper and steeper until it began to break. For twenty, maybe thirty seconds the wave peeled, this perfect little wave that threw out a lip like a silvery curtain being pulled across the reef in front of our eyes.

  There were two waves in the set, and we watched in silence as the second wave lined up in exactly the same way, and followed the exact same path in over the reef. It was like looking at a picture from one of John’s surfing magazines of some exotic perfect spot. Even just seeing that second wave you could see the lines you’d take, the shoulder sections that you could snap turns off, a bit where it looked hollow enough to get a little tubey cover up. A bowl where the ledge changed its angle a fraction. It looked amazing.

  “Fucking hell boys,” said John. “Hanging Rock has got a wave.”

  fourteen

  THE DOORBELL AGAIN. This time Natalie saw the black and silver of uniforms through the glass and then her pale hand trembling as it rose to unlatch the door.

  “Mrs Harrison?” There were two of them standing there, a man and a woman. The formality of the address was discomforting.

  It was the woman who spoke, thirties, curly ginger-blond hair pulled back from her scalp.

  “I’m Detective Sergeant DS Venables. This is my colleague PC Ian Turnbull, you spoke to him on the phone earlier today?” They both held up their identification.

  Beyond them Natalie saw a police car parked up at the kerb. It looked so out of place, it could have been a spaceship. She tried to read their faces.

  “Do you have any news?”

  Sue hesitated but didn’t answer her. “May we come in?” she said instead.

  Natalie looked blank for a moment but then stood back. They came in, crowded together in the little hallway. The man took off his hat and tried in vain to press his hair flat.

  “Thank you Mrs Harrison. Is there somewhere we can all sit down? Perhaps in the kitchen?”

  “It’s Natalie, please call me Natalie.”

  She led the way. There was something familiar about what was happening, but she didn’t have to time to think what it might be.

  The table in the kitchen was big enough for four chairs gathered around it. The woman police officer suggested that Natalie sit there.

  “I’ll make some tea,” she said, before Natalie thought to ask. She held up a hand to ward off any protesting. “I’ve had a bit of practice making tea in unfamiliar kitchens,” she said with what Natalie assumed was a sympathetic smile.

  “Have you got news?” Natalie said again. Her voice sounded all wrong.

  DS Venables waited until she had located mugs and tea bags before replying.

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?” This was Sarah, standing at the doorway. “Hello, I’m Natalie’s sister,” she said.

  The introductions were made a second time around and DC Venables asked Sarah to sit as well. There was some shuffling of chairs to accommodate them all. Another mug was lined up, then filled alongside the others. When Sue had finished she sat down opposite Natalie and spoke softly.

  “We’ve come to tell you your husband’s car has been located. The vehicle was found in a car park overlooking the sea in Porthtowan.”

  Natalie waited, still hoping she was reading this all wrong.

  “We put a request in to the Devon and Cornwall Police to check all areas where surfers are known to frequent,” PC Turnbull said, as if this had been his idea.

  “But have you found him?” Sarah interrupted.

  DS Venables shook her head. “No. I’m afraid he wasn’t with the vehicle and… And we haven’t located him yet.”

  Natalie’s eyes flicked around the room. She recognised now what was happening. The feeling she’d had at the front door, it was a scene they were all acting out. The police, the way they spoke, held themselves, the looks they shared with each other, it was straight out of a TV drama. She fought to suppress the panic of realising what part she had to play.

  “Now the vehicle is being examined by the Devon and Cornwall officers but they’ve already told us there were a man’s clothes and shoes left on the rear seat, consistent with someone having gone into the water, presumably to go surfing. I’m sorry to say the vehicle has been broken into, there’s no phone or wallet, or anything that could identify the clothes at this stage.” The policewoman hesitated.

  “But I’m afraid they’ve also found evidence that the car has been there some time”

  “What evidence? Sarah’s voice cut into the swirling darkness that was closing in on Natalie’s mind. She sounded miles away.

  “It had a parking fine ma’am. Issued at,” the male PC consulted the notebook he had in front of him. “Zero nine hundred hours, on the third November. That’s this morning, nine am,” he added.

  DS Venables gave them a moment to let that sink in. “We’re checking with the council how often their operatives visited the car park, but I have to tell you that a search of the beach and rocks around the car park has failed to turn up anything of significance, other than the car…”

  Natalie gripped her mug hard, the heat coming through the ceramic wall almost painful. She wanted to force herself back into the room. She wanted to break the inevitability of this conversation, this drip, drip sequence of simple facts that lead to a single conclusion
.

  “It’s not his car. It’s mine.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s not his car, he borrowed mine because his was playing up. I was supposed to take his to the garage. I said I’d do it while he was gone.”

  The policewoman glanced at her colleague then looked back at Natalie.

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you Natalie? We think your husband has been in the sea for at least six hours, perhaps even longer,” she added more quietly, “possibly even overnight.”

  Natalie nodded. She felt chastised, as if she’d been stupid for not realising this.

  “The Coastguard has launched a search and rescue operation and they will do everything possible to find him. But at this time of year the water is very cold. I’m so very sorry to be telling you this.”

  Natalie’s mouth felt so dry she could barely speak.

  “Is he… Do you think he’s…”

  The policewoman reached a hand out over the table and placed it on Natalie’s wrist.

  “We’re going to do everything we can to find him.”

  Natalie stared at the hand lying on her arm.

  “At the moment we are treating this as a search and rescue operation. Your husband is likely to be wearing a wetsuit which will greatly extend the period he can be in the water. It will also give a degree of flotation, and he’ll have his surfboard for additional buoyancy. We are working against the clock, but there’s still reason to be hopeful.”

  Suddenly the door burst open and a wailing child crashed in, followed by another holding a red toy car. Both ran to Sarah and began to explain the injustice they had suffered at each other’s hands. Then, in a moment which might have become a family story had the circumstances been different, both children simultaneously noticed the two police officers sitting at the table and fell silent. The bigger child, four years old, spoke.

  “Mum, why are the policemans here?”

  “Daniel I told you to wait in the other room.” Sarah began to shepherd them out of the kitchen.

  “Has Auntie Natalie been bad?”

  “Shut up Daniel and come next door. Let your brother have a turn with the car.” Sarah gave a look of apology over her shoulder as she led them both out, and the kitchen was quiet, save for the ongoing conversation audible through the living room wall.

  “No, Auntie Natalie hasn’t been bad. The police are just helping her to find Uncle Jim. But you need to be quiet and wait here.”

  DS Venables didn’t take her eyes off Natalie.

  “We are going to do everything we can to find him.” She said it again, and this time she squeezed Natalie’s arm.

  “How many helicopters?”

  The policewoman looked at Natalie as if this might help her decode the question.

  “Sorry?”

  “How many helicopters? How many have they sent up?”

  Now the woman’s eyes flicked across to her colleague.

  “I… I don’t know… That’ll be up to the Coastguard.” She reverted to her comforting tone. “But I’m sure they’re doing everything they can.”

  Suddenly energy flowed into Natalie. She wanted to do something. It felt urgent, like every moment counted.

  “His business partner will help look for him. They own a helicopter business. I told you earlier,” Natalie stared accusingly at the male officer. Then she jumped up and grabbed her phone from the work surface. She started stabbing at the buttons her hand shaking so much now that she could barely operate it. She thought of the flights she’d taken with Jim, across to Ireland, over the channel to France. She looked the policewoman in the face.

  “Do you know how big the sea is out there? Do you know how much water there is? How small things look from the air?”

  Her phone connected.

  “Dave? Listen to me. They’ve found my car in somewhere called Porthtowan. Yes, in Cornwall. They think Jim went into the water there this morning,” her voice wavered. “He hasn’t come out yet.” She went quiet for a moment, listening as the man spoke on the other end.

  “No, no Dave, just listen. I’m here with the police now. But I need you to get up and search for Jim. Now. I need you to find him Dave. I can’t lose him. Not like… I just need you to go up and look for him.”

  The two police officers couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation and they sipped their teas without looking at one another, waiting.

  “Search Coordinator,” Natalie suddenly turned around, there were tears flowing openly down her face. “He says there must be someone directing the search. He needs to contact them.”

  DS Venables put down her tea and failed to prevent her face slipping into its look of quiet, understanding sadness, but this time she looked at PC Turnbull. “Well, give her the number Joe.”

  The man had to radio in to the station to get it, but eventually he relayed a telephone number to Natalie, who wrote it down as she repeated it to Dave. Then she listened for a moment more and rang off. Natalie looked at the two officers in her kitchen, drinking her tea.

  “He said he’ll be airborne in fifteen minutes.”

  fifteen

  WE HAD TO wait a while before we got to surf at Hanging Rock. Something happened in the meantime that changed things, for a while at least.

  School had got a lot easier by then. Darren was there of course, and maybe in a normal school we wouldn’t have been in the same classes on account of him being slow, or dyslexic or whatever, but our school was so small that everyone was together all the time. So I got to hang out with him, and the other kids had got used to me by then, but none of them surfed so I wasn’t that interested. There was this one girl though. I remember I noticed her right away when I arrived from Oz because she was so pretty, but obviously I’d never talked to her or anything like that.

  Her name was Cara Williams, and actually, saying she was pretty doesn’t really cover it. She was way beyond pretty. She was amazing. She wasn’t the sort of girl you’d expect to find in a small Welsh village. I’m pretty sure she’s a supermodel or something now, or married to a billionaire and living on his yacht. She was already tall and slim by whatever age we were then, maybe fourteen? She already had breasts like a real woman. Sometimes she even looked a bit ridiculous going round with her friends at school, like this super hot woman in a school uniform surrounded by sour-faced, ugly girls. Only obviously she didn’t hang out with the ugly girls, she was part of a gang of the pretty ones, but she made them look plain because she just shone.

  It maybe sounds like I’m exaggerating a bit. Well, maybe there are bits of this story where I’m getting a bit carried away - but that’s artistic licence isn’t it? Anyway, you should believe me on this one. Cara Williams was just amazing.

  And there wasn’t anyone in the school who didn’t see it. All the boys were in love with her. All of us. Lots of them - the honest ones - would talk about how they’d wanked off the night before thinking about her, but you knew that everyone was at it. It wasn’t just us kids either, you’d catch the teachers gazing at her when they thought no one was looking, and you can bet they were doing it as well. But anyway. Even though there were quite a few school romances springing up by then, Cara Williams never had a boyfriend at school. And the reason for that was simple, she was so obviously in a different league to any of us, there was no point trying it on.

  And maybe this made her lonely. Maybe it was me coming from Australia that made me a little bit exotic too, or maybe she just kinda fancied me a bit, that’s not so hard to believe is it? All that surfing was making me fit too. So I don’t know exactly what it was but one day, as I was walking between classes I noticed she was in front of me, with her backpack slung on one shoulder, and the zip open. A couple of exercise books were just about to fall out and without thinking I just called out.

  “Hey Cara,”

  She turned around, as she did so one of the books slid out to the floor. Back in Oz my Mum had been really hot on things like manners and I stooped down to pick them u
p.

  “Thanks Jesse,” she said, giving me this smile that made everything else in the world instantly less important. There was no surprise that she knew my name, that’s just how small the school was, but I was surprised that she used it.

  Her hand brushed mine as she took the books back. I’d never noticed before but even her hands were beautiful.

  “No problem,” I said. I felt a bit weird and I turned to walk on.

  “I’d be in trouble if I lost that,” she called out to me. “That’s from Mr Johnston’s class.”

  I hadn’t been expecting a conversation to start and was already a few steps away, I had to turn back to reply.

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s pretty strict about homework.”

  She’d slipped her bag off her shoulder to put the books back, and in so doing her white blouse, which was unbuttoned at the top, had also slipped a bit, you could see her bra strap where it pressed into the smooth skin on her shoulder.

  “Yeah, I guess.” I said.

  “Don’t you think?”

  I couldn’t think of anything clever to say so I just said the first thing that came to my mind.

  “Back in Oz you wouldn’t have called him strict. He’d be average at worst.”

  “Really?” The backpack was swung back onto her back, pulling her blouse tight against her chest again. The strap forced itself between her two breasts, clearly defining each of them. For the first time I felt awkward as I tried not to look.