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

by Gregg Dunnett

  “I know what we’re gonna do about the board problem,” said John, watching Darren but doing nothing to stop him.

  “What?” I asked. I expected him to come up with yet another route to get there, the best idea we’d come up with so far.

  “We’re going to get the boards stolen.” He said it, then laughed to himself, probably at how brilliant it was. He stretched himself out on the wide armrests. But we didn’t get it.

  “How does that help?” asked Darren.

  “Because, if the boards get stolen, no one at Town Beach will expect to see them any more.”

  “But we won’t have any boards,” said Darren. He set the decanter back down on its felt base and came and sat next to me.

  “No.” John went on. “Then we’ll have two boards, because we buy new ones, just like everyone expects us to. And then, because the old ones aren’t really stolen, we just make it look like they are, we surf the old boards at Hanging Rock, and use the new ones at Town Beach. Problem solved.”

  Darren looked doubtful.

  “But I can’t afford a new board,” he began, but I started speaking at the same time.

  “My board’s insured,” I said.

  John ignored Darren and answered me.

  “That’s even better. You get a new board for nothing.”

  I thought about this for a while then I sort of chuckled as well.

  “Actually, that’s quite good. Mum would definitely claim if my board got stolen, so it won’t even cost anything.”

  John gave me a golden smile and leaned forwards on the wooden surface of the table, he began to tap his forefinger like he was sending a message in Morse code.

  “We need to make it look real. We’ll do it from your house. That way it’ll look like someone from the campsite has taken them.”

  “Yeah, there’s always dodgy looking guys there, who’d definitely steal boards. Mum’s always telling me to be careful.”

  “But my board isn’t insured,” said Darren. “And I haven’t got any money either.” But we ignored him, John just looked at me with a grin that told me he was going to enjoy this. And he did, even more than I’d thought. He loved it.

  John insisted it had to happen at night. He said it was when most burglaries took place. So one week later, as the sky grew dark, we left the boards on the lawn in front of the house where Mum couldn’t help but see them. Then we retreated to our caravan and kept an eye on them so that no one actually did nick them. We knew Mum had gone to bed when her bedroom light switched off. John gave it five minutes for her to fall asleep and then we moved. But that was when Darren announced he didn’t want to do it. He said it was because he hadn’t figured out a way to replace his board but I think he was just scared. John just shrugged. Told him it didn’t matter, then told me I was carrying Darren’s board as well as my own. For a while it looked like Darren might argue but then he just went home so it was just me and John left.

  John got changed then, he’d brought clothes in his backpack, black trousers, boots, a black coat and a dark hat that pulled down low over his face. He pulled a pair of gloves on and handed a second pair to me.

  “Here you go.”

  “It’s not that cold,” I said.

  “They’re not for the cold.”

  The moon was three-quarters full but the sky was littered with black clouds that dragged themselves across its face so that our torches alternated from useless to nearly useless. It didn’t matter much, John wouldn’t let us use them in case someone saw. Anyway, I had my hands full with two surfboards.

  I followed John so closely the boards kept knocking together, until he turned around and told me off. We went the inland route and like he’d said, you could see the cars coming miles before they reached us, their headlights like strange yellow cones making their way through the darkness. Even so it was a relief to get off the road and onto the farm track, until the moon went in again the landscape descended into varying degrees of blackness. Every now and then we’d get a scare when a black shadow would baa and bleat at us and hobble to its feet. I didn’t have time to be too scared though. John was moving fast and I was hot by the time we pushed our way through the final few bushes at the neck of Hanging Rock Bay. John stopped right in front of me and the only sound I could hear was my breath, coming in gulps.

  “Wow,” said John, “Look at that.”

  I did. Hanging Rock Bay looked beautiful that night. The moon was back, hanging big and low over the water, and beneath it a pathway of flickering silver pointed west. The rock itself had one face illuminated, brooded over the view, but its other faces were in shadow, and it was scary going up close to it, it felt like there were too many places for people to hide.

  We stashed the boards in the cave. If I’d thought it was dark outside it was fucking dark in there, and every now and then a drip of water would land on my head or go down my neck. Not even John would go in more than a few metres before deciding we’d found the right place to leave them.

  “We’ll go back the coastal way, it’s quicker,” John said. He flicked his torch off so we stood in complete blackness, then the light on his watch turned us both eerie and green as he checked the time.

  Freed from carrying the baggage we were able to talk more, and with the moon over the sea there was a little more light. Now the Cara thing was over, it seemed impossible it had ever mattered. Our friendship felt closer than it had ever been. I liked being here with John. I liked it that Darren wasn’t there, and I could tell John felt the same. We made good progress and too soon we got to the final little beach section where we had to cross in view of the big house. Before we came out in the open John stopped me, showed me with his hands that he was going to take a look, and then rolled around the last rock and looked out over the open ground. A moment later he turned back.

  “Torch off. There’s a light on. Downstairs window.” I could see John’s teeth in the moonlight. He was smiling. He slipped his own torch into his pocket. Then he reached up to his hat and began to unfold it down over his face, and I saw it wasn’t a normal hat at all but a balaclava. When he was done all you could see were his eyes and mouth.

  Then the mouth spoke. “Let’s go take a closer look.”

  “What?”

  “It’s light inside the house. He won’t be able to see us.”

  “But what if he does?”

  “He won’t. Come on. Or you can wait here.” And he rolled around the rock again, but this time he disappeared.

  It wasn’t scary where I was waiting, but I didn’t want to break the spell with John. So I ducked out from the rock as well and began to make my way up the short rise to the house. It was mostly dark but bright light spilled out from one of the windows. Curtains open. I guess the guy didn’t have to bother about neighbours. Up ahead I could see John, keeping low to the ground, he’d found a path up towards the house, but he was still pretty visible. Fucking hell. I followed, keeping as low to the ground as I could.

  Nearer the house there was a smell of coal burning, and the grassy path gave way to gravel which crunched underfoot, but between footsteps you could hear music playing, loud, classical music. There was nowhere to hide, so I copied John and just ran as fast as I could for the last bit, until we were both tight up against the cold wall of the house, between the grand front door and the window with the light.

  “What are we doing here?” I hissed at him, feeling my chest with my hand. I thought the sound of my heart was going to give us away.

  “I just want to have a look, see who we’re dealing with.”

  “Why?” I asked, but he’d moved on again, creeping his way along the wall until he was underneath the window with the light on. The scale of the house looked different up close, everything was bigger. It had looked like the bottom of the window was about waist height, but actually you could stand underneath it and still be too low to look in, so I edged along as well until I joined John there, forcing my breath to slow and quieten down. John reached up and gripped the
window ledge and pulled himself up, so his head, still hidden in the balaclava, was bathed in the escaping light. He was strong so he could hold himself there for a long time. When he finally came back down he spoke quietly.

  “Keep quiet, but have a look.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Have a fucking look.” He grinned at me but it looked wrong with his face hidden. “Go on Jesse. Have a look.”

  I reached up and felt the cold rough stone of the window ledge and slowly pulled myself up until my eyes were just over the lip. Then I felt John grab my legs from below, to support me I guess, but it prevented me from getting down and I panicked so much I nearly shouted out, but then my eyes took in the scene inside the room.

  It was the sort of room I’d never seen for real. Only in films and on television. The walls were lined with wood and above that were old paintings, massive, too dark to see clearly but sitting in ornate gold frames like you only saw in museums. There were a few lamps turned on, big brass floor lamps, but the room was so big it was still quite dark. One wall was all fireplace, and there was a fire burning, and pulled up close was a chair. The man sitting there was either asleep or dead. He had his back to us, but you could still see he was old, and dressed that way too, in country tweeds. There was a little table next to him, what looked like whiskey or brandy on it and a book, and something propped up on the floor leaning against it. I suddenly realised what that was and I struggled for John to let me go, he resisted at first but I was too heavy for him. When I dropped to the ground he had his finger to his lips.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I mouthed, but he shook his head.

  “He’s asleep, he can’t hear us.”

  “He’s got a gun.” But John just grinned again.

  “I know. Cool huh?”

  “It’s fucking great. Now let’s get out of here before he wakes up and shoots us.” I went to move away from the window but John’s hand stopped me.

  “Let’s try and break in.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Come on, you know you want to.”

  “What? No I don’t. I fucking don’t.”

  “He looks pretty settled in there, we can try the windows around the back. It’s a big house. I bet we can get in somewhere.”

  “Why would you want to? Let’s just get the fuck out of here.” My voice was getting strained, even I could hear it.

  It’s funny how you can tell almost everything about someone’s expression just from the eyes. Even in the darkness there I could see mostly what John was thinking. Disappointment, but mixed with something else. Something I couldn’t make out. I know now of course. Right there and then John was learning that he was different. Not just different to me, but different to nearly everyone else. While we could be persuaded to push our limits, we never really wanted to. But John never really had limits. Not with anything. And he saw other people’s limits as a weakness, to be explored at his pleasure.

  “If he catches us there’s two of us and only one of him.” John said and his voice had changed a bit too, like this was his final offer.

  “John, the man’s got a shotgun leaning up against his fireside table. We’re done here. Let’s just fucking go home.”

  John didn’t move for a moment, but then his arm across my chest relaxed. But he didn’t let me go. Instead he put his other hand on my shoulder and moved his head close to mine so he could look closely into my eyes. I could smell the breath coming from his mouth. We stayed there for a long while, him holding me beneath the window. Then he relaxed again.

  “You know I was only joking Jesse,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey Jesse, did you put the boards away last night?” The pitch of John’s voice was perfect - curious, but with a note of concern. His face gave nothing away. This was the next morning, just a half hour after I’d woken feeling tired and stiff. I was still nervously spooning cornflakes into my face. Mum was there too of course, that was the point. She was in her blue overalls, getting ready to cut the grass. But John wasn’t supposed to be here. It was supposed to be me who discovered the crime. That was the plan.

  “What?” I mouthed, spewing bits of cornflake.

  “The boards, we left them out the front last night.”

  I looked at John in confusion, and he gave me the tiniest of nods. I tried not to look at Mum as I replied, my voice sounded all wrong.

  “I haven’t touched them. Are you sure they’re not there?”

  John looked worried, like he really looked worried and I wondered for a second if it was because my voice had sounded as fake to him as it had to me. He knew Mum wasn’t stupid, we couldn’t fuck this up.

  “Well they’re definitely not there now. Judy, I don’t suppose you’ve moved them or anything?”

  But it was like Mum had been up all night learning her part of his script. A script he was re-writing on the fly so I didn’t have any more lines.

  “No, I’ve not moved them - where exactly did you put them?”

  “They were right out in front.”

  “And you’re sure they’re not there now? Have you looked under the steps? Perhaps Darren put them away?”

  “No I’ve looked. Oh God.” His hand went to his forehead. “I’ve got a nasty feeling we’ve been really stupid.”

  “Oh no John, you don’t think..?”

  “I do. Anyone could have taken them. You could see them from the car park, and it was busy last night.”

  “Oh John!”

  “Judy,” John turned to Mum, “I must tell you this - it was totally my fault, not Jesse’s. I told him I’d put them away as I went home, but it got late and I… I forgot all about it.” He glanced at me. “I’m so sorry Jesse, I’ll replace it, I’ll get you another board. Just as soon as I’ve saved the money.”

  “Oh John.”

  Then Mum again, this time cast as the hero of John’s little performance. “It’s insured! Jesse’s board is insured, and I think for quite a lot given how battered it looked the last time I saw it. We can claim for a new one. Oh John that’s so generous of you to offer but it’s really not necessary.” She turned to me, me with my spoon hovering in mid air, “Jesse, you are so lucky to have a friend like John.”

  They were both turned to me now and I could see he was going to do it before he did, he winked at me. Just once.

  Mum got me a new board even before the insurance money came through. It was alright, not as good looking as John’s which had nice decals all across the deck. Poor old Darren though. It took him nearly two months to beg an old board from his brother so he had to sit watching when we surfed Town Beach.

  twenty-five

  BUT DARREN DIDN’T care too much, since it wasn’t Town Beach where the real action was.

  Those first few weeks after we hid the boards at Hanging Rock, the weather stayed in the same pattern where storms would rage out in the Atlantic one after another but never make it over us. That’s the perfect set up for surf. You don’t see the storms over the horizon, they don’t interrupt the light winds, blue skies and sunshine, but they send swell after swell after swell. It’s like magic when that happens. I’d never seen the Town Beach working so well, but although we surfed that during the week, it was the weekends we lived for, when we had something so much better.

  The excuses were easy to find. As far as Darren’s parents and John’s dad knew, they were both over at the campsite with me. I’d tell Mum I was either at Darren’s or John’s. It didn’t matter anyway. No one cared where we were by that time. As long as we turned up somewhere for meals once in a while, they were happy.

  Maybe the locals at Town Beach missed us, but there were so many surfers in the water by then, so much agro, they would have been happy we were gone. We were always careful getting onto and off the estate, but once we’d dropped down into the valley, there was really no need for caution, it was like our own private world. And we didn’t just surf Hanging Rock, we basically moved in there. We explored the cliffs, the Hanging Ro
ck itself had this magnetism that drew you towards it, like you couldn’t believe it was able to balance up there, you couldn’t understand how it didn’t all come tumbling down to the ground.

  We explored right to the back of the cave. It still felt creepy in there, even on the brightest of days. I preferred the waterfall. It was at the neck of the bay where the steam came out and it first funnelled through a perfectly smooth gully in the bedrock, about as wide as our surfboards were long, so you could jump across if it hadn’t rained too much, and you couldn’t if it had. Where the gully stopped the water flowed out into nothing and dropped a good few metres in a perfect arc. At high tide it dropped directly into the sea, but when the tide was low there was a deep round bowl of a pool left, surrounded by smooth rock. It was deep enough that you could jump in from the top, even at low tide, and so clear and cool we could drink straight from it. I mean you probably shouldn’t, but we did.

  We built fires. Small ones at first because we were still worried about being discovered, but bigger later on when we realised the smoke dispersed into the air by the time it got higher than the cliffs so no-one could see. We built big fires then, big roaring piles of sticks we collected on the walk in, and driftwood from the shoreline. And that quickly led to ideas about camping out there, since it wasn’t easy to make our way all the way home once it was dark.

  Sometimes we made reconnaissance missions to the big house. In the beginning the old man scared us, we never knew if he might turn up, so we’d hide in the scrub at the top of the cliff and watch the house through John’s binoculars. Sometimes a van would turn up and leave boxes of food on the front step, and it usually sat there for hours before you’d see him open the door and take it in. He was so old he could hardly bend over to pick it up. And John had been right about the shotgun, he only used it for rabbits, and even then he usually missed. We’d watch him limping around on the lawn outside the front of the house, blasting away, and then taking ages to reload, struggling to break the gun down, while the rabbits hopped away. I don’t know who was laughing at him more, us or the rabbits. The old man never got near Hanging Rock, the ground was too uneven. He probably hadn’t been there for years.