by Maggie Groff
It was downhill from then on.
Barney and Sonya had declined my offer of coffee and hurried off to the safety of their rooms at Sonnets. Toby was sitting at my kitchen table and knocking back brandy, and I was pacing the floor. We were not having the mature conversation about our relationship that I’d anticipated.
‘I just don’t understand why you were so damn rude to Sonya,’ Toby said, sounding aggrieved and putting his glass down heavily on the table.
‘Don’t you think it’s odd,’ I retorted angrily, ‘that someone who works for an aid organisation has such rabidly right-wing ideals? It was almost pathological!’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t notice.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Toby, she referred to asylum seekers as illegal immigrants. It didn’t seem to occur to her that these poor sods are escaping from a war zone!’
Chairman Meow, who had been sitting in the doorway watching me pace up and down, suddenly turned and ran off. Truth to tell, I felt like doing the same.
‘There was no need to be so argumentative,’ Toby said. ‘I can’t believe you asked Sonya if she thought the Swiss should have turned away British and Polish soldiers who had escaped from a German prisoner of war camp.’
‘Oh, get real,’ I snapped. ‘She was all gong and no dinner. She’s only been in Byron a few hours and already she’s formed an opinion that it’s overrated. It’s my home, for God’s sake!’ I threw up my hands in disgust.
‘Yeah, I’ll grant you that was a bit rich, but I like her,’ he said flatly. ‘She’s smart and she’s fun.’
The ire in me rose until I thought I would explode.
I turned on him. ‘So the fact that she is smart, and fun, is what made you decide that you liked her, is it? It overrode her bigoted views, did it?’ I took a deep, angry breath and pointed accusingly at him. ‘The truth is she’s young and pretty, and you’re not thinking with your brain, Toby!’ As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, but it was too late and the damage was done.
We looked menacingly at each other and the atmosphere in the room dropped from cold to sub-zero.
Suddenly Toby slammed his hands down on the table, knocking over his brandy. His eyes narrowed and he thrust his face towards me, and when he spoke his speech was so slow and cold and deliberate that it sent a chill up my spine. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he started angrily, ‘don’t you bloody dare make accusations like that in order to lessen your own guilt over your sordid little affair with Rafe.’
I felt like I’d been hit by a freight train.
Words stuck in my throat and I couldn’t speak. I stood still, trying to regroup as I watched the brandy drip onto the floor. So, he had known. For how long? And who had told him?
Infuriated that I’d been ambushed, and despite being guilty as charged, I was seized by the need to defend myself rather than apologise and grovel for forgiveness. Besides, I wasn’t in a grovelling mood.
I leaned back against the sink, folded my arms and, my voice full of icy recrimination, said, ‘And don’t you dare judge me, Toby Sawyer. You haven’t exactly been a boy scout yourself over the years.’
Furious, Toby stood up, clenched his fists and shouted, ‘Yeah, but I didn’t sleep with one of your goddamned friends!’
He was shaking with anger and for an awful moment I thought he was going to come over and hit me. I’d never seen him so riled.
‘I told you about those women,’ he said viciously, as if that completely negated any wrongdoing on his part. ‘Exactly how long,’ he fumed, ‘were you going to play this . . . welcome-home charade before you told me about Rafe?’
Toby pushed his chair away and it toppled over. Then he started to pace around the kitchen.
‘I was going to tell you tonight,’ I argued.
‘Yeah, right.’ He kicked out at one of the cupboard doors that was slightly ajar, and it slammed shut and then bounced wide open.
‘I damn well was,’ I retaliated angrily, standing up to my full height. There’s nothing quite like being falsely accused to recharge the fight in me.
I grabbed the dishcloth and furiously wiped brandy off the floor.
‘How did you find out?’ I demanded. ‘Who told you?’
‘Who snitched, you mean?’
‘No, I mean who told you.’ Seething, I threw the dishcloth in the sink and walked over to Toby and stood right in front of him.
He took a step back. ‘It doesn’t matter who told me,’ he said coldly. ‘All that matters is that I know.’
‘Well, it matters to me,’ I shot back.
‘Live with it!’ he shouted, and then he turned away from me, picked up the brandy glass that was one of a pair Harper had given me, and threw it at the kitchen wall where it smashed.
‘Oh, very grown-up,’ I said, shaking my head.
There was a profound silence during which we stared at each other. I was shaking and Toby had visibly paled.
‘God, I can’t believe I did that,’ he said, picking up the chair and sitting down at the kitchen table. He put his head in his hands and groaned.
‘We both need to calm down,’ I said, back in control, and I walked over and put my hand on his arm for a couple of seconds before sitting down opposite him. Neither one of us was behaving well.
Toby leaned across the table and took my hands in his. ‘All this arguing about Sonya is just an excuse to be mad at each other,’ he reasoned.
‘Perhaps it is,’ I admitted. ‘But she is an annoying little show pony.’
‘Oh, it is,’ he assured me, unable to suppress a sly grin at my comment.
I withdrew my hands from Toby’s clasp and asked nervously, ‘If you knew about Rafe, why did you come to Byron Bay?’
He hesitated before answering, and when he did I could hear the pain in his voice. ‘I was hoping that you had rejected his advances, but as soon as I saw you, I knew that you hadn’t. The guilt was written all over your face.’
Automatically, I put my hands to my cheeks, as if this might somehow diminish the hurt I had caused.
‘I couldn’t handle it in front of the others,’ he went on, ‘and I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I was hoping you wouldn’t come to the restaurant, and when you did I couldn’t bear to look at you.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I shouldn’t have gone,’ I managed. ‘It was a mistake. I realised that you had somehow found out before I could tell you. And I was going to tell you tonight. I promise.’
Toby looked forlorn and appeared to be struggling with what to say. Eventually he said in a strained voice, ‘Scout, I love you and I’ll always love you, but I won’t share you.’
‘And I won’t be shared!’ I said rather crossly, unsure exactly where I was going with that statement. Quickly I suppressed my anger. It had no further place at this table. Toby had just told me he loved me and even though I knew there would always be a place in my heart for him, I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
‘Do you love Rafe?’ Toby asked, and he looked directly at me.
‘I want to be with him,’ I replied truthfully.
‘Rather than me?’ Toby countered.
Pressing my lips together, I looked away. How could I answer him without inflicting more pain? I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears and when I looked back at Toby his eyes were closed and his head had dropped down. Not only had Toby lost me, but one of his close friends, too.
‘I’ve been feeling so guilty,’ I said at length, wiping away a solitary tear that was threading down my cheek. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Toby.’
‘I’m sorry too.’ He looked up and gave me a glimmer of a consoling smile, but his eyes were shiny with tears. ‘It’s partly my fault,’ he went on. ‘I’m never here.’
I stared at him through my own moist eyes, more than happy to allow him to shoulder some of the guilt. After all, he could have hurried home if he thought there was a risk of losing me, but I didn’t say so.
Toby’s paleness accentuated th
e scar on his cheek and I reached out and touched it. ‘How did that happen?’ I asked.
He tenderly put his hand over mine. ‘Nothing valiant, I’m afraid. I fell off a bicycle.’
Another time, I might have laughed at the absurdity of his receiving such an injury in a war zone, but this time I felt only sadness. Gently, I withdrew my hand.
For an hour Toby and I talked through the good times we’d had and discussed the nuts and bolts of disbanding our relationship—I would tell the twins and my parents, Toby would collect his belongings from my apartment and return my key. It was as if we were discussing other people. Another couple.
‘Where are you going to stay tonight?’ I asked, ever practical.
‘I’ve booked a room at Sonnets. I planned ahead.’ Toby stood up. ‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘Rafe’s a lucky man; you’re quite a catch.’
I stood up and he kissed my cheek and then we hugged tightly for a few moments.
Then he was gone.
Sleep didn’t come easily. For a long time I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling and holding Chairman Meow, who I had found hiding under my bed. On top of a healthy dose of guilt, I felt empty and insecure. I’d loved Toby once and a big part of my life had just fallen away.
For a while I wondered how he had found out about Rafe. Who had told him? Certain that it had been none of my friends, I couldn’t come up with a single name on whom to bestow my ill wishes.
I thought about calling Rafe to tell him what had happened, but strangely the idea of contacting him disturbed me, as if to do so would be to relay triumphant news to a victor, and that wasn’t how I felt at all.
I turned my face into the pillow and closed my eyes. Whatever the future held for Rafe and I better be good, as the price that had been paid was unbearably high.
Chapter 26
I felt quite gloomy on Sunday morning, although when I sat at my desk Rafe’s flowers and an email from Daisy perked me up a bit. Daisy had something to show me and asked if I would pop out to the farm today for afternoon tea.
I emailed an acceptance and then booked return flights to Sydney, leaving tomorrow morning and returning Wednesday evening. Then I flicked an email to my parents, the twins and Max, informing them that I would be in Sydney for a few days working on a case.
While I was in the shower Bill Shaw, retired proprietor of Bosuns Marine, called and left a message. I went to the study to call him back and Chairman Meow hopped onto his Windsor chair ready to take notes.
Shaw answered on the third ring and, after introductions, we talked about holidaying in Fiji and how lucky I was to live in Byron Bay. Not according to Sonya, I thought uncharitably.
‘Geoff tells me you’re writing a story about sailing on Sydney Harbour in the eighties and you wanted information about the Bombora 23.’ His voice was light and happy, keen to help.
‘Actually I’ll be straight with you, Mr Shaw.’ I had a gut feeling that he’d prove useful and it would be best to be relatively honest with him.
‘Bill, please,’ he said.
‘I’ll be straight with you, Bill. I’m an investigative journalist working on a story about the disappearance of a yacht and the sailor Michael O’Leary during the ’83 storm. I’m sorry if I’ve misled you and your son.’
‘Hey, no worries, and I’m pleased someone is looking into it.’ I detected a faint note of relief in his voice.
‘Your son told me he thought that it was you who’d sold the yacht to O’Leary and that there was something that had bothered you when the yacht disappeared.’
‘No, Geoff’s got that wrong. It wasn’t when the yacht went missing and the bloke drowned. It was when he and his wife bought the yachts from me.’
My heart skipped a beat. ‘Did you say yachts?’ Had Harper been right?
‘That’s correct. They bought two Bombora 23 Classics, extra sails, insurance, a dinghy and a lot of safety equipment. The bill came to $82,500 and we settled on $80,000. They gave me a cheque, which cleared no problem.’
I felt bad at having considered that Shaw might have made a dodgy cash-back deal with O’Leary. And he’d also said that the yachts were insured. Had Nemony lied to me, or had she genuinely not known?
‘You’ve got a good memory,’ I said, impressed. ‘You don’t happen to recall who the insurance was with, I suppose?’
Bill chuckled. ‘I’ve got the records in front of me. It was with Chartered Marine. I kept my old papers when I retired. I thought about consulting and it seemed smart to hang on to the old info. What else do you want to know?’
‘Well, firstly, what was it that troubled you at the time of the purchase?’
‘It’s nothing really, but the bloke asked me not to mention the second yacht to his wife. He said it was going to be a surprise. After they’d co-signed the cheque the wife said, “What are we going to call her?” not “What are we going to call them?” so I’m sure she didn’t know. Anyway, I thought it was an unusual surprise, but not worth reporting to the police when the accident happened. Do you think I should have?’
‘I don’t think I would have reported it either,’ I said truthfully. ‘Nobody wants to look a fool.’
‘You see, it could mean that Mrs O’Leary never knew about the second yacht,’ Bill explained.
I did see, and only too well.
‘And when the accident happened,’ he went on, ‘I wondered if he’d faked his disappearance and gone off in the second yacht.’
This was my cue to dampen his enthusiasm. Bill had mirrored my thoughts exactly and it would be prudent to divert the conversation. I didn’t want him sharing his helpful ideas with anyone else, especially the police.
Thinking quickly, I said, ‘I’m sure the wife would have known about the second yacht and kept her.’ So much for being relatively honest.
‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘The yacht didn’t come back to me to be sold, and I was the State agent for Bombora. I would have known if she was back on the market.’
‘Did the police interview you? After the storm?’
‘No, they had no reason to. I’m sure they would have spoken to the insurance company and someone there would have told them about the second yacht. That’s another reason I never bothered contacting the police.’
There was no point in telling him that if the police had contacted the insurance company, it would have been mentioned in the coroner’s report.
‘Is there any way of identifying yachts?’ I asked. ‘Like cars?’
‘Yes and no. All new yachts are numbered, but the short answer for yachts that are thirty years old is that it’s difficult to trace their heritage. Boats built before 2006 don’t have ABPs—Australian Builders Plates—and many of them don’t have HINs.’
‘What’s an HIN?’
‘These days all registered boats have a Hull Identification Number. It’s a boat code affixed to a vessel that applies a unique identifying number that stays with the boat its entire lifetime.’
‘Did the yachts you sold O’Leary have HINs?’
‘Unfortunately no, but if one of the yachts was sold in recent years and the registration transferred, it will have been assigned an HIN. In theory, if you had the original registration numbers, you should be able to find out any newly assigned HIN and then track any yacht that way.’
‘Why only in theory?’ This was getting complicated.
‘Things used to be slack and it was easy to change an original registration number. You could take a registered boat to Queensland where only proof of ownership was required to re-register it—you didn’t even have to live there—and then you could return to New South Wales with new registration papers and a new registration number. After that, any subsequent HIN applied would bear no relationship to the original registration, and there’d be no way of tracking the yacht back to its origins. A lot of stolen yachts disappeared that way.’
This could be helpful information and I made a note of it.
Recalling that the coroner’s report had
stated Lavender was a lawfully registered vessel, I asked, ‘Do you have copies of the original registrations?’
‘I have copies of the applications, but no way of knowing the original registration numbers O’Leary was assigned.’
‘So, basically,’ I said, trying to hide my disappointment, ‘without the original registration number or an HIN, there’s no way of tracking the second yacht, which might not even have an HIN anyway?’
‘You couldn’t track it,’ Bill told me, ‘but if you found it you might be able to identify it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The yachts I sold O’Leary had manufacturers’ serial numbers engraved in a couple of places.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I’ve got the numbers on the invoice. B23C104 and B23C105.’
‘Is there any way of tracking a yacht from the serial numbers?’ I asked hopefully.
‘Not really. They’re on the invoice and the original insurance papers, but that wouldn’t help find the yacht after all this time. But don’t despair, Geoff’s friend Tom is a boat code agent. He deals with HINs. Do you want me to give him the original registration applications and see what he turns up? He might have some luck cross-referencing names and numbers.’
‘That would be great, Bill,’ I said. ‘This whole yacht numbering thing is way over my head.’
He laughed. ‘Next time you’re in Sydney, I’ll take you out in a Bombora 23 if you like.’
I jumped at the chance. ‘Actually, I’m flying down tomorrow for a couple of days.’
‘Sounds good,’ he said brightly. ‘Meet me at Bosuns Marine at 10 am Tuesday morning and I’ll show you where to locate the serial numbers, and then take you for a spin.’
I gave him my mobile number and asked him to have Geoff call me if he had to cancel. Then I thanked him for his help and put the phone down.
‘Did you get all that about the numbers?’ I asked Chairman Meow, and he jumped across to my lap and we made a fuss of each other. Then I put him on the floor and set about updating the whiteboard. Standing back, I surveyed my workings in case any unseen connection should suddenly jump out, but nothing did.