by Poppy Gee
For Christ’s sake, did she want him to make something up?
At dawn Hall met Sarah and they walked around the top of the headland and down an overgrown beach track to Eddystone Cove. From where Hall stood beside Sarah on a flat rock he could see no shacks, no dirt roads, nothing but pristine sand and water. Hall watched Sarah slide bait onto her hook and then did his own, attempting to copy her deftness. The ocean surface swirled in response to a deep current. Cold air and his relief at having slipped away from the guesthouse without seeing Jane tempered Hall’s hangover.
On the beach a dog dodged the white water. It must have escaped its owner. The distant snap of the dog’s bark was the only sound in the quiet dawn.
Fishing in silence, Hall envied Sarah’s ability to focus. Elizabeth and Jane had kept him awake well into the night.
Hall’s line pulled. Was that a bite? Peering past the kelp into the deceptively tropical water, he looked for the end of his line. Imitating Sarah’s smooth technique, he wound the line in. Something bounced out of the water and he furiously spun the reel.
“Got one!”
He swung the rod around and the fish flapped on the rock. It was ugly with brown blotches and big red eyes.
“I got one!” Hall shouted again.
He squatted beside his fish. It was swelling up, its mouth opening and closing with a strange sucking noise. Sarah clambered down the rocks to look.
“Chuck it back, mate.”
“You can’t tell me that’s too small.”
“It’s a toadfish.”
“What’s wrong with a toadfish?” Hall pulled the line toward him and the fish flipped a meter in the air.
“Poisonous.”
Hall was surprised by how disappointed he felt. “I could take it back for the dogs.”
“If you want to kill the dogs. We can’t even use that one for bait. Careful. He bites. Those little teeth can bite through fishhooks and bones.”
Hall held the toadfish while Sarah slipped the hook out of its mouth. She flipped it with the toe of her sneaker into the sea. It floated on the surface as though it were dead before disappearing into the shadowy water.
“Don’t chew your fingernails or you’ll get sick,” she added.
If Hall ever went to a fishing trivia night, he would want Sarah on his team. In the fortnight since he had met her, she had taught him more fishing secrets than he reckoned the Voice’s fishing editor knew. One of her tricks was to scatter diced steak into the water. When she did this, the surface erupted with tailor, pretty fish with blue-green backs and forked tails. She explained the secret was to scatter only tiny pieces of steak so you weren’t feeding the fish, just tempting their taste buds. Sometimes she used cuttlefish or squid. Tailor were greedy; in a feeding frenzy they regurgitated so they could eat more.
Hall had not yet caught a fish he could keep, but if he did, he knew what to do. She had shown him how to hold a fish against the rock and cut under its throat in two decisive movements, letting it bleed before putting it in the bucket.
The sun was a dizzyingly bright ball above the horizon when they finished. Sarah had caught six tailor, which Hall carried back to the beach in the bucket. Up near the high-tide line a person wandered, stooping to pick up long fringes of seaweed which were shoved into a garbage bag. It was Jane. Hall recognized the skinny white legs and uncombed gray hair poking out of her black cap. He hesitated; there was no way to leave the beach without her seeing him. Unencumbered by the heavy bucket, Sarah was striding up the beach toward Jane. She was too far away to hear his weak call to stop. He repeated her name but she didn’t hear. Any louder and Jane would hear his panic. By the time he caught up to them, Sarah and Jane were side by side, watching the dog.
“How are you, Hall?” Jane didn’t look at him.
“Good. Tired. Got a lot of work to do today, you know how it is.”
“I wouldn’t actually.”
Jane whistled with two fingers in her mouth. The dog didn’t respond. She wiped the saliva on her shorts and shook her head. Hall squinted down the beach. The dog had something in its mouth. Driftwood or possibly one of the dead fairy penguins that had washed in with the storm. The dog tossed the thing up and pounced with his front paws, barking. He leaned down and rolled his toy on the sand. He looked like a black dingo, his hind legs straight and his tail beating the air.
Sarah handed her rod to Jane. “I’ll get him.”
“I’ll go,” said Jane, but Sarah was already jogging down the beach.
Uncertain of what else to do, they followed her. Jane swallowed and exhaled; the sounds uncomfortably human on the empty beach. She wasn’t going to pretend that nothing had happened. Damn it. She wasn’t that type of woman.
“I enjoyed talking to you last night,” she rasped. She must have smoked almost a packet of Holidays as they sat on her patio. “I don’t get much chance for conversation with an intelligent man.”
“I was pretty fuzzy when I woke up this morning. Can’t remember much. Sorry if I was out of line.”
“Cut it out.” Her lips were slack, her eyes hidden behind her black Ray-Bans. “I misread the situation. All that gin didn’t help. Sorry.”
“Jane…”
“Don’t.” She stopped him with the palm of her hand. “Something else I wanted to tell you. The other day you were asking why I didn’t tell everyone where Gary was?”
“I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not my business, Jane.”
“Well, you did ask. So you can listen. There’s no big mystery. It’s simple. The man hated being married to me so much he had to go and live in a tin shed up the back of Goulds Country for ten years. No running water. Long drop—no septic tank. Gary doesn’t even have a window to look out of. I didn’t want everyone knowing.”
Hall felt for her. No wonder she was so bitter. All this time, knowing her estranged husband was a few hours’ drive away. He didn’t know who had it worse—Jane, so lonely in her empty guesthouse by the sea, or Gary, hiding in a humpy up in the sticks with only the other misfits and social rejects for company.
Down the beach, Sarah held the dog by the neck. She was waving. The wave went on and on. Jane dragged her garbage bag toward Sarah faster. Hall followed in the foul wake of decomposing seaweed.
Under Sarah’s firm grip on its collar the dog jerked its head upward. A polished white bone was clenched between the dog’s teeth.
“Help me get this out of his mouth.”
Around her the sand was ripped up from the dog’s game. Half a dozen white bones lay where the tide had dumped them.
“It’s just a bone,” Hall said.
“Are you an idiot? It’s human.”
Stung by her unexpected vitriol, Hall gaped as Sarah whacked the dog on his snout. The animal ducked and ran backward in a circle, his jaw clamped on his prize. Jane kicked the bones into a pile and protected them with her garbage bag.
Feeling hopeless for just watching, Hall jumped on the dog and wrestled it between his legs. Slippery with saliva, the bone was locked by the dog’s jaw.
“Drop it.” Hall tugged at the bone.
“You’ll break his teeth,” Jane shouted.
“Whack him on the nose, Hall,” Sarah said.
Hall let go, feeling foolish. The dog backed away, growling through clenched teeth at Hall, and sprinted up into the scrub at the back of the beach. Jane followed.
Sarah carried the bones up into the soft sand, away from the next high tide.
“What do we do now?” she said.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Hall said. “Nothing. The person is dead. Another day won’t hurt them. I will notify the police by close of business today. I promise.” This was front-page breaking news if he managed it properly.
“Jesus, Hall.”
Hall took a deep breath. “If we ring the authorities now, it will be all over the evening news. I’m just proposing that we delay telling them by a few hours.” He held out the bucket of fish to Sarah. “Please.”<
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She yanked it from his hand and he exhaled. “I’m not hurting anyone,” he said as he picked up Jane’s garbage bag of seaweed.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone,” he yelled over his shoulder as he started running.
Hall wrote a draft of his story about the bones, ate lunch, wrote some questions for his next interview. He called the police at three p.m., too late for the prime-time evening television news to scoop his story. As he filed the story, after adding the standard police response, he decided that in fact he should call one of the radio stations. A radio interview would be a fantastic teaser for his story.
When he saw the police car speed past, he took his camera and walked down to the wharf. A crowd was gathering on the jetty. It was the best vantage point to watch the local police cordoning off the beach. Judging by the excited commentary, it was not fear or concern that motivated them to come out of their comfortable shacks and campsites but a macabre voyeurism.
“Human bones have washed up on the beach,” Pamela told him. “That’s the police there now. That could be our missing girl, Chloe Crawford.”
“I heard there were serrated cuts on the bones, like someone had had a go with a saw,” Bunghole said.
“Two words for you, Keith. Shark bite,” John said, and he shared a chuckle with Don.
“Jane Taylor’s dog was playing with them. Isn’t that disgusting?” Pamela said.
“Who said that?” Hall asked.
“Sarah told us,” Pamela said.
“I didn’t say it like that.” Sarah acknowledged Hall with a nod and then returned her attention to the beach.
Hall walked to the end of the jetty and stood by himself. Roger Coker was crossing the dusty wharf. A hush replaced the chatter as he walked onto the jetty. Pamela and Don moved to avoid having to greet the man. Bunghole and his friends were talking about Roger in barely lowered voices.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” someone muttered.
Roger didn’t hear. He grinned and asked what was happening. There was a moment when it seemed no one was going to answer. Bunghole finally called out an answer.
“Bones, mate. What do you reckon about that?”
Roger kept smiling, his blue eyes scanning the crowd. He had his hands so deep in his pockets it gave his thin shoulders an awkward sloping posture. It looked like Roger was clenching and unclenching his fingers; the fabric of his trousers slid up and down his legs. Hall expected Sarah to assist Roger, to stand beside him at the least, but she was focused on the beach with her back to everyone. Hall stepped into the space between Roger and the crowd.
“Roger. How are you?” Hall asked.
“Very well, thank you. Very well indeed. I’m good, thanks. And how are you yourself?”
To halt Roger’s nervous small talk, Hall explained about how he found the bones with Sarah. He outlined the story he had written for tomorrow’s paper. With luck, Hall said, the police would be able to DNA and carbon test the bones and find some further information on the crimes.
Sam interjected, “They’ll be seal bones. Or whale.”
“Do you know how big whale bones are?” Pamela said. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”
“Stop it.” Simone’s high pitch surprised everyone. “His father was an oceanographer. Sam would know better than anyone what the bones are.”
Pamela rearranged her sunglasses on top of her head and made a face at Flip.
“Whatever.” Sam shook his long hair over his eyes. “I’m going for a surf.”
“No!” Simone called as Sam pushed past the crowd on the wharf. “I don’t want to be alone right now. No one should be.”
Simone followed Sam, and they finished their conversation near where Hall was standing.
“I feel so stressed and my heart is beating so fast it’s like I’m about to have a heart attack,” Simone told her son.
“Okay, Mom.”
Hall felt sorry for the kid. Meanwhile, Bunghole moved closer to Roger. He was backed by a dozen men and women, some holding children. Bunghole had his hands on his hips, which were thrust forward, and his chin out, the typical stance of a short man who wished he was taller. Hall contemplated saying something to calm people down; but then again, if they didn’t let their tension out now, it would reemerge later, perhaps when he wasn’t there.
“Coker. You could go over and sign your confession now,” Bunghole said. “Save yourself a trip into town.”
“Maybe you should,” Sarah told Bunghole without turning around.
“Why should I?” Bunghole shot back.
“Just leave Roger alone. Let the police sort this out.” Flip’s voice shook.
Bunghole’s brother-in-law piped up, “Nothing criminal about our lot. None of us have a son in jail for holding up Chicken Feed.”
The campers laughed. Pamela and Don squirmed. Sarah had mentioned their son was in jail for a gambling-related problem; she hadn’t said he had tried to rob a two-dollar shop. Hall pretended to cough.
“Donald. Don’t just stand there,” Pamela said.
“What do you want me to do?” Don said.
“Nothing! Why would I want you to do something? You never do bloody anything.” Pamela turned to Bunghole and his wife. She spoke without her usual careful enunciation; she sounded like Jane. “Everyone here, at some point, thought it was you,” Pamela said, pointing at Bunghole, then her finger scanned across John, Flip, Erica, Sarah, Simone, and Don. “They said you killed that girl.”
“Don’t blame us. You thought it too.” Flip turned on Pamela.
“No. No, I never did. I’ve always said it was Roger Coker or Gary Taylor.”
“Only Gary since he turned up three days ago,” Flip said. “Before that you said Bung—Keith.”
“Gary Taylor didn’t do it. I knew the man. Speed wouldn’t.” Bunghole had to look up to yell at Pamela. “Probably was your husband; I’d do something like that if I was married to you. Blaming a man who’s not even here to defend himself!”
Darlene ushered two of her children to the back of the crowd.
“Well, where’s Gary Taylor been these last fifteen years? A man doesn’t disappear for no reason,” Pamela shouted back. “Don’t you shout at me, Keith.”
John had stepped away, slightly distancing himself from the discussion but watching with an odd smile. Simone clapped her hands. She was standing between the two groups and kept clapping, slowly and dramatically, for longer than was necessary to get everyone’s attention. This was more entertaining than a logging protest.
“All right, Simone,” Flip said.
Simone clasped her hands. “What are you doing? What are you thinking? Blaming each other. It’s counterproductive. I remember the days when we were all friends, sharing the catch of the day on the beach, popping into each other’s homes or the lagoon campsite. What has happened to you people? Shame. Shame.”
Flip groaned. “That never happened. You live in a dream.”
“Maybe I do. But it’s better than being part of this.” Simone gestured broadly at everyone.
The police crew on the beach were forgotten as the people on the jetty glared at one another. Overhead, a lone seagull flapped hard in the windless sky.
“Call it a night, I think,” Hall said to no one in particular.
Bunghole and his group left the jetty. They climbed into their various cars and flatbed utilities and drove away. Simone dragged her son by the hand toward her Mercedes. She opened the passenger door and sat inside before handing him the keys.
“I don’t think he did do it,” Roger said. “Gary wasn’t here either.”
“We’ll probably never know, Roger,” John said.
They watched the police, who were preparing to leave.
“I’m not standing here any longer.” Sarah pushed past everyone. “I can’t bear it. You all just stand here gawking and you don’t even know what is going on. I’m going over there to find out.
”
“Hey, hey,” Erica said. “Make way for Miss Marple.”
Eager for relief, Pamela, Don, Flip, and John laughed. Sarah stopped, her face bright red. Erica’s fluty flight attendant voice carried across the gathering.
“Yep, forget forensic teams and the Voice’s special investigation; we have our own sleuth. She found the body, she visits the crime scene every day looking for clues, she patrols the bush tracks and has itemized the tip! People, if you could stop throwing rubbish in there each day, that would help Sarah the Sleuth because she has to keep going back to update her refuse inventory!”
Everyone was laughing now. Even Roger, although Hall suspected he didn’t know what he was laughing at. Sarah hovered, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. She looked like she was about to swear at Erica. Her fists bunched up. Just as Hall was about to intervene, she walked away so fast she was almost running, crossing the empty wharf turning circle, away from the beach.
She would feel more embarrassed if Hall chased her. Feeling sorry for her, he wandered along the jetty. The water lapped the soaked remains of the Tasmanian oaks holding up the jetty floor. He crouched and rubbed his hand against one of the time-smoothed stumps. Over his shoulder, the remaining people faded in the twilight. Framed by the old fishing shacks and boatsheds with their peeling painted timber and stacks of broken cray pots, the scene looked ominous. If this were a movie, he imagined, the murderer would be watching through a slit in one of those sheds, biding his time as he chose his next victim. Pamela would make a nice twist, he thought, and then censored himself. There was no need to be nasty.
Hall left the wharf and drove back up the hill to the guesthouse. Between the scrub and the side of the guesthouse, well hidden from view of the road, a bronze utility was parked. It had a trailer attached to the back which was full of firewood. Hall stalled. Everyone said Gary Taylor drove a bronze ute. Hall could not see anyone in the garden, but he assumed Gary was in the alcove under the Nissen hut where Jane stored her firewood. Quite clearly this man was stealing his estranged wife’s chopped firewood.