by Poppy Gee
Clutching his pad and pencil, Hall walked away from the Mercedes. He heard the purr of its engine blend into the seaside sounds as Simone drove off.
Hall trudged up the sandy track. His leather shoes rubbed painfully against his heels, and his hatless head burned. The refuse tip was very different from the day after the fire, when he had come with Sarah. Today, stripped trees revealed an airy view of turquoise water and a white curl of sandy beach. The tip smelled clean, like charcoal rather than decomposing household waste or burnt synthetic garbage.
Hall skirted the trench, only stopping when he reached the edge of the forest beyond the tip. Thirty meters in, where the fire had not burned, the bush was thick. Sharp grasses and wiry, delicate ferns grew from the hot sandy soil, shaded by parched-looking gum trees. In theory, he was looking for Chloe Crawford’s bones or the remnants of her personal possessions. Human remains were extremely unlikely. Anything would do. It didn’t matter to Hall. Anything belonging to Chloe would be front-page news and would allow the police to solve the case.
Hall stepped into the bush, thumping his feet to warn the black snakes he was coming. Sarah had said she had seen Sam in the scrub as she rode her bike up the tip road. That was before the fire, when the vegetation was thicker, so Sam could not have been too far in. Common sense told Hall he would find nothing. Journalists didn’t simply walk into the bush and discover a dead body that the police and local search parties had failed to find. Still, Hall had nothing more productive to do, so he continued to look, zigzagging through the scrub behind the tip, banging his feet on the ground, looking for anything odd.
It was easy to see how people became lost in the wilderness. Tasmanian bush grew horizontally, not vertically. Above his head, in the area where the fire had not been, the canopy was thick enough to prevent a helicopter pilot from seeing a person on the ground. Surrounding Hall on all sides, the bush looked the same, pale sap-oozing tree trunks and insects buzzing around the yellow wattle shrubs. There were no landmarks. But Hall would not become lost; if he walked downhill he would end up on the beach or by the lagoon eventually.
Hall spotted the mineshaft at the same time that he heard the noise. He panicked and spun around to see who was following him. For a crazy moment he worried that Simone had trailed him. Beneath the shadowy gums there was no one, just empty, indifferent bush. He heard the noise again and exhaled. It was a kookaburra, the bird’s sharp laugh-like call sinister in the quietness. Hall turned his attention back to where he suspected the shaft to be. It was the topography that drew Hall’s eye to it, the way the earth on all sides gently sloped downward to a central dip. The ferns and bracken grew more thickly here, too, perhaps an indication of once-disturbed soil.
He didn’t want to stand too close, for he was afraid the ground would give way beneath his weight. He found a long stick and separated the ferns covering the hole. Indeed there was something in there. Stepping closer, Hall peered in, momentarily forgetting his own safety. Down several meters, wedged against a rotting wooden paling, the yellowed curving edge of fiberglass was enough confirmation that Simone had been telling the truth.
Sweat ran down his back, soaking his shirt and the top of his underpants. He stumbled back to the tip clearing. Checking for jack jumper ants, he sat on the ground under a shady tree and nursed his head in his hands. Jane was talking about moving to Launceston and getting a job at the supermarket where her cousin worked. Pamela had refused to walk alone on the beach since the day Anja was found. Roger Coker was being harassed to the point where it had become life threatening.
Hall could solve this case. He didn’t have every fact, but he could give the police enough information. Anja Traugott’s final minutes were a mystery. He doubted Sam had pushed her into the ocean. Frightened her, more likely. Still, Sam had been following her, and not for the first time, and consequently she was dead. Two beautiful young women led to their deaths in the Bay of Fires.
It would be the biggest murder story to come out of Tasmania in years. So why was Hall Flynn sitting under a gum tree with his head in his hands? What was he doing even deliberating over this? It wasn’t his job to be judge and juror. By saying nothing to the police, he was guilty of withholding information. The thought made his stomach tighten.
But the image of Sarah facing a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor made Hall feel ill. Initially Hall had tried to not think about the few flimsy facts he knew about Sarah and Sam. When that failed, he had considered each fact, linking them together as though he were weighing up the workability of a formulaic news story. Removing his emotion from the matter had been sensible; objectively, he decided, it did not matter who she had slept with. Most likely, Sarah did not know Sam was only seventeen. Even Hall had assumed the kid was older. The problem was, most people would react in the explosive way Hall had when they heard about it.
Frustrated, he jumped to his feet. There was no one he could discuss it with.
Three garbage bags taped tightly had saved Hall’s laptop from the dust. He checked his e-mail; nothing from Elizabeth. Nothing from any of the subeditors, either, not that he had filed any story in the last few days that was complex enough to require them to contact him for further explanation.
Hall typed up his quotes relating to the dust storm and tried to arrange them. In his mind he knew what to do, how to write a workable lead, how to massage the story to intrigue the readers. It was a no-brainer; the stupidest cadet reporter could do it. The longer he sat there, trying not to feel his blistered heels and sunburned neck, the angrier he became. His mind refused to focus. In the garden below, one of Jane’s dogs was barking. The sharp howl hurt his head. Eventually he slammed the computer lid shut. He thrust his shoulders out the window.
“Shut up, you stupid mutt,” he yelled.
Sarah heard him knock eleven times. Frozen on the top bunk, she counted each gentle rap. Where the curtain did not meet the window frame, she held the fabric in place, in case he tried to peer in. In between the knocking his footsteps thudded down the veranda toward the beach. He stood there for ten minutes, probably scanning the headland and rocks for her. Lying on the shaggy green bedspread, staring at the Alvey reel hanging over her head, she willed him to leave. She didn’t want to hear his apology. She didn’t want to hear about her inadequacies. She knew them.
His footsteps returned along the veranda and stopped at the door. He tried the handle. She had locked it. She imagined him trying to see past the yellowed hula girl curtain, hoping to see someone sleeping on the couch who could tell him where she was. His bristly face and the smell of his skin were more real to her than the bedspread’s aged mothy scent. She could feel his hands that were larger than hers, she could hear his rich voice as though he were murmuring in her ear.
As the Holden’s engine started up, she rolled off the bunk. Bright daylight hurt her eyes. Five minutes felt like hours as she waited until the car emerged through the bush to cross the lagoon. He turned up the long straight road toward the hills and highway. She watched until the vehicle disappeared into a wall of gum trees. A faint orange cloud was all that remained.
The dry smell of fire dust lingered in the air. A filmy layer of soot draped the ocean like black chiffon, leaving dark arches on the shore. She placed both hands on the railing and for the first time since she left Eumundi, Sarah cried without restraint.
A seagull was under attack by the flock. The lone bird swooped and ducked but had no hope. The other birds pecked him in midair. He landed on the rock not far from Hall. Some of his feathers were broken. Fluffed up, he hunched his shoulders and charged at the bigger bird facing him. His opponent charged back. Screeching, flat necked, they beaked each other. More birds descended in a high-pitched war cry. The lone seagull rose up and flew out across the ocean. The others became airborne but did not follow.
She had not answered his knocks. He knew she was there. Her fishing gear was on the veranda, her Blundstone boots beside the door.
Time to think and t
he chance to talk to her were the two things he needed. Neither was forthcoming. In his pocket his phone beeped and he ignored it. He didn’t trust himself to speak to anyone from the office right now.
The next morning, summer cricket commentary rang out from the radio as Sarah scanned both aisles of the shop. It was as she thought; Pamela and Don had not returned the canned cat food to the shelves.
“Are you still out of Whiskas?” Sarah said.
“You hungry?” Pamela laughed.
Don pushed his chair back and disappeared into the kitchen. He returned with a cardboard box containing the cat food cans and several packets of dried cat biscuits balancing on top.
“I was planning to have this done already. I assure you. We got sidetracked.”
“Good catch,” Pamela shouted.
With no major new developments in the investigation, Anja Traugott was no longer front-page news and the newspaper stack had been moved off the counter. In its place was Erica’s card display. The card at the front showed two dead crayfish with their pincers and mouths touching. Underneath the photograph Erica had written Happy Valentine’s Day.
“Is Roger still in hospital?” Don asked.
“He’s on a drip. He’s probably got pneumonia.”
“Oh dear,” Pamela said, and then swiveled to listen to the radio commentary.
“They hit a six!” Don pumped his arm, and Pamela clapped.
Sarah was halfway out the door when Pamela stopped cheering.
“Where did Roger run to anyway…up near Anson’s Bay, was it?” Pamela asked. “Mental as anything. Just like his father.”
“I’ll let him know you send your regards.” Sarah slipped through the plastic strips.
As she walked down the stairs she heard Pamela say, “She can be a real cow sometimes.”
Two weeks ago Sarah would have stuck her head back inside the shop and let Pamela know she had been overheard. It would be worth it just to see the embarrassment on Pamela’s face. Instead, she marched along an animal track running south above the beach in the direction of the lagoon.
“You just missed her, darl. Sarah was here fifteen minutes ago,” Pamela called as Hall entered the shop. Her voice was raised to be heard over the cricket commentators blasting on the radio. She looked fresh in a yellow sundress.
“Actually, I need to confirm a few things if you’ve got a moment,” Hall said, brushing his hair with his hands so he would not look so disheveled. “I wasn’t looking for…”
“Never mind.” Pamela smiled kindly. “What did you want to ask me?”
Hall considered how to phrase his question. He didn’t want to alarm them, or give fodder for gossip. He certainly did not want to reveal, at this stage, the distressing find of Chloe Crawford’s remains in the mineshaft behind the tip.
“Don told me he encountered Sam Shelley, on the beach, watching Anja Traugott sunbathe,” Hall said.
“Talk to Don.”
Hall hadn’t noticed Don sitting behind the magazine rack. Don lowered the volume and nodded.
“I just wanted to know, did you speak to Simone about that?” Hall said.
“Pamela did. We thought it best if we kept it to ourselves.”
“What was there to say?” Pamela interrupted. “A young guy looking at a pretty girl on the beach. That’s life. We told his mother.”
“Right.” Hall maintained a mild tone.
“Yes, we’ve had a few funny things with Sam, haven’t we, love?” Pamela said.
Don grunted.
Pamela continued. “I’ve had to sort it out. Sam’s mother is so useless. I’ll tell you, Hall, because I like you, but it’s not for publication. Darlene from the campground saw Sam hiding in the bushes near where the women relieve themselves. She would have made trouble if I hadn’t calmed her down. I asked Don to have a little talk with Sam…didn’t you, love?”
“You didn’t tell the police,” Hall said.
“I thought about it, Hall. But what good would it do? I don’t have much time for Simone, but I wouldn’t do that to her.”
“It could be related to the investigation.”
“Well, that thing with Anja happened days before she disappeared.”
“You didn’t think it might help the police, knowing everything?”
“No. Frankly I didn’t. If someone looks at a topless woman and that makes him a murder suspect, then you might as well go over to that nudist beach and start arresting everyone now.”
The campers were packing up to go home. Trailers were connected to cars, square patches of flattened grass lay where the tents had been. Litter fringed the site; bottles, food scraps, and wisps of toilet paper. It was interesting that they were leaving now. Usually the campsite remained established, in some form, until the Australia Day long weekend. Sarah had planned what she wanted to say, had rehearsed it silently as she walked down here. Just a friendly warning, were her chosen words. Roger’s not the easy target you think he is. Some of us are looking out for him and we don’t like what we’ve been seeing.
Sarah’s sneakers sucked against the wet sand on the edge of the lagoon. Half a dozen men and women loitered around the smoldering campfire. She reconsidered instigating the confrontation. They were leaving, after all. Roger was in the hospital and would be safe tonight.
But the campers would return at Easter, and again next Christmas. She had come down to the campsite to speak her mind and she would do so. They’d tell her where to go. They were probably pissed already. It was widely known the wives drove everyone home at the end of their holiday. Sarah crossed her arms and waited for someone to turn around.
Bunghole saw her before the others did.
“To what do we owe this lovely surprise?” He grinned sarcastically as he threw some camping equipment into the back of his Hilux.
His smile slid off his face as Sarah let him have it. She didn’t hold back, even when his wife came over and positioned herself between them. Darlene was a big woman, and Sarah took a cautious sideways step. She had seen women fight inside and outside the two Eumundi pubs. It was ugly; they ripped hair and clawed fingers into each other’s eyes and noses.
“Anytime I see you, or hear you’ve been anywhere near the Coker property, you’re going to get it.”
Bunghole nodded. “And you’re going to give it to me?”
“Don’t underestimate me.”
“Coker is a bad egg,” Darlene said. “Face it.”
“He’s not.” Sarah couldn’t believe how calm she was being. This was going well. “Physically, Roger Coker would be incapable of killing. He’s got one good arm that shakes all the time. He can barely get bait on his hook.”
No one spoke. Sarah looked around. Most of the campers did not make eye contact with her. Darlene, at least, looked sympathetic, just as she had that day outside the shop when Bunghole’s milk carton almost hit Sarah in the head. Were they finally getting it? When they plotted to hurl road kill at the Coker cottage, when they attacked Roger’s cats, when they accused him of murder, had they harbored the suspicion that they were mistaken? She had not expected them to be receptive to her. She wondered if they regretted their action. Perhaps they finally saw their suspicion of Roger as a misplaced diversion from another night swatting mosquitoes around their campfire.
“If you’re done, you can get the fuck out of here,” Bunghole said.
So that was how he wanted to play it. Fine.
“By the way, did I see the ranger out here the other day?” she said.
“I dunno. Did you?”
“Wonder how he knew about you? Must have had a good tip-off.”
Hands on her hips, Sarah waited for one of them to speak. She wasn’t sure, but it could have been Darlene’s sister who threw the first can. It hit Sarah on her arm. Someone else threw a rubber thong which slapped the side of her head. Her body stiffened with rage, but their laughter pushed her back. She jogged out of the campsite, taking a shortcut through yellow buffalo grass that whipped her bare leg
s.
Hall’s gear was in the Holden; he’d paid Jane in full. She knew he was standing there, waiting to speak to her, but she betrayed no sign of it except for pulling weeds faster than before.
“Jane,” he began. He wanted to say good-bye and wish her well. Her hospitality had been decent, in its own unique way.
Jane swung around. Sweat shone on her reddened neck. It had dampened the armpits of her T-shirt. She wiped her hands on her jeans and took a breath.
“Life’s too short to beat around the bush,” she said.
“Let sleeping dogs lie,” he offered.
He had a gut feeling about what she was going to say, and he didn’t want to hear it.
Jane was speaking to the sea. “The other night, when we both drank too much, that was a mistake. I’ve apologized to you already.”
“Water under the bridge,” Hall said, reverting to feeble clichés in his foreboding.
“Hang on. I’ve always spoken my mind. I think you know I am interested in having a relationship with you.”
Hall was speechless. He felt ill. It was childish, his reaction. It wasn’t as if Jane had given an explicit description of what they could do sexually together. She wanted his company. Nothing wrong with that, he repeated silently. Inside his pockets, he rubbed his sweaty fingertips together. More than anything else, he felt deeply sad for her.
“I’m so sorry, Jane,” Hall said.
“Fair enough.” Jane nodded.
A heavy silence hung between them.
“This is not the life I would choose if I had a choice,” Jane said.
Hall looked around, trying to understand her. Her mature garden was full of delicate beauty—the fragrant herbs, the flowering succulents, the lavender and yellow roses. But there was also the hard stubby grass and faded house with its broken windows and, downstairs, the bedroom she had slept in alone for far too long.