“You are right, Alyson Foulkes is definitely bonkers.”
22
Claire
Bianca leaned back on the wooden chair of the cafe and sipped her latte as she glanced over her shoulder. We were at a place called Double Shot Triple Shot, which mostly serviced hipsters. It was new, only open a month. She was flirting with the barista. “The coffee here is far better than that Captain Eightball’s place… And did you ever notice how sticky the floors are over there?”
I just sat there, silently trying not to take offense. I even managed a smile. And I had to remember that at one stage, I had the exact same opinion of Captain Eightball’s. Very sticky. But I wasn’t sure about this new coffee shop. They served their coffees in beakers so that it looked like we were carrying out an experiment in eighth year science class.
I took a sip and realized you had to be careful how you angled the glass otherwise the coffee would spill from the opening of the beaker and down the front of your crisp, white shirt.
I placed the glass down and noticed that Bianca was still turning her head over her shoulder to twirl her hair and giggle at the barista, who had a man bun and thick dark glasses.
“So how did your date with Alex Higgins go?” I asked her.
She turned back to me and pouted a little.
“Yeah, that guy is the worst. Turns out he had a girlfriend all along.”
“I know. He sucks. But did Alex say anything to you about Rachael? Anything specific, I mean, about what he asked her to print in the newspaper?”
She rolled her eyes and finished off the last of her latte. “You know, maybe this town isn’t so bad. Maybe I could spend more than a few days a week here. Maybe I could move here full time.”
Oh no, don’t do that, I wanted to say. But I just smiled at her with thin lips. “Great. Glad you are coming around to the idea.”
Now, we needed to get back to Alex. But she had already set her sights on someone else, some new victim, and Alex was old news
“So, you didn’t get anything out of Alex?” I flat out asked.
“I don’t know, I was mostly just using him for potential coverage of my Kill Sharkey campaign.”
I leaned back. “Right. So you are still intent on seeing every last shark in NSW killed.”
“Of course I am. This whole town is terrified, Claire.”
But I stared right back at her. “Maybe they are terrified of the wrong creature.”
She stood up and grabbed her purse. “There is a demonstration on the beach about this very thing. And I am going there right now.”
Shoot, shoot, shoot.
That was where Alyson was. And I’d done such a good job keeping them apart.
I gulped back the last of my coffee, too quickly, without being careful of what I was doing. The coffee went down the front of my shirt. That was it. I would be sticking to Captain Eightball’s and their normal-shaped cups from then on.
It was like they were preparing for war. Well, for battle. Just waiting for the other one to strike first. On one side, the Save Sharkey campaigners were staring down all those that were against them with their placards and their hippy clothes. But their numbers had dwindled. I even noticed that some of them had gone over to the other side.
There, the leader of the Kill Sharkey movement, Bianca, was standing proudly in front of a platform, ready to climb up. She had boots on with four-inch heels that made her tower over everyone as she climbed the stairs, and I turned and watched Alyson’s face as she realized for the first time that Bianca was the leader of her opposition.
Geez. Poor old Alyson was really struggling to catch a break that week. Or that year.
Alyson stared back at me and her face fell in distress and betrayal. I could see her silent accusation. Another thing you didn’t tell me. Well, in my defense, I had hoped that Bianca would just drop it. Or go back to Sydney. Like, permanently. But now it seemed she wanted to move to Eden Bay. Like, permanently.
I felt a tug on my arm and there was a teenage girl, looking up at me starry-eyes. “Aren’t you the author of The Book Shelf?”
I turned away from Alyson and nodded slowly. “Er, yeah, that’s me.”
“Can I get your autograph?” She sounded breathless as she dug into her purse for a copy of my book and a pen.
Alyson stomped across the sand. “Well, well, nice to see you here at last. Thanks for the support.”
“Alyson, I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah, too busy signing books to help your best friend…”
“Alyson, I can do both at the same time.”
But she didn’t seem convinced. She pointed toward the battle lines in the sand. “Oh yeah? Then tell me, Princess? Which side are you going to choose?”
23
Alyson
“Looks like it’s just you and I now, Calvin,” I said as the last of the Save Sharkey supporters deserted us. Even Princess was over there, with her cousin, two little smug peas in a pod. “At least you have always stood by me. Never gone to the dark side.”
“Sure,” he said with an easy shrug. “You gotta have principles, man.”
Yes. You did.
But it was going to be awfully difficult to uphold them when it was just the two of us against the entire town. Sometimes principles needed a push.
“Can you hold this?” I asked him, pushing my placard into Calvin’s palm. “There’s just something I’ve got to take care of.”
He looked crestfallen. “But then it will just be me here on my own.”
I knew that. No backup. It was a lonely place to be, on the side of the right and true. But I had to go. It was for the greater good. “I won’t be long,” I assured him.
Rachael Beckham was taking notes off to the side, reporting on the whole showdown. I knew what she would be writing, and I wanted to rip that notepad out of her hands and rip it up and throw the remains on the sand.
Okay, but what had Claire told me? She’d said that I needed to flatter people, to get them on my side so that they would want to help me.
I could so do that. Easy peasy. Let’s go!
“Rachael, I know that you are deep down not an evil person.”
She glanced up at me.
Hmm, right, okay, I was sort of along the right path there, but I could see her face change as she wasn’t sure whether that was an actual compliment, a backhanded compliment, or maybe just a flat-out insult.
I changed my tact, just slightly, just to get this train on the track. “I know that you are a good person, just overworked and understaffed, with the strain of an entire newspaper on your shoulders. And with a cheating boyfriend on top. It must be really difficult to keep everything running in your position.”
She nodded a little and sighed. Her eyes were heavy. She seemed relieved to finally have someone to unload this all onto. Someone who would listen and understand, and she started to tell me all about all the pressure she was under to deliver popular news stories, to sell copies of a paper to a town that was slowly starting to come out of the eighties and reading articles online. The paper was in danger of becoming extinct.
“Oh, that’s terrible….” I said, and I realized I was actually emphasizing with her plight, really listening to what she was saying. And then I realized, like I was being slapped in the face, that this was what being a good public servant was actually all about. Listening to what the people of the town needed. What they were struggling with.
“Well, we can’t let the Journal die,” I said firmly. “This will be my new cause. My next “Save” campaign.”
Rachael nodded and studied my face. Finally, she smiled at me and put her pen away. “You know, I think I misjudged you, Alyson. You really would make a good mayor for this town.”
I grinned at her and decided to push my luck. “Does that mean that you will print an article pushing that fact?”
She grinned back, then her face fell and she looked remorseful. “I shouldn’t have published what I did. I didn’t even realize you an
d Claire were still friends. She told me that you weren’t.”
I felt my blood pressure rise and I was about to take grave offense. But then I decided I had taken enough grave offenses that week and I could let this one go. Claire must have had her reasons for saying something like that. Just like she had her reasons for doing everything she did.
Just like everyone in the town. Was this all a part of growing up? Realizing that other people had opinions and reasons just as valid and as real as my own?
I glanced out over the people facing off. The two warring factions. It was clear which side held the majority. Did this make that opinion the voice of the town? The people had voted. They wanted the shark gone. Who was I to side against them?
There was Calvin standing on his own. But if I never went back to him, and gave up on my whole cause, what kind of principles would I have then?
Oh, it was all too difficult.
So, I did what grownups do.
I ran away.
Alex Higgins was also in hiding. We’d both chosen the one part of town where the residents—not to mention angels—dared to tread: the tunnel next to the skatepark. I was hoping I’d be on my own. I needed time to think. Away from reporters. And researchers.
“I thought you were down at the beach covering the story,” I said to Alex.
He shrugged at me. “The atmosphere down there was pretty chilly. Needed to get away.”
All I could think about was poor Rachael. About how she had almost thrown her entire career away on this jerk. Sure, she’d printed what the town ‘wanted’ to hear, but she had also neglected to tell both sides. That could have gotten her in big trouble.
But Alex was looking very sorry for himself that day.
He stood at the end of the tunnel and looked out onto the beach in the distance. “To tell you the truth, I’m thinking about throwing the whole thing in.”
Well, of course he was. Running away. “Why quit now, though?” I asked him. “You’ve won. You got the outcome you wanted. The sharks are being culled. So, you won. I suppose you’re happy now.”
He shook his head and looked sad. “Oh, no, if anything, I was on your side. I am a researcher, you know. I know all the facts. I know that the nets can’t actual target sharks specifically, let alone specific sharks, so all the marine life gets killed.”
I was stunned. “But hang on. Rachael told Claire that you were the one who told her to push the culls. That you BURIED the facts.”
He gritted his teeth. “There is a difference between a privately-held opinion and a public one, Alyson.” His tone of voice and the look on his face told me that once again I was being accused of being extremely naive about the way the world worked.
“It just seems like it is dangerous to have principles around here. That’s all I am saying.”
He tried to leave the tunnel, but no way was I letting him escape. That was not all I was letting him say. “What have you been keeping to yourself, Alex?”
“I knew Meg pretty well…” He started to say, then immediately shut down again.
I remembered my experience with Rachael at the beach. And everything that Claire had taught me. So I listened, instead of insulting. “It must have been really hard, to lose a friend like that.”
He looked away from me, and I worried that he was going to close up again. But he kept talking. “It’s more than that. Meg and I were…” I thought he was about to say ‘in love,’ and I just thought, Oh my gosh, I cannot deal with another love triangle.
“…compatible in our views,” he said, finally ending the sentence. “She was big into conservation. She was even trying to get us to run this story about how this multi-billion-dollar oil company has been trying to do fracking out in the ocean near Eden Bay…but we didn’t run it in the end. Some of the stuff she said was a little crazy.” Alex shook his head. “Anyway, in the end, she was dead, and the story died with her.”
I was shocked to hear this. Maybe we had another Steve Irwin situation on our hands here. Meg had been trying to save the sharks when she was ironically killed by them.
I frowned. Hadn’t Anna told us that Rex was also a conservationist?
My mind started to race. This cannot be a coincidence.
But now that Alex had started to talk, I couldn’t shut him up. “I’m not sure who or what really killed Meg. But at least it looked like a shark,” he said, staring out at the ancient waves. I could hear the distant voices on the beach. There was a war waging out there, and we were just standing back watching when we could have been out there.
I stepped up beside Alex. “So that is why you asked Rachael to print all the pro-culling stuff?”
He nodded slowly. “It seemed safer. What if Meg was killed for her views? And Rex? I didn’t want to have a third victim on my hands.”
I just stared at Alex in disbelief. “So, you were willing to let innocent sharks die for this, Alex?”
“It’s not as simple as that… I could be next on the list…” He looked down at me and gulped. “And so could you, Alyson Foulkes.”
He didn’t know me, though. I didn’t scare that easily.
24
Claire
I couldn’t find Alyson anywhere. After running up and down the beach several times, worried she had gone back into the water, I spotted her coming down the hill from the skatepark. I caught up with her and apologized, yet again. “Alyson, I just saw the paper… I had no idea that Rachael was going to print any of that.”
She stopped. Looked calm. Serene. She even smiled. “At this stage, I no longer care. I know what the press is like…”
Wow. I’d never seen such a grownup response from her.
Then she cringed a little and squinted at me. “Have you actually read the full article? Because you might want to.”
I shook my head. I’d only seen the headline. There was a copy on a nearby park bench, so I grabbed it and pulled it open.
And I immediately saw what she was referring to.
Oh my gosh. Because I was, apparently, a new ‘local celebrity’ and author of a bestselling book, I was now a public figure. And not only were my opinions on local political candidates valid, so was my love life.
My stomach dropped when I read the quote. “I’m single. No one special in my life at the moment.”
No wonder Matt had not replied to any of my texts that morning.
Alyson’s eyes were studying me while I finished reading the article. I couldn’t tell if she was pleased or concerned or maybe just incredibly intrigued by this turn of events. “Oh, this is not what I meant at all,” I said. “I just didn’t want to goss about my love life.”
Alyson looked at me skeptically. “Right, so if you’d known that was being printed, you would have told Rachael everything about your relationship with Matt then?”
Well… I gulped a little. Maybe she was right.
But there wasn’t any time to dwell on that right then. I just made a mental note not to talk to the presses again without a lawyer present.
I didn’t know if Matt was ever going to speak to me again. Had he already read the paper?
Alyson pushed her hair back out of her face. “Meg was a conservationist, Claire. She was an activist just like Rex. Just like Calvin and I.”
I was confused. “I thought that she was a weather girl.”
“Ha-ha. Obviously, you can be both. Claire. I was right all along. There is a conspiracy. Meg was working on a story about an oil mining company that was going to drill off the coast of Eden Bay. And she was killed because of it. So was Rex, I believe.”
I sighed. I knew she wanted to believe that, but this just felt like a sort of Hail Mary. The extra nets were being employed, and there was no way the people of the town were going to be convinced of anything else.
“Where is Calvin?” Alyson asked.
“Erm, who?”
“My mate…blonde, tall, hippy.”
“Oh right, I saw him leave a bit earlier.” I shrugged. “He got into a sh
ort limo and got driven away.”
Alyson wasn’t willing to take that for an answer. I didn’t know what else to tell her. That was what happened.
She stared at the empty left side of the beach. “But that is everyone. There is no one on the Save Sharkey side now.”
“Except for you,” I pointed out. “So, what are you going to do?”
She took a deep breath. “I am going to go and find Calvin. He might know more about what Meg and Rex were involved in. We’re not giving up on this yet. No matter how dumb that might be.”
I nodded. It was a little dumb, but I had to admire her. She wasn’t scared of being unpopular. Nor of doing the thing that no one else wanted to.
But was that a good quality in a mayor? You really had to be more of a people pleaser to survive in politics.
And Alyson Foulkes was definitely not a people pleaser.
25
Alyson
Calvin had given me his address but I’d never actually been to his house, so I was surprised to find that he lived in one of the luxury apartments overlooking the cliff.
As I approached his door, I had this sinking feeling in my stomach. How does an activist afford this place?
I pressed the button and waited.
Calvin pulled the door back—only he wasn’t Calvin. Not the one I knew. His hair was slicked back, and the hippy kid had disappeared, replaced by someone in a suit with a folder on the hallway table that had a logo on it that said, “SG GROUP LTD.” In fact, he looked exactly like Troy Emerald. Only not as handsome. In fact, in his overpriced suit, he looked like a little kid who was playing grownup and desperately wanted to be accepted as a grownup.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
He stared down at me. “I live here. At least for the time being. While my company does some…research.”
My hands were shaking while I fetched my phone from my pocket. First things first, I texted Troy the address. Secondly, I frantically googled SG GROUP.
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