Pat takes a look, then pulls out a container and fork and hands it to me. ‘Tuna salad,’ she says.
‘The person said they found it near that skeleton at The Castle.’
‘Who?’
I shake my head. ‘They wanted to remain anonymous.’
‘And they found it buried up at The Castle?’
I risk a nod.
‘Any chance it was that idiot Dave Deasey?’
My face tries to neither confirm nor deny. ‘Why him?’
‘Someone spun him a line about there being World War II memorabilia buried there. Dave’s been mouthing off about it for the last few months, telling anyone who would listen he was going to give the place a once over with his metal detector. I’m guessing this is the extent of his treasure trove.’
I had forgotten that Pat knew everything about everyone in town. I give up pretending in the face of her superior deductive skills.
‘That and the skull,’ I tell her. ‘He’s worried the necklace could be evidence and Gavin will be mad at him.’
Pat sniffs and then stabs an olive with her fork and pops it into her mouth. ‘Why didn’t he come and tell us about it then? Bones get found all the time, washed up on the beach or dug up in a paddock. Now we’ve got morons claiming Luke Tyrell is a serial killer only because we found the skeleton during the search for him, and conspiracy theorists from all around the world keep typing nonsense about a place they’d never even heard of.’
The wind picks up, tracing its way through the trees.
‘The thing is, I think I know who the necklace belongs to.’
Pat listens, eating steadily, as I show her the twists and the silver clasp and tell her about Grace. My words run over the top of each other until she takes the envelope from me and looks at the necklace again. ‘To lie like an eyewitness. That’s what your father always used to tell me. It was a saying he picked up.’ She gives me an almost pitying look.
‘I’m not lying.’
‘The most dangerous eyewitness of all is the one who’s overconfident, who knows for sure he is telling the truth, because he’ll shape the evidence to match what’s in his head and convince himself. You’re a lawyer, Eliza. You should always be professionally sceptical. All you’ve got here is a battered old chain. Where’s the evidence it really belongs to the Hedland girl?’
In the distance a wave rolls in with a small black speck of a surfer gliding across it, like they’re skating on ice. Peeling back the container’s lid, I begin to eat.
‘Let’s just say hypothetically,’ Pat stresses the word, ‘that this is your friend’s necklace. What do you think that means? That those bones they found belong to her?’
Is that what I think? My mind has been stuck in gear, refusing to let myself get that far ahead.
‘Look, a full skeleton will tell us a lot, whether it’s male or female, roughly how old they were when they died. If we get lucky, even how they died. Your friend will have dental records. Her family can provide DNA. If it’s her, that’s how they’ll find out. Not by some necklace.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘There’s pressure on to get this sorted. The sooner the better for the town. Might have some preliminary findings today, but usually the scientists like to get back to the lab before writing their formal report.’
‘So what about the necklace?’
‘I shouldn’t be saying this but, if it was me, I’d hold onto it.’
‘Really?’
‘Investigators will wait for forensics before starting. With the manhunt for Luke Tyrell, local resources are stretched to breaking point. Gavin’s already pulling out what little hair he has left on the overtime bill. If you give it to him now he’ll get that new kid to handle it.’
‘The one with blond hair?’
‘He’s lost three exhibits for a drug case already. Chances are he’ll lose this too, or it will end up forgotten in a box somewhere. You’ll be lucky if anyone has looked at it by this time next month. Wait until Tyrell’s caught, at least. Then you might get Gavin’s attention.’
Pat passes back the envelope to me. ‘I can remember that case,’ she says. ‘Her mum sat in our waiting room for so long she became part of the furniture, desperate for news. Alan opened the file but your father took it over. Mick worked day and night on it. I don’t think I ever saw him so stressed. He stopped sleeping, lost weight. He was desperate to find her.’
‘He had Grace’s file in his car when he had the accident.’
Pat’s eyes become glassy and she drops her head. ‘Your father was the best there was. No offence, but Gavin isn’t a patch on Mick. With him it’s all paperwork, targets and spreadsheets. That’s not what being a country cop is all about. You know what his current obsession is? Wildlife trafficking. Here we are up to our necks in ice and assaults and all he talks about is wildlife trafficking. Ridiculous.’
She takes a few more mouthfuls of the tuna salad and then taps my arm. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just a grumpy old woman who doesn’t like change.’
‘Any chance I could have a look at Grace’s case file?’ I ask.
‘Not on your life,’ Pat says. ‘More than my job’s worth. If you want to know more about it you could chat to Sharpy. You remember Alan, right?’
I nod.
‘Still, you’d want to pick the right day,’ she continues. ‘Six months after the fires, Karen finally left him. Should have done it a lot sooner. Now he lives by himself, just him and the dog.’
‘Out on Kilmore Road?’
She nods. ‘Supposed to be doing gardening or security these days. Can’t think he’s doing any of it well.’ She picks around the corners of her container with a fork, cleaning up the remnants.
‘What if I found a photo of Grace wearing the necklace?’ I ask.
‘That would be useful,’ she agrees. ‘Save us time. Look, I’ve got to head back. Don’t you get up, I’ll walk. Could do with the exercise.’
‘Sure.’
‘See you again, Eliza. Come back and visit Mick. He loved you two girls more than anything in the world. I think that’s what upset him with the Hedland case. He saw her and thought it could be you or Tess.’
She walks down the street, surprisingly nimble for a large woman. I sit there and stare at the massive trees, imagining them ablaze like beacons of a world gone wrong. I have spent the last twenty years assuming Grace was alive somewhere, because when you’re sixteen, dying seems impossible.
It doesn’t seem so impossible now.
14
The town gives way to complacent cows in fields, which in turn are replaced with pockets of bush. The countryside is green and lush, ferns and undergrowth sprouting up quickly, fed by recent rain and the ash of bushfires. Only the blackened gums and new saplings are a reminder of summers past. Eventually I drive out of the fire’s path into landscape I recognise from my childhood.
I have decided to take Pat’s advice and drop in on Alan Sharp on my way back to the city. It isn’t much of a detour off the highway. Kilmore Road is mostly potholes and patches and I try not to think about stone chips or cracked windscreens. Just as I’m about to turn around, believing I must have missed the house, the bush clears and a wire fence with wayward posts appears, followed by a wooden-framed gate that sparks memories of when Dad used to take us here for visits. We’d drink lemonade and run through the sprinklers while he and Alan had a beer on the verandah.
What I remember as a friendly home has become a sagging old weatherboard with a rusted tin roof. The only new addition is the sign stuck to the wire fence saying ‘Beware of Dog’.
I pull up in front of the closed gate and a couple of horses come moseying over from the next paddock. They shake their heads as if warning me off. The gate jangles as I grab the chain to unlatch it and instantly a deep rumble starts, like machinery coughing into action. A dirty pitbull lumbers around the side of the house with a broad blunt head and four log legs. Catching sight of me, it starts to lope and then, gat
hering speed, its snarling mouth opens wide with a red raw tongue poking out. I run back to my car, slamming the door shut as it hurls like a cannonball and then dances vertically up and over the fence. It picks itself off the ground to body slam the car, teeth bared. Paws scrabble on the paintwork while a face that’s all mouth snaps at the window.
My heart is in my ears so I don’t hear the dog being called off, but it drops back, the barking changing to more of a yelp. Alan appears, head bald, face hairy, wearing jeans and a denim jacket with sheepskin around the collar. The dog pants, straining as it is dragged away. Alan clips it to a thick chain attached to a porch post. I am panting as well.
Alan Sharp’s beard is as coarse as his dog’s fur. There are patches of grey among the faded orange either side of his chin, and hair stretches down his neck. His round face has been widened and lengthened by the thick pelt. I open the car door and get out on trembling legs.
He checks out the car and then squints at me as he walks back to the gate.
‘Eliza,’ he says, surprised. ‘Eliza Carmody.’
I try to regulate my breathing, attempting to get the ragged gasp under control.
‘Sorry about the dog. I don’t get too many visitors.’
‘That’s quite a welcome.’
‘She’s a lamb once she gets to know you. Grandkids climb all over her and she doesn’t even blink.’
I try not to think what that powerful jaw could do to a child.
Unlatching the gate, he pulls it open. The nails on his fingers are bitten almost to the quick.
‘It’s been years since I saw you,’ he says. ‘You back visiting Mick?’
‘I came for Paul Keenan’s memorial.’
Alan’s face colours at this. ‘Guess you saw what happened. Lost my temper, I shouldn’t have done it. But when I thought about the way Tyrell knocked Paul down, just after he helped that woman, I got so mad. Wanted to apologise to his brother afterwards but thought it was best if I left it alone.’
‘Probably the right decision.’
He shakes his head like he still can’t believe it. ‘Anyway, won’t invite you in, place is a bit of a shambles. But sit yourself up on the verandah and I’ll get you a drink.’
I walk across the lawn, dodging dog shit as the pitbull growls and strains on the chain.
‘Twinkle, quiet!’ barks Alan.
‘Twinkle?’
‘Last time I let a six-year-old name anything. Pull up a chair.’
I climb the wooden steps onto the verandah and sit down on a rickety bamboo seat, brushing cobwebs off the arm of it. Twinkle glares up at me but lies down in the garden. Alan is back with two beers so quickly it makes me think he has a nearby stash. This isn’t his first one today.
He clinks bottles with me.
I wait for him to ask why I’m here but he doesn’t.
‘It’s about an old case that you worked on.’
There’s a flicker of an eyebrow but otherwise he doesn’t seem concerned.
‘Grace Hedland.’
He looks at me for a while before saying, ‘The one who ran away. A long time ago now. It was a pretty straightforward case.’
He has bloodshot eyes, and broken capillaries map his face.
‘She was never found,’ I remind him.
He shuffles in his seat as he takes a drink of his beer. ‘Most common people to go missing are girls aged thirteen to eighteen. Six times more likely than any other age group. And the reasons are,’ he counts them on his fingers, ‘problems at home, breaking up with your boyfriend, or because you’ve had a falling out with a mate.’
Only the last one applies to Grace, which doesn’t make me feel particularly good given that I was the mate.
‘But most of them return?’ I ask.
‘Enough come back when they’re ready, some choose not to.’
He stretches a foot out and rests it on the bowed railing.
‘She caught a train to the city, which is out of our jurisdiction. I passed her details up the line of course. City cops were supposed to keep an eye out for her but she’d just be one of many to them. Maybe she found out the hard way that the city’s a dangerous place. Maybe she moved on from there.’
Bellbirds’ calls float from the tall eucalypts on the other side of the road, notes of pure glass. The resonance reverberates around us. I wait until they fade.
‘How do you know she caught a train?’ I ask.
He lifts his hand and scratches at his beard. ‘There was a witness. Someone saw her at the station catching the early train into the city.’
This was new.
‘Who?’ I ask.
He stretches out, puts his beer down next to his chair and clasps his hands behind his head. ‘Couldn’t tell you. Your dad took over the case and Mick was never one for chatting. He kept this investigation close to his chest. Took it seriously though. He was sure that the girl went to the city. That’s why he spent so much time there. Used to go up on weekends.’
I feel a flicker of jealousy deep inside me. This would have been when I was at boarding school, and yet he never came to visit.
‘Dad had her file in the car on the day of his accident. Do you know why?’
Alan frowns at this. ‘No idea. Just a missing girl, pretty standard.’
‘Pat said he was obsessed by it. That he never stopped looking for her.’
A smile flits across his mouth. ‘Wouldn’t take what Pat says too seriously. If Mick sneezed, Pat would be there with the chicken soup and tissues. That old case wasn’t what was bothering Mick.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve thought a bit about that stretch of road where he crashed. When you’re struggling, you see life with suicide goggles on, and I used to think it was a perfect place. Straight road, get up good speed and then smack right into a tree. Go out in a blaze.’
‘But Dad had an aneurysm. The doctors told us that.’
He turns and looks straight at me. ‘How do they know which came first?’ he asks. ‘The tree or the aneurysm?’
I can’t believe what he’s implying.
‘Why would he do that?’
‘The same reason that’s gnawing at the whole town. The fire.’ Alan shakes his head. ‘For some of us it never went out. There was this one property past Fowler Creek. The owners had come into town early, ended up being evacuated to the beach with everyone else. I just wanted to check on the property before they did, to warn them what to expect. When I got there the house and shed were just about gone. There weren’t any trees, just a forest of burnt sticks. This had been beautiful farming land for generations. I walked up the hill and it was so quiet. No leaves rustling, no birds singing. Just over the ridge were about twenty sheep, these great black carcasses all on their sides, fleeces reduced to charcoal, little legs all up in the air, twisted like hooks, a couple of kangaroos lying beside them. Died in agony, those poor buggers. Didn’t matter who you were, the fire got to you.’
In front of us, the dog stirs, lifting her head as if sensing Alan’s despair. A chesty wheeze of a growl escapes but she stays where she is.
‘Work made me see a shrink who reckoned that when I was looking at those animals, I was thinking about my family. One of the grandkids was missing for a few hours. Ended up he’d caught the bus to the next town with some mates without telling his mum.’
When he brings his beer to his lips, some spills out of his mouth and onto his shirt but he makes no move to wipe it away.
‘That fire was toxic. It burned through all our defences. There was no fat left to get us through lean times. At least that’s what it’s like for me and I reckon it was the same for Mick.’
I stand up abruptly because I can’t take any more. ‘I’ve got to head back to the city,’ I say. He nods his head, his attention focused on his beer rather than on me. As I close the gate behind me, I hear him yelling at the dog.
Halfway home it starts to rain. Drops of water collect on the windscreen until they join together and s
tart trickling across the window, slowly at first and then faster and faster, becoming a blur. Beads of guilt and memories join together inside me like quicksilver and I have to force myself to concentrate on the road. Part of the window seal has cracked and water pools on the dashboard. This car is coming apart just like my father did. It’s too late to fix him but I can fix this.
It’s not until I reach the outskirts of the city that the radio picks up a clear enough signal for me to listen to the news. The bones at The Castle are the third item. The announcer tells me that they belong to a young woman, then quickly moves on to the sport.
15
New Year’s Eve 1996
Jim
The jagged piece of wood was visible under the skin. A splinter, courtesy of the dry planks for the bonfire resting in the tray. Leaning against the ute, Jim pulled out his pocket knife. Best to do it now while the light was still good. He pressed the blade to the spot just as a car lurched up next to him. Starting at the noise, his hand slipped. There was a glimpse of sashimi red flesh then the blood began bubbling up.
Swearing, he pulled out a grubby handkerchief and wound it round his index finger, glaring in the direction of the car, ready to give the driver a serve. When he saw it was Mick Carmody’s prized Mustang with Tess at the wheel, he choked down his words.
Her entry was crooked so she put it into reverse and pulled out for another go. This wasn’t much better as she overcorrected and nearly scraped his ute.
Jim put the knife back into his pocket and then gestured for her to stop. Tess wound down her window and he stuck his head in. There was another teenage girl, whose face he knew but name he didn’t, sitting in the passenger seat.
‘Sorry, Mr Keaveney,’ said Tess, her face glowing, a mirror to the setting sun above them. ‘I didn’t think anyone would be up here.’
She had driven up the trail that wound its way behind the surf club, out of sight from the beach. Jim liked parking up here, away from prying eyes. He looked at the tight space between his ute and the knot of trees and scrub.
‘Like me to park it for you?’
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