Only We Know

by Victoria Purman

  When she pushed open the door she was bathed in warmth, which was a relief for her numb fingers and nose. The place was modern inside, light-filled and already busy: customers were happily chattering in the large room and queuing at the counter. The aroma of coffee and frying bacon was almost enough to convince Calla to have another breakfast; her Vegemite on toast was looking pretty lame in comparison.

  When it was her turn, a middle-aged woman with a white apron greeted her with a smile. ‘Just one for breakfast, love?’

  Calla rubbed her hands together to warm them. ‘Yes, thanks. I’d kill for a coffee. Skinny latte. But I was wondering if you could do me a favour first?’ She found the photo again on her phone. ‘Do you think you might’ve seen this man at all? Has he ever been in here?’

  The woman considered it, ran her eyes over the image a few times for good measure. ‘Sorry, love, can’t say that I have. Lost a boyfriend?’ She gave Calla a knowing wink.

  ‘No, nothing like that. But thank you anyway.’

  The woman’s face creased in a sympathetic smile. ‘Why don’t you go and find a table? I’ll bring your coffee over to you.’

  Calla put her phone away and found an empty table by the big windows at the front, to make the most of the view. She sat down, shrugged off her coat, and tried not to feel too disappointed. It was ridiculous to feel deflated so soon, she knew, but it hit her in that moment how ill-prepared she was. She was an art teacher, not a freaking detective. Just because people in two places hadn’t seem Jem didn’t mean he wasn’t still on the island. Clearly she’d been wrong to think it was the kind of place where everybody knew everyone. It was a big island with lots of places to disappear, clearly, and she tried not to think about needles and haystacks. She put her phone down on the table, rested an elbow next to it and rested her chin in her palm. Outside, the rain was pelting down. She decided to stay put for a while. She hardly wanted to be walking or driving around the island in weather like this.

  Calla glanced at her phone and wondered if she should call Rose for another update.

  ‘Good morning.’

  She knew that voice.

  Calla looked up from her screen.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Mr Nice Guy looked half asleep. He had that bedraggled barely-out-of-bed look. A warm-looking navy blue hoodie hugged his chest, which was quite broad, and Calla took a slow glance down his long, denim-clad legs to see Blundstone boots. In his hand, he carried a thin, waterproof rain jacket, the kind people wore when they were climbing Mount Everest. It was dripping on the floor.

  ‘Good morning,’ she replied. As she returned her gaze to his face, she decided he was still handsome. Maybe even more so today than yesterday. And, with a wash of relief, she realised she was still totally immune.

  He was staring at her in a slightly unsettling way, his sleepy eyes not quite wide open, and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, lingering. ‘You feeling better today?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Thanks.’

  And then he didn’t move. Calla waited for him to say cheers or goodbye or catch you later — even bon voyage — but he didn’t say anything. Mr Nice Guy was acting kind of strange, she thought. Like he didn’t want to stay but couldn’t seem to walk away, either. His quiet hesitation created a weird silence between them that Calla felt nervously obliged to fill. ‘It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do.’ She tried to chuckle, to keep this light. ‘And a bottle of red wine, of course.’

  ‘I quite like that remedy myself.’ He pushed one hand into the pocket of his jeans and looked down at her, not smiling, or frowning. Something halfway in between.

  Calla gripped her phone. Please go away, she wanted to say. Take your handsome and those bedroom eyes and go flirt with someone else. She glanced around the café. There were still a few empty tables so it wasn’t as if they needed to share.

  ‘Skinny latte.’ The waitress bumped Sam out of the way and placed Calla’s coffee on the table before her. She looked at Sam. ‘Hold on a minute. Yours is ready too. I’ll bring it over.’

  There wasn’t any choice now, was there? ‘Have a seat, won’t you?’

  Sam pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down. Then he held out a hand across the table. ‘We didn’t get around to names yesterday. I’m Sam.’

  Calla extended her arm and shook his hand brusquely, in a no-nonsense professional manner. She didn’t want to notice how small her hand felt in his or how warm his fingers were. She quickly let go. ‘I’m Calla.’

  ‘Nice to officially meet you, Callie.’

  ‘It’s Calla.’

  ‘Sorry. Calla.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last.’

  ‘How long you here for?’

  Hmm. This apparently common KI conversation starter would be a whole lot easier to answer if she actually knew the answer. ‘A few days.’

  ‘You here to see all the tourist sights? The seals. The rocks. Taste some food and drink some wine?’

  ‘No,’ Calla said with a rueful shake of her head. Food and wine were almost two of her top three favourite things and she felt ridiculous for not even having thought about fitting them into her trip. She had to remind herself what she was on the island to do. ‘What about you? Why are you here?’

  Sam repositioned himself so he was sitting sideways to the table, and he crossed one leg over the other. Calla could see all the signs that he was settling in for a conversation. She couldn’t wait to tell Rose about the handsome stranger bearing sweets turning up the next day and trying to pick her up over a cup of coffee. At least, she thought that’s what he was trying to do. Wasn’t he? Maybe there weren’t that many single women on the island, and she was like some kind of fresh meat. Maybe he was a lurker who liked to travel back and forth on the ferry looking for single women to seduce.

  Okay. Get a grip. He’d saved her denim jacket and bought her a lollipop. Hardly stalker material.

  ‘I’ve got some business here on the island to deal with.’

  ‘Are you in business?’

  If he was going to answer he stopped when Calla’s phone beeped an alert and vibrated against the laminate table. She glanced at the screen. It was from Rose.

  You still alive?

  ‘Answer that if you have to; don’t mind me.’ Sam waved a hand at her. He politely turned to look out the windows to the cliff tops and the sea.

  Calla picked up the phone and texted in reply: Yes.

  She then put her phone — screen down — on the table. Sam’s coffee had arrived and he lifted his cup and drank the whole thing down in one gulp.

  ‘That’s one mega dose of caffeine right there,’ Calla said.

  Sam ran a hand over his short dark hair. ‘Just what I needed.’

  When Calla’s phone beeped a second time, Sam took a surreptitious glance at it and stood. That frown was back.

  ‘I’ve got to get going,’ he said. ‘See you round, Calla.’

  ‘Bye …’ She’d had a complete mental blank. Couldn’t remember his name for the life of her. She gazed after him as he walked across the café, his long-legged strides quite pleasurable to watch from behind. Just before he walked through the doorway out onto the footpath, he turned to look back at her. It wasn’t a smile or a grin, or even an invitation. His face was unreadable. He slipped on his jacket and walked out into the pouring rain.

  Through the windows, Calla watched him step into his big silver gas-guzzler and drive away.

  ‘Sam,’ she murmured. His name was Sam.

  She picked up her phone and saw Rose’s message: Any news?

  She quickly typed back: Not yet.

  Sam sat in his car for a few minutes and listened to the news on the radio to catch up with what was happening on the mainland. It had become a habit, the way he listened out for reports of fires, major car accidents or other emergencies that might involve his fellow firies. Incidents sometimes meant injuries, and if it was anyone from his s
tation he’d want to know about it — and damn quickly. When the announcer started reading the weather forecast, having relayed nothing more serious than a queue at a just-opened fast-food outlet in the city, he felt the tension in his shoulders ease and he flicked his car stereo over to his iPod.

  He drove out of Penneshaw, past the golf course and up the hill. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and there was even a patch of blue sky above him. As he drove, he glanced to the right and out over the ocean. The houses along that stretch had million-dollar views, all right, and were coveted by people from the mainland for their holiday homes. They were also popular with tourists who came to the island for its unspoilt beauty and its solitude. Sam didn’t need a view and the island to be alone. He’d managed that well enough at home in Adelaide for years.

  He was used to seeing the ocean everywhere he looked, the vast, empty green spaces, the stone cottages dotted on farmlands looking lonely in the distance. He wondered what Calla would think of it, how it would appear to a stranger to the island.

  As he looked out to the blue ocean, he saw her eyes.

  Calla.

  So the redhead had a name.

  He’d met redheads before but he’d never met a Calla and wondered if that was why the two syllables of her name were going round and round in his head, sitting right there on the tip of his tongue. He’d met plenty of Emilys and Gemmas and Sophies and, yes, one Christina. One had been more than enough.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d ambled over when he saw her in the café. After he’d woken up in his car, he’d taken a long walk to ease up his back and clear his head. And then he’d needed to eat. He told himself it was all about checking to see if she was feeling better. Maybe it was his medical training. It was hard to switch off when you were a first responder.

  Or maybe it was because he’d just discovered he liked redheads.

  She looked brighter and more alert. Definitely better than the sickly looking, pale-faced tourist he’d assumed her to be. Maybe the texts she was getting were the reason. Her face had lit up when she’d seen the name on her phone.

  He cranked up the music in the car and looked down the white line. Get her out of your head, Crash. He couldn’t get distracted. He had an old man’s heart to break.

  Calla sat in the café and waited for the rain to clear. She exchanged a few more messages with Rose, then drove out of the main street of Penneshaw in the muted light. The clouds had drifted past the sun but it was still cold, and she glanced up to the sky through her front window, wondering when it would rain again. She’d checked the local weather forecast on her phone and it had indicated cloudy with rain for Kangaroo Island. Helpful.

  When she’d paid her bill at the café, the waitress had told her there was a tourist office a little way out of Penneshaw that she might want to check out. At the very least, she’d told Calla, she’d be able to pick up a decent map. Given her sense of direction, relying on Google maps was probably not the best idea: she needed to go paper, old-school. Something she could fold and unfold and draw on, tracing a line of where she’d been and where she was going.

  As she ambled along in her little red car, the buildings of the small town quickly gave way to fields and distant gum trees, small hills emerging in the distance. There were some pretty fancy holiday homes on the main road, all new and shiny, and a marina to her right where a couple of huge cruisers sat still in the water. If she had been on the island as a tourist, she might have stopped and taken a couple of photos so she could show Rose more incredible views of the mainland to the northeast. But, as beautiful as the views were, she wasn’t there to see them.

  Calla cranked up the music until it filled her car with thumping rock. She sped up as she crested a hill and looked to her right to take in the stunning view.

  It was only a millisecond. That’s all it took.

  When she turned her gaze back to the road, all she could see looming in front of her was a silver four-wheel drive, stationary across the middle of the road. She jammed her foot on the brake so hard it jarred her back and locked her arms and, as she skidded on the wet road, the back of the car closing in on her, she clenched her eyes closed with a scream on her lips.

  CHAPTER

  7

  There was something pounding in the car and for a moment Calla couldn’t figure out if it was the music or her heart exploding out of her chest. She pried her eyes open and was relieved that she could. Every muscle in her body had stiffened and all she could see through the fogged-up windscreen was the red of her shunted-up bonnet and, beyond it, a smudge of silver, the four-wheel drive like a fortress in front of her.

  She breathed in, then out, her head a jumble of confusion and questions. The pounding in her head was so fierce she wanted to close her eyes and block it all out. The rush of adrenalin was like a panic attack, like 140 volts through her, and her breath quickened until she felt dizzy.

  Then there was a noise, a crunching metallic scrape, and her car engine stopped. A hand was on her shoulder and there was a deep voice in her ear.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  Calla moaned. ‘Yes.’ Adrenaline coursed through her until her stomach roiled.

  ‘Are you all right? Can you open your eyes, Calla?’ Someone was leaning over her, squeezing into the car. On top of her, all around her. She heard the sound of her seatbelt unclip.

  ‘Did you knock your head?’ A warm hand brushed back her curls and was firm on her forehead.

  ‘I … I don’t think so.’

  Strong fingers were on her wrist, pressing down at her pulse point.

  ‘Do you know where you are?’ The question was calm and considered, though almost drowned out by the whoosh in her ears.

  ‘Some road. Not exactly.’ Calla turned to the voice and slowly prised open her eyes.

  And then Sam’s face was all she could see. His dark eyes stared back at her, right into her eyes, glancing from one pupil to the other and back again. His mouth was a grim line but his manner was steady and authoritative.

  ‘You’re on Kangaroo Island.’

  ‘I know that much. What’s happened?’ Calla’s voice sounded a long way away.

  ‘You skidded on the wet road and ran into my car.’ Sam let go of her wrist and put her arm in her lap.

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘Stay right here. There’s been an accident just ahead of us. I’m turning on your hazard lights. Don’t move until someone comes for you, do you understand?’

  Calla raised a hand to cover her eyes, to stop the throb. Her arm felt heavy. ‘Okay.’

  And then he was gone.

  Sam threw open the back of his four-wheel drive, grabbed his trauma pack and ran.

  When he’d come over the rise a minute before, he’d skidded to a halt in front of the accident scene. His training took over in a millisecond. He’d quickly reversed and swung his car round to block the road. First, protect the scene. He didn’t want another vehicle coming up the highway and making the whole thing worse.

  As he got closer, his breath clouding as he ran in the cold, he scanned the road. Up on the left, a white sedan had pulled over to the verge, the driver’s door already open. He could see movement in the cabin. To his right were two leather-clad bodies, lying crumpled and indistinct on the ground. Their motorbike had skidded into a gum tree, gashed it.

  He reached the motorcyclists first. Both rider and pillion had been tossed onto the grass and dirt on the side of the road. Ahead of them, the metallic shards of the motorbike had splintered and twisted beyond recognition. He could smell burnt rubber and fuel leaking from the petrol tank. Neither victim was moving. He knelt down close to the nearest one, a woman, and shouted at her helmet, ‘Can you hear me?’

  His knee was instantly wet from the grass. She didn’t respond, but he heard sounds from inside her helmet. Was she breathing? He scrambled to the other person, repeated the question, but there was nothing there either.

  Sam slipped his fingers through the handle of his trauma pack and
ran to the sedan on the other side of the road. New South Wales plates. The bonnet was smashed in, the front window a spiderweb of broken glass. Sam leant down to look inside the open driver-side door. The airbag had deployed and was now a withered pouch on the steering wheel. Sam recognised the metallic smell.

  ‘Can you hear me? You folks okay?’ Two pairs of wide eyes turned to him. Mid-sixties, maybe, both conscious. Pale as ghosts.

  ‘That m-motorbike,’ the woman in the passenger seat stammered.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ the driver added with a cough, his voice thin. ‘It came right at us. On the wrong side of the road.’

  ‘You okay, ma’am? I can see there’s no airbag on that side. Did you hit your head?’

  The woman shook her head, sobs rising as her shock set in. ‘The seatbelt cut into me, I think. It hurts.’

  ‘Are they all right, the people on the motorbike? I’ll come and help.’ The driver undid his seatbelt and moved to get out of the car.

  Sam rested a firm hand on his shoulder, pressed him back down in his seat. ‘I do need your help. Do you have a mobile phone?’

  The driver nodded.

  ‘I need you to ring triple-zero and ask for an ambulance. Tell them we’re on Hog Bay Road out of Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island, just past the marina. Can you remember that?’

  The driver retrieved his phone from a cup-holder between the seats and dialled.

  ‘I need to go back to the others. Stay here in the car. It’s cold and it might rain again and this is the safest place to be. Do you understand?’

  As soon as they nodded, Sam sprinted back to the motorbike victims. Still no movement from either of them. He knelt down on the soggy grass, unclipped his trauma pack and found plastic gloves, snapped them on. He bent down close to the matte-black helmet.

  The rider’s head was bent back at an odd angle, exposing the skin of his neck between the helmet and the collar of his leather jacket. Sam could see the skin was blue. He pressed his fingers to the carotid artery. Nothing.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ he shouted. No response. Even in the dim morning light he could see blood on the inside of the clear visor. He worked it open. The face inside was still, blood pooling under the nose. There was no sign of life.