Where the Dead Go

by Sarah Bailey

  Sunday, 17 April

  5.13 am

  Small broken branches crisscross the Gordons’ front lawn, and a wattle is slumped against the front veranda, yellow flowers like confetti on the porch.

  I ease my key into the front door and pull it shut behind me, resting my forehead on the timber. I still feel shaky but I’m no longer tired; I’m way beyond that now. A grim determination has taken over, propelling me to get to the bottom of this stinking mess, to shut it down so Ben and I can get the hell out of here. I push away from the door and let the anger rinse through me, liking the way my fists ball and my jaw tightens.

  Ben is in my bed now, curled in sleep. Did he panic when he discovered I was gone? Did he cry into the dark wondering if I’d come back? What would have happened if I hadn’t come back? I smooth a curl of his hair and trace my fingers across his freckles. I know that face better than my own, but he still remains a mystery. He is both mine and completely separate. The joy he brings me only just outweighs the dread he evokes deep in my bones.

  I slink out and pull the door closed.

  In the living room a soft line of light edges across the floor, the new day sneaking past its predecessor. Tommy and Vanessa sit side by side at the table, empty mugs in front of them. There is a basket of Easter eggs on the kitchen bench.

  ‘Are you alright, Gemma?’ Vanessa’s voice is unsure.

  I sit down heavily in front of them.

  ‘I spoke to Tran,’ says Tommy. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘Ben came into our room last night,’ says Vanessa, ‘when he couldn’t find you. I told him you were fine and would be back soon.’ She twists her wedding ring around her finger. ‘He settled very quickly in your bed.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I fight a flurry of feelings as I look at them, these strangers in front of me.

  Their faces are lined with worry but there is a caution there too, a tinge of defensiveness.

  ‘How’s de Luca?’ Tommy asks.

  ‘She’s stable,’ I reply, ‘but critical. That’s all I know. Her mum refused to come—apparently they’re estranged—but her girlfriend is with her.’

  Tommy’s fat fingers grip the mug. ‘I just can’t believe Lane could do that,’ he mutters, his eyes wet. Vanessa takes his hand and pulls it into her lap.

  My resolve falters. ‘They are trying to get to his body now the rain has stopped.’

  Vanessa squeezes her eyes shut. ‘God.’

  ‘I don’t think he could see another way out.’

  Tommy nods but I can sense that, like me, he’s stuck on playing out the scene: Lane driving to the cliffs, stumbling out of his car, throwing himself into the void. Tommy bends his neck and presses his fingers into the ridge of his eyebrows. ‘He was a good kid.’

  ‘He probably raped a teenage girl,’ I snap. ‘And he lied to all of us. He threatened the Clarks and shot a cop.’

  Tommy baulks at my outburst.

  ‘We all misread him,’ I continue. My hands are shaking so I clasp them together. Put them in my lap.

  ‘We’re allowed to be sad, Gemma,’ says Vanessa.

  ‘Sure, and I’m allowed to be angry.’

  Finally Tommy says, ‘How long was something going on between them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And the bike?’

  ‘I’m guessing he panicked when she turned up that night. He knew she’d be on the security tapes. Once he saw she’d left her bike on the street, he must have figured a fake robbery report would be a good cover for her visit. If anyone ever asked about it, Abbey could just claim it turned up the next day and he could mention it casually to you but let you know it was all resolved. No loose ends.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’ asks Tommy.

  ‘I think she told him she broke up with Rick and that she wanted to be with him, and he shut her down. She got upset, refused his offer of a lift and ran off. Lane had already received the call about the party and called you. So he stashed the bike in the shed. He knew no one ever used it, and he thought he’d sort everything out when Abbey calmed down.’

  ‘That’s why I beat him to the party.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Lane wasn’t the one who—’

  ‘I don’t think so. My guess is that Abbey met up with Rick that night—she knew he was meeting friends on the beach. I think she confessed what had been going on between her and Lane, and that Rick lost it. Lane was just hell-bent on clearing his name because he knew that after everything else, he’d be the prime suspect.’

  ‘And Daniel killed Rick?’

  ‘If Dot is telling the truth about him leaving the house on Monday morning, then it makes the most sense.’

  Tommy mumbles something under his breath.

  ‘Will Daniel be charged?’ asks Vanessa.

  I picture the spread of red on the dirty cream carpet. Daniel’s arms around de Luca, his mouth moving as he spoke to her.

  ‘If Dot goes through with her statement, including the historical abuse, then I think he will.’

  A neighbour opens their back door and a cheerful 80s song rolls into the Gordons’ yard.

  Vanessa glances at her watch and eases herself to her feet. ‘I’ll make some tea. Tommy, you need to take your pills.’

  He and I lock eyes across the table.

  ‘Tommy,’ I say, ‘I know you have a problem.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says gruffly.

  ‘The pills, Tommy. The doctor shopping. Your accident. Were you covering the fact you were high?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Did you contact the newspaper about me? Try to scare me out of town?’

  ‘What? No. You’re clearly exhausted. Take a nap.’

  Leaning forward, I bare my teeth. ‘Don’t tell me what I need, Tommy. I’m not sure I even know the half of it, but I swear to god I will find out.’ I narrow my eyes to slits. ‘Are you running some kind of scheme with Eric Sheffield? How far does this thing go, Tommy?’

  He pushes his chair back from the table in a flourish. ‘You’re mad,’ he hisses. ‘Clearly the strain of this case has gotten to you.’

  ‘Ben’s awake,’ Vanessa warns, cocking her head to the hallway. I hear the toilet flush.

  I give Tommy another sharp look and go to see Ben. He’s pulling on clothes in his bedroom. He looks tired, a dark smudge under each eye.

  ‘I got called out last night,’ I say into his hair. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you woke up.’

  ‘Gemma.’ Vanessa is standing in the doorway, a sharp line between her brows.

  I pull away from Ben. Draw myself tall.

  ‘Give Tommy a break,’ she says. ‘He’s very upset about Lane.’

  ‘That doesn’t excuse his involvement in something illegal.’

  Hurt cuts across her face. ‘Tommy wouldn’t do anything like that.’

  ‘Please,’ I say, rolling my eyes, ‘don’t you get sick of blindly supporting him?’

  Her eyes flash as her arms fold. ‘We’ve done a lot for you.’

  I snort. ‘Stop protecting him, Vanessa.’ I give my son a stiff smile. ‘Come on, Ben, we have to go.’

  ‘Now?’ He raises his right eyebrow and looks worriedly back and forth between us.

  ‘Yes. Get your jumper on and brush your teeth.’

  I push past Vanessa and go into my room, where I swap my filthy shirt for a clean orange T-shirt, blast my underarms with deodorant and shove some things into a backpack.

  ‘Come on, Ben!’

  Vanessa tugs on my arm, the skin around her neck strained as she says, ‘Gemma, don’t you think he’s been through enough?’

  ‘Let go of me.’ I open the front door and usher Ben outside.

  ‘This is ridiculous, Gemma,’ Vanessa calls after us, ‘you need to get some sleep! It’s driving me mad watching you run yourself into the ground in your condition.’

  I gape at her. ‘What?’


  ‘I know about the baby,’ she blurts. ‘I saw the test in the rubbish.’

  Sunday, 17 April

  7.11 am

  Ben’s head jerks, his eyes wide.

  We stand in a strange little triangle on the porch. I feel like I’m going to explode.

  ‘How dare you!’ I snap.

  Vanessa doesn’t let up. ‘I don’t understand what you’re doing, putting yourself in danger. It’s like you don’t even care. What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Shut up.’ The words slice out of my mouth, and I’m worried I will slap her if I don’t leave.

  ‘Mum?’ Ben’s little face tilts upward, solemn between us.

  I rush down the veranda stairs, my boots sliding on the storm debris, tugging Ben along behind me. The sun tentatively prods at the night’s carnage as if trying to work out what’s salvageable. A cherry picker is parked in the street a few houses along from the Gordons’, and two men in high-vis vests are wrestling a fallen tree off a car.

  Ben and I walk along the beach amid an eerie calm. Today the ocean looks as innocent as a child. My son seems deep in thought and I wonder if, by some miracle, he didn’t hear what Vanessa said.

  I call Tran but there’s no update on de Luca’s condition. Critical but stable.

  ‘Daniel Clark probably saved her life, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I know. Apparently he was a surf lifesaver years ago.’

  ‘God,’ I say, watching Ben bend down to examine a shell.

  ‘We’ve recovered Lane’s body from the rocks. I’ve just left his parents’ place. The autopsy will be tomorrow.’ She pauses. ‘Dot is going ahead with her statement about Daniel this morning.’ Tran sounds just as exhausted as me.

  ‘Where is Daniel now?’

  ‘Still at the house with Dot and the kids. We’re taking their statements about last night in an hour. Dot will go last. The plan is to detain him then.’

  ‘When will Rick’s body be released?’ I ask her.

  ‘Wednesday, I think. The weapons expert is scheduled to examine the body tomorrow. I spoke to Georgina Fletcher earlier—they’re now staying with her sister. I think they’ll have the funeral on Friday.’

  ‘Still no word on Aiden?’

  ‘Apparently not. Maybe he’ll come out of the woodwork when he hears that Daniel has been put away.’

  ‘Right. If he and Rick were involved in trafficking drugs, Aiden probably assumed his brother’s death was caused by that, but Daniel’s arrest might make him think otherwise.’ I struggle through a bracing yawn. ‘Please keep me posted about de Luca. And Daniel’s arrest.’

  ‘Will do.’

  I call out to Ben, who is picking up pieces of seaweed from the shoreline and chucking them in the water.

  ‘Did you find the missing girl yet?’ he asks me, squinting into the sun.

  ‘Not yet.’ I nudge a piece of driftwood with my foot. ‘But no matter what, we’re going home soon. To Smithson. I think we should leave tomorrow. Does that sound good?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He’s staring out at the ocean.

  More than anything I want to read his mind, to sift through his thoughts and check that he really is okay.

  ‘Why are you and Vanessa fighting?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s complicated. I lost my temper and I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Are you having a baby like she said?’

  The world tips one way and then another.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say finally.

  ‘With Mac?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ My mouth feels full of wool. I lick my lips. Salt. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I like Mac.’

  ‘Me too,’ I whisper.

  ‘Mum, can I ask you another question?’

  My throat constricts. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is “Mac” Mac’s real name?’

  I let out the breath I’ve been holding, stroke his hair. ‘It’s “Cormac”, but I don’t think anyone ever calls him that.’

  Ben smiles and darts off, grabbing a fallen tree branch and dragging it along the sand to join another one.

  ‘Be careful,’ I say automatically.

  ‘I am,’ he replies just as swiftly.

  For a few minutes I watch him wrangle the branches into a rough tepee, the crease of concentration between his eyes an exact replica of Scott’s.

  I sit on a flat shelf of rock and draw my knees to my chest, folding my arms and resting my chin on them. I’m drained. Lane’s broken body looms in my mind; I squeeze my eyes shut trying to make it go away. The loose threads of his guilt taunt me. What exactly did he do?

  ‘Mac!’ Ben shouts.

  I turn to the right and open my eyes. Ben has run off in the direction we came from. I gaze past him down the beach to see Mac rushing along the sand toward him, a worried look on his face.

  I get to my feet. Maybe I’m dreaming.

  He approaches with Ben jogging happily beside him.

  ‘Ben, can you go back to finishing what you were building before, please?’

  He rolls his eyes but trots off.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I hiss at Mac.

  He falters. Flushed red and out of breath, he holds up a hand. ‘I heard what happened last night. You didn’t answer my calls so I went straight to the Gordons—they said you came this way.’ He pauses, still huffing. ‘Gemma, are you alright?’

  My face scrunches up as I try to understand. ‘You flew here this morning? How?’

  ‘I never left,’ he says, eyes pleading.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I couldn’t, Gem! Not after what you told me. I couldn’t just go back to Sydney and pretend everything was fine. I’ve been working from here and keeping a low profile.’

  ‘And keeping tabs on me?’ I snap.

  ‘It wasn’t like that. You know I care about you. You have to stop acting like it’s a bad thing.’

  I fold my arms and fight another wave of exhaustion. ‘So, what, you’re staying at The Parrot?’

  ‘Yeah. I asked Cam not to say anything.’ Mac steps closer. ‘Please, don’t be angry. I was worried. Your dad was worried too, and so was Jonesy. Candy too.’

  ‘Great,’ I mutter, furious at the idea of everyone talking about me.

  ‘Gemma—’

  ‘Take me to the hotel? Please. I need to sleep.’

  Sunday, 17 April

  11.32 am

  It’s light when I wake up. A TV is on nearby, the volume low. I’m at the Parrot Hotel; I recognise the décor from our first night in Fairhaven. I roll over and stretch out my legs, relishing the pull of my tired muscles. Then I remember everything and feel sick again.

  I check my phone: a missed call from Owen. I sit up and call him back.

  ‘Shit, Gemma.’ His swearing is uncharacteristic. ‘Are you alright? I heard—’

  ‘I’m okay, but the whole situation is pretty terrible. And I doubt we’ll ever find the girl now. At this point, I don’t even know what happened.’

  Owen murmurs his sympathies. We all understand the pain of a missing body, the horror of the eternal limbo.

  I rest my hands lightly on my gut—I need to eat. ‘I have to go, Owen. Thanks for checking in.’

  ‘Of course. Hey, look, I just wanted to let you know that the team on the drug thing are closing in on a few doctors they reckon might be involved. One has a link to a guy who runs a packaging company, and the team think that’s how they’re getting the stock to fly under the radar. We’re not sure if the stock is stolen—we think it might be manufactured from scratch and being cut with a lot of cheap stuff to get the margins up. But bottom line is that it looks totally legitimate when it’s all packed in barcoded boxes. It could easily be sitting in a warehouse or even on a pharmacy shelf somewhere, and nobody would ever know.’

  ‘God, we’re in trouble when the drug dealers are worried about bloody graphic design and the quality of their cardboard boxes.’

  Owen laughs. ‘I know, it’s a whole new breed of dealers.
Drugs masquerading as drugs.’ He sighs. ‘Please take care of yourself, Gem. Let me know when you’re coming back.’

  I shuffle into the lounge and give Ben a kiss. On the TV a cute rabbit is wrestling with a giant egg.

  In the kitchen, Mac looks up from his laptop. ‘Hey. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Better. I’m going to get myself some cereal.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  I feel him watching me as I shake the cornflakes into the bowl, pour in the milk. I check my phone. An email from Tran confirms that Dot has made a formal statement about Daniel’s whereabouts on Monday morning; he will be detained and arrested shortly. I scroll through my other emails and see that Grange has finally sent through the hospital finance records.

  Switching to my laptop, I scroll through the statements. There’s a recurring monthly payment of one thousand dollars to Parrot Bay Holdings Pty Ltd listed under ‘freight’.

  I google the company: it’s the registered name of Tara’s beauty salon. I sit heavily back against the chair. The ringing sound returns.

  ‘How many weeks are you?’ Mac asks quietly.

  ‘What? Um, I think about seven. From when you came to Smithson.’

  He nods.

  ‘I just spoke to Owen about a drug investigation in Sydney. The team thinks it might be linked to prescription drugs being sold around here and other regional centres.’

  ‘And is it also linked to your case?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say, my mind whirring. I remember Janet saying that Sally Luther had worked with the local GP and Eric had mentioned this was what he did before he opened the hospital. ‘And Aiden worked at the hospital,’ I murmur.

  ‘What?’ Mac leans forward and takes my hand.

  Although I’m looking into his eyes, I can’t focus on him. Is Eric the key to all of this? I replay seeing the note on my windshield. The shock of it. But Elsha said Lane stayed with her that night, and that he woke up when I called him to come in early. He didn’t have time to come past the Gordons’.

  ‘Lane didn’t leave me the note about Scott,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ says Mac.

  ‘I just . . .’ I swallow, trying to think. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’