Bay of Fires (4 page)

“Don’t worry about a bit of water. The only thing a pretty lady like you needs to worry about is that you’ll be next.”

When he was gone, Sarah turned back to the ocean. After every encounter she had with Roger her skin felt damp and prickly. Although she hadn’t touched him, had never touched him, he left her with a foul residue of intimacy that made her guts slide.

Knee-deep in the shallows, Don wore the flaccid expression of someone lost in thought. Sarah splashed water at him and he startled. Amicably he splashed back. He had seen dolphins. There had been a pod of them, maybe as many as seven, pirouetting out of the waves. It was worth waiting for. They watched in silence for a few minutes.

“Pamela said you had a boyfriend up in Queensland?” Don said.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh. What happened?”

“You know. Ended.”

“Got it. Some blokes don’t know a good thing when it’s staring them in the face.”

“Something like that.”

She waved good-bye and continued making her way to the point where she planned to swim. The hard wet sand felt pleasant under her bare feet. Sarah was glad that Don didn’t ask any more questions. He never said much; it was one of the things she liked about him.

Initially, that had been one of the things she liked about Jake. As she got to know him, his silences lost their sexiness. Jake was dissatisfied with everything: his car that kept breaking down; his flatmate who earned more than him doing fly in, fly out for a coal mine up north; his dog that wouldn’t obey an instruction; and, eventually, he was dissatisfied with Sarah. She should have realized what was happening sooner, taken a gauge from the increasing tension of their squabbles or the lack of real conversation between them. Instead, his discontent had festered until it exploded that night at the Pineapple Hotel. Maybe if she had had someone to mull it over with, things would have turned out differently. But she was hardly a woman who found the dissection of a relationship to be a worthwhile conversation topic.

Sarah had little time for talk. Consequently she had few female friends. That didn’t bother her. She was comfortable in a world where neurotic conversations about weight, husbands, job stress, or other people’s business, followed by confidence-boosting pep talks, did not exist. She would miss that about the fish farm, where insults about one another’s weight, attractiveness, or genitalia were routine. Nothing was off limits. Even others’ families were targets. If the guys became too revolting, she concentrated on the computer spreadsheet or double-checked that the automatic feeder was set correctly and pretended she hadn’t heard.

Sometimes they tried to shock her.

“You ever been put on the spit, Aves?” one of the guys asked one day.

Sarah had a thick hide; she wouldn’t have lasted fourteen years in the industry otherwise.

“I’m not giving you visuals for your wank bank. Get back to work.”

She was the boss, so the blokes had no choice about that.

Thirty meters offshore was a rock reef covered in shiny black mussels. To harvest the mussels, you had to float across slippery fingers of bull kelp and haul yourself onto the rock. As kids Sarah and Erica had often dared each other to jump over the tangling kelp fronds and into the sea. Sarah climbed up and surveyed the tightly packed shellfish. Panfried in butter and sprinkled with chopped parsley, they were a snack Erica and Flip enjoyed. They were too chewy to be Sarah’s favorite food, but her mother often commented on how well they went with champagne. Sarah chose ten of the biggest, ripping them off the rock with a firm hand, and placed them in a plastic bag, which she tied onto the strap of her bathing suit. They would enjoy the treat.

As she prepared to dive back in, a childhood memory halted her. Once, on this very rock, Erica had shoved her. She had lost her footing, rough shells grating the skin off her thighs as she slid into the sea. In those terrifying minutes as she sank and struggled in the kelp, Sarah had thought she was going to drown.

This time, being extra careful to avoid the kelp, Sarah dived long and low. She emerged some distance from the rock. Immediately she recognized the hum of a thirty-horsepower Yamaha motor. She treaded water and tried to look over the rock reefs and the incoming waves, but she couldn’t see the vessel. It was safe to assume if she couldn’t see the boat, the driver couldn’t see her. It was dangerous to be swimming where she was. She twisted around and began to swim to the beach. If the boat driver was preoccupied, or not watching where he was going, the propeller could kill her. Sarah swam faster, stopping every few strokes to look for the boat. It was getting louder but she still could not sight it.

“Ahoy!” she yelled.

There was no reply. The approaching engine noise came from the other side of the rocks. Boats—even a small dinghy like the tinny coming toward her—had no business in this cove. There were no pots to check, and it was rocky enough to make line fishing treacherous. Sarah swam, her long hard strokes propelling her toward the beach. As she turned to breathe, she saw the tinny meters away, bearing down on her. It was too close. Whoever was driving hadn’t seen her.

She duck-dived, remaining under for as long as she could hold her breath, scissors-kicking in the direction of the shore. When she was certain the tinny wasn’t above her she came up for air, gasping. Her eyes and ears felt like they were bleeding. She was too puffed to try and shout an insult at the skipper. Fool.

Sarah floated on her back, waiting until her breathing was under control. It sounded like the tinny was heading north, back to the boat ramp. She wished she had seen some identifying information on it, the name, the color, even a glimpse of the engine. He shouldn’t have been in so close. He could have run her over, his propeller butchering her, killing her. Perhaps Anja was the victim of a hit-and-run? She would not have had any idea of the dangers associated with sharing the water with a tinny driven by a moron.

The long-ago night after Erica had pushed her in, Sarah had curled up on her banana lounge bed, listening as her parents discussed how fortunate it was that Sarah fell in and not Erica. Sarah was well able to look after herself, they agreed. She had turned her face to the pillow, biting into the chunky foam to stifle the aching sob. Her brain had flicked from the terror of being submerged under the kelp, to her parents’ apparent indifference to her vulnerability, and back again. Just for once, she had wished to be the fragile, needy daughter.

But no good would come of dwelling on the past. Over the sound of the waves and her ringing ears, she could hear the motor fading. She swam toward the beach.

Sarah spread an old road map of the Tasmanian east coast on the kitchen bench, studied it, and penciled a cross at the place where the woman washed in. Her mother was leaning over the sink, brushing her teeth. The sloshing of the brush in someone else’s mouth was not a sound Sarah was used to hearing. She looked up from the map to see her mother watching her.

“Why are you writing on the map?” Flip said.

Sarah shrugged, swirling the beer in the can. Her mother rinsed her toothbrush. Usually they used the little bathroom at the end of the veranda to brush their teeth.

“Newsflash, Mum. Anja Traugott and Chloe Crawford were young. I think you’ll be safe using the outside bathroom.”

Sarah meant to reassure, to tease; her mother recoiled. There was a moment when she could have apologized, but it passed. Sarah concentrated on the map.

Strange things had happened on this isolated beach. Almost ten years ago, half a dozen perfect square holes, two meters deep, were found dug in the sand. Newspaper reports suggested a midnight boat delivery of contraband—drugs or smuggled crayfish. But like on the morning Roger found that woman, no one heard or saw anything suspicious.

Sarah remained silent as she watched her mother lock the shack door. They had never locked the shack, not even when they visited the nearest town, a ninety-minute drive on corrugated gravel, for groceries. They never lit all four gas lanterns or closed the curtains of an evening, but tonight someone had done so.

As her family settled into their beds, Sarah remained at the kitchen bench, sipping her beer. Erica’s boyfriend, Steve, had arrived earlier in the evening. He was a pilot, and his hat was on the counter. Sarah spun it around on her finger, recalling the fuss Mum and Erica had made about how handsome he looked in his Qantas uniform. She could hear Erica and Steve talking in their bedroom, their voices low and friendly. Dinner’s heated scent, cheese and pasta, lingered. She wished she could open a window, but it wasn’t worth the alarm it would cause.

In Eumundi her house was never completely closed, not even at night or when it rained so hard the house swayed to an oceanic rhythm on its old legs. Up north, nature was not restrained by brick walls and insulation. Curious possums wandered through the living room, and rats used the frangipani tree as a ladder to access the kitchen window, both creatures leaving bite marks in the avocados in the fruit bowl. Moss grew in the bathroom and palm fronds pushed through the wrought iron veranda railing. Even the cobwebs had mold growing on them.

She opened the gas fridge and tried to replace the beer cans she had drunk. Doing so now was better than doing it in the morning, when the task would be incorporated into Erica’s running commentary. It was difficult to stack the cans on the top rack without making a noise. She knew she didn’t need another one. She knew she should drink some water and go to bed. Instead, she took another can of beer back to the bench. Fine soot had fallen from the lantern wick onto the counter. With her finger she traced the letters JW in it, looked at them for a moment, and erased the initials with a swipe of her fist.

She was home, but homesickness overwhelmed her. What for, she did not know. There was nothing to go back for. She folded the map of Tasmania tightly, pinching the brittle old paper so hard it tore.

Her head hurt when she woke in the morning. The water bottle she had taken to bed was empty. Hanging from the ceiling above the top bunk was an old wooden surf rod, its rusty sinker dangling directly over Sarah’s face. This was the bedroom she had slept in every summer holiday since she was a child, and it had not changed. Rat-chewed boogie boards were wedged in the wardrobe, a yellow sticker saying
Brownies Are Beautiful
peeled off the door, the shaggy green seventies bedspreads and doughy polyester pillows smelled from being in storage all winter. It wasn’t so much a bedroom as a hole in the wall. The bunk and the cupboard only just fit inside the space. There was no door, and she could see the kitchen and the ocean through the window above the sink. Anyone walking past could look in and see her, too.

She could hear Erica and her boyfriend in the kitchen. Steve had picked Erica a flower while she made him coffee. It was a tradition they were copying from Flip and John, who had begun every day of their thirty-six-year marriage with the ritual. Jesus. They lacked the imagination to dream up their own thing. They were so cheesy, and Sarah was about to tell them when she heard Pamela’s voice.

“I was interviewed this morning and you’ll be pleased to know I’m innocent,” Pamela called as she entered the shack without knocking. “The police have three names they’re interested in. All local men.”

Sarah heard her mother gasp.

“Who?” Erica said.

“Everyone’s saying it’s one of those men who camp behind the lagoon. Roger Coker found the body, which makes him a suspect. Of course, there was talk he had something to do with Chloe Crawford’s disappearance, way back then.”

“He’s an official suspect?” Erica asked. “Goodness.”

“There’s a yellow station wagon driving around with a group of surfer boys whom the police would like to speak to. I said they hadn’t been in to the shop.”

“Roger Coker has the right profile,” Erica said. “He was mistreated as a child. Neglected. Abused. Remember when Don saw Roger running along next to the car and horrible old Mrs. Coker hanging out the window hitting him with a rope?”

“Maxwell saw that. Not Donald. I’d forgotten,” Pamela said.

“It was good that she died,” Flip said.

The gas in the hot water system clicked and hummed, and there was the flush of water rushing through the pipes as someone filled the kettle.

“I don’t know that Roger is capable of murder,” Erica said. “He’s too gentle, too shy to hurt someone. Remember when he ran over the possum and then came up here to ask Dad to put it out of its misery?”

“Call me a snob, but the people who camp around here become more unsavory every year,” Pamela said. “I was saying to Donald, it’s the rubbish that bothers me. When you camp, you take out whatever you take in. And it’s high fire danger, but Donald and I could smell campfire smoke yesterday.”

“That rubbish was revolting last year,” Flip said. “I’ll never forget all the broken glass bottles and cigarette butts we picked up off the beach on New Year’s Day.”

“Was that the fishermen?” Sarah called as she swung down from the top bunk.

“Most likely. We collected an entire garbage bag full of rubbish. I’ll tell you something you won’t read in tomorrow’s paper.” Pamela lowered her voice. “I apologize, it’s gruesome. They believe that girl was killed with two different knives. And the intensity of the attack suggests someone psychotic who hates women, or was under the influence of drugs.”

“The impression I got was that the police wouldn’t confirm any of that until they have the autopsy results, and that wouldn’t be for a week.” Sarah came out of the bedroom. “It’s a suspected murder, a suspected rape, or whatever.”

“I’m just saying what everyone is saying,” Pamela replied. “We would be foolish to wait for a postmortem result to confirm there is a killer on the loose. Someone killed that woman.”

“Maybe,” Sarah answered. There was some sense in what Pamela said.

“Maybe we should go back to town,” Erica said.

“There’s no need to panic.” Pamela sounded confident. “The police are advising people to be cautious. Nothing more. We need to be alert, that’s all.”