Darkwater (16 page)

I woke late the next day. Despite having resolved to get up as early as I could and put my plans into action, I didn't even open my eyes until well after ten. Outside it was overcast, the sky leaden with the promise of a last summer storm before the true onset of a long, dry autumn.

Joe's bedroom door was open and I could only presume he was out. I wondered whether he'd gone round to Kate's to tell her the news, despite having promised he wouldn't breathe a word. I wouldn't have blamed him. It was so close to their lives, it would have been hard to keep silent.

Downstairs, it seemed that Tom and Dee had also gone. The radio was still on in the kitchen and whoever had been in there last had left the milk bottle out, the foil top off. I put my nose to the rim cautiously. It was as sour as I had expected it to be.

I peeled a banana; the sweet smell and slightly soft flesh was on the edge of repulsive. I dropped it half-eaten in the bin and searched for some bread.

Outside there was a frenzy of chirping and a flurry of wings as the birds descended from one branch to the next, aware of the oncoming storm. The clouds had thickened, clotted together like a bruise and the lift in the breeze told me that it wouldn't be long before the change hit with full force.

I took my skateboard, aware that it had become a habit to grab it whenever I left the house, and also secretly thrilled by the speed with which I took the hill that led down to the waterfront stairs.

I hadn't been here since the time I had looked after Bradley Parsons. In just a few days, the trees at the edge of the scrub had begun to lose their leaves and the path was littered with them, golden and russet and pale underfoot. At the bottom of the stairs I could see the river. The tide was high and the water was slapping against the rocks along the shoreline, small white peaks out where it was deep, the colour a darkening steely green as it flowed rapidly, chopped by the oncoming wind.

When I pushed open the gate to the gloom of that garden, I had to lift it carefully over the stones on the pathway, raised by the roots of the trees that pressed close. It was as I remembered: you could see everything from the entrance to Bradley's house.

I knocked on the door and there was no immediate answer. The second time I was a little louder, rapping my knuckles sharply against the deep blue paint.

She didn't open it immediately. She asked who was there, her voice both cross and nervous.

When I told her, I heard her slide back the bolt rapidly.

‘I'm sorry about that,' she apologised. ‘Neighbourhood kids come down here and knock and then run away. Or they call out for Bradley telling him they want to play, and then when he opens the door...'

Her voice trailed off.

Behind her, Bradley was holding out his hands, impatiently jiggling up and down, trying to squeeze past his mother. As she stepped to the side, he made a rush for me, hugging me so tight I felt the air disappear from my lungs.

‘No, Bradley,' she told him. ‘You can't do that. Gentle.'

He stepped back.

‘He's talked about you non-stop,' she explained.

‘We'll play hide and seek? You and me?' He tugged at my hand, pulling me into the dimness of that hall before I had a chance to say yes or no.

The truth was, when I'd remembered my earlier conversation with Bradley about the bad things at the waterfront, and the fact that you could see everything from his gate, I hadn't really made a more concrete plan other than to come down here and ask him if he'd noticed anything. But now that I was actually face to face with him, his mother standing right there by my side, I didn't quite know how to go about grilling him for details. I was no police officer, and any attempt to question Bradley would only seem weird.

I said I'd been on my way to meet a friend and thought I would just pop in and say hello to him as I'd promised.

Mrs Parsons offered me a cordial and I shook my head before telling Bradley we could have one quick game – ‘out in the garden'.

He clapped his hands in delight and said he would hide. ‘You find me.' And he disappeared out the front door, calling out, ‘Coming ready or not!', unaware that this was, in fact, my line.

Mrs Parsons shouted after him, ‘Stay in the garden.' There was no answer. ‘He's been known to run down to the waterfront if I don't lock the gate.' And then she told me that I didn't have to stay, she could go and find him and explain I'd had to get going.

I said it was fine, I had time, and when she squeezed my hand in gratitude I felt bad knowing I had come here with an ulterior motive.

Outside the first fat drops of rain had begun to fall, spattering onto the mossy stones underfoot with a certain hesitancy. It was like so many storms, tentative at first, before the sudden unleashing of its full fury. I looked behind the camellia bushes, the flowers bruised underfoot, and then around the other side of the house where frangipanis grew, their branches huge knotted puzzles against the blackening sky.

It wasn't hard to see him. His bulk didn't have a hope of being concealed by the slender trunk of the tree, and as I came up to him he laughed loudly, slapping his thighs in time to a clap of thunder.

He looked up in alarm and I told him it was all right, we'd go inside.

I knew I only had a moment before I took him back to his mother and so I just plunged right in, asking him if he remembered when we'd talked about what had happened at the waterfront.

‘Someone died,' he told me, his eyes rounding slightly.

‘Remember you said you knew? Did you see anything?'

He nodded.

‘What did you see?'

‘A man.'

‘Down there with her?'

He nodded again.

‘How?' I asked.

He took me by the hand and led me to the gate, holding his finger against his lips in a signal to shush, as he told me he'd got out.

I had the photo from Joe's album in my pocket. It showed the class, Lyndon in the back row, and I held it out towards Bradley asking him if this was the person he'd seen.

He shook his head violently. ‘Not him.' He pointed a pudgy finger at the image. ‘I don't like him.'

And I remembered how cruel Lyndon could be to him.

He looked at me in fear.

‘But it wasn't him down there with the girl who died?'

He shook his head again. ‘Not him,' he repeated, and then as a streak of lightning flashed across the sky, he clapped his hands again. ‘'Nother game?'

‘I think it's going to rain,' I said.

He pointed to my photo. ‘I know him,' he told me.

‘Did you know the bad man with the girl?' I asked.

He shook his head, his mouth widening in a grin. ‘He was old.' And then he nodded, his head moving slowly up and down, as he repeated the same words over and over again. ‘I saw. I did. I saw. I did.'

‘What did you see?' I asked.

‘Kepow.' He punched his fist against the trunk of the tree, as his mother called out to him from the front door. ‘I saw.'

I took him back inside, promising him and myself I would return as soon as I could.

‘It's about to pour,' Mrs Parsons told me. ‘I don't think you should be heading down there.' She nodded in the direction of the waterfront.

‘I know,' I agreed, picking up my board from where I'd left it just outside the gate.

‘See you soon,' I called out as I ran back up the waterfront stairs in the full onslaught of the wind and rain.

I was drenched as I headed to Cherry's, my T-shirt glued to my stomach and my jeans a slippery skin against my legs. Bradley had said it wasn't Lyndon. The knowledge was thumping inside my chest. It wasn't him. But who was it? And why had Cherry lied?

Her house was at the far end of the peninsula, and I skated along the footpath, wary of gathering speed but wanting to get there as fast as I could. I was the only person out on the streets apart from the occasional car, the tyres hissing in the wet as each one passed me, sending up a spray of filthy water and a splatter of wet leaves. I was freezing now, the rain no longer warm but iced from the building southerly, and I wished I'd brought a sloppy joe to cover me, although it probably wouldn't have helped all that much.

The police wouldn't believe him, I'd realised that almost immediately.

It was unlikely anyone would.

And even if they did – what did he know? He couldn't name the person he'd seen.

There was no car in the driveway at Cherry's. I knocked on the door, soon realising no one was home. Standing under the shelter of the verandah that surrounded the house, I looked out across the garden. The cover had been pulled across the swimming pool, the rain tattooing down with a force that left dimples in the thick tarpaulin. Joe had told me that Mr Atkinson had once filled the entire pool with champagne. He was celebrating a major business deal. There'd been waiters, and caviar and a band, and women in diamonds and men in black tie, and a pool full of champagne.

I thought about what Dee had told me yesterday, and I hated him.

There wasn't going to be a break in the downpour and so I ran out across the smooth emerald slope of lawn and back onto the street.

Kate lived only a block away. I would go there, I thought, and see if Joe was with her. I needed to talk to someone.

With my board under my arm, I sprinted the whole way, the gate slamming shut behind me as I ran down the stone path to her front door. I could hear music from the upstairs bedroom, too low for me to recognise the song.

Kate's mother had no idea who I was, until I explained.

‘You're drenched.' She looked me up and down. ‘I'd better get you something dry to put on.'

She told me they were all upstairs, and she called out Joe's name as she followed me, her footsteps close on mine.

They were in Kate's room. Stevie, Cherry, Joe and Kate.

‘You need to find her a top and some jeans,' she instructed her daughter, ignoring the fact that they were all staring at me in complete surprise.

‘What the hell are you doing here?' Joe asked, as she shut the door behind her, the displeasure evident on his face. ‘Jesus. Have you been swimming or something?'

‘It's pouring.' I pointed to the window.

They were all oblivious to the world outside.

‘Well, why'd you come here?' He looked confused now. They all did.

‘Have you been telling them about Lyndon?'

He glared at me. ‘What is your problem with Lyndon? Why are you so sure he's innocent?'

He was standing now, wanting me gone, but I didn't move an inch.

‘Because he didn't do it.'

Joe rolled his eyes and I ignored him.

Cherry was the only one who wasn't looking at me. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against Kate's bed, staring at her feet. Her toenails were painted silver, the polish lifting in flakes.

‘Why'd you tell the police you saw him?' I stood right in front of her now, my arms folded across my chest, my jeans dripping a pool of water onto her knee.

She brushed it aside, still not looking up.

‘Why?'

Joe grabbed me by the arm. He started trying to walk me to the door. I could tell he was furious but I didn't budge.

I knelt down, until my face was close to hers. ‘I know you're lying,' I told her. ‘There was someone else there, someone who saw.'

They were all silent. I heard the slow intake of her breath, and then she finally lifted her face, her pale grey eyes awash with tears.

‘It was my dad,' she whispered. ‘I wanted to protect him and I didn't know what else to do.'

The police came and took Mr Atkinson in for questioning that afternoon.

I imagine he was sitting in his study, unaware of who it was knocking on the front door. He might have been having an early drink (he liked a drink, Joe had once told me), and talking on the phone to a business acquaintance. Or maybe he was watching television – he had his own set in his study, built into the wall so that he could lie back on his leather couch and enjoy the programs of his choice without any interference from the rest of the family.

It was a still afternoon, a perfect end to the weekend. The storm had passed leaving behind it a cooler, cleaner day. Great puddles of water sparkled by the sides of the road, the trees glittered as leaves shook in the slight breeze. Everyone was out again, tentative, unsure as to whether they were entirely safe from another downpour but then, on seeing the clarity of the sky, more certain that the worst of the weather had indeed passed.

I imagine he heard the knock in that stillness but didn't get up to answer. Not straight away. He would have called out for Cherry to go to the door, assuming it was one of her friends who had come around because, after all, it was really only kids who turned up uninvited on a Sunday afternoon.

Cherry wouldn't have answered.

I know that much for sure: she wasn't at home.

A few hours earlier, she had sat on the floor in Kate's bedroom and told us what she knew, barely capable of uttering the words. We had listened, unable to fathom what it was we were hearing. In fact, it wasn't until some weeks later that the full ramifications of her confession began to filter through, the impact of all that had happened having left a marked impact on our neighbourhood.

Her tale was not a complicated one. Cherry told us that Amanda had stayed at her house a few times in the weeks before she died. She had liked coming over, Cherry had said, somehow still wanting to insist that there had been a friendship there.

We had all waited for her to continue, no one able to speak.

After dinner, they would go up to Cherry's room and hang, reading magazines, talking, listening to music. One night, Amanda went back downstairs to get her schoolbag. She took a while to return. Cherry had eventually gone to see if she was okay. She had found her listening in at her father's study door.

‘She must have overheard something she shouldn't have.'

Cherry had looked down at the ground then, not wanting to say what this could have been.

I could only imagine; Dee's stories of Mr Atkinson's dealings were still fresh in my mind.

‘I thought it was strange and then I forgot it,' Cherry had told us.

I had stood there, cold in my wet clothes, and watched her frozen in despair. In that moment I wished I hadn't opened this up.

‘A week later, she called.' Cherry's voice had trembled. ‘Not me. I just happened to pick the phone up in the hall and I heard her. Talking to him. I was just about to interrupt, to say that I was here, it was okay, I'd got the phone, when I realised what she was doing. She wanted money in exchange for keeping quiet about what she'd heard. They were making a time to meet.'

Joe, Stevie and Kate had looked at her, eyes wide, uncertain as to what it was they were hearing. But I was remembering Daniel telling me how his parents had lost everything and how much Amanda had hated it. I had seen inside their lives.

‘I thought he'd just put a stop to it,' Cherry had said.

And he had, but not in the way she'd imagined.

Amanda had arranged to meet Mr Atkinson at the waterfront at a time when she knew all her friends were busy. She couldn't have known what she was getting herself in for. It was probably just a moment of reckless action that had tumbled too fast down an incline that was always going to be dangerous.

She may have changed her mind about going countless times, wishing she'd never started it all. But perhaps on that day it was particularly bad at home. The recklessness in her reared up again. What did she have to lose? Everything was stuffed.

He wouldn't have taken any money with him. He would have had no intention of giving her a cent. She was just a schoolgirl and his plan would have been to frighten her off, to make sure she presented no future threat to him. Because he couldn't just dismiss her as a joke. She knew his daughter. He would have to see her on a regular basis, and he didn't want hints dropped or another attempt at blackmail to occur.

He might have twisted her arm and leant in close, turning it that little bit too hard as he told her to back off. He might have shoved her against the rocks. He might have lost his temper and gone a little further than he intended.

The police said she had died from drowning.

The river was below them, deep and dark, slapping against rocks pocked with oyster shells, clammed shut, crusted edges sharp enough to draw blood.

Was she pushed or did she fall?

The police seemed to think she fell, or at least that was Tom's understanding.

For Cherry's sake, I hoped it was true.

We had stayed in Kate's room, silent in the face of her tale. None of us had known what to do. She had kept her eyes fixed on the ground, scratching at the flaking polish on her toenail, while outside the rain had ceased.

Eventually, she had stood up.

‘I'd better go to the police,' she had told us.

It was Kate who had taken her downstairs, holding her by the arm. We heard them, in the kitchen, talking with Kate's mother, their voices a low murmur as we let ourselves out the front door, all of us standing in silence in that sparkling clean afternoon.