CHAPTER 23 
Mrs. Riesly is shaking. She lowers the cane and it clatters to the floor.
“We have to go.” Eliza’s voice is brittle. She steps over Hardcastle’s prone body, the blood already jammy on his skull. Mrs. Riesly looks down at it, the wound a burl of meat in pink skin.
“He’ll wake up soon. Won’t he?” Mrs. Riesly whispers.
Eliza reaches for her arm and they stumble into the night air.
“My dear, are you all right?” The old woman’s voice is urgent.
They reach the sand, the sea a gentle whisper before them. Eliza looks up through bloodshot eyes. She can see another figure now, rushing toward them. “Father?” she rasps. The words shatter the air into glossy fragments. The moonlit beach narrows. With a welcome veil of blackness, she collapses onto the sand.
Again, the redness. It is gluey at the edges. It yawns and burns and simmers. Voices come and go. Is it just one voice or a chorus? Is that a song? A face appears through the haze. Eliza? Warm wind pours in through the slats. She claws at her neck until it bleeds. The face comes again. The smell of hot coffee. Her mind slips into darkness. Eliza? Something tickles her face. White hair at her eyelids. In that half space between death and life, a little boy drifts in on the breeze.
She wakes with a start, the stink of salt pork flooding her nostrils. She is lying on a wicker couch and the room around her is unfamiliar. It is decorated neatly, with well-stocked bookshelves and vases of bright flowers positioned around the furniture. As she goes to pull herself up, Mrs. Riesly rushes in through the doorway.
“You’re awake! How are you feeling?” Her voice is kind and Eliza feels a wetness on her cheeks. It burns at the back of her throat. Beside her is a bowl of water, in it a cloth soaked through with crimson. She raises a hand to her face and recoils from the touch of her own fingers. Her eyes, she can tell by only blinking, are swollen and stiff. She traces a large wound from her right eyebrow to the middle of her cheekbone. It aches. She is desperate for water.
“Mrs. Riesly, I…” Eliza’s lips stick to her teeth. Her own words sound strangely loud in her skull. She experiments with a quiet hum at the back of her throat. Her shoulders sink. The hearing in her right ear, already patchy, has been blunted to almost nothing.
“Dear. It’s Jean, you know that.” She puts a small china cup in front of Eliza and settles into a chair, folding her hands in her lap. She is quiet but her face speaks its discomfort.
“I don’t know what would have happened had you not found me, Mrs…. I mean, Jean. I don’t know—” The words are salt dry and stiff. “I wasn’t strong enough.”
“Well, it wasn’t just me,” says the woman. “Your friend Axel—a charming young man—he arrived just as we lost you and he carried you here.”
Eliza feels something indiscernible in her chest.
“He said he’d be back tomorrow morning to see you safely to your bungalow where you can rest, once Doctor Blithe’s been here to look at you, of course.”
“What about Min?” The sudden thought sends panicked heat to Eliza’s stomach. “Is she all right?” She tries to push herself off the seat but the small movement flings stars into her eyes.
“She’s been here, darling; she’s shaken up but she is fine. She’s more worried about you.”
Eliza sits back and nods reluctantly. Frustration swells inside her. She needs to be out there searching for her father. Not here.
“Eliza.” Mrs. Riesly is rearranging her hands. “I must apologize to you.” Eliza blinks. This woman just saved her. There is a pause and her face throbs into the silence. Mrs. Riesly clears her throat. “What my nephew did to you was nothing short of monstrous.”
The moment snags.
“Your what?” The words rip through her throat. She grasps at the skin there and Mrs. Riesly leaps from her seat, putting the tea to Eliza’s mouth.
“Sydney is a troubled man,” Mrs. Riesly says. “Powerless to his vices. He’s slower than most men in mind; he struggles to get his head around things and that angers him—he doesn’t know what to do with those feelings. But that is no excuse for what he has done to you, of course.” The woman’s voice breaks and she returns the cup to the table with trembling hands.
Eliza’s throat is stopped. She had no idea Mrs. Riesly had family here other than her husband, and even he was rarely glimpsed before he died. Most in town had her down as a slothful old widow—rattling around her bungalow alone, asleep on the veranda, mouth slack and open like a rock cod. Then, of course, there were the bizarre late-night walks. Although had it not been for those, Eliza would not be sitting here right now. Her ears hum with the horror of what Hardcastle might have done with her.
She scans the room: one seat with one squashed cushion, one book lying open on the side. This is a life lived alone, even if Mrs. Riesly and Syd Hardcastle are bonded by blood. When Eliza’s eyes fall back on the woman, she realizes she has been watching her.
“I think he might have something to do with what’s happened to my father,” Eliza says tightly. “I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Riesly’s shoulders drop before Eliza has even finished the sentence. Her head nods slowly toward the floor. She stays like that for a short while, the air ringing with the military ticking of a mantel clock.
“I am not surprised to hear you say that,” she says. She is trying to put conviction behind her voice. “I am sure I would think the same in your situation. But Sydney is not involved. I give you my word on that.”
Eliza scoffs, but the sound comes out as a sob. The old woman reaches out a hand, then moves to sit alongside her on the lounger. She smells of cinnamon and salt. Eliza finds herself leaning into it.
“Your father and Sydney may have been competitors, but they were more involved in each other’s business than you might have known.”
Eliza frowns. Shifts. Mrs. Riesly’s hands return to her lap.
“I do Sydney’s books, you see. He’s not so good with numbers because of the…” She taps her forehead. “I am aware of every coin that goes in and out of his pockets.” The wicker sighs as she leans forward. “It also means I’m aware of any business arrangements he may have.”
Eliza blinks up at her.
“Your father and Sydney were, let’s just say, financially involved. They had their own arrangement of sorts.” There is a pause. Eliza wills the woman on with her eyes.
“Well, I’m just going to have to say it, aren’t I?” Is that a hint of relish in Mrs. Riesly’s voice? It wouldn’t be the first time a Bannin woman has worked herself up over town gossip.
“Several years ago, Sydney fathered a child.”
The words bring folds to Eliza’s forehead. Although she shouldn’t be too surprised; it is not uncommon for the men in Bannin Bay to impregnate whomever they so choose. “The circumstances were not ideal; the mother was one of the young women from the native camp. I believe you know her father, old Billy from the Starling.” Eliza swallows. It’s like trying to gulp down an egg.
She never knew of this. Hardcastle, and Balarri’s poor daughter. He hadn’t spoken of her much before but this would not have been a consenting agreement. Her fingers go to the bruises at her own throat.
“A little boy was born. Alfred, we called him. We took him in and we raised him here. In this bungalow.” Eliza’s eyes bulge at the name. Alfred.
“My husband stayed with him mostly. Read to him. Kept him occupied away from prying eyes. The mother, I don’t recall her name, she died eventually.” Mrs. Riesly waves her hand as if batting away a mosquito. Eliza’s mind is swirling. Alfred is not the missing crewman. Alfred is Syd Hardcastle’s son.
“When he was about five or six, Sydney decided to sell him.”
Eliza’s breath stops; her mouth falls open.
“What?” she asks, disgusted.
“He knew an American gentleman had been nosing round the stations. Acquiring for the circus. Broad and Bartley’s, I believe; rather famous it is too.” The woman nods. Eliza feels the nausea grip her guts. “They were wanting a boomerang boy to join their Australian Cannibals exhibition.” Mrs. Riesly says it plainly. “Sydney thought it a grand idea and they were offering a large sum of money. But your father intervened. Billy had told him about the boy.” Eliza looks up at the woman. “They had an odd relationship, didn’t they? Your father and old Billy? I always thought that such a queer thing. Well, it turns out your father couldn’t stomach the thought of the child being put on show, so he convinced Sydney instead to send the boy to one of the large missions in Adelaide. He knew a clergyman there, and they had a good program for young boys. He agreed to foot the costs of transportation and paid Sydney a monthly sum to make up for what he lost out on from Broad and Bartley’s. As I said, it was substantial.” She raises an eyebrow as if Eliza should be impressed. “When he reached that total your father wanted to shake hands on it, but Sydney twisted his arm and he continued paying.”
Eliza blinks, confused. “What do you mean, twisted his arm?”
Mrs. Riesly leans in even closer, as if gifting something precious. “Well, I never knew the precise details, but there was talk of some information Sydney knew about one of your father’s divers. Cohabiting with someone he shouldn’t be, I believe. An Aboriginal woman. He agreed to keep quiet if your father continued the payments. It’s clear Mr. Brightwell doesn’t want that information made public. He doesn’t want the diver sent away. He’d lose his most valuable asset.”
“A diver,” Eliza whispers. Her mind goes to Shuzo and his dealings with the doctor. Had he been forced to Three Stones House to hide the proof of a relationship that was sneered at by the rest of the town? And what of her father: what other secrets has he kept? What else might he have done to ensure his most lucrative crewman could remain in Bannin Bay? She feels a sting of shame. The facts have a distinctly bitter taste to them.
“Anyway, Sydney was thankful for it all in the end. He’d even ask after the boy occasionally—considered writing him a letter once. I don’t think your father ever knew of the boy’s status. But he paid that money every month and Sydney would not have done anything to harm the transaction. He sorely needed the funds, you see.”
Eliza’s eyes are tight with tiredness and salt. Her thoughts have scattered like spilled marbles. Does she really believe this arrangement would stop Hardcastle wanting to dispose of her father? And if Hardcastle is not responsible, then who can be?
The two women are silent as the sound of the sea sweeps in through the windows.
“Why were you out there anyway, Jean? Why do you go out so late at night?” Eliza asks quietly after a while.
The old woman pushes her body slowly off the chair. In a breath, she’s at the window. Watching birds dart about the branches. When she eventually speaks, it’s to the slats.
“I could ask the same of you, dear. But I suppose we are both finding ways to cope with empty houses.”