CHAPTER 8

Clem threw off the sheet, lay there naked on the rickety old bed under the rusted ceiling fan churning and clunking above. The sun had only been up an hour and the sweat was already forming a film across her forehead. Her eyes were drawn to the gap in the grimy curtains. A hook had come off one end and the folds hung down forlornly, letting a shaft of light fall over the old dresser in the corner. So many questions still, not enough light.

Ralph’s vindictiveness had infected her mind and she’d barely slept. Was it all just empty threats, or was Ralph Bennett indeed a violent man, incensed enough by the humiliation that had befallen him to throw a woman off a cliff? The menace in the big man’s posture at her car door came back to her, the hot spray of his breath on her face. And Crabpot Kiernan—what was all that about, other than to warn her off something Ralph wanted to hide? A shiver ran across her as the fan cooled her skin.

Then there was Stanton-Green. Helen must have been repulsed by him and his crude attempt to buy her off. Perhaps he needed to keep her quiet. Steve Smith had gone on to score one hundred and sixty-four taking the Aussies to a convincing win. The Hyphen would have cashed in his thousand-dollar bet. He said he’d be in touch, through a third party, to get Meat the Magic’s winnings to her.

And then, the mayor. Clem needed to know more about him, dig deeper. She’d called in to see Sergeant Wiseman but she was out, so Clem asked the young officer at the front desk, Constable Griffin, how the investigation was going and received a blank look in reply. He said he was pretty sure there were no further steps being taken—suicide, case closed. So Fullerton had done nothing, it appeared. Perhaps she’d gone too easy on him. Maybe it was time to up the ante.

Or maybe it was none of them. Maybe she was wrong about Helen. She forced herself to see the facts through the police’s eyes: Helen, on her own, no family, running a lonely and unpopular campaign, taking the blows from powerful people and the community and, perhaps, what hurt the most, battling some dark and potent internal demon that Clementine hadn’t taken the time to notice. Was it to do with the years of failed IVF treatments? Perhaps being on her own, without Jim, brought the pain close again? It all gets too much and eventually she walks up to the cliff and ends it. It happens. In fact it was probably commonplace and Clem, of all people, should have been able to spot the signs.

With her self-loathing primed she got up, pulled on a T-shirt, washed her face in the bathroom and went into the sunroom to check her emails. Another one from Burns Crowther, the Melbourne law firm. Their first written offer. She sat there, one finger tapping on her teeth. The offer was right in the zone and she couldn’t deny how good it felt to see her worth quantified by such a healthy number. It was a blessed distraction from everything going on in Piama. She let the idea roll through her head. She could hide in Melbourne, get away from everyone, everything. Disappear in the crowds.

She surfed the web for apartments in Melbourne, estimated her annual rental costs. Yes, she could have a very decent living on that money. But still…early days in the negotiation.

She tapped out a response:

Thank you…Perhaps not quite in the ballpark…but I like what the firm is seeking to achieve…I can see realsynergies…Giving the concept serious consideration… Offer falling a little short of market indications…Could you reconsider the numbers and get back to me?

She walked out onto the back verandah, looked out across the backyard. K’gari was serene, settling into the day. The straits were getting busy with a light breeze and a playful little chop, aqua and emerald tints all the way across and the palm trees fanning the backyard with cooling whispers. Helen loved this view, she loved this planet…She would not have deliberately removed herself from it. It was impossible. The cops must be wrong.

Torrens was hanging out his washing with Pocket spinning and jumping around his legs. Sarge looked on in wonder, taking a kind of contemplative pleasure in the younger dog’s antics. Torrens tousled the fur around Pocket’s neck and threw him a stick then whipped around to peg a pair of shorts on the line, while the dog tore off. Sarge plodded after him half-heartedly, then gave it away—far too hot for darting about.

Pocket was fully recovered from his ordeal two months ago, apart from the slightest limp and the scar on his little face. They’d survived a lot together, she and Pocket. What could Ralph or Fullerton or the Hyphen do that the two of them hadn’t dealt with before? One of these men may have overpowered Helen but Clementine was half Helen’s age, surely able to protect herself.

She wondered if Helen had known she was in danger; that at least one of her opponents was capable of violence. Did she have any warning? Unlikely, thought Clementine. Helen was conducting a peaceful campaign, nothing more—how could she possibly have considered it might lead to her death?

Images scrolled before her. Helen smiling, Helen laughing, Helen raising a cup to her lips, Helen rallying the troops, her confidence inspiring the little group…and then Helen struggling with her attacker at the cliff face, her terror. It was still a shock that sent a shiver across Clem’s neck and set the hairs on her arms bristling.

She padded to the shower, the old timber floor creaking beneath her bare feet, and turned on the cold tap. Cool sheets of water flushing the salt sweat from her skin, streaming down her hair, caressing her forehead and carrying the saddest tears she’d ever known from her cheeks over her body and into the swirling current at her feet, trickling away and out to the sea.

Auction day. Helen’s beloved Turtle Shores up for sale to the highest bidder. Clem wished she had the money to buy the place herself. But even with the equity on her cottage in Katinga and the remains of her savings, there wasn’t anywhere near enough. And anyway Helen had done something strange. Clem had pretended, out of curiosity, to be an interested buyer. The agent had sent her a statutory declaration that all bidders were required to complete before the auction declaring they’d had no relationship with Helen in the past. When she’d rung to ask about it the agent said it was stipulated in Helen’s will. So, for some reason, either Helen wanted a stranger to buy the place or, more likely, she just didn’t want someone she knew to buy it. It didn’t make sense.

There was a handful of people, perhaps a dozen all up, in the conference room in the Grand Hotel at Barnforth. One was the agent, another the auctioneer; then three couples, an older woman and two middle-aged men, one seated in the front row and the other near Clem in the back row. The auctioneer recited the rules and announced that telephone bidding was permitted and that there was indeed a bidder on the line.

The auction started slowly then heated up, sailing past the reserve, bidders dropping off one by one until only the mystery phone bidder and the man on Clem’s right remained. She angled her chair around an inch to get a better look at him. Thick hair, olive skin, the hint of a dimple. The face reminded her of someone but she couldn’t place it.

Bids continued to inch upwards and Clem was pleased for Helen. Others valued what she had held precious. The auction continued in twenty-thousand-dollar increments, the two of them duelling it out for another hundred thousand then the auctioneer was calling, ‘Once. Twice…’ on the telephone bid, waiting for a word from the man to her right. He shrugged.

‘…Three times. Sold to our telephone bidder. Congratulations sir.’

People were filing out. Clementine stood outside trying to place the man. It came to her as she fixed her eyes on the mango tree across the road from the hotel, drooping with fruit. Doncaster. A younger, leaner version of him; darker as well, olive complexion instead of the redhead’s pink and white. His son? A much younger brother? Either way, she needed to meet him.

She’d left Doncaster’s house feeling dissatisfied about something. She put it down to his very neat responses to questions about Helen: hedged and trimmed like there was something hiding behind them. Perhaps this younger Doncaster might be able to shed some light.

She sat in her car opposite the hotel waiting for him to emerge. Half an hour went past. Perhaps he was staying at the Grand? She stepped across the road, through the foyer and scanned the bar area. In the corner, seated in a low armchair with his legs crossed languidly and a near-empty glass of red wine in front of him, the man was scrolling through something on a tablet.

‘Care for another? Commiserate?’ Clem asked with her coyest smile.

He looked up, surprised, but pleasantly so, as he gave her the once over. An eye for the women, thought Clem.

‘I could be persuaded,’ he said, and his voice was a lovely velvet. She was convinced he was related to Doncaster, absolute dead ringer. Andrew would be sixtyish, this man maybe a couple of years older than her, mid-thirties. His son, then.

She came back, two glasses of shiraz in hand, sat down breezily as if she did this sort of thing all the time, approaching complete strangers. She didn’t, of course, and she had a vaguely queasy feeling at the prospect of making small talk.

She needn’t have, as he breezed through the exchange with polished ease. His name was Hamish. He’d come up from Sydney and would be staying the night. She sensed a subtle ‘come on’ in his manner, like he was open to an offer of overnight company—a lonely sojourner, just passing through. She caught herself checking for any flirtatious element in her demeanour, which was absurd. It wasn’t in her makeup, much as she once wished it was, back when she was prancing around Sydney’s legal fraternity and her friend Rosemary had hooked up with the most eligible young partner in the firm. Her jealousy was part of the reason she’d drunk so much that awful night, and made the indefensible decision to drive home.

‘So, you loved Turtle Shores as much as me by the looks of it?’ she said, taking a gulp of wine to mask the obvious nosiness.

‘It’s a delightful location. Too many midges for me, though.’

‘Really? You seemed keen to get hold of it.’

‘Hmm. My interest was more connected to the person bidding on the phone,’ he grinned and the Doncaster dimple appeared.

‘Let me guess—a mission to push the price up on a sworn enemy?’ Clem raised one eyebrow.

‘You could say that.’ He considered her again. ‘Oh, what the heck, it’ll be public information once it settles,’ he said, waving his glass in the air. ‘The telephone bidder was an agent employed by my father to bid on his behalf.’

‘Sooo, you don’t like the agent?’

‘No, I don’t like my father.’ Hamish smiled at her, like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

‘Your father?’

‘Yes. Silly old fool lives up on the hill behind Piama. Out in the rainforest like some hippy.’ She must have looked startled because he added, ‘Oh, I really shouldn’t speak like that about him. He’s no fool, Big Red. Actually he’s one of the smartest businessmen I know.’

‘Wow, sounds like an epic falling out—you just cost him, what, an extra hundred grand?’

‘A very long and boring story.’ He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward to place his glass on the coffee table between them. ‘Tell me about you. What’s your interest in Turtle Shores?’

‘I’m the coordinator of the Save the Turtle campaign. Trying to stop the port development in Piama. I took over from Helen, who owned the house before. I think our biggest individual donor may be your father.’

‘Ha! So you know him. And he’s won you over with his money! The generous philanthropist act claims another scalp!’

‘So you’re Hamish Doncaster?’

‘One and the same.’

Hamish Doncaster might be the spitting image of his father, but that was where the resemblance ended. He was suave and elegant, with the clipped vowels of fifteen years in a top private school. The son of the son of a grocer.

‘Then tell me, Hamish Doncaster, why does your father want Turtle Shores? He’s already got that lovely house in the rainforest and an old Queenslander in the scrub wouldn’t really seem to fit his tastes.’

‘No idea. The place has a wildlife preservation covenant on it. Big Red’s a developer. It’s a non sequitur. His biggest focus at the moment is some resort up north somewhere, Whitsundays, I think.’

This was news to Clem. Helen had always spoken about wanting to keep Turtle Shores in its natural state as a wildlife habitat but she’d never mentioned a covenant. And what about the stat dec? Doncaster was no stranger to Helen. Easy, she thought: use one of his companies to buy it.

‘I guess he’s just keen to keep supporting what Helen started,’ she said, more a question than a statement.

Doncaster smiled at her as if she was a child. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but since you’ve been so sweet as to buy me a glass of wine, may I ask your name?’

‘Oh! Sorry. No, no, it was rude of me. Clementine Jones,’ she announced with her usual embarrassment at meeting someone for the first time, waiting for that moment of recognition.

‘Pleased to meet you, Clementine,’ he purred in his gorgeous voice.

He’d had his teeth whitened to a perfect glow, she thought as he smiled, and he hadn’t recognised her name. It was perhaps even worse when this happened because at some point, he would. He’d find out, and then everything would be doubly awkward. She almost considered telling him now. At the same time she wanted to ask him why he was at war with his father. It seemed nosy and so she decided to leave their respective pasts alone.

They spoke about the turtle campaign mostly. He seemed bemused by his father’s support for the cause.

‘This Helen, was she attractive?’

‘Um, yes. Yes, I would say so.’ Clem let Helen’s face linger in her memory a moment. ‘She had this smile that kind of made you feel good to be alive. It wasn’t the looks, though. She was a genuinely good person and she lived this generous life, like everything she did was about contributing—to the planet, to people—and doing that…well, it made her…I don’t know, whole.’

Clem wished she could tell everyone this about Helen. She wished she could shout it from the middle of the main street in Barnforth. Just walk out there now and call it out. She wished Helen hadn’t been buried as the complete opposite of what she actually was—someone so sad that life was too much for her. She wished the newspapers hadn’t made it sound like all she had ever been was a corpse at the base of a cliff.

‘Doesn’t sound at all like Big Red’s type then,’ said Hamish.

‘Why would you say that?’ said Clem, seeing an angle to explore more about Doncaster senior.

‘Oh, God, I keep going on about him,’ he said, brushing his hand in the air. ‘Let’s talk about something other than him.’

So they did. He told her about his boutique corporate law firm. Himself and two other partners, handling smaller acquisitions and restructures. Clem relished revisiting the old turf, and Hamish seemed to enjoy reeling her in, dropping hints about the firm’s need for top lawyers. She couldn’t help but be intrigued. It was another possibility perhaps: a pathway out of the formless swamp her life had slipped into. She found herself gripping hold of the idea, wanting to tease it open. She hadn’t said yes to the Melbourne job yet and this was an area of law she knew better. But then, Hamish had no idea who she was or what she’d done. It was silly to be so eager, as if she was normal.

They’d both finished their shiraz and Clem stood up to leave.

‘It’s been such a pleasure meeting you, Clementine, I didn’t expect to have such good company up here in…well…the boonies,’ he said, getting up from his chair. ‘Are you doing anything for dinner?’

‘Oh, yes, sorry. I’m heading over to a friend’s place,’ she lied.

‘That’s a shame. Here, take my card. I’d love to meet up again,’ he said, handing her a business card.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He paused, probably waiting for her to hand him a card in return. But when she didn’t, he reached across and shook her hand.

‘Oh, and by the way, how about you send me a link for donations to the campaign? We’re apolitical at the firm but we do what we like as individuals. I think I might take a fancy to your turtles.’ And with a flash of those pearly whites, he released her hand and turned towards the hotel lift.