CHAPTER 9

The heading on the whiteboard read Next Group Action. There followed a number of brainstormed ideas:

• Commence new petition
• Picket Marakai-sponsored events e.g. Barnforth triathlon
• Tip manure on the Mayor’s driveway
• Vacuum clean Council Chambers steps
• Meet with Andrew Doncaster (new owner, Turtle Shores): confirm commitment to covenant

They had settled on all of them, except for Brady’s manure idea, which they concluded was apropos of nothing and overly personal. Brady was sulking.

Under the next heading, Sponsored Actions, was a list of things that required funding; chiefly the ongoing legal proceedings, and the billboard that was going up on the M1 with a photo of a cute white throat looking bemused under the slogan Extinction is Forever. Stop the Port.

‘Right. So does anyone know someone with a portable generator? We want these vacuum cleaners actually working. The more noise the better.’ The vacuuming idea was to highlight the turtle’s biodiversity value as a critical contributor to cleansing the river by eating algae and dead matter, keeping it habitable for other native species.

‘Oh yes, and we should scatter soot or something on the steps,’ said Brady, perking up.

‘Where do we get soot?’ asked Gaylene.

They finalised the plan. Brady and Ariel (less concerned than the others about being arrested) would tip a few buckets of dirt on the steps under cover of darkness and the rest of them would arrive around 7 a.m. with their vacuum cleaners and Gaylene’s generator from her caravan and, with any luck, the local journo.

‘Okay. Let’s move on to the action items from last meeting,’ said Clem. ‘Brady, how did you go with your skipper mate?’

Brady, in a blousy hemp shirt and tie-dyed headband, was hunched forward over the table tapping his celery stick frenetically like he just couldn’t shake a chunk of ash off the end.

‘Yeah. Spoke to Candles. He said he hadn’t done any jobs for Fullerton for a while, but he got a call from him only a week ago—Blair the Mayor’s planning a trip next weekend. Some VIP from the mine. Can’t remember his name but he was on TV the other day talking up the port.’

Scott Stanton-Green. Had to be.

‘So is Candles doing the job, then?’

‘Nah. Had to knock it back. It’s his kid’s eighteenth that day.’

‘Ooh, it’d be great if you could get an invite, Clementine,’ said Mary.

Clem snorted. ‘Not sure I’m the mayor’s first choice for social occasions.’

‘So would Fullerton take the boat out on his own?’ asked Gaylene.

‘Candles said he wouldn’t. Completely incompetent. Besides, it’s too much work,’ said Brady.

‘What about catering? Could any of us get on board as a galley wench?’ asked Clem.

The group concluded they could not, having no contacts in that field. At that point Torrens barged in as arranged, claiming he had a meeting with Jonesy in her professional capacity and could they all kindly leave so he could discuss the kidnapping charges?

Andrew Doncaster’s housekeeper had just prepared a prawn and mango salad when she ushered Clem into the living area on the top floor. It was almost 3 p.m. but, as she told Clem, Mr Doncaster had only just arrived back from a business trip to Sydney.

Doncaster entered the room with wet hair, fresh out of the shower and smelling like pine trees. She noticed again how white his skin was near his neckline and on the underside of his arms. He must’ve had a hell of a childhood in the Australian sun.

‘Afternoon, Clementine. You’ll share a glass with me over lunch? I need something after dealing with those city slicks.’ He uncorked a bottle of something cool and pale gold. ‘What a bunch of wankers.’

Doncaster still had so much of the grocer’s son about him. And yet Hamish had been expensively schooled, refined and processed… she guessed Doncaster probably saw him as having crossed over to the wanker side.

‘I see you were one of those, once,’ he said.

He’d had someone look her up. Not surprising if you’re handing over thousands of dollars to a stranger.

‘Just joking. You wouldn’t be up here if you were that big a wanker, wouldn’t have coached a footy team. Wrong code, of course…aerial ping-pong.’ He laughed as though nobody had ever made that joke. He seemed so much more relaxed than on her first visit.

The salad was the most delicious thing she’d eaten in a very long time; some sort of lime juice and honey dressing, and the mango straight off the tree. The wine was crisp and summery. Oh, to live like this. And a cleaner! No, even better—a housekeeper-cook! It’d be doable on a partner’s salary. How many years had Burns Crowther said? Four?

‘So? You’ve come here for a reason. Run out of money already?’

‘No, no. The donation was very helpful, thank you. We’ve been able to pay the bills and get things moving on the appeal and the marketing. No, why I dropped by was because I heard you’ve bought Turtle Shores.’

He picked up his glass. ‘Word gets around quick, eh?’ Took a swig, swishing the liquid around his mouth before swallowing. ‘Yep, I did. One of my companies, at least,’ he said, putting his glass down.

‘Good that it’s staying in local hands.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, scooping up a forkful of salad with the juiciest slice of mango and a big luscious prawn glistening in its coating of dressing.

‘I hear the land has a wildlife covenant on it. Helen told me she’d seen white throats there once or twice. Too far downstream for them to nest, but it seems like there’s feeding grounds there for them.’

‘Mmm,’ he said, still chewing. ‘She showed me a photo.’

‘Amazing, to think they’re right there, in the river off the backyard.’ Clem laid her fork down. ‘So the WAGSS group were keen for me to check in with you—confirm you feel the same way about Turtle Shores.’

He spoke and swallowed at the same time, his throat straining with the effort to combine the two operations, ‘Blood oath.’

‘We’re all so keen to see it preserved as it is.’

He wiped his lips with a napkin. ‘Oh yeah. Covenant says you can’t build anything more than what’s already there and the grounds have to stay as is.’ He picked up his glass and they clinked a toast, ‘Here’s to Turtle Shores!’

They finished the lunch and Clem felt peaceful, like at least one part of Helen’s legacy, what she stood for, would carry on.

‘It’d be nice to put up a plaque or something. For Helen,’ she said, contemplating the fine grey swirls in the stone benchtop, like tide marks in the sand. ‘Something to honour her efforts.’

Doncaster agreed and they tossed around ideas—something on the river bank or a stone cairn at the front gate.

Clem hadn’t drunk much, since she was driving, but Doncaster was really taking the opportunity to unwind. It seemed like the right moment to ask him again.

‘You know, Andrew, there’s something I can’t work out about Helen. I worked so closely with her the last three weeks before she died, and yet, I didn’t see a single thing to suggest she was struggling.’

He got up from the kitchen bar and sank into an enormous lounge suite, low and white, behind a coffee table made from a single majestic slice of tree trunk, growth rings pushing out to the edges, telling the stories of hundreds of years. ‘Yeah, well, as they say—people don’t speak up about these things, do they? Keep it bottled up.’

He went on to tell Clementine about a bloke he’d played league with not long after he’d left high school.

‘Seemed fine, old Stevo, always up for a beer after the game, wouldn’t have said there was a thing wrong with him. Woke up one Monday morning to find out he’d blown his brains out,’ he shook his head, staring across the room. ‘You just can’t pick it.’

Clem thought for a moment. ‘Maybe, but…’ she swivelled around on her stool to face him. ‘It’s just I don’t think Helen took her own life.’

‘What? Accident then?’ He stretched out his thick, sunburnt arm across the back of the lounge suite and rested his glass on his stomach.

Clem shook her head. ‘She never went to the quarry. She hated the place. Why would she even have been there?’

‘Jesus Christ! What are you saying?’ His face crinkled with a look of disbelief.

‘I think Helen was murdered, Andrew.’

‘Oh, fuck, Clementine, that’s a fucking massive thing to put out there. ’Scuse the language, but shit…have you told the cops?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘They think I’m mad.’

‘Well then. Maybe that’s your answer.’

‘I think they want the easy solution. They’re under-resourced and overworked, and there’s a convenient explanation served up on a plate.’ She paused, searching the floor. ‘I just wish they’d look under the plate.’

Andrew’s phone buzzed. He picked it up from the table and checked the caller, then lowered it for a moment with an apologetic look towards Clem.

‘Sorry, gotta take this.’

The housekeeper saw her out.

She clicked on the Purchase button and waited. A pop-up declared her order had been successfully placed. She’d declined the overnight delivery option and saved twenty dollars. The package would arrive by Wednesday. Plenty of time before the weekend.

‘Shopping, Jonesy?’ Torrens towered over her shoulder as he came into the sunroom from the kitchen, lightly dusting a tea towel over a plate. Clem closed the laptop. Now was as good a time as any to ask. He would not be happy. She knew that.

‘Yes. Something you might be able to help me with, actually.’

‘At your service. Long as it’s kosher, of course.’

‘I kind of need access to something.’

‘Not something behind locked doors I hope.’

She drummed her fingers on the table.

‘Aw, come on Jonesy.’ He cocked his head to one side, looking reproachful. ‘Didn’t we already talk about this?’

Yes, they had spoken about it—in Katinga. She was a role model, apparently. An exemplar of a life lived lawfully, dreams achieved through honest work. Clementine found it inconceivable that she, a convicted killer, could ever be seen as someone to emulate. But there had been a moment, in Katinga, when the big man had almost begged her to be the person he wanted her to be. It seemed Torrens had no one else to fill this space in his life. And here she was again, about to involve him in something nefarious. She could justify it in her head. His parole period had been completed; and she would do the risky bits herself; Torrens would be look out and driver, nothing more.

She caught herself. How easily did her mind slide into the planning of a criminal endeavour? She was becoming inured to it, happily project-managing it—delegating tasks, ordering equipment.

‘Look,’ she said, finally, ‘a friend of mine—a good person—died and nobody gives a damn. All I want is some information, that’s all.’

He’d clunked the plate down, the tea towel hanging limp by his side. ‘Let me guess: you’re going to steal it.’ He sounded like she’d already let him down.

‘No, I’m going to access it.’

She explained the plan, making it as benign as she could, colouring it as a necessary thing for a valid and important purpose. Behind his Ned Kelly beard there was less of his face to see and his eyes drew her attention like magnets. There was a disappointment there now, a hurt that it pained her to see, but she’d long ago decided it wasn’t her job to be the embodiment of other people’s ideals—they can bloody well grow up and make their own choices.

Besides, there was a murderer out there, killing good people because they stood in the way, and everyone was carelessly ascribing it to mental health issues. Such a wretched lie.

‘So, will you help me?’

‘Let me ask you something first,’ he said and sat down in the chair next to her, smacking the tea towel down on the table like he meant business. Pocket’s head bobbed up at her feet, ears spiked. ‘I want to know: are you coming back to Katinga?’

She’d sent the email to Burns Crowther two days ago, asking for more money.

‘I haven’t decided just yet. I kind of thought I’d take some extra time to think about it.’

He sat there, staring, his eyes accusing.

‘You mean you’re considering walking out on the team.’

‘No, no, it’s not like that. It’s just…well, it’s complicated.’

‘Seems simple to me—come home to a town that wants you back and a bunch of blokes that reckon you’re all right.’

‘Ah, mate,’ she sighed. ‘It’s not the team. It’s the whole small-town thing. It’s a bloody fishbowl and now everyone knows what I did, so I’m the goldfish. Every time they see me they’ll be thinking about it—good old Jonesy…turned out to be a low-life drunken killer, eh. It’s like I’ll just be this appalling curiosity, it’s…it’s impossible.’

‘Yeah well, we all done things we’re not proud of. Shit! Look at me!’ he said, raising his arms and slapping them down on his thighs. ‘I mean have you ever wondered why Joey Conti’s half-deaf?’

Joey played on a half-forward flank. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what was coming next.

‘I bashed him so hard with the blunt end of a hammer he lost his hearing in one ear. And that was just for the four hundred he owed.’ Torrens shook his head, grimacing. ‘How hard d’ya think it was for me to turn up that first night at training with Joey there? And not just him. There were others. Sure, they were still scared of me. They wouldn’t try anything. But geez, me guts were doin’ a fucking dance that day. Felt like I should turn around and leave, just drive off and keep going,’ he said miserably. ‘But I didn’t ’cos you were the first person I spoke to and you said you’d help me. You said I could bring something to the team. Thank Christ I’m a big bastard ’cos I don’t think you’d have taken me on otherwise and I wouldn’t have blamed you neither.’

It was true. There had been an iciness towards Torrens at the beginning. She hadn’t known what it was about and hadn’t cared to ask. She just wanted him on the team.

She sat there, silent, the two of them staring at each other. She looked away, embarrassed by his gaze. Pocket got up, walked out through the dog door. It swung back, squeaking on its hinges. Even Pocket didn’t want to be around for this.

She was about to lie. A very big lie and her ribs felt heavy in her chest. But it was for Helen, and she was just as important as Joey Conti and Matthew Torrens.

‘Yeah.’ She nodded. A wattlebird screeched in the backyard. ‘You’re right, Matt. I’ll come back and coach next season.’

‘You’re not just saying that to shut me up?’

‘No, mate.’ She lied again. Fuck.

He gave her a grin and nodded. ‘Righto. Good one. So what are we doing for old mate Helen, then?’

Her knees were starting to ache from squatting. She stood up, stretched them out. Beside her Ariel hadn’t moved, rust-coloured harem pants flapping in the light breeze, eyes glued to the nondescript hollow in the dirt in front of them. The eggs could hatch any day.

It was a clear blue sky but the ground was spongy with moisture. Clem had stupidly worn her white dress thongs, twice as heavy now with a thick pastry of chocolate-red mud plastered beneath and oozing up the sides. Her bare legs were itching from the midges. She scratched her calf again, leaving a burning sensation. Bloody Queensland.

She’d left Torrens watching the second one-dayer against New Zealand. The Kiwis had won the toss and elected to bowl, then she’d had to go. She checked her watch. After two o’clock. She would miss the whole session. The whole of that first golden hour when the ball was new, the bowlers fresh and the batsmen ready to fire, primed to fall. She felt her phone buzz in her back pocket. A text from Torrens.

Warners a weapon smith on fire bring more beer

She sighed, tucked the phone back in her pocket.

Gaylene had been telling them a long story about when she and Les had taken the caravan up to Cape York. Apparently this bit of the Piama River reminded her of that time when they’d camped near a croc-infested creek. Clementine missed the bit where she explained what madness had possessed them to select that particular piece of deadly real estate to set up the camp chairs.

Brady stood back a little, smoking like he’d just got off a ten-hour flight. He’d gone two months, his longest stint. He swung his head sideways with each exhale, careful not to blanket the three women gathered around the hollow.

‘So how do we know they’re coming out today?’ Clem asked.

‘We don’t,’ said Ariel. ‘But I’m pretty confident. I felt something stirring this morning during my meditation.’

Clementine stared at the hollow, willing something to move, wondering if she should try meditation, if it might help her sleep. They would be having drinks now at the cricket or celebrating another boundary. Torrens would be eating the leftover tacos. Should have made the food contribution seventy-thirty with the quantities he puts away. She’d made her own guacamole for the second time in less than a month—something of a kitchen-craft record. So many avocados in Queensland, and so cheap. A willie wagtail was chattering in a low, scrubby tree beside the river and she could hear the insistent, four-beat call of a kingfisher.

Her stomach grumbled. ‘Did anyone bring anything to eat?’ she asked.

‘Here you go.’ Brady passed her an apple from his canvas bag. Clem gave it a quick wipe on her T-shirt. ‘Anyone else?’ Brady asked.

‘Thanks Brady,’ said Gaylene. Ariel was silent, transfixed. Gaylene began chomping into her apple like there was no tomorrow, the crunch cracking out across the river.

Clem took a bite and checked her watch. They’d been here almost two hours. Dare she call it? How would that look? The coordinator, the leader, fed up with the inconvenience, impatient with the very creature they sought to save. She didn’t have to, thankfully.

‘Well, love, I reckon your stirrings must’ve meant something else entirely,’ said Gaylene. ‘Sure it wasn’t just indigestion?’ She stood up, tossed the apple core into a clump of bushes and arched her back into a luxurious stretch. ‘Les’ll be wondering when I’m gonna be home to make his sandwiches.’

Ariel looked up at Gaylene, disappointment in her face. ‘Just a few more minutes.’ She turned her gaze back down to the earth, elbows on her knees.

They waited a few more minutes. ‘Yeah, time to get going I reckon,’ said Brady, picking up his canvas bag and hoisting it over his shoulder.

The sun had gone behind a cloud and Clem’s eyes were adjusting to the shaded light when she saw…something. She blinked, looked harder, leaned in closer. Then she heard a gasp from Ariel, saw it again—the slightest ripple in the dirt.

‘Oh my God,’ said Ariel, in a whisper. ‘They’re here.’

Gaylene and Brady squatted down to join the tight huddle, all four heads bowed over the hollow. Gaylene squealed as a stubby, leathery looking thumb-shaped thing poked up out of the dirt: a little grey snout flicking dirt to the left and to the right. The ground bulged to its left, then the tip of a flipper, all the way out now and scraping busily, swiping tiny amounts of dirt aside. Then the other one, pushing the dirt back, propelling forward. Above its tiny neck, the edge of the shell appeared, a semicircle plate, like a collar. Clem felt an instant bubble of something in her chest—it was hope and happiness and wonder on a scale she couldn’t remember feeling.

As the little fellow heaved himself out of the dirt, another ripple began on the other side of the hollow and a third one just behind it. Within minutes there were three of them thrusting themselves up the side of the hollow, tiny avalanches of dirt slipping down behind them, and two more beginning to emerge, their little eyes taking in the new world as they burst through the surface, their mouths set in a delighted little smile, the flippers going like windscreen wipers.

The shell was intricate. An oval edged with geometric shapes, like stubby triangular shark fins all in a row. It curved and domed across the back, pentagonal plates gathering towards the centre in a sweet ridge, like a baby’s tufted hair.

The little family of twelve struggled over the lip of the hollow and scrambled their way down to the river, leaving a feathered trail of flipper prints in the mud. Poised on the river bank for a moment as if savouring the moment; then pushing off and landing in the river with the slightest of splashes. Clem could sense their relief and surprised glee as the water lifted their cumbersome little bodies and they felt the freedom, the brand-new joy of it under their white bellies.

The whole experience had taken around thirty minutes and it had left Clem’s heart full, bursting. She bit her lip and took a conscious breath of the hot Queensland air, feeling it fill her lungs. She couldn’t explain it but in the half-hour it had taken for the little band of brothers and sisters to bust up from the earth and plunge into the flowing stream, she’d been captivated. Her normal edgy impatience was gone, replaced by a grateful, peaceful bliss.

Clem wished Helen had been there to see it and she understood, for the first time, why Helen had been so committed. The sense of obligation, to save a living creature, so pure and guileless, happily doing its thing on the earth, hoovering up the algae and decay—making this intricately networked planet everything it is in all its abundant, outrageous variety.

She looked across at the others. Brady and Gaylene were smiling, laughing as they watched the little flotilla swimming away. Next to her stood Ariel, hands clasped in front of her chin, a beaming smile on her face and a tear rolling down her cheek.