It was after ten when I finally made it back to The Arms, the designated and pleasantly shabby mustering point. The pub was full, but its usual happy buzz had been replaced by a sombre hum. It had been a hard night for everyone. The on-call doctor from Gore had been called out to certify Gaby’s death; the duty funeral director had removed her body. She was to be transported directly to Southland Hospital in Invercargill to await a post-mortem.
Lockie had fallen, sucker-punched. Telling him about Gaby was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I was grateful to leave Cole at the house with him, because, to be frank, Lockie’s grief was more than I could handle. The last few hours had proven I still felt too much for him, and my calm façade would have given way to stress fractures.
God, I needed a beer.
I waded my way towards the bar through the weary crowd. They were all here, united in community to help one of their own – the search-and-rescue squad, jet boaters, Lockie’s workmates and townsfolk who had answered the call for help. A few words of thanks were in order, and a bit of a debrief. I could already see there were some who would struggle to cope with what they’d witnessed tonight, though a few drinks would no doubt take the edge off.
I found the bar and leaned over to Pat Buchanan to ask if I could use it as an impromptu podium. I’d always joked that one day I’d get rollicking and dance on the bar. Well, tonight I’d get to stand on it, for a far more sober reason.
‘Nice speech, Shep,’ Maggie said, as she raised her glass in salute. ‘You handled that one well, considering. There were a few tears shed, especially when you talked about the community embracing that poor wee girl.’
‘Yeah, Angel and Lockie are going to be the focus of attention for all the wrong reasons. I hope everyone here got the message to keep the rumour-mongering at bay. Small town – all the theories of how and why will come out now. Everyone will have an opinion; I just hope people keep them to themselves. It’s the last thing that family needs.’
‘One can live in hope. Sit down, girl. You’ve had one hell of a night.’
‘Oh, and you get the understatement-of-the-year award. Bloody hell, they never told us about this in Police College.’ Well, actually they had, but naïve little idealists that we were, we thought they must have been talking about what happened in other towns. I slumped down into the armchair opposite my favourite flatmate. Actually, she was my only flatmate, but she was favourite right now because of the beer she’d put on its matching cardboard coaster near by. ‘Man, do I need this,’ I said, picking it up, ‘and several of its mates. I’m still on call, but I’m sure no one will begrudge me. Here’s to everyone,’ I drank deeply, then made myself set the glass back down before its entire contents disappeared. It was better to pace myself.
‘How was he?’ Maggie asked, after a bit of a pause.
A flashback of the moment flooded my brain and I couldn’t help but shudder.
‘Beyond description.’ I scrunched my eyes closed, trying to blot out the memory. ‘He kept saying I must be wrong, that I’d made a mistake, that it couldn’t be Gaby. He wanted me to go and check again. It took a bit to get it through to him. God, I even thought I might have to ring his doctor for a while there – he was distraught to the point of collapse. And the poor sod’s got to tell his mother-in-law when she arrives.’ I took another swig of the beer. ‘Cole’s there with him, though. He managed to calm him down a bit. I think he’s going to crash on the sofa for the night. Lockie’s going to need all the support he can get.’
‘And how are you?’ Maggie asked slowly.
‘Oh yeah. OK, a bit tired, and I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight yet.’
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’
I knew where this was going, but wasn’t about to make it easy for her. ‘What exactly do you mean then?’
‘Come on, you’ve still got a candle burning for Lockie, even after all these years. You can’t tell me you didn’t have mixed emotions tonight.’ Maggie leaned forwards, elbows on knees, and eyeballed me. ‘We both know you were jealous of Lockie marrying that girl. You didn’t exactly proclaim your approval of his choice of wife. So, get it off your chest: how are you?’
‘Put it like that and I sound like a bitch, thanks.’
‘I’m only trying to help you clear your head. You’re going to need it in the next few days.’ She reached out her hand to pat my knee.
I was eternally grateful to have found a friend like Maggie. She was upfront and shot from the hip. She had that wonderful knack of knowing just what to say at the right time. It was not always comfortable to hear, but she was usually right.
‘Ah crap, can we talk about this later?’
‘I thought you were going to be busy later.’
I had to concede that point.
‘OK.’ I drew a large breath and then blew it out between reluctant lips. ‘At first, when she was reported missing, I thought, yeah, that would be typical – bloody townie girl buggering off and leaving the kid alone. I was pleased in a way, as it proved my opinion of her. It was like, hah, that’s what you get for passing up on me. Now she’s dead, I feel like a bit of a bloody heel.’
‘You still think he should have married you, then?’ Maggie asked.
‘Of course I bloody do. Didn’t everyone?’ I drained the last of my beer, and peered with regret at the bottom of my glass. Maggie indicated towards the bar with the universal sign for ‘another?’ – to which I felt obliged to shake my head. I set my glass back down on the table. ‘My parents were so convinced we’d be perfect, they went into a period of mourning when he left. As you can imagine, I was interrogated as to what dreadful thing I’d done to drive him away, as, of course, it was entirely my fault because not only did the sun shine out of his arse, but his farts fixed the hole in the bloody ozone. I must have been seriously defective not to be able to keep hold of the man. Now they’ve given up on my ever finding a husband and producing offspring, me being twenty-eight and past my use-by date and all. In fact, it’s bloody lucky I haven’t got a younger sister or they’d be pulling a Shakespearean trick on her: “Sorry, lovey, can’t marry you off till we’ve got rid of the old baggage.” They’re bloody diabolical.’
Maggie laughed. ‘OK, sorry I asked. Bit of a sore point still, huh?’
‘Comes up in some way or form in every conversation. They’re dependable there. That’s why they call them “salt of the earth”: it hurts like hell when they rub in open wounds.’ I sighed again and slouched further down into the chair.
‘If it really bugs you, why don’t you tell them to sod off?’
‘All that would do is offend them and reinforce their opinion of me. Infuriating as they are, they are my olds and ninety percent lovely. I think they believe that if they marry me off, I’ll give up this job, settle down, have brats and conform to the little-wifey mould they always aspired to. Men do the macho stuff, women stay at home – or, if they work, they do nice things like teaching or nursing. They sure as hell don’t join the police.’ I loved my parents, but their stereotypical views were well and truly entrenched. It didn’t help that they were overprotective of their little girl. If I’d been six-foot tall and built like something out of a Scandinavian opera, I’m sure they’d have seen things in a different way. The fact that I just scraped in over five foot and barely made the minimum stature requirements for the police did nothing to reassure them I’d keep safe.
‘Well, you can see their point, you being so helpless and all.’
‘Yeah. Oh ha, bloody ha.’
I had always been determined never to let my stature be a disadvantage. I’d thrown myself into sports, including martial arts and other forms of self-defence. Coming from a farm, I could drive any vehicle with an engine, including trucks and tractors. And I could hit a target with anything: ball, bullet, knife – hell, even an axe. I wasn’t about to let my big brothers beat me. In fact, having brothers was an ideal way to toughen up. I’d had a lifetime of not being taken seriously because I was ‘just a little thing’ and it irked me something chronic. Sure, I overcompensated a bit with my smartarse mouth: little-man syndrome. Sometimes it seemed the only way to get noticed. But otherwise I had to rely on feminine wiles and that other piece of equipment that people assumed I didn’t possess – a brain. When I joined the police, it was the last thing people expected, which is precisely why I did it. OK, it wasn’t the main reason, but it did come into consideration.
‘Hello there, anybody home?’ Maggie’s voice pulled me back from my little reverie.
‘Sorry, tuned out for a second there. I better get going – I’ve got paperwork to do tonight, then tomorrow will be hectic.’
‘You’ll be back to see Lockie, then?’
‘Yeah, there’s a lot to go through. It all looks cut and dried, but you can never make assumptions. There’s the post-mortem tomorrow, and we’ll need to get background and evidence of suicide before the case goes to the Coroner’s Court. I should be home in an hour or so. If not, send out the search parties.’
I manoeuvred my way through the many patrons still at the bar, waved at and acknowledged those who said hi. It looked like a few of them were trying to deaden the night’s memories with alcohol. Who could blame them? There were still a couple I wanted a quick word with, so I headed for the TV corner. Trevor Ray looked very much the worse for wear, slouched over the table and trying to look up at the wall-mounted TV screen at the same time. Can’t have been comfortable. Bill and Craig Stevenson were with him.
‘What’s on the box?’ I asked as I pulled up a spare seat.
‘Just the late news,’ Craig said. His hands rested around a glass of frothy amber liquid.
‘I hope that’s ginger ale in there, Craig,’ I said in a mock stern voice. The blood rushed up his face as he mumbled something indecipherable.
His dad let out a snort. ‘Of course.’
‘Anything exciting?’ I indicated towards the telly.
‘Only if you like bad news,’ Bill said. ‘They’re trying to scare us all stupid about the bird flu that’s going to kill us, and to top it off they want to get us in a flap about the latest mad-cow outbreak in America. As if we haven’t got enough to worry about.’
Trev giggled. ‘Only mad cow you’ve got to worry about is your wife,’ he mumbled, and I could tell by the glower from Bill that tonight he didn’t see the funny side.
Trev’s eyes were dozy and bloodshot, and I noted the tremor in his hands.
‘OK, I can see you’ve had too much of a good thing tonight.’ I addressed my next comment to Bill. ‘He’s not driving anywhere. Cole’s at Lockie’s; do you know if anyone’s taking Trev home?’
‘Already taken care of.’ He pulled a set of car keys out of his pocket and jangled them around. I assumed them to be Trev’s. ‘Phillip Rawlings is out Trev’s way. He’ll do the honours.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘And thanks for everything tonight. I know you don’t like the boat out in low light. You all did a great job.’
‘Yeah, well I’m just glad we found her and poor Lockie isn’t left wondering.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ I hauled myself to my feet and headed off towards the door. ‘Night, guys.’
God, was I glad we’d found her. Alive would have been better, but at least Gaby wouldn’t be a missing-persons file, to linger around for ages. Or worse – if we found her body two weeks down the track, only a couple of hundred metres from home or a few metres out of the search zone. That would have been my worst nightmare. My worst nightmare: bit of a selfish thought really. This was Lockie’s worst nightmare. I shuddered. The sheer ferocity of Lockie’s grief echoed in my head. Gaby was his wife and the mother of his child – of course he would be upset – but some arrogant little child in the depths of my being was feeling a bit piqued that I’d never managed to evoke even a fraction of that kind of emotion out of him.
‘You’re a sick girl,’ I murmured to myself as I stepped out into the dark.