Here is a preview from Bay of Martyrs, a crime novel by Tony Black and Matt Neal.
CHAPTER 1
It was damned hot and only going to get hotter.
By 10.30 a.m. the mercury was already hovering close to thirty degrees. The sweat was seeping through Barry Morrison’s faded Midnight Oil T-shirt, but he refused to take it off. The middle-aged spread, the hairy back, the office tan—these weren’t things he felt comfortable showing off, even on a beach surrounded by those who were older, hairier, and fatter.
Barry wiped another trickle of sweat from his brow and watched his kids dig into the wet sand at the water’s edge. From his position, propped on his elbows, lying on a frayed and faded beach towel, he could see Jack and Millie having a fine time. They’d grizzled and groaned for much of the drive from Melbourne to Peterborough, but to see them enjoying their first visit to the beach made it all worthwhile.
Simone, ever the sensible wife, had argued they should have taken the highway and made better time, but Barry was emphatic that they take the Great Ocean Road.
‘How could you not want to see this?’ The Twelve Apostles had loomed up like an approaching film set, all those craggy peaks pointing to travel-brochure skies. You just didn’t get views like this in the city.
He’d chosen to stop in Peterborough, at a sheltered spot called the Bay of Martyrs, on a tip off from a friendly local.
‘Head out the road a mile or so towards Warrnambool and there’s the Bay of Martyrs,’ said the old man behind the desk at the caravan park. ‘It’s where all the locals go. No one will trouble you there.’
The last bit had been punctuated by the old man tapping the side of his nose. Of course, when he got there Barry realised this place was no great secret and he probably would have bet that most of the people here were tourists. To be honest, it didn’t even look like a good place to swim. But it didn’t matter. The Morrisons were at the beach and it was perfect, despite the burning heat.
Jack and Millie had moved on to decorating a heap of sand, which a generous person might have called a sandcastle. They dotted it with shells and rocks. Jack tugged at a pile of seaweed and a piece snapped off. He tumbled backwards onto the sand, laughing, and then crawled to the sandcastle, where he draped the kelp over it. Here was a new game. Millie joined in and the pair pulled at the large pile of seaweed, breaking it off in segments that sent them rolling across the sand, giggling.
‘Leave that stuff—it smells,’ said Simone, but the kids kept grabbing strands of kelp and yanking until it snapped. They combined their efforts, clasping hands on a giant rope of seaweed and pulling. This time the weed didn’t break; instead it unravelled and the two kids ran up the beach trailing a lengthy piece of kelp behind them.
As they went Simone laughed; it was great to see the kids having such a good time, but then her laughter stopped abruptly.
‘Barry.’ Her tone drifted back to her husband like a warning siren.
‘What’s up?’ He looked up from his beach towel, trying to take in his wife’s dramatic change of tone.
‘Get over here. Now,’ she snapped.
Barry stumbled to his feet, keeping one eye on the kids, who were running zigzags along the beach with the seaweed trailing behind them. ‘What’s wrong, Simone?’
His wife’s gaze shifted up the beach to the happy kids, then back to the shoreline, where the sea lapped the walls of kelp. Simone looked urgent, panicked; Barry started to jog.
His wife stood staring at the pile of seaweed. She was quiet, still. As Barry arrived at her side he could see there was something buried among the dark brown tendrils of kelp.
‘Look at it…’ said Simone.
‘What the hell is that?’
Barry crouched down to get a better look. A large fleshy mound, greyish-pink in colour, stared back at him.
‘Is it a dead shark?’ he said.
Simone didn’t say a word, she shook her head and started to circle the strange pile. Her eyes were moistening, her hands flapping in front of her face like she was shooing invisible flies. ‘It’s not a bloody shark!’
She was stifling a scream.
‘What? What?’ said Barry. He was missing something; the shapes were familiar, but not familiar enough to come together in his mind.
Simone pointed. ‘There, look…’
He followed her finger. The sight swirled, perhaps swayed a little. Was it the heat? The smell? Something clicked inside Barry and the enormity of what he was taking in welled up.
‘Jesus,’ he yelled, leaning back, pushing his feet into the wet kelp.
Simone jumped aside as Barry slid backwards, rapidly forcing a mound of seaweed beneath his feet. The rolls of kelp applied enough pressure on the object for it to turn, revealing two rotting holes like eyes, and a darker cavity beneath, like a mouth.
Now she screamed.
‘Did you see that?’ said Barry. ‘It’s a face, somebody’s face.’
‘I know. I saw it.’
Down the beach, the kids stopped playing. They both turned to stare as their parents scrambled over the seaweed and ran towards them.
CHAPTER 2
Clayton Moloney hated all Sundays, but he simply loathed the one laid out in front of him.
The hot northerly at his back was a constant reminder that a long-sleeve business shirt and slacks was too much for the beach. It was just too bloody hot: Clay was dressed for the office and its air-conditioned serenity. He longed to return, to ditch this punishing sun and go nurse his bitching hangover in more sympathetic surroundings.
But here he was, on the western edge of Peterborough, one of the last unmodernised villages of the Great Ocean Road, standing in the car park at the Bay of Martyrs. The asphalt exuded as much heat as the stifling air. It was like standing in an oven.
A thin strand of blue and white chequered tape blocked the top of the wooden steps leading down to the beach. Clay couldn’t see the beach from the car park. It was hidden from view, firstly by the scrub that covered every spare patch of land around this coastline, and secondly by the large crowd of tourists and locals gathered at the top of the stairs, wondering what was going on.
Clay edged his way through the crowd, notepad and pen in hand. Once he reached the police tape he offered a forced smile to the assembled crowd baking in the sun, and slipped under the plastic ribbon.
‘What’s happening down there?’ Clay estimated the man to be in his early seventies. The old fella had spotted Clay’s notepad, nodding his head and terry towel hat at it.
‘I think a body washed up,’ said Clay, buggered if he’d sugarcoat it for him.
The man scratched beneath his hat, unperturbed. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, before disappearing into the crowd. Had the body bit even registered?
Clay turned away and proceeded down the steps. If a cop was stationed anywhere along the stairs it was going to be a really short story, but luck was on the journalist’s side. The wooden path wended its way down the cliff, and finally the postcard-perfect landscape was laid out before him.
A long tract of clean yellow sand stretched out to the next bluff, a kilometre away; the remnants of limestone cliffs worn down by time and the elements intruding onto the beach, breaking it into segments. A choppy blue sea extended out to the horizon, with a handful of tiny islands protruding from the water. Under the unblemished sky, it was a wondrous sight. If only it wasn’t so damned hot.
The problem with the picture was a section of the sun-bleached beach being cordoned off by police. More of the blue and white chequered tape flapped in the super-heated wind as two officers hovered around, checking watches and gazing forlornly up at the steps. They weren’t the station heavyweights, for sure—their job appeared to be keeping stickybeak tourists and locals away from the crime scene. The tape at the top of the steps was doing the trick, but they couldn’t be too careful.
As Clay descended the stairs, looking through the heat haze to the beach, he could see there were still plenty of people enjoying the waters of the Southern Ocean. The police hadn’t gotten around to asking them to leave yet, but the beachgoers were either unfazed by what was going on or oblivious; Clay’s own understanding of the situation sat somewhere between the two.
He watched the water rippling and lapping at the soft sands for a while before turning to scan the crowd at the top of the steps. Quite a few had turned up, maybe a couple of dozen, but they weren’t the ghouls that come out for corpse action. They were everyday punters, either coming to the beach or leaving the beach. Word that a body had been found at the Bay of Martyrs hadn’t penetrated the coast yet. These folks had gathered by accident and were trying to figure out what the hell the fuss was about. Clay was, too, but he wouldn’t have bothered, certainly not today, if he wasn’t being paid to poke around.
The deputy editor, undoubtedly sensing Clay’s fragile state, had decided to punish him with a trip to Timboon, some twenty kilometres north of Peterborough. The drive had the prime purpose of covering a Sunday market, just the kind of banal non-story Clay had been asked to puke up with increasing regularity lately. Halfway through interviewing a droll bloke in a filthy beanie hat about his strawberry stall, however, the deputy editor had rang with a change of plan.
‘Sounds like someone’s washed up at the Bay of Martyrs, Clay.’ The tone was that of a desperate editor who had a serious story on his patch, and only a limp-dick of a hack to cover it. ‘Get your hungover arse down there as quickly as you can…and if you balls this up, don’t come back on Monday. I’ll give your job to that bloody work experience kid we had in, the one with the nice tits, that couldn’t spell “Canberra”.’
Clay had driven as fast as he dared, taking every dirt road shortcut through the lush, green dairy farms and patches of eucalyptus scrub that threaded the Great Ocean Road hinterland. It wasn’t the threat of losing his job that fired him, they were far too common, it was the thought that maybe here was a tale worth telling.
On the sand near the taped-off pile of kelp, the two cops still looked nervous, lonely. It was a stroke of luck that Clay had made it here so early, beating most of the police to the scene. He stopped on the final step, as much to catch his breath as to look back up at the crowd again and check for the arrival of more officers, but with none in sight, he knew he was going to have to talk to the coppers at the water’s edge. That meant continuing down to the bottom, trudging along the beach, and getting sand in his shoes. He’d probably be told to piss off, which would mean trudging back across the beach, getting more sand in his shoes, and climbing back up the steps again, all the while sweating his balls off and looking like a complete fool.
‘Goddamn it,’ he muttered as he continued clambering down towards the crime scene.
In the back of his mind, Clay could hear the younger version of himself getting excited. When was the last time he’d covered a dead body washing up on the beach? Or anything half as interesting as this? Lately he’d been stuck writing obituaries for long-retired city councillors and rewriting federal government press releases about the proposed Warrnambool Airport upgrade. How many column inches had they devoted to that airport? Yes, it was big bucks, into the millions, but The Second Coming wouldn’t get the coverage that airport had. This was a real story: life and death.
The older version of himself, the just-turned-forty and feeling sand slowly seeping into his shoes version, couldn’t be bothered. Work was a drain on diminishing reserves of energy, and an inconvenience only to be tolerated between visits to the pub. Could he still muster the effort to give a damn about anything?
Sweat was starting to plaster his shirt to his back and his fringe to his forehead as he reached the cops. Clay swept his hair out of the way in a last effort to look presentable that had the side effect of bringing the cops into focus. Clay didn’t recognise the female copper, but he picked out the other one as Eddie Boulton.
‘Hey, Clay, good to see you dressed for the beach.’ Eddie was a few years younger than Clay, but a relatively old contact from the days when their paths met on the crime reporting beat. The pair had got on, a rarity, and ended up sinking quite a few beers before Eddie got a move down the Great Ocean Road to Port Campbell.
‘Yeah, I was just about to go for a paddle, Eddie. Care to join me?’
‘Sorry, mate, no can do. I’ve got to make sure this pile of seaweed doesn’t run away.’
The banter raised smiles.
Clay gestured to the notepad he was carrying. ‘What have you got for me, mate?’
‘I wish I knew. This got called in just under an hour ago by a tourist from the city. Down here with the kids, apparently. Bet they won’t sleep tonight.’
‘Mum and Dad won’t be back in a hurry, either.’
Clay peered over the tape, squinted in the sunlight, then pointed to the ground. ‘The office said you had a body; is that it?’
‘To be honest, I dunno what we’re looking at. It could be a movie prop for all I know. We got told not to touch a thing or go near it until the crime scene fellas arrive.’
‘Male? Female?’
‘Fellas are male, but I’m using the term generically.’
‘Funny, Eddie, but I meant the…’ Clay directed his pencil to the ground again.
‘Your guess is as good as mine, mate.’
Clay leaned forward. So, there it was, buried in a pile of stinking seaweed—the grim visage of a once-was human. The decay of the ocean, the passage of time, and the hungry marine critters had all done their work. The eyeholes were empty and the rest of the body was partially covered by seaweed, but it looked like more than just the eyeballs were missing.
A pungent stench hit Clay in the face, something beyond the salty aroma of kelp, and he realised he’d moved downwind of the body.
‘It doesn’t smell like a movie prop,’ he said. The hangover suddenly felt more serious, but he swallowed a couple of times and coughed. He hoped no one noticed and felt relieved Eddie was gazing up at the steps.
‘Looks like the big boys are here. You might wanna make yourself scarce now, Clay.’
Clay followed his line of vision, looked up, and saw a parade of policemen clambering down the stairs. ‘Shit. It had to be bloody Frank Anderson, didn’t it?’
Anderson stood out in the crowd. He was fatter than the other cops present by a strong margin and was wearing civvies instead of a uniform. He was on the wrong side of fifty, with a thick moustache that might have been interpreted as a Chopper Read homage, if it wasn’t for his position. He wore an expression that suggested he recognised Clay’s skinny frame already, and that he was as pleased about this as someone who’d just had their flight cancelled.
The journalist turned to Eddie. ‘Quick—you had any missing persons lately? A best guess as to who could wash up here?’
‘Sorry, Clay, no idea who this is. You’re going to have to wait for the boys and girls in the lab, like the rest of us.’
Clay glanced back at Anderson, who was moving from step to step with all the grace of a two-legged cow. It would be a solid minute before the beefy detective made it to the taped-off pile of seaweed. Clay pulled a small camera from his pocket—a digital point-and-shoot number—and walked back to where the greyish face poked out from the seaweed. He snapped a couple of quick shots before sliding the camera back into his pocket.
‘I’m gonna pretend I didn’t see that,’ said Eddie.
‘See what?’ said Clay, offering the cop a cheeky grin.
Anderson was walking away from the bottom stair, negotiating the sand with only slightly more grace. He was heading straight for them.
Nothing to it but to do it, thought Clay. He made straight for Anderson, with his grin on full beam.
‘Detective Sergeant Anderson, what a pleasure to see you again,’ said Clay. ‘What’s it been? Five, six years? You’re looking well. Have you lost weight?’
A few cops trailing in Anderson’s wake suppressed smirks as they passed Clay on their way to the taped-off crime scene. Anderson’s heavy brows drooped, his face contorted into a sour scowl that Clay was already familiar with. He’d succeeded in winding up the detective, but knew he still had a job to do.
‘Go to hell, maggot,’ said Anderson.
Clay turned and kept pace with the detective. ‘Is that “maggot” with two Gs?’ he said, pretending to write in his notepad.
‘Which part of “go to hell” didn’t make sense, Moloney? I can spell it out on your notepad if you like, ya bloody smart-arse.’
‘Come on, Frank. I’ve just got a couple of questions.’
Anderson’s scowl morphed into a slick smile. ‘All questions must be directed to the police media unit,’ he said, unable to keep the hint of smarm from his voice.
‘Oh, give me a break. You know they’re as useless as tits on a bull.’
‘All questions must be directed to the police media unit.’
Anderson kept walking and Clay stopped. He gritted his teeth. Something about the dismissive slap down from Anderson cancelled out the effects of his hangover, made him want to run down the beach after him and slug it out for the story. Someone had died here; it wasn’t the place to play games like this. For the first time in ages, something like ambition burned inside Clayton Moloney.
But if no one was going to tell him anything, he didn’t have much of a story.
Click here to learn more about Bay of Martyrs by Tony Black and Matt Neal.