May 2020, Benevolence Day Three
The first thing Nina noticed when she stepped inside the lighthouse was the smell of tobacco. Cigarettes.
A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she clung to the wooden rack just inside the door. She searched for a distraction. Her fingers tightened on the rack and she focused on it more closely. Once upon a time, wet-weather gear and overcoats must have hung here, ready for the keeper and his assistants to pull them on before they stepped out into the wind and rain.
‘What?’ Jude said, and lifted his hand as if to steady her. They hadn’t spoken much on the walk from his cottage. He’d asked a few questions, clarifying the situation, and she had answered briefly. The key he had been given was new, bright and shiny. Evidently, the old one had gone missing during a previous visit to the island. ‘Probably souvenired,’ he’d said.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked now.
‘I’m fine,’ she snapped. She wasn’t about to tell him about the footsteps outside her room that first night on the island, the unknown person who had lit a cigarette. That as far as she knew, no one in their team smoked. She could imagine the expression on his face. Crazy Nina. It’s all in your head. Over the years, she’d leaned to be extremely careful with her words, knowing how easily she could be destroyed.
‘If you say so.’ He gave her an impatient frown and turned away. She was sorry then, but it was too late to soften her response. And much too late to explain herself.
Inside the tower it was gloomy. Daylight seeped through the five windows set in a vertical line up the white-painted granite wall, their glass thick and smeary. A spiral staircase twirled its way aloft to the lantern room, but otherwise the space appeared abandoned. Empty.
Jude clicked on his torch and the beam shone off the metal caging as he swung it around. Nina could see the area they were in now was being used for storage. A stack of broken furniture and old fuel tins, empty barrels and some piles of moth-eaten bedding. She could not see Brian’s missing tools. There was a pickaxe with a broken handle, but she couldn’t imagine Brian letting anything he was in charge of fall into such a state of disrepair.
‘Hello!’ Jude called. No one jumped out and nothing moved. Nina told herself that the smell of cigarettes might be just a lingering memory from the habit of a long-ago keeper. ‘Anyone here?’
Silence, apart from the sounds drifting in from outside.
Jude began to climb the metal stairs, his steps creaking and echoing around them. Nina followed, hand on the railing. It felt gritty and grimy, and there were rusty patches where the frame had been bolted together. The place was badly in need of Brian’s maintenance, but it wasn’t going to get it this visit.
There was a closed-in space below the lantern room, and Nina could see an old single bed without a mattress, the metal framework and springs speckled with more rust. ‘Probably the watch room,’ Jude said. Nina tried to imagine the lighthouse keeper and his assistants sitting in here during their shifts tending to the light. There was a small kerosene stove, too, with a single burner, and an old coffee pot that had seen better days, as well as some chipped enamel mugs. It was obvious the place hadn’t been used for a very long time.
The lantern room was reached by a smaller staircase fastened to the wall of the tower. These thickly glassed windows filled the place with so much radiance that Nina found herself squinting, adjusting after the gloom below. The smell of kerosene replaced the faint sting of cigarettes, mingled with dust and the sea.
‘This used to be a Wilkins lantern room,’ Jude said. As if he was giving a tour, she thought wearily. Although, at the same time, she found herself listening, interested in what he had to say and drawn in by the familiar sound of his voice. ‘It was replaced later on. The groups of smaller lamps and their reflectors were time intensive, expensive to run and to keep in good working order, so they were replaced too. In the 1930s, from memory. You can see there is a single lamp here now, and a Fresnel lens. Instead of whale oil they used kerosene, and later electricity. The generator was run from the old fuel store near the base of the tower.’
‘You’ve done your research.’
‘It’s an interest. Those summers on Bruny Island, the lighthouse on Cape Bruny … I suppose they stuck with me.’
That summer had coloured her life, too, and it hadn’t all been bad. There were good memories, it was just that she seemed to only concentrate on the bad.
The lens that must once have been pristine and gleaming was dirty, and the windows were coated with salt and splatters of bird droppings, giving them a milky look. The lamp stood blackened and forgotten when once it must have shone bright, humming with power as it was reflected into the lens and then out into the dark night.
Nina walked over to the windows. She was so high, with the sea below her, and the island’s cliffs stretching out on either side. It was breathtaking. Despite the mist that softened the horizon, she felt as if she could see forever.
‘I believe on a clear day you can see the Victorian coast,’ she said. At least she knew that much.
A bird soared past, and then dived down towards the water. White caps broke on the waves around the Tiger’s Teeth, the oily black rocks barely showing now that it was high tide. Nina moved around the tower until she was spying on their campsite. She watched Brian pointing to some lengths of wood, his minions scurrying to obey his instructions. Lis was helping Paul with lunch, the two of them chatting easily, while Arnie watched on. Reynash was back on his bicycle, bumping down the track.
Her gaze lifted beyond, over to the western side of the island, and any signs of activity. The contours were more obvious here—the island was not a flat piece of rock—and she could see across to the sharp rocky bulk of Birds Nest Island. She knew there was a chasm between the smaller island and the larger Benevolence, but she couldn’t see that. Or the hidden, sheltered spot where a vessel might be moored.
‘We can go out on the balcony if you like.’ Jude was at the door, giving her a half-smile. ‘The engineers did a structural check last time they were here. I was told it’s safe, as long as it’s not too blowy. We should be okay if we hang on.’
‘Sounds encouraging,’ she murmured as she followed him out.
There was a safety railing around the balcony, but all the same she imagined in bad weather it would be dangerous up there, with water to slip on and lashing winds to blind you and tear you off the flimsy railing and fling you into oblivion. What a precarious life it must have been.
‘A wild and lonely life, with a heavy load of responsibility.’
It wasn’t until Jude had answered that Nina realised she’d spoken aloud. They stood a moment, looking down towards the sea as it boiled around the cliffs. No wonder they had needed a lighthouse here in the days of sail.
‘How many wrecks have there been?’ She should have read up on it, but there hadn’t been time. There was never time. Nina was always working all hours, struggling to prove herself. During instances like these she wondered why, what was the point? She was broken, wasn’t she?
The sudden acknowledgement shocked her, and she bit her lip and turned her face away, in case he saw her despair.
‘Not as many wrecks as you might think. Lis copied some of the records and newspaper reports for me. She’s more often than not in the archives section of the state library in Hobart. She’s an independent researcher, and a good one. I brought them with me. I can share if you like.’
Lis was an archivist? She wouldn’t have pictured that. ‘Brian has a book on the island. He’s going to lend it to me.’
‘Is that the one by Halpin? He was the last keeper here. I’m still waiting for my copy.’
‘I’m sorry, I really don’t know. He told me his wife got it for him. He has some connection to the island.’
‘I think his grandfather was an assistant keeper in the thirties or forties. Drank himself out of a job.’
‘Well, that explains why he didn’t want to talk about it.’
‘He’s ashamed, I think. Brian would never do something like that.’
‘No, he wouldn’t.’
‘There was a child who died here. Brian brought flowers. His wife’s idea.’
The explanation was simple, after all. ‘I saw them. I wondered who …’
They were having a conversation. It felt slightly clunky and a bit fragile. As if she was walking on thin glass that might crack and shatter at any moment, and yet … If also felt strangely good. The situation they found themselves in seemed to have created a bridge between them. She had forgotten how comfortable she used to feel with Jude, or maybe she had just pushed it out of her head. Tucked it away out of sight like an inconvenient truth. What was the point in remembering things like that? Because the past was not something she could change or mend or return to without causing immense damage.
Her hair whipped into her face and she tucked it back, holding it at her nape. He was watching her, his gaze sliding over her cheek, as if he was remembering those times he would touch her skin, trace the curve of her ear. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
Jude cleared his throat and spoke again. ‘I’ve been reading about Leo Webster. He was the longest-serving keeper here in the eighteen seventies and eighties. He had his wife and daughter with him. It was his daughter who acted as his assistant. She was his right-hand man, if you like.’ He laughed at himself. ‘Woman. During their time, the island had one of its more famous wrecks, a schooner called the Alvarez. It capsized when it struck the rocks down there. Six people were saved, which was pretty remarkable when you remember they were caught up in what was later called one of the worst storms of the century.’
Another bird flew up close, as if curious, floating on the air currents briefly before diving away again. Nina held her breath as she watched it sink effortlessly until it was just a dot above the waves. She had never been a fan of heights, but there was something stomach-sinkingly fascinating about being up here. Her fingers clenched white on the top of the metal railing as Jude continued.
‘I thought I might talk about Leo and his daughter, Laura, on my show. It really is one of the amazing untold stories of the island’s history. If they’ll let me.’
Nina looked at him in surprise. ‘Can’t you do whatever you want? You’re the star, aren’t you?’
‘Is that what you think?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Yes, when I was making my own shows for YouTube, I did as I liked. And I made them on a shoestring budget. Now there’s big money at stake and everyone wants a say. I need to negotiate every step, and if the producers don’t like what I’m doing, they tell me to change it. I’m not my own boss anymore. True I’m the supposed face of the series, but I can be replaced. There are plenty of more amusing and better-looking presenters just itching for this job, especially if the series takes off. If I make things difficult, they’ll dump me just like any other employee.’
Nina hadn’t thought of it like that. Jude had created the idea, but that didn’t mean he was going to be part of it long term. It seemed unfair, and she felt outraged on his behalf. ‘You could go back to your own stuff,’ she said. ‘If you had to, I mean.’
He shrugged. ‘Not sure it would feel the same. The pressure has ramped up. Mum is already calling me the next Michael Palin. Around Tasmania in ninety days,’ he added with a smile, referencing the travel show that Michael did years ago. Since then, there had been any number of travelogues with famous and not-so-famous faces to head them. Jude was right, he was replaceable.
‘Your mother must be proud of you,’ was all she said.
Nina had thought she’d hidden the bitter note in her voice until he gave her a sharp look. He was reading her too well.
‘How is Angela?’ she added quickly, paddling away from dangerous waters. She didn’t want to end up like the Alvarez, on the rocks.
‘She’s in a care home these days. It got too much for Mandy and it wasn’t fair for her to be Mum’s carer and put her career on hold. We all got together for a meeting and found Mum a nice place, where the nursing is top notch. She still struggles some days, but at least we know she’s safe and being taken care of.’
Nina nodded, trying not to remember that night when Angela Rawlins collapsed in the kitchen. The panic on her children’s faces, as if it was the end of their worlds. It had certainly been the end of hers.
‘You should drop in and see her,’ Jude went on, eyes on her face.
Nina made her expression as blank as possible. ‘I doubt I’d be welcome.’
He didn’t dispute it, and she could imagine what his mother had said after their relationship had ended so abruptly. Seeing Jude hurt, in pain, Angela would have protected him by tearing Nina to pieces.
‘What’s Mandy doing now?’
He smiled. ‘She’s studying medicine. She was always bright. She has a partner, no kids yet. She says she’s too busy.’
‘And you?’ Nina asked, trying to keep her voice steady. Pretending they were like normal friends catching up. It felt surreal. Her last question echoed in her head and she wondered if she should take it back. But that was what friends did, wasn’t it? Asked about personal matters?
‘Me … what? Do I have someone special?’ He looked away, staring out at the misty horizon as if the answer was to be found there. ‘No. I’m single, busy with work, which I love, most of the time. Sometimes I miss having someone to …’ He cleared his throat and didn’t finish. ‘Well, I keep busy. And you, Nina? You keep yourself very private. I’ve been nosy enough to ask around when your name is mentioned, but no one seems to know much about you. And I wouldn’t ask Paul. Not that he would tell me, anyway. If he wasn’t gay I might think you and he were a couple.’
He’d asked about her? That surprised her. She thought he would hate her too much to want to know if she was happily ensconced with a new man. She and Jude had been deeply in love, the sort of love that should have lasted a lifetime. She had always known there would never be anyone else for her, not like that. Was it possible he felt the same? Was it possible that despite everything, he still wanted her back?
The thought made her dizzy, shaky. ‘I keep busy, too,’ she said quickly, not willing to delve into those dangerous waters. ‘My parents are living in Queensland now, and I haven’t seen them for a while, but we catch up on Skype.’
He laughed softly. ‘We used to talk about sailing around the world, remember?’
Nina didn’t reply. Of course she remembered, but it definitely wasn’t something she wanted to talk about now. It hurt. It still hurt so much.
Another gust of wind caught her hair, tugged at her clothing, and abruptly she felt far too exposed up here.
‘What about Murray?’ she said recklessly. ‘You haven’t mentioned him. I thought he was going to be the first QC in the Rawlins family? Or at least, he would have been if Colin had his way.’
Something in Jude’s face made her heart begin to beat in that rough, painful way that meant trouble ahead. ‘Yes, that was the plan, wasn’t it? He did start work in Uncle Colin’s chambers. A rising star. We all thought …’ He shrugged irritably. ‘It didn’t work out. He’s moved on. Well, Uncle Colin let him go. He wasn’t happy about it, but in the end he felt he had no choice. He …’ Jude sighed, and looked at her as if he’d decided to lay all his cards on the table, and just for a moment she thought he knew. Her hands were damp with sweat, clinging to the railing, and her heart threatened to jump out of her chest.
‘What?’ she said in a soft, quivering voice. ‘What about Murray?’
‘Christ, you’re as white as a sheet. He’s not dead, if that’s what you think. He might as well be, though, for all the resemblance he has to the brother I remember. He moved to Sydney and he now has a raft of dodgy clients after joining a practice that specialises in getting the Mister Bigs off. You name anything illegal and we’re pretty sure Murray is into it. I know he gambles … eye-watering amounts. Mum still sees him, and Mandy calls him up. These days I prefer to keep my distance.’
Nina tried to take that in. She had the advantage over Jude, knowing what really lay under Murray’s pleasant smile. All the same, hearing what had become of him was a shock. He’d gone off the rails in a big way. She remembered the look on his face that day at the beach house when maybe it sank in that everyone was depending on him, the weight of expectation on his shoulders, and no way out. It sounded as if he’d done everything he could to throw off those expectations, and to transform himself into someone else.
But then how did she know? Murray might always have been the man he now was. Dangerous and evil, a destroyer. He’d just hidden it until he no longer could.
‘Nina.’
It was the tone of his voice that made her turn, rather than the word. She shook off the past, and saw that Jude was staring back through the window. The lens was grouped in the centre, around the lamp, but she could see past it to the other side of the lantern room.
‘What is that?’ He pointed and then opened the door. She followed him in. Something loose above her head rattled. Jude was moving quickly now, and an instant later she was standing beside him, staring at the object that lay at his feet. It was tucked out of the way, behind the landing where the staircase led up from the watch area, and yet she was amazed she hadn’t seen it before. She had been distracted by the view, she supposed.
A sleeping bag. Not old and musty, it seemed almost brand new, and there was an empty packet of cigarettes on the floor beside it.
Their eyes met. ‘You were right,’ he admitted, his dark eyes bright. ‘There’s been someone living in here.’
‘Recently, do you think?’ A water bottle lay on its side near the top of the bag, and the crinkly, shiny wrapper from a chocolate bar. Both appeared to be recent, although she supposed they could be days old.
‘Just because someone was here doesn’t mean they are now,’ Jude said. ‘Maybe they realised the game was up.’
Nina raised her eyebrows at him. ‘You sound like an Agatha Christie novel.’
‘I was hoping I was right,’ he said.
‘Instead I was right,’ she retorted.
Impulsively, she bent down to straighten out the bag and run her hand over the cloth, wondering if there was something inside.
There was.
With a glance at Jude, she unzipped the top and reached between the two layers, carefully, fingers searching. She caught hold of a plastic bag and drew it out. It was half full of small pills of varying colours. They resembled children’s sweets, only she was certain no child should ingest these.
‘Drugs?’ Jude said, leaning closer. ‘Do you think it’s someone’s private stash?’
‘Wasn’t that what Kyle was afraid of when he heard about the trespasser on the island? Someone using this place to transfer narcotics?’
‘Yes. It makes sense. A safe place to transfer drugs and money. As long as no one else was here to get in the way.’
‘And then we arrived.’
She told herself she should be searching the island, she should be ringing the bell and calling a meeting. Warning everyone of her fears. Yet she stood here feeling paralysed and confused, overwhelmed by the position she found herself in.
There was something else in the sleeping bag. Compact, hard. Even before Nina drew it out, she knew what it was.
Light weight, a series of cylinders secured together … A gun.
With a gasp, Nina dropped it back on the sleeping bag.
‘God!’ she whispered. ‘This gets worse and worse.’
‘Looks homemade,’ Jude said with interest, leaning in. Then, catching her eye, ‘This isn’t good, is it?’
‘Drugs and a gun, no, it isn’t good.’
‘Whoever has been staying here isn’t harmless. We need to find them.’
They did. ‘Why leave this here?’ she said. ‘Why were they in such a hurry?’ She waved her hand at the plastic bag of pills and the weapon.
‘They realised we were on to them.’ Jude bent to pick up the items, cautiously. ‘We need to give these to Paul. He can keep them safe. They’re evidence.’
‘Yes.’ She peered around her. ‘Whoever this was … they’ve been hiding in plain sight. Watching us.’ The thought made her shiver.
‘And they have a key. The lock was intact. Maybe they have the original one that went missing? You need to ask Kyle.’
‘No satellite phone,’ she muttered. ‘For now, we’re on our own. Unless you have some way of communicating that you haven’t told us about?’ She raised her eyebrows.
‘Is that what you think?’ He seemed offended. ‘That this was all a publicity stunt for my new show?’ He shook his head. ‘I wish I did have another satellite phone tucked away,’ he said. ‘But I don’t.’
So, they really were on their own.
‘I need to talk to the others,’ Nina said. ‘See if anyone knows about the sleeping bag. Maybe there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.’ Although, that didn’t feel like the case. ‘And we need to search the island.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll use the drone for that.’
He went to follow her down the stairs, but she stopped and looked back over her shoulder at their intruder’s home away from home. Someone was watching them, spying, playing games. It wasn’t personal, probably some drug trafficker way down the food chain, and yet … it felt personal.
Jude put his hand on her shoulder, the warm strength comforting. ‘We’ll make sure no one can get back into the lighthouse. If they’re hiding on the island and we take away their shelter, then they’ll have to come out at some point.’
‘Unless they have a boat.’
‘Well, if they do we’ll know soon enough,’ he said.
They would. Nina felt a tingle in her fingertips, an ache in her stomach. She knew it was possible their trespasser was no longer on the island, but she had that niggling sensation again. That feeling that they were being watched. And it didn’t bode well. They were in danger, and it was up to her to protect them all from that danger.