May 2020, Benevolence Day Four
Nina stepped out from the side of the cottage, her hand still resting hard against the wall. It was meant to appear casual, although it was actually a necessity if she was going to stay upright. Her legs were shaking so badly she thought she might fall down anyway, but her pride demanded she show him he couldn’t stop her.
‘Murray,’ she said. ‘What a surprise.’
His head came up sharply. He seemed nonplussed, but it didn’t last. He gave her that wild, slightly unhinged grin. ‘There you are,’ he said, as if they’d been friends for years. ‘The last time I saw you, you weren’t at your best. You don’t look too good now, actually.’ He made a moue of concern.
‘I’m much better, thank you. I’m more worried about you, Murray. Do you want to put the gun down so that we can talk?’
He laughed. ‘Does Jude know what you did to save him and the family? I think we should tell him, don’t you? How you suffered in silence all these years to keep the status quo. Not that you suffered as much as I did, mind you. I thought Colin would let me go, but instead I dug myself an even deeper hole. He held what I’d done over me and made me toe the line. Threats if I showed any sign I might refuse.’
‘Poor you.’
His face grew cruel. ‘And you’re a liar. That night … I like to think you enjoyed every moment of it.’
Nina felt the hard stone sink from her chest to her stomach, the ache so painful she wanted to howl, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. ‘You are a vile person, Murray. You always were. You’ve just proved it.’
Oh, he was angry now. Jude, who had been looking back and forth between them, moved in front of her as if to protect her. That only made Murray angrier.
‘Get out of my way, Jude.’
He was in Jude’s face now, the rifle gripped in white-knuckled hands. Behind him, Nina could see that Paul was speaking urgently to Brian and the others. Elle put a stop to any plan they’d come up with.
‘Stay put,’ she said sharply. ‘Murray, you’d better get your act together if we’re going to get out of here.’
‘You bastard,’ Jude said. ‘You hurt her.’
He sounded shattered, but Murray shrugged impatiently, as if he didn’t have time for this. ‘You had everything. And then Nina came along and you had her, too. You owed me—I took what I was due.’
Jude struck. The gun clattered to the ground, but the two men were more focused on each other, struggling and rolling, fists flying.
‘Get the gun!’ Paul shouted.
Nina and Elle headed towards it at the same time. Nina ran to get there first. Lis tripped Elle and she went flying, and Arnie dived at her, sitting on top of her while she screamed and swore and struggled. Nina picked up the rifle.
It felt surprisingly light in her hands, light as air but deadly. She took aim at Murray’s back—he was on top of Jude now, while Jude clawed at his face.
‘Stop it!’ she commanded. ‘I’ll shoot you if you don’t.’
The two men halted, and Murray looked at her, his chest rising and falling crazily. His expression was a mixture of anger and sadness now.
‘Why didn’t you fight like this before?’ he asked her. ‘Why didn’t you stand up to Colin? I could have gone to prison, but it would have been better … better than …’
Nina gaped at him in amazement. ‘You’re telling me it was all a cry for help? To get you out of working for Colin? Because you were too pathetic to stand up to him by yourself?’
‘Fuck you,’ he growled, and struggled to his feet. Just as he did, a violent wind gust came through. The half-collapsed tent Nina had noticed before broke up and went flying. The sheet of canvas hit Murray, but so did the pole, and he stumbled a few steps away and then went down. And didn’t get up.
The shock froze everyone just for a moment, and then Jude got painfully to his feet. His nose was bleeding and he wiped it on his sleeve with a grimace. Paul stood up with Lis’s help, and Nina handed him the gun. By then, Jude was kneeling beside his brother.
He’d removed the sheet of canvas from him, but when Nina got close enough to stand beside him, it was obvious to her that some serious damage had been done. A jagged piece of metal that had been attached to the pole had cut his neck, and there was a fast-growing pool of blood around Murray’s head.
Jude was trying to staunch it, using his hands, but it wasn’t stopping. Nina ran to get some towels and they both pressed them to Murray’s neck. His face was a terrible colour, and he didn’t seem to be conscious.
‘Jesus.’ Brian stared, while one of the others turned away to vomit.
There was a sound coming from the water. Lis called out, ‘There’s a police boat out there!’ and then they heard the helicopter.
‘For God’s sake, let me up,’ Elle said through gritted teeth. ‘I’m an undercover officer. Get off!’
Arnie, looking rather stunned, got off. Elle shook herself like an angry cat. The bubbly photographer was gone, as was the angry girlfriend. This was someone else, someone serious and professional. Nina thought Elle was going to head down the track that led to the cove, to meet up with her colleagues, but instead she came over to Nina.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I took the key to the hut. I needed to disable the satellite phone so none of you could put out a call for help. Murray would have tried to escape and we had everything in place. Even your boss, Kyle, knew what was going on, and the woman I replaced—Veronica.’
‘So, you were playing a part? It was all a lie?’
‘I had to get onto the island with Murray. We needed to push him into a corner. His yacht’s full of contraband. He’ll have to give us names now.’ And then, with an assessing glance at Murray, ‘I’ll get the medic.’
* * *
Nina couldn’t get warm. The air temperature had dropped dramatically and the fog was back. At least the wind had calmed so that the helicopter could make an emergency flight to Flinders Island. The fire in the big hearth inside the cottage was roaring, but there was more smoke inside than going up the chimney. Brian had been eying it as if he’d like to get a brush and climb in there.
Nina kept seeing Murray’s face, the blood, and then the police gathered around him. Jude had been sitting, hands loose between his knees, blood all over them. He was too shaken to say anything, and Lis had taken him back to his cottage to clean up. Paul had been cared for, his wound tended to while Arnie hung over him. Meanwhile, Elle had been everywhere. Nina was still having trouble believing that she had been playing a part all along. Well, two parts.
Now they were all gathered in the lighthouse-keeper’s cottage, and the police officer who seemed to be in charge, and whose name Nina had already forgotten, was answering questions.
‘We’d been watching Mr Rawlins for some time. He’s in deep with some very dangerous people, and he was reckless enough for us to hope he’d help us bring them down. Not intentionally,’ he added, when he saw the question in Jude’s eyes. And the hope that his brother, like Elle, might have been on the side of good, after all.
‘He had gambling debts, drug debts, and he couldn’t pay any of them. We found out through an informant that his creditors had learned about the sapphire from one of the archivists, a woman with criminal contacts. It was a bizarre enough prize to capture their imagination. And Murray was desperate to get himself out of the mess he was in, so when they told him the price he needed to pay—get us the sapphire and we’ll wipe the slate clean—he agreed.’
‘So the sapphire is real?’ Lis said, looking at Elle.
Elle glanced at her superior and he nodded for her to go ahead. ‘It is real. The same archivist who had contacted the criminals made inquiries about the legality of digging up graves, and that raised a red flag with us. Once we knew what was going on, it seemed the ideal way to draw Murray and his criminal friends into our net. I was set up in the archivist’s place and Murray made contact with me, unaware that I was undercover. Murray … Mr Rawlins was fascinated by the story. He couldn’t stay away from the island. I’d begun to wonder if he planned to keep the sapphire if he found it, which would have caused us problems and probably got him killed.’
‘But he didn’t find it,’ Jude guessed. ‘Had it already been removed?’
‘No. As far as we know, it’s still here. Somewhere. Short of digging up every grave in the place, I think it’s going to remain lost.’
Arnie had cooked up a substantial breakfast, enough to feed everyone. Now he was handing out hot drinks. Paul had gone in the helicopter to Flinders Island. Murray, still alive but only just, had gone too. They would be given treatment there and then transferred to Hobart. ‘I won’t be happy until I see Paul again,’ Arnie had said to Nina. ‘I don’t think he’s as indestructible as he thinks he is.’
‘Unless the letter was full of lies,’ Jude suggested now. He had changed and washed, but his eyes had shadows under them and his face was haggard.
‘Rorie was supposed to be confessing his sins so he wouldn’t burn in hell,’ Lis said. ‘Maybe he was telling tales to the priest. Maybe he thought God wouldn’t notice.’
Lis had spoken to Nina earlier. They hadn’t had much to say, but Lis had offered an apology and Nina had accepted. The other woman had been through a lot more than Nina had realised. Murray had hurt them both. Maybe in time they could find more than that in common.
Elle spoke again. ‘Mr Rawlins was spiralling out of control. The diesel… there was no point to that. I knew then I was losing any hold I might have had on him. I radioed my superiors that the time had come to end the operation.’
There was a silence.
‘If that’s all …?’ The police officer looked around the room. ‘We’ll arrange for you to fly back to Hobart by fixed-wing aircraft when the weather improves. Probably tomorrow.’ He gave a curt nod and Elle followed him out of the room. Nina thought she might glance back, make some acknowledgement, but she didn’t. And then she was gone.
Kyle would have heard the news by now. The police had been in contact with him before they arrived on the island—a matter of courtesy, evidently. Nina wouldn’t be surprised if he blamed her for the whole mess. Jude? Well, he was the golden boy, no one was going to blame him.
‘Nina?’
She glanced up, bleary-eyed, to see Jude standing in front of her. He gave her a wry smile. She could only stare at him. Dark hair curling around his ears, stubble on his jaw, the lines at the corners of his eyes. He was still the boy she had loved. Had never stopped loving.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Sit next to me.’ She shifted over on the couch, making room, and he dropped down beside her. ‘Have you heard how Murray is?’
‘Only that he’s still hanging in there. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.’
Nina found his hand and squeezed. ‘It’s got to be a good thing, Jude. You want him to live, don’t you? So you can tell him what an idiot he’s been.’
He looked at her as if wondering how to say what he wanted to say. ‘You must hate us. First Murray, and then Colin and then me.’
‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘But if it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have let Murray get away with it.’ He threw his head back against the couch with a soft groan before leaning forward again. This time his gaze was intense. ‘I think I knew something had gone on. I knew, but when I tried to find out what, no one would tell me. Then Colin spun me a story about you sleeping with Murray, and how you were too ashamed to admit it. He said it was for the best if I let you go.’
Nina glared at him. ‘You believed him.’
‘I didn’t want to. I wanted to talk to you, but you wouldn’t talk to me. Murray was acting odd too, guilty, but more than that. I should have tried harder. I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m going to make a statement,’ Nina said, when she had control of the tremble in her voice. ‘I don’t know if it’s too late. Paul has been telling me all along I should do it, but I was pretending it had never happened, or I was strong enough to get past it. Only I wasn’t.’
‘I wish …’ He blew out a breath. ‘Nina, I wish you’d told me. I wish you’d trusted me. I would never have wanted you to do that. And do you know, it made no difference. Murray couldn’t be the man Colin wanted him to be. He fell apart. We all did.’
Nina wanted to say ‘good’, but she restrained herself. They sat in silence for a time, hands clasped. She was even beginning to doze off when Jude spoke again.
‘Can I come and see you? After this is over?’
She blinked at him.
‘You look like a sleepy possum,’ he said tenderly.
Perhaps there was something in her expression, but he cleared his throat and straightened up, his voice losing that intimate quality. ‘I don’t want to lose what we’ve found. I want to be friends again. If … if you’ll let me?’
‘Jude …’
‘Don’t answer now. I know it’s too soon to think about any of that. It’s been a crazy few days.’
Nina stared at the smoky fire, not sure what to feel. She knew she should say ‘no’, because this was ridiculous, wasn’t it? That after all that had happened—and the fallout from Murray was going to be huge—they could be friends.
They had always fitted so well together, Jude and Nina. She reined him in and he freed her. Perhaps it would be possible, one day, but there was something he didn’t know. She still loved him and that could get awkward, painful, and she wasn’t going to live a life of secrets and lies. She was done with that.
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
He smiled and seemed content with that, then closed his eyes.
After a moment Nina closed hers, too.