I startle into consciousness. Dreams of bloodied bodies fade away as I register the unfamiliar surrounds. It all comes back. The butchered possum. Rick Fletcher’s blank stare. Moving to the Gordons’. I stretch out my arms and legs, bumping into the softness of Ben, who’d obviously come over in the night. I briefly watch the rise and fall of his chest, the slight flaring of his nostrils.
The house is silent. I realise I still haven’t called Jodie back.
‘God,’ I whisper to the ceiling.
I check my phone: a message from Mac apologising for missing me yesterday and asking me to call, and a polite text from Dad. There’s an email from Owen; he sent some files from Jock’s drug case. Call me when you can, he wrote, I spoke to Jock but I don’t know if it will help much.
I lean out of the bed, grabbing my laptop from its precarious spot on top of my suitcase. I yank the screen open and click on the file of footage from Saturday night that Lane sent me yesterday. I fell asleep trying to watch it last night; I need to make sure there’s nothing that indicates what happened to her after she ran off into the night.
Like most security footage, there’s no audio and it’s angled badly, only capturing activity at the bottom of the ramp, the wooden landing and the area directly outside the door. The internal camera captures a decent chunk of the waiting area, but unhelpfully only the reverse of anyone standing at the counter. I press play and watch Abbey step onto the base of the ramp and walk quickly up the concrete curve before she leans back slightly, arm out as she pulls open the door. There’s no bike in sight and she’s not looking behind her. She has a sense of purpose about her, a determination.
It doesn’t seem as if she is worried about being followed, nor does she appear intoxicated.
Once she’s inside I can only see a reverse view of Abbey. Lane’s face is visible most of the time, though Abbey’s head and hair sporadically block it. He is clearly surprised when she comes in; he reaches for his phone and presses a button, perhaps turning some music off. Then he rises from his seat and holds his hands up in a classic comfort gesture. After a minute or so he begins talking, still gesturing with his hands before he grabs the report paperwork and begins to fill it out. At 11.47 pm he answers the phone and speaks to the caller for just over one minute. He says something to Abbey and then makes a call, which I know is to Tommy, arranging to meet him at the party. While Lane is doing this, Abbey checks her own phone, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
They walk out of the station together, and Lane locks up. They have another conversation at the base of the ramp. Abbey steps off camera while Lane is speaking calmly, his expression reassuring. He points to the car, then his head reels back a little, perhaps in surprise. This must be when Abbey rejects the offer of a lift. When he speaks again there’s a swish of movement in the bottom left of the screen, which I suspect is Abbey’s hair flicking out as she spins around.
Lane calls to her, holding up his hands in a slightly hopeless manner before he makes a frustrated shrugging gesture and disappears from view too.
I succumb to an intense yawn while I scroll the file back about six minutes. I pause it on Abbey’s face, zooming in until the image is on the brink of total pixilation. I’m used to looking at photos of the recently dead, listening to voice messages left by the murdered or watching videos of the missing, but in that moment, from that angle, she looks so young. I wonder again if she had any sense of what was coming, whatever that was.
Ben stirs just as I hear someone slide open the back door. I watch his little face tensing as he processes the grim reality of another day without his dad. I hug him to me until he strains to extract himself.
‘You can go into the kitchen,’ I say. ‘Vanessa is already up. I’m going for a quick run.’
He pads off down the hall, and I push my laptop aside and swing my feet onto the floor. Still yawning, I rustle through my suitcase for my running gear. The calico bag I took from Abbey’s is propped next to the cupboard; I take out one of the two larger notebooks and flick through it. I read a few poems, admire a couple of her sketches, then come across a checklist. There are bullet points about homework assignments and a reminder to buy birthday presents for the twins—paint supplies? Another bullet point simply says, Doctor appointment.
I read through some of the passages of prose. Most are dramatic and dark, and I wonder how much of an insight they might be into Abbey’s inner world.
Alone. Trapped in a square of blackness. My whole body screaming. I turned to ice as his hands burned me, poisoned me. Finger of fear choked me. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t breathe. Eyes that had always been so kind were suddenly tunnels to pure evil.
A small bundle of loose papers is wedged between the back cover and the last page: a few pictures ripped from magazines, some homework sheets, a receipt for shower gel, a birthday party invite and notes from friends. I open each note but they are fairly inane—opinions on TV shows and which bathers to buy. Only one catches my eye:
I just wanted to let you know that I think you are stunning. You have the best smile. Have a great day. R.
The writing is formal, cursive. Rick? Or perhaps, more likely, another unsolicited advance from Robert Weston. Could he be the reason Abbey ended things with Rick?
In the hallway I pause to listen to Ben talking animatedly about his soccer team, blissfully oblivious to the knot of worry that has taken up residence in my core.
‘Morning,’ I announce myself as I step into the kitchen.
‘Good morning. I hope you slept well?’ Vanessa’s grey hair is wild and loose, and she tosses it over her shoulder as she twists half an orange against a juicer.
‘I did, thank you.’
‘OJ?’ she asks.
Ben nods.
‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m going for a quick run before I head into work.’
Vanessa looks slightly alarmed. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ I sit with Ben on the couch for a few minutes, the soundtrack of morning cartoons fading into the background as I plot the day ahead. Vanessa bustles around in the kitchen but there’s no sign of Tommy.
‘I won’t be too long,’ I say, giving Ben a quick hug.
‘Well, there’s a lovely running track along the beach,’ Vanessa offers, serving Ben a glass of pulpy juice. ‘It takes you right into town and then you can run south along Church Street past all the shops until you end up back here. I’ve never done it myself,’ she laughs, ‘I’m not a runner, but it’s about four k’s, give or take.’
Mac sends me a message as I slide the door shut.
Are you up? I can talk now if you can.
I cross the back lawn, padding down the sandy path. Parrot Bay glimmers in the early morning light. It’s still cool but the sun is making a play for centre stage and the salt air reaches deep into my lungs. I drop into walking lunges when I break out onto the beach. As my leg muscles heat up, I let my mind sift through the conversation I had with Tommy last night, anger rising all over again. He’s clearly irritated that I’ve come here. Stretching my arms over my head, I look out at the crashing waves. I think about de Luca’s strange hostility too, and I feel incredibly alone.
I need to call Mac before the day starts to snowball.
After plugging in my earphones, I dial his number. My limbs feel heavy and my stomach is still unsettled. The last thing I need is to get sick.
Mac’s familiar face appears on screen, catapulting me into my life in Sydney. ‘Gemma! I was getting worried. Is everything okay?’
‘Everything is totally fine. I’m actually squeezing in a quick run on the beach before work.’
His brow creases. ‘How did yesterday pan out?’
‘You know how it is. I’m mainly just trying to get my head around everything .’
He looks at me as if expecting me to elaborate. When I don’t, he says, ‘I still don’t know about this, Gemma. A case like this feels like a lot for you to take on right now.’
‘I’m fine, honestly.’
‘And how is Ben? And the hotel?’
I focus on Mac’s mouth rather than his eyes. ‘He seems to like it here and the hotel is great. Mac, really, everything is fine.’
He sighs. ‘I’m going to be sucked into this arson case for a few days but I want you to keep me across what’s going on up there.’ There’s a pause. ‘I really wish you were back in Sydney, Gem. I know it’s complicated with Ben, and I shouldn’t put pressure on you, but it’s hard with everything feeling so up in the air.’
‘I know.’ My pulse races as if I’ve already been running. ‘I gotta go,’ I say, and hang up.
I lift my face to the morning sun, then get back into my warm-up. God, what a mess.
A sharp voice screeches into my ears, aided by the wind. ‘Are you the new detective?’
Mid squat, I stumble slightly and spin around. A shrivelled woman is standing surprisingly close, a few metres from the opening of a sandy path that disappears into a wall of shrubbery. My immediate impression is that she looks like an ageing heroin addict. She’s wrapped in a long black polyester dress that’s pilling all over, her feet bare. Strands of frizzy brown hair hang down past her chest.
‘Are you?’ she says, eyeing me reproachfully.
I shield my gaze with my hand. ‘Yes, I’m Detective Woodstock. Can I help you?’
She ignores my question and looks out at the sea. ‘It’s terrible what happened to that boy.’
‘Did you know Rick Fletcher?’
‘Very sad,’ she says, clicking her tongue. She’s painfully thin, and her eyes have sunken in her skull. The insides of her elbows are riddled with track marks and bruises.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask.
‘She’s dead, you know.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Dead and buried.’ She closes her eyes and kneads at her skull with bony nicotine-stained fingers. ‘At night-time I see her,’ she mutters. ‘What they did to her.’
‘Are you talking about Abbey Clark?’ I step toward the woman, and she reels backwards, her deep-set eyes bulging open.
‘No one believes me,’ she says quietly, scratching her forearms. ‘No one listens.’
‘I’m listening,’ I say. ‘We can talk right now for as long as you like. Please, tell me your name?’
The wind ricochets off the water and buffets both of us, picking up pieces of her long hair. She fixes her milky stare somewhere just above my head. I consider whether she’s intoxicated, though the sharpness of her movements suggests it’s more likely she’s high or experiencing a manic episode.
‘I’ve lived here all my life,’ she announces. ‘Born on the kitchen table. They made me leave my house, you know. Said I wasn’t safe on my own, but I know the real reason—they’re worried what I’ll say.’ She starts back up the path. Her Nike backpack looks like a deflated balloon. ‘Be careful, Detective,’ she calls out without turning around. ‘No one wants her found.’
‘Hey! Please talk to me. Do you mean Abbey Clark? If you have any information about her disappearance, I need to talk to you.’
She starts to run, hunched over and frantic. Her husky high-pitched voice curls out from beyond the gnarled trees. ‘Leave me alone!’