Alicia couldn’t help smiling as she flipped through the Lyle family story. She was worried about Ronnie and needed a distraction, so she had quickly showered, then grabbed the book from Perry’s bag and was now curled up on a library lounge, Claire on one side, Missy on the other. The old pictures were almost dreamy and told a very different story of a very different lodge in a very different era.
“It was lovely in its heyday, wasn’t it?” said Claire. “I do hope Simon retains a lot of this.”
“He’ll have to expunge the ghosts of Vale and Mrs Flannery first,” said Missy, sounding a lot like Flo. “Where’s the pic of Snowy? I want to see him as a young bloke. Can’t picture it myself.”
Alicia kept sweeping through the pages until she found one. It was captioned “Jack, Lydia and the children” and showed the couple standing by an old car, new then no doubt, the lodge out of focus behind them. There was a curly-haired girl at Lydia’s knees and a smaller boy just inside the open vehicle, and standing stiffly beside him was a tall, skinny man with a mop of white hair.
Snowy.
He had a knitted vest on and a matching knitted flat cap, similar to the one Blake was wearing before he vanished. As his family beamed towards the camera, Lydia calling out something that could no longer be heard, Snowy was staring towards her, a bemused expression on his face.
“Lydia looks a lot younger than Snowy,” said Claire.
“And a lot like Lynette,” added Alicia. “No wonder he charmed her socks off.”
“Whatever happened to Lydia and the kids?” asked Missy. “Do we know?”
“Hang on a minute,” said Alicia, skimming through the text. “Says here that the Lyle children were all shipped off to Sydney soon after the fire. Something about boarding school…” She kept skimming. “Says nothing about the couple exactly, but check out this picture.” She tapped a small photo of a woman waving a hand, the Sydney Opera House behind her. “That’s Lydia.” She turned the page and continued reading, then said, “Okay, so Lydia moved to Sydney’s north shore… Oh no. Oh, that’s interesting.”
“What?” said Claire.
“Says nothing about Snowy, but it does say Lydia remarried in 1975 and had two more children.” She stared at the others. “Maybe the stress of the fire killed the marriage?”
“Maybe that’s when Snowy moved out and into the cabin,” said Claire, tapping on a fresh image of Snowy, this time with a receding hairline and, beside him, a younger man who looked almost identical. “That’s his brother Harry. Maybe Harry took over the lodge and Snowy tucked himself away, licking his wounds, after the fire and the loss of life and then the loss of his family.”
“Pity he didn’t stay tucked away,” said Missy, glaring at the photo. “How did we even end up here, in a remote location with a crazy lunatic?”
They both turned their eyes to Claire.
“Hey, don’t blame me! Alicia’s the one who wanted to go somewhere isolated so we can all get to know each other better.”
“Okay, I feel bad about that,” said Alicia. “With our track record, I should have known better. Still, I wasn’t the one who brought us to Snowy’s doorstep. I’m sorry, Claire, but that one’s on you. You were the one who chose Lyle’s Lodge, and you picked a doozy this time.”
Claire was shaking her head. “Actually I didn’t pick this place.” She gasped and sat forward and repeated the phrase. “I didn’t pick this place!”
“Who did?” asked Missy.
Claire paled and said, “Ronnie. The Lodge was all Ronnie’s idea!”
~
“He’s finally passed,” said Ronnie, leaning back in the rocking chair, which creaked again beneath her like an ominous soundtrack. “It took a while, but we got there in the end.”
Perry and Simon glanced at each other warily and then down to the body of old Snowy, coiled in the foetal position on the top of his covers, a plastic bucket beside him. Ronnie stood and made her way to a lamp and switched it on, the room now cast in a soft orange glow.
“He asked me not to touch anything,” she said. “He’s gone now, so I guess we can use the lights.”
Simon shared another startled look with Perry. They could now clearly see a syringe on the bedside cabinet and a small glass vial that looked empty. And, behind all that, a silver-framed photo of a very pretty blonde whose giddy smile was still evident despite the smashed glass.
“What happened here, Ronnie?” Simon demanded.
“I found him like this,” she replied.
“Dead on the bed?”
“No, but in the final throes.” Her tone was so matter-of-fact, so casual, but she must have finally registered their shock because she tsked and said, more forcibly, “He was dying when I got here, of course.” Again they shared a look, and now she was scowling. “For heaven’s sake! I didn’t do this if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“What exactly happened?” Simon asked again, trying to keep his tone level and nonaccusatory. If Ronnie was responsible for Snowy’s death—and it certainly looked like it from his angle—he didn’t want to set her off.
“The man injected himself with snake venom,” she said, waving a hand towards the table.
“Snake venom?” said Perry, staggered.
“Yes, snake venom. Or at least that’s what he said.” She sighed heavily. Looked every one of her seventy-two years. “It’s been a very long evening, and I am beat. Please, can we go back and I’ll explain everything properly then?”
The two men shared yet another look as they followed her out of the cabin, careful to keep their distance and their torches ready as they trudged towards the lodge, their hearts heavy, their minds buzzing with questions.
~
“That doesn’t make any sense, Claire,” said Missy breezily, back in the library. “How could Ronnie have suggested Lyle’s Lodge? She didn’t even recognise the place until she was standing in the lobby.”
“No, I’m being serious!” Claire was now on her feet and pacing. “It was an attachment on Ronnie’s email. I’m sure of it. Oh my God!” She stopped and looked around. “This place was all her idea! I just clicked on the link, and that’s the first I knew of it.”
Alicia frowned and sat forward. “Start from the beginning, Claire. Tell us exactly what happened.”
And so she did. Claire told of how she had written to Flo and Ronnie, courtesy of the Ladies Auxiliary in Balmain, on behalf of the book club. How she had asked the two ladies if they would like to sign up, and then attached her contact details at the bottom.
“I never mentioned Lyle’s Lodge. I hadn’t even heard of it at that point,” she told them now. “All I said was that we were hoping to hold the first meeting somewhere cosy. Somewhere remote.”
She stopped pacing and threw a hand to her lips. Her look of guilt mirrored Alicia’s from earlier that day. “I didn’t hear from them for a week and assumed they weren’t interested, then I got an email from Ronnie accepting on both her and Flo’s account.”
“And you’re sure it was Ronnie?”
“Yes, one hundred percent! She said Flo wasn’t online and didn’t do all that ‘newfangled nonsense.’ Anyway, attached to the email was the link to Lyle’s Lodge, so I’d assumed she was recommending it; that’s how I heard about it and looked it up. That’s when I suggested it to you, Alicia, and you then booked us in.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Missy said, repeating her earlier sentiment. “Ronnie definitely acted like she didn’t remember the place before we arrived. Why would she recommend a place and then act like it’s a lovely accident that she was here at all?”
Alicia was madly chewing her lower lip.
Why indeed?
Was Ronnie also hiding something? Had the book club been looking in the wrong place all along? Did all of this have less to do with luxury renovations and more to do with a love affair between young Ronnie and a married man? A man with twinkling blue eyes and snowy-white hair?
~
“Snowy is dead,” Ronnie said, loudly and slowly, as though giving them all a chance to digest the gruesome news.
They were all in the library now, all nursing a cup of creamy hot chocolate whipped up by Flo, with a dash of her “secret ingredient to settle your nerves”—nobody had the energy to ask—and it was delicious. But it wasn’t settling anything.
They stared at Ronnie with a mixture of sadness, concern and utter disbelief. There was also a lot of shock and distress in the mix.
“Poor Snowy,” Lynette said at last. “The poor, poor man!”
Somebody tsked at that, but Alicia wanted to know what had happened. “How on earth did he end up dead, Ronnie? How did you find him?”
Ronnie held a finger up and took a fortifying sip of her hot chocolate. She had already refused the stew, telling Lynette she did not have the stomach for it, but Lynette didn’t take that personally. The woman looked ready to drop.
After another sip, Ronnie placed her cup down shakily and then cleared her throat. “I just went for a walk,” she told them. “I just wanted to phone my nephews. My housekeeper’s away and they’re minding my cats. I… I just wanted to check in on them…” She shook her head, lost in her own thoughts suddenly.
“So you weren’t visiting Snowy originally?” said Perry, moving her along.
“Of course not. I told you that. I barely knew the man. I met him for five minutes at a dance nearly fifty years ago. Which is why there’s no way I killed him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Because I know what you’re all thinking, and you can jolly well think again!”
“Oh no, Ronnie, no we don’t,” said Flo, who was sitting beside her old friend, but Ronnie shook her off.
“Of course you don’t think it, Florence. But the rest of them do!”
“I’m sorry,” said Alicia, feeling guilty as charged. “It’s been a stressful weekend, and we’re all strung out. Please, tell us what happened next.”
Ronnie nodded. “Fine.” Nodded again. “I didn’t even know Snowy was still around until Perry mentioned it, but even then I had no intention of looking in on him. I noticed his little cottage while I was chatting to Sebastian, my nephew, but it was only when Snowy started groaning…” She shuddered at the memory. “Such low, agonising groans. I thought it was a distressed animal at first…”
Ronnie stopped short and grappled for a handkerchief but couldn’t seem to find one, so Missy jumped up to retrieve a box of tissues from a side table. Ronnie took one gladly and swiftly blew her nose, then continued on.
“Anyway, I told Sebastian I’d call him back and went to check it out. That’s when I found the poor man, lying on his bed, thrashing about. Oh he looked quite shocking.” She shifted in her seat. “He was in so much pain, so… much…” She sniffed again. “He begged me to stay with him. Begged me to hold his hand.”
Missy helped herself to a tissue while Alicia asked, “Did he recognise you?”
“Why would he? Like I keep saying, we barely knew each other. No… he… he simply wanted someone to stay with him until the end, that’s all. And so I did.”
Ronnie shifted uncomfortably in her seat again, looking less like a competent nurse now and more like a battle-weary soldier. She had dark, heavy bags underneath her eyes, and her worry lines were like tram tracks across her face. Flo patted her hand gently, but she yanked it away and folded her arms, suddenly very defensive. She was clearly upset and not just from the experience. She was offended by their judgemental questions and horrified expressions, and Alicia didn’t blame her, but what else could they think?
“And he’d injected himself with snake venom you say?” said Perry, also struggling to swallow it. “You’re sure it was snake venom?”
“I told you, Perry, that’s what he said!” Ronnie took a few deep breaths. “He was in a lot of pain and wasn’t making a lot of sense, but it was pretty obvious what had gone down. I saw the needle by his bed. The vial that must have contained the poison. It’s all still there if you want to check for yourself. But I have no reason to disbelieve him. The way he died, the nausea, the pain…”
“How long would it have taken?” asked Simon more gently.
She shrugged. “Depends what kind of venom it was, I suppose. Some work faster than others. And if he’d been bitten before, which is highly possible living out there for so long, well he might have built up some immunity. But he had the exact same swelling on his arm as Vale.”
She stopped and gave them a pointed look, and Lynette’s eye widened.
“You think Snowy injected Vale with snake venom, don’t you, Ronnie?”
She shrugged, her eyes sliding sideways.
“Did he say that?” Lynette persisted. “Did he say anything about hurting Vale and Mrs Flannery?”
Ronnie went to say something, then stopped, her eyelashes flickering furiously as though trying to decide how much to reveal. Then she folded her hands into her lap and took a deep breath and said, “Yes, actually. He did.”
She swallowed hard as the others continued staring at her, lips wide. “Snowy confessed to everything. The murders, the fire. The whole kit and caboodle. He’s the culprit.”
“Really?” said Alicia, a little too loudly.
The others sat watching her, speechless.
“What exactly did he say, Ronnie?”
She shrugged like it didn’t matter. “It was very difficult for him to talk, Alicia. He… he was in extreme pain. He just said something like, ‘I killed the others and I started the fire, and now I want to die.’”
“Wow,” said Missy, exhaling loudly. “I knew he was dodgy… but, well, wow. That means this thing is solved! We’ve done it!” She offered a jubilant smile, but no one was returning the smile.
Lynette, for one, could not get her head around it. “But… but did he say why? Did he give any reason for killing his two old friends?”
Ronnie shrugged. “Like I said, he was in so much pain. I didn’t press him on it. I let him go. I really didn’t want to know, and I’m not sure you do either.”
Lynette frowned. Actually, she did want to know, and so did Simon, his mind obviously galloping to his company and its culpability.
He sat forward, hands prayerlike in front of his lips, and said, “Was there any mention of the renovations at all? Of LLE? Of the plans for the escarpment?”
Ronnie looked at him blankly. “What? No… he never… No, nothing like that.”
Simon exhaled and sat back, colour returning to his cheeks. He had clearly been worried his company’s DA had pushed the old man over the edge.
“What about the 1970 fire or the guy who died in it?” Lynette persisted, still staring hard at Ronnie. “I thought it might have had something to do with Donal—”
“No!” Ronnie’s cheeks flared with colour. “Nothing to do with that either.” She sighed wearily. “Look, there was obviously something else going on here that we know nothing about. It’s over, folks. Can we let it go?”
“It’s just—” began Lynette, but Ronnie had two palms out now, her eyes fiery.
“Stop!” she burst out, making several of them jump. She took a few steadying breaths. “Sorry. I’m sorry, but I’m exhausted and I can only tell you what the man said. He’s gone now. It’s done. It’s over. We have our answers. Please, can we just have one peaceful night?”
“Of course, Ronnie,” said Simon, giving Lynette a firm look as the older woman struggled to her feet.
“Are you okay, Ron?” asked Flo, a wrinkled hand reaching out, but Ronnie simply slapped it away and hobbled out of the room, leaving them now with a mixture of sadness, weariness and regret.
But this time there was also considerable doubt swirling in the mix.
A very soft pitter-patter caught the group by surprise, and several of them jumped up and ran to the windows to find it was gently raining.
“At last!” said Missy.
“Such a relief,” said Claire.
“We’re going to need more than drizzle if we want to douse that fire,” was Perry’s offering.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, young man,” snapped Flo, struggling to her feet. “I’m off to bed too. I’m sorry it’s been such a dreadful weekend. Good night, folks.”
Lynette jumped up and helped her out while the others remained in the library, some heading for the sink to get the kettle boiling, some foraging through the fridge.
And Alicia remained on the couch, as confused as she’d ever been. Like Lynette, she was trying hard to digest what Ronnie had said. She knew she should be relieved. It had all been tied up very nicely. Well, not nicely exactly, but they had their confession.
So why wasn’t she feeling any comfort? Any closure?
The fact remained, despite what Ronnie had said and what she, herself, had accused Snowy of just hours earlier, Alicia was still struggling to think of him as a killer. And she certainly hadn’t picked him as suicidal.
The few times she had spoken to Snowy, he seemed resigned to his fate—like he was sitting on his perch, waiting for Mother Nature to give him her best shot. But he didn’t sound like he was going to help her along. And not in such a brutal, drawn-out way. Snake venom seemed a bizarre choice too, considering his beloved escarpment was just metres from his door. Why not simply step off the cliff and be done with it?
And why do it now? With all of them so close and constantly loitering on the escarpment, checking their phones?
“Aren’t you relieved?” said Claire, catching Alicia’s burgeoning frown as she handed her a fresh cup of peppermint. “The killer is gone and the rain is coming. All our prayers have been answered.”
Alicia took the tea and smudged her lips into a smile. Yet she didn’t feel relieved. She felt like they had been lured into somebody else’s nightmare and been spat out the other side. It made absolutely no sense to her. She couldn’t help wondering why it happened now, this weekend. It all felt so random. Whatever Snowy’s issues with Vale and Mr Flannery, why sneak in and do it with guests at the lodge? Was he using them as a diversion, trying to pin it on a group of strangers? If so, why would he then confess to everything on his deathbed?
Alicia sat forward. Hang on a minute. They weren’t strangers, at least not all of them were. And the choice of the weekend wasn’t random either.
She dropped her cup to the table and got to her feet. “Our prayers might be answered,” she told Claire, “but not all the questions have been. Not yet.”
Then she turned and dashed out of the library.
~
Ronnie was swinging her door shut when Alicia caught up to her, and she shook her head and said, “Please, Alicia, I’m dead on my feet.”
“I know, Ronnie, I’m sorry. I just have one question that needs answering.”
The older woman groaned dramatically but waved her in, then closed the door behind them, and for a moment Alicia wondered if she had just locked herself in with a killer. But she couldn’t think about that now. She needed the truth, and the only truth she knew was that Ronnie was lying and had been lying long before they got on the train to Lyleton.
As the older woman dropped onto her bed and began pulling off her shoes, Alicia took the chair by the desk and gave her a moment to catch her breath.
Then she echoed Missy’s earlier question. “How did we end up here, Ronnie? How did we end up coming to this particular lodge at this particular time?”
Ronnie misunderstood and said, “Yes, it was bad luck wasn’t it.”
“Or was it?” said Alicia, causing the older woman to look up. “Claire said you were the one who suggested Lyle’s. It was all your idea.”
Ronnie looked suddenly flummoxed. “Oh, I don’t think so, dear. I hadn’t even heard of the place until I got the official invitation, and even then I didn’t recognise the name. Like I said, I knew it as the Hunting Lodge. I only recognised the place when we got here.”
Or so you say, Alicia thought. “Claire got an email from you, Ronnie. You included an online link to Lyle’s Rainforest Lodge.”
“Did I?” She bat her eyelids, looking for the first time since they’d met, like a dotty old lady, and Alicia wasn’t buying it.
“What’s going on, Ronnie? Anything you want to tell me? Does this have something to do with you and Snowy? Was he the one you had an affair with? Is that why it’s all come to a head now?”
Ronnie stared at her then with genuine surprise. Then she shook her head and started peeling off her socks. Alicia wondered if she was taking a moment to concoct a fresh lie.
Eventually Ronnie said, “I honestly don’t recall adding any link to my email, but if you say I did, then I must have. I forgot about it, that’s all. I told you my memory was shot.”
She rolled the socks up while Alicia tried hard not to roll her eyes. It was so clearly another lie.
“I know there’s something you’re not telling us,” Alicia persisted. “I don’t believe Snowy just randomly killed his two devoted employees, then shot himself up with poison.”
Ronnie had reached for a large tub of moisturiser and was now lathering it up and down her arms, so Alicia forged on.
“Did you bring us here so you could reunite with old Snowy? And did it all go terribly wrong?”
Ronnie stopped lathering and almost smiled. “How many times do I have to tell you all? I met the man briefly, a long time ago.”
“You told Perry you had an affair with an unavailable man—”
“Yes! A tryst with a married man called Dieter something-or-other. A dashing Dutch man if you must know. I was newly engaged to Bert then, and I really should not have done it. Wasn’t my finest hour. But it meant so little I can barely remember his name! Really Alicia, you’re holding on to that connection far too tightly. I was here for one weekend! What possible reason would I have to drag us all up here and start killing people?”
“I’m not saying—”
“Of course you are!” Ronnie’s voice was now full of thunder. “I can see you don’t believe me, and quite frankly, I’m just too tired to care. Believe what you want. I had nothing to do with Snowy’s death, other than holding his hand and helping him through it. I would not wish that on any living creature, and I’m frankly offended that you’d suggest it.”
“Ronnie—”
She smacked the tub back on the bedside table, stopping Alicia in her tracks. “Everything I have done here, all weekend, has been about protecting the book club. I’m desperately sorry that Snowy felt he had no choice, and I’m furious that it even came to that. But there’s nothing any of us can do about it now. Nothing! Do you hear me? We have to try to put it behind us and move on.”
It felt like a warning to Alicia, some kind of veiled threat, but Ronnie wasn’t finished. “Please Alicia,” she said more gently now. “Just focus on the fact that it’s over. The RFS will break through tomorrow, and we will all get out alive. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She exhaled loudly. “It’s been an extremely distressing evening, and I would like to be left alone. I am completely and utterly drained.”
Alicia nodded, feeling chastened, and stood up.
She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to tell Ronnie she was sorry, wanted to assure her that she didn’t suspect her, but all the signs pointed her way. Ronnie had a nursing background, was the only one who would know how to administer poison or even how to find some. She was also the only one with a connection to this place, the very person who had lured them here, the one who was still clearly lying about that.
Alicia opened the door and stepped out, was about to close it when Ronnie said something so softly she barely heard it: “One day you’ll forgive me…”
When Alicia turned back, the woman was snoring.
~
Simon found Claire standing on the edge of the driveway, arms wrapped tightly around herself, looking out at the smoky view. Or what you could see of it because it was such a dark night.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and she nodded, looking upwards now.
“The rain has stopped.”
“Don’t worry. It will start up again. More is expected very early in the morning.” He stepped closer. “I’m so sorry I lied to you.”
Claire shook her head. “I’m not exactly an innocent in all this.”
“About that… When are you going to tell the others?”
She stiffened. “I don’t know.”
“They’ll forgive you. They forgave me and I’m practically a stranger.”
“It’s precisely because you’re a stranger that they forgave you, Simon. I’m not sure how they’ll feel when I tell them I’ve been lying to them all and doing it from the start. That I manipulated everything.”
“It wasn’t manipulation, Claire—”
“It was selfish and it was greedy.” She sighed and stared at the view again.
“Do you hate this place now?” he said, not wanting to hear the answer.
“Oh no,” she replied, reaching out to him. “I love it now more than ever.”
~
Alicia was walking past Blake’s room, deep in thought, when she heard a very soft, scuttling sound coming from inside. Her heart lurched as her stomach dropped to the ground.
Was the tabloid journalist still alive? Had he been hiding out in his room all this time?
Realising the door was slightly ajar, she gently pushed it forward, reluctantly peeking in. The first thing she noticed was how tidy it was. No more dirty clothes strewn about the place. Then she glanced across to the desk and saw someone sitting there, shuffling through some papers.
“Jesus, Lynny!” Alicia said, stepping inside and pulling the door closed behind them. “You gave me a heart attack! I thought the prodigal journalist had returned.”
Lynette looked up. “Sorry. No, it’s just li’l ole me. I wanted to get a head start on the packing tomorrow. I’m going with the positive angle that we’re all about to be rescued. Thought I’d put Blake’s stuff into his bag for him. I don’t know if he’s alive or…” She let that dangle. “Somebody’s got to clean up this mess.”
Alicia nodded and sat on the edge of his bed. “Are you okay?”
Lynette shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…” She glanced around the room and then back at her sister. “Did Ronnie’s story sound a little odd to you? Snowy’s confession a little too good to be true? I mean, I only met the guy briefly, but he didn’t strike me as suicidal.”
“We can’t always tell…”
“Yeah but here’s the thing—this place was empty last week. I checked the guest book earlier. Not one single booking from what I could see. Why not kill Vale and Flannery then, when you had free run of the place? Why do it with all of us here? And if he was trying to incriminate us, why confess to Ronnie?”
Alicia smiled widely. “That’s exactly what I was thinking, Lynny. Something definitely doesn’t add up.”
This is what Alicia loved most about her sister. They were always on the same page. Or at least they used to be. She noticed the pad in Lynette’s hands and asked, “So what have you got there?”
Lynette looked down and back. “Not sure to be honest. I can’t help wondering if there’s more to it all than Ronnie’s saying.” She frowned. “I’m not saying Ronnie’s lying, exactly, but maybe Snowy was. Maybe…”
She stopped and looked at Alicia again, her eyes impeaching. “I know Blake was a rotten egg. I know he used us, appallingly. I know all of that. But I also know he was onto something here, sis. That night we shared a drink at the bar, he said he was on the cusp of something big. Something that was going to turn his career around. I didn’t know what he meant at the time, but I think it all comes back to Donal Murphy.”
Lynette’s eyes narrowed. “Notice how defensive Ronnie got when I even mentioned the name Donal? She started blushing, I’m sure of it. You can’t fake that.”
Alicia nodded. Yes, she had noticed.
Lynette said, “I think Blake found out something important about Donal, and I think it’s in here amongst his stuff.” She tapped the notepad on the desk. Scowled again. “Problem is his notes are all in some kind of hieroglyphics. I can barely understand a word of it.”
“Show me,” said Alicia, reaching for the pad. She glanced across the page, and then the next. “Oh, it’s shorthand. I studied a bit at journalism school but never needed to use it. I wonder if I can still remember…”
Lynette stood up and stretched her arms high. “While you do that, I’ll finish the packing.” She made her way across to the bathroom and after a few minutes, called out, “He had good taste in aftershave, I’ll give him that.”
But Alicia wasn’t listening. Her head was spinning with what she was translating.
“What is it?” Lynette asked, returning to the main room, a bottle of Hugo Boss Eau de Toilette in one hand.
Alicia looked up. “It’s what you thought; it’s his notes on Donal Murphy.”
“What does it say?”
Alicia glanced down again and tapped a finger on the pad. “According to this, or what I can make of this—my shorthand is very rusty—Donal had an affair with somebody while he was here, and I’m pretty sure the name Blake has written down is Lydia.”
Lynette’s eyes widened, and she sat down beside her sister. “Lydia Lyle? The owner’s wife?”
“Snowy’s wife,” Alicia pointed out. “There’s some other stuff here, says something about hunting trips and there’s a series of dates…” She continued scanning. “Three dates in 1968 and two in 1970, the year of the fire.”
She turned the page and peered at Blake’s handwriting. “He’s written down the name Tom something. O’Brien maybe?” She looked at Lynette, who shrugged, looked back again. “Okay, well, there’s a sentence in quotation marks, so I’m assuming it’s a quote from this Tom guy. It says, ‘Lydia and Donal were at it like… ravetts.”
“Ravetts?”
Alicia peered more closely. “Rabbits!” She smiled. “They were at it like rabbits. Oooh, that’s not good. Then it says…” She stopped and squinted. “It says, ‘Snowy worshipped his wife. The truth… would have… destroyed him. If he found out, he would have been…’ Um, what is that word? Devastated? I think it says devastated.” Alicia looked up. “Blake has underlined the word if.”
“So it doesn’t say if Snowy did find out?”
Alicia shrugged as she turned the pages. “Okay, so Snowy’s wife was unfaithful. That’s not exactly surprising. Judging from the photos, there was a good twenty years between them. I mean, Snowy was a handsome chap, but Lydia was in another league entirely.”
“So was Donal Murphy,” said Lynette, dumping the aftershave and pulling a headshot from the file.
It showed a man with a mop of light curls, his face clearly sunburned, his eyes bright and lively. They could only see the top of his shoulders, but it was clear they were broad and tanned. If he were alive today, he could’ve modelled for Hugo Boss.
“Oh yeah, he’s gorgeous,” said Alicia. “And young. Looks barely out of his teens.”
Lynette nodded. “He was also the hunky hunter, remember? That would have been hard to resist, especially if the boring old hubby was busy running the lodge, and didn’t Perry say something about Snowy also being the town mayor? While the cat’s away…” She raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps those dates Blake noted are when Lydia and Donal hooked up—the hunting weekends, except they did more than hunt.”
Her eyebrows dropped back. “Do you think Snowy knew? Caught them at it or something?”
Alicia shrugged. “Maybe? He certainly didn’t like the fellow, or that’s what it seemed like to me. I think the bigger question is, what would he have done if he did find out? And why has it all come to a head now, after all these years? Did Blake stir things up, asking lots of questions? Maybe he found where Snowy was living, like we did, and interrogated him, bringing up bad memories?”
Lynette considered that. “Still doesn’t explain why he’d kill Vale and Mrs Flannery. And why set the mountain alight?”
“Maybe he was angry at how life had turned out? Looks like Snowy’s marriage fell apart after the fire. Lydia left the mountain, so did the kids, and we can only assume that’s when Snowy dropped out of society, moved into the cabin…”
Alicia’s head began spinning, and it had nothing to do with her tiredness. She felt like the answer was within reach; she just couldn’t quite grasp it.
Donal Murphy was clearly the “arrogant blighter” Snowy took him to be. He came up to run the hunting weekends and helped himself to his boss’s wife while he was at it. Or at least that’s what Blake’s witness claimed. So how did Donal end up fighting the Great Fire? How did he end up dead when everybody else survived? And why was it all coming to a head now?
Snowy’s final words to her suddenly danced before her eyes.
“History is rushing towards me, and it’s time for some atonement.”
Alicia gasped. “What if Snowy killed Donal?”
“What?”
“What if the fire was a ruse to cover up what had really happened. Maybe Snowy caught Donal in bed with Lydia and killed him, then buried him near the escarpment? That’s why it’s come to a head now and why he can’t stick around for the renovation, because they’ll unearth Donal’s corpse!”
Lynette was shaking her head and reaching for one of the files. “I love that theory, sis, really I do. But I’m pretty sure there’s an article in here somewhere about Donal’s body being recovered and returned to his hometown.” She began flicking through it. “There was a funeral, a bit of a ceremony…”
As she continued trawling the file, Alicia wasn’t about to be deterred. “Okay, doesn’t mean Snowy didn’t kill Donal though, then plant his body in the fire. Maybe Blake discovered the truth and was threatening to write an article, bring it all back up, all in time for the fiftieth anniversary. That’s why Snowy killed himself now, with all of us here. He had to do it before the story broke. For all Snowy knew, Blake was back in Sydney, writing the whole thing. Maybe Vale and Flannery knew the truth so he had to kill them too?”
Alicia sat back and groaned. Nah, that didn’t make any sense. That’s the part she kept stumbling over—why Snowy would want to kill two people he had lived with for decades and trusted his secrets to.
“Maybe Blake offered Vale and Flannery a wad of cash for the tell-all?” Alicia continued thinking aloud, then groaned again. “Seems like a lot of killing to keep a fifty-year-old secret, especially one that probably can’t be proven after all this time. Especially if Donal’s body is now a box of bones back at home. Where is his home, does it say?”
Lynette was not listening, she was staring at an article with a small picture attached. “Check this out, Alicia. According to this news report, Donal had a bunch of sisters.” She looked up at Alicia. “Do you think Ronnie might be Donal’s sister? Do you think that’s why she dragged us up here, to wreak revenge on the man who killed her brother?”
Alicia paled. This was starting to make more sense…
As Lynette kept reading the article, Alicia looked around and then back. “Is there an A4 envelope in there? It’s got the words Family History across the front.”
“Um… don’t think so,” Lynette replied vaguely. “I shoved some of it in the side pocket of his bag.” She waved a hand as she continued reading.
Alicia dashed across and began rifling through Blake’s bag until she found the envelope she had been looking at the first time she was in there—the Murphy family tree. She had forgotten all about that. Thrusting her hand inside, she reached for the piece of paper she’d spotted earlier with the names Eamon Joseph Murphy and Mary Louise O’Connor typed at the top. Underneath that was a branch that revealed the names of Eamon and Mary’s six children—five daughters and one son.
One name had been circled in scratchy red ink, and it wasn’t Donal’s.
As Alicia stared at the name, her breath catching, her mind doing somersaults, Lynette was staring at a grainy black-and-white image of a group of black-clad women huddled around an open plot. Lynette counted the women and felt a trickle of ice run through her veins, then gasped as she read the name of Donal’s hometown.
Both sisters turned to each other at the same time, eyes wide, lips speechless.
Then Lynette smacked the article to the table and said, “The dirty rotten liar.”