The Swan Island Connection Read online

  Tom said, coming up behind him, ‘Never a peep out of them.’

  Chris pulled on a pair of latex gloves and busied himself lifting the blanket. The ground was hard. Only in one place did it look recently disturbed. He scrabbled with his hands and found a bone. A wooden box, which might once have held money, was empty.

  It was obvious that Tom had searched the place himself.

  ‘Is this all there was?’ Chris asked, holding up the box after he’d scrambled out.

  Tom nodded. Chris brushed down his uniform, staring at his wet and grubby knees.

  ‘Did you show Sergeant Shaw Bobby’s hiding place?’

  ‘Not bloody likely.’

  ‘Tom, now. That won’t do.’

  ‘It was private. Now some nutter’s killed him. What right does that prick have to —’

  Tom’s voice broke and he began to cry. When he’d recovered enough to talk, Chris patiently drew out the rest of the story.

  Under the coastguard office had been Bobby’s and Max’s place before the gang had made their threats. Max had sometimes spent the night there, tied up so he wouldn’t follow Bobby home. Tom had kept an eye on the dog, who’d been ‘as good as gold’. After ‘that business with the petrol’, Bobby had considered it unsafe.

  Tom said, ‘Nights when Bobby’s Dad was drunker than usual, Bobby and Max dossed down here. Not often, mind. Mostly Bobby went home to his brothers. He had to keep an eye on them.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who killed him, Tom?’

  ‘It wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re asking. That sergeant was ready to accuse me. I’d never have touched a hair on Bobby’s head.’

  Chris nodded. He wasn’t about to argue with anything Tom said. Let him speak his mind, this man of few words and country manners; a passionate man, possessive of what was his and what he claimed for his. A man inclined to jealousy? Chris hadn’t allowed his thoughts to take him in that direction until now. But yes, he could imagine Tom in a jealous rage, even more so in that he had little to be possessive about, with his lack of adult friends, his marginal independence.

  The small wooden office had nothing personal about it, unless you looked underneath and found the hiding-place. What might such a man have done when his offer of shelter and friendship had been accepted, with every appearance of valuing them for the gift they were, then passed over in favour of a better offer?

  But had Tom known where to find the lead?

  Tom was furious with Shaw for ‘going on about it’; he insisted that he’d never been inside Olly Parkinson’s cottage and knew him as no more than a distant figure kayaking on the bay.

  Chris was inclined to believe the coastguard officer, just as he knew that Shaw would be inclined the other way.

  ‘Did you go outside that night, Tom?’

  ‘No.’ Tom practically spat the word out. He told Chris he’d answered enough questions and that he was busy. He lit a cigarette, exhaling directly up at the No Smoking sign.

  Chris bumped into Sharon McGilvrey as he turned away from the shoreline and began walking up the hill.

  Sharon looked as though she’d spent the night crying, and it had brought her no relief.

  Chris wondered if she was hanging on to the idea that a promise should outlast the grave. He wanted to tell her that her only way of helping Bobby now was to tell the truth, and that until she did she might be in danger too. But he had to be careful, to approach Sharon as he would a terrified young animal.

  He did not ask where Sharon was going, but fell into step beside her. In response to his gently worded question, Sharon said, ‘Bobby never told me nothing.’

  Chris held out his hand. When Sharon looked at it, then away, he asked about her friends.

  ‘The girls at the bakery are nice.’

  ‘Do you go to the pub with them sometimes?’

  Sharon coloured. ‘Heaps of people go there. I never get in trouble. And the manager, he doesn’t care.’

  ‘Doesn’t care about children in his hotel?’

  ‘I’m not a child!’

  ‘You saw your brother running errands for the soldiers.’

  ‘So what if I did? Where’s the harm in that?’

  Chris thought there might have been a lot of harm in it, but he didn’t say so.

  A loud whistle made them both look up. A German Shepherd was running with a man along the strip of beach that led to the bridge and checkpoint. The man ran like an athlete, but with a noticeable limp. The dog leapt into the water, then swam strongly to where a fishing boat was anchored. In response to another whistle from the man, he turned and swam back to shore.

  ‘Have you seen that man or dog before?’

  ‘No,’ Sharon said too quickly.

  It was Tony Griffin, the Esplanade’s manager. Chris wanted to ask why the girl was lying to him. She turned and walked quickly away.

  Chris was kept busy checking alibis, working from a list of townspeople who admitted knowing, or were assumed to be familiar with, Bobby McGilvrey’s habits.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, knocking and finding Inspector Ferguson alone in the front office.

  ‘I warned you about the girl,’ Ferguson said without looking up from his computer screen.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘She was in it with him.’

  ‘Can I see Oliver Parkinson’s statement, Sir?’

  ‘So you can help her work out what to say?’

  ‘No,’ Chris said. ‘So I can be usefully informed.’

  ‘You’re as informed as you need to be, constable. Leave the list here. I assume you found nothing?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Didn’t think you would. Parkinson’s our man.’

  Chris sat at his desk making a list of potential hiding places. He longed to search through the papers on the DI’s desk and find Olly’s statement for himself.

  Since there was no one to dictate a method, he decided on a simple grid. He would make no assumptions, but simply move from area to area and conduct a search.

  The square that contained the black lighthouse and water tower covered many niches and small caves in the crumbling cliff. It was an area popular with tourists in the summer and with locals all year round. The bench next to the water tower was Anthea’s favourite spot for eating lunch. It wasn’t one he favoured. Staring out across the shipping channel — the idea made his skin crawl.

  Working with his back resolutely to the ocean, Chris found that after a while the proximity of the heaving water ceased to bother him. His torch had new batteries and he welcomed nightfall. His hands and feet, but most of all his fingers, recalled holes and crevices he’d discovered as a boy, years before his father drowned. A glance over his shoulder took in the lights of two fishing boats returning to the harbour.

  Was it possible that Bobby’s hiding place hadn’t been on land? Surely, if he’d used a boat, it would have meant confiding in the owner, something Bobby wouldn’t do. A derelict boat then, abandoned and falling apart. But to choose such a craft would increase the problem of keeping the money dry.

  Chris stood up to stretch his back, reflecting on the promise owed to all children, simply by virtue — or not by virtue, that was the point — of their being young. When Bobby had first got into trouble and he’d talked to Avis, he’d asked, deliberately provocative, about the games her eldest son liked to play. Avis had looked puzzled, as though she’d been asked what foreign languages he spoke.

  ‘Well, there’s Max,’ she’d said, and repeated, ‘You know Max, his dog.’

  ‘And before Max?’ Chris had asked.

  Avis had shaken her head, not sadly, but as though to shoo away a buzzing fly.

  This promise, which was every child’s right, meant nothing to Bobby’s mother. She could have killed him, Chris thought, and felt no remorse. But why? As for Phil, did he, or did he not, lack the imagination to plan and carry out an evil act? It would not have been hard for either of them to discover where the lead was kept. What of their other children? Were th
ey safe, or was each one in danger? Should he be taking steps to secure their safety?

  Chris pondered what had seemed Bobby’s ability to look after himself, and how wrong this assumption had been.

  The sandstone under his fingers threatened to break up and create more holes. Most of them could be discounted as too small or too exposed. Chris let his fingers feel their way, while his eyes cast further on, weighing up, noting and dismissing. He kept his thoughts on practical matters, problems which Bobby must have overcome. A waterproof covering would be essential. Plastic bags could be made to do the job, but Bobby would have sought the best materials available.

  He looked up at the sound of a dog barking — not Max — he knew Max’s bark. It was late for walking dogs along the beach. Chris shone his torch outwards. Almost at the headland was a large German Shepherd on a lead; Chris could just make out its shape. The big dog loped, the man beside it keeping pace even with his limp.

  They were well matched and understood each other. Why were they on the beach at night? Did Griffin own the dog, or was he exercising it for someone else?

  Chris finished his first section. He could go home, cross it off and make himself something to eat.

  He stood at the bottom of the water tower and came to a different decision. A smaller section of his grid ran westward to the pier. He could begin that one this evening. Working by torchlight made him conspicuous, but he’d take the risk.

  Chris began again his process of searching and sifting, feeling his way, by instinct now, towards the opening and depth of hole required. He had the size in his head; one flash of his torch told him whether a niche or hollow was too small.

  Sergeant Shaw seemed to slide around a corner, his smile magnified by Chris’s torch.

  ‘Enjoy a bit of spot-lighting, Blackie?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Can’t be too many rabbits left up here.’

  ‘No, Sir. The Calisi virus got them all.’

  Shaw laughed. Chris wanted to ask how the sergeant had known where to find him, but he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of refusing to reply.

  Chris went home with sore fingers, orange grit right down under the nails, an image of the German Shepherd, elegant and strong, running through his mind. He felt stupid and slow, competing with men whose moves were planned and executed with military precision.

  He recalled a time when he’d seen Olly and Bobby together; not on the water, but occupied in the most ordinary of activities, leaving the small supermarket in Hesse street, Olly carrying a cloth shopping bag that looked comfortably full. Olly had been looking down at Bobby and Bobby had been grinning up at him. It had been a couple of weeks after Max’s rescue. Chris had been on the opposite side of the street and they hadn’t noticed him.

  FOURTEEN

  There was a surprise waiting for Anthea when she arrived home that evening at her block of flats. Julie Beshervase, whom Anthea had befriended after she’d lost Riza, her young camel, and was in danger of losing her wits as well, stood on tiptoe, waving energetically as Anthea got out of her car.

  Anthea put pasta on to boil, frying onions and garlic while Julie grated cheese. She realised suddenly that she was weak with hunger.

  ‘You look terrible,’ Julie said. ‘It must be — well, I can’t imagine.’

  She could though, Anthea thought. Julie could imagine, and imagination was partly what had brought her here from the other side of the Barwon River, where she rented a dilapidated farmhouse and a paddock for Riza.

  Anthea had visited a few times, Julie apologising — ‘more of a shed than a house really’ — Anthea noticing the trees Julie had planted around it, and in Riza’s paddock, where they would one day provide shade.

  ‘When we’re middle-aged,’ Julie had said, laughing because she knew she would never be able to afford to buy land.

  Julie had known Bobby McGilvrey to say hello to. Anthea had seen them together once, the boy and the young woman who, not so long ago, had been alone and friendless.

  Julie said, ‘He turned up one day on the river.’

  Anthea knew she was in the habit of walking Riza along the banks of the Barwon on a lead rope, and on the beach as well. She took her camel places other people took their dogs, insisting that he was perfectly well-behaved, and that, since he was going to earn his keep by entertaining children, he’d better get to know them and their ways.

  Once he’d spotted Riza, Bobby wouldn’t have hesitated to go up and say hello. Julie shared her memories, while Anthea listened to more than the words.

  After they’d finished eating, Julie stood up, leaving her pasta and salad dishes where they were. Domestic tidiness had never been her strong point.

  Anthea, who by then was almost too tired to speak, reflected that if it had been Olly sharing a dinner she’d cooked, he would have cleared away and done the washing up. She put a hand to her face, wishing that Julie, careless in some things, wasn’t quite so shrewd in others.

  ‘I should be coping better.’

  ‘You are coping,’ Julie said. ‘I can see you are.’

  Anthea did not know how to reply to this. ‘Do you want coffee?’

  ‘In a while. Will we go out on the balcony?’

  ‘I don’t — it isn’t —’

  ‘Ant, this is your flat and your balcony.’

  Anthea smiled in spite of herself.

  ‘My only other friend’s a camel,’ Julie said. ‘You can talk to me.’

  So Anthea talked, surprising herself by finding a hidden reserve of energy. Julie listened with her head on one side, from time to time raking her fingers through her multi-coloured hair.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been horribly mistaken in a man.’

  ‘Stop torturing yourself.’

  Julie was a good friend, Anthea realised with a sudden rush of warmth to her face. She wanted to tell Julie about the photographs Olly had taken of Bobby, but she held her tongue, reminding herself that they were evidence and that she still did not know what to make of them.

  Olly began practising scales again. Notes broke through the soft air, repeated once, twice and yet again, it seemed without fatigue or conscious effort, as though they played themselves. And yet the sounds might have been the moaning of an injured seal, there was such sadness in them.

  ‘Does he always do that?’

  Anthea nodded, then corrected herself. ‘Not always.’ She meant, only when he knows I’m here.

  ‘Do you want to come and stay with me for a while?’

  ‘I couldn’t. Thank you. No.’

  Anthea felt that she’d said too much already. It had been a relief to talk, but now all she wanted was to get into bed and pull the doona over her head.

  She made coffee for her friend, but didn’t drink any herself.

  Julie said, ‘I might pay a visit next door.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.’

  Anthea pictured Julie tucking into a second dinner in Olly’s tiny, immaculate kitchen; it was the sort of thing Julie did. But it would be surely stretching Olly’s hospitality to expect him to feed her friend. On the other hand, Olly might be pleased at the chance to question Julie; he might want to keep her there as long as he could.

  Anthea had noticed Olly’s car in his driveway when she’d pulled up, and had quickly looked away. It was turning into a phobia, her fear of coming face to face with him, the way she froze when she tried to think of what to say.

  After Julie had gone, she cried into the washing-up water.

  She remembered one occasion when she’d pushed Olly backwards on the bed and covered his mouth with her hand, letting him feel the strength in her wrist and forearm. Olly had laughed, laughter bubbling out, Olly with his rower’s muscles. They’d battled briefly, delighting in each other.

  She wondered again what her training was worth, if she could measure its usefulness against clearing her lover from suspicion. And what if Olly were guilty? Alone, her doub
ts and her exhaustion returned.

  Unlike her old boyfriend, Olly had not expected Anthea to share his values, which were libertarian. He’d stated his beliefs simply, leaving Anthea to make of them what she would. He never nagged, or argued. Anthea had been free to agree or disagree, as Olly had been, when it came to her opinions and beliefs.

  Sensing something on the negative side of indifference, she had steered away from the subject of policing, and had never spoken to him about hierarchies within the force. Now she began to perceive, and then suspect, whole areas of Olly’s character that she’d been blind to, or had wilfully ignored.

  ‘Bobby’s different,’ Olly had said once. When she’d asked what he meant exactly — she’d taken it as read that they both knew the boy was ‘different’ — Olly had shrugged and replied, ‘If he doesn’t want to tell you something, there’s no way you can persuade him. That’s unusual in a ten-year-old.’

  Now Anthea wondered what Olly had been trying to get the boy to reveal.

  She should have questioned him then, probed his feelings for Bobby, found out more about the time they spent together. She hadn’t because she knew how Olly hated being what he called interrogated; she’d gone a long way to avoid the expression in his eyes which said, don’t play the cop with me.

  Julie did not come back upstairs. Anthea was both disappointed and relieved. She knew she wouldn’t have been able to help quizzing her about what Olly had said.

  As the sun was setting, she stood on her balcony looking out over the bay. Olly’s front door opened and he appeared with Max walking obediently on the end of a new red lead. The colour and the lift of the dog’s head announced defiance.

  Anthea found her hand lifting in a wave. She was glad, and at the same time sorry that Olly didn’t turn around.

  She wondered at his fortitude, how and under what circumstances it had grown. Had their relationship been some kind of aberration for the man? There’d been nothing forced in Olly’s company, or the pleasure he’d taken in hers. What they’d had together had been real. Anthea told herself she must keep hold of that.