Bay of Fires (26 page)

“So I’m not hot, is that what you’re saying, Sam? Thanks for letting me know,” Sarah said. “Do you want me to itemize your physical deficiencies?”

He didn’t. At the turnoff to his mother’s place, Sam left Sarah. She said good-bye, but his response was sarcastic, as though she had been the one who had offended him. It bothered Sarah that Simone and Sam had been discussing her. Sarah was not secretive, but the less people knew about you, the better. In some ways her honesty had provided the catalyst for Jake’s final outburst.

That night at the Pineapple Hotel, Jake had accused her of managing her team through sexual favors. Everyone drinking with them heard, even one of the Eumundi Barramundi owners who had popped in to the pub. A couple of people laughed. Sarah never tried to hide that she had slept with several of her staff. But what she did after hours did not affect her work, or her decision-making process as a manager. She had thought he was joking and told him that there were less time-consuming things she could do to keep a staff member happy besides sleeping with him. Jake was drunker than she was. His lips curled into an ugly sneer and he repeated himself, raising his voice to reach her across the pool table.

On the gravel road Sarah stopped, staring out to sea. The horizon was no longer visible; the ocean and sky were the same washed-out color. A prawn trawler had anchored in the bay for the night.

Sarah wished she had walked out when Jake started mouthing off. Instead, she had responded by giving the guy a hefty dressing-down, holding nothing back, just the way he served it. It was one of those volatile pub discussions that could swing to either anger or jokiness. Watching, their work mates laughed and some heckled. That made Jake furious. Sarah remembered thinking that when she did walk away, he would regret calling her those dirty names. He wouldn’t speak to his dog like that. She did not recall crossing the car park or unlocking her car, but she did remember sitting in the driver’s seat fumbling with the key when Jake caught up to her.

In the bay below, the trawler shifted on a current, swinging around. On board the fishermen would be heating up their dinner and getting ready for another uneventful night at sea. What a pleasant place to be.

On Pamela’s kitchen table was her latest project, a pile of posters stating
A Killer Walks Free. Our Kids Can’t.

“Just drawing attention to the situation,” Pamela said. “Darlene’s helping.”

They had already pinned a dozen to signposts and trees along the main road.

“Who’s Darlene?” Erica asked.

“Bunghole’s wife. You know, the fat blond woman with the terrible regrowth? She’s quite nice, actually.”

Flip sipped from her teacup. Her expression was one Sarah recognized from when her mother had fought with Erica about curfews or pocket money.

“This one,” Pamela said as she finished coloring in the wording on a larger poster, “this one goes at the turnoff to the guesthouse. You won’t be able to drive past without seeing it.”

“You need a photo of Gary to put on the poster,” Sarah suggested, “so that everyone knows exactly who to look out for.”

Pamela missed her sarcasm. “We can’t do that, Sarah, because that would be defamatory. That’s against the law. But I think to most people driving past the guesthouse it will be pretty clear who the poster is referring to. Having said that, it could be Roger Coker. I’m keeping an open mind.”

Two days had passed since Pamela telephoned the police and told them Gary Taylor had returned. They still refused to confirm whether he was the suspect reported in the paper.

“We’re taking matters into our own hands,” Pamela said.

“You’re a hypocrite,” Flip said.

Pamela’s mouth dropped as if she had been slapped. Erica started to speak, but Flip held her hand up.

“No, I mean this.” Flip’s voice wavered with emotion. “We don’t know Gary did it. It could have been Don or John for all we know. This poster…Your son is in prison for robbery. You shouldn’t throw stones.”

Flip’s hand stiffened into a clawlike hook where she gripped the teacup handle. Sarah had never seen her mother stand up to Pamela.

Pamela shuffled her posters into a pile. “Maxwell has been charged and sentenced. He is repaying his debt to society. This is different. A killer walks free.”

Pamela pushed her chair back and busied herself in the kitchen. Erica and Sarah swapped looks. In their entire lives, Flip and Pamela had never had a disagreement.

In the shack’s garden John was arranging tea tree mulch around the geraniums and daisies. He stopped what he was doing as Flip and Erica described the conversation at Pamela’s.

“Pamela is ignorant and opinionated, and that is a dangerous combination,” he summarized.

Flip and Erica agreed. Sarah wasn’t convinced that Pamela was any more opinionated than any person standing there, but she remained silent for once. Emotions were high and there was no point in stirring things up.

Her father plucked a caterpillar from the leaf of a pink geranium and squeezed the life out of it with his fingers.

“There will always be people like Pamela,” he said, rubbing his fingers on the fencepost to remove the dead insect. “One has to ignore them.”

“Pamela was out of line,” Erica said.

“No. John’s right.” Flip sat down on the garden seat. “I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly to her.”

“You don’t want to get on Pamela’s bad side,” Sarah said. “There will be posters up about you next. ‘Felicity Avery Walks Free. Our Kids Can’t!’”

“How about ‘Felicity and John Avery: Natural-Born Killers’!” Erica said.

The sisters laughed, but John frowned. He smacked his trowel on the bag of mulch.

“People in glass houses should not throw stones,” he said, his voice stiff. “If Pamela starts jabbering rubbish about this family, she will be playing with fire.” His finger jabbed at the air, emphasizing each word.

“John, settle down,” Flip said.

“You tell her or I will.” He glared at Flip. “People who spread rumors should be lined up and shot!”

“That’s a bit harsh, Dad,” Sarah said.

“Come inside, everyone,” Flip said. “It’s time to start dinner.”

John continued laying mulch as the women went in. Sarah glanced over her shoulder. His head was shaking as he scooped mulch from the bag and flipped it onto the garden bed in his exact, methodical motion. She imagined he was silently rehearsing all the nasty things he wished he could say to his wife’s best friend.

In the days that followed, Sarah caught more fish than she had in the past year. The ocean swelled and fell against the rocks with slow, satisfied sighs, simmering hungrily. Warm currents brought schools of silver trevally, full grown and hungry. She fished with shellfish, mussels and oysters, joking to Hall that the fish here were better fed than diners in any fancy restaurant. Hungry fish churned around the mince scraps she tossed as burley, reminding her of feeding times on the farm, when frenzied fish made the water appear to boil. She caught trevally with pilchards, flathead with squid tentacles, and a beautiful ten-kilogram yellowtail kingfish with leftover squid head. She threw back almost everything except the yellowtail kingfish. That was a rare catch. Down at the boat ramp Don and Bunghole were getting their backs slapped as their nets collected schools of parrot fish and mullet.

Roger had not made an appearance on the rocks or the beach for several days. There was a chance he had seen Hall on the rock next to her, sitting there while they waited for the bites, passing her the knife when it was time to clean the fish. If so, Roger would have shuffled away. This was a man who detoured into the sand dunes to avoid her when she was walking with someone else on the beach.

It occurred to Sarah that if he hadn’t been fishing, he wouldn’t have anything to feed his cats. Pamela had removed the cat food from her store shelves.

No smoke wound up into the wet sky from the chimney; no light was visible from any of the windows. Over the cottage’s rusting shoulder, a cold vapor breathed across foam scum swirling on the ocean.

Sarah waded through knee-deep grass, thick enough to be infested with snakes. The Coker house always looked abandoned, with the broken-down, tire-less car in the backyard, windows covered with newspapers, and rubbish piled around the incinerator that was never used. The cats who usually dozed on the veranda sofa were absent.

Sarah rapped on the back door. No answer.

She strained to hear some kind of noise inside, but all she heard were the bees dipping into yellow spiky flowers and a skink lizard scurrying across the floorboards.

When there was no answer to her second knock, Sarah turned to leave, the fish wrapped in newspaper under her arm. She was certain she had left the garden gate as she had found it, swinging slightly ajar. Now the gate was shut. Sarah flicked the latch but it was rusty and would not slide up. It didn’t move at all. As she looked around the empty garden, her skin chilled. Whereas before the Coker property had seemed charmingly and curiously derelict, now it suggested utter neglect, an abandonment of humanity that had occurred long before the grass needed mowing or the walls needed painting. She tried the latch again but it did not move. The gate and fences were covered with thin mesh which kept the devils out and they were impossible to climb. Even if you could hoist yourself up a fence, wiry scrub and bushels of razor grass grew to all boundaries. Vegetation like that was tough to wade through. She laughed a nervous, humorless laugh. It was crazy, but she was locked in.

At the bottom of the garden was another gate which led to the beach. As she walked toward it, she scanned the yard for any suspicious movement, checking and rechecking the tank stand, the old car, the bloated sofa, and the house itself. Be smart, Avery, she repeated.

She sensed, rather than heard, the person. Under the tank stand, a shape shifted. Sarah paused. It was Roger, holding a black and white cat with unblinking green eyes. He was hiding.

“Leftover trevally. For the cats.” Sarah held up the parcel, deliberately not remarking on Roger’s strange position.

Apart from one finger stroking the underside of the cat’s chin, Roger didn’t move. Another cat, a beautiful gray creature with white boots, pushed against his leg.

“I thought there was no one home.”

“I’m sick of people coming here.” His voice was rough with anger.

“Who has been around?” She followed his gaze, up the rutted sandy driveway twisting into the dusty casuarinas. The police had visited Roger several times, and Hall had been down once, but otherwise she couldn’t think of anyone else who would come.

“They hurt Grumpy. And Gretel has run off again. I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Who hurt Grumpy?”

Roger crawled out from under the tank stand and sat on the grass hill. Gently he stretched the cat across his knees. One of its legs twisted the wrong way, the paw pointing outward.

“They kicked him. Could have belted him over the head with a stick. They kicked Grumpy. What did they do that for? Now he can’t walk.”

The cat lay still while Roger ran his hand down its thigh. When his fingers reached the joint, the broken leg twitched and the cat let out a pained mew.

“Grumpy was shaking on the ground, the other two were licking his face, meowing. Ali was hiding underneath and wouldn’t come out. I looked through the bush around here and I can’t find Gretel. I can’t look anymore because I don’t want to leave the others. And now Gretel’s been gone for two nights. Something’s got her.”

Most people Hall had spoken to blamed Roger Coker for the deaths. Women refused to swim off the lagoon beach near his cottage, and kids were still singing about Roger being a serial killer to the tune of the “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” song. Hall had visited the campground a couple of days ago, and the men were swearing about how hopeless the police had been. Pamela and Don were convinced it was Roger or Gary. Erica said she wasn’t sure, but Sarah had heard her sniping about Roger. The police had not ruled anyone out.

Sarah opened her newspaper package. Inside were three thick, clear fillets that would sell in the supermarket for twenty dollars each. She broke the fish into small pieces and scattered it in the grass. The gray cat came forward and ate. Roger remained on the ground, nursing the maimed black and white cat. He waved a small piece of fish meat in front of the cat’s nose, trying to tempt it. The cat sniffed at it but didn’t open its mouth.

“He won’t drink milk, either. Something is not right. He’s crapping all over the place, on the carpet and on the couch. What’s wrong with you, boy?”

When the fish was gone, she scrunched the paper up into a tight ball. Roger hunched over his cat. He looked fragile, a boy’s frame inside an old man’s body.

“I wish they hurt me instead,” he said.

Unfortunately, that was exactly what Sarah feared would happen next.

Erica’s fiancé, Steve, arrived at dinnertime and the family ate outside, a simple meal of barbecued lamb chops and salad. Tired from a long day in the sun, everyone went to bed early. Barely any breeze had rolled off the ocean, and inside the shack it was muggy. Before Sarah crawled into her bunk, she opened the kitchen window. With five people in the small space, they would need air circulating.

Something woke her up from a deep sleep. The glow-in-the-dark numbers on her watch showed it was after midnight. Henry growled. There was a thumping noise, like someone stomping deliberately in the living room.

“Something is inside the shack,” Flip shrieked.

Sarah sat up and swung herself off the bunk bed. Steve stood in the bedroom doorway, shining a torch into the living area. He was wearing canary yellow underpants and nothing else. Sarah looked away. The dog, standing in his basket, growled at something under the table. Sarah moved closer.

“What is it?” Erica, still in her bed, called.

Henry barked again, and the creature under the table bounded across the room and hurtled onto the couch, sliding on the newspaper pages scattered there. Flip and Steve screamed. Sarah jumped back. She was unnerved, not scared. It was not human. She snatched Steve’s torch.