Poison Bay (15 page)

The coffee was good though, and so she focused on the mellow flavor of it, and the way the heat felt, traveling down her throat. Mindfulness, that’s what the psychologist had called it. Being entirely present in the moment, refusing to let the fearful future hijack right now. Who could have known the grief counselor’s training would come in handy for a whole new crisis so very soon? She had spent some time both last night and this morning doing her deep breathing exercises, even though it was hard. And every time the panic threatened to rise up and choke her, she did the in-for-three, out-for-three crisis breathing she’d been taught, until it subsided to somewhere just below her breastbone. She was determined to stay useful, to do everything she could to save her child, even if it meant forfeiting a mother’s right to lie on the bed and scream and scream and scream.

She’d slept incredibly well, in the circumstances. The commencement of a proper search for Rachel and her friends had lifted the crushing weight that had been sitting on Ellen’s chest since her daughter failed to step off that plane two days ago. She hadn’t needed the discovery of Bryan’s body to tell her that something had gone wrong; she’d known straight away. The discovery of the remains, though hideous and tragic and terrifying, had actually been freeing for Ellen, because now she had someone to worry with her. The police were no longer just humoring her. They were concerned. It was professional concentration rather than loved-one-in-danger worry, but she found it immensely comforting just the same. She no longer had to do all the worrying herself. And she trusted Peter Hubble.

Ellen walked outside onto the springy grass, closed her eyes as the warm sunshine caressed her back, and inhaled deeply from the cool breeze blowing off the lake. The weather was so much better today, and it gave her hope. Rachel couldn’t die on such a beautiful day as this.

***

The fingerprints on the floor tape were a match. It still wasn’t absolute identification of the body, but it was enough for Peter to make the difficult call to Bryan’s aunt in Brisbane.

Despite her shock and grief, she was able to think clearly enough to tell Peter about the umbilical cord blood stored at Bryan’s birth by his scientific parents. Only a day or two now, and they would have firm DNA confirmation of the body’s identity.

25

Jack was bringing up the rear in his now-default position as sweeper. They were strung out across the jungle-clad mountainside, Kain pushing far ahead as scout. Kain’s ties to the group were becoming more frayed each time another of his suggestions was rejected.

Callie had indicated she wanted to talk to him again, about Sharon. They needed to allow a good gap to open between them and the rest of the group, since the pounding rain that masked their voices from eavesdroppers also forced them to speak more loudly to each other. They found a large boulder with an overhanging tree fern that provided a measure of shelter.

Jack began. “Horrible as it is, I think it’s most likely the culprit is one of us, even though the other two ideas are possible. I’ve been looking at everyone differently today. And I don’t like the way that feels.”

“I even had a moment’s thought about Rachel,” Callie said, “because she was right on the spot—even though I can’t believe she would ever actually do such a thing. She’s got such a soft heart.”

“Sharon was in the middle near the tent opening. Easy to reach. We all knew that, because we’d been helping get her settled and warm. Sneaking around the camp wouldn’t be that hard for any of us. Just leave your tent for a toilet break and do the deed on the way back. And we’re all so used to the sound of a tent zipping in the middle of the night now. It might have woken one of us the first few nights, but not now.”

“We were so outrageously tired as well,” Callie agreed. “A herd of elephants could have been break dancing out there and we wouldn’t have known.”

He smiled at the image, in spite of himself. “I reckon we’d all have been physically capable of the job. She was so weak, a five-year-old could have done it. And it would have been even harder for her to struggle, swaddled in the sleeping bag.”

“And wedged between me and Rachel. That was one very crowded tent.”

“We end up having to decide which of us is most likely based on what we know of everyone’s character, and that’s hardly a scientific way to investigate a murder.”

“Ugh, that word.” Callie grimaced. “Murder. I’d rather call it almost anything else. I find it hard even to say it in my head, let alone out loud.”

“Yeah, I know. But no one’s hands ‘accidentally’ went round Sharon’s face and held her mouth and nose closed.”

“Ugh,” Callie said again, raising her shoulders in a shiver. “So, do you think we should tell the others?”

“I’ve rolled that one round and round in my head. On the plus side, it would put everyone on their guard. But it could also plunge the team into despair. And do serious damage to our relationships with each other—suspicion, competition, survival of the fittest, who knows what else. We don’t want this turning into
Lord of the Flies
. It’s bad enough as it is.”

“But what if they do it again?”

“If anyone is weeding out the weak, that would make Rachel the next target. She’s okay right now, but how long can that last, now that she’s so low on insulin?”

“Oh God.” Callie put her head in her hands. It wasn’t until her shoulders shook with a small sob that it dawned on Jack that she was crying.

Stupid fool
, he thought, wincing at his careless words. So focused on analyzing the facts he’d forgotten people’s feelings, as usual. Aloud he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sure I could have put that a lot better.”

He reached out awkwardly to squeeze her arm in an attempt at comfort, and then wondered if she even felt it under the squeaky wet sleeve of her rain jacket. She must have done, because she looked at him with eyes full of tears.

“It’s just that Rachel has been such a good friend for such a long time—my only true friend, if I’m honest—and I really, really, really don’t want her to die. And this whole thing is so draining. I keep trying to think sensibly—be objective, don’t let it get on top of me, work towards a positive outcome. But sometimes it seems to have sucked the whole ‘me’ out of me. Like I don’t even know who I am anymore.” She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hands. “As if it wasn’t hard enough already, without a murderer in our midst.”
 

“I know. And I don’t think it helps that because we’ve been around bad people and dangerous situations before with our work, we expect ourselves to cope with this. But reporting the news isn’t the same thing as
being
the news.”

Callie looked thoughtful. “I think you’ve hit on something. The first time I covered a murder, I couldn’t sleep for days—but gradually you find mechanisms for dealing with it. Distance yourself from the events… refuse to absorb the relative’s emotions… hang out with other people who know what it’s like. But I don’t think I’d realized that wouldn’t work with this one.”

“The events and the emotions are happening to us, not someone else.”

“So it’s okay, really, if I can’t cope some of the time.” She smiled a watery smile at him.

“We just need to keep on trying to encourage each other, and work together.”

“And keep an eye on Rachel. I’ll find a way to booby-trap the doorway to our tent, so that they have to make enough noise to wake me if they want to get at her.”

“Good idea. Hopefully no one will try anything in daylight, but just in case, we can make sure she doesn’t get cut off from the rest of the group.”

“So I guess that’s our project for today then: try to keep Rachel safe.”

“We’d better hurry and catch up with her. We can’t keep her safe if she’s miles ahead!”

26

Ellen took the scenic route to the police station—a long, brisk walk along the shores of the lake to blow the cobwebs out of her brain. She tried to make it last as long as possible, so that it would fill some of the seconds and minutes and hours that stood between her and news of her daughter. She even stopped in a little church along the way. She knelt for a while in one of the pews, unsure what or how to pray, but comforted nevertheless by the quiet calm of the place. Since Roger’s death, she’d been finding herself drawn back to spiritual memories from childhood.

“Hello Ellen.” Peter Hubble loomed large in the crowded search room. “Good to see you looking better today.”

“I’ve had sleep and food and exercise. It’s amazing what it can do for the human body.”

Peter nodded in agreement and gave her a meaningful look. “And the human mind.”

She smiled. “It doesn’t hurt that the weather is so much better today, too. It’s hard to imagine bad things happening on a day like this.”

“Yes,” said Peter after a microscopic pause, and then his eyes slid away from hers. She was instantly alert.

“What is it?”

He seemed to be thinking about how to answer. That couldn’t be good.

She decided to take the proactive approach. “Peter, would it be possible to have a private chat with you? I know you’re very busy but I promise it wouldn’t take long.”

He lifted an arm to indicate back along the hallway. “Let’s go to my office.”

When they were seated either side of his desk, Ellen drew her thoughts together and summoned her most sensible and credible face, the one she used when she was nervous about giving a major presentation at a conference.
 

“Peter, I’m aware that it’s extremely unorthodox to have the ‘frantic mother’ involved with your search team, and I appreciate the problems that could cause for you if I abused the situation. I also know that… well, that I must have seemed deranged when I came in here that first day. I’d had no sleep, and I was desperate to get someone to take me seriously.” She paused and pursed her mouth. “And yes, I probably looked like a bit of a loon again yesterday. But that was caused by an excess of rain and imagination.”

She saw the corners of his lips twitch to suppress a smile. Heartened, she went on.

“I respect your right and duty as a professional to manage the investigation in whatever way you see fit, and so I recognize that you could refuse the request I’m about to make. But I’d like to ask you to tell me the truth about the things you discover about Rachel and her friends, even if it’s bad news. I’ll handle it better if I actually know the details—it’s something about my personality. I’m asking you to do this for my own sake, but I also hope it might benefit you. I do have skills and knowledge that I can contribute to the investigation, if you’re willing to treat me as one of the volunteers instead of as an hysterical relative who needs to be managed.”
 

She sat back and waited.

Peter leaned his elbows on his desk, and bent his head to look at a paper clip he was pushing around on the notepad that lay there. He was using his poker face—a useful skill in his line of work—but Ellen could almost hear the mental cogs whirring.

After a few moments, he looked up at her from under his eyebrows, a long stare. She didn’t flinch. He sat back. “Okay.”

She smiled. “Thank you. So…” She raised one eyebrow. “What’s wrong with the weather?”

He smiled slightly at her perceptiveness, and then became serious. “It’s good this side of the range. If they’re on the west, it’s a different story. There are weather warnings out for that region. Very severe and sustained rainfall predicted, with the possibility of flash flooding and landslides.”

“I see.” She looked out the window at the dappled shade being cast by a tree in the warm sunlight. “It’s very weird country this, isn’t it? If you don’t like the weather, drive for a minute.”

“But on the plus side, yesterday the western side had great weather while it was pouring here.”

“And we have no way of knowing which side they’re on.”
 

“No, but we do know that they’re well equipped. We’ve checked the items on the purchasing list that your daughter received, and tracked down what Bryan himself ordered for the expedition from a place in Dunedin. They had the full survival kit for extreme conditions. And it seems likely that Bryan would have had time to teach them how to use it all before he died.”

Peter scratched his ear, and Ellen instantly recognized the “tell”. “What is it?”

“Well… in the interests of full disclosure, there were some blizzards in the tops a couple of days ago.”

“Blizzards? It’s nearly summer!”

“We can get blizzards in high summer up there. It’s not that unusual. But they were equipped for those too. As you say, interesting country.”

“Heavens above. You know that old Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times? Perhaps it should be: may you live in interesting country.”

“Perhaps. But let’s get back to that search room and find you a job to do.”

27

It happened so quickly that Jack struggled to take it in. One moment he was clambering over a fallen tree in Callie’s wake as they struggled to catch up with the others now so far ahead of them up the valley. The next moment the ground was shuddering and a noise like apocalyptic thunder filled his senses.
 

“Is it an earthquake?” Callie cried, looking back at him with fearful eyes, clutching at a bush to try to keep her balance.

Jack looked up towards the top of the mountain, and what he saw was impossible. His mind was suddenly and absurdly flung back into high-school Macbeth: Birnam Wood was on the move. And headed straight at them. The tree tops he could see were writhing, and through their trunks he glimpsed a moving wall of mud. Beneath their feet, the very earth was sliding.

“Callie! Run!”

He grabbed her hand, leapt past her and began dragging her, clanging his shins painfully on a fallen log. Behind him, she tripped and fell, but he just kept pulling until he wondered how her arm was still in its socket and his heart hadn’t burst with the effort.

She regained her footing and staggered awkwardly behind him. His fingers stayed locked around her hand like a vice, and he pulled and ran and leapt and ran. Time slowed to the speed of treacle, and they seemed to gain no ground no matter how much they tried. The noise was now enormous, and yet somehow Jack could still hear his own breathing, ragged and violent in his throat.