Poison Bay Page 14

  30

  The voice down the phone line was as dry and sibilant as two pieces of paper rubbing together. It conjured up in Peter’s mind visions of a dusty old law office with high windows, and a hunched figure at a gloomy desk. It seemed perfectly appropriate that the man’s name was Dickens.

  “I am not authorized to release Mr Smithton’s will until thirty days after his death has been formally declared.” There was no apology in the tone. The owner of the voice was smugly assured of his legally superior position.

  Peter was working hard at holding down the edges of his temper. “I understand your situation, Mr Dickens. Are you able to confirm for me the date on which the most recent will was signed?” He looked at the document in his hand, arrived via Interpol so recently that the paper was still warm from their laser printer. A copy of a will that was catastrophically different to the older one found in Bryan’s house. A will found locked inside a safe at the home of Kain Vindico.

  There was a moment’s silence while the lawyer considered Peter’s request. “The document we hold is dated the thirteenth of October this year.”

  Peter inhaled sharply. “The thirteenth did you say? Not the third?”

  “The thirteenth.”

  “Mr Dickens, that will is relevant to an ongoing police investigation. It is imperative that we see the content of it.”

  “Then I am very much afraid, sergeant, that you will have to get yourself a warrant.”

  31

  Callie wasn’t sure if her vision had been damaged, or if the mist really did keep pulling in and out of the trees as though it was doing a hula dance. The rain had eased, but the vegetation they pushed through was heavy with rainwater, and the ground so waterlogged that some sections were like quicksand. It sucked down on a boot, only letting go with huge reluctance and an angry slurping noise. Every step was painful already without that complication. Her rucksack seemed about ten kilograms heavier than it had this morning, even though the others had taken some of her load. Callie wondered, again, if she should have argued so hard.

  She had been determined not to remain alone at the slapdash campsite, while the others went searching. Yes, she wanted to do her bit to help, but her display of team spirit had been cloaking a kernel of fear. What if the mountainside gave way again, with her on it, trapped inside the tent, with no way to escape, and no one to help? Tumbled downwards inside a giant cement mixer, and then slowly and inexorably flattened, trying to draw breath in the dark, with the weight of scrambled rainforest pressing down and down and down, and no one even to hold her hand while the last molecules of oxygen left her body.

  Even worse, what if there was another slide between Callie and the searchers, and they couldn’t get back to her, and the afternoon drew on into evening and night and the next day, and she was the only person in the universe?

  No, she couldn’t stay in the tent on the rock. She’d been even more mutinously determined when she saw the bossy look on Erica’s face. “You need to stay here,” Nurse had declared with complacent finality. “Sure, you don’t seem to have any broken arms or legs, which is great. But we have no accurate way to tell what your internal injuries might be, and I’d be very surprised if that head wound of yours hasn’t given you concussion. You need to rest.”

  “You’re right. I also need a long hot bath. And a big plate of steak and chips. But they don’t seem to have a Holiday Inn out here, so I’ll just have to put all that on hold for another day.”

  Rachel had wavered between the two points of view, but ultimately Jack had been the one to see the issues for what they were, and to state them with his customary candor.

  “Whatever we do from here, we must stay together. We can’t risk getting separated again. It’s too dangerous.” He’d started ticking off a list on his fingers. “We also have to take our gear with us; we can’t risk getting separated from our tents or sleeping bags or cooking equipment by any further landslide or something else we haven’t thought of. We also can’t spend the night here—there’s not enough room for more tents on this rock, and I don’t trust its stability anyway, this close to the slip zone. It would be lovely to get back to last night’s rock bivvy, but we can’t because the mountain we hiked across earlier is in a big pile down there.” He’d indicated the foot of the landslip, and they’d all looked at it, and then above it at the sheer rock face it had revealed, too steep and too slippery for their meager rock-climbing skills.

  “So that means tonight’s camp is somewhere up ahead.” He’d shrugged. “She has to come with us. It’s not ideal, but there’s no real alternative.”

  Now they seemed to have somehow split into two groups anyway. Jack was in the lead, forging on, anxious to find Adam as soon as possible, and Callie was in his slipstream. The group had agreed Kain had been striking out so far ahead today he was probably a kilometer or more beyond the slip zone when the mountain fell, and hadn’t even seen it. Callie would be glad when they caught up with him and she knew he was safe, just the same. What if there had been a third landslide further up?

  But Adam was the urgent problem. He had been walking with Rachel and Erica, even though they seemed to have become slightly separated. He would surely have found them by now if he could. Whatever had stopped their jungle warrior, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Despite the distraction of her own injuries, Callie had seen enough of Jack’s form to know he was hurting too. Every time he bent his left knee, there was a slight jerking twist to the follow-through. She paused a moment for a breather, and looked back through the trees. The mist had become so dense that she couldn’t even see the other two women behind her.

  Her mind flitted back to this morning’s conversation—was it only this morning?—about keeping an eye on Rachel. “Jack!”

  He stopped and turned. “What’s up, Cal? Are you okay?” He came the few steps back, and peered at her while absentmindedly massaging his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I’m okay, but I can’t see the others. I think they’ve fallen back a bit. I can’t even hear them now.”

  He looked beyond her to the foggy trees. “It’s just the mist. It deadens the sound. They’re probably not that far behind. We need to find Adam urgently. If he was injured by that slide, he’s been lying there at least two or three hours now. In heavy rain, for most of it.”

  “It’s just that… about a thousand years ago, we were talking about not letting Rachel out of our sight. It’s so hard to know what’s most important now.”

  Jack chewed his lower lip, and rubbed his shoulder again. “We should wait for them; we can’t afford to get separated again.” He sagged against a tree, and Callie found a log to prop against.

  Jack went on, “Callie, have you thought about…” He trailed off, and grimaced. Clearly, whatever it was, he didn’t want to say it out loud. She waited. “Well, it’s crazy, but what if Adam is, you know… hiding, rather than lost. Had you thought about that, or is it just me going nuts?”

  She stared at him, speechless.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said, nodding. “It’s just me going nuts. It’s virtually impossible to see him killing Sharon—especially when he had a golden opportunity to shove me off that cliff right back near Poison Bay, if he wanted to improve his odds. I hate what I’m becoming out here. The things I’m thinking.” He shook his head and stared at the ground. “I never in a million years would’ve thought of Adam as one of the bad guys, but last night, when he killed that bird… there was something in his eyes I’d never seen before. It freaked me out.”

  “I don’t think you’re nuts. It’s just a shocking thought. I’ve been having my own confusing little thoughts about Erica. Something didn’t seem quite right about her reaction to Adam’s disappearance. I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

  “I could,” said Jack with emphasis. “But then, you’ve got to remember how paranoid I’ve become and take it with a grain of salt. I noticed that Rachel was really precise about what she was doing when the landslide started. She’d stopped t
o eat ferns and measure her blood sugar, and she described what she saw and how she felt. But Erica seemed a bit vague and abrupt about it. And why did they let themselves get so far away from one another? That’s one of the things that made me wonder if Adam had been deliberately trying to lose them.” He frowned. “And yet, the rain was so incredibly heavy, you could hardly see your own hand in front of you. Plus the mudslide we experienced ourselves was disorientating. I guess it’s reasonable to have trouble remembering the details.”

  Callie said, “I’d hate to think of Adam against us. He’d make a pretty scary enemy, with his strength and skill, and that hunter’s instinct.”

  “Thinking of Adam not-for-us is almost as bad. If he’s been injured or killed, we’ve lost probably our biggest asset, our best chance out here.” He rubbed his face with both hands and stared down the valley into the fog. “Kain doesn’t seem to be around when we need him. You’re probably the next strongest and you’ve just been pulverized by the mountain. Erica’s tougher than she looks, but very small and her knees are playing up, and Rachel can’t stay strong much longer.”

  “And what about you?”

  He gave a derisive snort. “I’m just the Reverend. You call me if you want someone to pray, or possibly to cry like a little girl.”

  “What a load of rubbish! I don’t need my brain to be working very well to figure out you did something pretty amazing to get me out of that mess back there.”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “I just did what had to be done.”

  “You saved my life,” Callie declared. “Thank you, Jack. I’m very glad to still be alive.”

  He looked sideways at her and shrugged, but his eyes had changed, and she knew he was touched by what she’d said. She continued, thoughtful this time: “And doing what has to be done seems to be something you’re good at. I’m discovering that you’re actually a very good leader in a crisis, which I’d never noticed before, in all the time I’ve known you. We can be very blind, sometimes, to the strengths of people we know well.”

  He looked a little puzzled. “I’d have thought you were the leader among us.”

  “No Jack,” she replied with a mischievous smile, “I’m just loud. There is a difference, you know. I know how to get people’s attention; you have the clarity and conviction to show people the right path to take.”

  Jack raised one eyebrow. “What a bore I must be. And what a burden for me to carry.”

  “Clarity isn’t boring for people who are confused. But yes, you do have to be careful how you use it.”

  They heard noises behind them, and the sporadic murmur of voices, and turned to see Rachel and Erica emerging from the mist. Rachel was puffing, but she mustered up a smile when she saw them looking back at her.

  “Gosh, that mud’s a killer, isn’t it?” she said.

  “Haven’t you heard the joke before?” Callie said. “There’s no such thing as gravity; this planet sucks.”

  Rachel smiled. “It does, doesn’t it?—quite literally today.”

  Erica didn’t smile, she just looked tense, and Callie found herself wondering about her again.

  Jack said, “I think we might be getting close to the next landslide. The mist lifted for a minute before and it’s lighter up ahead, less tree cover. Are you guys okay to keep moving?”

  “Yes, let’s keep going,” Rachel said. “We have to find Adam.”

  Erica said nothing, so they took her silence for assent, and began scrambling again through the clinging mud.

  ***

  As they drew near to the tangle of trees and rocks of the next landslide, the mist lifted, and Jack could see the full height of the slip despite lowering clouds. It wasn’t nearly as comprehensive as the one that had engulfed him and Callie, and had not stripped the mountain down to rock, yet it was still messy and possibly unstable down near the roaring river.

  “I can see how you couldn’t find anything in that really heavy rain,” Jack said back over his shoulder to Rachel and Erica. He scanned the heap, looking for anything non-rainforest. He mentally cursed Adam’s green rain jacket. If only they’d all worn Callie’s hideous orange.

  “We tried so hard,” said Rachel.

  “I’m sure you did.” Callie squeezed her friend’s arm. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

  “Who’s coming with me?” Jack spoke briskly, steering them away from the emotional undercurrents. He was already unbuckling his harness.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Callie.

  “I’ll stay here with Rachel and look after the rucksacks,” Erica said.

  She propped her rucksack against a rock and sat down. Jack shot a quick look at Callie, and started climbing down the slope. She followed, putting each foot where his had been. When they were about fifteen meters down the mountain, Jack stopped to scan the mound of debris.

  Callie drew alongside him. “What was all that about?” she said. “Surely she’s had more experience of death and injury than any of us?”

  “I don’t know.” He gave a small shrug. “We need to find Adam.”

  They moved carefully, looking for footholds, and then peering into the rubble.

  “Is that…?” Callie pointed.

  Jack nodded, with a quick expulsion of breath. “It’s a boot.”

  The rain started again, and Jack pulled his hood up. He looked at Callie, waiting for her to do the same. She ignored him, and started moving out onto the mound, in the direction of that boot.

  “Calliope, put your hood up.”

  “I’m okay.” She kept moving. “It makes me crazy. No peripheral vision, and that infernal crackling and rustling in your ears all the time.”

  “We can’t afford to have you with hypothermia on top of everything else. So put it up. Now.”

  She looked as though she was about to come up with a retort, but apparently reconsidered. She pulled the hood up with a loud “humph”, and stuck her tongue out at him. “I tell you you’re a good leader, and next thing I know, you’re going all Master and Commander on me.”

  “Whatever.” He gave her a searching look. “Callie, how much pain are you in?”

  “I’m all right. This has to be done. I can be injured later.”

  “Are you ready for this?”

  Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and she shook her head. “No, but we have to do it, don’t we?”

  He gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Come on. Try to move lightly. We don’t want to dislodge the mound.”

  They picked their way across the jumble of muddy vegetation, headed always towards that boot, thrust into the air like a small and dismal ensign. When they reached it, they could see the rest of the leg, disappearing into the debris at an unnatural angle. They perched each side of where it seemed Adam might lie, and began to lift branches and tattered ferns, digging their way down.

  Slowly, his torso emerged, his neck, and his face, until finally his eyes were uncovered. They were wide open, staring sightlessly into the sky, flooded by fat raindrops which pooled and then overflowed down his temples like tears. Jack’s eyes became wet too. He felt Adam’s face and neck with the back of his fingers. It was as cold and slick as the side of the pool at those horrible winter swimming lessons of his childhood. It didn’t matter what they did now. Adam couldn’t be anything but dead.

  Jack glanced up at Callie, who was weeping without constraint. She held his gaze for a long moment, and then reached out tenderly to move the last clump of leaves from Adam’s hair. She gasped and went pale, and Jack looked down at what she’d seen: a puncture wound in Adam’s forehead.

  “It must have been a stick or something…” he muttered, through lips that seemed to have lost their elasticity.

  “No!” Callie’s voice was rough. “Oh dear God!” She shook her head, again and again.

  “Callie?” Jack reached a hand towards her, and she grasped it across the body of their friend.

  “Oh Jack. You don’t understand. A stick didn’t do that.”

  “
What do you mean, love?” He was confused. It was only natural for her to be upset by what they’d just discovered, but this was something more.

  “Oh Jack, I’m so scared.” She sobbed, and gripped his hand tight. “This is so much worse than we thought.”

  “What is it, Callie? Tell me!”

  She drew a deep breath. “You remember that pathology course I told you about? Where we looked at the photos and the dead bodies, the victims of crime?”

  He nodded. She stared again at the wound on Adam’s forehead.

  “That’s no accident, Jack. That’s a bullet hole.”

  32

  Peter watched the water flickering in the late afternoon light, mesmerized by the patterns. A breeze was coming off the lake, picking up molecules of the wine in the glass before him and wafting them into his nostrils. One glass was all he could afford to drink—he needed to keep his wits about him—so he planned to sip it very slowly. He was waiting on news regarding the death of Liana Rickard. An old friend now working for Interpol had been chasing it for him. The three-hour time difference with Australia’s east coast was a blessing in a case like this—they’d be at work for a while yet across the Tasman. But it sure did make for a long day.

  An odd movement in his peripheral vision drew his eye. He beheld Ellen Carpenter on the footpath, and she’d apparently stopped in her tracks at the sight of him on his front veranda.

  “This is awkward,” she said, her tone light. “I’m not stalking you, as it happens. I didn’t even know where you lived. I was just walking, yet again. I find it therapeutic.”

  “The amount of walking you’re doing, you were bound to come past my place sooner or later. This is a pretty small town.” He nodded in the direction of the wine bottle. “I’ve got another glass in the cupboard if you want to stop walking for a moment. Won’t be for long though. I’m going back to the office shortly.”

  She looked at the wine bottle, then at him, considering, and nodded. “Thanks. It would be nice to have a bit of company for a few minutes.” As she stepped onto the veranda she added, tongue-in-cheek, “Do you often get sloshed while in uniform, and more importantly, does your ‘deputy’ know?”