The Light Between Oceans(72)

Vernon Knuckey sat rapping his fingers on his desk as Isabel waited in the next room to be questioned. Partageuse was a fairly quiet place for a policeman. The odd assault or a bit of drunk and disorderly was the most the average week would dish up. The sergeant could have moved to Perth for promotion, and the chance to witness darker crimes – uglier scars on lives that meant less to him. But he had seen enough strife in the war to last him a lifetime. Petty thieving and fines for sly grog would do him. Kenneth Spragg, on the other hand, was itching to move to the big smoke. He’d go to town on this one if he got half a chance. Literally – he’d be treating it as his ticket up the ladder to Perth. He neither knew nor cared about anyone in Partageuse, thought Knuckey: Bill and Violet, for example, and the boys they had lost. He thought of all the years he’d seen little Isabel, with a beautiful voice and a face to match, singing in the church choir at Christmas. Then his thoughts swung to old Potts, devoted to those girls of his since his wife died, and crushed by Hannah’s choice of husband. As for poor Hannah herself … Nothing to write home about on the looks front, but a real brain box, and a very decent sort. Always thought she had a screw loose believing her child would show up after all these years, but just look how things had turned out.

He took a deep breath as he turned the handle of the door and entered. Addressing Isabel, he was efficient, respectful. ‘Isabel – Mrs Sherbourne – I have to ask you some more questions. I know he’s your husband, but this is a very serious matter.’ He took the cap off his pen, and rested it on the paper. A puddle of black leaked from the nib, and he stroked it this way and that, stretching the ink out in lines from its central point.

‘He says you wanted to report the boat’s arrival and he stopped you. Is that right?’

Isabel looked at her hands.

‘Says he resented you for not giving him children, and took things into his own hands.’

The words struck deep within her. In telling the lie, had Tom revealed a truth?

‘Didn’t you try to talk sense into him?’ Knuckey asked.

Truthfully, she said, ‘When Tom Sherbourne thinks he’s doing the right thing, there’s no persuading him otherwise.’

He asked gently, ‘Did he threaten you? Assault you, physically?’

Isabel paused, and the fury of her sleepless night flooded back. She clung to silence like a rock.

Often enough Knuckey had seen the wives and daughters of timber workers bullied into submission with just a look by great hulks of men. ‘You were afraid of him?’

Her lips tightened. No words came out.

Knuckey put his elbows on the desk, and leaned forward. ‘Isabel, the law recognises that a wife can be powerless at the hands of her husband. Under the Criminal Code, you’re not responsible for anything he made you do or stopped you from doing, so you needn’t worry on that score. You won’t be punished for his crimes. Now, I need to ask you a question, and I want you to think very carefully. Remember, you can’t get into trouble for anything he forced you into.’ He cleared his throat. ‘According to Tom, Frank Roennfeldt was dead when the boat washed up.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Is that true?’

Isabel was taken aback. She could hear herself saying, ‘Of course it’s true!’ But before her mouth could open, her mind rushed again to Tom’s betrayal. Suddenly overwhelmed – by the loss of Lucy, by anger, by sheer exhaustion, she closed her eyes.

The policeman prompted softly, ‘Is it true, Isabel?’

She fixed her gaze on her wedding ring as she said, ‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ and burst into tears.



Tom drank the tea slowly, watching the swirling steam vanish in the warm air. The afternoon light angled in through the high windows of the sparsely furnished room. As he rubbed the stubble on his chin, it brought back sensations from the days when shaving was impossible, and washing likewise.

‘Want another one?’ asked Knuckey evenly.

‘No. Thanks.’

‘You smoke?’

‘No.’

‘So. A boat washes up at the lighthouse. Out of nowhere.’

‘I told you all this out on Janus.’

‘And you’ll tell me again as many times as I like! So. You find the boat.’

‘Yes.’

‘And it’s got a baby in it.’

‘Yes.’

‘What state’s the baby in?’

‘Healthy. Crying, but healthy.’

Knuckey was writing notes. ‘And there’s a bloke in the boat.’

‘A body.’

‘A man,’ said Knuckey.

Tom looked at him, sizing up the rephrasing.

‘You’re pretty used to being the king of the castle out on Janus, are you?’

Tom considered the irony, which anyone who knew about life on the Lights would have registered, but he didn’t answer. Knuckey went on, ‘Reckon you can get away with things. No one around.’

‘It had nothing to do with getting away with things.’

‘And you decided you might as well keep the baby out there. Isabel had lost yours. No one would ever know. That it?’

‘I told you: I made the decision. Made Isabel go along with it.’

‘Knock your wife around, do you?’

Tom looked at him. ‘Is that what you think?’