The Survivors(16)

A woman coughed. ‘You come from the beach, Kieran?’

Kieran looked over at a middle-aged bottle blonde who had been making faces at Audrey. She was wearing the familiar orange waitress uniform and Kieran knew without reading the tag on her shirt that her name was Lyn. He couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t worked at the Surf and Turf.

‘Yeah. I was just down there.’

‘They’re saying it’s Bronte.’

He nodded.

Lyn’s mouth hardened into a line and she reached into her pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She took a step away from Audrey as she lit up.

‘She was nice,’ she said. ‘Bronte.’

‘Did you know her well?’

Lyn shrugged, her shoulders tight.

‘A bit, I suppose. She wasn’t like some of them we get. These casuals who forget they’re here to work. That wasn’t Bronte. Even lately, even though she only had a couple of weeks left on the roster, she still turned up for her shifts. Good with the customers too, even the tricky ones. Especially the tricky ones, sometimes.’ Lyn took a short drag, her mouth falling back into its thin line as she exhaled through her nose. She flicked her cigarette ash in the vague direction of the beach. ‘It’s too bloody dark down there, I’m always saying. It’s not safe.’

Kieran thought back to the night before, sitting by the water with Mia. The marina lights behind them and stretch of sand ahead disappearing into shadow. How Mia had been reluctant to walk home through the pitch black. And so they hadn’t. They had gone a different way instead. He could tell from Mia’s face that she was thinking the same thing.

‘We’ve taken it up with the council,’ Lyn went on, her fingers twitchy. ‘I’ve told them that we need some lights along there. Twice, I’ve told them that. It’s in the AGM minutes. But some of the residents don’t like it, you know? Say it would make it hard to sleep. But I told them, you’ve got people coming from all over – the mainland, wherever – they don’t know what the water’s like. I mean, Bronte was from Canberra. She could probably barely swim –’

‘They’ve got pools in Canberra,’ Mia snapped, and Kieran blinked. That was unusual for her. She was fiddling with Audrey’s hat again, taking it off and putting it back on.

Lyn regarded her through a veil of cigarette smoke. She nodded towards the ocean crashing beyond the line of trees. ‘That’s not pool water.’

Kieran shook his head. ‘I don’t think Bronte was swimming, anyway,’ he said and they both looked at him. ‘She was wearing her work clothes.’

‘Oh.’ Lyn’s whole face tightened as she absorbed that. ‘Well, maybe –’ She blinked hard. ‘Maybe she …’

Kieran could see Lyn trying very hard to think of a good explanation. A good, perfectly plausible reason why a young woman might venture into the sea, in her uniform, late at night. A reason that would allow them all to avoid acknowledging an alternative that was suddenly hanging thick and dark and heavy in the air between them. None of them gave it life by putting it into words.

Thick, dark alternatives like that did not belong in Evelyn Bay. It wasn’t fair to say Evelyn Bay was a place where nothing ever happened – things did, of course; ask anyone who had been there for the storm. But not often, and not whatever this was.

‘She was a really lovely girl,’ Lyn said finally. ‘Really kind. She swapped with me last week so I could take my cat to the vet. And once –’

She stopped as a silver four-wheel drive pulled up, slowing to a crawl near them. The driver clocked the crowd and, ignoring the empty parking space on the street right out the front, put on his indicator and made to turn into the side delivery entrance.

Kieran, Mia and Lyn stepped back to allow the car through, the surfboard strapped to its roof juddering as the wheels crunched over the gravel. The car pulled to a stop outside the Surf and Turf’s delivery door and the engine cut dead. The driver didn’t get out immediately and Kieran could make out the glow of a mobile phone pressed to his ear.

Kieran didn’t recognise the car, but he knew the man. Julian Wallis, manager of the Surf and Turf. Kieran had caught sight of him the night before, cutting the music at closing time and instructing a scowling Liam to fetch the mop, and been struck by the way some people really never changed.

Julian still had the same grey buzz cut he’d had as long as Kieran had known him. He had the angular ropey build of a distance runner, but it was water rather than road that had honed his shape. Julian had run the Nippers surf lifesaving group for kids ever since Kieran himself had been a member, and his voice had the kind of natural authority that still made Kieran feel the urge to jump into line and pay attention.

Kieran watched now as the phone screen went dark inside the car. Julian sat behind the wheel for what felt like a long minute before opening the door. When he did step out, he looked shaken. Not much, but it was disturbing to see any show of emotion on Julian’s notoriously granite-like features.

Sean had once said the only difference between Julian winning the lottery and running over his dog was a tiny upward or downward inflection at the corner of his lips. There was no question which way things were going this morning. The inflection was firmly down.

He went to unlock the side door to the restaurant and for the first time noticed Lyn at the edge of the driveway, waiting in her uniform.