The Survivors(33)

‘The call woke you up? So you couldn’t know exactly what time your husband let himself out?’

There was a silence. ‘No.’

‘Does he go out often?’

‘It happens a few times a month.’

‘Has he ever been found wandering on the beach, rather than the road?’

Verity hesitated. ‘Last night he was on the road.’

‘Okay.’ Pendlebury sounded sympathetic. Kieran wondered again if it was a deliberate tactic. ‘Look, I’m not implying anything here. I know you think I am, but at this point I’m just trying to get a clear sense of what happened. There’s some chance that the person who was with Bronte may have been disturbed. Maybe had to leave in a hurry.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Verity was watchful now.

Pendlebury paused, but Kieran thought he could guess. He was pretty sure Verity could guess too. Why would anyone leave a body in plain sight on the beach when with a few short steps it could be sent floating away with the ocean currents? Given the opportunity, Kieran thought, that’s what anyone in their right mind would do. Not one person in the room was looking at Brian.

‘The sand pattern suggests interruption,’ Pendlebury said neutrally and Verity simply nodded. Both pretending that made sense.

‘Either way,’ Pendlebury went on, ‘no-one’s come forward so far to say they saw anything. So, if your husband’s able to add something to the picture, now would be a really good time.’

Kieran could sense Verity wrestling with herself.

‘Well, ask him then,’ she said, finally. ‘For what it’s worth.’

Pendlebury attempted to look Brian in the eye. He didn’t co-operate.

‘Mr Elliott,’ she said. ‘I want to ask you about last night. Do you understand? Did you see Bronte Laidler on the beach last night?’

‘I’ve already said I did. I told her the storm was coming.’ Brian’s wandering gaze stilled suddenly and for the first time since Kieran had come home, he had the strange sense of the cloudiness almost lifting. Brian’s eyes moved again and when they settled this time, it was on Mia, still standing near the door with Audrey.

‘You should talk to Mia, here,’ Brian said. ‘They’d been arguing. Mia was with her on the beach too. You should have a word with her, if you’re having a word with anyone.’

‘Jesus, Dad –’ Kieran started as Mia was already shaking her head.

‘No, I wasn’t –’

They both stopped. Kieran turned to Brian.

‘Mia was on the beach with Gabby, Dad. Not Bronte. And that was years ago. She and I were together last night. Here. We didn’t see anyone on the beach.’

Pendlebury looked at Mia. ‘Is that right?’

Mia nodded. Audrey was squirming in her arms, thrashing her head back and forth, and Mia tightened her grip. Pendlebury flicked through her notes.

‘Apologies, just to make sure I’m completely clear –’ She looked up and frowned. ‘What exactly happened to Gabby Birch?’





Chapter 13


It was a good question. It had been asked a lot over the years, and Kieran was as familiar as anyone in town with the last known movements of Gabby Birch, aged fourteen.

On the day the storm would later hit Evelyn Bay, Gabby had been woken at 9 am by her mother, Patricia, who was leaving for her Saturday nursing shift at the town’s medical clinic. Gabby had promised to get up, but hadn’t, and was still in bed an hour later when her eighteen-year-old sister Olivia got home from the gym. Gabby blamed her late start on the fact that she didn’t have her phone, which also served as her alarm. It had been confiscated by Trish a week earlier after a teacher had reported Gabby for texting in class. Gabby’s best friend Mia was suffering the same punishment in her own household.

Gabby had eaten a bowl of cereal while she and Olivia briefly discussed plans for their mum’s birthday the following day. In what had become something of a tradition since their parents’ divorce six years earlier, the girls would bake their mother’s birthday cake. They would do it that afternoon while Trish was at work, they agreed, so it would be ready for the next day. Their grandma had booked a table for lunch at the big hotel in Port Osborne.

Olivia offered to stop in at the supermarket to buy birthday cards, but Gabby said she wanted to make her own by hand. Olivia told the police later that Gabby had been very upset when her phone was taken away. She was hopeful that Trish, buoyed by the birthday celebrations, would feel inclined to return it.

Both girls knew rain was forecast.

Olivia went out at noon – to visit the shops and go for a walk along the cliff path – while Gabby was, not unusually, left home alone.

Exactly what Gabby did between noon and 2 pm was unknown. She made no phone calls from the landline and was not seen leaving the house. A birthday card which read ‘Happy Birthday Mum!’ in glitter glue was later found drying in her bedroom. At 1.27 pm she used her mother’s laptop to log on to the internet, which she had been expressly forbidden to do while her phone was confiscated. She had spent a furtive twenty-three minutes browsing social media sites. She then grabbed her purple-striped backpack with a kangaroo keychain attached to the zip, filled it with library books due for return, and walked the eight minutes to her friend Mia’s home.