The Survivors(50)

Renn’s chair creaked as he moved a clear plastic box filled with phones, sunglasses and watches off his desk to make room.

‘The things people leave behind, eh?’ he said, seeing Kieran looking at it. He opened a notebook and clicked his mouse to fire up the computer. Kieran could hear it battling as it whirred to life.

‘All right. Saturday night.’ Renn turned to look at them. ‘Just want to double-check a few things. You two walked home from the Surf and Turf along Beach Road.’

Kieran and Mia nodded.

‘What time did you pass Fisherman’s Cottage?’

‘I’m not sure exactly. Would have been just after 11.30 pm?’ Kieran looked to Mia for confirmation. She was jiggling Audrey on her knee and gave a small nod.

‘Did you see a car parked outside?’

They looked at each other again. Kieran tried to picture the beach house and the road, dim in the moonlight. In his mind, the street was empty, but he wasn’t certain if he was remembering last Saturday night, or one of the hundreds of other evenings he’d walked home along that same route.

‘I didn’t see anyone parked,’ Mia answered. Kieran, still a little undecided, nodded. He heard Pendlebury’s ballpoint pen click and the faint scratch of words on paper.

‘Lights in the cottage,’ Renn said. ‘Were they on or off, did you notice?’

On, Kieran thought, then immediately second-guessed the memory. He wasn’t sure he’d glanced twice at the house.

‘There were a couple of lights on, I think.’ Mia was frowning. ‘Enough that it looked like someone was still up.’

More scratching of pen on paper. Renn waited patiently until Pendlebury gave him some signal so subtle that Kieran missed it.

‘And you’d obviously decided to walk home along the road, not the beach,’ Renn said. ‘Bit shorter along the sand, isn’t it? Any reason not to go that way?’

‘It was dark. I didn’t feel comfortable.’ Mia jiggled Audrey. ‘The road’s better lit.’

Pendlebury did not bother writing that down, seeming to find that particular answer self-evident. Renn tapped it into his computer anyway.

‘All right.’ Renn turned back. ‘The car you saw driving fast along Beach Road. That was definitely coming from the direction of Fisherman’s Cottage and heading towards town?’

They were both able to nod with certainty at that, at least.

‘Right. Liam Gilroy says it was his. He says –’ Renn tapped at his keyboard, then read from the screen. ‘He reckons he left Fisherman’s Cottage, was driving back towards town around 11.30 pm – speeding, he admits that – and he saw you, Kieran, and put his foot down harder to give you a bit of a scare.’ The officer looked up. ‘I know we’ve been through this, but can either of you remember any more about that vehicle?’

Kieran hesitated. He could feel Mia’s eyes on him. He tried to focus on Saturday night, and the road, but the images were being nudged out of the way. You kind of ruined my life.

‘Look,’ Kieran said. ‘It could have been Liam’s car.’

He felt Mia shift in surprise next to him and Renn looked at them both.

‘Yesterday, you reckoned you didn’t know,’ he said.

‘No. But –’ Kieran shrugged. ‘I mean, I’m pretty sure it was a four-wheel drive. And I’m pretty sure it was light-coloured. We were walking along Beach Road at around eleven-thirty, like Liam said. We saw a car driving fast, like he said. So if you’re asking me if it could have been Liam Gilroy’s white Holden, then yes. If he says it was his, I can’t say for sure that it wasn’t.’

There was a silence, then Pendlebury’s pen began scratching again. Renn’s fingers lay still on the keyboard. He turned to Mia.

‘And what did you see of this car?’

Mia switched Audrey to her other arm. ‘I don’t remember what it looked like. I couldn’t say either way.’

Pendlebury stopped writing and tapped her pen thoughtfully on her notebook.

‘Liam said he hadn’t known you two were back in town, so he was a bit upset to see you in the Surf and Turf on Saturday night,’ she said. ‘Whose idea was it to meet there?’

‘Ash suggested it,’ Kieran said.

‘And it was just a general catch-up, is that right?’ She looked up at Mia, her pen hovering. ‘You didn’t want to invite any friends along, Mia?’

‘Well, Olivia was going to be there. I haven’t really kept in touch with anyone else. I left when I was fourteen, and before that I only really hung around with Gabby.’

‘Were you and Gabby Birch very close, then?’

‘Of course.’ Mia frowned. ‘We were best friends.’

‘Sure. It’s just that, knowing teenagers, that’s not always the same thing,’ Pendlebury said. ‘It’s a complicated time.’

That was true. Kieran thought about Ash and Sean and how their own three-way balance had shifted and resettled over the years. It had been just Kieran and Sean for a long time as kids, and then it had felt like Ash had been the one firmly by his side for those big crazy high school summers. Now it was Ash and Sean who saw each other every day, and only saw Kieran every once in a long while.

‘What do you do for work, Mia, by the way?’ Pendlebury’s question caught Kieran by surprise. For a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on, the way Pendlebury was watching Mia made him a little uneasy.