Luce was wearing a coat, but nothing else. I stepped inside and took her in my arms, and decided that this was just about the best of the eight thousand-odd days I’d spent on the planet.
I think it was fairly apparent to the others over breakfast the next morning what had happened between Luce and me. I thought I was playing it pretty cool, but each in turn, coming down into the dining room, blinked at the pair of us, then grinned and winked, as if we had neon signs on our heads. I couldn’t read the signs with Anna and Damien, though, and as we carried our bags out to the cars I got a chance to speak to her.
‘You okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean … good night?’
She gave me a patient smile and turned away, me none the wiser.
We returned to the Watagans and, in an unspoken agreement, Anna, Luce, Damien and I switched climbing partners, so that I spent the day climbing with Luce, a breathtaking experience. In the mid-afternoon we made our last ascent together, me exhausted, and I staggered into her arms on the scrubby plateau at the top. She pulled me away from the edge, out of the line of sight of Damien and Anna making their way up below us, and I told her she was beautiful and that I loved her. She smiled and took my hand and led me back into an area of huge boulders and thick clumps of tall grass. We rounded an outcrop, searching for a place to settle, when we were suddenly presented with a sight that stopped us dead. Curtis and Owen were together in a sheltered nook, their climbing helmets and harnesses discarded on the ground nearby. Curtis was on his back, groaning, eyes closed, while Owen knelt over his midriff, head down.
My shoe sent a stone skittering noisily away and Owen opened his eyes, pushed himself marginally upright and stared at us. For a moment we were frozen, the four of us, then Owen said, ‘Aw, fuck.’
I muttered, ‘Sorry,’ and turned away, following Luce, already retreating around the outcrop.
I followed her back to the cliff edge, where Damien was standing now, pulling in the rope on which Anna was secured. I reached for Luce’s hand, feeling the tension in her, not sure what to say. Finally I whispered, ‘Things happen.’
She turned slowly and stared at me. ‘Poor Suzi.’
Anna called me the day after I’d visited the nursing home to arrange to discuss the report. We settled on Saturday afternoon at the hotel. I said it’d be private and convenient, but the truth was that I wanted Mary to have time to meet her, and tell me if she thought Anna was making too much of this.
It was another beautiful warm spring day, the air still, but Anna didn’t like the idea of working on the terrace where we might be interrupted. Instead we moved in to Mary’s sitting room, Anna setting her stuff out on the table like someone preparing for a major presentation. As she was unpacking her bag Mary came in with a pot of coffee. They seemed genuinely pleased to see each other again, as if there had been some earlier bond of understanding or sympathy that they both remembered.
‘Josh has told me all about your trip to Christchurch,’ Mary said. ‘You poor thing. It must have been a terrible experience.’ I could see the appraising look in her eye. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve had to deal with all this, Anna. You were a good friend to them, flying out like that. And then to hear that terrible confession. You’re quite sure he wasn’t just confused or hallucinating? People say strange things when they’re drugged and in shock and as desperately ill as he was.’
‘I know, I’ve been wrestling with that ever since. It’s just that he was, briefly, so lucid.’
My aunt nodded sadly. ‘Well, you were there. Couldn’t you speak to someone about it, though? Perhaps the police officer who looked into the matter? We have a regular guest here-a good friend-who’s a Supreme Court judge, and I was saying to Josh that I’m sure he would pull a few strings to help you get the ear of the right person.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Anna said cautiously. ‘But I think we should try to be as clear as possible in our own minds before we go as far as that.’
‘Maybe that’s wise.’ Mary hesitated, unwilling to let it go. ‘Of course, the other aspect of this is, what happens if what Owen said was true? They’re all dead now-Lucy, Curtis and Owen. What good can it do? And think of the possible harm, the distress to Lucy’s family, for instance.’
‘But they aren’t all dead, Mary. There were two other people in their group, Damien Stokes and Marcus Fenn. They’re very much alive.’
Mary looked shocked. ‘Oh, but surely you don’t imagine they …?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well …’ Mary stared at her, then turned to go, catching my eye with a look that I took to be a warning to be careful.
‘So, what did you come up with?’ Anna asked as I poured the coffee.
‘Not a lot.’ I’d wanted to avoid talking about how Luce had been depressed, but in the end it was all I had to say.
Anna looked at me pointedly. ‘Yes. They shifted their ground, didn’t they? And in the end Damien put the blame onto you.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Was he right, do you think? You saw her after I left, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, she was down. But she wasn’t suicidal. She was looking forward to going on the trip. I mean, she was really fired up about how important the work was, and about doing some climbing, and what a beautiful place it was. Something changed while she was out there. Despite all their protests that Luce wouldn’t have deliberately stepped off that cliff, Damien and the others planted the seed of the possibility. I think it was a smokescreen, in case Maddox found something that didn’t fit the picture of an accident.’
‘Could be.’
‘Anything else?’
I mentioned Marcus’s description of Luce as impetuous, another smokescreen.
Anna agreed, but was obviously disappointed by my lack of progress, so I asked, ‘What about you, then? What did you find?’
She unfolded several large handwritten tables and charts and spread them out. One was a timeline, tracing Luce’s movements on the island according to witness statements, and another was a chart showing the names and connections of all of the people referred to in the police report. A third was a large map of the island locating all the places mentioned. I was impressed. She’d obviously approached it in a methodical, scientific manner, making my casual observations look pretty thin. I put it down to a lack of mental challenge at the Walter Murchison Memorial Nursing Home.
‘They arrived on the first of September,’ she said, pointing to the timeline, ‘moving into the same cottage belonging to the Kelso family that Marcus had rented in previous years. During the first two weeks they worked on the accessible small islands off the north end of Lord Howe. Then, when Damien arrived to make up two climbing pairs, they tackled the more difficult cliffs at the south end, below Mount Gower. Each day Marcus would go out with them in Bob Kelso’s boat, and return for them in the evening. They all kept work diaries, which Marcus would compile, day by day, into the research log. The weather was generally good, although there were a number of stormy days, especially towards the end, when they couldn’t go out.
‘On Wednesday the twenty-seventh, the ocean-going yachts on the Sydney to Lord Howe race arrived at the island, and on the following evening the Kelsos, who are an important family on the island, threw a party for the yachties, to which Marcus and his team were invited. On the Friday they returned to Mount Gower for what was originally scheduled to be their last day in the field. However, a bad storm blew in on the Saturday, disrupting flights to the island, and because of time lost earlier Marcus decided that they would stay on for a few more days to finish their work. The weather cleared on the Sunday, and on the Monday they lost Luce. The search and police interviews went on for another week.’
I had been following her finger as she traced this chain of events across the page. Seeing it laid out graphically like that made it easier to get a feel for the pattern. It struck me that there was a sort of congestion towards the end-the arrival of the yachts, the party, the bad weather, the delayed departure-disrupting the even repetition of the previous weeks.