Bay of Fires (30 page)

Sarah pressed her foot down on the accelerator when she heard the explosion. She was coming up the crest of the hill, and she leaned forward to watch the road even more closely, conscious of Don in the back. She could not work out what had caused the explosion. There was a wrecked car at the tip, but it had been there forever, and she doubted there was any fuel in its tank. They dumped their load of water and returned to the shop for more. She risked a glance at the Coker cottage as she drove past. No light in the windows, nothing to suggest he was home. As soon as they had this fire under control, she would have a closer look. Maybe he was hiding under the tank stand again.

Returning with the water, she braked hard as the Land Cruiser reached the Coker cottage. Don, seated beside her, braced against the dashboard with both hands.

“What are you doing?” Don said.

“I’m worried about Roger.” She squinted into the darkness.

“For goodness sake, girl. If he’s murdered those women, he deserves what he gets.”

Don’s patriarchal assurance gave her pause. “You know he didn’t murder Chloe.”

“No I don’t,” Don said. “He very well could have done.”

“But…”

“Stop carrying on. Put your foot down.”

There wasn’t time to dwell on it. Sarah continued driving to the fire, ready to do another water run. But when they got there, people were using words such as “contained” and “under control” to describe the fire.

“Simmering like a pork chop,” Don said as he climbed out of the Land Cruiser. “I deserve a beer.”

Sarah remained in the vehicle, her hands on the wheel, the engine running. Everyone was standing around the trench, towels covering their faces, patting one another on the back for their handiwork. She did not share their exuberance. She reversed swiftly, tapping the horn until she was back on the gravel road.

Everyone became jovial once the fire was dead. Bunghole and the blokes worked the hoses, tossing their empty cans into the drenched, simmering pits. Pamela and Flip arranged food on a table with the merry efficiency of cake stand volunteers at a school fair. The St. Helens firefighters inspected the tip, their heavy boots crunching over the hot ground. Hall hung back, watching as the last orange embers puffed foul-smelling black smoke into the night. Hall looked up the road, waiting for Sarah to come flying down in Jane’s Land Cruiser again. At least twenty slow minutes passed before the fire chief approached him.

“Nothing,” he said. “There’s no one in the car. The police will do a full search tomorrow.”

Bunghole was listening, and he joined the conversation without invitation. “That’s right. Me and the boys were first to get here and the Valiant was empty. We shoved it into the trench so the fire wouldn’t spread.”

Men moved in the shadows behind Bunghole, their eyes catching the flickering light as they listened.

“The right thing to do,” the fire chief said.

Hall posed the St. Helens firefighters in front of their bush fire engine. They grinned, the comfortable smiles of men who knew they had done a good job. Everyone liked firemen. A round of applause was given as Hall took the last shot.

The fire was out, the danger was gone, yet Hall did not feel calm. In some men Hall saw smugness, a self-righteousness that gave their satisfaction with extinguishing the fire a malicious undercurrent.

Jane’s Land Cruiser romped up the road as the firemen were leaving. There was room for only one vehicle, and the Land Cruiser veered onto the rough edge. People had to jump aside as it approached the group. It was being driven much faster than was necessary. Hall could see Sarah’s serious face inside the cabin, her hand hard on the horn. On her last trip Hall had heard John tell her they didn’t need any more water and she had ignored him, grimly shaking her head as she drove off. This time Hall went to her.

“You can stop now,” he said. “It’s all over.”

She jumped out of the cabin and stretched, scanning the fire site with jerky twists of her head. Almost imperceptibly, her body was shaking. Hall’s eyes stung with every blink, partly from the smoke, partly from fatigue. He wanted a shower.

“Nothing more we can do here tonight,” he said. “Shall we head off?”

Her lip curled into a frown. Someone handed her a can of beer, which she drank from before answering.

“I might have a couple. I’m too psyched to sleep,” she said, and walked across the clearing to sit down on the trunk of a fallen tree.

All that remained of the fire were simmering shreds of paperbarks floating on the lagoon and the acrid smell of burned refuse. It had been a hard couple of hours. No one wanted to go home; they sat on the backs of cars, on tree stumps and Eskies, drinking and swapping stories. Sarah sat alone, not wanting to chat, trying to control her body’s shaking. Waiting for Hall to come over, she drank two beers in twenty minutes. It did nothing to calm the taut exhilaration in her body.

She wanted to tell Hall about her night, about driving the Land Cruiser through that ridiculous smoke, about Don’s deceptiveness, and most of all about her concern for Roger, who wasn’t at home. Sarah had driven to the end of the road, lights on high beam, searching for Roger. She had even checked the wharf, rolling past the boatsheds, which were now scrubbed clean of the graffiti. She wanted to hear where Hall had been, who he had spoken to. Mostly she just wanted him to sit beside her. She sipped beer and watched him wander around with his notebook. Soot marred his face, and when he pointed up the hill at something, there were sweat patches under his arms. He looked exactly how she liked a man to look.

Erica stepped into her line of vision. Her denim jeans, artfully frayed, were almost clean. Her navy woolen sweater looked brand-new; nothing about her gave the impression that she had helped to put out a bushfire.

“What do you want?” Sarah asked.

“We’re going home,” Erica said. “Walk with us?”

“Hmmm. Let me think about that for a minute,” Sarah said sarcastically. “Actually, I think I have better things to do than be a human punch line for your lame jokes.”

Erica looked sorry. But that was precisely Erica’s problem; she never conceded that she was wrong. Not once had Sarah ever heard Erica admit that she had screwed up. Anger and fatigue were a dangerous mix, and Sarah reminded herself to be silent.

“Come on. You have to admit, it is kind of funny how hard you’ve been trying to solve this murder investigation,” Erica said. “If I were doing that, you’d make fun of me, too.”

Sarah glared at her sister. “But you wouldn’t try to find out who killed anyone. That’s what annoys me about you. You never try to do anything unless you know you’ll be good at it. You can’t handle failure.”

“You don’t look like you’re handling failure very well.”

“What are you talking about?” Sarah hadn’t told anyone about her final mistake on the fish farm, if that was what Erica was referring to. Sarah had not even mentioned it to Hall. It would be too hard to explain her absence from the farm that night without going into the details of her fight with Jake.

“Well, obviously your relationship failed or you wouldn’t be here,” Erica said.

“My relationship?” Sarah shook her head. “You want to give me some relationship advice now?”

“No.” Erica took a step back. “I’m your sister. I don’t like seeing you so sad. I want to help you.”

“You want to help?” Sarah said. “Then fuck off. That would be the most helpful thing you could do right now.”

Erica was stung. Sarah had never spoken so aggressively to her. Erica turned and crossed the clearing to where her parents were waiting. Whatever Erica said satisfied them; they glanced at Sarah, who pretended not to notice, and they moved into the night.

Hall looked around for some drinking water. Pamela noticed and fetched him a bottle. It was cool on his throat. He splashed some on his eyes. Discontent festered beneath the cheeriness of everyone who had helped extinguish the fire. Names were mentioned. Some of the men were not holding back with their theories.

From the other side of the crowd he heard Sarah point out that if the fire had been deliberately lit, the pyromaniac was most likely sitting around drinking beers right now.

“He will have dirty hands,” she said, showing her own soot-covered hands.

No one liked hearing that. Hall overheard one of the men sprawled on Bunghole’s flatbed call Sarah a know-it-all dyke. He was glad she was busy talking to Jane and, as far as he could tell, missed hearing it. He didn’t want to leave her here. She was shivering—and it was not a cold night.

He would make sure she got home safely tonight. He planned to return here in the morning, and he suspected Sarah would like to accompany him. Especially if he mentioned his suspicions that this burned-out rubbish dump might be a crime scene.

In the center of the crowd, Bunghole was stabbing the air with his cigarette, telling a story in a loud voice. As Sarah watched, he tossed the cigarette butt onto the ground and stomped on it.

“Some people are slow learners,” Hall murmured in her ear.

She grinned. “Where’s your beer, Hall?”

“Not tonight. I’m shattered. Need sleep.”

She hid her disappointment. “You haven’t seen Roger around, have you?”

“I’m heading up the hill now. Why don’t you come and we can stop in at his place?” he said.

It was tempting, but then what? Roger wasn’t home, she already knew that. Hall would drop her off at the shack and she could sit there in the quiet kitchen and drink a glass of Dad’s port by herself. No thanks. Not tonight.

It was only when Hall stood up that she realized how much she didn’t want him to leave.

“I liked your bones story,” she said. “Possible human remains? When will that be confirmed?”

“The
Voice
police editor is looking into it for me. I think there will be a piece in the paper tomorrow.”

“You’re holding something back.”

“Whatever the story is, it will be broken in tomorrow’s paper. You’ll have to wait.” He smiled and kissed the top of her head. He looked tired, older than forty. “Get some rest tonight, Sarah.”

Hall left Sarah straddling the tree trunk with the motley group of men and women from the campground. He didn’t like leaving her there. Walking home, he went over his leads out of habit more than interest. The police arson specialist would arrive in the morning to confirm how the fire had started. The fire chief said a burning cigarette butt was a likely culprit. When Hall voiced his concerns, the chief explained that several unmanned rubbish tips caught fire each summer and it was unlikely to be a homicide. Hall didn’t mention suicide. He hoped his suspicion was wrong.

Hall shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked. Smoke stung his eyes; his throat was taut. He should have tried harder to persuade Sarah to leave tonight, even if that meant having to drag her away from the drama. It was silly mentioning his suspicions about a potential crime scene at the site of the tip fire. She didn’t need another thing to worry about. Her fascination with the murder case saddened him. Perhaps in the morning she would be more relaxed. If not, he would take her for a drive, maybe to the Scamander Raspberry Farm or even as far as the Elephant Pass pancake parlor.

Halfway up the hill he stopped in the middle of the road. Gas lanterns were lit inside the Averys’ shack. He could see John, Flip, and Erica sitting at the table. It was a cozy scene. Certainly an image at odds with Hall’s growing suspicions. But it was important to keep an open mind as a journalist. Otherwise he might as well pack his bags and go back to Launceston.

Sarah had promised to meet Hall outside the shop in the morning. Checking her watch, she realized that was in eight hours. The man beside her started singing and slapping his leg. Some of the other men, including Don, joined in. With Hall gone, things felt off-kilter. Mum, Dad, and Erica had left a while ago. Sarah couldn’t remember why she had wanted to stay. She should have gone with Hall. Too late now. She opened another can of beer, flicking off the top too fast so that liquid fizzed down her arm.

“It’s a boy,” one of the women called out.

A few of them laughed, but Sarah didn’t smile. Nursing her beer, she slipped away into the darkness. She could have finished the drink and then said good-bye, but someone would only tell her to have another one, and she was worried she would.

Swinging her torch, she made her way down the sandy road. A man’s shape emerged from the bushes. Startled, Sarah lurched sideways. Then she saw the fluorescent vest. It was only Don. Must have been taking a leak.

“You going? I should too. But I think I’ll have just one more,” he said.

“Okay.” Sarah didn’t feel like chatting. “Have a good one.”

She didn’t want to pick a fight with Don. He was almost like family to her. But she needed to hear him explain his abruptness when she braked outside Roger’s place. Either he knew something she didn’t or he was being an idiot, in which case she would tell him so. That’s what family friends were for.

“Is everything all right?” Don asked.

“I’m confused, Don. You saw Roger up at Douglas River the day Chloe disappeared. He told me. Buying fuel.”

“You believe him?” Don said.

Sarah began walking down the road, waving without looking back. She was too tired to have this conversation right now.

Don called after her. “Yes, I saw Roger and Les Coker at the Douglas River service station.”

Sarah shone her torch on his face and he blocked the light with his hand. “Why not say?” she said.

“What was there to say?”

“Come on, Don.”

“What purpose would it serve? Roger was never charged. There was never a body, so of course no one was charged. In any case, they could easily have driven there and back in a day, and it’s not my responsibility to provide someone with an alibi.”

“No, I don’t mean that. Why didn’t you ever mention it? When Pamela was ranting on about Roger, why not say?”

“You make your bed, you lie on it.”