To the Sea Read online

  About To the Sea

  A dangerous yearning echoes through the generations.

  On a clear summer’s day, Detective Inspector Tony Vincent answers a call-out to an idyllic Tasmanian beach house. Surrounded by family and calm waters, seventeen-year-old Zoe Kennett has inexplicably vanished.

  Four storytellers share their version of what has led to this moment, weaving tales which span centuries and continents. But Tony needs facts, not fiction: how will such fables lead him to Zoe and to the truth?

  As Tony’s investigation deepens, he is drawn into a world where myth and history blur, and where women who risk all for love must pay the price through every generation.

  Contents

  Cover

  About To the Sea

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Day One

  Chapter 1: John

  Chapter 2: Tony

  Chapter 3: Sadie

  Chapter 4: Eva

  Chapter 5: Sadie

  Chapter 6: Tony

  Day Two

  Chapter 7: Tony

  Chapter 8: Eva

  Chapter 9: Sadie

  Chapter 10: Eva

  Chapter 11: John

  Chapter 12: Eva

  Chapter 13: Tony

  Day Three

  Chapter 14: Tony

  Chapter 15: Sadie

  Chapter 16: Tony

  Chapter 17: Eva’s Story

  Chapter 18: Tony

  Chapter 19: John

  Chapter 20: Tom’s Story

  Chapter 21: John

  Chapter 22: Tony

  Day Four

  Chapter 23: Tony

  Chapter 24: John

  Chapter 25: Eva

  Chapter 26: Sadie

  Chapter 27: Eva

  Chapter 28: Tony

  Day Five

  Chapter 29: John

  Chapter 30: Sadie

  Chapter 31: Tony

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Copyright page

  For Ged

  Living is so fantastic and strange and un-understandable that they accept the supernatural or that which cannot be explained as the actual, and with the actual they reverse the effect. The dead are almost closer to us at home than the living and things called ‘miracles’ seem to fit into life like toast and cream.

  Ernie O’Malley

  Letter to Helen Hooker, 8 May 1935

  Day one

  John

  JOHN KNEW HE SHOULD GO DOWN. HE HAD BEEN UP HERE WITH EVA FOR hours and she didn’t need him. She was lying on the bed with her eyes closed but he knew she wasn’t asleep. Even Eva couldn’t sleep through this. John stood at the open bedroom window. It was hot outside. The water was pearly blue and still. He could smell its salty stillness. There were two sailboats out in the channel tacking slow into what little breeze they could find. A few hopeful fishermen were out in tinnies and John could hear the thin sound of a radio playing from out on the water, probably around in Gypsy Dance Bay. Down on Table Rock, a lone seal was lying on its side with a flipper in the air, catching the last of the sun’s rays. It would take off before dark and head out across the channel to one of the islands.

  John could see his three older daughters standing together on the lawn. Sadie was pointing her finger at Cecile, and Edie was holding Cecile’s arm and talking in a low voice. If he hadn’t known them better, he might think they were sorting out a shared problem or that Edie was comforting a distraught Cecile with her gentle touch and quiet words. But he knew them much better than that. He had been watching this same scene for the past thirty years. At least Sadie and Cecile had stopped yelling. John understood their panic but he had never understood his older daughters’ need to lash out against fear or try and yell it into submission. As usual, Carl was not getting involved with his sisters’ drama. John could see his son sitting on the jetty, smoking. Ben was lying next to him. They were both looking out over Table Rock and Carl had his hand on Ben’s old back, rubbing it slowly. Carl’s quiet retreat in times of distress, sheltered from the rest of the family with only Ben to bear witness, was familiar to John. Sadie would chase him down soon enough and drag him back into her fray.

  Two of John’s grandsons, Matt and Josh, were sitting at the abandoned lunch table on the lawn, their heads bent over their mobile phones. At just that moment, Sadie glanced over at them.

  ‘Matt, you haven’t told anyone what has happened, have you?’ Sadie’s voice was raised and harsher than it needed to be.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum.’ Her blond-haired son slowly shook his head from side to side.

  Matt shifted his gaze out to sea as his mother went back to talking to Cecile. Edie had turned her back on her older sisters and walked over to Matt at the table. She smiled at him and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. Matt could see she had been crying and her small hand quivered on his cheek.

  ‘Your mum thinks she has to deal with everything, Matt, and there’s a lot to deal with. It’s taking its toll.’

  ‘Mum always thinks she has to deal with everything. I get that. But seriously, does she think the rest of us are idiots?’

  ‘You know she does,’ said Edie, smiling.

  Matt stood up and gave Edie a hug. He was already a good head taller than his aunt and he rubbed the top of her head as he picked up his phone and slipped into his thongs. He touched Josh lightly on the shoulder as he walked past him and into the house. Josh looked up at Matt and shrugged his shoulders.

  At that moment, Josh saw his grandfather looking down at him from the upstairs bedroom window. He lifted his arm and waved lazily. John lifted his hand in return but could not quite manage a wave. After a while, Josh returned to his mobile phone. Yes, my boy, stay wherever you are. Stay as far away from here as you can, thought John.

  John could hear but not see some of his other grandchildren. The younger children’s squeals flew up to him from the beach on the far side of the dunes. Max or Con would be down there keeping a protective eye on them. He couldn’t see the older girls. He hoped they weren’t out on the water. Not now. It wasn’t his job to keep an eye on them all but still his chest raced with his now useless worries. He should have worried more about his own precious daughter.

  John watched it all and told himself again that he really should go down. The police would be here soon and he should be the one dealing with them. Eva had not moved. She didn’t need him but still he lingered by her side.

  Tony

  IT WAS QUIET IN THE HOBART CIB OFFICE IN LIVERPOOL STREET. THREE days after Christmas. Only a few major crimes required attention. Four officers were attending a fatal car accident out near Richmond and the handful of detectives and senior officers on duty were sitting at their computers getting on with the business of policing.

  As a CIB Inspector, Tony Vincent was the most senior officer on duty, although at twenty-six, he was young for the job and looked even younger. And he didn’t carry on like the older DIs. He wasn’t angry about the years he’d spent in uniform or at DS level, and he didn’t treat the other detectives or uniforms like lackeys. Tony could sense people were pretty relaxed with him in charge. The work would get done but without the usual loud rough talk and predictable sexist banter which passed for wit among cops. DI Vincent didn’t allow that kind of thing.

  Tony looked around the office. He had his own office down the hallway but he also had a desk in the big room with the other detectives. He wasn’t going to lose touch with the interactions that happened over cold coffee and lame jokes. He wasn’t going to lose his crew to Commander Ryan or any other senior cop who could infect the place just by being in the building.

  Tony knew he had a good team for the day, one that could be relied upon to get on with their wo
rk. He would make sure he was about when the uniforms came back from Richmond. One of them was new to the job and just a kid and if it was a horror smash, Tony knew that a calm older presence could get you through your first broken bodies. He was surprised that he had so quickly become the older, experienced one.

  He was looking forward to a family dinner tonight at his parents’ place. His mum would have been cooking all day for it, especially his favourite gnocchi and yeasty panettone for dessert. Lucia Vincent always cooked her baby son’s favourites and his brothers always whined about it. She would have a tiramisu hidden in the back of the fridge for them. It would be fun. Except the bit where Tony told his mum that Lila wasn’t coming.

  The young constable out on the front counter walked over to Tony’s desk.

  ‘Excuse me, DI Vincent,’ she interrupted quietly. Tony looked up. She was holding a pad in her hand.

  ‘This has just come through from triple zero.’

  ‘What is it?’ He stopped typing and swivelled around to give her his full attention.

  ‘It’s a call from Garnet Point. The caller said that a girl has gone missing, possibly drowned.’ She was reading from the pad.

  ‘Give me all the information you have.’

  ‘A call was received ten minutes ago at 1520 on triple zero. A seventeen-year-old girl, Zoe Kennett, went missing while snorkelling in a bay at Garnet Point. The family think she has drowned.’

  ‘And when exactly did she go missing?’

  ‘The caller said that it could have happened any time in the past nineteen hours.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She was last seen at 8 pm last night when she told her family she was going snorkelling.’

  ‘And they are just reporting her missing now?’

  The young constable nodded.

  Tony picked up the phone receiver on his desk. ‘Give me the number,’ he said, getting ready to push the numbers.

  ‘Sorry, sir. The caller only gave an address before she hung up. Pelagus Road, Garnet Point. Last house in the road. We can’t miss it.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a nuisance call?’

  The constable screwed up her face. ‘The emergency operator said the caller sounded distressed. I think it’s real.’

  ‘But not distressed enough to speak to us or give us a phone number or an address. Who was the caller?’

  ‘Sadie Kennett.’

  Tony grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair, suddenly glad to get out of the office.

  ‘Paul, Narelle,’ he called over to two detectives sitting at nearby desks. ‘You’re with me. Grab the camera – we’ll need first scene pictures.’

  ‘Do you need any uniforms?’ asked the young constable standing beside Tony.

  ‘Yes, Constable. Get onto Sorell and ask them to send a couple down to meet us at the location we’ve been given. Once they confirm the girl’s still missing in the water, get them to organise the marines. We’re going to need divers if there’s no body. And tell them to bring gear for a night dive. Get an ambulance down there too.’

  The ambulance was for body transfer. If the girl had been missing in the water since last night, she was dead. Tasmanian waters were quietly efficient killers. Hypothermia would kill even the most acclimatised of swimmers in four hours. Often a lot faster than that, even in summer.

  He was closing down his computer and grabbing his notebook and phone while issuing instructions.

  ‘And call the coroner’s office and let them know they may have a late delivery. OK, got all that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Paul, you and Narelle take a squad car. I’ll go separately.’

  ‘OK, boss. See you down there,’ called Paul, as he and Narelle went out the back door to the car park. Narelle had the bulky Nikon bag slung over her shoulder.

  Tony thought he’d better call his mum as making an appearance at dinner was suddenly looking unlikely, but he decided to wait. This could be quick and simple and he might still make it.

  Southern Tasmania’s Arthur Highway was almost as familiar to Tony as his parents’ home street. He had clocked up a lot of hours for his learner’s log book on the Highway of Death, strada del diavolo, as his mother always referred to it, during his last year at school and once he had his licence, his father let him drive down for their holidays and getaway weekends. The Vincents had had a shack down at Pirates Bay since before Tony was born. His family had spent every summer he could remember down there while the construction industry was closed down over summer. Tony’s dad, Gino, bragged that the Vincent boys could build a house and never have to get another tradie on site. But Tony had never really been interested in following his dad and brothers into the building game. Good work, but not for him.

  Driving along the sandy track called Pelagus Road, the water was on his right-hand side. The few houses along the road faced the sea and looked back across to Cremorne on the far side of the channel with Mount Wellington looming above the blue horizon, or over to the purple hills of Tinderbox and the D’Entrecasteaux Channel in the far western distance. It was sublimely spectacular. There were some small islands dotted through the channel and one had an old white lighthouse on it. The water must be meaner than it looked out there to warrant building that, thought Tony. Tinnies and small yachts didn’t usually get their own lighthouse.

  Garnet Point was a dead-end peninsula. It wasn’t on the way to anywhere, which explained why Tony had never been down here before. It was fifteen kilometres through the hills and along the winding coast. All you could do at the end was turn around or swim to Antarctica.

  The Sorell boys had called through to him that they were already at the house. The marines were on their way.

  Tony could see brightly painted pictures on the fences and gates of the houses along the tree-lined road and thought they were a nice touch to a small town. He couldn’t see a theme in the pictures although the ‘Ours’ theme in the house names – Finally Ours, Ours At Last – was obvious enough.

  Most of the shacks were small fibro houses with big windows and decks facing the sea. The front yards were mostly lawns growing patchily through white sand bordered by gaudy geraniums and blue and white agapanthus. The sandy road verges were covered in brightly coloured pigface and gazanias. Tinnies and trailers were scattered throughout yards and kids’ bikes were lying on lawns and leaning up against falling-down fences. People on decks looked at his unmarked car as he drove by and several waved to him. A few kilometres down Pelagus Road, the shacks thinned out into bush and large pine trees on both sides of the road. He drove around a tight bend and saw a squad car parked in front of an ornate wooden gate and a long white post and rail fence that ran along the road and got lost in pine trees. Tony pulled up beside the car.

  ‘DI Vincent,’ he said out the window. A young uniform came over and leaned into the car.

  ‘Afternoon, sir. Constable Jack Turner and Constable Eric Sumner from Sorell. They couldn’t send anyone more senior but the sergeant reckons we’ll be all right.’

  He was smiling while he was talking and Tony could see that young Jack was a bit of a comedian.

  ‘We’ve radioed through to the marines giving them the exact location. This property runs down to the water and there’s a deep-water jetty so they’ll be able to come in here,’ said Jack, still smiling. ‘They should be here within the hour.’

  Tony knew he could leave the marines to get on with their job when they got here. Unfortunately, diving for bodies down this way was not unusual. There were shacks all along this coast from Orford on the east coast right down the peninsula to Port Arthur and White Beach in the south. Weekend fishermen in small boats regularly underestimated the Southern Ocean and the speed with which the wind and the weather could change. A nice day’s fishing with a few beers interrupted by a deceptively quiet squall and rapidly rising swell, too late for nervous fishermen to grasp how far away the shore was and just how easily this massive ocean could swamp a twelve-foot tinnie.

 
; It was a familiar news story for Tasmanians and every summer there was TV footage of another grieving family wrapped in blankets standing on a shoreline looking out to divers bobbing to the surface with a shake or a nod of their heads to police crews in boats. Always a tragedy, always the same. The Sorell boys had probably been at a scene like this on more than one occasion, thought Tony.

  ‘Good work,’ said Tony. ‘Are you boys locals?’

  ‘Not really. But we know the area pretty well,’ said Jack.

  ‘Do you know this family at all? Name of Kennett.’

  ‘Nah, sorry, sir. Haven’t been out to Garnet Point a lot and never been this far down the road before. Didn’t even know there was a place here.’

  ‘OK,’ said Tony. ‘Let’s get in there.’

  As he spoke, another squad car came round the bend and pulled up behind him. Paul and Narelle got out and walked over.

  ‘Where have you two been?’ asked Tony, looking at his watch and getting out of his car to join them.

  ‘Stopped at a bakery. We missed lunch and I think we might be missing tea too,’ said Paul. ‘Got you a coffee, boss,’ he said, passing a cardboard cup to Tony. ‘Short black. I asked for Italian style but I can’t promise anything. Country bakeries, you take your chances.’

  Tony took the coffee, grateful for the thought and the caffeine. The others were shaking hands.

  ‘So, now that we all know each other, I might as well do the briefing here,’ said Tony as the others leaned against the cars ready to listen. Both young Jack and Eric had notebooks out. Their sergeant was right; these two would be all right.

  Tony outlined the details of the triple zero call.

  ‘There is no body, or there wasn’t at 1520 and I’ve had no update.’

  ‘So,’ said Narelle looking at him, ‘has the girl drowned or what?’

  ‘Let’s go in and find out. The marines are on their way. Jack and Eric, you get them to the right spot once we find out where that is. OK?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ they both responded.