To the Sea Read online

  The women were quiet. Sadie looked pensive. Tony couldn’t read Cecile.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ said Cecile. She stood up from the table, rattling the little cups in their saucers. ‘What the hell has any of this got to do with Zoe drowning? What does it matter if she could speak Irish? What does it matter if she had a boyfriend and didn’t tell us? What does any of it matter? If you want to portray Sadie and me as uncaring older sisters who let our sister die, then go ahead. But it won’t help you find Zoe. What a hopeless bloody police force we’ve got.’

  Her voice was raised and she was tilting on the edge of losing what little composure she was holding on to.

  ‘Just get in a boat, Detective, and go and look for her. Carl and Matt have been out since dawn doing just that. Jess and Josh have been out for hours scouring the coastline. Doing your job for you. Even our neighbours are doing more than you.’

  Tony let her go. Things said in anger.

  ‘And leave our mother alone. You spent time with her yesterday. If you’ve got even half a brain, you must be able to see that she can’t help you.’

  Sadie reached out to her sister but Cecile would not be comforted.

  ‘Leave me be, Sadie. I’m more pissed off with you than I can say. You called the police and started this whole bloody fiasco and here we are being asked the most puerile of questions. As if Zoe hasn’t drowned. As if we are somehow responsible.’ Sadie sagged into her chair. ‘And where the hell is Dad? Zoe is his daughter. He should be dealing with this. His daughter is dead, for God’s sake. Where is he? With Mum, of course. It’s too much. Too much.’

  Cecile was crying now. Tony and Sadie let her. The only sounds in the thick heat were Cecile crying and the waves breaking on the beach at the bottom of the lawn. If anyone else was nearby, they would have heard Cecile’s outburst. Tony could see the realisation dawn on her. She stifled her sobs and pushed her thick blonde hair back behind her ears. She looked at Tony. No backward step but her voice was quieter. Almost back to normal.

  ‘I’ve had enough. Zoe’s dead. She drowned. Just find her body, Detective, and leave us to bury our sister. Don’t try and make this any more complicated or awful than it already is.’

  She turned, ready to walk away. She was done. Now Tony stepped in. The divers would be here soon. He wasn’t having Bill wasting precious dive time. And he couldn’t face another meeting with Commander Ryan.

  ‘I understand your grief, Dr Stanton. And I appreciate that this is a very difficult time for you and your family. But this is a police investigation into the disappearance and possible death of a young woman. I am the detective inspector leading this investigation and I have more experience investigating missing persons than you may think. And I’m afraid you are required to answer all my questions and comply with all my officers in this investigation.’

  As if on cue, Narelle and Paul walked around the corner of the verandah.

  ‘Divers and boats will be here any minute. A full air and dive search has been underway since first light. We will search and dive for as long as we need to. We will also continue to investigate the possibility of your sister running away, being abducted, coming to harm as the result of an accident or being murdered by someone in Garnet Point or by someone in this family.’

  Sadie and Cecile froze. They stood blinded in the glare of an ugly murder investigation. This was not a family used to ugliness. They didn’t know what to do in its presence. But, thought Tony, you’ll learn.

  ‘Now, we can continue this questioning here or we can go back to Hobart CIB,’ he said. ‘That’s your choice. And it’s the only choice I’m offering you.’ Neither woman spoke. But Tony didn’t believe they were too shocked to continue.

  He looked over at Narelle. All business, she pulled up a chair and sat down at the little round table, where she set up her laptop. No one was going anywhere.

  ‘On the day of Zoe’s disappearance,’ said Narelle, ‘the twenty-seventh, you both said that you didn’t see Zoe before dinner. Is that correct?’

  Sadie looked uncomfortable. Cecile was wary.

  ‘Correct,’ said Cecile.

  ‘I’d like you to look at these photos.’

  Narelle turned the laptop around so both women could see the screen. She began to slowly scroll through the photos of Zoe. Sadie sucked her breath in. Tony had heard her do this a few times. She was so easily surprised. Like a small child playing peekaboo. Once again, Cecile was harder to read. Narelle stopped at the photo of Zoe standing with her nieces next to Sadie.

  ‘Where did you get these?’ asked Sadie.

  ‘They were taken on the twenty-seventh between approximately 6 and 6.30 pm by a member of your family,’ replied Narelle.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Sadie slowly. She reached out and lightly touched Zoe’s face. ‘You’re right. That was just before dinner. And there’s Zoe.’

  ‘Do you remember seeing her now?’ asked Tony.

  Sadie looked at him and her eyes were glistening. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t at all.’

  ‘What about you, Dr Stanton?’ asked Tony. He couldn’t remember when he’d slipped back to formal titles with Cecile. ‘The little girl in the red shorts and yellow top is one of your daughters, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cecile. ‘I don’t remember Zoe being there either.’

  ‘You’ll notice Zoe is wearing an orange dress,’ said Tony, ‘not blue.’

  ‘I can see that, Detective,’ said Cecile.

  Paul interrupted. ‘Inspector, the marines will be at the jetty in two minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be there. Thank you.’

  ‘I’ve one more matter I wish to raise with you,’ said Tony. ‘When talking to your mother yesterday, she told Sergeant Clarke and myself that she doesn’t believe that Zoe has drowned.’ He paused. Sadie’s gaze did not lift from the floorboards of the verandah. Cecile looked him straight in the eye as if daring him to continue.

  ‘She was of the opinion that Zoe is at home in the sea,’ he said as neutrally as he could. ‘Does this surprise you?’

  ‘No,’ said Cecile.

  He waited.

  ‘Your mother also told us that she too is as much at home in the water as she is on land and that Zoe is the only one of her five children who shares this ability. Does that surprise you?’

  ‘No,’ said Cecile.

  ‘Do you share your mother’s views?’

  Cecile regarded him as if he were a precocious child. Sadie had turned towards the water and Tony could only see her side profile which was in dappled shade.

  ‘Really, Detective,’ said Cecile. ‘Of course we don’t share our mother’s views.’

  ‘Then what are your views?’

  ‘My view is that our mother has a fragile grip on reality,’ said Cecile. ‘She was brought up in an Irish-speaking household, mostly here at Rosetta, in comparative isolation from other children her age. From what we understand, she attended school sporadically because of her mother’s ill health. She had no siblings or cousins. Her grandparents and mother loved to tell Irish fairy tales and stories of changelings; the old Gaelic and Celtic legends. Our mother told us the same stories when we were little. While we always knew they were stories, our mother doesn’t seem to have been able to differentiate the real from the unreal. Her father was a professional fisherman who was lost at sea when she was a small child. Her beloved grandmother died when she was only twelve. Her mother was mentally ill for her entire life and committed suicide. My mother was still in her teens when that happened. She created a safe and strange world to live in to cope with a level of trauma most young girls could never imagine. We accept our mother and we accept her reality. But you would be unwise to do so, Detective.’

  ‘Do you think Zoe believes your mother’s stories?’ asked Tony.

  ‘Zoe was a very sensible and clever girl,’ replied Cecile, her voice flat and hard. ‘I can’t imagine she had any trouble separating fact from fiction.’

  ‘Do you kno
w that?’

  Sadie was no longer a part of the conversation.

  ‘I never discussed our mother’s stories with Zoe,’ said Cecile. ‘Why would I?’

  Tony had a lot of answers to that question.

  ‘May I go now, Detective?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cecile looked at her sister. Sadie didn’t respond. Cecile picked up the little cups and saucers off the table and walked around the corner of the verandah. Her bare feet made no sound on the smooth boards.

  Sadie continued to sit and look out over the water. Tony turned and saw that the boats had arrived at the jetty.

  Finally, Sadie looked at him and said quietly, ‘Cecile wouldn’t know what Zoe thought. Neither would I. You’re right, Detective. I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation with Zoe about anything. I don’t know her friends or her boyfriends or what she wanted to do with her life or what she believed.’ The realisation seemed to have saddened her. ‘She and my mother were very close. Zoe spent a lot of time at Rosetta with our mother sailing and swimming together. Who knows what was going on in Zoe’s head?’

  Sadie paused. Tony felt she was going to say something further.

  ‘I have a better idea than anyone else what Zoe was being told,’ she said. ‘But I still don’t know much. For some years when I was very young, my mother shared some of the secrets and legends with me. But she came to realise I wasn’t the child she thought I was, and she stopped. I have no clear memories of the things she told me. Our mother would have told Zoe things none of us know.’

  There was no movement at the table. He wanted her to keep going.

  ‘Who did she think you were?’ asked Tony.

  ‘The special daughter she believed she would have. The one I wasn’t. But she believed Zoe was that daughter.’

  Narelle looked up at Tony but didn’t interrupt.

  ‘Zoe would never have told anyone the stories our mother told her,’ Sadie added. ‘Those stories were just for her. It was unspoken in our family but Zoe was the child my mother had been waiting for her whole life. Cecile is a little bitter about that.’

  ‘And you’re not?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Sadie. She looked over at the two detectives. ‘I knew I wasn’t the one way before my mother figured it out. It’s no one’s fault, it’s just the way it is.’

  ‘And Zoe is the one?’

  ‘She was.’ Sadie closed her eyes. ‘The divers will be waiting for you.’

  ‘I’ll get them started but I’m not going out,’ said Tony. ‘I’d like another interview with your mother.’

  ‘Certainly, Detective.’ The fight and anger of the past few days had gone out of her.

  ‘Do you think Zoe is who your mother thinks she is?’ Tony asked.

  Sadie was very still. The day had stopped around them.

  She smiled sadly. ‘I think Zoe is a sweet mortal girl who can drown in the ocean just like anyone else. I loved my sister but I don’t expect to ever see her again. Perhaps Cecile is right that I was wrong to call you and start all this in motion.’

  ‘Your sister is missing. The police were always going to get involved. I, for one, am very glad you called us. I only wish you had called earlier to give us our best chance of finding Zoe.’ Just saying her name brought her back into the orbit of the living.

  Tony stood and left the two women sitting at the table.

  Sadie

  SADIE REMEMBERED A SUMMER’S DAY YEARS AGO WHEN SHE’D GONE TO visit Carl at their parents’ house. He had just moved back to Hobart after his marriage ended. Helen had moved back too with the kids and her new man.

  Carl was renting a place in North Hobart while he was looking for somewhere decent to buy, but it was a dump and Sadie preferred to visit him at their parents’ place. Carl had decided not to live with their parents, even though they’d offered. His marriage had failed but he hadn’t regressed to childhood. And he wouldn’t stay with Sadie. Not with Roger. She guessed he would probably get on with the dream of every architect and build his own house as soon as the divorce was settled. Zoe was just a little kid then, maybe five or six years old. Carl had brought her a dress and matching hat from Adelaide as a present. When Zoe opened it, Sadie could tell that Helen had bought the pretty little outfit, wrapped it and included a funny card with a bilby called Carl on it. Carl had just turned up at the house with a present for his little sister.

  He gave the parcel to Zoe and she disappeared upstairs all excited. She came back about ten minutes later wearing her new outfit. Sadie was sitting with her father and brother in the living room having a drink before dinner. Carl was telling his sad divorce story for what sounded like the thousandth time, still trying to find a way to tell it so it wound its way to a happier ending. His real misery seemed to come from seeing how broken-hearted his kids were. Josh had started wetting his bed again and Mia was one hysterical tantrum after another. Sadie remembered thinking that this was why she stayed with Roger. She would not put her children through the trauma Carl’s little ones were clearly going through.

  Zoe wandered over and stood near Carl’s chair chatting away in her sing-song voice. He was only half listening, feigning interest in her chatter like men do with other peoples’ kids.

  At some point, Sadie realised that Zoe had stopped talking and was standing next to the chair just looking at Carl. Carl turned to her, waiting for her to say something. She stood there, so still, just looking at Carl. Not fidgeting or wriggling or trying to do fifty things at once like Sadie’s two kids. Zoe was an intense little girl.

  After the longest silence that no one wanted to break, Zoe said to Carl, ‘Are you really my brother?’

  It struck Sadie as such an odd thing to say but then she thought, Carl is a 32-year-old man who Zoe has met maybe a dozen times in her life. He was nothing like Zoe’s friends’ brothers who she would be more used to seeing and playing with. Not like Matt was Jess’s brother. It was a fair question.

  ‘Yes, I’m your brother,’ Carl said.

  ‘But you’re not like me, are you?’

  Zoe had a different voice to Sadie and Carl and that was the first time Sadie remembered noticing it. Kind of accented. English was not her first language.

  ‘Well, actually, I’m a lot like you,’ he replied. ‘We look alike: same blue eyes, same blond hair. And we have the same Mum and Dad. I’m just much older than you. Like Sadie.’

  And then Zoe turned away from Carl and said something to Sadie in Irish. Sadie had heard Zoe speak Irish before but that day it struck her for the oddity it was. How could sisters have a different mother tongue?

  ‘You’ll have to talk to me in English,’ Sadie said. ‘I don’t speak Irish.’

  Zoe had looked at Sadie and Carl with such disappointment. That just-about-to-cry look that comes over little kids so easily.

  ‘Thank you for the dress and the hat, Carl,’ she said. She sidled up to him and kissed him politely on the cheek and then she left the room. Sadie could hear her talking to herself in Irish as she went back upstairs.

  Sadie couldn’t remember ever seeing Zoe in that dress or hat again. Neither could she remember really talking to Zoe again or thinking much about her for years.

  Tony

  ALL THREE BOATS ARRIVED AT THE JETTY TOGETHER AND TONY COULD see two divers in full gear ready to go on each boat. He jumped onto Bill’s boat leaving Ben behind on the jetty to wait for his return.

  ‘Do you think she might still be alive?’ Tony asked Bill after a solid half hour of poring over the charts with Bill and agreeing on the final search area.

  ‘No,’ said Bill, matter-of-fact. ‘She’s been missing for almost seventy-two hours. The family’s delay in calling us sealed her fate. The only way she’s alive is if she’s out of the water. And if she’s out of the water and not on the shoreline, we’re not going to find her. Not today. We’re focusing entirely on a sea search while we’ve got the conditions and the light.’

  ‘Our guys have covered the shore
line.’

  Bill grunted his acknowledgement.

  ‘What about rocks out in the channel or out to sea?’ asked Tony.

  ‘What rocks? It’s bloody deep out there.’

  ‘What about some of these islands?’ Tony pointed to some of the yellow and green shapes on the chart in front of him. ‘What about the island over there with the little lighthouse? Or that one over there?’ He pointed out across the channel. ‘She could’ve swum over to one of those and not been able to get back.’

  ‘OK, Detective Inspector Vincent, let’s get this clear,’ said Bill. ‘If I thought there was one chance in hell that she could be on any of the channel islands, I would’ve searched there on day one instead of pissing away precious time in Driving Sound when it became clear pretty damned fast that she wasn’t going to be there.’

  Tony was listening.

  ‘Those islands might look close but the nearest, Isle of Caves,’ said Bill, jabbing his thick finger on the nearest little island, ‘is at least three k away. White Eye Island is more like five. Black Arm much the same. They’re all against the current, which is strong and continuous, so they’re more like seven to nine k away for a swimmer. It’s a hell of a lot further with a swell or an incoming tide. She’d be swimming against everything these waters could throw at her. Slopen Island is six k in the other direction and with as many, if different, challenges.’

  Tony stepped away from the charts and looked at the islands. They seemed much closer than Bill was describing.

  ‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Bill. ‘I want you to get this, Inspector, so there can be no suggestion that we were searching in the wrong places or that the marines stuffed up a CIB investigation.’

  ‘I wasn’t –’

  ‘I’m not saying you were but let’s get it clear anyway. Even if this girl was a marathon swimmer and strong as a bull, she wasn’t wearing a wetsuit, according to the information I’ve been given. The water temperature out there,’ he pointed to the deep blue channel and the islands, ‘is usually about thirteen degrees this time of year. But this year, she’s unlucky. The La Niña effect means these waters are up to two degrees colder this summer. She wouldn’t have long before she started feeling disoriented and fatigued, eventually falling into unconsciousness before drowning. Hypothermia would kill her before she reached any of those islands.’