To the Sea Read online

  After their mother’s funeral and some months with Branna, who was enjoying one of her brief periods of good health, my sons returned to Ireland and I was stranded in Tasmania again. Eva was twelve years old and Branna was thirty-one. I was all they now had. And I knew I would not be enough.

  John

  JUST AS JOHN HAD WISHED EVA HAD NOT SHARED HER STORY WITH HIM, he wished Tom had spared him the heartache of Getha’s and Branna’s lives. It was too much pain for one man. And while Tom had brought the tragedy of his life upon himself, John did not deserve the weight of generations of women’s suffering laid at the feet of his own fledgling marriage.

  Once Tom had left for Ireland, John knew that Eva was now completely alone except for him. He understood that no one really knew Eva. She was isolated within a story of her own telling.

  And John knew that it would be dangerous for Eva’s story to be shared with anyone. He wished he didn’t know it himself but that time was past. Eva must keep both her lives intact and John must ensure no one else got close enough to disrupt the balance of her mind and the balance of their marriage.

  He must live a secret life too. He had chosen Eva and unwittingly chosen a life that only the two of them could share. He worried about what would happen when children came. He had wanted children so much these past few months but now he was afraid. Afraid of a story of sea people and voices and the fragile mind of his wife. But women in this family had been having children for twenty generations and Tom had told him all would be well. Branna was the lie to this assurance, of course, and now it seemed that all might not be well with Eva. Long absences into the water, voices only she could hear and a half-life on the land with her too human husband. Perhaps all the women in this family were simply passing on a terrifying disease through their daughters. Was this Ornice’s legacy?

  Tom’s story did not reassure John. Nothing did, but here he was. He didn’t like what he now knew about his wife but she was Eva and he could not love her less. Their life would bring what it might but as long as their love held, John was not afraid. All he could do was live. And so he did.

  Tony

  IT WAS DARK AND CLAMMY WHEN TONY AND NARELLE FINALLY LEFT Garnet Point. Paul and the Sorell boys had left hours before. Tony had spent a long time with Bill and the marines finalising all the search areas. Bill had left one boat moored in Driving Sound. He would be down at first light tomorrow. Narelle had been finishing interviews and double-checking everything Jack had found on phones, cameras and computers, and ensuring forensics had them all. Tony wanted no more surprises. And there weren’t any. All the pictures and texts and emails Narelle had seen were predictable and fitted the picture of a normal happy family and their normal happy teenage daughter.

  Checks on their bank accounts, travel, work places and credit card expenses over the past six months were all well within a normal range. Everyone in this family had money but not unexplainable amounts. Eva Kennett had brought real wealth into the family when she married; old money from her grandparents in Ireland. Rosetta and the house in Sandy Bay were part of that dowry. The older Kennett children were all middle-aged professionals married to other middle-aged professionals who all worked hard and very long hours. No real surprise that they were loaded. They all travelled a lot but not to worrying places. They didn’t visit porn sites. They didn’t gamble. If there were any extra-marital affairs going on, they were very well hidden. Most of them had share portfolios, but moderate amounts in ethical triple bottom line companies.

  They had the usual family issues: Carl was divorced and currently in an on-again off-again relationship; Sadie was in an obviously unhappy marriage; Roger Armitage was unpleasant but of no interest; extended family, including in-laws, held no surprises or black holes. There were no niggling mysteries in this family. No dark secrets. No alarm bells to ring. No reason for Zoe to leave or be taken away.

  Tony let Narelle keep looking out at the peaceful rural landscape rolling past them. He liked how they could sit in silence together.

  Images of Connery had been appearing to Tony all afternoon. Of Connery and Ornice in the water. Sometimes Zoe was with them. Other times Zoe was alone on the island. Waiting. He didn’t know what to make of Eva Kennett’s story. He didn’t feel he could ask her for an explanation even after she had finished speaking. It hardly mattered.

  And John Kennett knew more than he had told Tony. Tony felt that the man would not have to be pushed very hard to share the burden of his wife’s and daughter’s secret. But John Kennett had been pushed into a silent corner for most of his life and the pressure of it was clear in his face. Tony didn’t have the heart to push him any further.

  He smiled to himself in the dark. He’d thought about asking Eva Kennett to show him the truth of her story. Dive off the jetty and swim out to one of the islands. Cut through the water like a current. Become one with the ocean. Tony was a cop. He would believe his own eyes.

  And if she did? There Tony was stumped. If Zoe could do all that Connery could, she didn’t need people looking for her and trying to rescue her. If Zoe was somewhere safe, Tony should let the search wind down and move on to other more pressing investigations. And if Eva Kennett couldn’t or wouldn’t swim to an island to demonstrate who she was, then Zoe was a missing, presumed drowned, girl who needed to be looked for.

  He thought about tossing some of his thoughts around with Narelle but decided against it. They were both tired and he knew he wasn’t going to tell her the story of Connery and Ornice. And without the story, Eva Kennett was just a disturbed old woman clinging to a fantasy where her daughter couldn’t die in the sea. No point having that conversation.

  Day four

  Tony

  TONY WALKED OVER AND SAT ON THE EDGE OF NARELLE’S DESK NEXT TO Paul. It was the morning of New Year’s Eve. He was hoping they would all get out of here tonight in good time to celebrate. His brother, Rick, was having a party at his place and Tony had promised he would get there. He wanted to get there. It had been ages since he’d been to a party and Rick’s would be a good one. All his brothers. Lots of old mates. No cops. Narelle had said she wanted to knock off by seven as she had a night booked with friends who were ready to give up on her if she cancelled one more time. Tony didn’t know what plans Paul had but he wanted all of them out of here at a reasonable hour. He’d been working them too hard.

  Tony would oversee the marine search again today. He didn’t really need to be there. Bill could run it under Paul’s oversight and Tony could be on the end of a phone in town, doing all the other things he should be doing. Overseeing the pharmacy hold-up. Making sure his constables were doing everything right and sensitively with the families of the car crash kids. Maybe he should have talked to uniforms about a couple of their guys going to the funerals. A police presence at the church would be a good look.

  But he was going down to Garnet Point again today to oversee the marine search for Zoe Kennett and find out whatever else he could from the family. He didn’t really need to be there, but he wanted to be.

  His phone rang. It was Sally from the media unit.

  ‘Tony.’ Long pause. ‘I’m surprised I haven’t heard from you.’

  ‘Why’s that, Sally?’

  ‘Don’t you have a girl missing, presumed drowned, down the coast somewhere?’ she asked. ‘Garnet Point?’ She was reading something.

  Tony didn’t reply.

  ‘Come on, Tony. Where’s the info for my guys? The press haven’t approached us yet but they will and I like to be on the front foot.’

  ‘The family don’t want the media involved. They don’t want to release any photos or make any statements,’ said Tony. ‘And I’m not even sure if she’s missing yet.’

  ‘Sorry, what? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means we have some conflicting information that I am still working through.’

  Paul looked up at Tony. His face was expressionless but Tony could read the censure in it.

  ‘So the rumours I’m hear
ing about a full water search are incorrect?’ Sally sounded sceptical.

  ‘You know what this place is like,’ said Tony, ‘there’s a rumour for everything.’

  ‘So I don’t need to brief the media on a missing girl?’

  ‘No,’ said Tony.

  Paul caught Tony’s eye. He dragged his hand across his throat. Cut. Cut. Hang up. Tony turned away.

  ‘And my unit is not going to get fucked over by CIB, or more specifically by DI Tony Vincent, and have to salvage something from a god awful mess any time soon.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sally. When there’s something to tell you, I’ll tell you.’

  The first two funerals of the dead teenagers from the Bicheno crash were being held today. The front page of The Mercury was still devoted to the wasted lives of the victims and the grief of the families. One of the young girls being buried today was the daughter of a Supreme Court judge. The judge was making statements condemning the condition of the state’s roads and the lack of police supervising the deteriorating highways at the very time of the year they should be most vigilant. The deputy commissioner had made a statement. Large numbers of police on the roads. Top priority. TV campaigns about drink-driving. Doing all we can with the resources we have. Terrible tragedy. Tony recognised Sally’s words. The press would run with it for days and if the judge kept trying to find someone to blame for his daughter’s death, the press might run with it for weeks. For the Kennetts’ sake, Tony hoped so.

  ‘I wouldn’t cross Sally, if I were you,’ said Paul looking over from his desk after Tony had hung up. ‘We need her a lot more than she needs us.’

  ‘I’m not crossing her.’

  ‘You can’t keep Zoe Kennett or her family out of the press. And if you try, it’ll backfire on you. If the media coverage ends up being negative, Zoe’s family isn’t going to thank you for any damage done to Zoe’s memory by a pissed-off press. And it just gives Ryan one more bullet in his gun which you know is aimed right at your head.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘So do you want me to email through the photo of Zoe and do a brief write-up for Sally now? It’ll only take me five minutes.’

  ‘No, leave it. I’ll get something to her later.’

  ‘You do know I’m not going to sit by and watch you commit professional suicide, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  The drive down to Garnet Point felt longer today. Tony was tired. He’d slept badly again last night. He had been disturbed by dreams; those dreams that you can’t be sure of when you wake up in the morning. Like one of those drug dreams where you swear you are awake but you are dreaming your own bedroom, dreaming you are awake. More than once he had woken certain that someone was in his room talking to him.

  Once he thought it was Connery in the room with him. He had been dreaming about Ornice and Connery and Zoe. Tony knew that he was everyone in his dreams. He knew that much Freud. He thought he must be Connery and he was with Zoe. But that didn’t feel right. He tried to analyse his dream but knew instinctively he was still in it. He tried to carry on a rational explanation for what was happening as if he was awake. But he couldn’t keep his eyes open or his mind focused either in the dream or awake in his bed.

  He was in the ocean, as Ornice described it, far from the sight and smell of land. It felt different from any ocean he had ever been in. Definitely not the familiar cold Southern Ocean or the pastel-blue Pacific or the wide, windy Indian. It must be the Atlantic, the ocean he had never seen. He could sense the terrible depths beneath him. He was alone. He could see his naked body suspended in a fathomless blue. He could feel the cold emptiness of that monstrous ocean pressing in on him.

  As he watched himself suspended in that blue vastness, he remembered the two different theories of dream visualisation: looking at yourself or your dreams occurring through your eyes. He couldn’t remember which theory meant what. He tried to figure it out. He remembered it was significant. He could see himself hanging in the blue ocean. He looked younger. Maybe seventeen or eighteen. But then he remembered he was always that age in his dreams. Maybe he was Zoe. She was seventeen. Tony was alone and he knew that he would drown in this dream. That was supposed to mean something too.

  He was treading water but he was tiring. He tried to call out but his mouth filled with salty water. He tried to calm himself but could not. He half woke. He was in his bed. His room was solid all round him. His heavy lids closed again and he was back in the drowning blue. He was weakening and he was crying. He said goodbye to all the people he loved. His parents. They were such good people. He treasured the simple love he had for his family: his brothers and sister, his sisters-in-law and his nieces and nephews. And his friends. He couldn’t bear to leave them.

  He was dropping below the surface. He could no longer raise his head above the lapping water. But he would not just surrender. He silently called out to Connery to save him. But he knew Connery wasn’t there. Then he cried out to Zoe. She would save him. He had tried so hard to save her. She would not let him die in this empty ocean so far from his home and the people who were so dear to him. She would not let his body disappear forever. The water was getting bluer and colder. He calmed. He knew she would come. He waited as he fell. He kept falling until he could hold his breath no longer. He opened his mouth and called her name.

  He woke choking and coughing. His head was still thick with half sleep and blue water. He could hear her voice in his room. She was saying something to him.

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  He was sitting up in bed with tears on his face talking to himself.

  Bill and his crews had been diving for hours by the time Tony and the others arrived at Rosetta. They held a briefing on the jetty over coffee and toasted sandwiches and Christmas cake provided by Con and Edie, then Bill took off towards the mouth of Storm Bay with Paul on board.

  Carl and Matt had joined them on the jetty for the late breakfast. Both of them were in wetsuits. Bill couldn’t oversee them or even condone their inclusion in the search but unofficially he let them. He allowed both men to sit in on the briefing. He showed them the charts and where his guys had already dived and the areas which would no longer need searching. He even double-checked their new tanks before all three boats took off again across the bay.

  Jack and Eric were following up with neighbours and other possible witnesses. They were checking CCTV cameras on the bridge and at Sorell, the Garnet Point shop and the airport. All unlikely but necessary.

  Tony wanted to find John and Eva. He felt that he needed to stay close to them. They wouldn’t take much prodding to talk and he was slowly building up a more comprehensive picture of Zoe and where she fitted in this family. He didn’t know how this picture would help him find her but he walked up into the house, with Ben close at heel, determined to complete as much of it as he could.

  John

  JOHN WAS DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY WHEN SADIE WAS BORN. JUST FOR A FEW days. Maybe only hours. Looking back, it felt like no time at all. His heady happiness faded into uncertainty and then concern as he watched Eva with their new daughter. They called their beautiful blonde-haired baby Sarah Deidra, until Cecile came along a few years later and started calling her big sister Sadie. Perfect, beautiful, longed for. John and Eva had been married for five years before Sadie was conceived. John had sadly accepted that they may never have the children he had always assumed would be a part of their lives.

  Motherhood rattled Eva. It was true that she didn’t know what to do with a newborn. Neither did John, but his mother was keen to help, as were his friends’ wives. Eva observed their advice in her usual manner. Everyone was left wondering what she’d accepted and what she’d ignored. She gave no sign.

  Sadie grew and plumped out. She breastfed easily. She didn’t suffer from colic. She gurgled and smiled and John fell in love with her. She was such a simple happy baby. At first.

  John remembered the afternoon he came home from work to find Eva sitting on the flo
or in the lounge room looking at Sadie who was sleeping on a blanket on the floor in the muted afternoon sunshine. Eva was just looking. Not the adoring look of a mother in love with her baby. A look much more quizzical. John watched for a few minutes from the doorway. Sadie woke up and began to cry. Eva continued to sit and look at the crying baby. After more minutes, the baby was wailing loudly. She was waving her little fists in the air above her head and looking at her mother. She was frightened. John rushed over and picked Sadie up. He tried to calm her, to hug her into peace, but she was beyond consolation from him. John sat down beside Eva and loosened her dress. He undid her bra and laid the screaming baby in Eva’s arms. She held her listlessly. John steered his daughter’s frantic little head onto the nipple and she gasped and sobbed and choked and eventually settled into the comforting safety of feeding and her mother’s arms. Eva continued to look at the baby with a blank expression.

  ‘She doesn’t feel like me,’ said Eva.

  ‘She’s not you, Eva. She is Sarah Deidra. She is herself. And she is our daughter.’

  Eva continued to look at the suckling baby perplexedly. She changed Sadie’s nappy and settled her to sleep in the bassinette with a song from Mayo. But Eva wasn’t there. She was merely repeating the tasks the motherly women around her had taught her.

  John hired a housekeeper later that week. He didn’t trust Eva alone with their baby.

  When Sarah Deidra was just four months old, Eva became pregnant again. Carl’s birth and babyhood were easier. As parents, they both knew a little more about what to expect and he was a boy so Eva expected nothing of him. The confusion that swirled around Sarah Deidra wasn’t there with their little blond boy. Eva was less tense, though it would be wrong to say that she relaxed with Carl.