Chapter 33
On Saturday morning, Nel woke up to a car horn blaring.
She kept her eyes closed and tried to ignore it but it beeped again.
Still groggy with sleep, she pushed the heavy curtain aside, frowning at the sight of a menacing-looking Police SUV.
Her first instinct was to assume she was about to be arrested (thanks, Troy Farris), but then she rubbed her eyes and logic kicked in. Jimmy.
She reached for her phone, gasping when she saw it was almost nine thirty. It had been years since she’d slept so late. There were two missed calls from Jimmy. She rang back, watching him through the gap in the curtain.
‘Morning, sleeping beauty. Did you get my message?’
‘No, I … I just woke up,’ she admitted.
‘Wow, some of us have it easy.’
‘What did it say?’
‘It said I’d pick you up at nine fifteen.’
‘To go where?’
‘To the lighthouse lookout. Get dressed, I’ll wait.’
‘I’ve been thinking about Maddie,’ Jimmy said, as Nel climbed into the front seat ten minutes later.
She’d told him about her conversation with Harriet the day before.
‘I haven’t had the chance to check out the file yet, but I want you to talk me through what happened again.
On location.’ He pulled out from the kerb. ‘You know, once a detective …’
‘Do you miss it?’ Nel asked.
‘What, detective work?’
‘Yeah.’
He tipped his head to one side as he contemplated the question, following the road down past the industrial area at the port.
It was the first time she’d seen him in uniform.
The pale blue flattered his Mediterranean complexion.
‘Sometimes. I miss immersing myself in a case and letting it take hold of me.’ A pause.
‘There’s plenty I don’t miss about it though. ’
What wasn’t he saying, Nel wondered, as they reached Cape Caution, but she sensed not to ask.
She led the way along the sandstone path, trying to remember what it had looked like sixteen years ago. She pictured a dirt track and some rocky steps leading through scrubby bush down to the lookout, which was just a large flat rock back then.
In the intervening years, the bush had been cleared and replaced with grass, and now stone steps led down to a metal viewing platform where a wooden railing protected sightseers from the drop below.
A sign mounted on the railing identified the coastal landmarks and provided information about the whale species that passed by, heading north in autumn and south in spring with calves in tow.
Next to that was a plaque acknowledging the upgrades to the lookout, which were officially opened by The Honourable Geoffrey Marshall MP on Australia Day in 2015.
Beyond the railing, the vast shimmering ocean stretched into the infinite distance. They stood side by side, gazing across the silver-blue expanse. Nel leaned over the railing, staring down at the swirling white water crashing onto the rocks below.
Jimmy turned to face the land. ‘So this is where you last saw her.’
She nodded. ‘Do you remember what it looked like back then?’
‘Roughly.’
She gestured towards the metal grate underfoot and the wooden railing. ‘None of this was here. It was just a flat rock.’
Jimmy nodded. ‘Geoff Marshall campaigned for the funding to upgrade it. It was on the front page of the Chronicle for years.’
Nel didn’t remember that. ‘I would have left by then.’
She closed her eyes, taking herself back to that night.
When she opened them again, she pointed to the area to the left of the steps.
‘There was a metal seat over there. That’s where Maddie was sitting, hugging her knees.
When she looked up at me, her cheeks were wet with tears.
I was about to ask her what was wrong, but then she covered her face with her hands and I saw the ring.
’ She swallowed. ‘And then we argued, like I told you the other night …’
‘And that’s when you left?’
Nel nodded.
‘And she was still sitting here?’
She nodded again.
They didn’t speak again for quite some time. A sea eagle soared effortlessly overhead as water churned on the rocks below.
‘I’ve got another theory,’ Jimmy said. ‘Hear me out.’
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘It’s highly unlikely she could have arranged a termination in such a short timeframe, so let’s assume that night she was still pregnant.
Let’s imagine what that would have been like for her.
She’s sixteen years old. Her parents are older, conservative.
Her dad’s a politician so his reputation is important.
She’s panicking about them finding out. The situation feels hopeless.
After you leave, she becomes distraught, so she throws the ring over here.
’ He pointed beyond the railing, towards the churning blue abyss below. ‘And then she follows.’
Nel’s cheeks burned with shame as she looked over the railing again.
If Jimmy’s theory was right, it was her fault.
But the lookout wasn’t quite high enough for death to be a certainty.
Five k’s around the bay was a cliff twice as high, where Lifeline signs adorned the fence advertising the 24-hour crisis helpline.
‘If she wanted to die, she would have gone to The Pass.’
‘Maybe she did,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the horizon. ‘Maybe she went up there after you left her.’
Nel shook her head. ‘It’s too far to walk in the dark.
And if she did, she would’ve followed the road.
Someone would have seen her.’ Nel didn’t want it to be true, but she also didn’t believe it was true.
‘And if she was worried about Geoff’s reputation …
his daughter dying by suicide was never going to reflect well on him, politically.
’ It sounded weak, even to her own ears.
She turned to face him. ‘I just know there’s more to it, Jimmy. I know it sounds flimsy, but …’
‘It isn’t flimsy, it’s intuition.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘The best detectives I know listen to it.’
Nel sighed, relieved he was listening to her, when something moved in her peripheral vision. She looked along the cliff line below to see Trent Donohue standing on the rock shelf, a camera pointed in their direction.
‘What the hell?’ she said.
Jimmy followed her line of sight, frowning.
Trent lowered the camera and raised his hand in a wave, then he walked across the rocks towards the path. He emerged from the scrub a few minutes later.
‘Why were you taking photos of us?’ Nel demanded.
‘I wasn’t,’ Trent said. ‘I was taking photos of the lighthouse.’
She scrutinised him, trying to decide if she believed him. ‘What for?’
‘I’m doing a cover story about it for the Chronicle.’
‘About the lighthouse? Why?’
‘Geoff Marshall announced an election promise for a federal funding grant to turn it into a maritime museum.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ Nel mumbled, her face burning with embarrassment at her mistake.