Chapter 43
Nel sat on her surfboard and squinted towards the horizon, searching for a sign of the next wave. The rising sun was low in the sky and she had the break all to herself. There wasn’t a breath of wind, but there wasn’t much swell either.
She’d felt off-balance ever since the awkward situation with Jimmy the night before, her emotions swinging from frustration to regret.
He was the closest friend she had, and he had to go and ruin it.
What was he thinking? She’d replayed their conversation over and over, and each time when she reached the part where she accused him of hiding things and stormed out, she was racked with self-loathing.
She’d managed to make an already awkward situation even worse.
The sound of voices carried across the water and Nel looked over to see two guys paddling out.
She moved away to give them space. In an effort to put Jimmy out of her mind, she turned her thoughts to Maddie.
What did they actually know? And what did it mean?
One by one, she ran through what they knew for sure.
Five days before she died, Maddie was pregnant and she knew it. That was a fact.
She’d confided in Harry, who had seen Maddie and Ryan in the dunes the night of the bonfire party.
And she was in his car the day before she disappeared, even though they’d broken up months before.
Nel was bluffing when she accused her of it, but Maddie didn’t deny it.
She decided she could count that as a fact too.
Then there was the ring. She pictured the strange, old-fashioned ring with its ominous black stone.
For the past sixteen years, in the absence of anything else, she’d always come back to that.
It went missing sometime between eight o’clock on Wednesday night and early Sunday morning when Maddie’s body was found on a desolate stretch of sand at Jacksons Beach.
The police insinuated she was mistaken—or lying—when they brought her in to question her, interrogate her, yet again.
*
‘Thanks for coming back in,’ O’Neill said, his face grim. He had a daughter too, he told Rob.
‘We need to ask you a few more questions.’ Frisk narrowed his pale blue eyes. ‘There’s an inconsistency in your statement.’
Nel frowned. ‘An inconsistency?’
He opened a file and took out the statement she’d signed after the first interview, then ran his finger down the page. ‘When we spoke on Thursday, you said Maddie was wearing a ring.’
‘Yes.’ Nel nodded. ‘She was.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I saw it. I told you, we fought about it.’
O’Neill leaned in. ‘By the time Maddie’s body was found, the ring was gone. Why would that be?’
Nel shook her head. ‘I don’t know …’
‘Are you still certain she was wearing the ring?’ Frisk rubbed his chin. ‘You’re sure you’re not mistaken?’
‘I’m not mistaken!’ Nel said more forcefully than she meant to. Rob put a hand on her arm, steadying her. ‘She was wearing the ring. It was the whole reason for our fight.’
‘Your fight?’ Frisk repeated. ‘Was there a physical altercation between you and Maddie?’
‘No! Argument, I mean!’ Her chest felt tight.
She didn’t like the way Frisk was looking at her.
It felt as though he was deliberately misunderstanding her.
‘I’ve already told you all this. When I saw that she was wearing the ring, I asked her if she was back together with him.
She didn’t deny it, so I told her I was finished with her and then I left. ’
Frisk held her gaze, nodding.
Nel closed her eyes, trying to make it make sense. A ring couldn’t just disappear. It was on Maddie’s finger when Nel saw her on Wednesday night, and it was gone by the time they found her. Had someone taken it?
‘Have you questioned Ryan Warner yet?’ Nel asked.
O’Neill frowned. ‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Well, he was the one who gave her that ring, and now it’s missing. Maybe he saw her after I left.’
*
A wave rose up, obscuring the sun. Nel paddled and jumped up onto the board, embracing the temporary respite from her incessant thoughts, pumping hard to get momentum.
Her ears filled with the sound of fibreglass slicing through the face of the wave, the rush of white water breaking behind her.
For thirty seconds, there was nothing but the wave.
When it closed out, she peeled off and watched it travel on without her, crashing onto the rocky shore.
She turned to paddle out again. What else did she know?
The DNA sample belonged to Ryan. That was a fact, but what did it tell them?
It wasn’t the proverbial smoking gun—Jimmy was clear about that—but it did prove that Ryan had lied to the police in the days following Maddie’s disappearance.
He said he hadn’t been at the lighthouse lookout for weeks.
Why would he lie if he had nothing to hide?
She pictured his smug face. He was rattled enough to turn up at the clinic and threaten her, and she didn’t have proof yet, but he was also emailing her niece to try to drive Nel out of town. He’d misread her though if he thought she’d run away again.
A wave came, glowing translucent as the sun shone through the wall of water, rescuing her from her thoughts. Her heart pounded as she rode down its face, powerful energy thrumming beneath her.
As she peeled off and started to paddle back out, her mind circled back to Maddie’s pregnancy. Who knew about it? Her father did, obviously, and Trent said he had told the police.
According to Harry, Ryan knew too. Nel pictured Maddie sitting in his station wagon the day before she disappeared.
Why? It was possible that they’d been somewhere together to get a termination.
There was a clinic at Mount Clare that was spoken about in hushed tones in the playground of Carrinya High.
Or was Maddie telling Ryan the news that afternoon, when Nel saw them in the car?
That was more likely, given what Sophie had said—that Ryan met her at the lighthouse the following night to tell her to abort the pregnancy.
What about Geoff and Faye? Did they know Maddie was pregnant? That was what she really needed to know. Without the autopsy report there was only one way to find out.
She caught the next wave in.