Lawson's Bend Page 24

  ‘I told you, I didn’t mean to hurt her. I had some drugs; Mark got them for me. It was our last night before going our separate ways and I wanted to hook up with Georgie. I knew that she’d always liked me. But when I suggested it to her she refused. She said that there was no point in starting something because it wouldn’t last. I asked her if it needed to and she said yes. She had this idea that she was saving herself for true love or some shit.’

  ‘So why didn’t you just walk away and leave her alone?’

  Dan ran his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know. Because I’d been drinking, because I don’t like to be rejected and because all I could hear was my father’s voice in my head telling me to man up. I guess I wanted her and that was all that mattered.’

  ‘You should have left her alone,’ Henny said as hot tears pricked the back of her eyes. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I never meant to kill her, Henny—you have to believe that. For ten years I’ve lived with the guilt. I’ve drunk to keep the nightmares and the accusations of her eyes away, and it kind of worked until you came back. If you’d left after your mum’s funeral, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘You’re blaming me for this? No, you do not get to do that.’ More furious now than scared, Henny took a few steps along the edge of the clearing. ‘So tell me: what happened next?’

  ‘I broke up a pill and put it in her drink when she wasn’t watching. We swam out to the platform and it was just taking effect when the platform collapsed.’

  ‘And what about the cliff?’

  ‘You know about that as well?’ Dan said. ‘See—too smart for your own good.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘I saw Mark on the beach after the collapse, and I signalled him to come up and meet me, and then he started getting all messed up about Georgie. He said that I had killed her.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t wrong, was he?’ said Henny.

  ‘How many times do I have to say that it was an accident?’ Dan glowered at her. ‘It was a horrible accident that took Georgie—that’s all. Shit happens, you know?’

  Henny stood aghast, fists clenched. ‘Shit happens? Is that what you think?’ She desperately wanted to tell him what she thought of him, but she somehow held it together, knowing that her life may depend on it. Henny shook her head in disbelief. ‘You might not have intended to hurt Georgie but you did it just the same. You’ve stolen people’s lives and destroyed families. It’s time that you were held accountable.’

  ‘Yeah that’s what Mark said. But I convinced him to shut up about it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Simple. If I was guilty, so was he. He got me the friggin’ drugs in the first place. I mean . . . what good would it do to tell people? Would it bring her back? No. It would just fuck up our lives and make things even worse. So I convinced Mark . . . eventually.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I pushed him off the cliff.’

  He watched as she took another step. ‘You can’t escape me, Henny. Just accept it. It’ll be easier that way.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen,’ Henny said.

  She burst into a sprint and headed towards the other end of the clearing. Dan reacted quickly and took off after her. Henny ran along the far edge of the series of holes that were partially hidden by the rough ground. She swung in an arc past the holes and then towards the track that led to the quarry. Henny glanced back in time to see Dan stumble and fall against a couple of young gum trees. He hit them with such force that their branches quivered, sending some brightly coloured parrots into the air. Henny turned back to the track and kept running.

  ***

  Stephen swore under his breath. He’d lost sight of Dan and now he wasn’t sure which way to go. If he was going to take an educated guess he’d say that they were heading towards the quarry, but he could be wrong. His mind was spinning, trying to take in everything. How was this even possible? He and Dan had been friends since they were kids—how can you have someone in your life that long and not really know them at all?

  Not far away, a handful of parrots flew up into the air in unison. Stephen cupped a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun as he watched the birds take flight. A grim smile touched his lips—at least now he knew which way to go.

  ***

  Henny tried to think what to do when she reached the quarry, chest heaving with the exertion. There weren’t that many options: find a decent place to hide and double back or keep going to the res. She knew that Dan wasn’t far behind and the only positives were that Stephen and the police must surely be on their way—that’s if they could find her. She pushed down the panic that kept threatening to engulf her and found some more strength, somewhere. If she was going to survive this she couldn’t simply wait to be rescued—she’d have to do that herself.

  She followed the path that hugged the edge of the slate quarry. There was a big drop to the bottom where the quarry floor was relatively even, covered with abandoned slabs of stone intermingled with weeds and indigenous plants.

  ‘Henny!’

  She looked back over her shoulder as Dan came into view on the path but kept up her pace.

  ‘Henny, don’t you want to know what happened to your mum?’

  In the back of her mind Henny thought it was probably a ploy to get her to stop but it still worked—she had to know what he meant. She tried to catch her breath as she put her hands on her hips and glared back at him.

  ‘What do you mean? But you stay where you are! One more step and I’m off again, understand?’

  ‘I’ll catch you—you know I can’t let you go,’ Dan replied.

  ‘Maybe. But this is what I’m thinking: I’m in pretty good shape and don’t down a bottle of bourbon on a daily basis. You look like you’ve had it whereas I could run for another hour.’ Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly true, but she was pretty sure that she could outrun him.

  Dan didn’t reply but he stopped just the same. ‘Your mum was a good person and I really liked her. She was always helping people, giving advice and support. Caring, I suppose that would be the word for her.’

  ‘Where’s this going?’ A shiver ran up her spine.

  ‘I drink to make things better. It doesn’t work forever, but maybe for a while I can forget about the past. If I’m on a bender, I usually do it at home so I don’t embarrass anyone I know. But one night I ended up at the pub. Georgie had been playing on my mind all week. That’s the problem, you know—I can never get her face out of my head, the look in her eyes. I went to get a drink and I stayed there too long. I staggered out at closing and went and sat on the steps of the Town Hall. That’s where your mum found me.’

  Henny was sweating from all the running but what Dan was saying gave her goosebumps. She didn’t know where it was heading but she sensed that it wasn’t anywhere good.

  ‘We started talking, and she was a real good listener. I knew that I was cut and that I should go home but I didn’t, I just kept sitting there next to your mum. The next thing I know I’m telling her my secret, the one thing that I’ve kept hidden for ten years—I tell her about Georgie, how she looked, how I wished I could change what happened to her and that I didn’t deserve to be alive. She didn’t understand, she thought that I was depressed because I couldn’t save Georgie. Yeah, everyone knows how hard I’d tried looking for her in the dark water. If I’d been sober I would have left the conversation right there where I look like a bit of a hero, but I didn’t. I told her everything.’

  A chill as cold as a snow cloud seemed to slam Henny’s body. She stared at Dan and locked onto his eyes. ‘You killed my mother,’ she said slowly. ‘It wasn’t an accident, was it?’

  Dan shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t. I didn’t want to but I’d told her everything and I was convinced that she’d go to the police. I was cold and hungover when I woke up before dawn the next morning—sleeping on the Town Hall steps isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. As soon as I opened my eyes, I realised
what I’d done. It was common knowledge that she ran out here every morning. So I came out and waited. It was quick, Hen—she didn’t see it coming.’

  ‘And is that how you justify it?’ Stephen asked, appearing at the end of the path. ‘All this time, my best mate is a murderer?’

  Dan whirled around. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

  ‘Why, so you can hurt Henny too? That’s not ever going to happen,’ Stephen said as he continued forward. ‘It’s over, Dan. The police are on the way and I’ve just got back from the city—been chatting with Mark.’

  Dan’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

  ‘At first he was reluctant but he eventually told me everything that happened to him that night. After listening to him, it was pretty easy to put it all together. So you killed Georgie and Henny’s mum, but there’s one more murder on your conscience, isn’t there?’

  ‘You killed Harley,’ Henny said. ‘Your friend.’

  Dan turned back and faced her. ‘He knew about your mother. He was always skulking around in the bush, and I guess he saw me. I heard him scuttling away like a scared animal after it happened, and I knew what I had to do. He was beginning to talk. You told me yourself that he was trying to warn you, remember, just before the memorial?’

  ‘So when Henny found out about Georgie, you decided to get rid of her as well? Even though you know what she means to me, you were ready to kill her?’

  ‘I . . . it just happened, Stevo. I wasn’t planning it, I was just reacting.’

  ‘So are you going to kill me too?’ Stephen asked, pinning him with a hard stare. ‘To shut me up like Harley? Is that what you’re going to do? What’s next, take out the whole town just to be on the safe side? Secrets always have a way of coming out and this one is well and truly exposed. Even if you got rid of Henny and me, there’s Mark and his brother and his great-uncle and the cop I just spoke to, who was passing the information onto Charlie’s dad. You can’t kill all of us.’

  Henny moved in a wide arc towards Stephen, keeping a good distance between her and Dan. When she got to his side he took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Henny shook her head. ‘No, but I will be.’ The warmth of his hand seemed to take away the icy chill of her body.

  ‘So what are you going to do, Dan? Take us both on or give up? The police will be here in a minute. I rang them on my way to say that you were heading towards the quarry.’

  ‘Stevo, you could give me a chance to get away. I’ll leave Lawson’s Bend, just give me a head start. Come on, mate, you’re like my brother,’ Dan said moving away from them.

  ‘I can’t do that. You’re a cold-blooded killer. You’ve got to answer for it.’

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ Dan answered.

  ‘I don’t think you have a choice,’ Stephen said. Voices could be heard in the distance. ‘There are questions that need to be answered and families that need the truth.’

  The sound of footsteps crashing through the bush became louder and when Henny looked behind her she saw glimpses of navy blue uniforms through the green leaves.

  ‘They’re here,’ she whispered to Stephen.

  ‘I know,’ Stephen said softly, still eyeballing Dan. ‘It’s over, Dan, the cops have arrived.’ But instead of resignation in Dan’s eyes, Stephen saw something more like determination. ‘Come on, Dan, don’t do anything stupid.’

  The police came into sight and fanned out, Senior Sergeant Nichols taking the lead and coming over to stand by Henny and Stephen.

  ‘Hey, Stevo,’ Dan called out.

  Stephen and Henny looked back to Dan.

  ‘Define stupid,’ he said with a slight smile as he took several steps backwards and disappeared over the edge of the quarry.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Two weeks had passed and Henny still found it difficult to get her head around everything that had happened. The revelations had thrown Lawson’s Bend into a state of turmoil. The townsfolk questioned how a murderer could live among them without anyone realising. Adding to this unstable atmosphere was the mini media circus that descended over the town after the story broke, with film crews and reporters walking the streets asking inane questions about the whole bloody mess. About the only good thing that came out of the whole affair was that the pubs, hotels and The Wren were packed for about three days solid.

  For the families of the lost it changed very little—their children were still gone. As it stood, four young lives had been lost in the Killop Res accident: Amber Tavish, Alistair Hogan, Laura Sanders and Georgie Sykes. For the Turners, the only small comfort was the knowledge that Harley didn’t kill himself.

  For Henny there was the anger and pain of knowing that both her best friend and beloved mother had been snatched from her. There was a big part of her that felt cheated that Dan had escaped punishment for his horrific crimes. He was dead, but that just didn’t seem enough.

  The deaths of her friends had overshadowed her life for too long, and Henny knew that something had to change with this new trauma now added. After talking to Gemma she decided that it was time to find a professional to help her work through it all and move forward with her life. Because something had dawned on her as she walked back from the quarry with Stephen’s arm around her: she had to live the best life she could, not just for her own sake but also for her parents and friends that couldn’t. Aunt Janey was right: Henny’s mum would have wanted her to find love and be happy.

  Henny knew she wasn’t the only one who needed support. Dan’s revelation had shaken Stephen to his core. Most of all he blamed himself for not seeing who Dan really was. All Henny knew was that even though they were both hurt by the past, they had a better chance at facing the future together.

  ***

  June rolled around and with it came a sense of new beginnings. As Henny walked down the main street on The Matchbox’s opening day she took a deep breath—the crisp morning air was cold and clean. It gave her hope and put a bounce in her step. Dover trotted on his lead beside her; she’d decided that he was entitled to this celebration almost as much as she was.

  Pushing her sunglasses up on her head, Henny unlocked the front door of The Matchbox and walked in. She punched in a security code and flicked on the lights and suddenly the old building came alive with all the vibrant colours of her mother’s artwork. Henny took a moment to drink it all in and hoped that somehow, somewhere, her mother knew what she’d done and was proud.

  Bending down, she unhitched Dover’s lead. Once free, he wandered out to the kitchenette in the hope that his food bowl would be magically refilled. Henny looked at her watch: it was almost eight o’clock. She was opening the shop at ten but the celebration wasn’t kicking off until midday. She shrugged off her forest-green coat to reveal black skinny jeans, long black boots and a dark-green fine wool tunic that was almost the same colour as her coat. Henny glanced into the ornate silver-gilt mirror hanging over the jewellery display cases and ran a hand through her auburn hair. Did she look like a gallery owner? She hoped so. Henny wrinkled her nose and turned away. She had a heap of things to do, from picking up the flowers and helium balloons she’d ordered to making sure everything looked perfect for the opening celebration.

  ‘Well, kiddo, it looks absolutely fantastic,’ Aunt Janey said as she sailed in the door a little before noon. Trotting beside her were Napoleon and Josephine, the former sporting a bow tie around his neck. ‘I came a bit early in case you needed a hand.’

  Henny walked over and gave her a hug. ‘Thanks, but I think I’ve got it under control.’

  ‘Have you had some customers?’

  ‘Yes, it’s been great. I’ve sold half a dozen cards, two of the prints and a pair of Mia’s earrings.’

  ‘That’s fabulous—I’m so happy for you. I’m going to say this now before everyone turns up—your mum would have been proud of you, she really would.’ She gave Henny another hug.

  ‘Thank you—I’d like to think so.’

>   ***

  ‘This is great,’ Charlie said as she stood by the front window and looked at the crowded shop. ‘I’m so happy for you, Henny!’

  ‘Well, thank you, and thanks for the amazing food,’ she said, gesturing at the trays of nibbles that were in circulation.

  ‘My pleasure. So it looks like The Matchbox Gallery is a hit.’

  Henny felt two strong arms come from behind and wrap around her. ‘I always knew it would be,’ Stephen said before nabbing a canapé as a waiter passed by.

  ‘Well, I’m glad one of us was confident,’ Henny laughed. ‘Actually, I’m blown away that so many people have come out today—it feels like a welcome back home.’

  Charlie smiled. ‘You were always welcome—you just forgot.’

  ‘Oh, Leon just called,’ Stephen said. ‘They’re running late because the baby is being a bit fussy—that’s Leon’s word, not mine. But they’ll be here. Kylie asked if you could save her some food.’

  ‘Of course, I’ll grab her a plate,’ Henny said.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll do it,’ Charlie said, but as she turned something caught her eye across the street. ‘Oh my God, look who has just blown into town. Geez, I never thought that I’d see him again—he’s got a bloody nerve coming back.’

  Both Henny and Stephen looked out the window.

  ‘Is that—’ Stephen started to say, but Charlie didn’t let him finish.

  ‘Toby McGinty. I saved his life and he repaid it by breaking my heart.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Henny said. ‘I still haven’t heard this story. Tell me everything.’

  Stephen dropped a kiss on her head. ‘I think I’d better go and get Kylie that plate before there’s nothing left,’ he said with a laugh. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  ***

  Henny sighed as she curled up on the couch next to Stephen. It had been a huge day, but undoubtedly a success. It gave her more hope for the future than she’d ever dared imagine. The house was quiet except for the crackling of the open fire and the not-so-romantic accompaniment of Dover’s snores from his bed in the corner of the room.