Alex Palmer - The Labyrinth of Drowning

‘Out there somewhere.’

‘That’s not good enough.’

‘It will just have to be,’ Sara snapped.

‘No, it won’t. Where’s Joel and where are we going?’

‘For a boat ride. What else?’

‘I’m not getting on any boat until I know where I’m going.’

‘ Keep your voice down .’

There was silence as Sara looked around. Her face was barely visible in the dark, her expression unseen. She stepped forward.

‘I’ll tell you where we’re going,’ she said in a whispered voice. ‘But no way am I telling you where Joel is right now. Do we trust each other or don’t we?’

‘Where are we going?’ Grace asked.

‘Cottage Point. It’s not far. Now let’s get a move on. We’ve wasted too much time.’

What if she took out her gun and arrested Sara now? But she still didn’t know where Griffin was. The surveillance teams would have heard everything that had been said. They could get to Cottage Point if they had to. Are you going to follow me up the river, Clive? Fish me out ?

‘How do I get back from wherever we’re going?’

‘Joel will drive you. It’s all organised.’

‘All right,’ Grace said. ‘Let’s go.’

The sailing boat, named Cottage Days , was waiting at the pontoon. It was smaller and neater than Grace had expected.

‘Is it only you?’ she asked.

‘I know what I’m doing. This is what I do to relax. I sail. I know this boat, I’ve had it for years. I know the river. I love it here.’ Sara’s sense of relief was obvious in her voice. ‘You can just be yourself here. Get in, and do me a favour: don’t talk.’

Grace sat in silence while Sara cast off and, using the motor, guided the boat past the other vessels and out into the channel. Stars covered the sky. This far from the city, it was possible to see out to other worlds. Sara turned off the motor and began to pilot the boat under sail. Then she started to laugh.

‘You killed Joe Ponticelli. Life has its twists and turns. Oh, what a joke that is.’

‘Why?’

‘You’ll find out.’

There was malice in her voice, almost childishly so.

‘Why didn’t you want me to talk?’ Grace asked.

‘Because I may not get to sail down this river again for a while after tonight and I want to enjoy it.’

‘Why? Are you leaving? Where are you going? I thought we were setting up a deal.’

‘Maybe you’ll be our Australian connection,’ she said mockingly.

They sailed on in silence for a short while. There was only the sound of the river, the presence of the forested hillsides and the soft, starlit sky. Sara had withdrawn, she was silent.

‘How long have you been sailing?’ Grace asked.

‘Since I was a kid. Don’t talk to me. I want to enjoy this.’

‘Why shouldn’t I talk to you?’

‘Because most people are fucking idiots and I’m not sure you’re not one of them!’

Grace waited. Sara was where no one could touch her, lost in the simple self-directed pleasure of what she was doing. Grace spoke, deliberately puncturing the emotion.

‘If you’re leaving, you’ll miss all this when you go, won’t you? There can’t be anywhere else in the world like this for you. Why do you have to go? Why can’t you stay here?’

Sara looked back at Grace, her expression shadowed.

‘It’s just the way things have to be,’ she said.

‘Is Cottage Point where you were going to bring Narelle?’

‘Do you think that would have been difficult? Elliot’s waiting for you at Cottage Point, Marie. Oh boy, let’s go. I want to see him as soon as I can.’

Sara imitated Narelle with too much savagery for Grace to laugh.

‘You just called her Marie.’

‘That’s her name when she’s with Joel.’

There was silence. Sara was staring out at the water.

‘You and Joel are an item,’ Grace said after a while. ‘Did it bother you when he spent time with Narelle?’

‘No,’ Sara replied. ‘Any more than it would bother me if he spent time with you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? It’s not just the money. You want him.’

Grace wondered why she found this so offensive when it had been part of Clive’s strategy from the beginning. She had met it before; situations where other women assumed you were chasing after their partners when you had no interest in them at all. It had worked for her; it had helped persuade Sara she was genuine.

Sara laughed. ‘I knew it. He thought you were too standoffish. I told him you were just playing hard to get. You thought you were better than he was. I told him, just wait. She’ll be there for you. Like all the others.’

She. I’m sitting here in person. Why should you think I find him as compelling as you do ? But if she said she found him repellent her cover was gone. All the others . How many of them had there been? She kept silent. Sara smiled at her, scornfully.

‘Where did he meet Narelle?’ Grace asked.

‘At my parents’ place. Her and all the other wannabe actresses seeing who they can have sex with to get a part. Didn’t have a hope.’

And you just watched while he chatted up this little self-serving user, Grace thought, seduced her in your own parents’ house, and set her up as a gaoler and a fantasy pastime in a brothel you probably both owned. And you didn’t care. Not much.

‘Joel told me he’d known you since you were fifteen,’ Grace said.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘He was your first boyfriend. That’s all.’

Your first boyfriend and you never shook him off. Some women don’t . Sara was staring at her with hard-eyed condescension.

‘We understand each other. Something you can only see from the outside. You’ll never get anywhere near it.’

Grace thought how at that moment Sara sounded strangely like Narelle.

‘Where’d you meet him?’

‘At a camp I used to have to go to when I was a teenager. He was different. He saw things from the outside, the way I did. He was smarter than anyone else. We got talking and we knew we understood things other people didn’t.’

‘You still think that.’

‘I know it,’ Sara said.

‘Why’d you have to go to camp?’

‘Because my parents didn’t give a shit if I was alive or dead!’

Grace waited till the air cleared.

‘Do you get on better with them now?’ she asked bravely.

‘They’re useful.’ Sara spoke with a sense of superiority. ‘Joel taught me that. Use them. He told me, if they don’t care about you, just use them. From everything they’ve got, take what you want. Drain everything you want out of them. We did just that.’

Again, Grace waited.

‘You’ve never had sex with anyone else,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘What if you did?’

‘No! Why would that happen? You really don’t know Joel. You don’t know what he is.’

Why would I want to know what you know?

‘Do you take him sailing?’

‘He doesn’t like the water.’

‘Does he mind if you go sailing? Or does he think you shouldn’t do things he doesn’t like you doing?’

‘Sailing is just something I do,’ Sara said, angrily.

‘You’re rich.’

‘Isn’t that what you want?’

‘You had money, but Joel taught you other ways to make more money. So you went and did it. Whatever he wants you to do, you go and do it. Except this. Sailing. But now you have to leave that behind as well.’

Sara’s head jerked back in a dangerous way. ‘You don’t know anything about us. I’ve learned from him all my life. The first years we were together, they were amazing. He taught me what you can do if you want to.’ She smiled in the strangest way, barely visible in the light. ‘I’d never had a high like that before. No one else would have shown me those things. You just don’t know. Compared to him, you’re just like Narelle. A nothing. Now you can just shut up.’