It was Greg who threw the first punch, his left fist slicing through the air to catch Mike a glancing blow to the side of his head. He stumbled and Greg swung his fist again, but Lance stepped between them, blocking it with an audible grunt. Mike squared up immediately, fists raised. 'Back off!' Lance shouted, swinging round and pushing Mike backwards, inadvertently knocking over a side table. 'For heaven's sake, back off!'
My heart was thumping so hard I felt almost dizzy. I froze as my room shrank around the men. There seemed to be furniture crashing and people shouting everywhere.
Mike lifted his hand to his face, saw blood on his fingers, and lunged forward. 'You bastard--'
Yoshi screamed.
'Stop it! You're pathetic, the pair of you.' Liza, on her feet between them, threw up her hands. 'Get out! You hear me? I won't have this in my house. I won't have it.' She was pushing at Greg, trying to eject him from the living room.
'What the hell did I do?' he yelled, as she and Lance manoeuvred him towards the kitchen.
'I don't have to take this crap from you!' Mike shouted.
It was only when they were in separate rooms that my breathing slowed.
'Jesus Christ,' said Lance, stepping back into the room. 'Jesus Christ.' Mike shook off his arm and began mopping at his cheekbone with a handkerchief. As he stooped to right the side table, I could hear the sound of my niece and Greg engaged in a shouting match in the kitchen.
It was then I noticed Hannah. She was huddled in a corner of the settee, clutching Milly. 'Sweetie,' I said, trying to make my own voice steady, 'it's okay. It's just the storm making everyone cranky.'
'They're not going to fight again, are they?' Her brown eyes were wide with fear. 'Please don't let them fight.'
I glanced up and Mike was staring at her, horrified by the effect on her of what had happened.
'Hannah, it's okay,' he said. 'Nothing to be frightened of.'
She was staring at him as if she didn't know him any more.
'Really,' he said, kneeling down. 'I'm sorry. I just lost my temper for a moment, but it was nothing serious.'
She didn't look convinced, and recoiled from him.
'It's fine now. Really,' he added.
'I'm not stupid,' she whispered, her face both furious and fearful.
We all looked at each other.
'Look,' he said, 'I'll show you.' As I held her to me, he stood up and went towards the kitchen. 'Greg?' he called, and I felt her flinch in my arms.
'Greg?' He disappeared. A second later they both appeared in the doorway. 'Look,' he said, holding out a hand - I could tell that that gesture half killed him, 'we're mates, really. Like Kathleen said, the storm just made us a little cranky.'
'Yeah,' said Greg, as he took the hand and shook it, 'nothing to be frightened of. Sorry, love.'
She looked at me, then at her mother. Liza's smile seemed to reassure her.
'Really. We'll go now.' Mike tried to raise a smile. 'I'm sorry, okay?'
'Me too,' said Greg. 'I'll be headed off now. And, Liza,' he said to her meaningfully, 'you know where I am.'
I could tell she wanted to say something but the telephone started to ring. She strode past him into the hall to answer it.
'Kathleen. Hannah.' Greg was deflated now. 'I'm real sorry. I wouldn't frighten you for the world, sweetie. You know that . . .' I squeezed Hannah's shoulders, but she still didn't seem to want to respond.
Suddenly Liza was back in the room, her oilskin already half on. The argument was forgotten. 'That was Tom,' she said, voice tight. 'He says there's ghost nets drifting into the bay.'
Eighteen
Mike
The room was a blur of activity. I stood in the midst of it, my handkerchief pressed to my bloodied face, wanting to ask what a ghost net was, but it was as if they were marching to a drumbeat I couldn't hear.
'I'll come out with you,' Kathleen was telling Liza, pulling on her gloves. 'I'll steer while you cut.'
Yoshi already had her jacket on. 'Has someone rung the coastguard?' she was asking.
Lance had a mobile phone pressed to his ear. 'Signal's down.'
'You stay here, lovey,' said Liza, to Hannah.
'No,' said Hannah, her previous fragility forgotten. 'I want to help.'
Liza's face was stern. 'No. You stay here. It's not safe.'
'But I want to help--'
'Then stay here, and when the lines are back up, field the calls. Ring the National Parks, the whales and dolphins people, anyone you can think of. Get them to send out as many people as they can, okay? The numbers are in the book on the hall table.' She knelt and looked her daughter straight in the eye. 'It's very important that you do that, Hannah. We're going to need as many people as possible.'
Hannah seemed mollified. 'Okay.'
Kathleen came back into the room, oilskin on, a large torch under her arm. 'I've put the wet-suits in the back of the car. Spare torch . . . Has everyone got cutters?'
Greg pulled his woollen hat low over his head. 'I've got a spare pair in my lock-up. I'll run down and get them. Lance, give us a lift down - we'll be quicker.'
I looked at Liza, feeling as I had when I'd first come here: an outsider, useless. 'What can I do?' I said. I wanted to talk to her in private, to apologise for mine and Greg's stupidity, to find a way to be of some use, but she was already somewhere else.
'Stay here,' she said, glancing at Hannah. 'Best that there's someone in the house. And don't let the dog out. How's the weather looking, Kathleen?' She tucked her hair into her hat, and peered outside.
'Been prettier,' said Kathleen, 'but there's not a lot we can do about that. Okay, let's go. We'll keep in touch by radio.'
As they trooped out Hannah explained that vast fishing nets, some many miles long, with floats at the top and weights at the bottom, had drifted into the bay. Labelled 'walls of death', they had been declared illegal in Australian waters, but as a result many had been dumped overboard or had torn away from their ship and floated along until, weighed down by the bodies of those sea creatures they had caught and killed, they sank to the sea-bed. 'We learnt about them at school,' she said, 'but I never thought they'd come here.' She bit her lip. 'I hope our dolphins'll be okay.'
'I'm sure your mum and the others will do everything they can to make sure they're fine,' I said. 'Come on - haven't you got some calls to make?'
The lines were back up, the mobile signals restored. I made myself a cup of tea while I listened to Hannah leaving urgent messages on answerphones and occasionally talking to someone who might have been an authority. She was astonishingly poised, I thought, for an eleven-year-old. Then again, I had never met an eleven-year-old who knew as much about dolphins as she did.
Outside, the thunder and lightning had moved on, but the rain beat down mercilessly, sending rivers down the panes and hammering an insistent tattoo on the flat roof of the porch. I put another couple of logs on the fire, then paced the kitchen, watching the dog's eyes flicker from me to the door and back again.
'You get them?' I said, when Hannah came in.
'Most of them,' she said. 'I think the coastguard must be out already. I wish I was helping.' She peered out wistfully through the rain-spattered window.
'You are - someone has to make the calls.'
'Not proper help. You're getting a bruise.' She pointed to the side of my face.
'Serves me right.' I grinned.
Hannah reached out for the dog, who lifted her nose. 'I looked out of the window upstairs and there are loads of boats in the bay with their lights on.'
'There,' I said. 'I told you they'd be okay. Everyone's out helping.'
But she didn't seem to hear me.
It was then that I heard a shrill sound from upstairs - my mobile phone. 'Back in a sec,' I said, and leapt up the stairs two at a time, wondering fleetingly if it was Liza. She might have tried to call while Hannah was on the telephone.
But when I reached my room and scrabbled in my pocket the little screen told
a different story. I gazed at the name, at the flashing backlight, then flipped the button. 'Hello?'
There was a pause.
'Vanessa?'
'Mike.'
I looked out of the window at the dark night, just able, through the rain, to see the lights of the boats illuminating the inky black. I had no idea what to say.
'I heard you quit,' she said. She sounded as if she might be next door.
I sat down on the leather chair. 'A week ago. I - ah - didn't work any notice.' It already felt another lifetime ago.
'I've been off,' she said. 'I didn't know. Dad didn't tell me.'
'I would have called,' I said, 'but--'
'Yes.'
There was a long silence.
'I didn't want to go in,' she said, 'not with you and - and her still there.'
I dropped my head into my palm and took a deep breath. 'I'm so sorry, Ness.'
There was another silence. I felt the hurt in it, and was crushed.
'I wanted to tell you . . . it was stupid and - and you deserved better. But you should know that it was only once and I regretted it more than I can say. Really.'
More silence. I guessed she was digesting this.
'Why did you quit?'
I frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'Did Dad make you go? Because I never meant you to lose your job. I mean, I know I went against you at that meeting . . . but I just wanted to - I just felt so--'
'It wasn't your dad,' I said. 'It was my own decision. I thought it would be . . . best, you know, given . . .' I was distracted by the sound of the dog barking. 'In fact he asked me to stay.'
'I'm glad,' she said. 'It's been worrying me. Mike?'
'Mm?' The dog sounded as if she was at the front door. I wondered if I should go down but I knew that if she kept barking I wouldn't hear a word Vanessa said. And it was important to me that we squared this. 'Vanessa, I--'
'What's that noise?'
The dog was scrabbling at something now, whining. I stood up and went to my door. I wondered if one of the whalechasers was trying to get back in. But the door was rarely locked.
'The dog,' I said absently.
'You don't have a dog,' she said.
'Not my dog.' I held my hand over the phone. 'Hannah?'
'Where are you?' she said.
I hesitated.
'Mike?'
'I'm in Australia,' I said.
A stunned silence has a different quality from any other, I realised at that moment. It stretches, takes on greater weight, then implodes under the weight of unspoken questions.
'Australia?' she said weakly.
'I had to come back,' I said, craning over the banister now. 'I told you I thought this development was a mistake, Ness, and I'm here to try to put it right. I've got to go - there's things going on here - and I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for everything. I've got to go.' I switched off my phone and ran downstairs. Milly was hurling herself at the front door, barking feverishly.
'Hannah?' I said, sticking my head round the kitchen door, hoping she might tell me what was going on.
But she was not in the kitchen or the living room. She was not in her bedroom, or any of the other rooms upstairs. She was not by the phone in the hallway. I was still so disorientated by my conversation with Vanessa that it took me longer than it should have to grasp that neither was her jacket.
I stared at the empty peg, then at the dog, who was still barking, glancing round at me as if I should be doing something. My heart sank.
'Oh, Christ,' I said, and grabbed an oilskin jacket. Then I fumbled for the lead and attached it to Milly's collar. 'Okay, old girl,' I said, opening the door. 'Show me where she's gone.'
The worst of the storm might have passed, but the rain still bore down in solid unforgiving sheets, drowning sound, sending rivers over my feet as I splashed down the coast path after Milly. I didn't think I'd ever experienced rain like that before - it fell into my mouth as I shouted Hannah's name, had saturated my jeans and shoes within seconds. Only my upper half was dry, protected by the oilskin.
Milly strained at the lead, her whole body a shining missile, hampered only by my own lack of speed on the unlit path. 'Steady!' I shouted, but the word was carried away on the wind. I ran through the dark, trying to remember the location of the potholes, and saw trucks arriving by the jetty, their headlights blurred by the moisture in the air. In the bay, as I drew closer, I could see the lights of the boats, maybe a hundred feet apart, bobbing as they struggled against the waves. I couldn't make out clearly what they were doing.
'Hannah!' I yelled, knowing it was pointless. I prayed that Milly knew who she was looking for, and that she wouldn't lead me to Liza.
The dog skidded to a halt by some large sheds - the lock-ups where some of the whalechasers stored their gear. Several doors were open, as if the crews had been in too much of a hurry to get out on to the water to think about protecting their belongings, and Milly skidded into one, her paws scrabbling on the concrete floor.
I hesitated in the sudden quiet, the wet lead slipping through my fingers, and tried to get my bearings. 'Hannah?' I yelled. The rain thrummed dully on the flat roof and fell in ceaseless streams through cracks in the guttering. A low-wattage bulb hung from the middle of the ceiling, and I could just make out a contour map of what looked like sea depths on the wall. There were various plastic canisters, wooden crates full of tools and, lined up against the opposite wall, ropes, buoys and rolls of canvas. I could smell fuel.
'Hannah?'
I stared at the framed licence on the wall. Greg Donohoe. This was Greg's lock-up. In that brief moment of stillness I remembered a snatched conversation I had once heard about a little boat that was out of bounds. A boat that lived in Greg's lock-up.
'Oh, Christ,' I said, into the too-vacant space around me, and grabbed a torch as Milly, perhaps coming to the same conclusion, bolted for the waterfront.
I ran, my fingers locked round the dog's lead, trying to fight rising panic as I drew close to the sea and saw the conditions that the boats were working in. Heavy waves crashed on to the beach, clawing and pounding at the shore, the bastard cousins of those I had jogged past happily on many bright mornings. Out in the bay, perhaps half a mile to sea, boats bobbed and engines whined, trying to maintain position, and now I heard voices, lifted briefly above the noise of the rain. I scanned the horizon, trying to wipe water from my eyes, and the dog strained at my legs. I had no idea where the child might be in that inky blackness, but I could see that even the experienced adult crews were struggling in that water.
'Hannah!' I yelled.
I ran towards the jetty, the thin beam of the torch scanning the ground in front of me. A hundred feet back I found two men pushing a small motorboat towards the water. Both were wearing lifejackets. I could barely make out their faces. 'I need your help,' I gasped. 'There's a child, a girl - I think she's gone out on the water.'
'What?' One of the men stepped forward, and I recognised him as a dog-walker I had met during my previous stay. 'You're going to have to shout, mate. I can't hear you.'
'A girl.' I gestured towards the bay. 'I think she might have taken a dinghy out by herself. She's only a kid.'
The two men looked at each other, then at the boat. 'Grab a jacket,' one shouted. I couldn't think where to leave the dog, so I shoved her in too, and helped them push it out on to the water.
'Hannah McCullen,' I yelled, as the engine roared into life. 'Little girl from the hotel.' The other gestured to me to point the torch out to sea. As I grabbed the side with my other hand, trying to hang on, he took his own light and hooked it on to the front of the boat, scanning the waves.
If I hadn't been so concerned for Hannah's safety, I would have been afraid. I have always tended to avoid risky situations, and as the boat bounced off the waves, then hit them with a smack, jarring me, I would rather have been anywhere in the world than out on that sea.
'See anything?' the man in the blue cap yelled. I shook my
head. I was shivering now, which made it hard to keep Milly wedged safely between my legs. I tied her lead to the side rail - I had to focus on finding Hannah.
'Got to watch out for the nets,' one shouted. 'If we get the propeller caught up we're really stuck.'
I worked out their plan - to start at the jetty end and do a sweep of the bay taking in all of the boats we could see, making sure she was not among them. I sat braced against the side, stomach lurching as we negotiated the waves, my torchbeam swinging out, showing nothing but the dark, churning waters beneath us. As we drew closer to the other boats it seemed that half of Silver Bay had turned out in huge cruisers and little motorboats. I caught sight of bodies in wet-suits, others in oilskins handing down shears. They didn't notice us. They were focused on their own task, and trying to keep their boats stable.
'It's a bugger of a size,' yelled one of the men. I assumed he was talking about the net, but I couldn't see it. We ploughed on through the waves, up to the next boat. Hannah was not there. I wondered whether I'd got it wrong - perhaps the little boat no longer lived in Greg's lock-up. Perhaps she was still at home and I had misunderstood. But then I remembered Milly's reaction: her face was tense and watchful, and I decided to trust her. I couldn't risk believing that Hannah was not out there.
As we passed the sixth or seventh boat, and headed for the mouth of the bay, I became aware of the ghost nets. We passed between one of the Mobys and another cruiser and, with the greater illumination their lights shed, I glimpsed what looked like a tangled web, just visible at the top of the floodlit waves. In it I could see unidentifiable shapes, and struggled to work out what it was I was seeing.
Then Milly barked, great anxious gulps, and I heard screaming.
The dog sprang up, straining at her lead. I swung my torch, and shouted to the men, 'Cut the engine!' As it stalled, I could hear Hannah - a thin, terrified shriek. As the men started the engine and steered towards my pointing arm, I saw, briefly illuminated by my weak beam, a little boat rocking dangerously, a small figure clinging to its side.
'Hannah!' I shouted, and the motorboat swung towards her, its engine almost drowned by the noise the dog was making. 'Hannah!' The boat's light was on her then, and I could see her clearly: her face contorted with fear, her hands gripping the side, her hair plastered over her face as the rain beat down on her.