A Cape, A Rock and A Murder

1

We were standing at the head of the Wattle Creek trail gazing with broad smiles on our faces at the meandering concrete path in the crisp morning light. To one side, a flat field served as a flood plain. Houses fringed the more elevated land on the field’s perimeter. On the other side of the path, a thicket of native shrubs and small trees obscured the creek from view. Between those shrubs and the path was a wide strip of mown grass. It was right there at the point where the thicket met the grass that a row of tall thistles had stood. To our immense pleasure on that chilly morning in June, there was not a thistle in sight. Doris had been concerned that the row of tall thistles she had called Thistle Row would grow back after Carl Carter finally took his lawn mower to them. But he kept his promise that he would keep mowing the thistles, and it had made a remarkable difference to the look of this section of the trail.

Doris rested her hands on her hips. She was triumphant. Another successful campaign of the Friends of the Trail or FOTT committee, and as president, she took all the credit. There she stood in her livid blue, figure-hugging sportswear, the picture of youthful vigour at seventy-six years of age, an exemplar of what a defiant attitude can do for a woman throughout her life.

It was early and no one was about. As we headed back down the path on our way home, I started to wonder what other issue she would insist the committee address.

I didn’t have long to wait. Doris announced as we turned into Amber Street and passed by the tennis courts that she had rescheduled our usual FOTT meeting for later that same day.

‘But today is Friday,’ I said, thinking no one would want to attend a meeting on a Friday.

‘I’m sure no one has anything on, and I can’t do this Sunday.’

She was probably right. Everyone else on the FOTT committee was retired. And it was no use me telling her that I had something on. She knew it wasn’t true. Not exactly. Yes, I had a job, but I was a freelance journalist and worked odd hours. She also knew I was between projects.

All the way up the hill past Myrtle Bay Park, I strained to come up with a reason why I couldn’t make the meeting, but it was no use. I needed to be there. I was the secretary.

She came to a sudden stop as we approached our houses, which sat side by side in Boronia Street.

‘Two o’clock, on the dot.’

‘Fine.’

I arrived at Doris’s back door on the dot of two, laden with a tray of freshly baked scones keeping warm beneath a clean tea towel, a pot of delicious raspberry jam, and a jar of whipped cream. I called out and entered without waiting for a response, as was our custom. Doris had laid out the tea things and boiled the kettle. I went straight through to the front of the house with my contribution.

In her dining room, Bob Machin was already seated at the foot of the table, and Doris was at the head. I set down the tray and took up the chair at Doris’s end of the table. Bob acknowledged me with a nod. Doris gave me a quick smile. No one spoke. We were waiting for former secretary Delia Simmons to appear, along with the other committee members James Rose and Hannah Handley.

Time dragged by. Bob had his arms folded firmly across his chest. His gaze was fixed on the table in front of him. Doris kept looking at her watch. My thoughts wandered.

I began to imagine what it would be like to go on a date with Ciaran, someone I had only known as a gardener who also did home repairs, although he had become a lot more than that since Doris and I had found ourselves investigating local deaths. After we had returned from that awful long weekend in Bright, Ciaran had even managed to pluck up the courage and ask me out on a date sometime, which had ended up as an invitation to an exhibition opening at the local art gallery.

We were meeting in town at six the next evening. That was almost twenty-eight hours away, and it was already triggering in me an internal scuffle. Part of me felt strange accepting his invitation. Another part of me dismissed that feeling as outright snobbery. He was a genuinely good-natured man who had many talents. He was bright, we could talk about anything, he had helped Doris and I out many times with our sleuthing, and I really liked him. He also made me happy. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life single and lonely, especially after losing Dad. I needed a different sort of company to that which Doris could provide.

My reverie was interrupted when Bob let out a long, dissatisfied sigh.

‘Why don’t we make a start?’ he suggested tentatively and without lifting his gaze.

Doris frowned. ‘We’ve an important matter to deal with and we need everyone here to form a quorum.’

‘Another one?’

‘Thanks to some youngsters flouting the law, yes.’

‘The graffiti,’ he said under his breath.

‘The very same.’

I looked from Doris to Bob. Both wore steadfast expressions on their faces. ‘The committee does have a duty to raise this matter with the council and get them to do something about it,’ I ventured, playing intermediary.

‘Which is why we need that quorum,’ Doris said quickly.

She started drumming her fingertips on the table. It wasn’t long and Bob started turning in his seat to throw glances out the window.

I started checking messages on my phone. A new email from my editor Sharon had landed in my inbox. I grew curious but set my phone down on the table after hearing a soft tut from Doris.

‘Perhaps changing the scheduled meeting from a Sunday to a Friday afternoon was not such a good idea,’ Bob said under his breath.

‘They all agreed,’ Doris said indignantly.

I shifted in my seat. ‘I expect they’ve forgotten.’

Doris raised her eyebrows.

‘Well?’ I added with a shrug. After all, Delia Simmons was in her eighties, James Rose wasn’t much younger and had plenty of interests outside of FOTT, and Hannah Handley was a busy sort of woman, too, although out of the three, I would have expected her presence being as she often walked with Doris on the trail, and they were both in the crochet club. Perhaps there had been some sort of emergency.

‘I can ring around if you like,’ Bob said, reaching for his phone.

Doris was beginning to look explosive.

‘I suggest we start on the scones,’ I said. ‘It would be a shame to let them go completely cold.’

Doris gave the tray a sideways stare. ‘They’re still warm, then?’

Bob’s face lit up at the thought.

I needed no more prompting. ‘Help yourselves,’ I said, removing the tea towel. ‘I’ll go reheat the kettle.’ I hadn’t left the room before Doris and Bob were both out of their seats and reaching for the scones at once.

Scones and tea and more scones, and in the absence of the others, we scoffed the lot.

Bob left the failed meeting as soon as he had swallowed the last mouthful of his third scone, muttering something about having somewhere else to be and it was already getting late. Doris didn’t bother seeing him to the door. Instead, she gave him a cordial wave and said she would be in touch.

‘Is there more tea in the pot?’ she said once we were alone. I obliged. It was no doubt stewed, but Doris didn’t mind that. She was engrossed in keeping hold of the final half of the final scone which she had ladled sky high with jam and cream.

There was not a scone crumb remaining on her plate when I checked my phone, curious to see what Sharon had to say in that email. We’d been discussing my next feature since I got back from the weekend in Bright, Sharon wanting me to head off to Yackandandah, a tourist town in north-eastern Victoria, while I kept insisting on somewhere closer to home. I read her email with trepidation, but instead of the usual arguments and tempting expense budgets, she told me to do as I pleased. Head west, she said, but for heaven’s sake not the Mallee. I laughed under my breath, the Mallee being due north from Myrtle Bay. Although Sharon was based in Melbourne which made the Mallee somewhat west for her. Yet it was still very much north. Her sense of geography had always been wanting. For me, west took me through farming and tree plantation country, an area of few towns and pristine coastal beauty. It was an area known for the Great South West Walk. Even a portion of that landscape was worth featuring in Southern Lifestyle. Best of all, I could produce a whole article out of a single day trip.

‘What’s news?’ Doris said, staring at me all wide-eyed curiosity.

She never missed a beat.

I hesitated. I had no choice but to tell her, but I was beginning to wish I had opened that email in the privacy of my own home. Then I could have hopped in my car on a bright and sunny day of my choosing and headed off alone. Doris would have been none the wiser. Now, I knew that was not going to happen.

I put down my phone. ‘Another feature.’

‘Where is that Sharon sending you off to this time?’

‘Nowhere in particular. I thought it would be nice to visit the Petrified Forest and Shelly Beach.’

‘Cape Bridgewater, you mean.’

‘I thought a day trip would be nice.’

‘You think you can write a feature based on a few hours in a place?’

‘I’ve been there before.’

‘And I’ve been there before.’

‘Then you know there’s not much out there.’

She gave a little shrug. ‘You usually spend a few days in a place, that’s all.’

‘All the holiday lets are booked out,’ I said.

It was a lie. I hadn’t even checked. But it was the long weekend in June which meant I was probably right. And I didn’t fancy finding myself cooped up in some draughty bed and breakfast with poor heating, not with winter closing in.

‘Besides, if I need more detail, I can always drive back,’ I added. ‘It isn’t that far.’

‘Mind if I tag along, then?’

‘I didn’t think coastal wilderness was your thing.’

‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me,’ she said reproachfully. ‘Besides, I have nothing on I can’t cancel, and I could do with some fresh air and scenery after our failed FOTT meeting. There are times being president of the committee is a real strain.’

Which you bring entirely on yourself, dear Doris, I thought but didn’t say.

I knew there wasn’t any way of stopping her from tagging along. She had made up her mind and that was that.

‘When do we leave?’ she said, looking at me intently.

I reached for my phone and checked the weather report. Tomorrow would be bright and sunny before a late afternoon change. I did have that date with Ciaran but if we set off early, we would be back in plenty of time.

‘We’ll leave tomorrow at eight in the morning, if that’s alright with you?’

And with that I stood up, took the tray with what was left of the cream and jam, and left Doris to deal with the washing up.

2

‘Just watch where you’re putting your feet,’ I yelled, reaching out to grab a handful of her pale-pink puffer coat.

My whole body had grown tense with fear. One more step and she would have fallen off the cliff.

‘There’s something down there,’ she said, pointing as she took a reluctant step back.

I came up beside her and tentatively peered over the edge.

We were standing on Bishop’s Rock, an outcrop of low cliff that protruded towards the ocean at the far end of Shelly Beach. At the other end of the beach was the tiny town of Cape Bridgewater. It was a terrific location for photos, especially as there was little wind, the ocean shimmered sapphire beneath a blue sky, and the light was perfect.

In all, the whole day had been perfect. We couldn’t have wanted for better weather. We had already visited the blowholes and the Petrified Forest, an impressive series of limestone tubes clustered together along a low coastal cliff which was also known to be Victoria’s highest coastal cliff. I had managed to take some great photos of those tubes thanks to the angle of the sun. We had then walked a kilometre of a cliff-edge portion of the Great South West Walk, arriving at the Green Pools, two hollows of turquoise water large enough to bathe in – only for the brave – situated in a gnarly basalt platform at the base of the cliff.

Further west, beyond the Green Pools, was about sixty kilometres of unspoilt beach.

Sixty kilometres.

Unspoilt.

That was something of a marvel in a world dominated by tourism and Instagram. A world in which just about every single site of natural beauty had been discovered and captured and posted online. A small voice within had even begun to question the wisdom of writing about this special place of exquisite natural beauty. A voice that wanted to keep Cape Bridgewater a secret from the world of Instagrammers.

On our way back, we stood beneath one of the towering wind turbines that were spaced out in the hinterland nearby, some close to the parking area. I counted eighteen on Google Maps. Wind turbines that somehow formed part of that landscape as though they belonged there, although no doubt some would disagree with that. I tried to photograph one but the angles were all wrong. I decided to give them a mention and leave it at that.

We got to appreciate more of the coastline as we stood together on the grassy path of the seal colony lookout. We didn’t see any seals but the view from there was tremendous.

We had also found a forested stretch of the Great South West Walk and strolled along a short distance just to get the feel of it and take more photos.

The sense of emptiness, of pristine wilderness of the whole location, was exhilarating. I thought there could be nowhere like it on earth, nowhere else that had that special atmosphere of southern coastal wilderness, no coastline on the planet sitting on the thirty-eighth parallel that remained remote and unspoilt by development or tourism.

After soaking in the view and taking scores of photos, we then explored the town of Cape Bridgewater, an old farming settlement dating back to the 1840s.

There was only the one place to stop for lunch, a restaurant strategically located overlooking Shelly Beach. Doris had a hamburger with the lot, and I tried the fish. We both agreed the food and the service were excellent and I gained permission from the owners to take photos and grab a few quotes for the feature.

Bishop’s Rock was to be the last stop before heading home.

I looked over the cliff with Doris right beside me, finger stabbing the air in the direction of what she had seen.

Down below, at the bottom of the rocky outcrop that descended some twenty metres to the beach, down below, only a few feet from the cliff base in the middle and most secluded of the three little bays, right there where there should have been nothing but sand was a grey lump. In the glare of the sun, I thought it might have been a beached seal or dolphin or baby whale. But when I looked closer, a chill went through me as I realised the grey I was looking at was a coat. Which meant the lump itself was a body, lying face down.

I shivered again, this time thanks to a rush of cool southern wind that augured the beginnings of a change in the weather. On the horizon, I spotted a bank of cloud.

Doris gave me a nudge with her elbow. ‘You better