Where the Dead Go E-Book

Sarah Bailey

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

'Addictive and suspenseful ... Sarah Bailey's writing is both keenly insightful and wholly engrossing, weaving intriguing and multi-layered plots combined with complicated and compelling characters.' The Booktopian A fifteen-year-old girl has gone missing after a party in the middle of the night. The following morning her boyfriend is found brutally murdered in his home. Was the girl responsible for the murder, or is she also a victim of the killer? But who would want two teenagers dead? The aftermath of a personal tragedy finds police detective Gemma Woodstock in the coastal town of Fairhaven with her son Ben in tow. Now she finds herself at the heart of a complex and unnerving murder investigation. Gemma searches for answers, while navigating her son's grief and trying to overcome the hostility of her new colleagues. As the mystery deepens and old tensions and secrets come to light, Gemma is increasingly haunted by a similar missing persons case she worked on not long before. A case that ended in tragedy and made her question her instincts as a cop. Can she trust herself again?

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR SARAH BAILEY

‘The Dark Lake is a thrilling psychological police procedural as well as a leap into the mind of a woman engulfed with guilt.’ New York Journal of Books

‘The Dark Lake hooked me from page one! Sarah Bailey combines the very best elements in this stunning debut thriller—a troubled detective still trying to find her way as a female investigator, a small town haunted by secrets both past and present, and a beautiful victim whose unsettling allure appears to be her biggest asset and largest downfall. With clever twists and all-too-human characters, this book will keep you racing toward the end.’ Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Right Behind You and Find Her

‘This polished debut is a winner from the first page.’ Daily Telegraph

‘I read The Dark Lake in one sitting, it’s that good. A crime thriller that seizes you from the first page and slowly draws you into a web of deception and long buried secrets. Beautifully written, compulsively readable, and highly recommended.’ Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God and co-author of the bestselling Pendergast series

‘An addictive and thoroughly entertaining read.’ Weekly Review

‘The Dark Lake is a mesmerising thriller full of long buried secrets that sucked me right in and kept me up late turning pages. Gemma Woodstock is a richly flawed and completely authentic character—I loved going on this journey with her and the way the truth of her past was revealed in bits and pieces as we went along. Sarah Bailey has crafted an exquisite debut—I can’t wait to see what she does next!’ Jennifer McMahon, New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People

‘So many people have compared Sarah Bailey to the likes of Gillian Flynn and Tana French, and they’re so right. The prose is incredible. Poetic and perfectly constructed . . . I recommend this book if you’re into crime thrillers with a strong female lead and lots of twists and turns. I can’t wait to see what Sarah [Bailey] does next.’ A Girl and Grey

‘Debut author Sarah Bailey depicts both the landscape and Gemma’s state of mind vividly, bringing into focus the intensity of Gemma’s physical and emotional pain and her increasing discontent. The Dark Lake adds to the trend of haunting, rural Australian crime fiction, and provides a welcome addition to the genre for those left bereft after finishing Jane Harper’s The Dry.’ Books + Publishing

‘The Dark Lake is an absolutely stunning debut. This is such a beautifully written and utterly absorbing read, it’s hard to believe that it’s the author’s first novel. I love to get my hands on a good character-driven murder mystery—especially one with a complex protagonist and a plot that keeps me guessing. The Dark Lake delivers all of this and more. The characters and relationships portrayed are so intricate and messy and real . . . it was a real struggle for me to put this book down.’ Sarah McDuling, Booktopia

‘. . . a page-turner that’s both tense and thought provoking.’ Publishers Weekly

‘The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey is a brooding, suspenseful and explosive debut that will grip you from the first page to the last.’ New Idea

‘A compelling debut.’ Booklist

‘I raced through this deliciously complicated, mesmerising debut at warp speed. Sarah Bailey’s The Dark Lake is sure to keep readers awake far too late into the night.’ Karen Dionne, author The Marsh King’s Daughter

‘Enthralling . . . Bailey uses solid character development and superior storytelling, rather than violence, to fuel The Dark Lake, and she is off to an excellent start in this launch of a series.’ Oline Cogdill, Associated Press

‘Melbourne’s wintry streets come alive on the pages, keeping the dramatic tension high . . . Bailey’s writing has grown stronger and more assured in this novel.’ Good Reading

‘With its deft exploration of the intersection of public and private lives and a chance to peer more deeply into the mind and heartset of an engagingly flawed heroine,Into the Night seems set to be just as successful as The Dark Lake.’ Sydney Morning Herald

‘Into the Night is a solid procedural, full of constant twists and reveals that keep the investigation fresh . . . with this expansion of her world, it feels like Gemma Woodstock might be with us for a while.’ Australian Crime Fiction

‘Bailey’s writing is stronger than ever, and the prickliness of her characters is a natural fit for the jarring confines of Melbourne’s central business district . . . a bristling police procedural for fans of Emma Viskic and J.M. Green.’ Books + Publishing

‘Every bit as addictive and suspenseful as The Dark Lake . . . Sarah Bailey’s writing is both keenly insightful and wholly engrossing, weaving intriguing and multi-layered plots combined with complicated and compelling characters.’ The Booktopian

‘Bailey’s writing is sharp, her sense of place harrowing, and her mystery intriguing. A great read for anyone who likes complex characters and gritty crime.’ Glam Adelaide

‘If you’re a fan of quintessential Australian crime fiction, you must read Into the Night . . . Sarah Bailey shows us that she is a force to be reckoned with in the Australian crime field.’ Mrs B’s Book Reviews

‘An excellent follow-up to The Dark Lake . . . sets a new bar for psychological thrillers.’ Blue Wolf Reviews

‘Gemma’s prickliness matches perfectly with a city alive on the page—one both recognisable and horrifying to local Readings customers who traipse the streets where blood is spattered in these pages. This is a gritty metropolitan police procedural that shows Bailey is only getting better.’ Readings

‘Dark, gritty, teeming with atmosphere, Into the Night is police procedural crime fiction at its very best.’ Theresa Smith Writes

Sarah Bailey is a Melbourne-based writer with a background in advertising and communications. She has two children and is currently the Managing Partner of advertising agency VMLY&R in Melbourne. Over the past five years she has written a number of short stories and opinion pieces. Her first novel, the bestselling The Dark Lake, was published in 2017, followed by Into the Night in 2018.Where the Dead Go is her third novel.

First published in Australia in 2019 by Allen & Unwin, Sydney, Australia.

This edition published in Great Britain in 2019 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Sarah Bailey, 2019

The moral right of Sarah Bailey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 041 5

E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 042 2

Corvus

An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

Ormond House

26–27 Boswell Street

London

WC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

For my mum and dad, who filled our house with books and, as a result, filled my head with ideas

Sunday, 10 April

12.21 am

The girl pushes blindly through the wall of trees, tripping over her feet. The crash still rings in her ears and joins the uneven rhythm of her breathing. She pauses, momentarily overwhelmed as she stands in the darkness. Then she yanks her phone from her pocket, waking the screen and pressing buttons until a fresh rush of anger surges through her. She shoves it back.

What’s the point of calling him? What more is there to say? There’s a low rumble nearby before the road lights up like a runway, and two giant beams bear down on the asphalt. She scrambles backwards to the safety of the thick shrubbery. A truck thunders past, rattling the bones of the earth. The world is cast back into darkness, and she wrenches strands of her long hair free from twigs and branches, stepping back onto the road and running toward a distant street lamp.

Mannequins leer from their glass cages, and cartoon signs seem to have an underlying sinister tone. Even though it’s still warm, the girl hugs her hands around her torso, desperately wishing she was wearing a jacket.

Snap.

She stiffens. Was that the sound of someone treading on a stick?

Without stopping to look, the girl veers off the main street and darts to the small path leading to the beach. Blood pounds through her veins. Sweat and make-up mingle with her tears.

Stop crying. Stop being so pathetic.

Deep down she knows where she’s headed and swallows past the shame. But it’s not like she planned for the night to work out like this, for any of this to happen.

Underfoot, the grainy dirt turns to sand and the tunnel of trees opens onto the curve of the bay. The moon hangs above the ocean, a giant white orb that spotlights the tips of the waves.

A stitch stabs at her side, and she bends over to catch her breath. Pushing her fingers against her belly in an effort to ease the pain, she stumbles along the edge of the sand past the car park.

A sob escapes her throat and she hastily blocks out the scenes from earlier. Arguments echo in her head, the words chasing each other until she’s crying again. His touch lingers on her skin, and regret overwhelms her. She lost her mind for a moment back there.

On the left she reaches a worn wooden fence, and beyond that the soft glow of the service station. She looks up along the shore to where the jagged cliffs mark the end of town. She looks back toward the shop; she desperately needs some water.

A low voice threads past the pulsing in her brain. She whips around, eyes huge and heart hammering.

Nothing. Just the wind ruffling the dry grass and the rhythmic hum of the sea kissing the shore.

She eases the gate open and steps onto the cracked asphalt.

That’s when she sees them: two shadowy figures huddled in the far corner of the car park, next to the open boot of a vehicle.

Her eyes adjust enough for the twosome to be recognisable, for her to make out what is happening.

Betrayal smacks her hard in the face and, to her horror, she whimpers.

The shadows freeze.

Her feet are balls of concrete, rooted to the ground.

Tree leaves swish gently, waves crash against sand.

One of the figures breaks away, takes a step toward her. ‘Hello, Abbey,’ he says. He tilts his head kindly, but there’s malice in his gaze. ‘You’re out late.’

She tightens her grip on her phone and fumbles backwards, gasping, falling. Her wrists buckle as she hits the ground, but she barely registers the pain. ‘No!’ she yells, scrambling to her feet.

‘Come on, don’t be like that.’ He walks quicker now.

She staggers away from the beach toward the shops. Her veins become ice tunnels, jarring against the heat of her blood.

Another voice yells her name, high and desperate.

There’s a sharp metallic clatter as something hits the ground. Her phone, dropped from her shaky fingers.

He kicks it along and picks it up. He laughs.

No, no, no.

Desperate, she scans the empty street. The artificial light from the service station reaches around a large vehicle parked near the bowsers but there’s no way she can get there before he reaches her. She knows how strong he is, and she doesn’t know how far he’ll go. What he is capable of.

She doesn’t even think to scream. Her only thought is to run.

His footsteps are loud behind her as she propels herself forward, struggling to breathe while dread threatens to choke her.

The sporadic cries of her name are lost in the dance of the wind.

FIRST DAY MISSING

Sunday, 10 April

7.42 am

Dot Clark eases herself out of bed, grunting with the effort. Daniel is already up. Dot squeezes her eyes shut and says a brief prayer, the fear she felt last night as raw as the bruises on her shoulder. Hopefully he’s on the back porch sleeping off his hangover. He sits out there in the early hours sometimes when it’s particularly hot, legs spread and belly bulging like a scantily clad Father Christmas. The bugs never bother him, not even the mosquitoes. Dot wonders if his temper makes his blood taste nasty.

He was especially bad last night, worse than usual, and the stink of booze distilled through his leather-thick skin still perfumes the air.

Dot pulls her stringy hair into a low ponytail and swaps her thin nightie for a faded sundress. She throws the sheet across the bed and fluffs the limp pillowcases, the movement causing a little jolt of pain to charge through her. Sections of her rib cage are dark purple and throb unprovoked. She puts her hands on her hips, already exhausted. Despite her solid sleep, the events of last night have left her completely drained.

She feels an unexpected rage toward both of them: Daniel’s a human landmine, unpredictable and vicious, but Abbey always seems so intent on setting him off. She crossed a line last night—they will all pay for that.

Dot wheezes through a few breaths as her anger fades to a familiar hopelessness. She shuffles to the end of the bed. She hates this house but she especially hates this bed; she hates the ugly wooden headboard and the rock-hard mattress with its stubborn sweat stains. Odd, then, that all she wants to do after getting up every morning is to crawl back onto the grotty slab and close her eyes again.

She limps slightly as she approaches the boys’ room, her knee still aching from her fall last weekend; Daniel pushed her down the three stairs to the backyard.

Chris and Wayne’s curtains are drawn but the day is determinedly muscling in, giving the wooden room a rosy glow. Tentative sunlight reveals the ancient fan in the corner, stoically shifting stale air from one spot to another. Their floor is littered with things: clothes, books, papers, gadgets, trinkets. Dot remembers them as little boys, always with objects in their hands or mouths, bashing, chewing or picking them apart.

Not like Abbey. Dot’s daughter would sit for hours just staring out the window or drawing shapes in the dirt with a stick.

Boys are busy, Dot’s mother used to say with a bored shrug. They can’t bloody sit still—they’re too scared to, it’ll mean they have to think.

Dot’s twin sons are certainly not busy right now; they are asleep, naked but for underpants. Chris is on his front, his legs spread wide, the balls of his dirt-stained feet facing the ceiling. Wayne is a long soft curve, his heavy brows two sharp lines above his spray of dark lashes. They are just starting to show signs of manhood, a thought that prompts both fear and relief.

She doesn’t like to think about the inevitable: the fact that one day, they will all leave. Escape. Abbey’s bedroom door is wide open, and so are her curtains, the small room awash with clean white light. As always it is rigidly neat. Daniel finds it maddening: just one more thing he can’t lash out at her about. Dot’s eyes scan the photos on the desk then drift to the denim jacket lying across the bottom of the bed, the covers under it smooth, the faded blue pillowcase undented at the opposite end.

A loose knot of worry that has been forming in Dot’s gut pulls tight. She bends at the middle, pressing her hand to the grubby wall, and wheezes again before spluttering through a few asthmatic coughs.

Her legs are shaky as she makes her way slowly down the stairs.

Daniel is in the kitchen, dressed in a blue singlet and faded jeans. His bronzed face shines with sweat. Despite the extra weight, he looks remarkably similar to the teenager she once swooned over. If she’s completely honest, a certain look from him can still make her insides lurch with desire, her body somehow immune to the years of pain and suffering.

Daniel’s eyes are fixed on the mug of tea in front of him. The tea bag hangs out the side, wetness edging along the string to the label. She gets a whiff of the fat from last night’s sausages. Flies buzz above the stack of dishes in the sink, and the sound fills Dot’s head.

‘She’s not here,’ Daniel says, the husky rumble of his voice joining the hum of the flies.

‘Oh,’ says Dot, trying her hardest to think around the noise, to think of something to say. She clasps then unclasps her hands, before gripping them together again. She swallows. Cold beads of perspiration erupt from her pores.

‘I’m going to bloody kill him!’ roars Daniel. Tea sloshes everywhere as he slams his fists on the table.

SECOND DAY MISSING

Monday, 11 April

8.14 am

Scott slipped away to wherever the dead go in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Three months to the day he was diagnosed with the illness that ravaged his body, trapped his mind and stole his future.

The illness that drove a stake through our normal.

The hospital called me just after 10 pm last Tuesday, minutes after Ben had finally fallen asleep and just as I was fixing myself an extra-large whisky. Doctor Dave’s soothing voice informed me Scott had slipped into a coma; after resisting death so stubbornly, he was now catapulting toward it. Jodie had asked Dave to call me, and he was of the view we should come now, if this was what we wanted.

Dad and Rebecca decided not to go, so it was just Ben and I who stepped out into the night. The wind roused the gum trees above the carport and they spritzed ecalyptus into the air as I bundled Ben into Rebecca’s Volvo. Shutting his door gently, I looked to the ceiling of silver stars and breathed shakily through my fear.

I steered us through Smithson’s dark streets, gripping my son’s hand across the console, unable to speak. This thing that was about to happen seemed so impossible, no words made sense.

The hospital glowed eerily and was set to a soundtrack of electronic beeps, expensive machines grimly breathing life into fading humans. I can barely remember guiding Ben through the white corridors, only the harsh smell of disinfectant and the occasional sympathetic look from a nurse.

Jodie was breastfeeding Annabel when we reached Scott’s room, her free hand gripping Scott’s left one, pain etched so deeply into her expression that I wanted to scream. I can’t remember ever feeling so helpless.

But Ben, our little boy, was astoundingly fearless, laying his head on the pillow next to Scott’s face and stroking his cheek with his hand. ‘It’s me, Dad,’ he said softly. ‘I’m here.’

I hung back, hand glued to the doorframe, my chest compressing violently. The ghost of the conversation Scott and I’d had only days earlier taunted me. This was it, I realised. Everything we’d talked about started now.

After a few minutes, Jodie gave me a pointed look. She sniffed and stood, clutching Annabel to her chest as she moved to the corner of the room.

My turn.

I picked up Scott’s free hand, still warm from Jodie’s touch.

A hand that until recently had been so capable. So strong. I squeezed gently, looking across his chest to our son. Ben’s eyes were like green marbles, his mouth moving in a silent one-way conversation with his dad.

The bed shuddered with Scott’s scratchy breaths. My throat swelled as I closed my eyes and said a final goodbye, said sorry, and made silent promises I hoped like hell I could keep.

My relationship with death is solid. We go way back. We were initially introduced through my mum, who died of an aneurism when I was fourteen, and again a few years later when my first serious boyfriend, Jacob Mason, committed suicide. As a detective I’ve touched death with my bare hands. I’ve circled it, smelled it and looked it straight in the eye. I know it’s never far away. I spend a lot of my life thinking about it, talking about it, even expecting it—and when you confront something over and over, your brain eventually relaxes around it.

Perhaps this is why I’m so surprised that Scott’s death has rattled me so badly. I’m a shuddery, miserable mess, even though I absolutely can’t be. Every sobering thought of my fatherless son, poor widowed Jodie and blissfully clueless baby Annabel is a stabbing reminder that I have no right to grieve. In life, I treated Scott like a toy I’d grown tired of. I expected so much of him while he expected so little of me. Now, years of regret have surfaced with astounding force. I keep replaying our final conversations in my mind, his words gnawing at my heart. I was terrified of him dying, but now he’s gone I’m really scared.

Both Mum and Jacob were snatched away, leaving me devastated but stinging with the absolute certainty they had vanished from this world, despite how desperately I wanted them to come back. In contrast, I feel Scott everywhere. He’s watching me curl around Ben at night, our faces soaked with tears. He’s listening as I try to reason with Ben, who has declared he won’t go back to school or respond to his friends’ clumsy messages. Scott’s also listening as I stumble through conversations with his brother, and as I try and fail to say the right thing to Jodie.

I’m stuck in a bizarre limbo between the life I had in Sydney and this life—back in my home town, but with everything broken and unfamiliar.

With Scott’s widowed mother too unwell to travel and no other relatives coming from afar, the funeral is arranged at lightning speed. Jodie and Scott confirmed the details over the past few weeks, so it’s just a matter of going through the motions on the conveyor belt of grief. And there seems to be no shortage of people to tell us what needs to happen next.

I’m grateful to be propelled forward, reluctant to do anything but practical, physical tasks, knowing the mental part of this will be the most difficult. Impossible. Establishing a new life, forming a new plan. In many ways I’m desperate to remain in this holding pattern where the expectations are low. On the other hand, the endless time to think, in the fishbowl that is Smithson, is making me go completely insane.

On the morning of the funeral, Ben and I barely speak. I shower and pull on a black dress, one I packed with Scott’s funeral in mind. Then I comb out my thick hair and twist it into a low bun, before helping Ben into his new suit, purchased only two days ago.

‘Buy him a new suit for the funeral, Gemma,’ Scott said to me, around the time his skin lost the last of its tan. ‘I don’t want him in the same suit he wore to my wedding.’

I snip off the tags and help Ben gel his hair. Cupping his face in my hands, I stare into his eyes, giving him a firm nod as my jaw wobbles dangerously. He swallows hard and nods back.

We can do this, but only just.

The sunlight is a cheerful yellow and I fish around in my handbag for my sunglasses but can’t find them. Ben and I clamber into the back seat of Dad’s Toyota Hilux, which makes me feel like a child. Dad’s profile is solemn as he turns the key. He has combed his grey hair flat, and the woody smell of his aftershave permeates the confined space, making my eyes water. Rebecca sits ramrod straight, her ash bob weighted down by hairspray. A string of fat pearls circles her neck. Every few minutes she dabs at her eyes with a floral-print hanky.

Peak hour in Smithson has nothing on the madness of Sydney traffic. A modest line of vehicles falls into a convoy, starting and stopping to the beat of the traffic lights. We pass the supermarket, the library, the tattoo parlour. On both sides of the street, kids in school uniform brave the new week in little clusters, giant backpacks bobbing above their small heads. Women push prams, their lycra-clad legs pumping energetically, sunglasses masking their lack of sleep. Older couples walk dogs.

We see it all but absorb none of it. We are not part of that world today.

My phone vibrates with a message from Mac.

Thinking of you and Ben. I really wish you had let me come to support you. I love you, call me later.

I picture him pacing the small home office in our apartment, a worried expression on his chiselled face; his kind eyes, his thick blond-grey hair that I love to grab onto when we’re kissing. Tears blur my vision as I tap out a reply and slide my phone into my purse. I miss him, but I was right in not letting him come. Mac doesn’t have a place in today’s narrative and I want to avoid the pointless mental loop of bemoaning how cruelly our life together has been disrupted. There’s plenty of time for that tomorrow, and all the days beyond.

Cheerful rays of morning sun stream through the car windows as the familiar strains of the ABC Radio news sting roll through the car. The bulletin is spearheaded by a breaking homicide in Fairhaven, a beach town north of Byron Bay. A seventeen-year-old male has been beaten to death in his home, and police are appealing for anyone with information to come forward. They are also seeking information about a missing teenage girl, known to the slain boy, who was last seen at a house party on Saturday night.

The words ‘missing teenage girl’ turn my blood to ice. Around six months ago I worked an investigation that all but broke me, arguably the lowest point of my career. A game of cat and mouse that played with my emotions, made me question my instincts and tossed me between hope and dread, until I was forced to let go of the last shred of faith I had in humanity.

Nicki Mara had brought Mac and I together, and in the end she almost tore us apart.

I grip Ben’s hand as we near the church. In spite of the circumstances, my mind begins to riff off the sketchy details in the news report. Were the dead boy and the missing girl a couple? Friends? Are the two incidents linked? Is the girl still alive? Could she have murdered him?

My train of thought is interrupted by Dad clearing his throat and flicking off the radio, no doubt deciding we already have enough death and tragedy to deal with today.

The funeral is unbearable. Ben is like a statue beside me. Jodie weeps loudly a little further along the pew, while baby Annabel’s happy gurgles break every heart in the church. It’s hot and stuffy and I worry first that I will be sick, and then that I will faint. An over-sized version of Scott watches me serenely from the easel beside his coffin, almost as if he is waiting for me to fuck up.

The burial is brief. Scott is lowered into the gaping hole in Smithson’s church graveyard to a soundtrack of muffled crying and shaky breaths. The minister says something about the earth and Scott’s soul, and then it’s over. He’s gone, just like that.

At the wake, I endure excruciating small talk for what feels like hours but is in fact only twenty minutes. Finally escaping to the kitchen at the back of the church hall, I fill a glass with water and knock it back in two large gulps before refilling it to take to Ben. As I walk away from the sink, exhaustion hits me like a gunshot, sharp through my brain, energy flowing out of me so quickly I worry I’ll collapse. I want to be anywhere but here.

Josie Pritchard bustles in, an empty plastic tray in her hands, and gives me an efficient once-over that somehow feels both maternal and cool. ‘How are you holding up, dear?’ When she opens the oven, I can feel the heat from where I’m standing. She pulls out the tray and plonks it on top of the cold hotplates, then starts picking up the steaming pastries with her bare hands.

‘I’m okay,’ I say, which is a lie but one I know everyone around here is keen for me to keep telling, especially today.

‘Terribly sad for your little mite, all this,’ she says absently, arranging the flaking squares in neat rows on two long plates. ‘Especially seeing as he was so happy about finally having a sibling! And poor Jodie, god bless her.’

I don’t reply, muttering a sound that hopefully passes as polite agreement before I head back into the main room and walk briskly to the outside area. No one knows what to do with me. I’m not Scott’s girlfriend, not his widow, not even his ex-wife. But I’m hardly just an acquaintance. My presence feels like a glitch, a contagious awkwardness.

I spot my best friend, Candy Fyfe, across the faded green lawn. She’s a beacon of colour in the sea of black mourners, her lilac dress stretching over her huge pregnant belly. I pause abruptly when I realise she is talking to Jodie.

I’m fighting a strong impulse to throw a tantrum. A giant messy number. I want to beat at the ground with my fists. Roar into the dirt. I want someone to tell me what to do. What the fuck do I do now?

My old boss Ken Jones, ‘Jonesy’, is on the phone in the shade of the church hall, his spare hand holding a paper plate stacked high with club sandwiches and cake. The creases in his forehead deepen. It must be a work call.

I join Dad and Rebecca, who are talking to Jack Grace, one of Scott’s long-time work friends.

‘God, this is awful, huh?’ he says to me.

I nod, another wave of hopelessness threatening to drown me.

‘When are you heading back to Sydney?’ he asks.

Everyone’s eyes are on me as goose pimples pepper my arms. ‘I don’t know yet. We need to work out whether Ben will live in Sydney with me, or whether I’ll, um, move back here for a while.’

Dad’s eyes remain fixed to the ground during this exchange, and Jack looks between us in surprise. ‘Oh, so you’re going to have custody of Ben? I figured he’d keep living with Jodie.’ Jack shakes his head. ‘Wow, that’s massive.’

‘Excuse me,’ I say, tripping slightly as I make a beeline for the trestle tables.

Jonesy strides toward me, his large frame stretching the seams of his dark suit. ‘Woodstock, how are you holding up?’

I snap back into focus and serve him my standard line. ‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not,’ he barks, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I shrug through fresh tears and throw a hand across my eyes to block out the glare. Where are my bloody sunglasses? I grind my jaw and shift my weight from leg to leg, the rarely worn high heels pinching at my ankles. I’m doing everything I can to avoid going to pieces, but I’m not sure it’s going to be enough. I miss Mac. I miss Sydney. I miss how everything was before Scott’s goddamn phone call.

Jonesy hustles me sideways, out of the sun. I spot Ben standing with Jodie. His hair gel has fallen out and dark locks drift into his eyes. He doesn’t look eight; he looks like a toddler.

‘Is something going on?’ I ask Jonesy. ‘I saw you on the phone before.’

‘What? Oh yes.’ He stuffs a triangle of chicken sandwich in his mouth and skilfully manages to talk around it. ‘There’s been a homicide in a coastal town near Byron Bay and they’re looking for a stand-in—the local inspector had a car accident yesterday, if you can believe it. I know him, actually, we did some training together years ago. Anyway, the regional chief called—Tran, I think her name is. She asked me to go but I told her I’ve got an internal investigation starting tomorrow, and there’s no way I can leave the squad unsupervised anyway. Bloody useless, half of them.’

On the other side of the lawn, Jodie has her hands on Ben’s shoulders, and someone leans forward to hug her. My little boy disappears into a swirl of black fabric. I look down at the grass, where cake crumbs are crowd-surfing along a mob of ants.

I look up at Jonesy as my heartbeat accelerates to a gallop. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll go.’

Monday, 11 April

11.52 am

I don’t realise I’ve spoken out loud until I see Jonesy’s confused expression. ‘You?’

‘Yes. I could go. I could do it. I want to do it.’

Jonesy’s hairline gleams with sweat, and he almost drops his paper plate as he mops at it with a serviette. ‘What about Ben?’

‘I’ll take him. He hates being here at the moment anyway. Maybe a change of scenery will do us both good. Do you think they have holiday programs up there? That’s what he normally does when school’s not on. Or I’ll get a nanny—if he comes to Sydney with me, I’ll need to do that anyway.’

Jonesy looks at me doubtfully. ‘Are you serious, Gemma? I know the last few weeks have been really tough on you, and today’s obviously very difficult, but I really think—’

‘I’m totally serious. Let me speak to Ben, and then you can call the chief back and tell her I’ll come. I can’t stay here anyway, it’s killing me.’

Someone has moved the photo of Scott to the rear of the hall, and people have formed a line to say goodbye to Jodie and offer their final condolences. Soon, I assume they will slink away to drink heavily and reflect on the tragedy of a young life cut short.

After tugging Ben away from where he’s standing with Rebecca, I quickly explain the situation in Fairhaven.

He doesn’t hesitate. ‘I want to come with you.’

‘Are you sure?’ I say, holding his chin and looking into his eyes.

He nods vigorously. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’

I walk back over to Rebecca.

‘Gemma, you can’t just leave,’ she says, her grey eyes alarmed. ‘You need to talk to your dad.’

But the desire to escape is coursing through me. ‘No, we have to get going,’ I say.

She desperately scans the crowd. ‘Please let me find Ned first.’

I call to her over my shoulder while I walk with Ben across the grass. ‘I’ll talk to Dad at home. We have to pack.’ I bundle Ben into one of the taxis lining the street outside the church, squeezing his hand as I tip my head back against the car seat.

Feeling nervous, I call the number Jonesy gave me.

Chief Inspector Celia Tran’s voice is clipped and businesslike. ‘So, Ken would have told you we’re dealing with a homicide and a missing person, but we’re not sure at this stage if they are linked.’

‘How did the boy die?’ I ask.

‘Beaten to death in his garage,’ she replies. ‘Head injuries.’

‘No weapon?’

‘We’re still looking.’

I nod, trying to imagine a teenage girl beating a teenage boy to death.

‘Does the girl have any history of running away?’ I ask.

‘No,’ says Tran, ‘but her family situation is extremely volatile. To be honest, I was pretty sure we were looking at a runaway or perhaps a suicide until we got the call about Rick this morning. Now I’m not sure what to think.’

Déjà vu has me flailing as if I’m falling, even though my feet are still flat on the ground. The seeds of doubt that lodged inside me during the Mara case are back.

‘Do either of them have known drug links?’

‘It’s a pretty clean town these days,’ she replies, a hint of pride in her voice. ‘We had an ice issue across the region a few years back, but all of the squads from Byron to Fairhaven have worked hard to drive it out of the community. The new hospital in Fairhaven has helped, and there was some government funding as well. There’s still a lot of low-grade marijuana use, but that doesn’t cause too many problems. The party drugs are normally brought in by the backpackers and tend to be seasonal. We watch it over summer, but it’s pretty tame.’

What she’s describing sounds similar to Smithson, except I know from talking to Jonesy that ice remains a big issue.

‘I’m keen to get on top of everything asap,’ I say.

‘I’ll send you what we have so far, which obviously isn’t much.’ She pauses. ‘You’ll need to hit the ground running, I’m afraid. It’s a small town and there will be a lot of pressure to assure everyone they’re safe.’

Blood pounds through my head. ‘No problem. I’ll read as much as I can on the plane.’

‘Good. Well, you’re certainly getting me out of a bind. The local CI says there’s no way the team up here can manage something like this. Now, I’ve just checked—I can get you and your son on a 1.30 pm flight from Gowran, if that’s doable?’

I glance sideways at Ben, then at the clock on the taxi’s dash. ‘We’ll be there.’

‘Okay, good. We won’t move the body until you arrive, so let me know if you’re delayed.’

‘Gemma, this is ridiculous.’ Dad stands in the guestroom doorway while I shove clothes and toiletries into my suitcase. ‘Ben needs to be with family right now.’

I spin around. ‘No, he needs to be with me. But not here. We need to get out of here.’

The toe of my workboot peeks out from under the bed. I add it to a growing mountain of items on the ugly apricot armchair.

My phone pings with emails that I know are from Inspector Tran: case notes, accommodation details, paperwork.

‘What does Mac say about all this?’ says Dad stiffly.

I feel a sharp stab of guilt as I push strands of hair from my sweaty face. ‘He thinks I should do whatever feels right,’ I snap. ‘He trusts me.’

‘And Jodie?’

‘I haven’t spoken to her yet, but I don’t need her permission. We’ve agreed Ben is staying with me for now. I’ll call her later.’

Dad closes his eyes and his face tics with frustration. ‘Gemma, can you at least stop and think about this? Sleep on it. This isn’t a good time to make hasty decisions.’

‘For god’s sake, Dad, I need to get to the crime scene today. The flight is booked.’ I push my weight against my overflowing suitcase, tugging the zip around the bulging sections. I turn back to face him. ‘Look, I know you’re worried but me sitting around here isn’t really achieving anything. And it’s not like Ben is missing class for the next two weeks—the holidays start on Thursday.’

Rebecca appears in the doorway, her gaze flicking nervously between the two of us. ‘Maybe some time away from Smithson is a good idea, Ned.’

Dad throws his hands up in the air. ‘What, it’s a good idea to drag a grieving little kid to some strange place while his mother loses herself in a murder investigation? Are you crazy?’

‘I just meant,’ Rebecca says, fidgeting with her hanky, ‘I can see how being here might be difficult for Gemma and Ben right now. Nothing about any of this is easy.’

Surprised, I throw a grateful look her way. ‘Rebecca’s right.’

He opens his mouth before simply closing it again, shaking his head. ‘It’s Easter this weekend.’

‘Who fucking cares? It’s not like we’re going to be celebrating anyway.’

‘Gemma!’

‘I’m sorry, Dad, but I need to do this.’

An old memory drifts into my consciousness, of Dad and me going through the motions of Christmas a few weeks after Mum died, the excruciating pain of pretending the familiar routine would make us feel better.

Dad gives me a long look, the heat of his anger cooling into sadness. ‘I’m not going to tell you what to do, Gemma—lord knows I haven’t bothered doing that for years—but I want it known that I think this is an incredibly stupid idea.’

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I say sarcastically. ‘I appreciate your support.’ I push past him to grab Ben’s suitcase.

He follows me up the hall. ‘Surely you realise things are different now? It’s not all about you anymore. You don’t have the luxury of assuming Ben is okay and that someone else is looking out for him.’

My face flushes violently and I clench my teeth trying to keep the venom from my words. ‘I’m very aware that Ben is my son and it’s my job to look after him. And that’s what I’m trying to do. But I can’t be here right now. I just can’t.’

Dad sighs. ‘Well, I guess you have some thinking to do, my girl. This is Ben’s home. He has family here. People who love him. And, frankly, he is the priority, not you.’ Dad adds quietly, ‘What would Scott think?’

Fury hits me, followed by a gut-punch of guilt, but I don’t want to fight with Dad anymore; I don’t have the energy. I take in his fallen face, riddled with creases and sunspots. Had he wanted to leave Smithson after Mum died? Had he felt compelled to start over somewhere else? I can easily summon Dad’s drawn expression and empty stares, but that’s all. Despite my grief and confusion, the agony of being alive after Mum was gone, I never considered we’d do anything but soldier on in Smithson.

I fill my lungs with air and try to calm down. ‘It’s only for a little while. I need time to think, and I can’t do that here. Plus, I’m better when I’m working, you know that.’ I pluck Ben’s T-shirts, shorts and underwear from the sofa bed in the study and push them into his backpack.

‘Gemma, I know you love Ben. You just need to remember that he needs you like he’s never needed you before.’ Dad’s voice shakes. ‘You just better bloody make sure you’re there for him.’

Candy and I are standing outside the security checkpoint at the airport waiting for Ben, who is buying a packet of chips. I catch my reflection in a shop mirror. I’m a head shorter than Candy and I look almost childlike next to her. My long dark hair is held back from my face with the cheap sunglasses I just bought from the chemist but my ponytail is a messy mane down my back. The skin on my arms and face is pale and there are dark rings under my green eyes. Not only do I feel unfit but I look it too—the recent pause in my exercise routine is obvious in the roundness of my figure.

‘Thanks for driving us,’ I say.

‘No problem,’ says Candy evenly. She’s still wearing her funeral attire but has added a denim jacket. She shifts her weight to her other hip and clutches at her huge stomach. ‘I mean, I get it. A boy is dead, a girl is missing, probably dead, and you’re like a bee to honey, you totally get off on that stuff.’

‘Candy!’

‘Don’t worry, I get off on it too.’

Ben returns and I pull him into a hug, the chip packet rustling between us. ‘All okay?’

He nods. ‘Can I have your phone?’

‘Ten minutes,’ I say, handing it over.

‘And I don’t think you’re running away,’ continues Candy, her gaze fixed on Ben.

‘I didn’t say I was.’

‘I mean, you already did that ages ago.’

‘Candy!’

‘I’m just mucking around.’ She tips her neck hard to the right, wincing. ‘What did Mac say?’

‘I’m going to call him later.’

She folds her arms over her bump and purses her lips. ‘You haven’t told him yet?’

I don’t reply.

‘Jesus, Gemma,’ she mutters.

‘Mac will understand,’ I say, even though I’m not sure he will. ‘He knows I’m not ready to bring Ben to Sydney. I need time to think about what we’re going to do.’

Candy fills her cheeks with air, then huffs it out. ‘Well, I can see how some people might think going from your ex-partner’s funeral to some tin-pot surf town to solve a homicide is weird. But you are weird. And I get that you need a bit of time out from good old Shit Town. Plus, you’re a workaholic so you’re going cuckoo not having a case. This way you get to kill a few birds with one stone.’ She yawns widely. ‘Sorry, I’m knackered. Anyway, who cares what anyone thinks? You’re in mourning—you can act as weird as you like.’

‘Thanks, Candy.’ I give her a hug, breathing in her citrus perfume.

‘Don’t thank me.’ She talks into my hair. ‘Just make sure you come back with a plan. It’s fine to be in freefall for a little while, but your kid needs to know where his life is heading. Or at least where he’s going to live.’

Her comment burns. I essentially deactivated my parenting licence four years ago, and I know it. I played an active support role, cheering enthusiastically from the sidelines, but was more than happy to let Scott drive. And now I’m in the driver’s seat of a speeding car with faulty brakes, a white-knuckled Ben beside me.

When our flight is called over the speaker system, I gesture for Ben.

‘I plan to come back with a plan,’ I say softly.

Candy gives me a long, hard stare. ‘Good.’ She looks over at the airport restaurant and clutches her belly again. ‘Shit, what a day. Don’t tell anyone but I’m going to have a wine.’

Monday, 11 April

2.03 pm

The flight is brief, barely thirty minutes. Ben draws a picture of a dragon on the back of a sick bag while I review the case notes Tran sent through on my tiny phone screen.

Rattling around in my head is the phone call I had with Jodie before we took off. She was irritated about our sudden departure, but she was also exhausted, and I got the feeling that part of her felt relieved I was removing myself from her life, even if only temporarily.

‘It’s not like you called to ask me, Gemma,’ she snapped. ‘I didn’t even know where you and Ben went after the funeral.’

‘It all happened really quickly,’ I said.

She just sighed and asked to speak to Ben.

I bristle as I recall her parting words. ‘Ben obviously has everything he needs here, Gemma, so if it all gets too much for you he can just come home.’

I give his leg a quick squeeze and train my eyes back to my screen. There’s barely any information on the murdered boy yet, just basic details. Richard ‘Rick’ Fletcher, seventeen years old. Both parents are still alive and together, and he has an older brother, Aiden, and an older sister, Belinda. Rick’s lived in Fairhaven his whole life. He dropped out of school at the end of Year Eleven and very recently became a self-employed landscaper. No priors, nothing to suggest he would wind up dead in his carport one Monday morning.

The report on the missing girl isn’t much more substantial: she’s younger than Rick, just fifteen, and in Year Ten at Fairhaven High. A family file is included: her father is a suspected serial domestic abuser, but no charges have been laid against him since the late 1980s when he was arrested for a drunken bar fight that left a man permanently disfigured. The Fairhaven police are frequently called out to the Clark home by concerned neighbours but Daniel’s wife, Dorothy, refuses to press charges and denies her husband is abusive. I shift in my seat and wriggle my toes. It’s not much of a stretch for abuse to escalate into murder, particularly if Abbey was starting to assert her independence.

I feel a familiar bubble of apprehension as I click on a photo of Rick Fletcher. Seeing a victim always sears a homicide onto my soul; there’s no going back once they have a face. Blond, tan and with a friendly smile, Rick could easily star in a tourism ad for a quintessential Australian beach holiday. What a waste.

Next I click on a photo of Abbey Clark. Goose bumps break out on my arms and legs. She looks so much like Nicki Mara. The same wavy brown hair, similar pretty features. I am catapulted back to the brightly lit case room, Nicki’s face smiling down at me from the photo board as I tried to make sense of her disappearance.

I fight the urge to stand up and demand the plane turn around. Even though rationally I know this case is different, that Abbey is not Nicki, it doesn’t stop the dread. The steady pulse of doubt. Ben is still sketching on the sick bag next to me, and the plane hums along. Tiny white spots flood my vision. My heart still racing, I count to ten. I close Abbey’s photo and start to read the case notes.

Abbey’s father reported her missing just after 10 am yesterday. He said he’d woken up a few hours earlier to discover she hadn’t returned the previous evening, then immediately driven around to Rick Fletcher’s house, searching for her there. Apparently Daniel was convinced that Rick was responsible for her disappearance.

On Saturday night she’d attended a large house party, and several witnesses say she seemed fine—although later in the evening, she reportedly had a heated argument with Rick. When Tran interviewed Rick on Sunday, he admitted he and Abbey had recently broken up and said they’d argued because he thought she was flirting with another guy at the party, which he felt was disrespectful. Rick claimed he’d seen Abbey leave the party alone on her bike about half an hour later, just before 11.30 pm.

My forehead creases as I read the next section of the missing person file. At about 11.45 pm, Abbey went to the Fairhaven Police Station claiming her bike had been stolen from the party. The constable on duty, Kai Lane, wrote up the report, then a local resident rang to complain about the noise at the house party. Lane called the CI and arranged to meet him there before offering Abbey a lift home, which she declined.

She hasn’t been seen since. Her bank accounts haven’t been touched. Her phone went off the grid around midnight; its last tracked location is central Fairhaven, so I make a note to ask Tran about CCTV in the area.

It also seems like the cops only did a cursory search of the Clarks’ house on Sunday. As far as they could tell, Abbey hadn’t been home, but maybe they missed something. The squad in Fairhaven is unlikely to be very experienced and detectives have their biases too; maybe they assumed that Abbey was just passed out at a friend’s place or wanted some time out.

I tap my pen against the fold-out plane table. Despite the misery of the morning, my brain is clicking into gear for the first time in weeks. It grips around the facts of the case, trying to arrange the sequence of events. If something did happen to Abbey Clark, then Rick Fletcher is surely suspect number one—a recent break-up, a fiery clash an hour before she disappeared.

Or was it the other way around? Was Abbey furious enough at him to go into hiding and then strike out a few days later?

I scroll forward a few pages to the summary of the statement Rick gave on Sunday. In her report, Constable Edwina de Luca describes him as ‘devastated’. He said he left the party and went to meet his sister and her friends on the beach where they were having a drunken gathering: not the most airtight of alibis. He was on foot; he could have easily encountered Abbey, disposed of her and still gone to the beach party so the others could vouch for him. But why? Humiliation about the break-up? A sense of betrayal?

I click back on Abbey’s file. What does the stolen bike mean? Perhaps it wasn’t really stolen. Or if it was, then why did Rick say he saw her leave the party on it? He might have misremembered because he was drunk, but it seems like a strange thing to conjure up. Maybe Abbey claimed the bike was stolen as part of a ruse to cover up her plan to disappear. I make another note to review how far she could get on her bike at night without being spotted.

My mind wanders to all the heated exchanges Mac and I had about Nicki Mara. We profiled her endlessly, talking late into the night, long after Owen and the rest of the team had gone home.

After a few weeks, our heated conversations shifted to the pub opposite the station. Tucked away in a private booth, we downed beers as we debated the hidden clues in Nicki’s phone records and WhatsApp messages. I felt like I knew her intimately: her ongoing issues with her mother, the jealousy she felt toward her older sister, her fondness for her dad. Her propensity to take party drugs, her history of mental illness. I got so deep into her head I couldn’t see straight. My instincts were shot. Mac, on the other hand, kept his distance. He could see things I couldn’t.

I’m well aware Nicki’s case has made me a little gun-shy, scared to fix onto a solution too quickly. I’ve been second-guessing myself, then second-guessing my second guesses, terrified my assumptions could compromise a solve—or even a life.

I don’t know where Abbey sits on the scale yet, but I do know most runaway kids don’t bail in the middle of the night, especially if they’re on their own. Especially not if they’re from a coastal town that has few options for an exit strategy. No buses, no trains, not even a taxi service. I make another note to look into her finances. Nothing about this seems planned, but if it turns out she was stockpiling money then that might suggest otherwise.

A voice comes over the loudspeaker informing us we’re ten minutes from landing, so we need to stow our large electronic devices. I snap my laptop shut and glance at Ben. His expression is unreadable as he stares at the back of the seat in front of him.

I still can’t quite believe I’m doing this. My insides twist tight. I’m increasingly aware this might be the most foolish decision I’ve ever made.

We disembark and collect our luggage, my corporate suitcase like a sore thumb among the colourful beach bags. I look at our fellow travellers—shedding jackets, putting on hats and pausing to apply sunscreen, they chat excitedly about ocean conditions and bushwalks, in between bemoaning their pale skin. I loop an arm around Ben and give him a reassuring squeeze.

Rental car keys in hand, we leave the small terminal and are immediately engulfed by hot, damp air. Perspiration rallies on my skin and I lick my lips. I can taste the sea.

Ben points at a sign with the hire car brand on it. ‘This way, Mum.’ We find our car, and I set the GPS to the address Tran gave me. The case has already wormed its way into my brain. I’m still trying to plot out the sequence of events: a missing girl, a dead boy, both of their lives about to be torn open and picked over like a Christmas turkey.

Ben fiddles with the window controls and switches songs on the radio, his movements jerky.

‘Are you alright, baby?’

He shrugs. ‘Yep.’

‘I know this is pretty strange. If you change your mind about wanting to be here, or if you want to go home, you just need to tell me, okay?’

‘You hate Smithson,’ he says.

Heat rises up my neck, onto my face. ‘That’s not true.’

‘It’s okay, I hate it too.’

‘Ben, come on. Smithson is your home.’

He shrugs. ‘Everything is different now. Dad’s dead, and we’re living at Grandad’s.’ His voice wobbles dangerously. ‘No one knows what to say to me. I don’t want to go back to school after the holidays, it was bad enough when Dad was sick. Can’t I just come and live in Sydney with you?’

Despite the sun streaming in through the windows, I start to shake as if I have chills. He’s saying what I want to hear, but I can also hear the pain in his voice.

The road stretches out in front of us, a black line disappearing into the green corridor. What was I thinking coming here?

‘You might feel differently after a few days,’ I say feebly.

He pouts and slumps back against the seat. ‘You don’t want me to come to Sydney.’

‘That is absolutely not true, Ben. I just think we need time to decide what’s going to be best for you.’

He pulls off his cap and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. Tilting his chin, he looks at me defiantly. His expression jolts a memory of Scott and me watching him as a baby, only a few days old, sleeping in his cot. He has the same face shape as you, Scott said dreamily, tracing Ben’s jaw, his voice cracking with emotion as he put his arm around me and pushed my chin skyward, smiling. But hopefully not your stubbornness.

I remember how hard school was after Mum died. The stares. The whispered conversations that stopped every time I rounded a corner. My heart breaks for that version of me, and it breaks for Ben.

‘I know it’s hard, sweetheart. Your friends care about you so much but they don’t know what to say to you. They don’t want to upset you. But it will get easier, I promise.’

He doesn’t speak for a few moments but I sense his limbs relax, the anger fading. Or perhaps he’s just exhausted.

‘Is the missing girl dead?’

His bluntness makes me baulk. ‘She might be,’ I admit, ‘but I hope not. Either way, her family really want to know what happened to her. I want to know what happened to her.’

He nods but keeps his lips pressed together.

Frustration swells in my chest and I try to breathe around it, gripping the steering wheel and focusing on the road. I know he’s hurting. I just wish I knew what to say.

My personal phone rings: Jonesy. Glancing at Ben, I put a headphone in my ear and answer it.

‘Are you there yet?’ His gruff voice sounds faraway.

‘Yes. We’re on the way to the scene.’

‘Christ,’ he breathes. ‘Okay, so I made some calls. I think I mentioned that the bloke who had the car accident is an old mate of mine? Chief Inspector Tommy Gordon. Anyway, his wife, Vanessa, is a retired schoolteacher and she’s offered to have Ben during the day while you’re in Fairhaven. She’s already looking after a little boy for the school holidays, so she says it’s no trouble. She’s a good person, Gemma.’

‘That sounds great,’ I say, surprised to find my eyes welling up.