Page 49 of The Beach Cottage
“What do you mean?” Bea asked.
“I did some more reading about the case on my own. When she died, there was a cyclone along the Queensland northeastern coast. It was in November, and it was the first cyclone of the season. The ferry was damaged in the bad weather, and the island was cut off from the mainland for a month. There was no coming or going. Everyone who was here stayed here for a full month. The police had a complete list of names — I’d say they probably kept it in the case file. If we can get our hands on that, we’d know who was here during the murder.”
“Wow, that is interesting. But I have no idea how we’d get access to the case file,” Evie replied.
Bea shrugged.
“I think we should call Rowan,” Evie suggested. “He might know more than he realises.”
“I doubt it,” Penny replied. “He would’ve said so. Besides, he wasn’t born yet when it happened. None of us were.”
“Let’s call him anyway,” Evie said with a wink.
Bea suppressed a laugh at her friend’s obvious attempt at matchmaking. “Penny’s his friend. She should call.”
Penny shook her head. “I don’t know. That’s a bit tacky — calling a boy I like after several glasses of wine. I’m not sixteen anymore.”
“We didn’t drink wine when we were sixteen. Our tastes were much more lowbrow,” Taya replied with a laugh.
“You know what I mean.”
“Come on, Penny. We want to get to the bottom of this, and I know you do as well. She was your grandmother, after all.”
“Fine,” Penny conceded. She pulled her mobile phone from her jeans pocket and dialled, then set it on speaker on the table in front of her.
“Hello?” Rowan answered right away.
“Hi, Rowan. It’s Penny.” Penny’s cheeks were already coloured with two pink circles.
“Hi, Pen. How are you?”
“Good. Hey, I’m with the girls.”
“Hi, Rowan,” they all chimed in unison.
He laughed. “Hi.”
“We’ve been looking into my grandmother’s murder, and we wanted to ask you a few questions.”
He hesitated. “Me? I’m not sure how much help I can be. I don’t know anything about it other than what you’ve already discovered.”
Bea spoke up. “We thought it might be a good idea to talk to each of the people still on the island who were around at the time. Get their memories down on paper.”
“Okay,” he replied.
“But we don’t know where your stepdad lives,” Evie added.
“I’m happy to tell you where Buck lives, or lived the last time I heard about him. I don’t know what kind of reception you’ll get. He was always kind of mean.” He gave them his stepfather’s address after looking it up on his phone.
“Did your parents ever tell you anything about the murder? Did they mention it in passing or discuss it in front of you?” Penny asked.
He sighed. “Hmmm… Not that I recall. I do remember Mum saying it was a shame, since it really shook your mother’s world. They’d been friends, but after the murder, they drifted apart. That was the impression I got, anyway. That your mother was so devastated, she didn’t really stay in touch for long, and Mum was saddened by the lost friendship. I believe there were three of them who were friends — Bea’s mother as well.”
“That’s right,” Penny replied. “All three of them were close apparently, although obviously Mum was a lot younger than the other two. I think they met doing some kind of pregnancy exercise class and Mum said they took her under their wing. You’d never have known it later in life, though. They barely spoke when they saw each other at school events. I always thought that was strange.”
“Definitely strange,” Bea agreed. She hadn’t pondered it much at the time, but looking back, she could feel the strained silence between the three mothers who all had children around the same time. They were different ages, with Penny’s mother still only in her teens when they were born. But their children were in the same grade at school together years later, and yet the three women barely spoke.
“I think we should visit Buck out at Amity Point. It’s not too far from here, and you have the boat, right, Bea? We can drive it around to the point and walk from there. It should be easy enough to find him since there aren’t many houses in that area.” Penny looked around the table to gauge their reactions.
