Portraits of Celina (27 page)

“Shut up! It doesn’t matter now, because it’s over. You are going to pay, and the evidence is, as you just announced, everywhere.”

Bud is thrown for a moment as he takes this in, as am I. But then he smiles. “You always thought you were the smart one, didn’t you? Well, you’re not. It’s simple. I just need to get rid of you all over again. Plenty of sinkholes out there. I did it before; I can do it again.”

“You don’t have the courage. You gutless creep!” Celina yells, and as unexpectedly as it entered, Celina’s presence leaves me. Vanishes.

Don’t go! Don’t leave me – now that you have infuriated Bud
.

But she has gone.

And I have never felt more betrayed in my entire life.

I have been used. Used by a vengeful ghost.

My fate is sealed in seconds. My mouth is taped shut again. A knife is produced and my heart leaps into my mouth as I think Bud is going to cut my throat with it. But instead, he cuts me free from the pole, and slices through the ropes around my ankles. He has a rifle balanced in the crook of his arm and I am ordered to my feet and out the door. I don’t argue.

There is a fierce wind tearing through Lakeside and the last thing I notice before I am bundled onto the floor of the passenger side of Bud’s red ute is a couple of small boats bouncing on whitecaps on the lake. A tarp is thrown over me and I am told that he’ll blow my brains out if I so much as move or make a sound, and I believe him.

Rattling along as the ute speeds off, the engine warming the floor beneath me, I focus on those boats. Who are they? Why are they here? Are they heading to Lakeside? Are they the police? Police divers perhaps? I hang onto them, clutch them to my heart as my last hope. It’s all I’ve got.

We stop at what I presume is the gate. Bud hops out to open it, and I am too scared even to peek out. Once through the gate, we turn left, which means we are heading out to the highway. The drive up and over the mountain seems to take forever, despite the fact that Bud is driving way too fast. The car judders over the corrugations, stones flying up and pinging the undercarriage beneath me. I find myself wishing that we’d crash.

Finally, we stop and then make a left turn – onto the highway I guess, the road smoother now, humming below me. We are heading towards Tallowood and towards my place, which surprises me, and I have the bizarre thought that he is actually taking me home, that it’s all been some big gag and when I get there, there will be cameras and someone calling out “Gagged!”

The ute turns again onto what I am convinced is the road to my house. But we don’t go far before Bud hauls on the wheel and makes a sharp turn off the road. We bump across some rough ground, rocks hitting the floor like gunshots, until he stops abruptly.

Now that we’ve stopped, I feel cramped and bruised. I am aware of wind howling through the trees, sending branches scraping against the sides of the ute.

Bud shifts about on his seat, drums the dash with his fingers. Then the ignition is turned over again and we bump along a bit further, until once more the car comes to a halt. The noise of branches scraping the roof has intensified and I have the feeling we are under a small tree or bush.

Hiding, no doubt. Out of sight, for certain.

And once more I am filled with dread of what is about to happen.

“This should do it.” Bud flicks the tarp off me. “Get up. Recognise this place, hey?”

I unfold myself from my hideout, my legs and back stiff and aching. The first thing I see is the rifle, centimetres from my face, and then I see that we are in the bush somewhere.

“Like old times.” Bud’s laugh sends spasms down my spine. “Come on, out we get. Let’s go for a little walk.” He prods me with the rifle.

I climb out, the wind whipping my hair into a frenzy, flicking it into my eyes, but with my hands still bound behind me, I am unable to do anything about it. I stagger from the car, my legs not moving properly, and try to work out where we are. On top of the gorge somewhere is my best guess.

“Hey, no games. You know the way! You remember.”

I turn and plead with him with my eyes.
I’m not Celina
, I try to tell him.
I’m don’t know where we are. And please don’t hurt me
.

“Don’t think you can worm your way out of this one. This is perfect. Symmetry, like I said.” He comes up close, his mouth grazing my ear. “If only you listened that day. But no, you never listened to anyone. And there you were at the bus stop, early as always, waiting for Robbie. You didn’t expect me, did you? But I knew. I saw your notes. You weren’t going to school; you were taking off together, to be some kind of hippy bums. Soulmates – ha! Off to India. Idiots. Turning your backs on your families, your education.”

Bud twists my arm as if to underline the point he is making. And even in my pain and distress, I am struck by the contradiction that is Celina, and how different Bud’s Celina is to the Celina Deb reveres – that joyous lovable hippy who would never run away.

“So full of plans.” Bud is shouting now. “So full of yourself. Couldn’t see how you were ruining things for Robbie. Selfish – that’s what you were. And you made me so mad, so angry. I had no intention of hurting you. I only wanted to scare you off. But you wouldn’t stop going on about it. And I knew you wouldn’t listen – couldn’t listen to reason. It was India and ruining my Robbie or nothing, wasn’t it?”

Bud thrusts his shoulder against me and pushes me forwards, and it is then that I realise we are indeed on top of the gorge – at the very top and at the very edge. And there across from me on the other side of the gorge is the grassy clearing – Oliver’s Top of the World – and my heart plummets.

But Bud hasn’t finished with his story. “You kept rattling on and on, and you were so close to the edge. And I saw it, saw how simple it was. One little shove and you’d be gone. If you would just stop. Just shut up for one minute. Why wouldn’t you stop, and listen, listen to me?” There is a catch in Bud’s voice, but he nudges me closer, puts the rifle to my neck. I scramble, try to lean back, knock him off his feet, but the old bugger has the strength of close to forty years of guilt and madness behind him, and I get nowhere.

“I was too clever for you then, and I still am. Never found you, did they? All those blokes searching never had a chance. And they won’t this time either. Easy to get rid of evidence when you know how. Easy to get rid of a body when you know the gorge like I do. Lots of lovely sinkholes and caves down there – places that only I know exist.”

He gives me another nudge towards the edge.

“Goodbye, Celina.”

“Don’t!” There’s a voice, screaming above the wind. We swivel round and, in the dust and wind, a figure emerges from the bush and is running towards us. “Don’t! Stop!” It’s Amelia.

No!
Get out of here
, I implore with my eyes.

“Celina?” Bud says. He looks to me, then back to the wild girl running towards him and I have never been so grateful for the family resemblance in all my life. Bud is totally confused. He lets go of me and steps towards the near hysterical Amelia, and I am sure he is going to take aim and cut her down.

No! He can’t
. I slam my hip into his side. It’s enough to make him unbalanced and stumble slightly. He regains his footing and swings back to me and there is such anguish in his eyes. I grit my teeth and shove into him again, just as something barrels in from the side and knocks both Bud and me off our feet. Oliver! The gun flies into the air and goes off with a cracking bang as it hits the ground.

I scramble away to Amelia. She wraps her arms around me and pulls my juddering body behind a large rock as we watch Oliver try to restrain Bud.

“Pop! What the hell? Stop.”

Bud scurries on hands and knees for the gun.

“Pop. It’s me. Oliver. Stop for fuck’s sake.”

Oliver and Bud lunge for the rifle at the same time. There is a scuffle. They tumble and scrabble in the dirt and I am terrified that someone is going to get shot. Bud somehow frees himself, rifle in hand, and teeters up to stand. Oliver dives and knocks him back down, but the force of his tackle is too strong and the pair of them roll away. The gun is once again free of Bud’s grip.

Thoughts of Mum losing Dad, Bob losing Celina flash through my head. I can’t lose Oliver. I can’t let Bud or Celina destroy us. I have to get that gun.

I wrench myself from Amelia, and run clumsily towards the gun. A knobbly hand is reaching for it. And at that moment, the world shrinks to that hand and the wooden butt of the rifle. That’s all there is, all that matters. My arms are still bound, so I kick at the rifle with every inch of my strength. It clatters away, but the hand clutches my ankle and I am pulled to the ground. Bud wrestles with me, pinning me down, until I am jolted painfully sideways as Oliver tackles Bud yet again, and the two tumble away in a dust cloud.

Then there’s a hideous scream. And there is only dust and the wind ripping through the trees left in its wake.

I wait for the dust to settle, my heart in my throat.

And when it finally does, a single person is sitting bent over at the edge of the cliff.

Oliver. Oliver with his head in his hands. His whole body convulsing.

Bud has gone over.

Amelia runs to me and frees me from my bonds, rips the tape from my mouth. I hug my thanks – take hold of her fiercely. Then race to Oliver, kneel beside him.

Together, we stand and step to the edge. I take his hand and we peer over. It takes us a moment or two, but then we see it. Bud’s broken body wedged between two boulders about two thirds of the way down. Oliver turns and walks away, but his legs go from under him and he collapses onto the dirt. I rush to him and help him sit up, and we lean shoulders together like a pair of bookends.

I don’t know how I feel. Relieved? Guilty? Stunned? Numb?

Amelia pulls out her phone. “Should I ring triple-O?”

Oliver nods.

I don’t know what to say. Thanks? Sorry? I say both.

He doesn’t reply.

“He was going to throw me over,” I say, trying to explain, but feeling horribly guilty, as if everything is my fault.

Oliver nods again. “I know,” he whispers, but the words hurt him, I can tell.

“You saved me.”

“Guess.”

“He killed Celina,” I say, and hope that this will help him cope with what has happened. “Pushed her over.”

“Celina?”

“My mum’s cousin who disappeared years back.”

He stares out through the scrub to the horizon, his eyes vacant.

“How did you know where to come?” I ask.

“The note.” Amelia crouches beside me.

I turn to Amelia, puzzled. “What note?”

“The one you left in that notebook where you were writing that creepy story.”

I am more confused than ever. “I haven’t written in there for ages. What did it say?”

“That Bud was the one or something like that and that he had you at the top of the gorge near the bus stop. And we had to hurry.”

Amelia sits in the dirt beside me. “We didn’t know what it meant, but Mum and Gran and Seth were in town at the police station and Oliver was supposed to get me and drive me out to be with them, and we thought we’d veer in, seeing as we were going past.”

“How did you even find it – this note?”

“I was in your room – I had to bring some of your stuff for the sniffer dogs and find a recent photo. It was on the top of that wooden chest.”

I look Amelia in the eyes. “I hid that book under my mattress and I didn’t write that note.”

“Oh my God,” is Amelia’s reply, and we don’t have time to go into it any further because the air has come alive with sirens.

Celina saved me
. She didn’t desert me. She saved me.

For reasons I can’t even begin to explain, I am enormously relieved. But only momentarily as it hits me that the sirens are closing in and once the police arrive, I am going to have to explain everything. Including Celina.

“Don’t mention the note,” I say, out of impulse. First to Amelia, and then to Oliver, as the blaring becomes louder and closer.

Oliver doesn’t seem to register that I’ve even spoken, but Amelia grips my arm. “What? What do you mean?”

“When the police get here, don’t mention the note. Trust me. Okay?”

“Trust?” Amelia’s voice is a blend of alarm and confusion.

“I’ll explain later. I promise. Just don’t mention that note. Please!”

Amelia gazes at me, bewildered. “Sure,” she says finally. “But what will we tell them?”

Good question.

My mind is in overdrive; I can’t think straight. A siren is upon us, and I can hear tyres on gravel. “Say that you saw a flash of red, or movement or something like that and you told Oliver to pull in. You’ll think of something.”

Oliver is on the ground beside us, his head bent. I crouch beside him. “Okay, Oliver? No note. Amelia said ‘What’s that?’ and you drove in to check it out. Okay?” He doesn’t respond. “Okay, Oliver? Please. For me. There was
no
note.”

A police car screeches to a halt, sending curling clouds of reddish brown dirt into the air, and two uniformed officers hurry over to us.

The sight of them brings all that has happened over the last twenty-four hours back into my head and it hits me with a mighty blow. My chest starts to heave. I can barely breathe.

“Bayley Anderson?”

I must have nodded because one officer bundles me up, and tries to whisk me away. But I clutch Amelia fiercely. Demand she comes too. And then before I know what’s happened, I am in the back seat of a car beside my sister.

I sense much kindness, a calm efficiency. A blanket is draped over us. It is soft and woolly, but it does nothing to stop my body from shaking. I don’t know where Oliver is. I want him to be here too; I want to hold him close, take away his pain, but I can’t seem to move or speak.

Stuff is happening around me. More sirens. More lights. More cars. More people. I feel detached from it all: in the middle of everything, but also on the edges, looking in. Then I glimpse Oliver, bent over like an old man, a blanket hanging from his shoulders. Someone in blue overalls has him by the elbow. Others approach him. They are pointing to the cliff and talking to him. He nods. Is he telling them about Bud? My heart aches for him. This is all too terrible. And all my fault. I shift in my seat, try to get up, but I can’t. I just can’t.