Finch, page 10
CHAPTER 19
They were all in the living room after late lunch: tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches – Audrey’s favourite, but today the cheese tasted like cotton wool. Everybody had tried to find something to do while they waited for news. Dad and Chloe were slumped on the sofa watching cartoons on television, and Mum was sitting at the table mending Chloe’s school uniform where the hem had come down. Audrey couldn’t settle. She’d seen the cartoons before, she’d run out of books to read and she couldn’t stop worrying about Finch. She flopped onto a chair next to Mum.
“When d’you think we’ll hear from the police?”
“As soon as they’ve managed to get into the cave, I suppose.”
“I just hope Finch is okay. Do you think he’s okay?”
Mum put down her sewing. “Darling, I’m sure he’ll be all right. I’m sure because from what you’ve told Dad and me, this boy is country-wise and extremely resourceful. He’s also a local, isn’t he? And he’s not a baby – he’s a teenager, and that means he has a bit of common sense. At least, we hope he has.” She smiled wryly. “He’s not the kind of person who’s likely to get caught in a flooded cave. He would have been aware of the danger and he would have got out long before it became a problem.”
“What if he couldn’t get out? What if something awful’s happened to him?”
“Probably nothing has.” Mum’s face was full of pity and concern. “He’s your friend, isn’t he? You care about him.”
Audrey’s mouth wobbled. “Yes.”
“What did you say his name was? Finch? That’s his surname, I suppose. I haven’t heard it as a local name.”
“He is from round here, though. He said so. He said he was living right near us for a while – well, he was living near our property, before we came here. He’s Bill Brewer’s nephew.” She flushed. “Oh. I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
“Why on earth not?”
“Um – it’s a bit tricky.”
Immediately Mum looked intrigued. “Why?”
“Well, you like Bill Brewer, don’t you?”
“He seems a decent person. So yes, I like him. But?”
Audrey fidgeted. Should she say something to Mum about why Finch had run away? She’d promised Finch she wouldn’t – another promise she’d said she wouldn’t break. But did that really matter now?
She thought of Finch in the candlelit cave, Snowy curled up beside him, the dimness and silence. The gentle piping of the emu-wrens. The astonishing sweep of the dawn sky. She stared down at the floor, concentrating on the pattern in the carpet so she wouldn’t cry.
Mum took her hand, and its familiar warmth made Audrey’s tears overflow at last. Mum gave her a tissue. “What’s the problem?” she asked. “I’ll help if I can.”
“Maybe I’d better tell Dad too.”
Mum looked slightly hurt. “Oh, all right.” She raised her voice. “Ian – come here a minute, would you?”
And at last Audrey told them everything: how Finch had worked for Bill Brewer and Bill Brewer hadn’t paid him, how he’d beaten the boy and his dog, how in the end Finch had run away and gone to live in the cave.
Dad looked grave. “You’re making some pretty major accusations there, Audrey. That’s child abuse you’re talking about.”
“I know.”
Mum chimed in. “We’ve got no evidence. We’ve never even seen this boy–”
“I have.”
“He could be lying–”
“He wouldn’t lie.”
Dad thought for a while, and then he said, “Audrey, what do you want us to do? If there’s any truth in what you say, it’s a matter for the police. But first we need to see your friend and talk to him, find out the facts. How bad was the abuse? We don’t know. What if your friend was making it all up? We don’t know that, either. All we have is what you’ve told us.”
“Finch is totally honest. I know he is. He’s just – just–” He’s just so nice. But Audrey couldn’t say it. The tears began to fall again.
Mum passed her another tissue. “I know you’d think that, darling, but people can lie for all sorts of reasons. Maybe this boy was in trouble with the police. Maybe his own family threw him out, for whatever reason. Maybe he’s got a drug problem. It might be nothing at all to do with Bill Brewer.”
“I have to say,” said Dad, “that Bill seems an okay sort of bloke.”
Audrey pulled her hand away from Mum’s and sat up. “Dad, they’re always the worst! You know how on TV reports about murderers the neighbours always say the murderer was really a quiet, nice person, and they can’t believe he could ever have killed ten people.”
“Well, as I’ve already said, there’s nothing to be done at this point,” said Dad, in his “I’m trying to be patient” voice. “Let’s wait till we hear if the police have found the boy.”
“Till we hear if he’s drowned or not, you mean. If he’s dead nobody has to do anything, do they?”
Dad’s mouth became a straight line. “That’s not what I meant. Look, Audrey–”
Audrey turned away from him and sat down on the sofa beside Chloe. She no longer knew what she really thought. Nothing made sense. Unwillingly, she remembered how annoyed Finch had been when she’d suggested that the police might be able to help him. He’d said he didn’t want the cops sticking their noses in. Oh God. Maybe he was a thief after all? Maybe it was possible to be bad and nice at the same time.
*
Halfway through dinner, Dad’s mobile rang.
Audrey pushed her plate away. She felt as if she was going to be sick.
Chloe put down her half-drunk glass of milk.
Even Mum stopped eating, and laid her knife and fork neatly on each side of her plate. Nobody spoke.
“Yes, I understand,” Dad said into the phone. “Good … Good …” There was a long silence. “Are you sure? … I see … Yes … Yes … Excellent. Thanks very much. Sorry we had to bother you with all this … Sure … Yes, of course … Cheers.”
“Well?” asked Mum.
“That was Vince from the police rescue lot,” said Dad. “A diver has been into the cave, and he found nothing. No body. So that’s a good result, isn’t it?”
“Thank goodness for that,” Mum said. “You can relax now, Audrey. As we thought, your friend has escaped the flood. I think we can assume that he is perfectly okay.”
“Yes,” said Audrey. She thought she’d be happier to hear that good news. If only she could be absolutely sure that Finch was perfectly okay. But something still wasn’t quite right, and she didn’t know what it was.
CHAPTER 20
By Monday morning it seemed as though the storm had never happened. When Mum drove Audrey and Chloe home from school the road was nearly dry again, and the ford was crossed by the merest trickle. Light, wispy clouds floated in a blue sky.
“The water in the cave will be down now,” Audrey said to Chloe, after school on Tuesday. “I’m going there with Dad, to have a look. We thought maybe Finch might have come back.” Please, please let him be there. “You want to come?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“I feel like a Milo.” Chloe opened the fridge door. “Mum! We’re nearly out of milk.”
“Did you hear what I said, Chlo?”
“Yeah.” Chloe turned to face her, the milk carton in her hand. “I don’t want to go to the cave. What if his ghost is there?”
“Of course his ghost won’t be there. He didn’t die. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“But you don’t know where he is, do you? You can’t be sure he’s alive. Nobody’s seen him. He might’ve died in the cave and then his body got washed away. Did anyone think of that?”
“You’ve been watching too many ghost movies, Chlo.” Still, Audrey felt a niggle of fear in the pit of her stomach. Could Chloe be right? She tried to sound reassuring, as much for herself as for her sister. “Of course the police would have thought of that. They’re professionals. They’d have looked everywhere. And if he did get washed away, they’d have found his … his body by now, wouldn’t they?”
“Don’t care.” Chloe hunched her shoulders. “I don’t want to go. It feels sort of creepy. Just you and Dad go.” She stirred Milo into her milk and licked the spoon. With a sticky brown line of Milo on her upper lip, she looked like a sad-faced clown.
*
Dad was in the orchard salvaging the plums not damaged by the storm, chewed by possums or nibbled at by parrots.
“Dad?” said Audrey. “Can we go to the cave now? I’ve got my torch.”
“Right you are.” Dad put both hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. “You’re not worried about this, are you, Audrey? We’re only going to the cave to see if we can find out anything more about this boy, and make double sure everything’s okay.”
“I’m not worried.” Of course it will be okay. Why wouldn’t it be? But that niggle of fear wouldn’t go away.
Dad carried the half-full bucket of plums back to the house and put it on the verandah. “Come along, daughter-of-mine.”
Audrey almost reached out to take Dad’s hand, something she hadn’t done since she was really little. She remembered just in time, before she made herself look babyish. After all, she was almost a teenager.
The grass on the hillside was dry now, although the earth was still damp and soft, and the creek had turned back into a well-behaved stream. Murky water bubbled over the stones and swirled in foamy bays and inlets. Twigs and clots of debris nudged against the banks and were caught in nearby tree branches. The high-water mark showed on the rocks as a stippled line of dirt.
The mouth of the cave was visible again, a darker shadow in the shade of the rocks. Above it the trunk and branches of the crooked tree were a pale scribble against the sky.
A raven cawed. Corvus coronoides. Then another, and another. Scavengers. They lifted and circled, and then alighted again. What had they seen?
Audrey walked slowly to the cave, and peered into the entrance. No light, no sign of life. She could feel the blood pulsing in her ears.
“Finch? Are you there?”
Flies buzzed: a whiff of decay.
Panic.
“Dad, it smells like something’s dead.”
Dad pointed a few metres further down the bank to a heap of grey fur. “It’s just a possum. Must’ve drowned.”
“Oh!” Only a possum. Weak with relief, Audrey stuck her head into the cave entrance again. “Finch?” Her voice sounded weak and thready. “It’s me.”
There was a cold exhalation of air, a reek of dampness and age. The cave seemed secretive, almost sinister. It breathed death.
Could anyone really have lived here? Now, in the bright daylight, with Dad at her side, it seemed to Audrey completely impossible. Finch was certainly not there. But if he had managed to get out safely, perhaps he’d left something behind – a sign? A message? “I’m going in, Dad.” She switched on her little penlight torch, squeezed down the narrow passageway and emerged into the main chamber.
Under her feet the sandy floor was wet: it was like walking on the beach after the tide has gone out. When she raised the torch she could see that the cave walls were still shining with moisture. Even so, it was hard to imagine that the chamber had been flooded only a couple of days earlier. The creek must have started to go down almost immediately.
Dad shuffled in after her, so tall that he couldn’t stand up straight even where the cave roof was highest. “Empty,” he said. “It doesn’t look like there’s ever been anyone here.”
Taking the torch from Audrey, he shone it around.
The light briefly illuminated the floor and walls, and swung across the ceiling. Audrey could see that the cave chamber had been scoured bare. Not so much as a tin can or a shred of clothing remained.
“There was quite a lot of stuff in here,” she told Dad. “Pots and things. Finch must’ve taken it all. He used this big flat stone as a sort of table.”
“Probably anything he didn’t take would have been washed away by the flood.”
They stood there, silent. It’s a bit like being in a church, Audrey decided, remembering a visit to the city’s cathedral. The coolness, and the quiet.
“What’s that hollow?” asked Dad, pointing the torch. He peered down the beam of light. “I reckon it could be the start of another cave. I wonder if the police diver saw that one? If the place was full of water they could’ve missed it.”
Another cave? What if he’s there? What if he didn’t get out? Audrey felt as if her heart had stopped. Then it started to beat again. “When I was here I never saw another cave,” she said. “It was always pretty dark, though. I think Finch had a pile of clothes and stuff over there.”
Dad walked up to the opening and knelt down. “There’s something in here.”
“Clothes?” Please be only clothes.
“No, it’s not clothes.” Dad aimed the torch. “It looks like animal bones. They must’ve been exposed when the water receded. Here, have a look. There’s a skull, and a rib cage. It seems pretty complete.”
Audrey stared past Dad’s shoulder at what the bright circle of light revealed. “What is it? Another possum?”
Dad used his hand to sweep away the wet sand. Now the bones showed up sharp and white. “No, it’s bigger than a possum. It could be a fox. It’s the right size, and look at that skull. That’s a fox’s skull, unless I’m much mistaken.”
“I think you’re right, Dad.” Audrey took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. What had she expected?
“The poor old fox probably took shelter on a dark and stormy night and died here.”
“I guess so.” Audrey reached out to touch the small skull. Then she looked more closely. What was that around the skeleton’s neck? A shred of leather, a rusted buckle. A collar. A dog collar.
A dog.
Snowy?
No, of course not. It can’t be. This skeleton’s been buried in the cave for years. No way can it be Snowy. It’s just a dog. Someone else’s dog.
“Dad, it’s a dog. Look, there’s a collar.”
“So there is. I wonder what his story was? Hang on, let’s check to make quite sure there’s nothing else in here.” Dad flashed the torch all the way around the smaller cave, craning his neck to see. After a few seconds he eased himself back. “Completely empty.” He got to his feet, bumping his head on the rocky roof. “Ouch! How anyone could bear to live here beats me. Caves spook me at the best of times.”
Back outside again, Audrey felt that a huge load had been lifted from her shoulders. Finch was okay! Of course someone like Finch could look after himself. He must’ve got out before the cave flooded. But where was he now?
CHAPTER 21
Audrey batted away a mosquito, almost slapping Chloe as she did so. They were sitting on the verandah step, under the glory vine. She and Dad hadn’t got home till nearly sunset, and the backyard was alive with the chirring of crickets. “There weren’t any ghosts, Chlo. But there was a skeleton, a dog–”
In the dusky light Chloe’s pale face was almost luminous. “Was it the boy’s dog?”
“It couldn’t be – it was a skeleton, just bones. Dad thought it was a fox at first. It must’ve been there for years and years.” Audrey thought about that for a moment, and then pushed the thought away. “But everything in the cave was gone, all Finch’s things.”
“Where d’you think he went? Where would he go?”
“Maybe he hitched a lift to his mum and dad’s place. That’s what I’d do.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Aud. You know what Mum says about getting lifts from strangers. You wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“He could have been desperate, though. People do stupid things when they’re desperate.” Audrey hated the thought of Finch being desperate, alone, perhaps even scared. “Or maybe … maybe he went with somebody he knows. His family comes from around here. He must know plenty of people.”
Chloe was resting her chin in her hand. She rubbed the bridge of her nose with one finger, the way she did when she was thinking hard. After a while she said, “He knows you, too, and he knows where you live. We’re closer to the cave than anyone else. Why didn’t he come here if he needed help?”
“You’re right, Chlo. That doesn’t make sense, does it? And I remember telling him we’d help him, so he’d have known he’d be safe with us.” We’re friends, Finch and me. Why didn’t he come here?
While Audrey was puzzling over this, Chloe grabbed her arm. “Finch is probably with his parents already. So – why don’t we phone them?”
“How would we do that? We don’t know where they’re living, or what Finch’s parents’ names are. His folks probably aren’t on the phone anyway. Hardly anyone has landlines any more.”
“Finch’s parents would have a mobile,” Chloe said. “Maybe Finch has a mobile. Just about all kids do. Kids with nice parents,” she added, “not mean parents like ours.”
“And if he does have a mobile, how do we get the number?”
“Oh.” Chloe looked downcast. “I’m only trying to help.”
“I know.” But what Chloe said had set Audrey wondering, again. Did Finch have a mobile? I should’ve asked him. I could’ve given him Dad’s number. As soon as she thought it, she realised how impossible it was. Finch owned hardly anything. No way would he have had a mobile. “Look, I’m sure he’s okay. Really.”
“I hope so. You need all the friends you can get.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Nerd Girl.”
Audrey sighed. “Finch was nice,” she said, half to herself. “I mean, he is nice. You’d like him too, Chlo, I know you would.”
Chloe leaned forward, her eyes bright with interest. “Tell me about him, Aud. What’s he like? Tall, short, cool, not cool?”
“He’s tall and skinny. And kind of cool, I guess. It’s hard to say, because actually I never saw him properly. It was dark in the cave, and I never saw him in daylight.” (How weird is that?) “But he looks kind of … nice. Nerdy and nice.”
