Bay of Fires Read Free

smelled like raw sewage, but Sarah liked the salty, fishy smell that remained after the storms, that pungent aroma of decomposing seaweed. It was good for fishing.
    Twenty minutes’ walk down the beach, the dune flattened around a purple lagoon. Sarah tossed her towel on the sand and waded into the swimming hole without fuss. Smashed sticks, gum leaves, and other debris flushed from the gullies floated on the surface. She scooped water over the goose bumps on her thighs, wetting her sagging nylon one-piece, splashing her shoulders and face, smoothing her unbrushed hair back into its ponytail. The sun rose slowly in Tasmania and a chill breeze rippled the water. A school of tiny silver baitfish darted toward her, then away. She took a breath and dived. Underneath, she opened her eyes. The water was so cold it felt like her eyeballs had frozen.
    The storm had created a new deep pool at one end of the lagoon, conveniently near a good jumping rock. She swam toward it. The distant sound of breaking waves was accompanied by the high screech of seagulls and the gentle lap as Sarah sidestroked through the water. For a moment she forgot everything. The lagoon was wrapped in quietness now, though before long it would be as noisy as a public swimming pool. Sarah had mentioned this to Erica last night and her sister had agreed, cheerfully, as though this was a good thing about the lagoon. Sarah couldn’t stand it. The men in new Christmas board shorts following kids flapping on blow-up fluorescent-colored toys; mums yelling instructions; old women keeping their hair dry breaststroking up and down; and that awful blind friendliness of people who think they know you and want to ask stupid questions when all you want to do is press your shivering body flat against a hot rock and close your eyes.
    When she got out she was cold. Wrapping the towel around her shoulders she walked along the beach, away from the shacks. The sand was warm under her icy feet. A man was coming toward her. As she got closer she realized it was Roger Coker. He swung his fishing bucket with his good hand, his rod wedged tightly under the other arm. She couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to him; it had been years since she had spent more than a weekend here. Roger was an awkward man, and she had always made a point of being friendly to him, conscious that it took him a certain amount of effort to initiate a conversation. Sarah curled her lips into a parched smile.
    “There is a girl. Down half a mile. Dead.” He blinked and looked out to sea.
    “What are you talking about?” Sarah resisted the urge to take a step backward; Roger was standing too close to her.
    “Smells bad, worse than rotten squid.”
    “A dead person?”
    “Murdered.” His breath smelled like sour milk.
    “On the beach?”
    “Stabbed.”
    His long white finger pointed to the unprotected end of the beach. With the rough swell that lingered after the storm, the only other person who might walk that far would be a shell collector. But there was no one else wandering along the tideline picking up polished creamy cowrie shells, Chinaman’s fingernails, or the flat shells with a hole perfect for threading fishing line through. Apart from Roger, Sarah was alone on the beach.
    “The Shelleys’ is the closest phone,” Sarah said.
    “No. No. I’ll use the phone box at the shop.” Roger’s gumboots dragged through the sand toward the shacks.
    Sarah watched him for a moment, then followed his boot prints back along the shoreline. In the morning sun her shadow was long, a thin black ribbon that moved one step ahead of her toward the dead woman.
    The smell hit her first; rotting flesh, as foul as road kill festering in the sun. Her stomach heaved but she didn’t slow her pace. From a distance the body looked like a seal, curled and dark on the sand, the outgoing tide lapping her legs. Up close the blackened and bloated body was swollen around bikini bottoms. Her top half was