Bay of Fires Read Free Page A

naked.
    A crab crawled out of the raw tissue. The stench was unbearable, but Sarah couldn’t turn away. Covering her nose and mouth, she walked around the body. Roger’s footprints formed a circle in the sand; none came close.
    Sarah wasn’t squeamish. Crouching down, she rolled the dead woman over. Her head was floppy like one of the dead fairy penguins tossed onto the beach by winter seas. Her empty eye sockets stared at the new sky. Sarah registered the polka-dot pattern of the bikini bottoms and reeled backward, her hands clawing at the sand as she scrambled away. Adrenaline shot through her system, at once sickening and strangely pleasing. She had not expected to recognize the corpse.
    She sprinted toward the shacks, ignoring the splintering sensations in her ankle tendons as she pounded across the hard sand.

Chapter 2
    O cean swell muffled the police car’s engine. The windows rattled and the chimney pipe swayed and tapped against the tin roof as two policemen came up the ramp. Erica tied a sarong around her waist. Sarah sat on the banana lounge and inspected her hands. Every nail had broken unevenly. Two nails were split up the center, ruined from repairing filter systems and replacing gutters. What could she tell the cops? She had been anticipating their arrival, had silently rehearsed what she would say; now they were here, her thoughts were beyond her control.
    They took her statement while she sat there in her Speedos and a T-shirt that said The Liver Is Evil and Must Be Punished.
    “I saw her in the guesthouse. I might have said hi.” Sarah didn’t elaborate on the conversation she had had with the Swiss woman. “I took Jane Taylor, the guesthouse owner, some mullet a few days ago. Can’t remember when exactly.”
    She wasn’t lying. What passed between her and the pretty backpacker was nothing. It wouldn’t interest the police. Thinking about it made Sarah’s stomach churn sluggishly. The younger, gravel-voiced policeman demanded to know why she had tampered with the crime scene.
    “The danger is you destroyed evidence.”
    “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” Sarah tried to read his face but it was inscrutable, his pen poised over his pad as though he expected some kind of confession. “She’s been soaking in the ocean for God knows how long. You won’t get the killer’s DNA.”
    The older policeman stood with the sun behind him so that a shadow fell across her body. He had his hands deep in his pockets and his hips thrust forward. She wasn’t intimidated. Sarah had been the only woman on the barramundi farm. She had been in charge of eleven men; hard-living, hardworking blokes who didn’t hold back. She had been one of two women in her year studying aquaculture. At Hash House Harriers running club she was the only woman. She could hold her own from the ponds to the pub and anywhere else it counted.
    “I am sorry I touched her.”
    “It’s all right.”
    Sarah reached for a glass of water beside the banana lounge. She rolled the water around inside her mouth. It was warm and had a faint taste from the tank. They were correct; she shouldn’t have touched the body.
    “I felt sorry for her.”
    If she started describing the twisted bikini, the legs splayed revealing unkempt pubic hair, the crawling lice, or the sand caked in her fingernails, there was a chance she would cry. If she started crying, there was a chance she would not be able to stop.
    “What do you think happened to her?” Sarah asked.
    “Too early to say. The forensics personnel will take the body to Hobart, and the postmortem will take place in a week or so. We’ll get the toxicology reports first. The cause of death always takes longer. Of course, we can’t release the findings until the family is located,” the older cop said. “If she is a Swiss national, as the guesthouse owner suggests, that could take time.”
    The younger cop added, “But young women don’t get killed for no