P is for Pearl Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Ben

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Eliza Henry-Jones

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  FROM THE DIARY OF GWENDOLYN P. PEARSON

  My mum would dress herself up in scarves and nothing else and dance around the backyard. Sometimes she’d light a fire. Or climb a tree. She’d whistle and sing and yell at me to join her until everything inside me hurt with the effort of refusing her.

  She was a whirlwind. A rushing, spinning impossibility.

  She called me by my middle name and always told me that I was destined for great things, and even back then I knew that I’d disappoint her. I knew that I was exceptionally ordinary. I just didn’t know how to tell her and then, quite suddenly, it was too late to tell her anything.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I worked at the café down on the main surfing beach in town. It smelled like salt and coffee and sunscreen, even in the middle of winter when hardly anyone was brave enough to go into the churning, freezing water. Loretta, my best friend, said it didn’t really count as a café because it stayed open so late. She also said we shouldn’t be working there, given we were only seventeen and the establishment sold all sorts of booze. But we weren’t about to complain.

  ‘Slow night,’ Loretta muttered, yawning into her tea towel. She was tiny and fierce and dark-haired.

  I leaned up against the counter next to her and sighed. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Four minutes since you last asked.’

  ‘Are you lying?’

  ‘Very definitely not.’

  I groaned. ‘It feels like an hour. You sure it wasn’t an hour?’

  ‘Four and a half minutes.’

  ‘How much trouble would we be in if we closed?’

  ‘Four hours early? I’d say a fair bit.’ She paused. ‘It’s tempting though. Isn’t it tempting?’

  There were a few rugged-up couples sitting around, clinging to hot drinks and looking enviously at the display of beanies across the road. The same window had surfboards and bikinis during the tourist season, but always became more pragmatic during winter.

  ‘So tempting.’ A woman sitting at one of the tables caught my eye and smiled, and I wandered over, grinning like a maniac. Our supervisor sometimes sent in fake customers when he wasn’t around, to make sure we were being polite enough to them. He took smiling very seriously. One time a girl had been fired because she hadn’t smiled enough at two lots of fake customers. It just wasn’t worth the risk. There weren’t enough jobs in our town for everyone, let alone us teenagers who were only free outside school hours.

  ‘What can I get you?’ I grinned, trying to show as many teeth as possible.

  The woman, her red hair up in a bun, sat back slightly in her chair. ‘Another flat white. Thank you.’

  I went over to Loretta, who fired up the coffee machine. We’d been working there since we were in year ten and were now in year eleven. Loretta was going to the mainland once she finished school to study law. Melbourne or Sydney, she was still tossing up. It made my head spin, the idea of her living so far away from me. I tried really hard not to think about it. It was still more than a year away.

  ‘I think you scared that lady,’ Loretta said, nodding at the redhaired woman. ‘You smiled with too many teeth again, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did not! Look!’ I showed her my smile.

  Loretta shook her head. ‘Oh, Gwen. Don’t do that.’

  ‘I’m just smiling!’

  ‘You look like you’re snarling.’

  I pulled a face. ‘I do not.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Loretta asked, turning towards the door.

  ‘What’s what?’

  ‘That noise.’

  I glanced up. There was a man outside, thumping one of the tables up and down on the pavers.

  ‘Um. I’ll go see,’ I said.

  I went outside slowly. The man cried loudly, thumping each table and then moving onto the next. He was pale-haired and weepy-eyed. I felt my throat tighten.

  ‘Sir?’ I said, but my voice was low and the sharp wind coming in from the sea drowned it away. ‘Sir?’ I said more loudly, and he spun towards me. He wasn’t anyone I recognised and I knew most of the locals around here. In a place that became as quiet as ours did over winter, you didn’t have much of a choice.

  ‘I can’t find it!’ he yelled, taking a big step in my direction. His face was damp with tears and snot and I took a step backwards, every part of me ready to run. My body remembered this feeling.

  ‘What can’t you find?’ I asked, hoping Loretta was calling the police. My body remembered this, too. The calm voice, the gentle questions. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘You can’t!’ Bang went the table, flying end over end and onto the road.

  I heard the door behind me clap open. ‘Mate, you need to relax,’ someone said. I glanced around. It was the woman who had wanted the flat white.

  ‘I can’t find it!’ the man roared, throwing another table.

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’ the woman asked.

  Suddenly, the table was coming towards us and the impact of it knocked the wind out of me.

  ‘Crap,’ the woman muttered. Her wrist was bleeding. She dragged me up off the floor. ‘In,’ she said. ‘We need to go in.’

  We staggered into the café as another table hit the window, sending a shower of glass and metal all over the tables and chairs. The woman ducked towards the counter and I locked the door, although even as I did it, I knew it wouldn’t help that much.

  ‘The police are coming,’ Loretta said, hugging me. ‘Oh, Gwen!’

  She and the other customers were behind the counter. ‘Are you guys alright?’ Loretta asked.

  ‘It’s not deep,’ the woman said, nodding at her wrist. ‘But a towel or bandage would be good.’

  Loretta handed the woman a tea towel. ‘You were great, going out there to help Gwen.’

  The woman shrugged. ‘No biggie.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that man?’ a guy with a beard and beanie grumbled, wrapping his arms around himself. He was shaking.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said the woman. ‘Some sort of episode. The police will sort it out.’

  ‘Poor man,’ I said and felt everyone look at me.

  And then there was the flashing of red-and-blue lights, blurred and fractured through the sheets of broken glass.

  ***

  That night, I couldn’t stop shaking. It had been a long time since I’d shaken like this. Loretta’s parents were out of town so she slept over. Dad had hugged us both for a really long time and Biddy, my stepmother, made us five different types of hot drinks that we’d both drunk, because there was no point refusing Biddy.

  ‘What happened though?’ Evie, my half-sister, kept asking. She was eight but mostly liked to try to hang out with us like she was much older. ‘Dad, let’s go down to the café, just to check.’

  ‘Check for what?’ he asked, over the top of Loretta’s head. He wouldn’t let go, even though I knew she was having trouble breathing by the way she was waving her ar
ms around. Dad was more unsettled than either of us and couldn’t quite bring himself to let go. He wasn’t there, but if anyone could imagine what had happened down at the café, it was Dad.

  ‘Just to check,’ Evie said.

  ‘Evie, don’t be nosy,’ Biddy said, setting down green teas for us. ‘It was just a sad, confused man. And he’s safe now. We’re all safe.’

  ‘But can we go check?’ Evie asked again, tugging on Dad’s shirt.

  ‘No!’

  Loretta and I went to bed a little while later. I could still hear Biddy and Dad talking in the next room. We pulled the doona up to our chins and stared at the ceiling.

  ‘Is the window locked?’ Loretta asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I promise.’ I shifted. ‘He didn’t mean to hurt anyone, Rets. Whoever he was. I could tell.’

  Loretta sighed. ‘It just came out of nowhere,’ she said for the hundredth time. I’d noticed that, how mostly people said the same things over and over when something had shocked them. I didn’t. I always went quiet. ‘It just came out of nowhere.’

  We lay still for a while, listening to the house grow silent.

  The door cracked open and we both jumped. Evie came creeping towards the bed in her yellow truck pyjamas.

  ‘Did he have red eyes?’ she whispered. ‘Bad guys always have red eyes.’

  ‘He wasn’t a bad guy,’ I snapped. ‘He was just sick. Go to bed, Evie.’

  Evie leaned close. Her eyes were very dark in the moonlight. ‘Did the lady cut her hand off?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘No, Evie! She got a graze! It was nothing. Go away or I’ll tell Biddy.’

  Evie looked wounded. ‘I was just bringing you in a hot chocolate!’

  ‘You’re not allowed to make hot chocolate. You always scald yourself!’ I whispered at her.

  She rolled her eyes and plonked down two cups on the bedside table. ‘Goodnight,’ she said.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I muttered.

  Loretta and I stared at the hot chocolates, then Loretta reached for one and I reached for the other. ‘It just came out of nowhere,’ she said.

  Neither of us said anything for a long moment. Loretta fidgeted. ‘Man. I need to pee.’ Then, in a softer voice, ‘Can you come with me to the bathroom?’

  I groaned. ‘Seriously? I’m all warm and snuggly!’

  Loretta looked miserable, so I grunted and threw the doona off my legs. ‘Alright. But just this once. I’m not running you to the toilet for the rest of the night.’

  ***

  The next morning was cold and still and Loretta was clinging on to me like a limpet. It was always like this is part of Tasmania in winter. My breath clouded in front of my face. When I finally shook Loretta off, sat up and rubbed my eyes, I saw Evie curled up in a nest of blankets on the floor. I poked her with my foot.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Keeping watch,’ she said.

  ‘You know you’re not allowed to sleep in here on the floor!’

  ‘It was an emergency.’

  ‘Was not. Go away.’

  She scowled at me and dragged her blankets and pillow out into the hallway.

  Loretta yawned. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Seven-thirty.’

  She pulled a face. ‘It’s too cold.’

  ‘We have to go to school. Get up.’

  ‘Nope.’ She buried her head under my pillow. ‘Nope, nope, nope.’

  ‘I’ll send Evie in to get you up.’

  Loretta shoved back the bed covers. ‘I’m up!’

  I walked Loretta home so she could get her school uniform and bag. She walked with her arms crossed, taking the tiny, stamping steps she always took when she was upset. ‘It just came out of nowhere,’ she murmured.

  My stepbrother, Tyrone, pulled up in his car. He worked at the local garage in town. He wound down his window. ‘You right?’ he asked, his voice gruff.

  ‘We’re fine,’ I said.

  He nodded, but kept idling along at a walking pace.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, suspecting some sort of awful prank. Last month he’d attacked us with rotten eggs because I’d somehow managed to screw up his laptop speakers. ‘You and Evie are both driving me insane! Go away!’

  He blinked. ‘You want a lift to school?’

  ‘We’re going to Loretta’s.’

  ‘You want a lift there?’

  We stopped and stared at him. ‘Why are you being so nice?’ Loretta asked, her eyes narrowed.

  He pulled a face. ‘I just thought you might like a lift after last night! Jeez!’ he said, winding his window back up and flooring it down the road.

  ‘Well, that was disturbing,’ I said.

  ‘You think he really was just being nice?’ Loretta asked. She sniffed. ‘I reckon I still smell a bit like rotten eggs. I’m never going to forgive him for that.’

  ‘You smell fine,’ I said. Tyrone was notorious for pretending to be nice just to add the element of surprise when he played an awful prank. Years ago, ages before the rotten-eggs incident, he’d cut off a chunk of Loretta’s hair with a pair of garden shears and she’d kicked him so hard between the legs that he’d had to go to the doctor. We stared down the road as his car disappeared, not relaxing until it was out of sight.

  Our town, Clunes, was little and rundown and smelled of salt and wood. There was a pine plantation that ran along the back of it. Dad said if we ever got wind from the east instead of the gales that came in from the sea, we’d be very well protected. We didn’t get wind from the east very often, but when we did the pines made the town smell like Christmas.

  We walked past the greengrocer, which had been run by the same family for fifty years. The owner, Glen, had no teeth, and eyebrows that Evie had once asked to plait. He came out, flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, and gave us both an armful of turnips without a word.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Um. Thanks, Glen! These are great.’

  Loretta held one up as soon as we were out of earshot. ‘Turnips are weird.’

  ‘He was just being nice.’

  ‘But why turnips?’ She held it up to the sky. ‘Why turnips?’ she yelled.

  ‘You girls okay?’ Tori Marks asked, popping up next to her letterbox, although most days, the postman didn’t get out on his scooter until lunchtime. Tori’s kids had been in school ahead of us. She owned a boat-touring company that travelled up and down the coast, but it was normally pretty quiet this time of year.

  ‘Yeah, we’re fine. Thanks, Tori,’ I said.

  ‘Want some turnips?’ asked Loretta.

  ‘You got Glenned, eh?’ She smiled. ‘Glad you’re alright. The café’s a mess.’

  We kept walking and stopped on Loretta’s porch. She dropped her turnips into a bucket. ‘You want to come in or what?’

  ‘Nah, I’m going to go see Martin,’ I said. ‘Give him some turnips.’

  ‘Alright. I’ll meet you there.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Gwen?’

  ‘What?’

  She reached for my hands. ‘I’m super sorry I drank so much tea.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘You owe me.’

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m fine now. I just felt all weird and needy last night.’ She pulled a pathetic face. ‘And I’ve got a tiny bladder, Gwen. You know that.’

  ‘You owe me,’ I repeated. ‘Anyway. Catch ya at Martin’s.’

  ‘Alright.’

  Martin Craig was the police sergeant of our little town and I’d known him, on and off, all my life. He’d been called around a lot when my mum had been alive. Not because she was dangerous or anything, just because she was loud and colourful, and people around here don’t know what to do with people who are loud and colourful.

  I walked into the police station and he didn’t even glance up from his desk. Martin was short and narrow and had a mess of curling dark hair, which was lately becoming streaked with grey.

  ‘This isn’t
a bloody teenage hangout. Scram.’

  I dropped the turnips onto his desk. He peered at them. ‘You got Glenned.’

  ‘I did.’

  He waved his arms. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that, but you can’t leave them here. Get them off my desk! This is a police station.’

  ‘I hear turnips make a lovely soup.’

  He muttered something under his breath and went back to his notes.

  I pretended not to notice and sat down on the couch. It was stained and grotty but insanely comfortable. Like sitting on a cloud. ‘How’d you know it was me?’

  ‘By the feeling of dread in my stomach.’ He put down his pen. ‘You right?’ he asked grudgingly.

  ‘What happened to the guy?’

  ‘What guy?’

  I stared at him. ‘What guy do you think? The one from last night!’

  Martin grunted. ‘Transferred to Hobart. We can’t do much with people like that down here.’

  ‘People like what?’

  ‘Like him.’

  I frowned. ‘But what do you mean? What was he like?’

  ‘Psychotic.’

  ‘Oh.’ I drummed my heels against the couch. ‘What time did you get to bed after everything?’

  He grimaced. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Have you had a coffee?’

  Martin glared at me. ‘I hate coffee.’

  ‘Is that why you’re so cranky? I reckon you’d be much less cranky if you drank coffee.’

  He put down his pen and elbowed the turnips away. ‘Is there something I can help you with, Gwendolyn?’

  ‘Nah. I’m just having a moment. You carry on with your work.’

  He grumbled and picked up his pen.

  ‘Martin?’

  He didn’t look up from his writing. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Tyrone was really nice to us this morning. He offered us a lift. We reckon he’s up to something. You should bring him in for questioning.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip.’

  ‘Martin?’

  ‘What?’ He put his pen back down.

  ‘Do you like being a police officer?’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘Why’re you asking? What do you want?’

  ‘I need to work out what I’m going to do after school, that’s all.’ I blinked at him. ‘I’m getting so old, Martin!’