Falk thought back to Charlie and Kim on the phone last year. As far as separated couples went, they seemed to have avoided the bitterness that usually followed. “What happened with them?”
“They just burned out eventually,” Raco said. “Maybe they liked the idea of each other more than they actually liked the reality, because they kept gravitating back. It was all intense for those first few years, and they managed to keep it going on and off through uni. I mean, Rita loves that story of how they met, but really it was a teenage thing that probably lasted way longer than it was meant to. Then when Charlie was—what, twenty-five?—Zara came along, and he and Kim tried to do things seriously. But realistically, I’m not sure they would have stayed together without her.”
Falk nodded. “Charlie wasn’t upset when Kim ended up marrying another local bloke?”
Raco raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, well. There wasn’t much he could do about it. He and Kim weren’t together anymore.” He paused as though he were remembering something. “The breakups when they were younger used to hit him pretty hard. The arguments would get worse and it took them longer to get back together each time. But Charlie’s mellowed with age, like we all have, I suppose. So that’s helped. And Rohan hasn’t lived here for a while, so he wasn’t exactly local in that sense. I mean, he and Charlie and the others were all friends at school and Rohan’s folks are still here, but after he left for uni, he never really came back. He and Kim were both working in Adelaide when they got together over there.”
“Still. Small world.”
“God, yeah, can feel that way. Especially around here. I don’t think it was a huge surprise, though. They used to be friends, both had this place in common, so there was that shared family background, but Rohan’s more—” Raco paused, considering. “I dunno. He’s an engineer, so he’s different from Charlie. Charlie—” He stopped again, and Falk caught a flicker of guilt. “Charlie had a bit of a habit of letting Kim down. Like with that stupid birthday visit last year. I mean, why couldn’t he plan ahead for once and organize something, so everyone knew what we were doing and it wasn’t a last-minute scramble?”
Falk thought back to the phone call last year. Disappointment, punctuated by awkward, tense silences.
“I know it’s not really Charlie’s fault, but it’s shit to know that was the last time we spoke to her.” Raco looked down at the water. “Kim was always one of those people you were happy to run into, you know? After talking to her, you’d walk away feeling better than you did before. That’s what I remember most about her, all the way back to that first day on her bike. Maybe that wasn’t so true lately, though. I don’t know. I hadn’t seen her for a few years.”
“Was that confirmed, what Zara said about her having postnatal depression?”
Raco nodded.
“She had it after Zara was born as well, apparently, but it sounds like this time was worse. We found out later she’d been on antidepressants for a while before she was even pregnant with Zoe. So it wasn’t just postnatal.”
“She didn’t tell anyone?”
“Rohan knew, but says he didn’t realize the full extent of it.”
“What do you think?”
“Well, she didn’t tell anyone else at all, as far as I know, so it’s believable that she was hiding things.”
Falk nodded. It was a warm night and the moon was rising. The way the water pooled out in front of them, shining and placid, it looked almost inviting. “Had anything like this thing with Kim happened before around here?”
“Anyone jumped?” Raco shook his head. “There are old stories, but not in my time. Everyone knows this is a dangerous spot, though. We all warn the kids not to muck around.” Raco leaned against the barrier and sighed. Near his hand, Falk could see a small plaque screwed into the wood. He tilted his head, but it was too dark to read the inscription at that angle. Raco saw him looking and glanced down.
“Accident. Few years ago now.” Raco guessed his question. “Back when the track used to be open to cars as well as walkers, and—”
He broke off as behind them the music abruptly spiked, bass booming from the tree line in a new, faster tempo. It stayed earsplittingly loud for half a minute before someone more responsible presumably stepped in, the volume dropping a few notches and the song changing from something Falk didn’t recognize to something else he didn’t recognize. He scanned the bushland again. He still couldn’t see anyone, but even without the music this time he had a definite feeling of movement somewhere in there.
“Sounds like they’re all arriving now,” Raco said.
“How do they get up there?” Falk asked.
“The clearing? There’s a turnoff a minute or two back along there.” Raco pointed down the track toward the festival grounds. “Nothing official, just a little trail through the bush.”
Falk peered into the dark. The track was empty, as far as he could make out. He hadn’t heard or sensed anyone coming at all. He turned back to the reservoir. At odds with the hidden activity in the bushland, the water remained eerily still. He leaned over the railing again.
“It’s so calm. You feel like she’d still be right there, below the surface.”
Raco nodded. “Zara really can’t get her head around the fact that she’s not.”
“I can see why.”
“Me, too. I’d look at this water and think the same. In the end, Charlie and I found a local waterways expert, got her to meet Zara out here and talk to her about the currents and things.”
“What did she say?”
“She explained things like how the dam was partially open this time last year. And we’d had good rainfall, so there were a couple of feeder streams that had water coming in. The filters create movement, too.” He sighed. “Would have been quite interesting, actually, in any other scenario. But basically, once Kim hit the water and plunged below a certain depth, the underwater currents could have pulled her literally anywhere.”
“Right.”
“Yeah, so we’re talking like fifty stadiums’ worth of liquid, plus there’s a natural gully in the center, so it’s sixty meters deep in places. I don’t care what Zara’s seen in the movies or online, the divers can’t search that deep. Just can’t do it. You need sonar equipment on a boat.”
“Didn’t you try something like that?”
“Yeah, of course, we’ve tried everything realistic. But to do it indefinitely you need unlimited cash or a lot of luck.”
Falk nodded. Neither spoke for a long moment.
“Is this”—How to phrase it? Falk could think of no subtle way—“the town’s drinking water supply?”
It actually didn’t really bother him. He’d grown up in the country; he knew what ended up in dams and rivers. Every drop on Earth was recycled water, when it came down to it.
But Raco was shaking his head. “No.” He flashed a wry smile. “Probably get more people lining up to fund an underwater search if it was. We get ours from farther upstream. This is privately owned, some agribusiness consortium. Livestock and vineyard use, maintaining river levels.”