Page 15 of Lawless
“This is amazing,” I said, leaning on the rail. “Wow.”
This was a world away from Sydney. This was like no other place I’d ever seen. Okay, so most of the residents wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire, but at least the view was lovely. It was enough to make me wish I owned a decent camera, instead of relying on my phone’s. It was also enough to make me wish I had someone’s hand to hold as I contemplated the view—and all the life choices that had led me here.
Red Joe nodded his head at me after a while, and I turned to look in the direction he pointed. There was a white speck on the horizon, drawing closer. “That’ll be your police boat.”
I couldn’t stop the look of abject relief crossing my face that I was about to get some police backup. Emotional backup, but it still counted.
“How’s it all going?” Red Joe asked intently.
My stomach jolted. “It’s not too bad.”
He raised his eyebrows.
The truth spilled out. “Everyone hates me, and I can’t even buy milk, except on the downlow.”
Red Joe snorted. “Yeah, Eddie said. Listen, it’ll take a while for people to come around, but they will. Even Mavis.”
“Really?”
“Mavis lives on gossip,” Red Joe said. He opened the door to the lantern room and held it against the wind while Eddie and I got back inside. He slammed it shut behind us, and the lantern room felt oddly quiet and still compared to the wild, windy catwalk just outside. “She won’t be able to stop herself from digging into all your secrets.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” I said, finger-combing the worst of my windswept hair into some semblance of style again.
“You weren’t born here,” Red Joe said, “and that makes you full of them.”
Eddie nodded. “Meanwhile, if I ever want to know about that time Red Joe skinned his knees when he was six, three quarters of the island will be able to tell me within ten minutes. And the only reason the last quarter won’t is because they’re out on the boats and won’t be back until dusk.”
“Seriously?”
“You need to come and visit the museum,” he said, eyes shining behind his glasses. “It sounds like you need a crash course on Dauntless. By the way, Joe is like their king.”
Red Joe winced. “Not a king.”
“You keep saying that,” Eddie said, “but everyone listens to you.” He looked at me and smiled. “So when Joe says the islanders will come around eventually, that’s because he’ll make sure they do.”
Red Joe shoved his hands in the pockets of his high vis pants and sighed. “It’s not really like that.”
“It’s exactly like that,” Eddie said. “I saw Agnes Barnes give you the last piece of her passionfruit sponge cake.”
“You think kings get the last piece of cake?” Red Joe asked, his forehead creased. “You think cake is a measure of kingship?”
“The Nesmith name means something here, Joe,” Eddie said, “and you’re not doing Dominic any favours by playing that down. Dominic, you’ll see, trust me.”
I did trust him, as weird as it sounded. Because, like he’d said yesterday, Josiah Nesmith’s legacy had been important enough for someone to kill over. But it clearly wasn’t something Red Joe wanted to discuss with me, so I said, instead, “I understand you’re also the guy to talk to in a SAR event.”
“Mostly because I’ve got the marine radio,” Red Joe said, relaxing slightly, “but you’ll have one of your own once your guys set up your comms properly.”
“And I’ll be the one in charge because I’m the police officer,” I agreed. “But just because I’ve done the course and I can read a map, doesn’t mean I’m dumb enough to think that I know more about search and rescue than someone who’s lived here their whole life. I’d appreciate working together whenever we get a call.”
Red Joe was silent for a moment, and I got the impression that he was assessing me. Then he dipped his chin in a nod and smiled. “Yeah, working together would be good.”
I had no real idea how things worked on Dauntless Island, but I felt like winning Red Joe Nesmith’s approval was a big step in the right direction.
It took most of the afternoon for the tech guys to set up the station’s computers and radios. They also brought a couple of blokes from the communications group to check out the lighthouse to see what changes adding the rumoured new phone tower might make to the array that was already there, and how that would either improve or totally fuck up my radio comms. Who knew which?
“Wow, this a bloody sweet view,” said one of the computer guys, hands on his hips as he gazed out the window at the harbour and the glittering ocean beyond.
“It sure is,” I said, but instead of staring out the front of the house, my gaze flicked to the back. Not that I could see anything from inside, but I could hear the thwock-thwock-thwock of Natty and his cousin laying into the tangle of trees and bushes out there. I wondered if Natty was working without his shirt today like yesterday. And then I pretended that the only reason I was wondering about his shirt was because Australia had one of the highest rates of melanoma in the world. Sun safety was so important.
