Daph on the Beach by Phillipa Nefri Clark

Author:Phillipa Nefri Clark [Clark, Phillipa Nefri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Phillipa Nefri Clark

Nobody was home at Christie and Martin’s house, not even Randall. Daphne began to dial Christie then remembered seeing Jasmine Sea earlier.

“Smart woman. Escape this madness while you can.”

Instead of leaving cookies, she headed to her next point of call. She would return later in the day.

She drove down the hill and took the road close to the beach. As she crossed the bridge over the river, Trev passed her going the other way, the detectives still with him. What a difficult time for him. He knew Christie as well as anyone and would never believe she’d done a thing wrong. Yet he had to question her for something she hadn’t done. Was Mr Tyson stirring up the detectives with accusations like he’d made to her?

There were no other vehicles in the carpark at the top of the cliff and she climbed out, keen to check her phone for messages. There were none. Which was neither good nor bad. At least John seemed in good spirits when she’d dropped in. And he was managing everything on his own. Almost as though he didn’t really need help.

“Maybe I should be a full-time celebrant.”

She didn’t really believe it. The bit about him not needing her help.

The graveyard was deserted. Daphne had always felt drawn to this place. It was almost as old as the town which was settled somewhere before the mid-1800s. Here, graves belonged to people such as Henry Temple who’d built and then lost Palmerston House in a dodgy poker game. And more recently, Dorothy Ryan, who’d come home to die after a lifetime in Melbourne.

“And thanks to Dorothy, I met Christie.”

She and John had been at Dorothy’s funeral. Apart from Christie and Angus, who’d worked for Dorothy for decades, they were the only mourners. And instead of staying only a day or two, Christie made Rivers End her permanent home.

The boundary of the graveyard stopped short of the cliff’s edge and this was where Daphne went. Longer grass tickled her bare ankles as she crept as close to the edge as she dared. There was a row of low bushes as a fence of sorts and signage warning of a steep drop. In all the years she’d lived here, she couldn’t recall anyone falling. Not from this cliff. People weren’t silly enough to go beyond the bushes.

But I am.

She took care with her footing as she stepped through a narrow gap. A long narrow ledge extended a few feet on either side and gave her about two feet to stand on between the bushes and the drop. Keeping hold of one of the branches, she peered down, her stomach doing somersaults. The side of the cliff curved inwards a little which put this spot over water, instead of rocks. If someone fell…if Lana fell, from here, it would explain why there wasn’t terrible damage to her body like landing on rocks would have done.

But what would bring Lana here? Surely, she’d not taken her own life. This had to have been a tragic accident.

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