Siren's Song

It had been weeks since that night at Sarah’s flat. Weeks since Andrew realised just how far down he’d sunk. He’d been so lost, looking for her, dreaming of her. Chasing the dragon had cost him everything. After Craig had thrown him out, hearing Sarah call him trash – lying at the bottom of the stairs was like a veil being lifted from his eyes. He’d wandered the streets, returning to his place of solace. The lighthouse. And when he threw the cheap pawn-shop engagement ring into the river, the ring he’d been holding onto for weeks, months, years … it was like a bright light shone into darkness. It was over.

He didn’t know if Claire was really there or not. But it didn’t matter. That moment closed the chapter and he moved on. Or at least, he tried to. While he accepted that Sarah was truly gone from his life, in the weeks that passed Andrew grew more despondent. He accepted that he would never have the life with her that he dreamed of. But he was alone. Not even a ghost to cling to. So he chased any distraction he could, falling back into the old familiar ways. Drinking too much, too often. And no matter how resolute, every now and then the urge to pass through Madame Singh’s unremarkable door was too great. Lured into the depths. Chasing the dragon in a smoky haze. He returned every night to the Crown and Anchor, hoping to see Claire again. But it was not to be. She was gone.

Andrew threw himself into work, devoting his waking hours to being the best assistant he could to Harry. Andrew worked hard at the detective agency. A bloodhound. Chasing down leads, scrounging for information. Documenting everything he could, before disappearing into his own personal black hole. Harry never cared. He was worried he’d have to divorce Andrew from his business, knowing some of the personal problems he was having. But, for the most part, Harry was pleased. He only wanted the best from Andrew during his hours. What happened after was none of his concern.

Spring was peeking through the cracks in Newcastle. The cold, bitter Antarctic winds grew warmer. The birds returned, filling the night sky with their arguments and squabbles. The nights grew friendlier. There were more people about, more sinners chasing that elusive and unattainable high. It was no surprise that when Glen came knocking, Harry would throw the case to Andrew. A simple task. Of sorts. Track down a lost wife, missing for several months. Make her come to her senses and sign the paperwork to annul her marriage. Glen had already moved on, taking up with his secretary. A young, buxom bottle blonde half his age and twice his measure. A predator posing as a house pet. Glen didn’t care what happened with Maree, his soon-to-be ex-wife. Either she signed. Or was lost forever. Or turned up dead. Glen was not specific as to the details.

Andrew took the case eagerly. He’d been longing to prove his worth again to Harry. No longer a desire to ride the skids, he craved to drag himself up from oblivion. And Harry had been more than patient with him. He read through the brief, formulating a plan of attack. He loaded up his cigarette case, his hip flask with a potent Jamaican rum and checked to make sure the grainy photograph was well protected in his coat pocket. Maree was well known about the seedier parts of Newcastle. She’d turned to the bottle to avoid Glen and his lustful intentions years ago. Most people knew her, or knew of her. She had a habit of drinking herself to sleep, passing out in tight, warm street corners. So Harry thought if anyone could find her, it would be Andrew. They probably shared a park bench a few times thought Harry.

Andrew headed out into the night. He started at the bottom, the seediest of the dive bars. The Hunter on Hunter was a no-show. As was Shooters and JC’s. At the Lucky Country he fared a little better. Maree had been there, a few months ago. Caught sleeping on the fire escape that led to the alley behind. Andrew traipsed through the bars, flashing his photograph of Maree. Not that it was particularly needed anyway. She was so well known that all Andrew had to do was mention her by name and whatever information they had came flowing. Details were scant. Or non-existent. But Maree was well-liked, a vibrant, crazy colour in the tapestry of Newcastle’s nightlife. Nobody wanted to see her come to harm. Andrew worked all night, and the next. Chasing down leads, visiting every parlour of sin he knew that throbbed beneath the surface of a respectable Newcastle. He walked through the Nomad’s encampment, taking great care not to breathe in the direction of their Harleys. He sidled up to the bent coppers he knew. But they all came up the same way.

Everybody knew her. Most people knew where she had been. Had stories of her. But all before. Nobody had seen her for months.

A sharper mind would’ve noticed that Maree went missing a few weeks after Glen started his affair with his secretary. A suspicious mind might surmise that the two events could be linked. That perhaps Maree found out about the affair and she disappeared. Either by her own hand or by foul play. Perhaps it was a little more innocent. Maybe Maree and Glen were fighting, Glen turned to his secretary for the comfort of youthful bosom, and Maree left without ever knowing. But Andrew was not that sharp. Not anymore. Too many nights doing nefarious toxins made him more akin to a hammer than a scalpel. His leads exhausted, he elected to visit Glen in his office. It overlooked the bus station at the top of town, perched high above Newcastle beach. Despite all the airs and graces that Glen liked to put on, it was a run down place. Piles of paperwork, files strewn about. It was hardly organised. For the few that ever saw the inside of the place, it was always a mystery how Glen was as successful as he appeared to be. He always carried himself a King. When Andrew visited, Glen sat in his big chair behind his big desk, looking down on Andrew. The secretary behind him, smirking. It was impossible to tell if she was smirking at Andrew. Or Glen’s neck. Either way, neither of them could shine any light on the situation. Just a repeated demand that Maree be found. Time was running down. Another week and she could be declared legally dead. And Glen would be in the clear. Free to sign up to his secretary. After all, he had a private detective firm turning over every rock to find his long lost wife. Ex-wife.

Andrew sat outside Scotty’s fish shop, taking a long drag on his cigarette, watching the slow steady stream of cars idling down Zaara street, the ladies approaching the windows. The warm wind blew over his shoulders, heading out to sea. Then an idea struck him. His usual contacts were coming up dry. But if there was one man in the city who might know something, it was the priest. Andrew could never remember his title. He had no cause for it. And the priest seldom ventured beyond the walls of the gothic cathedral on top of the city. But he had a parishioners. A flock. A flock that loved to gossip, loved to confess their sins. And their neighbours sins. There was precious little that happened in this town that the priest didn’t have some knowledge of. The story of a beloved icon of Newcastle going missing would surely grab the priest’s attention. So Andrew made the long steep climb up to the top of the hill. To the heavy doors of the cathedral. And stepped inside.

The priest was a little more helpful than most. He knew some rumours, some stories. He’d heard that Glen was wanting to make his secretary his wife. A foolish man the priest labelled him. But he’d heard of Maree wandering the city. Not speaking to anyone. Vacant eyes, like she didn’t even see the people in front of her. He was worried, concerned that Glen’s infidelity would be her undoing. His flock were convinced that she’d finally lost her mind. Dropped it deep into a bottle and couldn’t find it again. They said she was speaking in tongues, in riddles. Her senses utterly absent. Together Andrew and the priest talked, sifting through the rumours, the stories. Eventually a promising lead came clear. The Bogey Hole.

Andrew hated the Bogey Hole. With a deep, irrational passion. It was a large swimming hole. Carved directly into the rock face in the very early days of Newcastle. At high tides it could be submerged in the raging ocean. Convict slaves died in their dozens to build it. Names never recorded. Bodies never buried. Just washed out to sea. All to carve out a swimming hole by the ocean. A private secluded spot. For the Governor’s wife. The real tragedy of it was, that once these men had swung pickaxe under a roaring, breaking sea – she never cared for it. Went once. A few minutes. Then never set foot in the place again. Now it was a tourist trap. Popular with foolhardy teenagers proving their bravery. A deadly, dangerous place. Slick stone stairs. A rusty chain the only thing to gain purchase on. The waves crashed into you as you descend to the pool. The chain the only thing to save you from being swept off and into a field of boulders. Very few people had ever been swept off the Bogey Hole and survived. If you could call being battered to within an inch of your life surviving. But it was the most solid sighting of Maree. So Andrew went, in the unlikely event he could find anything at all.

Carefully he inched his way down the steps, fortunate that the seas were quite calm that night. He reached the swimming hole, having no clue what he might find in such a place. Clinging to the chain, he saw her. He saw Maree. His mouth dropped open. Clad only in a long, flowing white dress, she looked every bit a mermaid, swimming lazily in the Bogey Hole pool. Totally at ease. He shouted out to her, but she didn’t respond. Before he could reach her, Maree climbed out of the pool and dived into the ocean. True, there were specific spots where people could do this. But always during the day. When the difference between watery abyss and sharp rocks was more evident. But never at night. Andrew gasped, unsure of what he’d seen. His mind raced, trying to discern if it was a phantom echo from his last visit to Madame Singh’s, or if Maree really had just dived off the Bogey Hole. He inched out to where she dove off, peering into the ocean. But there was nothing to be seen.

Andrew continued his search. Underneath the hill, Newcastle was hollow. Riddled with ancient mineshafts and tunnels from convict coal mining days. Secret tunnels that connected the underground of the city. After seeing her at the Bogey Hole he assumed she’d disappeared into them. Nobody had seen her above ground for months, and there were many openings near the Bogey Hole. He searched along the scrub of the cliff face, following barely defined paths. Until he approached one of the hidden gun emplacements. Placed there in the paranoid days of World War II, these were connected by tunnels all throughout Newcastle. And there, sitting on the ledge, was Maree. She looked at him, smiling. Serene. Calm. “You hear them, don’t you? In the sound of the ocean?” she said. She looked at him, beckoning as she walked along the cliff face. Andrew followed her, not really trusting his vision. Concerned she was yet another phantom echo from Madame Singh’s den, he moved as quickly as he dared to catch up. But she always remained a little out of reach, stepping lightly along the path, and through the door of the gun emplacement.

Inside the tunnels he moved quicker. His feet sure on the earth, no danger of falling to his doom on the rocks below. Still she remained just out of reach. Laughing and giggling quietly as she led him deeper and deeper into the unexplored underworld of Newcastle. The military concrete walls gave way to ancient mining tunnels. Held up by thick timbers for more than two centuries. Andrew knew this place was dangerous. The earthquake had collapsed many of them years ago. The cathedral itself had sunk into the hill, now propped up by so many tonnes of concrete. A cave-in could happen at any moment. But he was determined to take hold of Maree. To prove himself to Harry, his boss. To get her to sign the paperwork hidden in his coat. The tunnels grew darker and darker. He pulled out his torch. “You won’t need that. Just listen to them” she said. And Andrew stopped, listening. And he could hear them. Soft, feminine voices. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, what they were singing. But it was calming. Peaceful. Maree giggled. “Follow my voice, handsome” she said, disappearing deeper into the dark.

Andrew followed her. Long twisting tunnels. Many turns. Soon he was hopelessly lost in the maze. Yet Maree was sure footed, she knew exactly where she was going. He knew he should turn back, fumble his way out. But the voices urged him on, and he followed. Suddenly the floor between him and Maree gave way underneath him. He fell. Sliding on his back. Sliding so deep into the ancient mines. Until he crashed through a ceiling. A hidden room. Ornate and delicately decorated. A hidden swimming pool. He’d heard about this place. Rumours and wisps of stories in the night. Everyone had. The secret swimming pool, buried somewhere under the Hunter Street Mall. A place where his forefathers had come to cool off in the summers, nearly a hundred years ago. Then, for an unknown reason, it was sealed shut. Lost. Forgotten about. Buildings and shops grew up and buried it. It became a ghost story. Some versions of it had tales of lost treasure, as all good ghost stories do. Others told of murder most foul, committed deep in it’s back rooms. The sensible stories told of a simple financial collapse, the pool no longer making money, sealed off and the land sold.

Picking himself up off the floor, Andrew flicked the switch on his torch. Shining it all over the ornate plasterwork, the pool had been a very luxurious place in it’s heyday. Now it was buried in dust. Rubble. Broken beams and small rock slides. But most pressing for Andrew, the ceiling was some 30 feet above his head. He tried the doors, but they were concreted shut. Hidden behind walls. The shops on the other side abandoned a decade ago, waiting to be demolished and redeveloped in the years to come. Nobody ever came to the Hunter Street Mall these days. Not even during the day. A rotted heart in the centre of the city. Andrew explored the room. Every door the same. Concreted or bricked shut. There was no way out of the musty, undisturbed air.

He shone his torch upward, through the hole he’d fallen through. So high, so far away from the wall. Even if he stacked all the rubble he could find he’d never make it. And the shaft he fell through was slick and slippery anyway. He paused, lit a cigarette, forcing himself to think. He surveyed his situation. Trapped in this room, the walls and doors concreted shut. Dust thick on every surface. His torch was failing. Only a few cigarettes and a small tot of rum left. And deep in one of the back rooms, he found a skeleton.