The Key to Anchor Lake ✓

53 : The Anchor Lakey

21st June 2019

THE ANCHOR LAKEY: Episode 141

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There is no intro. After several seconds of dead air, the episode launches straight into Sukie's voice.

SUKIE:

This was supposed to be over.

I thought I had recorded the final episode of The Anchor Lakey, when I interviewed Elizabeth Wickham last month. I didn't think anything else needed to be said. We learnt the truth. We had closure. This was over.

And then, on the 24th of May, exactly four weeks ago, I got a call.

It was five o'clock in the morning. I was sitting on the jetty at Anchor Lake, waiting for my girlfriend to turn up for our first date, and my phone started ringing. It was her. I thought she was going to tell me she'd slept in, or she was running a bit late, or something had come up. Honestly, I was prepared to be annoyed - we'd been talking about it all week.

I never thought I would hear her dying.

It sounded like a pocket dial, at first. I couldn't hear anything, and I figured she'd sat on her phone while she was cycling. I so nearly hung up, but something told me not to. I don't know what. I just knew that I couldn't end the call, not until I heard her voice.

And then I heard it. I heard her cry; I heard her splutter and wheeze and try to say a name. And I heard him.

I can't say his name. But you all know which sick fuck I'm talking about. The one who should rot in a cell for the rest of his life. Why he wasn't locked up immediately, I have no fucking clue. He—

[Sukie breaks off when she starts to cry]

Sorry, I...

Hold on.

[Long pause as Sukie tries to compose herself]

I started this podcast for fun. It was a way to connect people. To make friends, and to explore the history of our town. It was something interesting, something different to do.

If I had ever known that it could cause someone to get so radicalised by their own theory that they plot a mur—

[Sukie chokes]

It's my fault. I started this. I got Blaire dragged into this, long before either of us realised how tangled up in Anchor Lake she already was.

I'm so sorry, Blaire.

I'm so sorry.

I love you.

I love you so much.

[There's a lot of rustling in the background, and Sukie sniffles as she cries]

BLAIRE:

I love you too, Sukie.

None of this was your fault. The fact that you could even think that, it ... god, that ruins me.

SUKIE:

If it wasn't for me, yo—

BLAIRE:

You saved me, Sukie.

You saved me when I first came to Anchor Lake, and you saved me when I was so close to leaving for good.

SUKIE:

Dying.

BLAIRE:

Yes. You literally saved my life. God, I don't know how. I don't really remember that day. I remember this bright light when I was hit, and then there's this vast emptiness until I woke up in a different month. I don't remember anything in between.