The Last Guests

by J. P. Pomare

  I close the browser. ‘It’ll pass,’ I say to him, unsure of how long that will actually take.

  ‘Someone is feeding them,’ he says. ‘And the only good that could have come from the footage is it should have settled the discussion about a second man. But instead it’s just sparked a whole bunch of new conspiracy theories.’

  I grab his hand now and place it on my belly. ‘Just remember we’ve got this to look forward to. Soon, when the baby comes, we can start looking at moving. We can leave all this drama behind and go off grid for a while. Just the three of us.’

  ‘You still want to move to that house, after everything?’

  Maybe not. Who knows what emotions will well up when we go back there. ‘Let’s wait and see.’

  Cain goes outside to his punching bag. I can hear him all afternoon beating it to within an inch of its life.

  •

  That night when Cain goes to get groceries, I find Scotty’s number in my phone and step into Cain’s study. I’ve still not heard from him and, after all these years, I feel oddly insecure about how our working relationship abruptly ended. I despise the feeling that someone dislikes me so much; I should ignore it and move on but I can’t.

  ‘Lina,’ he says. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘Hi Scotty,’ I say, keeping my voice light. ‘I’m just calling because my last couple of shifts were with someone new and I wanted to ask why.’

  ‘Because I asked to be moved,’ he says, his voice uncharacteristically flat. The room seems to heat five degrees.

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I figured that might be the case, but it seems odd all these years working together. You know I had to ask about the drugs, Scotty.’

  ‘It was time for a change, wasn’t feeling the chemistry anymore.’

  Chemistry is an odd choice of word. A spike of anger. ‘I wonder what would happen if I contacted the ambulance service and mentioned my suspicions? I could have taken that approach, but I chose to speak with you directly. You know I can still mention it to them.’

  A long pause, I can hear that deep nasally breath. Finally he speaks. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

  ‘Yeah, and why is that?’

  ‘I saw you on the news, Lina. You had a rough time down there at the lake, didn’t you? Shot that poor kid right in the guts.’

  I freeze, my mouth is open and no sound comes out. My mind jags on something. Scotty. He’s been close to me. He could access my emails. He knows so much about me and knew I had listed the lake house on WeStay. And there was something he said, you are not so squeaky clean. What could he have meant by that?

  He speaks again. ‘What if I told you that things could get a lot worse for you? What then?’

  ‘What are you saying, Scotty?’

  ‘Be careful, Lina. I know you’ve got secrets.’

  The line cuts out. Some time passes before I move the phone from my ear. It’s him. I scan the edge of our property as if he’s out there watching me from our tiny backyard, or the street.

  The moment Cain gets in, I run to him. ‘It’s Scotty,’ I say. ‘It has to be. He threatened me. He said things are going to get worse.’

  ‘Slow down,’ he says, dumping the bags of groceries on the bench. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I had a feeling, an intuition, so I dialled his number.’

  ‘You think he somehow orchestrated all this? He’s the second man?’

  ‘It’s possible, right? I’m going to call Rata.’

  ‘Alright, maybe get them to check him out. I’m not convinced but what’s the worst that could happen?’

  ‘I’ll call now.’

  Rata answers after two rings. ‘Lina.’

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I think I know who might be involved in all of this.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Scotty Pearson, a colleague. I don’t know why but I have this feeling and he threatened me. Can you check him out?’ What if he knows about me and Daniel? What if he contacts Cain in retaliation?

  ‘Scotty Pearson? Address? Date of birth?’

  ‘He works for the ambulance service. Early forties.’

  ‘That’ll be enough. I’ll take a look.’

  •

  We barely leave the house for the next two days – deliveries for lunch, phone calls with friends rather than meeting at cafes. I’ve had a few missed calls from a random number but I don’t want to talk to journalists or police about what happened. Cain does burpees and chin-ups out in the yard, and spends hours working over the boxing bag, coming back inside with blood trickling between his knuckles despite the training gloves he wears. He postponed the PT sessions he had scheduled in. I take my prenatal vitamins and read in the sun slanting in through the windows in the lounge room. At times I have to read the same page four times before any information enters my brain. When I’m not thinking about everything that happened, I’m imagining this baby inside me swelling, then eventually out in the world; a child growing up. Even now at this early stage, I can barely find the words to describe the love I feel for her or him.

  We’ve not heard from Rata about Scotty, and I’m not holding my breath. I would take the next couple of days off work if it was possible but there’s only so much leave I can take, and we still need the money despite Cain’s windfall.

  When my next shift comes around, I drive to the station with the radio turned up, trying to mentally prepare. I’ve been feeling more fatigued of late, which I know isn’t uncommon with pregnancy but I was hoping to be one of those mums who gets through without the vomiting, the nausea, the anaemia – the sorts of complaints that make birth, or rather the time after birth, such a relief. I guess then it’s sore nipples, less sleep and no sex for a while. We will manage. Especially with a perfect little baby to dote over.

  When I pull up, the gate is already wide open. I find a car park. I notice other cars there, not just the usual working-class fare I normally see at changeover but a silver BMW. I climb out of the car and start towards the entrance of the station. It’s cooler today. The station has codes for the gate and the door entrance. The only cameras are at the entrance of the building overlooking the car park. Even the drug lock-up and safe have their own codes. But today when I punch in my individual door code, those four familiar numbers I’ve used for all these years, the door does not buzz unlocked. The keypad beeps twice.

  I try again. The door won’t open. I see someone coming from inside to let me in. But they’re not in an ambulance officer’s uniform, they’re in a suit. What would a suit be doing here at 6.30 am?

  His face – clean shaven, mid-forties with sunken pores – doesn’t change as he approaches the door.

  ‘Come in,’ he says, after pressing it open.

  ‘Thanks.’ I go to stride past him, towards the lockers and kitchen.

  ‘This way please, Lina.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘My name is James O’Brien, we emailed you last night. I wasn’t expecting you until nine.’

  ‘Nine?’ I say. ‘My shift starts at seven.’

  He looks unperturbed, rolling his tongue beneath his bottom lip. ‘You didn’t read the email we sent you? We also tried to phone you a number of times over the last week but we couldn’t get through.’ That’s because I’ve been ignoring calls from unknown numbers.

  ‘I’ve been getting loads of calls and emails every day. What is this about?’ I say.

  ‘Why don’t you come on through to the meeting room?’

  I hesitate.

  ‘I’ll explain in a moment,’ he says, ‘come on now.’

  I follow him into the training room, there’s a laptop on the table and a second man there.

  ‘Rob,’ he says. ‘I’ll need you to phone Jessica from HR into the meeting.’

  Jessica from HR. This isn’t good.

  ‘I’m sorry, will this take long? I’ve got to start in fifteen minutes.’

  Something unspoken passes between them. James has his phone to his ear then he speaks. ‘Hi Jess, so sor
ry to bother you this early in the morning, I’ve not woken you, have I? … Good. Well we have Lina Phillips here at the station now. She didn’t see our emails or listen to the voice messages evidently, and so she has arrived for her shift. Are you okay to do this remotely?’

  Do what? What the hell is happening? He nods. ‘Okay, I’m putting you on speaker.’

  Rob speaks quietly to me. ‘I’m your union rep, Lina. I emailed you but when I didn’t hear back I had a feeling you might turn up for your shift. We’re going to get you through this, just follow my lead and don’t answer any questions you don’t want to.’

  I open the mail app on my phone, see dozens of messages in my inbox. I find the one from the ambulance service. Disciplinary meeting. I don’t open it because they’re speaking again.

  ‘Alright, Jessica is with us now.’

  ‘You didn’t check the roster?’ James asks.

  ‘I printed it out. I didn’t realise it would change.’

  ‘Hi, Lina,’ the woman on the phone says. ‘I’m the representative from human resources for this meeting and can answer any questions you might have.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, more blunt than I’d like. ‘First I want to know what exactly is this about?’

  ‘Well,’ James begins. ‘Recently we received a complaint from a fellow ambulance officer.’

  ‘A complaint?’

  ‘Concerning your behaviour on the job, notably a suggestion that you might have been under the influence of pain medication or some other mind-altering substance.’

  ‘Me?’ I say, my skin suddenly hot. ‘Wait, was this from Scotty?’

  Jessica speaks, her too-bubbly voice coming down the line. ‘We can’t identify the complainant.’

  ‘God, you can’t be serious?’

  ‘We take these complaints seriously and, given the nature of the complaint, we’ve expedited things until we can complete our investigations. Part of the complaint concerns a call in which you failed at first to correctly diagnose an abdominal aortic aneurysm.’

  ‘That was Scotty.’

  ‘I understand you were the lead on the call.’

  ‘I took over for him!’

  ‘When you arrived at the hospital your colleague was driving.’

  ‘This is bullshit.’

  ‘It is, there’s no proof that you were using on the job, Lina,’ Rob adds.

  ‘No,’ James says. ‘But four nights ago, two hundred ampoules of fentanyl were removed from the medical lock-up. You were spotted loitering in the car park, despite the fact you weren’t rostered on.’

  I search my mind, tracing back to the day. That was just after Cain was arrested. I was exhausted from the night before. ‘I had a nap. I got my dates mixed up.’ I pause. ‘Look, I’ve had a lot on my mind.’

  Rob seems to double-take at this. Why is it so often the people we have to rely on are the most comically inept?

  ‘This doesn’t prove she did anything, this doesn’t prove she took the fentanyl.’

  ‘No,’ James says. ‘But at some stage over the course of the evening her passcode was used to enter the building and the safe.’

  I’m shaking my head, tears starting. ‘Test me,’ I say. ‘Test me for fentanyl.’

  ‘That’s not going to help with our investigations, Lina.’

  ‘It’s him. It’s Scotty. I called him out and he’s setting me up. He was groggy, he messed up the call. He’s seen me punch my code in a thousand times.’

  ‘If that were the case, why didn’t you file a complaint about him like you’re supposed to?’

  ‘Because I’m an idiot. Because I thought maybe he was developing an addiction and it would cost him his job. I was trying to help him.’

  The irony hits me – I wish there were cameras here like at the WeStays. I wish they had surveillance on the drug room 24/7.

  ‘Eight months ago, we discovered over one hundred ampoules of fentanyl had been taken from another station. That’s an ongoing investigation but we can’t take any further risks.’

  ‘Call the police,’ I say. ‘Search my property.’

  Jessica speaks now. ‘A thorough investigation will be conducted. For now, Lina, the best course of action is for you to be placed on leave. This will be paid leave and, given everything else in your life, it might be a good opportunity for you to reflect.’

  ‘Reflect?’ I say but she’s still speaking, powering through.

  ‘We’ve also organised for you to speak with a drug rehabilitation counsellor. The ambulance service is fully invested in your psychological welfare through this time.’

  They’re covering themselves if I become depressed and their investigation confirms I had nothing to do with this, as it certainly will. I want to scream, or cry. I want to sink through the chair to the floor and sleep for a week.

  ‘Can I go home?’ I say.

  Rob and James look at each other. ‘We’ll need to check your locker before you go, and would ask that you wait until police officers arrive.’

  ‘Police?’ Rob says, there’s heat in the look he gives James.

  ‘It’s a lot of drugs to disappear, Rob. This isn’t just someone having painkillers before their shift.’

  ‘You don’t have to wait,’ Rob says to me. ‘You can go home right now.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘Good,’ James says. ‘Perhaps we can start with your locker.’

  When I open it, I’m barely surprised to see the two glass ampoules sitting there, empty, on top of my things. Anyone can see they’ve simply been pushed through the grate on the door but James takes the moment to smack his lips.

  ‘Well, that’s not a good look, is it?’

  ‘Yeah, if I was taking fentanyl before my shift I’d just leave the evidence sitting there like that. This isn’t fair.’

  James clears his throat.

  I can see it rolling out before me. Administrative leave, therapy, a big red ‘A’ emblazoned on my chest. They might find somewhere to hide me in an admin role or training, watching me closely for the rest of my career. Or maybe the suspicion and evidence will be enough to sack me. Two hundred ampoules. This could put me in serious legal trouble. This is just a speed bump, I tell myself. This will be fine. But I know it won’t.

  Scotty has come for my career. What will he come for next?

  DANIEL MOORE: ‘A SINGLE BLOKE, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, A BIT OF A DUNCE BUT WITH A GOOD HEART,’ BEST FRIEND SAYS.

  The man at the centre of a crime that has shocked the country was ‘your average guy – a bit of a joker, got in a bit of trouble at school but nothing like what he did to those people,’ his best friend says.

  Andrew Mohi – who knew Moore for nineteen years – accused the media of representing his former best friend in a way that was ‘biased, and straight-up wrong’. He says Moore made a mistake and probably had his reasons that no one will ever know but he wasn’t ‘some criminal mastermind’.

  Mohi, who viewed the footage of the invasion that was recently released, added, ‘I wouldn’t have believed he did it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.’ The footage is from two of the cameras in the home. One showing Moore terrorising a woman. The next shows Moore walking down a hallway in the dark with his mask off moments before he died.

  The criticism is in stark contrast to the comments made by Wellington academic Sloan Drake who bemoans what she calls ‘the good bloke defence’, a reaction she says the media and public have to ‘mostly white domestic abusers and general criminals who do horrific things’. Drake joins a chorus of voices who have expressed a need to protect and support victims.

  US TV personality Terrence O’Dwyer addressed the crime in his late-night talk show. ‘I don’t know this man, I know nothing about him other than the fact he installed cameras in a WeStay and drugged, captured and threatened the owners of that WeStay at gunpoint. I don’t give a damn what his high school teacher thinks of him, or the fact he had a Batman poster on his wall. He’s a sadist and a murderer, that’s it.
’

  ‘No one is denying what he has done,’ Mohi said. ‘But the focus should be on why he did it. What drove him to that. He had been tied up with one or two bad people, he’d done a bit of drugs, another thing everyone seems obsessed with, but no one can answer why he did it. And no one can explain why there were something like ten cameras in that house and we’ve only seen footage from two. He wouldn’t come up with this all on his own.’

  This is one piece of the puzzle police are hoping might help to paint a fuller picture of the evening. The rumours of a second assailant have not abated, despite the release of the video which seems to suggest Moore acted alone. Many theories have emerged on social media, and the police have been reluctant to rule out a second offender.

  Another piece that might help understand the motivations of Moore is his missing phone. Police divers have trawled Lake Tarawera near the scene of the crime, along with the banks, and inside and outside of the house but as of yet the phone has not been recovered. The coroner has also confirmed that Moore was on drugs at the time of the offending.

  THIRTY

  MANY PEOPLE DREAM of paid time off, filling their days reading, or watching endless Netflix, pursuing silly childhood dreams of becoming a writer or a dancer. For others, like me, it’s exactly what the seventh circle of hell looks like. It’s not the nerves about the pending outcome of the investigation, it’s the absence of a distraction. The boredom breeds thoughts, and everything I think about brings a fresh cut of anxiety, each deeper than the last.

  Many paramedics use drugs, some become addicted. In the medical profession only chemists have greater access to opiates than us. I will be supported with my addiction, they say. The implication being my defence will be addiction, which means a treatment plan and an eventual return to work in a limited capacity with less access to medications. Any real career progression will be permanently shelved. The plan was to be a stay-at-home mum down at the lake house yet this mark against my name still hurts and Cain’s income just isn’t enough. I don’t want to be seen in this way, like my mother, unable to control herself.