by Alan Carter
‘So what made you give up the chase?’ asks Gemma, who seems to be running out of steam.
‘Robertson was my only lead. With him gone there was no point.’
‘And you expect us to believe that?’
Melanie starts to pack her papers into a briefcase. ‘Let us know if you have any further questions or if the samples my client has voluntarily supplied show up at any of the crime scenes. In the meantime …’
‘So we’ll keep on digging and we’ll run Hemi’s prints and DNA against the trace evidence.’ Keegan is disappointed but not surprised. She’s used to the long haul.
‘That’s not going to be easy,’ I say. ‘Given the killings were all outdoor and there were no signs of struggle.’
‘Due diligence.’ Maxwell shrugs.
‘It’s interesting that Havelka was last and he was the only one where effort was made to properly hide the body. Chopping it in half. Burying it deep.’
‘Thoughts?’ Keegan stops checking messages on her phone.
‘It makes me think Havelka was more significant than the others. Perhaps also harder to knock off. Required more planning.’
‘His army background?’
‘Maybe.’ Thomas was there at Butchers Flat the day of the earthquake. The day Havelka was discovered. He didn’t bat an eyelid. If he’d killed him and buried him there he’d have to be one cool bastard to not react when the body was unearthed.’
‘Plenty of people could attest to Thomas being one cool bastard,’ says Gemma. ‘Isn’t that what you love about him, Nick?’
‘Play nice, kiddies.’ Maxwell shrugs on his jacket and turns to Keegan. ‘Boss, I’d like to authorise an aerial scan on the Hemi property to see if there’s any bodies been buried there in the last few years. Might be expensive but getting a digger over that bridge will be dicey and I can’t see Thomas lending us his.’
‘We could requisition it,’ says Gemma.
‘Won’t go well in court.’ Keegan gives Maxwell the nod. ‘Broaden the scan area in case there are any more out there. May as well get our money’s worth.’ She catches my eye. ‘A word, Nick?’
Outside the sun is shining and fluffy white clouds scud across a blue sky. It’s lunchtime and Keegan invites me for a bite at Ritual Café down the road from the cop shop. We admire the retro kitsch while we wait for our filo and salad.
‘Your operation is tomorrow, isn’t it?’
‘Yep.’
‘So everything is in hand, Nick. There’s no reason for you to be at work.’
‘No problem. The distraction is good.’
‘Vanessa phoned me this morning, first thing. She told me about your attack over the weekend.’
‘A migraine, that’s all.’
‘You must know how hard it would have been for Vanessa to phone me, of all people, and ask for help.’
The woman I cheated on her with? Yes, sure. ‘Help?’
‘She wants me to order you to go home and be with your family. How sad is that, Nick? For fuck’s sake.’
Lunch arrives but I leave it untouched.
En route I try to ring Vanessa. She’s at school but it’s lunchtime so she should be able to answer. The call goes through to voicemail.
‘I’m sorry, love. On my way home now.’
A few minutes later a text comes through saying great, can I get Paulie and put the dinner on. Microwave something from the freezer.
She follows up with a call. ‘I shouldn’t have had to talk to that cow. Jesus, Nick.’
‘I’m sorry.’ My voice chokes. ‘I’m scared, Vanessa.’
‘We all are.’ A pause. ‘This is stupid. Me at work, Paulie at school, you anywhere but where you should be. We need to be together. Face this together.’
‘Yep.’
‘See you in a while. Let’s make tonight good, eh? For Paulie. For us.’
I need to pull over until my eyes have cleared. A logging truck screams past and the car shudders. The hills are vivid green. So beautiful it hurts. There’s still a couple of hours until Paulie finishes so after taking a lasagne out of the freezer and chopping some vegies I drop in to the Havelock cop shop to catch up with Latifa.
‘You won’t take a telling, will you?’
Let’s guess. Vanessa’s had a word with her too. ‘All quiet on the western front?’
‘Yes. Go home.’
‘No developments? No gossip?’
‘Enjoy the weather while it’s here. Another big blow coming in a few days.’
I probably won’t know much about it once I’m under the knife. ‘If Thomas was our killer why would he cut Havelka’s body in two and bury the top half just down the road from his property?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Nothing culturally significant I’m missing here? No ritual I need to know about?’
‘I’m not your ambassador for Māori affairs. Go home!’
‘So the answer is no?’
‘To the best of my knowledge.’
‘It’s bullshit isn’t it? Thomas isn’t our man.’
‘He’s definitely not the bloke who snared me, that’s for sure. But even if the two things aren’t connected, I still don’t see it.’
‘Why?’
‘Apart from Robertson, all the deaths look sneaky. Hiding bodies, pretend accidents. Thomas doesn’t do sneaky. Except for having an affair of course.’ She nods towards my computer. ‘There’s a more detailed report from the Westie cops about the Stilton suicide. Pretty convinced that it’s genuine and to the best of their knowledge Thomas and he never met.’
‘Still no trace of Robin Walker?’
‘He warrants a mention in the suicide report. He formally identified the victim, the wife was too distraught. Probably his job as one of the community elders.’ Latifa shakes her head. ‘Have you looked in a mirror lately?’
I run a hand through my crew cut and try a smile. ‘Not good?’
‘Skinny, pale, rings under your eyes. Clothes hanging off you.’ She comes from around her desk and gives me a long warm hug. ‘You need to start looking after yourself, Sarge.’
Jan is waiting there as I pull up outside Paulie’s school. I bow down as she opens her car window.
‘Last time we met I’d just spewed all over you. Once again, hand on heart, I’m sorry.’
A curt nod, like we’ve been over-intimate and she regrets it. ‘Feeling better?’
‘Lots.’
‘That’s good.’ She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I hear you’re going to hospital soon? Paul mentioned it to Mim.’
‘Tomorrow. Paulie doesn’t know the full circumstances.’
‘Right. It must be difficult.’
‘Yep.’ The siren goes. ‘Here they come.’
‘There is a God, you know. He watches over us and those we love.’
‘It’s a comforting thought.’ If you believe that stuff but I’m too polite to say so. Although she did rest my head in her pukey lap after all, and stroke my brow with her smooth, cool hand.
‘We’ll pray for you.’ She rests that hand on my forearm and squeezes it.
‘Thanks.’
Mim and Paulie skip up to Jan’s car.
‘Feeling better, Mr Chester?’ says Mim.
‘Much. Thanks.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ says Mim to Paulie.
‘See you.’ He slings his bag into the back of my ute and climbs in.
Something nags at me but I can’t grasp it. ‘Bye, then.’
Jan gives me a sudden smile, so warm it feels like a blessing. ‘Bye, Nick.’
The lasagne goes down a treat. We all watch some SpongeBob SquarePants together, much to Paulie’s delight, and he goes to bed without trying to stretch things out.
‘Night, Dad,’ he murmurs sleepily and I hug him close.
‘Night.’
Later, after stacking the dishwasher and packing my hospital bag for the morning, Vanessa and I snuggle on the couch.
‘You going okay?’ she asks.<
br />
‘Yeah. As well as.’
‘The surgeon is good. I asked around. It’s going to be fine.’
‘Yep. I think it is.’
‘Promise?’ Her eyes are shining with tears.
‘Promise.’
In bed we hold each other tight. The side gate bangs with a gust of wind and soft rain patters on the tin roof. Just as I’m dropping off I feel a shudder pass through Vanessa and realise she’s weeping.
‘What if this is all there is? What if it really is all just nothing? Why the hell do we bother?’
‘We have to, love. Or we’ll go mad.’
And she eventually drifts off to sleep while I’m left staring at the moonlit shadows of wind-whipped trees on my bedroom wall.
It’s not your fault …
I jolt awake. Checking my phone, it’s around 2.30 a.m. The wind has dropped and the rain ceased. That night I dropped Mim off at home and collapsed into Jan’s arms on her rainswept porch.
What have they done to you? … It’s not your fault … It never was.
She’s not talking about me puking on her. She was searching my face for a memory, a flashback, her relived trauma.
I was at boarding school in Nelson while my mum was in hospital to stop her crying. I don’t tell fibs, Mr Chester.
Slip out of bed. Dress and down the path into the office. Latifa was right. How can you relax living this close to your workplace? Inside and switch on the computer. Bring up the Francis Stilton suicide report.
Found by his wife lying in a pool of his own vomit. An overdose. A note pinned to his shirt. ‘Sorry.’
The wife’s name, Jennifer.
Sorry, I said. Over and over from my pool of vomit. No wonder she was triggered.
It’s not your fault …
The daughter, six years old at the time. Melissa.
I can’t remember the name of the place. We left there when I was six … after daddy left us.
Jennifer Stilton had to be sedated and was later admitted to a mental hospital. Paralysed with grief. It would be six months before she was fit to face the world again. The clincher is a photograph of the scene in the barn. It’s no nativity like in Mim’s drawing, but the wooden beams and grainy detail are the same. Some tools hanging on the wall.
Jen becomes Jan. Melissa becomes Miranda becomes Mim.
If Robin Walker was the man who formally identified Francis Stilton’s body then Jen, or Jan, knows who he is and what he looks like. But of course it’s even closer to home than that. I check the signature on the form: R.M. Walker. M for Michael.
Jan’s a searcher, he’d said. But who am I to tell her it’s just a big fucking meaningless void?
Latifa will meet me there. I haven’t woken Vanessa to tell her my plans. Instead I’ve left a note on the kitchen table. ‘Sorry’, it begins.
It’s obvious now the special bond between Michael and Havelka. Both army veterans. Tough men. Battle hardened. Maybe they share other things too – a predilection for rape and murder. Michael, if indeed it is him, is a force to be reckoned with so Latifa and I will connect a few hundred metres back in the nearest lay-by and approach together on foot. We’ve called out the AOS too, the nearer Blenheim contingent are tied up in a drug raid down near Kaikoura but the Nelson squad can be with us in forty-five minutes via the winding roads of the Whangamoa. No chopper unfortunately; it’s down on that drug raid in Kaikoura.
It being around 3.30 a.m., there are no lights on at the Walton homestead. Jan’s Subaru is in the driveway but I can’t see Michael’s old ute. It could be in the garage under cover which would make sense if he has stuff in the tray he wants to keep dry from the ever-changing weather.
‘Are we going in or what?’ Latifa is loyal to me but unhappy at being snatched from Daniel’s warm bed. She’s only here because of the photo I sent her from the database. ‘Or do we wait for the ninjas?’
‘We should probably wait for them.’
‘I can do that. You don’t need to be here.’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Why?’
What do I say to her? Impaired faculties. Condemned men get a last meal. All I want is one last fucking win and to know how that feels. Selfish? Stupid? When was I ever not? Ford’s words: And when you get back, do some thinking about what’s important around here. Vanessa’s constant entreaties: Why is our family never enough of a priority? They say that some people have a terrific life force that drives them to survive and succeed. Mine must be a death force. I admit it: I’m terrified and in denial. Clinging to a crazy irrational belief that if I keep on doing what I do then I can hold the inevitable at bay. And here’s me sneering at people who have religion.
Latifa sees something in me, a need that won’t give way. ‘Pity you didn’t show me Michael Walton’s driving licence yonks ago. I’d have known those eyes anywhere.’
‘Why would I? He didn’t figure.’
‘Well whether or not he’s your murderer, I definitely want a word with him.’ Latifa has taken the shottie out of the boot and I have my police issue Glock. ‘Walton has two guns on his licence that we know of. A hunting rifle and a shotgun.’
‘And we’re assuming he also has the handgun he used for the executions of Robertson and Havelka.’
‘Probably the same one he held to my head.’
I’m beginning to have my doubts about this. ‘Maybe you’re right. We should just leave him to the AOS.’
‘Too late,’ she says. ‘He’s on the move.’
The porchlight has come on. ‘He knows we’re here.’
‘How could he?’
‘Maybe he doesn’t sleep. Maybe he’s been expecting us.’ Then I see it rigged in the tree above us. A camera, not so flash as the one outside the Lodge, but still enough to do the job. Probably infra-red, night-vision, the type usually used to spot wildlife. He probably has a few strategically placed. Planning for the day we’d catch up with him. An alarm system connected to a PC in the bedroom or to a mobile. Easy as.
The garage door opens but instead of the ute, it’s a quad bike that emerges. He shoots out straight across the road and up what I know to be a steep track into the back hills and pine plantations.
‘Shit.’ Latifa puts down the shottie and gets her phone out to call in the reinforcements urgently. ‘What’s he think he’s doing? This can only end one way. Dickhead.’
Michael must see it differently. ‘He knows a way out. A way through. He’s been up there before. He’s figuring on disappearing again.’
‘The only way we’re going to catch him is with a mule of our own.’
There’s a dairy farm half a kilometre back down the road and odds-on there will be one there. Latifa rushes off to get it with a squeal of tyres on gravel. A light has come on in Michael’s house and I’m guessing Jan is awake. She seems unsurprised to find me on her threshold in the middle of the night.
‘How long have you known about him?’
‘He’s not what you think he is.’
This isn’t the time to discuss the blurred lines of morality and family loyalty. I nod towards the uphill track across the road. ‘Any idea where he’s headed?’
‘No.’
She’s lying. ‘He’s killed four people that I’m aware of. Attacked another. We need to stop him, Jan.’
‘He did what he thought was best.’
‘What? Sexually assaulting and trying to kill my colleague was a good thing?’ Her eyes widen. This is news to her. ‘Maybe Michael isn’t what you think he is.’
‘You’re wrong. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t.’
Latifa screeches up in a bright yellow ATV. ‘Sorry about the colour but beggars can’t be choosers. Let’s go.’
‘Last chance, Jan. Is there somewhere particular he’s headed?’
She turns and shuts the door behind her.
The track is muddy and steep, so steep it sometimes feels like we’re about to roll backwards head over wheels. We have the headlights on full beam but there’s no sign of l
ights from Michael’s buggy. Maybe he’s too far ahead or has veered off on a side track.
‘So far he’s left a trail for us.’ Latifa points to the fresh tyre marks in front. ‘Breathe deep and count to ten, Sarge. We’ll get him. You need to keep your blood pressure down for your op in …’ she checks her watch, ‘five, six hours?’
It doesn’t bear thinking about. But I do, as we climb and slither on the still wet terrain. We shouldn’t be here. This is wrong for so many reasons.
Suddenly there’s a blinding light upon us.
‘Stop there and get out. Leave your weapons in the vehicle and turn your headlights off. Hands high where I can see them.’
He went nowhere and came from nowhere. The tree cover is broken here. We must be near the top of the hill. We do as we’re told. Latifa hesitates.
‘You know what I’m capable of.’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I do.’
‘What’s your plan, Michael?’ I blink into the cab-mounted floodlight. ‘Surely you’re not thinking of harming us? Things look bad enough already.’
‘So what’s two more?’
‘Good one, Sarge,’ mutters Latifa.
‘If it stops here, you could argue you were doing the world a favour with those killings.’
‘Except he wasn’t.’ Latifa lifts her chin, squinting at the light. ‘Were you?’
‘No.’
Latifa flares up. The prospect of imminent death won’t stop her from saying her piece. ‘You should have kept your hands to yourself, Michael. Dirty, sad old bastard.’
A gunshot and Latifa drops.
Jesus.
‘Turn around,’ he says to me. ‘Kneel.’
So this is it.
The squelch of approaching footsteps through mud. The barrel of the gun pokes the back of my head, fitting snugly round about where the tumour is. Down on my knees. Head bowed. The bullet should exit just above my forehead. Maybe it’s for the best. Who wants to live with impaired faculties?
‘Go ahead,’ I say. ‘Do it.’
‘You should have left well alone. It was all history.’
‘Until the earthquake. Havelka. Did you point Mim in the direction of my son? An excuse to stay in contact, nose around?’
‘No, your timing is out. Mim and Paul were friends before the earthquake. Mim genuinely likes the young fella. Didn’t need pushing.’
