Stop Looking

by A C Praat

  Mishra climbed the steps on to the edge of the veranda and peeped through the closest of two windows that were separated by a glass front door. The view inside was obscured by net curtains.

  ‘Not much to see,’ said Ra. She opened the front door. ‘Shoes off.’

  Mishra slipped off her loafers then stepped into the wooden corridor running to the back of the house, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. Faces of people, young and old – Ra’s relatives, she assumed – smiled and stared down at her from the walls. A tall cylinder filled with umbrellas stood next to a narrow table which also supported photos and a woven basket filled with odds and ends. Ra threw her keys into it.

  ‘Living room,’ Ra said, pushing open a door on the left. It was decorated with green and turquoise floral wallpaper – circa 1970, Mishra thought – and an eclectic mix of vintage furniture.

  ‘My room.’ Ra nodded to the closed door opposite. ‘You’re in there,’ she said to Mishra, pointing to a door further along the hallway. ‘Raffe’s opposite. Bathroom and kitchen at the end.’

  Mishra wheeled her suitcase into her room and plumped down on the single bed. Her knees rose beyond waist height as the springs bottomed out under her weight. She leaned back, catching her bracelet on the crocheted blanket that covered the bedspread at the end of the bed.

  These rooms were smaller than the ones in front. Apart from the bed it contained a wicker chair, set beneath a netted window that looked out into the bush, and a lowboy. Like the corridor and the living room, the walls were covered in photos, some old enough to have the colour painted onto the images. One of them was turned over, displaying the cracked cardboard and rusty tacks of its backing panel. Mishra stood, her face level with the picture, and hooked her fingernail underneath, raising the bottom just enough so she could see the image underneath.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Ra’s head appeared through the door.

  Mishra dropped her hand and blushed under Ra’s frown. ‘Sorry, Ra.’

  ‘Too curious for your own good, eh, girl?’ Ra disappeared back down the hallway.

  Mishra followed. She shouldn’t have done that. But it was weird – that one picture turned over. From what she’d glimpsed it looked like a group shot – men mostly – and a dog. Ra had never told her why she’d fled New Zealand. Only that she was sixteen when she left and she was never going back. Well, she wasn’t sixteen anymore and here she was. Maybe the storm that precipitated her flight had passed. But then what of the picture?

  In the kitchen, Raffe was leaning against the bench next to the sink, a cup of tea in his hand, watching Ra wash vegetables under the tap. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen looked like it had last been remodeled in the seventies. Not Mishra’s favourite era. An old Shacklock cooker stood in one corner, hemmed in by painted wooden cupboards topped by an orange Formica benchtop. Under the window at the north end a scrubbed wooden dining table surrounded by mismatched chairs caught the sun’s oblique rays. Mishra pulled out a chair and sat down. Dried stems of pussy-willow quivered in their clay vase in the center of the table. She reached out a hand to steady them.

  ‘Here.’ Ra set a cup and saucer in front of Mishra and sat next to her. Raffe squeezed into the chair cocooned between the table and the wall. ‘You’d better fill us in,’ Ra said to Raffe.

  ‘I’m sorr –’

  Ra raised her hand. ‘We know, Raffe. Just the details.’

  Raffe stared into his tea as he spoke. ‘Philip was at the marina the day Lex and I left Adelaide but he didn’t board there. We’d hired him a car and he drove across country to Sydney. Just as well. We had a welcoming committee when we docked in Sydney: the police and Roberts.’

  ‘I still can’t get my head around it,’ Ra said. ‘Philip’s freakin’ dad.’

  Raffe turned his cup around on its saucer, ignoring the interruption. ‘You should have seen Lexi with those guys. She pulled out all the stops. That demure smile, tossing her hair about, flashing a glimpse of those long legs.’ Raffe smiled. ‘Only Roberts seemed unmoved. We denied everything, of course. Easier for Lexi – she didn’t know about Philip uploading the code, or that Philip was coming with us. We told them we were sailing for New Caledonia.’

  ‘And they believed you?’

  ‘They searched the yacht and found nothing. And Lexi was pretty convincing. We waited a week, took in the sights, sailed between marinas. Philip boarded one night and we left.’

  ‘And Lexi had no idea?’

  ‘Not until we were well out into the ocean. Philip was horrendously sick. Never got his sea-legs. Lexi wasn’t that thrilled.’ Raffe gulped his tea.

  ‘Not thrilled that her romantic cruise to New Caledonia turned into a threesome with a renegade puke machine?’ Ra was failing to hide an amused smirk.

  ‘All right,’ said Raffe. ‘When you put it like that. I thought she was committed to the cause. We spent the whole crossing arguing and cleaning up Philip’s puke and trying to stay afloat. It was wild. Never seen anything like it.’ He put down his teacup. ‘So we’d just come around Cape Reinga and I told him we only had a day left before we berthed at Opua. I thought he was pleased. Must have been that evening, just up the coast there, that he jumped ship.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice because …?’ Mishra asked.

  Raffe grimaced. ‘Lexi seemed to thaw out a little when the end was in sight. We were making up.’

  ‘You were shagging while Philip made his escape?’ Ra shook her head but she was grinning too.

  Mishra wanted to smack him: him and Lexi. They’d let him go.

  ‘Why did he do it? We were so bloody close!’ Raffe said. ‘And we’d done all the background work. Coming in through Opua with his false documents would have been a cinch.’ He snapped his fingers to make the point. ‘I thought I’d convinced him of that. Anyway, Lexi went ape. You can’t report a wanted man to the authorities. We didn’t know about the reports of his death till we switched on our cellphones.’

  ‘What did you find exactly?’ Mishra asked, trying to keep her voice level. ‘When you noticed he was gone?’

  ‘Just what we’ve already told you. The dry bag was missing and his personal stuff.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘We took out the runabout, skirted the coast and the main islands. And I made arrangements to tell you.’

  Mishra frowned at Raffe’s miserable face while he continued to stare into his teacup.

  ‘They spent three weeks cleaning up his puke and trying to get him here, Mish. He asked for their help. Didn’t he?’ Ra looked at Raffe.

  ‘Mine, anyway,’ Raffe said.

  Mishra dug her fingertips into her shoulders. It wasn’t fair to blame Raffe or Lexi – but she wanted to. She wanted somebody to scream at. Instead she pushed back from the table and strode up the corridor to the veranda. It was sunset, and gloomy under the trees. But she didn’t stop, first walking then running, until she was halfway along the beach to the estuary and out of breath. There was no one else around.

  ‘Where are you?’ she shouted to the waves. ‘Why did you leave? You inconsiderate, thoughtless ass!’ She bent over her knees, panting. The relentless tug and pull of the waves offered no answers as the sea faded to silver in the dying light. Maybe she’d been wrong about that stupid note he left. Maybe they’d all been wrong.

  NINE

  While Mishra was cursing the waves, Brett sat in his motel room in the small village of Albany, north of Auckland, with the aroma of butter chicken lingering in the air, and unwrapped the plastic covering from his scales. Would they be sensitive enough to detect a difference between the bees? The scales were calibrated to one-gram units – the most accurate he could purchase in a regular store.

  He’d find out soon enough.

  One by one he tweezered the bees out of their moulds and placed them on the scales. Five grams, five grams, five hovering to six, and again, and again, then five grams, five grams and five grams. Three slightly heavier than the rest, but the way the el
ectronic readout flipped between five and six grams wasn’t convincing. And what did slightly heavier mean? They all had a defensive payload – would the deadly stuff be heavier? Surely that’s what the Professor meant by his note?

  He realised he had another problem. They were identical, at least to him. How would he make sure he didn’t pick the wrong bee when he was in the field? He stared down at them, black and yellow and shiny. There was a chemist and a bookstore in the shopping mall he’d passed on his way to the motel. Maybe he could mark them somehow? Something durable. Something that would stand out against the black. Nail polish? But that would add weight – would that affect their ability to perform?

  He placed the bees back into the case, with the heavier ones toward the hinges, and plugged the briefcase into the socket. They wouldn’t be doing anything without power.

  Now for the truck’s license plate. He connected to the motel’s Wi-Fi and googled ‘car registration nz’. Car.jam came up in the search engine. It was ridiculously easy to find out what some people would consider private information, even if you were not in the security services.

  The truck belonged to someone called George Te Whatu – must be one of Rawinia’s relatives. He googled Te Whatu and found a website for a charitable trust that ran a farm and some other businesses: scenic charters, whale watching, and restoration projects for the natural environment. There were also plans for a health service – though this was dependent on a capital injection. He searched the site for a picture of Rawinia without success. The trust also had a Facebook page but he didn’t find her there either.

  The telephone directory turned up a page’s worth of Te Whatus. The address of the trust’s registered offices was in a dot of a town about three hours north of where he was staying. He engaged his GPS program and transferred the addresses of all the Te Whatus to a map. They clustered nicely in three locations – the dot-town, plus two bays further up the coast, and a much smaller smattering in Auckland. Stuck together, that family. It really wasn’t going to be very difficult to find Mishra while she was hanging around with Rawinia – and through her Philip, if he was alive.

  He checked his secure email. Hebden was demanding a report – but also had some information. Raffe and Lexi had entered New Zealand through a port called Opua. No other people on board. Lexi had returned to Adelaide – about the same time Brett was arriving in New Zealand.

  He smiled. A falling out? Brett had dumped Lexi – she was sexy, yes, but a little too needy. He had plans for his career that didn’t include an Air Force wife. But he had been surprised when she’d hooked up with Raffe so soon after. Maybe their relationship was on the skids. That would teach Raffe – he was too self-assured by half.

  Now for Hebden. Should he mention his near miss with Mishra? It was hardly Brett’s fault – admin had handled his bookings. He could spin it: he already had some leads for tracking Philip.

  Brett wandered over to the kitchenette while considering his report. He switched on the kettle, tipped a sachet of coffee into a mug and wished he was back on base, doing his job on the Middle East desk. Only two weeks ago he’d attended a security workshop where the experts were predicting that future unrest in most parts of the world would be driven by access to food and – more especially – water as the climate went to shit, crops failed, and some of the world’s biggest coastal populations were threatened with displacement. He’d been aware of the water issues – it was a chronic problem in his region – but the global perspective was even more demoralising. Against those predictions, piddling around in the Pacific, worrying about one man’s contribution to autonomous weapons, seemed trivial.

  Carrying his coffee and his laptop, he sat down in the only armchair in his motel room. It was either that or the bed. Food didn’t belong in bed – a rule his mother had drilled into Brett and his brother when they were small. They had one set of sheets each in their house and washing only happened on clear days. They hadn’t had a drier.

  Brett flicked on the TV and raked through the Sky options then Netflix. Secure in the knowledge that no sneering flatmates were around to scoff at his choice, he settled on a gardening program. There was enough conflict and misery in real life; he didn’t need it in his leisure time. Gardens soothed him.

  Images of water features and bog gardens flashed past while Brett considered what to tell Hebden. Erring on the side of caution, he made his report full – including the near miss with Mishra (hardly his fault), and his conclusion that Philip must be close by – if indeed he was still alive. Mishra hadn’t looked happy.

  Within a couple of minutes Hebden had replied: Excellent report.

  A small glow of pleasure heated Brett’s face as he logged out of the email; excellent wasn’t a word Hebden had ever used for his work before. His pleasure was disrupted by an image of a dog cowering in a corner – the kind that would be delighted with a single word of praise. You’re not that pathetic, he thought. Not yet.

  TEN

  Mishra woke on Saturday morning to trills and gargles. She opened her eyes. Where was she? Ra’s place. Sun was slanting through her net curtains. It was dark by the time they went to bed last night and she hadn’t thought to close the blinds. Outside a bird, a bit smaller than a crow, was hopping along the branch of a silver-barked tree. It threw back its head, exposing a tuft of white feathers at its neck, and sang. The source of the noise.

  Mishra flopped back onto the pillow. She’d slept well – despite everything. Maybe she’d been too exhausted to do anything but sink into complete oblivion.

  Philip.

  Her stomach curled into its habitual ache. More than two days since he jumped ship now. At least she was here; she could finally do something.

  She belted her bathrobe around her nightie and opened her bedroom door. In the corridor, sheaves of light from the open front door had turned the wooden floorboards the colour of molten honey and she could hear a murmur of voices from the veranda. After a quick trip to the bathroom and then a stop at the kitchen for a mug of coffee, Mishra joined Ra and Raffe. They’d taken the only two chairs on the veranda, so Mishra sank onto the step, her bare feet chilled by the still dewy grass. She raised a hand to shield the sun that was biting through the crisp spring morning and twinkling off the strips of ocean framed by the thin stand of trees that stood between the bungalow and the beach. It would be idyllic if she’d been here for any other reason.

  ‘Still want to take the yacht out?’ Raffe asked. ‘We need to leave ASAP – the weather’s going to turn.’

  Ra was shaking her head. ‘Nearly three days, Raffe.’

  The brief blip of hope that had tingled all the way to Mishra’s fingers at the thought of doing something died. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘I was talking to my uncle in Search and Rescue. He wouldn’t survive in the water this long.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Two scenarios. If he drowned – and I’m not saying he has – he’s probably still at the bottom. It takes a while for your body to bloat up enough to reach the surface.’

  ‘Jesus, Ra!’ Raffe leapt off his chair and stood next to Mishra, his worried gaze flicking between the two of them.

  Mishra began to shake. She put down her mug and grasped the step. She couldn’t go through this again. When they’d found Philip’s belongings at her place in Adelaide, just after he’d disappeared, she’d immediately assumed the worst. It had been the longest twenty-four hours of her life.

  ‘But if he reached the coast he wouldn’t have got far. Most people turf up within a kilometer – maybe two – of where they went over.’

  ‘So we should go then!’ Mishra hauled herself up, using Raffe as a prop.

  ‘Be quicker to take the car and drive up the coast. Also means if the weather turns sour we can keep looking.’ Ra looked at Raffe. ‘Did he have a lifejacket?’

  Raffe seemed to visibly shrink as he considered Ra’s question. ‘I don’t –’ He rubbed his eyes with his hands, finishing the motion with a rough scrape through his
hair. ‘He didn’t come out on deck the whole time we were at sea. He was just so sick.’ Raffe paced the small patch of grass between the bungalow and the bush, a caged lion. ‘Lexi and I had them in the runabout.’ He stopped. ‘The drybag would float, unless he was carrying lead in it.’

  ‘So you don’t know?’ said Ra.

  ‘I’d have to check the yacht.’

  ‘What, Ra?’ Mishra asked, not liking the dubious look on Ra’s face.

  ‘You’ve got a better chance of surviving the cold if you’re out of the water.’

  ‘He could swim,’ Mishra said.

  ‘We’re coming out of winter. He’d been sick. Doesn’t take long before you start to seize up–’

  ‘We get the picture.’ Raffe crossed his arms. ‘Maybe we should go back to Opua to check the boat?’

  Ra peered at Mishra. ‘Be good to know what was running through that head of his.’

  Her query felt like an accusation. You should know. Mishra reached for the pendant resting warm between her breasts. Ra’s feelings toward Philip had always been lukewarm. She had liked Philip most on the evening of their exposé to the press. Perhaps even more the day they’d read about him uploading the code for the project onto a public platform.

  Now Mishra could sense an underlying impatience. If Philip had stuck with Lexi and Raffe, there would be none of this uncertainty. Job done. But he’d gone his own way – again.

  ‘Let’s get up to the main road,’ Ra said, scooping up her cold tea. ‘Got cell coverage up there. Something might have turned up.’

  Mishra swallowed. Ra’s implied disapproval had some merit. If he’d just stayed aboard …

  Raffe squeezed her shoulder and she turned to him. ‘I’m sorry about you and Lexi.’

  Raffe’s smile was brief. ‘I don’t think it would have worked out anyway. Caught her on the rebound from that Air Force dickhead.’

  Mishra nodded. ‘You deserve better.’

  Raffe shrugged.