Stop Looking

by A C Praat

  TWELVE

  No matter how he struggled, a cold sink of water compressed Philip’s lungs.

  He woke up spitting and gasping. The last splash of memory showed a woman with toffee-coloured skin and eyes the colour of deep twilight smiling at him. Mishra McKenzie: how he’d wanted her. They’d lunched together in the gallery a few days after he’d been bitten by the dog. Despite being on opposing sides of the LAWS issue, they’d decided to be friends. The memory of her fingers against his cheek raised goosebumps on his arms. But then … Philip frowned. What had happened next?

  She wants to fix me! It was his own voice, screaming inside his head. They were in Mishra’s office at the university; he was so angry, so hurt. He’d found that paper on her desk with his initials on it – the one about treatments for people on the Autistic Spectrum – and she hadn’t even denied it. All that time she’d pretended to be his friend when she was looking for ways to fix him behind his back.

  On his bunk, Philip curled up against the pain of the memory – but he couldn’t let it go. He was beginning to remember.

  He’d stormed out of her office in a blind rage. Then Tess was scratching at his bedroom door while he was crouched in misery on the other side, bashing the back of his head against the door in rhythm: Fix me, fix me, fix me.

  And then?

  He couldn’t remember.

  The next time Philip woke inside the hut, his head was filled with the sound of tapping, like someone learning to type on a clunky keyboard, and his scalp itched. He waited, trying to hold onto whatever weird dream he’d been having. But it was gone.

  The rusticated boards of the hut wall met his gaze. No keyboard here. No keyboard, no phone, no laptop, or anything else to help him remember.

  He rolled over.

  Light pushed through the windows, criss-crossing the table. What time was it? He hadn’t yet become used to the sun tracking north rather than south across the sky as it did in England. Today his legs seemed more obedient as he swung off his bunk, but the giddiness returned with his first step and he lurched against the wall.

  Outside, he found the privy and, after stumbling around the back of the hut, the stream. Kneeling amongst the rocks and pebbles at its edge, he scooped sweet, cold water into his mouth. The blood on his forearms and shins had dried into rust-coloured streaks. Further downstream he sat on a rock, his feet in the water, and washed himself as best he could. The water was freezing but the sun filtering through the canopy kept the chill from the air. If Rex was telling the truth, it must be springtime.

  Back at the hut, he sat on the doorstep and ate a bruised apple, eyeing the overgrown path down to the beach. The wallet with his ID rested next to him. He opened the wallet and gazed at the photo on the license, comparing it to the photo in the passport. They were the same photo and Rex said they looked like him. Philip ran a hand through his hair, snagging it on the knots in his still-salty curls.

  Damon Hunter.

  He was one-hundred percent certain that wasn’t his name. So why did he have Damon’s ID? The feeling of being hunted hadn’t left him either. He must have done something wrong – but so wrong he’d fled to New Zealand and assumed a different name? That was laughable. He survived on routines. Rules helped him function. He wasn’t a rebel, not intentionally. Stuff-ups for him were all social ones – gaffs he made because, as far as he could see, the social world operated on a set of subterranean rules that defied logic and changed without notice.

  A glossy black insect scuttled across the grass-matted mud in front of the step, reminding him of work. Philip frowned. What would his colleagues at the institute be making of his absence?

  Apprehension curdled his stomach. They’d altered the project. That creep Hebden from the Air Force had come to his work to make sure he was on board with the new direction. Like Philip had a choice; he needed the job.

  What was he doing on this bloody island? They’d fire him for dereliction of duty.

  Breathe: the advice from countless counsellors and even his mum as he grew up. Breathe to manage the anxiety. Breathing at the moment hurt and brought with it scraps of memory – turbulent water and darkness.

  Stop.

  No point in worrying about work when he was stuck on an island in New Zealand. Philip snorted a laugh through his nose. Mad. He was going mad. There was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do until Rex returned. No control, no responsibility, no one to answer to, no one to decipher. For a moment calmness stole over him as he surrendered to his situation.

  The sun slipped behind a cloud. He shivered and stood up, leaning against the doorframe. What would he do when Rex came back? To travel to the mainland he’d need a boat. His shivering turned to queasiness. He wasn’t ready for that challenge yet. Maybe in another day or two.

  If he’d done something very wrong it might have made the papers. That’s what he’d do first. Find a computer and check. And then he’d contact his mother. Surely he would have told her if he’d planned to run away. And there was the USB stick in the drybag. It must be important if he’d packed it.

  Had he packed it?

  Philip smacked the doorframe with the side of his fist. Not knowing was doing his head in.

  He stepped inside and closed the hut door, waiting for the tilting sensation that accompanied every move. Rex said he’d been on a yacht. He still couldn’t remember that, but flashes of the killing ocean were never far from his mind. Maybe he was gaining his land-legs after being at sea. If this was New Zealand he’d have travelled here somehow.

  His muscles felt like aspic and he couldn’t have walked more than sixty meters today. If someone was after him, he needed to be stronger than this before he took his chances on the mainland. The people from the yacht might still be looking for him. Hopefully Rex had kept his mouth shut. Philip dropped onto the chair still thinking about Rex. Rex had pulled him from the water, stayed with him while he slept. Could you trust someone who thought it better to drag you to a deserted island rather than take you straight to a hospital? That’s what he would have done.

  A motorised hum broke into his thoughts. He edged to the window and rubbed a pane of glass with the bottom of his T-shirt. An inflatable runabout was chopping through the waves, carrying two people. Two people – not good.

  Philip skimmed the cabin. Nowhere to hide in here. He pushed open the door and crashed down the step into the bush. Fronds and branches snatched at his clothes and hair as he stumbled through, stopping only when he ran out of breath and judged he was deep enough in to be concealed from the hut. A red rash had joined the scratch marks on his arms and he curled his hands into fists to stop the impulse to scratch them further, then pushed his fists against his chest, willing his panting to stop. It was too noisy – they would find him.

  ‘Damon?’

  It sounded like Rex.

  Then a softer murmur of voices. ‘It’s just me and my boy, Damon.’

  Why had he brought his son?

  ‘You can’t hide from us.’ A pause. ‘We’ve got food.’ The voice was cajoling.

  Philip waited.

  ‘Bugger. Come on, boy.’

  Footsteps rustled through the bush.

  Philip bolted to his feet and lurched further into the trees. The light seemed to grow stronger as he staggered up a slope, grasping at branches and leaves to steady his flight. And then the bush disappeared. One foot swung into space over the edge of a steep cliff. His mind balked while his body seemed to welcome the plunge to the churn of rocks and sea below.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. ‘Geez, man. You got a death wish or what?’

  Philip shrugged Rex off.

  A boy leaned against the trunk of a tree, arms folded, and stared at him. ‘Shudda let him fly.’

  ‘Like I shudda let you fly?’ Rex said.

  The boy shrugged and stalked back into the bush.

  ‘Why did you bring him?’

  ‘The boy? I get him on weekends. Need to keep an eye on him. Come on,
Damon, we can talk about this at the hut.’

  What choice did he have? Rex found a branch for him to use as a makeshift crutch. Now he was safe – at least safer – Philip’s legs seemed to lose their strength. He’d nearly run straight over the edge of that cliff. Hadn’t even seen it coming. Part of him had wanted to jump. How was he going to survive in a place like this?

  The boy was sitting on the step, smoking, as they entered the clearing in front of the hut.

  Rex pinched the cigarette from the boy’s fingers.

  ‘Hey!’

  Rex pulled on the cigarette. ‘No good for you, boy.’

  ‘You can talk!’

  Rex grinned at the boy’s scowl. ‘Move.’

  The scowl didn’t leave the boy’s face as he stood, accepted the cigarette back, and edged a foot along the wall.

  ‘That’s Stacey,’ Rex said over his shoulder as he stepped into the hut. Philip followed.

  A backpack rested on the bench. Rex unclipped the fasteners and pulled out another loaf of bread and a packet of chilled soup.

  Philip dropped into the chair. By the looks of the food Rex was still helping him. ‘Why are you doing this?’ Philip asked.

  Rex continued emptying food onto the bench and the shelves underneath it. ‘I done some things I’m not proud of. Would have ended badly if somebody hadn’t helped me out. Same with the boy.’ He crooked his chin at the doorway.

  ‘You don’t know what I’ve done.’

  Rex nodded. ‘Gonna tell me?’

  Philip stared at the food on the bench. He didn’t know what to tell him.

  ‘Thought not.’ Rex pulled out a folded newspaper. ‘Nothing about you in here.’ He waved the newspaper at Philip and tossed it onto the table. ‘But I’ll tell you one thing, there’s more than just those people off the yacht looking for you. You’re on my whānau pages. Be a whole lot of people keeping an eye out now.’

  Nerves clutched Philip’s stomach. He didn’t know what whānau meant – but more people were looking for him. Every cell in his body told him that was bad.

  ‘Puts me in a tight spot.’ Rex tugged a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his coat. ‘Wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them.’ He lit the cigarette and stared at Philip through wisps of smoke.

  ‘You can’t tell them I’m here.’

  Rex raised his eyebrows. ‘Can’t I?’

  Philip frowned. He couldn’t afford to offend Rex. How would he get off this bloody island for starters? ‘I don’t know what I’ve done. I just know I have to hide.’

  ‘Rex.’ Stacey appeared in the doorway. ‘I’m meeting Kahu. Let’s just get the bag and go.’

  The bag? What was the boy talking about? And he called his father by his first name. Philip would never have dared to do that.

  ‘Here’s what we do,’ Rex said. ‘We don’t tell anyone about you but we give them something to show that you made it to the mainland. Throws them off the track. And lets us off the hook for a bit. We’re taking that.’ Rex pointed to the drybag. ‘You can keep this.’ His toe nudged the backpack, now on the floor. ‘I’ll come back when the fuss has died down.’

  Philip struggled to see how taking the drybag was going to help anyone but he wasn’t in a position to argue. He tipped the contents of the drybag onto the bunk, then tossed the bag to Rex. Rex passed it Stacey.

  ‘You’ll be all right here for a few days.’

  Philip nodded. ‘What are they calling me – the people who are looking?’

  ‘Damon Hunter.’

  Damon. Was that good or bad? They didn’t know his true identity. Or at least they weren’t using it. That was positive. But could it mean they were part of the plot that had sent him fleeing across the sea and then jumping ship? Was he trying to escape them too?

  ‘Don’t tell them,’ he blurted. ‘Please.’

  Rex closed his mouth and pulled an imaginary zip across it.

  THIRTEEN

  Brett yawned and stretched in his car late Saturday evening. The thing about investigative work was that you spent ninety-nine percent of your time hanging around waiting for something to happen. It was boring. By the time Mishra and her friends had left Waitangi and he’d followed them to some bay in the back of beyond he’d learned only three useful pieces of information. One, they didn’t know where Philip was. That was shit, but now he knew for certain that Philip had been alive until recently. Two, Rawinia’s family were searching the beaches for him around the string of islands that was also a local hotspot for her family according to Brett’s analysis of the Te Whatus’ addresses.

  A third piece of information, that at that moment was pissing him off as he sat outside the gates to Rawinia’s family farm, was that he couldn’t get close to the truck while Mishra, Rawinia and Raffe were holed up on the farm. He was left with his arse hanging in the breeze, stationed just shy of the code-locked gate, with scratchy reception. Two choices: sit here in the car, or hike through the farm to get closer. He’d need to do that anyway just in case they found Philip and decided to hide him there. But it was a farm. What were the chances of dogs and other animals molesting him, or alerting Mishra and co. to his presence? So far all he’d seen were a few sheep. But where there were sheep there would be dogs, at least some of the time.

  His map showed him a handful of beach houses rimming the bay, with the one belonging to the Te Whatus being separated from the rest by a track through a stand of bush. He was right on the edge of the reception range, the escarpment and bush not helping his cause. Once the car doors had slammed he’d heard little. The truck evidently wasn’t parked by the house.

  What would he gain by going down there now?

  Checking his watch, Brett decided to call it a night. Tomorrow Mishra and her friends planned to join in the search along the beaches near Rawinia’s family. He’d come back in the morning – scope out their farmhouse while they were away – then follow them to the bay where Philip had disappeared. It wasn’t like he could lose them with his tracking. How had investigators managed in the old days without all the technology to help them? But he needed to be closer to the action than his hotel in Kerikeri. If they were searching around the coast he should station himself over there.

  A quick scan of accommodation in the area showed a raft of beach houses – most available until December. Lord, if he was still here then …

  He shook his head as he considered the options. One stood out – a designer, eco beach house, accessible only by boat, or from a track through the bush beyond a gated driveway, or over a headland. The driveway snarled into the bush – somewhere to hide his car – while the walk down to the house at the beach was a good ten minutes. A place hidden from the casual observer.

  It wasn’t the kind of accommodation his family could have afforded to holiday in when he was a kid, but he wasn’t that lanky brat anymore. If Hebden wanted to mess with Brett’s personal moral code he could damn well pay for it.

  FOURTEEN

  Mishra’s mood improved slightly on Sunday morning when they agreed to drive closer to the area where Philip had left the boat. Waitangi had been dispiriting. What she had gathered about the historical relations between Māori and the Crown was consistent with the global tale of colonial oppression – though there seemed room for some optimism now. However Ra wasn’t so sure. Her work to set up a health service for her whānau and others in the area made her acutely aware of how a legacy of poverty and being treated like second-class citizens impacted on their wellbeing.

  The white-sand beaches around Waitangi, while beautiful, yielded no sign of Philip. No sign of Roberts either, if indeed it had been Roberts scoping Raffe’s yacht.

  Mishra stared out the truck’s window as they left the highway and drove down a series of switchbacks toward the sea. Like the bay where Ra was living, this beach was penned in by grass and bush-cloaked headlands at either end, with a wide, sandy beach bracing them apart.

  When they drove closer Mishra saw a deserted motorcamp tucked beneath the
headland, and beyond it trickled a myriad of smaller islands. At the southern end an eclectic collection of cabins, caravans, tents and lean-tos were strung along the dunes like a chunky necklace.

  ‘Do people live here all year round?’ Mishra asked as they parked behind the dunes.

  ‘Some,’ said Ra.

  One of the houses seemed more substantial than the rest, settled in a square of gardens that was bordered by a driftwood fence. While they walked along the dunes toward it, the door opened and a grey-haired woman in a wide black skirt covered by an apron festooned in flowers and birds stepped onto the veranda.

  ‘Kia ora, Whaea,’ Ra called.

  The woman’s face crinkled into a smile and she waved.

  Ra pushed through the gate and stopped on a step below her aunt, clasping her by the shoulders and resting her head against her aunt’s for a moment. Or so it seemed to Mishra.

  Ra stepped up beside her aunt on the porch. ‘Aunty, this is Mishra McKenzie. Mishra, Aunty Ani.’

  Mishra stood on the lower step as Ra had done and smiled, holding out her hand.

  ‘You’re a hine-iti like me,’ Aunty Ani said, taking Mishra’s hand and hauling her up the step. ‘Kia ora, dear.’ She held Mishra’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. ‘Welcome.’

  Raffe came next, bending to Aunty Ani, apparently au fait with the greeting ritual.

  ‘Such a big, strong boy, nē Ra?’

  Ra grinned at her aunt and Raffe.

  ‘If I were thirty years older,’ said Raffe, smiling down at Ani. It was the first time Mishra had seen him look happy since she’d arrived.

  Ani slapped his arm and giggled. ‘Cheeky too, nē?’ She led the way into her cottage and they all followed, kicking off their shoes as they went. Mishra wished she’d paid more attention to social customs and not just politics at the Waitangi visit yesterday. No shoes in the house seemed to be one of the rules.

  ‘Haere mai.’ Aunty Ani shepherded them around the living room toward her dining table, which sat in front of a high breakfast bar. A radio played talkback, competing with the rising song of the kettle as Aunty Ani disappeared behind the breakfast bar.