When they’d got him to stop, each sitting on one of his arms, Reid checked his pulse. He was dead. There was a bad wound on his scalp. One of his eyes was slightly open, a bit of light glittering in the slit between the lids. Blood ran out of his nose. Reid checked his pulse again. They were both terrified he would jerk back to life.
Teina hung onto Reid’s arm. His face was streaked with blood and his eyes and nose were swollen where Andre had kicked him.
‘Bro, what are we going to do?’ he said.
They sank down in the pine needles. Teina’s expression changed. He let go of Reid’s arm. ‘You’re a detective.’ He started shaking his head, muttering.
‘Thanks,’ Reid said.
He shook his head.
‘For stopping him,’ Reid added.
‘We killed him, bro.’ Teina groaned and held his head in his hands. ‘What are we going to do?’
Reid caught the fear in Teina’s voice and the enormity of it struck him. They’d killed someone. He felt panic rising.
He said, ‘It was self-defence. You were defending me. He was going to shoot me.’
‘I can’t plead self-defence. He wasn’t going to kill me.’ He moaned again.
‘You can, we’ll say exactly what happened.’
‘Oh my head.’ He lay back, grunting with the pain.
Reid looked around. ‘It’s going to get dark.’ They looked at the dead body. They both had the horrified feeling that it might jump up and attack them. It was that fear and Teina’s groans of pain that made the panic swell in Reid, until all he could think was that he had to get Teina out of there; that they had to get away. The clearest thing to him was that they were together in this, that Teina had saved him, even after Lisa Green had revealed the truth.
They got Andre into the truck and drove deep into the forest. Teina knew all the most remote tracks and trails. They had spades and picks in the truck for working on the dope plantations. They buried the body on a lonely point above a cliff, near a gannet colony. The gannets watched and clacked their beaks and shat down onto the rocks below.
They were both hobbling with pain. Teina’s nose looked as if it was broken, and Reid had a ferocious ache in his head and neck that made digging agony. The ground was tough. No doubt they didn’t do a very good job.
Reid practically had to carry Teina to the truck. They drove back to his house. They cleaned themselves up and sat at the picnic table outside. They were both shaking.
Reid remembers he was starting to doubt then, to regret having buried Andre, and to wish that he could report the whole thing. But the fact of having buried him seemed to seal their course — it was too hard to explain away. And maybe, thinking back, the shock of having killed someone, the horror of it, made everything that was coming loose in him finally break free. He and Teina had done it together, and they would have to get through it together. Teina was certain he wouldn’t survive a police inquiry, that he would be jailed. Reid couldn’t convince him otherwise. Keeping quiet, Reid was making amends for betraying Teina’s trust, and paying him back for saving him from Andre. Which makes Reid a bent policeman — about as bent as you can get. But he cared about Teina. The most important thing, he decided in the end, was that Teina should get out of the situation unscathed.
Reid said, ‘It’s true, I’m police.’
Teina shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Reid said, ‘Let me think this out. Please mate. Get me a beer.’
They sat drinking, facing one another.
‘We’re in this together,’ Reid said. Teina shrugged, wincing, his fingers playing over his bruised face.
‘If you don’t warn Wright about me, I’ll make sure you get away. You’ll have to go far away, to Australia maybe. If you tell anyone about me, it’s all off, and you’ll be pulled in too.’
Teina laughed. ‘Fuck you,’ he said.
Reid said, ‘I’m police, but I’m your friend, bro. I’m still your friend.’
Teina didn’t warn Huru Wright about Reid. He got away to Australia with his family and worked as a linesman, stringing power lines all over the Outback. He did well. He lives in Sydney now; there’s a pub where he sings some nights for his rugby club. His daughter Parekawhia is married to a famous league player. His son Pawhau plays in a Sydney band.
A DOC survey team stumbled across Andre’s body. Over time, wild pigs had uprooted and partly eaten it. There was a small amount of publicity. They couldn’t identify the body, or the exact cause of death. Andre Moran wasn’t even his real name.
Teina got away and Reid stayed. Huru Wright was arrested and convicted of drug dealing. Reid came out of undercover and started working his way up through the ranks. He was high up in the force when the sex inquiry started. A woman complained she’d been assaulted in a police car by a Whangarei detective. Other women came forward and the inquiry widened. There was publicity. Charlene surfaced and made her allegations against him, and he was charged and suspended from the force. Here he is, Reid Harris, facing two counts: rape and indecent assault. And behind him sits the other, Lisa Green. Only she could know the joke: he is falsely accused of rape, actually guilty of something else. It wasn’t murder. It was self-defence. But he covered it up, for Teina.
When Lisa heard of a corpse being discovered in the pine forest, did she think at first that the body might be Reid? What a shock then, to discover that Reid Harris is still alive and making the papers as a senior policeman charged with rape.
Reid never went looking for Ms Green after that day in the forest, to pay her back for the trouble she caused him. He couldn’t. She’s the only person who could find out what he and Teina did. It keeps him awake at nights. He thinks she knows. She’s guessed. He turns it over in his mind. She deliberately put him in danger that day. Some time later, but not far away from the same spot, a murdered man was found. The body has remained unidentified and no one has been charged with the crime. But the date of death has been estimated, publicly, as around the time she exposed him to Andre and Teina. Lisa Green is clever; she must speculate that if the body is not Reid, then it’s someone else connected to her bit of mischief that day. Because how could violence not have resulted from it?
Lisa Green. She was shy and quiet. She was a Christian. They were living as flatmates in Dunedin. Reid had gone down there to escape his parents. They are what you call ‘dysfunctional’. His father, Aaron Harris, is a long term alcoholic. His mother, Rima Richards, eighteen years Aaron’s junior, was a Fort Street ‘masseuse’ before she found God. She’s all right now, but she and Reid have very little in common. Reid’s father had other children from a previous marriage — one is a doctor, one is a university lecturer. Reid supposes he is the low side of the family. It was made plain when he entered the police that his background had been noted, that he would have to show himself different from his parents.
Their other flatmate Sean tried to go out with Lisa Green but she wasn’t interested. Reid used to wander into her room and chat to her and watch her TV. She liked him; they were friendly with one another. Reid was absorbed in police work, and Sean was studying law. She was doing a diploma in tourism. Reid thought everything was going fine, but she started getting on Sean’s nerves for various reasons, and then one night she had an argument with some of his friends that ended with her picking up an ashtray, throwing the contents in a girl’s face, and slapping the girl hard. Then she threw the ashtray against the wall. When Reid got home Sean told him that was it. The ashtray had ‘sentimental value’. He wasn’t going to have ‘serious violence’ against his friends. He was the leaseholder and he was going to kick Lisa Green out. He tacked a little notice to her door. It was pretty tough, Reid thought, but she accepted that she had to go, and she lay low and didn’t make a fuss.
One day Reid came home and found her packing up. He was in low shape from doing nightshifts, and he was irritated to find her there. He remembers her hugging her box of crockery to her chest and staring at him childishly — appea
ling to him, he supposes. Something bad kicked off in him. They had an argument. She threw his keys out the window. That annoyed him so much he manhandled her out. Her box of plates and cups ended up on the landing outside. She sat there on the floor, looking up at him. She was absolutely still. Her face was white. They had a further exchange. He can’t recall what was said, but he remembers feeling shocked, and bad about what he’d done. The way she looked at him, he should have known shed come back. There was something so strange. Four years later, by sheer chance, she found a way to take revenge. And now, when he’s in trouble again, she sits behind him in the courtroom, pale and still …
He looks into her face and thinks he can read his secrets there.
According to Charlene, Reid threatened to hurt Uncle Quasi if she told anyone about his ‘attacks’. She only ever visited him twice she says (Twice! Week after week.) — first when her uncle had sent her to ask to borrow a hedge trimmer (inventive little bitch) and the other time to ask Reid to sign a local petition (ditto). It turns out there was a petition going around at that time, about some highway bypass, although, Reid’s lawyer notes, no record of him signing it. It was on the second occasion, she alleges, that he whipped the clipboard off his diligent little neighbour, dragged her into his lair and raped her. She was ‘too traumatised’ to tell. Uncle Quasi is dead now. Her friends have no memory of that meeting outside McDonald’s, when Andre tried to get her into the car. They’re on their own, Charlene and Reid, in fantasyland.
He thinks back to those dreamy, boozy afternoons. Her leg hooked up over the leg of the armchair, the smell of her menthol cigarette. Her hair blowing in the wind. He remembers how he used to feel, not quite rescued, but relieved when he heard the old screen door clang shut and saw her wobbling across the paddock. Memories. Things he hasn’t remembered for years. Charlene horsing about, Charlene nagging at him to let her move in. Charlene poking though his belongings, wanting to ‘get to know him’. Always asking where he was going, who were his friends, trying to wriggle her way into his private life. She thought she could write poems — there was all that girly talk about the wind being a giant comb untangling the grass, and sunsets and falling leaves and patterns on the sea. She sulked and then came out unexpectedly with a joke, she talked too quietly, she was kindhearted, she was sweetly vain. When it got dark she turned on the radio and watched herself dancing in the light reflected in his windows. She drew childish cartoons: smiley faces, cats, puppies. She wanted them to have a picnic up at the creek. His days were saturated with secrets and lies and violent crime, and she wanted him to go on a picnic.
Is this what she wants, that he will finally think about her? All the data he absorbed and didn’t pay attention to comes back to him now. He realises he liked her very much. He cared about her, as much as he cared about Teina. He never hurt her. His nemesis, his avenging angel: as much as he was able to love anyone back then, he loved Charlene.
Reid gave evidence, denying everything. He outlined their relationship in detail. Cross-examining him, the prosecutor launched into a question with a name: ‘Now. Mr Wright …’ The judge jumped in, prissy-polite. ‘Mr Harris, you mean.’ The prosecutor explained he was going to ask about Mr Wright — the man Reid had been gathering evidence against. Judge, prosecutor, jury, gallery, all chuckled cosily at the misunderstanding, and Reid on his stand grinned like a sheepish schoolboy. Afterwards, he was pissed off about that grin. He swears he will never smile in this courtroom again.
Reid is on bail, but each day he has to go into custody. He spends adjournments in the cells. His jailers are two security guards, Ted and Anson. Ted is a raspy little Englishman with an open, innocent face. He often looks dimly surprised. Anson is about six foot four, blond and ugly. They are polite, neutral, even after Charlene had everyone craning in thrilled silence as she whispered Reid’s terrible crimes. When she gave evidence that day Reid had a strange sense that it was not he who was on trial. Charlene was talking about somebody else, some violent bastard. Who? Uncle Quasi? Her husband?
He reviews her performance. She’s good in the witness box. Doesn’t overdo it. Makes concessions, agrees she could be wrong sometimes. Not histrionic; her voice is low, pleasing, full of feeling. More in sorrow than in anger is her line. She’s a mother now. Doesn’t want other young girls to go through the same. She’s still an attractive woman: beautiful is more convincing than ugly. She’s up there on the stand, fucking him. Fucking him. You lying little bitch, I should have let you get in the car with Andre that day, let him rip you to pieces, the way you’ve ripped my life to shreds.
He wakes from a dream in which he punches her until he can’t hit her any more.
The last day. Reid wakes up in the morning and Angela’s sitting on the edge of the bed. He reaches up to touch her shoulder. She doesn’t turn around. Today’s the day he could be going away for seven years, eight, nine. They move quietly, getting ready. The air feels like glass; as if sudden movements will shatter the silence into screams. From the back of the taxi he looks out at the city and feels that he’s already far away. There’s an easterly storm, the harbour is whipped into grey waves and the trees in the park are tossing in the wind. A sign blows over and over across the road. Rain splatters on the windows. Outside, the media are gathering. There’s a lot of interest in the case.
Lisa Green is in court. She sits with her eyes lowered, holding her gold cross in her fingers. The place is packed with journalists. Reid can’t listen any more; he feels as if something has carried him far away. There is a film between him and the world. People move and talk soundlessly behind cold glass. He catches sight of Charlene and her Australian husband. He hovers around her, stands over her, keeps his face close to hers. Reid wonders where, in his strange, broken life, he has seen that man before.
The judge finishes summing up. The jury files out to consider a verdict. The waiting starts. Reid’s guards dream the hours away. His lawyer ducks nervously in and out. Reid can’t eat.
The jury’s still out, the hours creep by. In the afternoon Reid is in the men’s room when the guard Anson bangs on the cubicle to say the jury has reached a verdict. Out in the courtroom there’s a great crush, people are squeezing in, standing between seats, everybody craning to see. The registrar is over-excited, and marches about ordering people to make room, to switch off phones. Reid feels little rivers of poison moving up and down his arms. The jury is not looking at him; this is supposed to be a bad sign. His heart is beating so fast he can feel the pulse in his throat. He has never felt so exposed.
The judge comes fussing in with his hokey, ingratiating smile. He takes off his glasses, polishes them and puts them on. With excessive politeness he asks the jury if they have reached a decision. The foreman replies that they have. The registrar stands and asks for the verdict on each charge, and the foreman delivers it each time in a strong, clear voice.
And the glass silence shatters with a howl of sound, Angela leaps out of her chair, the crowd is surging forward. Reid steadies himself, his head so full of white noise that he can barely stand. He looks up through stinging tears and there is Lisa Green; she’s on her feet, holding the gold cross in her right hand. With the noise and movement of the milling crowd it’s hard to be sure, but she’s looking intently his way, and the expression on her face looks like relief to Reid.
PARARAHA
Emily came out of the bedroom and saw Per out on the balcony. He was peeling an orange with a knife and throwing the curly rinds into the bush. She joined him and they looked over the valley, at the kauri and manuka trees standing still in the bright morning air, the greeny-blue hills on the horizon, sharp against the cloudless sky. The cicadas had started up with their sawing that by the hot afternoon would be a shimmering wall of sound; in the distance they heard the warbles and clicks of a tui. A car passed by on the gravel road and the dust rose and hung in the air, shot through with tiny sparkles of light. Far way, two kilometres down Lone Kauri Road, the surf was crashing onto the beach, sending its
distant, sighing roar up the valley.
On clear mornings like this she felt so alive. Two days ago she had been invited to stay at the Brights’ bach with her friend Amy, up on the Piha Road. They’d crept out in the early morning and Emily had climbed high into a huge pine tree at the back of the section. She could see the whole valley spread below her, the beams of sun breaking over the hill and the dark trees slowly colouring. Watching the sun rise over the bush Emily’s eyes had prickled and she got goosebumps with happiness. But Amy had made her get down. She was eight — six months older than Emily. She was good at maths and hardly ever smiled and was often irritable and shitty. She had stood waiting at the foot of the tree, grumbling.
Emily had climbed down after a while, because Amy was getting pissed off, and she liked Amy’s bach and wanted to be invited back; there was the pine forest — a whole acre of it — and the house that looked like a log cabin, and the series of stone fishponds where you could find, among the weed and lily pads, shiny green and brown native frogs.
‘Look,’ Per said quietly. There was the tui, landed in the manuka, swivelling its tail, letting out bright warbles of sound. They could see its pompous shiver as it puffed out its feathers, the green sheen in the black breast, and the white cravat under the neck. The bird opened its beak and they heard the shiny drops of sound, plonk, click, with a sound echo, like water dripping into the rain-water tank.
Singularity Page 7
