by Paul Thomas
“Where’s his old man?”
“Long gone, thank God. It’s amazing such a shitty relationship could produce such a sweet kid. So is this goodbye, or will we be seeing you again?”
“That’s up to Firkitt. I’ll put in a report. He’ll either want me to have another go or he won’t.”
“I suppose I should hope he won’t?”
“You might’ve seen the last of me,” said Ihaka, “but I doubt you’ve seen the last of us. This thing’s got a way to go yet.”
“I might just have to put my foot down again, say I’ll only talk to you.”
“I doubt Firkitt will wear that a second time.”
“Well, anyway, you know where we are now. Drop in for a coffee some time. I make a great cappuccino.”
Hadlow watched Ihaka get into his car, gave him a little wave and another fathomless smile, and closed the door. Before he hit the first set of lights he’d come up with half a dozen reasons why he shouldn’t even think about taking up her offer to drop in for a cappuccino. But he knew he would think about it. Quite a lot.
By the time he got back to Auckland Central, Ihaka had decided that the sensible course of action was to try his luck with Miriam Lovell.
He rang her cellphone; there was a message saying the number was no longer in service. It was a woman’s privilege to change her mind, but that seemed a bit over the top. That left her email address, but asking a woman out via email, especially a woman who’d just changed her phone number, didn’t feel right. Apart from anything else, it would make it easier for her to say no.
He briefly toyed with the idea of using the resources at his disposal to find out her home phone number, but decided against. If she worked out what he’d done – and he was pretty sure she would – that would be that.
For a few hours the next morning it seemed like they’d made a breakthrough. The Alfa Romeo that had belonged to Arden Black/Warren Duckmanton was clocked doing 157 kph on the North Western Motorway. The new owners, in the sense that possession is nine-tenths of the law, hadn’t even bothered to change the plates. They were a couple of no-hopers from Te Atatu whose CVs included joyriding stolen cars and small-time welfare fraud. They were hoons who’d fight if cornered and double up on a guy just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Ihaka doubted they had the stomach for the sustained, bludgeoning cruelty inflicted on Black.
The no-hopers claimed they’d snatched the Alfa from a supermarket car park in Western Springs two days after the murder. It was just sitting there begging to be taken for a spin: unlocked, keys under the driver’s seat, gassed up and squeaky clean. There was nothing to connect them to Black, and their alibis for the nights he and Eve Diack were murdered were rock-solid – or as rock-solid as alibis get out west.
The Alfa gave up two sets of prints, no-hoper one and no-hoper two. Whoever cleaned it had done such a thorough job they’d erased all traces of Black, as well as of themselves.
Hamish Bartley QC, lawyer by appointment to the eastern suburbs, personally rang Ihaka to invite him to coffee and sandwiches in his firm’s boardroom, where they would be joined by his client, Vanessa Kelly.
This was a rather different Vanessa Kelly, subdued in manner and appearance. She wore a dark business suit with a skirt that went all the way down to her knees, and celebrity hauteur had given way to alert unease. After a perfunctory reunion, she sat at the boardroom table scribbling notes on a legal pad while Bartley fussed over her like a trainee hairstylist. Ihaka sat opposite, helping himself to a wedge of mini-sandwiches.
Bartley embarked on proceedings with the stateliness of a large ship putting to sea. “Detective Sergeant, you should be aware that my client initiated this meeting. She’s very conscious of her civic responsibilities and wishes to do everything in her power to assist your investigation.” He paused, a signal to Ihaka that he should pay special attention to what came next. “Even to the extent of sharing information of a deeply intimate and sensitive nature.”
Ihaka examined the plate of sandwiches, weighing up where to strike next. “Better late then never, I suppose.”
Bartley gave Kelly an encouraging nod. She forced herself to look at Ihaka. “I apologize for not being more forthcoming,” she said in a plaintive little voice. “It’s rather embarrassing. I did have a relationship with Arden Black, but not in the usual sense. We spent time together because…” She bit her lower lip. Ihaka seemed to remember she’d done that a lot while covering the Christchurch earthquake. “I made it worth his while. He was an escort, or if you prefer the old-fashioned term, a gigolo.”
After three marriages that soared, spluttered and nosedived like cheap fireworks, too many messy affairs and too many headlines, Kelly had reached the stage of being happily single. Most of the time, anyway. It’s not easy to kick the habits of a lifetime, and no matter how hard she tried to put it out of her mind, there were times when she missed having a man around. The problem was finding an attractive and interesting one who was prepared to accept her terms, which were basically that he should materialize when and only when it suited her. Err on the side of spontaneity, and you were in one-night-stand territory with its stab-in-the-dark randomness and demeaning mornings after. Go too far the other way and you were in a relationship, with all its logistics and compromises and squandered emotional capital.
She consulted some experienced singles, whose advice was varied and contradictory. One argued that the fact she was having this dilemma proved the futility of trying to be something other than her natural self: she was picking a fight with her own nature, and there could be only one winner in that contest. Another advised her to put herself about in cyberspace, which she felt was rather missing the point.
A third suggested a holiday in Jamaica. Why Jamaica? If I have to spell it out for you, girlfriend, she was told, you’ve got a bigger problem than you realize. Kelly thought this also missed the point. First, she didn’t buy the idea that a ten-day binge would set her up for a year of serene celibacy. Second, there was something tawdry about flying halfway around the world for the company of strangers. Something hypocritical too, given that she’d made a programme that dealt scathingly with white male sex tourists pawing and grunting their way around Asia.
There was a birthday lunch in Parnell followed by some bar-hopping. As afternoon turned into evening, the celebrators peeled off or fell by the wayside until there were only two: Kelly and a friend of a friend, a woman whose name had escaped her five hours earlier. But when it’s just the pair of you, juiced to the eyeballs in a spa pool sipping a cleansing pink champagne, you don’t talk about other people’s children or the seabed and foreshore ruckus. It seemed quite natural for her new bud – whose name was Helen Conroy – to confide that although her husband was her best friend and all that, they hadn’t had sex for three years. Vanessa asked the obvious question, the answer to which was Arden Black.
Helen made him sound like the perfect solution: drop-dead gorgeous, hard-bodied, charming, value for money, discreet. For contact purposes, she became Penny from Goldman’s Modelling Agency. She’d leave a message at his café saying he had a photoshoot at such-and-such a time on such-and-such a day. Seeing she was married with kids and averagely nosy neighbours, the transactions took place at his apartment.
It should have been simpler for Kelly, a single woman with a colourful reputation, but Arden had his system, so there were code names, message drops, precise arrangements and no public appearances. The long weekend in Sydney was just to get away from the cloak-and-dagger stuff. When she accused him of secretly enjoying it, he pointed out that not everyone was in her position: someone like Helen had an awful lot to lose. Apart from that little lecture, he never referred to other clients. She assumed it was part of the service to pretend it wasn’t a commercial arrangement and she wasn’t one of many.
The receptionist at Central smirked as she handed him the envelope. It was handwritten and addressed to Detective Ihaka. In her flamboyant scrawl Miriam Lovell had w
ritten:Hi there,
I was being bugged by a guy I interviewed a while ago. Not quite enough to call it harassment, but enough to get a new number. It occurred to me afterwards that you might’ve tried to get in touch, and I wouldn’t want you to think I’d changed my number to avoid that. If you didn’t, please don’t feel any obligation to do anything. I respond to emails.
Cheers,
Miriam L
Ihaka was about to call it a night when the phone rang.
“Hey, Sarge, I heard you were back in town.” The words straggled from a throat sandpapered by decades of chain-smoking and bottom-shelf drinking. Whispering Willie was a career petty criminal. Because he wasn’t much good at it on account of being a far-gone alcoholic, he spent more time in jail than out. Before Ihaka went south, Willie had been one of his informants. He wasn’t much good at that either.
Ihaka was mildly surprised Willie was still alive. “Gidday, Willie,” he said. “What are you up to these days?”
“Oh, you know, same old, same old. Bit late to change my ways, I reckon.”
“They don’t change by themselves, Willie. You ever thought of trying?”
“Don’t be like that, Sarge. I didn’t ring you up for a fucking lecture. I get enough of them from Father O’Homo down the church.”
“You got something for me, Willie?”
“Maybe. You know how it works, Sarge. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Tonight would be good. I’m as dry as a Pom’s bathmat, me.”
Ihaka sighed. Lovell had sent him her new number and he’d been looking forward to trying it out. “What is it, Willie? Give us a taste. I’m not traipsing out to some shithole to find out who’s been knocking off garden gnomes.”
“I’m offended, Sarge. As if I’d do that to you. Don’t worry, this’ll get you fizzing. It’s about an Eyetie car. One owner, recently deceased.”
12
Everything about Whispering Willie – the scorched complexion, the hair like dead weeds, the tics and twitches and hunched vagabond shuffle – supported the theory that alcoholism is suicide on the instalment plan.
They met in an illegal drinking club a stone’s throw from the mangroves. Willie was wedged into a dark corner, making his pint of Henderson cask red last until Ihaka and his wallet showed up. Ihaka got him a beer and a neat gin chaser and pulled up a chair. By the time he’d settled in his seat, the gin had disappeared.
Willie lit a cigarette from the one he hadn’t quite finished. “This is worth a shitload more than a couple of drinks, Sarge.”
“I’ve heard that before. Turned out it wasn’t worth a cup of rat’s piss.”
“Come on, Sarge, you know what happens. Sometimes people get the wrong end of the stick.”
“That they fucking do,” said Ihaka. “And sometimes people get the idea that I’ll pay good money for any old crap if they talk it up enough.” He slid three $20 notes across the table. “If it’s the real thing, there’s more where that came from. If it’s who gives a fuck, I’ll shut this place down. That should make you popular.”
Willie squinted, not sure whether to take him seriously. His eyes looked like muscatels soaked in blood. “You wouldn’t do that.”
Ihaka smiled.
In his time, Willie had been on the receiving end of some genuinely disturbing smiles from some genuinely disturbed people, but Ihaka’s was up there. He decided not to overplay his hand.
Arden Black’s Alfa Romeo had been supplied to a West Auckland stolen-car ring specializing in late-model Europeans. Their lead-time from taking delivery to displaying the unit on a used car lot somewhere on the Australian eastern seaboard was a week to ten days. This time, though, someone in the organization had been keeping up with the news. Realizing they had a dangerously hot item on their hands, they cut their losses, gave the Alfa a deluxe clean and dumped it in a supermarket car park scouted by joyriders looking for a nifty set of wheels for the weekend.
“So far, so good,” said Ihaka, furling another twenty like a roll-your-own. “But as you know bloody well, Willie, a story’s only as good as the punchline. Who brought the Alfa in?”
Willie made a squeezed-lemon face. “Don’t know, Sarge. No one’s talking. Too many bad vibes, you know what I mean? But is that the good oil or what?”
Ihaka shook his head regretfully. “Right now it’s just conversation, Willie, just a couple of shitheads sitting in a shithole talking shit. I need a name, someone who can finish the story for me.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Sarge, I’d be sticking my neck out big-time.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll look after you.”
Willie doubled up, coughing as if he was trying to eject his Adam’s apple. His face went from salmon-pink to deep purple and his eyes frothed. For a moment or two Ihaka feared the worst, but it turned out to be Willie’s version of a wry chuckle.
Wiping his eyes, he said, “You want to try again?”
“Not really.”
Willie sucked resentfully on his cigarette. “I’d forgotten what a cunt you can be.”
Ihaka didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t blink.
“You’re going to get me fucked up,” groaned Willie, a picture of misery now. “You know that, don’t you? Yeah, you know it all right, and you don’t give a shit.”
“What do you think I am, Willie, the Salvation Army?”
Willie withdrew deeper into the shadows. “They call this guy Jackie Vee, I don’t know his real name. It’s one of those fucking Dally names, sounds like a cat having a puke.”
Ihaka started dealing from a thick wad of twenties. Addiction is a fire that never goes out. Addicts who lead a hand-to-mouth scrounger’s existence live in dread of running out of fuel, knowing that if they don’t feed the fire inside, it will feed on them. With each note that Ihaka flipped across the table, Willie’s anxieties receded further into the distance until they were just a speck on his mental horizon.
“Something else I’d like your feedback on, Willie,” said Ihaka, still holding a few notes. “What do you know about the undercover cop who got shot up and left for dead out this way a few years back?”
Willie’s expression froze. If Ihaka hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t have believed that someone so florid could go so pale so quickly. Willie scooped up the money and tried to stand up, but Ihaka put a clamp on his upper arm, a bone wrapped in loose skin, and forced him back down. “Hold your horses, pal. We’re not done yet.”
“I’ve got to go. I just remembered something.”
“Like what? You promised to call your stockbroker back?”
“Give us a break, Sarge.” Willie was whimpering, on the verge of tears. “I’m already in deep shit. Isn’t that enough for you? I don’t know fuck all.”
“So why the panic?”
“All I can tell you is it’s something you just don’t talk about, not if you know what’s good for you. It’s like a fucking taboo subject.”
“Who decided that? Who enforces it?”
“Honest to Christ, Sarge, I don’t know and I don’t want to know. A guy brings the subject up, right? Not that he knows anything the rest of us don’t, he’s just talking shit. Anyway, someone will give him this one” – Willie dragged his thumb across his throat – “and he’ll just clam up. The word came down. I don’t know who from, but it was loud and fucking clear.”
Ihaka handed over the rest of the notes. “Okay, Willie, here’s what you do. You find yourself a deep hole and stay down there. And I promise you this, if anyone fucks you up, I’ll fuck them up like you wouldn’t believe.”
Blair Corvine rubbed his chin, puzzled. “You know what?” he said to Ihaka eventually. “There are only two people who haven’t moved on here, and the victim’s not one of them. There’s Sheree, which is kind of understandable. If anyone’s got the right to be all bitter and twisted – apart from me, of course – it’s her. And there’s you, Chief, and I don’t get that.”
“Two things, Blair,” said Ihaka. “If everyon
e else has moved on, why is it still such a big deal out west? This old prick I talked to last night bloody near shat himself when I dropped you into the conversation. He says every lowlife out there knows it’s a subject you avoid like the plague. Now why would that be?”
Corvine shrugged. “They probably haven’t forgotten what happened to Jerry Spragg.”
“Yeah, could be,” said Ihaka. “I heard that was random prison shit but, given the source, chances are that was a lie. The other reason I’m curious is that there’s a bloody big gap between your version and everybody else’s. You say you didn’t fuck up, you were on top of it; everyone else says the opposite. You fucked up, you got careless, you were off your face the whole time. Christ, I even heard you left your cellphone lying around, they checked call history and saw all these Blair-to-base calls.”
“Fucking what?” They were in a little café in Panmure. Corvine muttered an apology to the pensioners at the next table and leaned forward, lowering his voice. “What the fuck do they take me for?”
“Well, now do you see where I’m coming from? If you’d said, ‘Look, fuck it, okay, I was burnt out, I was losing it, I could’ve stuffed up without even knowing,’ that would be one thing. And if everyone from McGrail down wasn’t so keen to blame the victim and move on, as you put it, that would be another. I would’ve thought fair enough, shit happens, and gone back to worrying about global warming.”
“You raised it with McGrail?”
Ihaka nodded.
“Did he tell you what I told him?”
“McGrail ran the party line,” said Ihaka. “Coming from him it sounded good, but that’s all it was.”
Corvine’s forehead was a grid of perplexity.
