The Peco Incident

by Des Hunt

  ‘BIRT will provide additional security for the colony until those two are caught,’ he said. ‘Whatever it takes, we’ll do it.’

  After that the police officers went to start the rounds of rental-car companies in the hope of identifying the vehicle Roost was driving. It was agreed that if we remembered anything more or discovered something new, then we would pass it on to Cathy. She would be our contact with both BIRT and the police.

  We then got the chance to ask Saxton about Harriet. Both Nick and I thought that his new helpfulness might extend to being more reasonable about our parakeet. We soon learnt otherwise.

  ‘Can we have Harriet back now?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Who?’ asked Saxton.

  ‘Harriet — our parakeet.’

  ‘Oh her! No, you can’t have her back,’ he snapped.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  ‘Because she’s dead.’

  My jaw dropped. Everyone looked at him in dismay.

  Cathy was the first to recover. ‘She can’t be!’ she cried.

  ‘Oh yes, she can,’ said Saxton. ‘She would have been killed before they took the spleen and other tissues. That’s how they do it.’

  ‘I was told they might be able to do it with surgery,’ said Cathy.

  Saxton shrugged. ‘Whoever told you that was just trying to make you feel better.’ His tone softened a little. ‘Look, she’s done her job. From the samples, scientists will be able to work out all sorts of things. You shouldn’t be too upset. She’s fulfilled a very useful purpose for science. Someday, I’m sure, other birds will benefit from her death. Her sacrifice will not have been in vain.’

  After that he went, leaving us staring at each other in shock.

  That afternoon I grieved for the loss of Harriet. I think her loss would have been easier to accept if she’d been killed soon after she’d been taken away. However, Cathy had given us hope that she’d live out her life doing useful things for science. Instead, it looked as if she’d been killed almost as soon as the scientists got hold of her. I felt anger as well as grief. So much anger that I began to understand why some animal-rights activists would go to extreme measures to rescue animals from scientific research.

  I worked off my feelings by finishing the pendant for Murph. Carving Harriet’s image was excellent therapy, and by dinnertime I’d mostly recovered my sanity. It was hard to tell how Nick was feeling. He’d spent the afternoon in our bedroom playing video games. At dinner that evening he was quieter than usual, fingering his pendant more than before.

  In the evening we travelled to Dunedin to visit Murph. On the way in, Nick and I looked for silver hatchbacks. We soon realized why the police had wanted more details about Roost’s vehicle. Almost every fifth vehicle was a silver hatchback. It seemed that every car manufacturer produced a hatchback, and that silver was the most popular colour. Even if the police did get the licence number from a rental firm, they’d be lucky to find the car amongst the thousands of lookalikes.

  Murph was not good. His body was so wasted away that it was scarcely visible under the sheets. However, his mind still had some life, and he was plainly pleased to see us.

  ‘How’s that bird of mine?’ he asked as he grasped my hands in welcome. ‘Not causing too many problems I hope?’

  This was a conversation I didn’t want to have.

  ‘She learnt some new rude words from Dad,’ I said.

  ‘Did not!’ objected Dad. ‘She got those from Murph long ago.’

  ‘She’s helping science,’ said Nick.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Murph, showing concern.

  So we told him the story, dressing it up the same way Cathy had. We never said she was dead. In our story there was still the possibility of a happy ending.

  When we’d finished, Murph had a bit of a smile on his face. ‘So Harriet is going to save other birds? That’s good. I like that.’

  ‘Pity she couldn’t do it sooner,’ said Mum. ‘Maybe she might have saved your budgies and canaries.’

  Murph’s smile was replaced by sadness. ‘Yeah, maybe.’ A long pause. ‘But perhaps it’s better the way things have turned out. Something would have needed to be done with them anyway, after I’ve gone.’

  While I thought we all understood he was dying, it came as a shock to hear him talk about it. To help us through the moment, I pulled the pendant of Harriet out of my pocket.

  ‘This is for you, Murph,’ I said, struggling not to choke up. ‘So that Harriet’s here with you until things get sorted.’

  ‘Hold it up so I can see it,’ he said. I did.

  ‘Harriet,’ he said softly. ‘My Harriet.’

  ‘Do you want it around your neck?’ asked Mum.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  It was tricky getting the cord over all the tubes, but eventually we got it on.

  Murph stretched up a hand and gripped the carved bone. ‘Thank you,’ he said, so very quietly. ‘Now she can be with me forever.’

  As we were leaving, the duty doctor called Mum and Dad to one side. Nick and I continued walking slowly down the corridor. When they caught up, tears were pouring from Mum’s eyes; Dad’s were wet, too. I knew then that we wouldn’t be visiting Murph again. I had seen my friend for the last time.

  CHAPTER 26

  New Year’s Eve.

  Nick and I started the last day of the year with a long sleep-in. It wasn’t worth getting up anyway, because it had started raining overnight and the morning was still drizzly wet.

  By lunchtime, the weather had cleared enough for us to surface. The only scheduled activity for the day was in the late afternoon when Dad had arranged for us to visit the tunnels of Fort Taiaroa.

  Mum was working all day and had organized dinner at the Albatross Centre, so that we could begin our New Year’s celebrations with a decent feed. With nothing to do until then, Nick and I rode into Portobello to see if Cathy had any news about Brio and Roost.

  She had some, but little of it was helpful. The police had not found any car rented out to either Talia Cottingham or Jamie Fredericks. They’d checked all the silver hatchback rentals and found nobody fitting Brio or Roost’s description. Hence the two officers had come to the conclusion that the car had been purchased, borrowed, or more likely stolen. Except nobody had reported a stolen silver hatchback.

  Cathy also had a report from the extra security at Taiaroa Head. Nothing had happened overnight, except for the rain which had made their job extremely unpleasant. There was a suggestion that if it rained again that night, then they’d pack up and go home.

  The tunnels of Fort Taiaroa were built in 1885 when it was thought the Russians might invade New Zealand. They never did, and eventually the fort closed. However, it became active again during World War Two. Since then, it had been turned into a military museum run by local volunteers.

  Dad wasn’t a volunteer, but he did occasionally help by restoring old weapons and military gear. Hence he knew quite a few of the people, and that’s how he arranged our special visit. We would be able to walk around in our own time, without having to be part of one of the tour parties.

  The Albatross Centre was crowded when we arrived at five o’clock. Mum was flat-out taking orders from a long queue of colourfully dressed tourists. I looked at it, hoping that things would quieten down or we wouldn’t find a place to sit for our dinner at six.

  We met Dad’s mate Jim in a back room before moving into the fenced area. At first we followed the same route as when we’d gone to see the albatrosses. After the gate was locked behind us, I turned to Nick. ‘You sure you can cope with being surrounded by all these fences,’ I asked with a grin.

  ‘Yes, Danny, I can now,’ he replied with an embarrassed smile.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Ancient history,’ I replied, and in fact that’s what it felt like. Nick might still do some crazy spur-of-the-moment things, but he no longer did them just for effect.

  Walking along the path towards the fort, we got a gr
eat view down onto the seagull breeding area. There were hundreds of birds crammed together on the dropping-painted soil. The area was so crowded that if just one bird came in with the flu, they’d all have it within days. Any disease reaching Taiaroa Head would very quickly become an ecological disaster.

  The entrance to the fort was protected by a gate made out of strong steel bars — nobody would be breaking in there in a hurry.

  As we walked from the bright sunlight into the dimly lit tunnel, I felt a little shiver of claustrophobia run through my body. I would understand it if Nick did his ‘Let me out!’ act in here; we’d only gone in a short distance and already the place was spooky.

  Our first stop was up some stairs to the observation post, where, thankfully, there was daylight. As expected, we got a view of the sea surrounding the headland. Behind a barrier was a wax model of a soldier using a telescopic sighting device to find the range of enemy ships. I looked for them but saw none, just a dredge clearing sand from the harbour entrance.

  Closer by was the Taiaroa Head lighthouse, with albatrosses gliding effortlessly overhead. Unfortunately, the windows were too close to the ground to see any nesting birds.

  Leaving the observation post, we had to squeeze against the side of the tunnel to let a tour party past.

  Dad turned to Jim. ‘Plenty of customers today,’ he said.

  ‘Far too many,’ said Jim, shaking his head. ‘We’re taking bigger tour groups than are comfortable. Trouble is they’re mostly from the cruise ship at Port Chalmers, and we don’t like to turn them away because they’re only in port for a day. There’s a bigger ship due first thing in the morning, so it’ll be even worse tomorrow.’

  After the party had gone, we moved deeper into the tunnels to the main level of the fort. We passed another barred gate, which Jim said led to a tunnel out onto the albatross nesting area. Nick wanted to go out and get a closer look, but Jim shook his head. ‘Sorry. I’d get into deep trouble if I did that. Not even I’m allowed out there.’

  Instead, we took another tunnel to the gun that was the main feature of the Fort Taiaroa museum. This was a disappearing gun. It could be aimed while under the ground, before being poked into the air to be fired. Then the recoil from the shot was enough to force the gun back into its bunker.

  Jim was an enthusiast and explained in too much detail how the thing worked. I quickly lost interest. Nick did, too: he was prowling around the circular building like a lion in a cage. Alongside the wall was a range of shells that the gun could fire. He pointed to one. ‘Can you fire this for us?’

  Jim chuckled. ‘No. None of those are live. We don’t keep any munitions in here now. And this is the only weapon that can still fire a shot. Everything you’ll see around the place — the shells, the Lee Enfield rifles — have been disabled. We wouldn’t be able to have them on display otherwise.’

  ‘Can you make the gun go up then?’ asked Nick.

  ‘I could, but I won’t. There’s a working model if you want to see how it works.’

  Nick didn’t want to see a model — he wanted the real thing.

  ‘Then we’ll move on,’ said Jim. ‘Or that tour party will catch us up.’

  We moved to other rooms which had displays of antique military gear. The place where the explosives were once kept was the most interesting part. This was a pit below the other rooms with access down a ladder. A trapdoor stopped us from going down, but we could see what it was like through a grill-covered hole where the shells were once hoisted up using pulleys. It looked like an ancient dungeon, the sort of place where prisoners were once hung on the wall in various styles of torture.

  The rest was basically concrete tunnels, which would have been boring except for the heightened tension of being confined to a narrow space deep in the ground. I didn’t like it, and was relieved when we finally returned to the Albatross Centre. We thanked Jim and went to find Mum for dinner.

  The café was still crowded, but Mum had put a reserved sign on one of the tables, so as soon as her break began we were ready for our meal.

  One of the good things I like when we go out for a meal is the conversation in the time between ordering and when the meal arrives. At first that meal was as good as any. Nick was particularly funny, making up stories about old soldiers still living in the tunnels and waiting for the enemy which never came.

  We continued with nonsense like this until Mum’s phone rang. As soon as she answered it, we knew something was terribly wrong. By the time the call ended, she was crying. Between the sobs, she managed to tell us that Murph had died just a few minutes before. He had done so with the pendant of Harriet clutched firmly in his hands.

  After that we barely spoke, and the food when it arrived tasted like cardboard. This was the first time a friend of mine had died, and it really hurt. I needed to blame someone, and the only person I could think of was Brio. If she hadn’t brought the bird flu to the peninsula, then Murph’s birds would still be alive. And if they hadn’t died, Murph wouldn’t have either.

  Then my thoughts turned to Harriet. Without Brio, she would definitely still be around. As I poked silently at the food in front of me, my hatred for the woman grew until it was more intense than any feeling I’d ever had before. I wanted to get even. I wanted revenge. To be honest, I wanted to hurt her in a way that she could never forget.

  CHAPTER 27

  It was a relief when the meal was over and we could leave the café. Towards the end it had become embarrassing. People at all the other tables were noisy and happy, while we were silent and grieving. I could sense their relief when we stood and made our way towards the exit.

  I led the way out the door, keen to be away from the place. As I went down the steps, a man bumped against me, almost pushing me over.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled with his head down, disappearing into the crowd.

  When we got out into the clear, I turned to Nick and Dad. ‘Did you see that guy?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dad, suspiciously. ‘Check your pockets, Danny. He might be a pickpocket.’

  The only thing in my pockets worth stealing was my wallet. It was there, but so too was something else — a balled-up piece of paper.

  I often absent-mindedly screw up bits of paper and put them in my pocket, so I figured this was just one of those and moved towards a rubbish bin.

  ‘Hold it!’ said Nick. ‘Open it up.’

  I did so — to find that this was not any piece of paper I’d seen before. It was a till docket with a scribbled message on the back — the writing was that of a child.

  Brio is goin to spray the albatrosses tonite.

  You have to stop her because I cant.

  Shes crazy.

  Without saying anything, I passed it to Nick, who after reading it gave it to Dad.

  ‘Roost!’ said Nick.

  ‘Has to be,’ I replied.

  ‘Then let’s go back in and find them,’ said Dad. ‘You two know what they look like.’

  We rushed back up the steps and started pushing through bodies. It was not going to be easy. All of them were wearing colourful clothes, maybe not as bright as Brio and Roost’s, but bright enough to be confusing. We split up. I went into the shop area while Dad and Nick did the café.

  It was an unpleasant job. I had to push people aside to get through and then stare up at their faces. Of course many of them stared back. Some even made rude comments. And because they were moving around, I ended up checking some people two or three times.

  And it was all a waste of time. I never saw anybody resembling Brio or Roost. Neither had the others when I checked with them back out in front of the building.

  ‘What about the car park?’ suggested Dad.

  ‘Too late,’ cried Nick. ‘Look!’

  Accelerating along the road leaving Taiaroa Head was a silver hatchback.

  ‘Get the number!’ yelled Dad.

  But it was too far away for my eyes. As the car moved out of view, I looked over to Nick who shook his head in dis
appointment.

  However, Dad was optimistic. ‘At least we know the make now,’ he said. ‘That’s a Toyota Corolla. Use your phone, Nick, and ring Cathy. She might be able to stop them as they go through Portobello … maybe get the number or something.’

  Nick rang Cathy. Unfortunately, she was in Dunedin doing grocery shopping. There was no way she could get back quickly enough. Once again, we’d lost them. But this time we knew they would return. And we’d be ready and waiting for them.

  After Mum finished work at nine, we went home to prepare for the cool night ahead. There was no rush. Although the sun was already setting, it would be at least another two hours before it got dark.

  The team to greet Brio and Roost would be the usual Albatross Centre security team of three, the four extras that BIRT were providing, along with Cathy, Nick, Dad and me. We reckoned that would be enough.

  With bags carrying food and drink, we drove back to the centre to get ready for the surveillance that would start at half past ten.

  There were still a few cars in the car park when we arrived. None of them were silver hatchbacks. They were probably owned by the people who were down at Pilots Beach enjoying a walk in the evening air. But, just in case Brio had swapped cars, we had the security guards go down and check them out.

  After a short briefing in the Albatross Centre, we took up our positions. The BIRT guards were the first line of defence, manning the road approach and the car park. They also had portable spotlights so they could search the water in both the harbour and the open sea.

  The rest of us were behind the wire fences. An Albatross Centre guard was at each end to check the shoreline approach, with the rest of us in a bunch near the albatross lookout. Communication between each station was by walkie-talkie. I also had Mum’s phone. The idea was that every half-hour each group would report to the others, even if nothing was happening, which I’m sure they all hoped would be the case. But not me. I was hoping for a showdown with Brio. I was eager to get that chance for revenge, even if the thought of confronting her had my insides tied in knots.