by Alan Carter
‘And I’m guessing some of that damage was to his collection of photos? Some missing?’
‘Right but …’
‘No worries, that’s all I need. I’ll check with the insurance company.’
‘Hang on …’
I run through the same routine with the insurance company contact mentioned in the incident report. Then it’s just a matter of sitting back and waiting.
‘Get yourself over here. Now.’
I’ve anticipated DC Ford’s call and I’m already on my way. Latifa is keeping her head down. I’ve warned her of my intentions and promised to try and protect her from what’s to come.
‘Thanks. They’re going to send that bloke from Traffic back in here you know.’ She puts her finger up her nose and crosses her eyes. ‘This better be worth it.’
Whether it’s a leak from the Ds’ office or a tip-off from the insurance company, McCormack has already been on the phone to Ford. He’s incandescent and threatening to bring in the lawyers.
‘He has questions to answer,’ I insist.
‘What questions?’ says Ford.
I lay it out for him: Deborah Haruru and the car in the marae a week before her son is murdered, Honest Joe’s Rent-A-Flash-Bomb, the McCormack car fleet, the satnav and the marina. The other marina connections: the sunken boat and the dead skipper. The photographs stolen from Marlborough Tennis Club and McCormack Forestry on the same night.
‘That’s it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You presented this to DI Keegan?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? She’s running the investigation. Not you.’
‘I’m aware of the sensitivities. I wanted to try and gather enough to back up my theory so I didn’t waste precious investigative resources.’
‘My arse. You knew I’d kick it into touch. Our processes and protocols are there for a reason. What you’ve presented to me today, it’s all circumstantial bullshit, mate, a good lawyer could drive a truck through it. And because you’ve gone off half-cocked they’ll do exactly that.’ He shakes his head. ‘Get out of here.’
‘Constable Rapata advised me against this course of action, sir, but I overruled her as her senior officer. She is not culpable in this matter.’
‘That’s for me to decide, not you, Sergeant. Get out. You’re suspended. Again.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘You’re a loose cannon, your precipitous actions may have jeopardised a murder investigation, you’ve broken several regulations and protocols. I’ll get them into alphabetical order and email you.’
I should have expected this but it still comes as something of a shock. My guts are churning and I wonder, too late, whether it’s all a huge mistake.
And the thing is, it’s only the beginning.
I’m driving around aimlessly, afraid to go home. Vanessa will be even more furious than the DC. My career is unlikely to survive this. To add to it, there’s a message on my mobile from Latifa.
‘I’ve been suspended. Thanks for that.’
Shit.
I find myself driving by the marae past Deborah Haruru’s old house, following that map laid out on the satnav printout. There are kids in the street, kicking footballs, jumping bikes over bumps. Kids that five years ago gave some cheek to a pakeha in a flash car. A man who returned and took one of them away. I’m doing the second circuit now, round the block. What is he looking for, what does he see?
Uncle Walter flags me down. ‘Looking for somebody? Need any help?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Just passing time.’
‘You look like you’re having a bad day.’
‘Do I?’ We say our farewells. In the rear view he watches my retreat.
Down to the marina, floating past Serenity II and its new paint job. Out on to Queen Charlotte Drive, through Linkwater towards The Grove and that stretch of Sound where Prince’s tormented body was found. I get out and stand at the water’s edge. The tide is low and herons pick at the mud. It’s still only late morning, the sun is right overhead. I turn and look at the houses. They all face the Sound. Big windows designed to bring that view home, but nobody saw a thing. Nobody saw a car pull up or a boat sail by and disgorge a small boy. Was it the wrong time of day, everybody asleep? Was it one of those cars or boats that’s invisible because they blend in to the surroundings? Rich, sleek. I turn around and head back but still can’t go home. Instead of turning right towards Havelock and Canvastown, I turn left and drift past the shoe fence. The light is fantastic. There’s no wind, just a long still line of battered and weather-worn shoes against this stunning green hill.
And a bunch of flowers where Jamie Riley was found.
Love. Always. Mum. xxx
I can’t conceive of that kind of loss. Why not? Is it worse to have your child stolen from you or to lose them to your own vanity and pride? To know that you alone are responsible, nobody else.
Back up the valley, they are waiting to find out what the hell I’ve done.
40
‘Good,’ says Vanessa.
I wasn’t expecting that. ‘So you’re not angry?’
‘Not surprised; two very different things. You were always going to do it and I was never going to be able to stop you. Blind Freddy could have seen what was going to happen. So we need to focus on the positives.’
‘Which are?’
‘You can get on with sorting out the goats and chickens.’
And here we are three days later. Fences and sheds erected, water tanks in place, a dozen pullets exploring their new surroundings, and two goats chewing on the blackberry brambles beside the compost bin. Paulie is beside himself with excitement. He got to name the goats and the result was inevitable.
‘Spongebob and Squarepants.’
‘Which is which?’ I’m infected by his grin.
‘Spongebob is the big one with the funny eye.’
He was less inventive in naming the chickens. They’re all just called ‘Chook’, except for the single noisy rooster that is named in honour of Steve. It’s a glorious day: blue sky, sun carving out the hills, the river shimmering and clear. Vanessa seems happy and, if she’s not, she’s disguising it well. The phone goes.
‘It’s for you.’ A wary look in her eyes.
Jessie James is seeking comment on a story she’s about to run. She gives me the gist: vindictive copper uses local murder tragedy to smear businessman, victims’ parents outraged and disgusted, personal dispute over logging behind it, cop tried to solicit the Journal to join campaign, likely to his lose job. Et cetera.
‘No comment.’
Back outside to my family, the sunshine, and our livestock. A bush falcon glides high along the path of the river in search of prey, catching the updrafts, playing the breeze. Our neighbour drives past in a crunch of gravel and doesn’t return my wave.
‘Who was on the phone?’
‘The Journal. It’s going to get ugly.’
‘Lunch?’ She heads back to the house and we follow. Home-baked bread, salad, and cheese are laid out on the pine kitchen table. ‘Maybe you should look for another job.’
‘I might not have any other option.’ I break some bread. ‘Any ideas?’
‘The mussel factory is always taking people on. Driving. Vineyards.’ The rooster yodels. ‘Maybe a farmer?’
‘None of that pays well or offers much security.’
‘As opposed to what you have now, you mean?’
‘Maybe we should have taken up the DC’s offer of a transfer.’
‘Too late.’ She slides more salad onto Paulie’s plate. ‘What are you hoping to achieve?’
‘Provoke a reaction, shake the tree.’
‘Hoping he’ll make a mistake?’ I nod. ‘A man who hasn’t made any so far. And if it’s the man you’re thinking of, then we’re talking about a person who has made a fortune out of being astute.’
I think about it for a moment. ‘He’s had to do a lot of track-covering the last few weeks since I
started showing interest in the Prince Haruru case.’ I list it. ‘That suggests to me that he is jumpy, that I am onto something.’
‘How does he know you’re looking at this old case?’
‘I think Des Rogers tipped him off. It would fit with the allegation that Des was covering up for him. Maybe Des thought he could make a dollar or two out of it.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘Why not?’
‘So this Des Rogers would have to have something to bargain with, otherwise your killer would just tell him to get lost.’ Vanessa starts clearing the table, putting the dishes in the sink. She lets Paulie grab a last bun. ‘You can’t just shake the tree and sit back. You’ve put everything into jeopardy. If you really feel you’re on the right track, go out and prove it.’
‘But you told me to focus on the goats and chickens.’
‘And you did. You passed the test. Good boy. Now get out of here and fight for what you believe in.’
Coming back into mobile range at Canvastown, I call Latifa, feeling guilty and responsible.
‘What do you want?’ She does a good line in coldness and distance.
‘To say sorry. What’s the reason they’ve given for your suspension?’
‘Hanging out with a fuckwit like you.’
‘That’s insubordination.’
‘So suspend me.’
‘Why, really?’
‘He reckons that by knowing what you were doing and not reporting you, I’m colluding.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Since when was life ever? Anyway I’m not a snitch. Now he’s got to find somebody to run Havelock police station for him. He’ll calm down once he realises how indispensable I am.’
‘I’ll fix it, I promise.’
‘Yeah, well.’ There’s a murmur in the background. It sounds suspiciously like Daniel the Boy Racer. ‘It has its compensations.’ A slap and a giggle. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Get them to take the accusation against McCormack seriously. Get some more proof.’
‘Maybe you should have thought of that earlier.’ I can’t fault her logic. A sharp and possibly carnal intake of breath. ‘No rush about getting me unsuspended, Sarge.’
So I’m back on that glorious drive down the coast to Kaikōura and the sea is shimmering and calm, the sand is still eerily black like the beaches used to be near the long-dead Durham coalmines, and there’s still snow on those ranges. It’s late afternoon when I get to town and I decide to grab some food first, fill in some time. It has to be nice and quiet and preferably dark before I make my next move.
Twilight cedes to night. The crime-scene tape has gone from Des Rogers’ bach and already the For Sale sign is up. There’s nobody around. I’ve parked up the street and walked the last couple of hundred metres with my holdall. It contains gloves, a crowbar, and a torch. It’s a flimsy door and only makes a slight crack under the right pressure. Inside, I close the curtains and flick on the torch. The chemical smell of a recently released crime scene mixes in with old odours of cigarettes, fried food, sweat, and a single middle-aged man on the skids. The place has been tidied up though, probably by family or friends, in preparation for sale. I just hope it hasn’t been tidied up too well.
Where to start? If Des Rogers did have a trump card then it’s likely the killer has already been through here looking for it and maybe it’s already gone. I don’t know and can only hope. In the bedroom the double bed has been made up with a new duvet cover and pillowcases, garishly bright and feminine, and not in keeping with the overwhelming sad maleness of the place. The wardrobe and drawers have been cleared out. I’m too late, I’m thinking. Way too late.
The second bedroom, smaller, has had a similar makeover job. Fresh covers on a single bed and furniture emptied. Bathroom and toilet; I check the cistern: nothing. Back to the combined kitchen, dining room, sitting room. There are books on a shelf for show. They look like a job lot from some charity shop with reading material that I would never have credited Des Rogers with: Jodie Picoult, Maeve Binchy, Di Morrissey. I pick them up and flick through but nothing falls out. On the fridge a new set of magnetised coloured letters spelling out w-e-l-c-o-m-e.
Out to the shed where Des was found hanging from the hook on the wall. There’s a suspicious dark stain on the ground. The torchlight floats around the walls, tools along one side, rusty and unused; Des would have had little interest in maintenance and odd jobs. Three removal boxes, items cleared out from the house, perhaps awaiting collection or shipping to the dump. I bring the Toyota down and load them in.
On the way out of town. I pass the public phone box a hundred metres down the street. I’m prepared to bet that’s where Des rang the number that sealed his fate. Up the coast to Seddon and pull into a motel. I need to get away from Kaikōura but don’t want to take all this stuff back to the farm. The young bloke in reception hands me a key for the last unit in the far corner and that suits me fine. I carry my boxes in from the ute, call Vanessa to tell her what I’m doing, and settle in for a long night.
The first box is full of clothes and shoes and I feel like I should be wearing protective gear before handling them. The smell is rank, many of them are unwashed. It would have been kinder to have thrown the whole lot straight onto a bonfire. The second box looks more promising: envelopes and files, bills, tax returns, receipts, bank and credit card statements, old payslips, superannuation statements, birth certificate, driver’s licence, passport. All of these in a single envelope from Kaikōura police, obviously returned after they had finished examining them. Old postcards and letters from the days when such things were still the currency of relationships. Photographs: Des on his wedding day in 1980s fashions writ large, Des in police uniform at the beginning of his career and receiving a commendation when he was possibly still a good bloke, snaps of his children, and then their children. By the time he’s a grandad he no longer appears in any more pictures with his progeny. I hope that among these papers is the key to his untimely death but it begs certain questions: if it’s here then why didn’t DI Keegan’s team find it or, for that matter, the killer? Or am I way, way too late?
The chain of events since I spoke to Des Rogers: first he is murdered, then there’s an attempt on Deborah Haruru’s life, then Kevin the blow-in skipper of Serenity I dies in a car crash, and there are mysterious break-ins at McCormack Forestry and Marlborough Tennis Club. All within a relatively short period of time. Prince Haruru is the key, the killer is tidying up loose ends from that case only it seems. With the others he has perfected his MO and left no trail. Any mistakes he made were five years ago. But what were they? The people he has killed, or tried to kill, hold the answers. Those break-ins hold the answers. It has to be McCormack, it just has to be.
The third box has more clothes, outdoor clothes, big waterproof jackets, gumboots, also toiletries, spectacles, knick-knacks, some CDs: Crowded House, Genesis, U2. Who’da thought? I flick through them, check the discs inside. Nothing from Crowded House or Genesis. Then I open up U2’s The Joshua Tree and there it is: a smaller version of a photograph I’ve seen before. A song from that CD comes to mind. ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.’
Only I have.
41
If New Zealand is God’s work, then it is unfinished. It’s still finding its shape and place in the universe. In the night in my Seddon motel room, I felt a noticeable shudder. Something has shifted. This is the Ring of Fire after all and in this sleepy little corner of a sleepy little country, the Wairau Fault connects with four others snaking from north, south, east and west into a seismic junction box known as the Marlborough Fault System, which is hard-wired for imminent disaster. According to the email briefing we received before National Earthquake Drill Day, the Wairau Fault is nearing the end of its interseismic period and the current estimated hazard is considered to be relatively high. It’s an E=mc2 kind of formula and apparently it means that sometime in the next week to two hundred years we’re doomed. That�
��s just the kind of catastrophising that really gives Vanessa the shits. She won’t let me watch the news anymore because the medieval-style slaughter around the world lodges itself behind my eyeballs and my lips purse and my mood darkens. I’d like to think it’s a saviour complex, I’m Clarice Starling and I have to save the lambs from their fate.
Vanessa sees it another way. ‘Control freak.’ But she is kind of impressed with my endeavours as I bring her up to speed on my Kaikōura trip. ‘That’s the kid there?’
‘Third from left.’ When I first saw this photo in McCormack’s foyer, I registered Denzel Haruru and McCormack himself and made the link with the crossbow attack on Charlie Evans’ alpacas. What didn’t register, because I had never heard of him at that point, was that Denzel’s cousin Prince was also in the photo. A little kid with sparks in his eyes and, by my calculation based on the date on the big cardboard cheque, only a few weeks to live. The larger version of this had been stolen in the mysterious break-in at McCormack’s office. The smaller copy of this is what got Des Rogers killed.
‘Will it be enough to tip the DC over to reconsidering?’ We’ve pulled the small table over to a sunny spot where we can drink tea and watch the chickens. Vanessa is considering buying a .22 so she can shoot stoats if they menace the coop. Talk about a Clarice Starling complex.
‘I doubt it. But I know I’m on the right track.’
‘So what now?’
I don’t know, yet. What I need is for Beth to come out of her trance and say yep, that’s the guy in the Woodbourne Tavern. I need the killer on CCTV dumping the bodies of Jamie Riley and Qadim Reza. I need to deliver McCormack on a plate if the DC is ever going to investigate his own squash partner. The newspaper arrives in the mailbox. The headline in block caps is vendetta. There’s a photo of me underneath and then the whole story as outlined by Jessie James yesterday.
‘You’ve lost weight since that was taken.’ Vanessa lays a cool hand on the back of my neck. ‘You’re in much better shape now.’
