by Alan Carter
‘Looks like we’ve found Denzel,’ says Latifa.
‘Who?’ says Traffic Man.
‘Never mind.’
We join the party. ‘Mind if we tie up here, Patrick?’ I say. ‘And we’re going to come up there so you’ll need to put the gun down.’ The chopper is audible in the distance. ‘AOS. We don’t want those blokes getting nervous do we?’
Patrick waves the barrel of his gun at the men in the boat. ‘They stay where they are.’
There’s a further explosion of curses from Uncle Walter’s crew. I turn to the man himself. ‘What’s this all about, Walter?’
‘This pervert has kidnapped my boy. He’s got him prisoner.’
‘Denzel,’ I shout. ‘Are you a prisoner?’ I don’t hear the subdued reply. ‘What?’
‘Nah, not really.’
‘See? He’s fine.’ The other men glower behind Walter. They’re good at it. ‘Let us handle this?’
Walter gives a curt nod. Patrick gives one too. I climb the steps onto the jetty and Latifa comes with me. She lifts her chin at Patrick’s gun. ‘Put that thing down, you silly old bugger.’
Pointing up at the helicopter, I ask Traffic Man to send them away. Radios. He’s good with radios. He likes that.
Patrick hasn’t put the gun down, he’s backing slowly, I fear he’ll hit a loose plank and blow us to smithereens. Latifa has pulled out her own gun. ‘Put it down, I said.’
The boys in the boat are impressed, lots of woo hoos and ‘go girl’. We need to calm things down. ‘Is Denzel okay here, Patrick?’
‘Of course he is. He was scared, needed to take time out.’ He thumbs over his shoulder. ‘Check the sleeping arrangements. My bag is outside, his in.’
‘Hear that, Walter?’ I say. ‘Nothing untoward.’
‘He’s fucken untoward.’
‘That doesn’t help at all, mate. We all need to calm down and walk away from this. Denzel’s fine, aren’t you, Denzel?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Patrick’s a mate, isn’t he, Denzel?’ He doesn’t want to reply to that but he has to. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘Sort of.’
The chopper’s not going anywhere while Patrick still has his gun levelled at me. A red laser sight dot is dancing on the side of his head. ‘You need to put that down, Patrick.’ I point skywards. ‘They’ll shoot you if you don’t.’
‘That doesn’t worry me as much as it probably should.’
The red light is just above his ear.
‘Put it down, Patrick.’ It’s Denzel, walking our way. ‘It’s alright.’ He turns to Walter. ‘He’s okay, Grandad. I just want to stay here for a while, right? I’m fine.’
Patrick lowers the gun. The red dot disappears.
‘You one of them, boy? Like him? That what you’re saying?’
‘Nah, not like him. I’m me.’
‘You’re coming home with us, boy.’
‘No, I’m not.’
Walter nods at one of the younger men beside him. ‘Go and get him.’ Patrick’s gun goes back up, and Denzel runs and retrieves his crossbow from the tent. The red dots are dancing again, one each for Patrick and Denzel.
I step between the warring parties. ‘I think that’s a no, guys.’
Walter glares at me. ‘You gonna let this happen?’
Denzel has his crossbow levelled now. ‘I’ll come home when I’m ready, Grandad. But not yet. That guy that’s doing all the killing. I’m on his list. Have to be.’
‘Auntie Beth been scaring you? Don’t listen to her stupid ghost stories.’
‘He’s real enough. Johnny knew him and now he’s dead.’
‘Denzel’s right,’ I say. ‘He is in danger and this is probably the best place for him. If he comes back home who knows what might happen? Could you live with that, Walter?’
He stands his ground.
‘You’ve already lost too much, Walter. No more, eh?’
He exchanges some words in Maori with the younger men and they cast off and chug away. Walter looks back, I guess he wants to be angry in order to keep face. But he just looks sad and a little scared.
‘What did they say?’ I ask Latifa.
She shakes her head. ‘Our business, not yours.’
With everything calmer, we sit down outside Patrick’s tent and have a nice chat.
‘Both of you: I don’t want to have to say this again. You don’t wave those weapons at people, they’re for hunting only. If I have to take them off you, I will.’ The words pass a few centimetres over their heads as I thought they might. ‘Denzel, you rang Johnny’s house. What were you after?’
‘Nuthin’. ’
‘Shania? You wanted to speak to her?’
‘Nah.’
Latifa leans in. ‘Listen, we’re trying to help you and the best way we can do that is by putting this bastard away. If you know something, tell us.’
Patrick taps him on the knee. ‘Tell them what you told me.’
Denzel looks past us into the distance. The sun is dropping and the hills are making new shadows. Dark folds, like secret places in the flesh. ‘Johnny had a second phone, for his deals and other dodgy shit. He told me the guy’s photo was on it. The one he saw in the car that day.’
‘Photo?’
‘Yeah, he’d seen him a few months back in Nelson. Took a sneaky pic so he could take it home and check. But he was sure it was him.’
‘Did he give a name?’
‘No.’
‘McCormack?’
‘He wouldn’t say. He just knew he could get a bit of money out of it.’
‘Kids are dying and he wants to make a buck?’ Latifa is disgusted. Denzel nods. ‘That’s what I told him, but Johnny’s been a piece of shit from way back.’
‘What makes you think the phone is still available? That it hasn’t been found and destroyed?’
‘I rang it a couple of days ago and it just kept on ringing. If it was destroyed you wouldn’t get that, would you?’ He frowns. ‘Besides, if this psycho dude didn’t know his picture had been taken how would he know what he was looking for?’
Des Rogers, I’m thinking. Johnny talks to Des, the money man and go-between and probable partner in blackmail. Des tells the killer and brags about the proof he has in order to up the ante and the price.
‘The killer didn’t know who took, or had, the photo?’
‘Dunno. Johnny just got his cut off the cop, Rogers.’
And once Rogers had been dispatched and the killer scrolled through his mobile he knew to come looking for Johnny. No more blackmail, no more payouts, no more loose ends. But that now begs a new question. If the killer is McCormack, why would he worry about somebody having his photo? He’s in the newspaper every other week. Such a photo would only be of concern to someone who shuns the limelight.
46
At the end of yesterday I shared my new theory with DI Keegan. ‘It’s exasperating, you’re exasperating,’ she tells me. She’s only just got used to the idea that we should be nailing McCormack to a tree and now I’m telling her to save her nails. But I can tell she’s not that exasperated, she just likes giving me a hard time.
‘As it happens, it’s a fluid situation,’ she says. ‘Other candidates are emerging.’
Over breakfast of some of the nine eggs we got this morning – ‘Count ’em, Dad, count ’em,’ – I tell Vanessa I’m spending the day with DI Keegan. She gives no outward signs of discomfort but that’s just like her, I’ll probably cop it later. Instead she sends me on my way with a peck on the cheek and a snort when my back is turned. McCormack and his operations manager, Feargal Donnelly, are up for re-interview today and I’m able to watch over the video link from the adjacent room. While waiting, I pore over the DVDs and transcripts of yesterday’s re-interviews with Brian Wheeler from marketing and James Onslow, the R&D guru. For blokes working in go-getter fields, they have to be the dullest men on God’s earth. When pushed, it emerges that Brian has a secret vice: he’s a twitcher. He loves bi
rds and he can impersonate them quite well, although I do take issue with his tui. It’s not that he deliberately flouts the car log booking rules, it’s just that he’s too excited about what he does in the company car out of hours to remember such trivialities.
James on the other hand seems dangerously dull to the point of coldness and I’m guessing a touch of Asperger’s. He’s the kind of bloke who invents those logging machines that grab a tree by its throat and chop it off at the knees in one clean movement: the transformer from hell. But is he killer-cold, or just wired differently? Like Brian from marketing, he’s single at an age where it raises suspicions and it certainly doesn’t help when you’re grasping for alibis – then again you could say that about half the blokes who live up the valley. But within the transcripts there’s nothing I can point to except that Brian probably should be kicked loose to follow the birds and James needs careful watching, whether he’s our killer or not.
Now for today’s live action: enter Feargal Donnelly, operations and logistics, plus his lawyer, some bloke from Nelson I’ve never seen before. Donnelly’s about forty and loosely fits the vague physical descriptions we have so far of a man of above average height and slim build with a pale complexion and short fairish hair. I recall our excuse-me-you-first dance in McCormack Forestry reception as I stormed out of the building after one of my run-ins with Dickie. He’s a real Irish charmer full of twinkle and mirth and craic. He’s flirting with DI Keegan and she’s responding with a shy smile: either she’s not immune to it or she intends to do him slowly. They talk about the weather, he picks up on her accent and asks whether she follows Liverpool or Everton. The latter apparently. They go through his previous interview and his whereabouts on the days and times in question. It’s not easy going back five years, so the focus is on more recent events like the night before Jamie Riley was found by the shoe fence.
‘So you were working until,’ she checks the transcript, ‘around six?’
‘Aye.’
‘And then you went to Countdown on Waimea Road in Stoke, bought some groceries, took them to your home in Richmond, not far from the pool, and made dinner for yourself and your wife …’
‘Fiancée. Megan.’
‘Who was on a late shift at Nelson Hospital until …’
‘Eleven-ish.’
‘That’s right.’ The file again. ‘And you used one of the company BMWs for the shopping excursion?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re not in the log.’
‘Nobody bothers with that. Dickie is cool about these things.’
‘Mr McCormack?’
‘Yes.’
‘There are two BMWs. Which one did you have?’
‘The white one.’
‘They both are.’
He shrugs. ‘Can’t remember the rego number, I just took the keys off the peg, pressed the button and jumped in the one that flashed.’
Keegan reads out a plate number. ‘It must have been that one because someone else had the other BMW then.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘And the satnav for that car confirms you were in the supermarket you mention at that time, as does their CCTV.’
‘Well there you go.’
‘And then there’s no satnav record for the next twelve hours. It’s turned off and the chip and battery removed.’ Bingo, I’m thinking. The emerging candidate Marianne mentioned.
‘Really?’ He does a good impression of bewilderment.
‘Why did you do that, Mr Donnelly?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Your fiancée, Megan, didn’t get home until just after midnight, did she?’
‘Was it? I lost track of time, fell asleep in front of the idiot box then took myself to bed. Left her dinner in the fridge.’
‘You were there when she got home around twelve-fifteen?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where were you between six-forty three when, according to the satnav, you arrived home and the time when Megan got back from work? Approximately five and a half hours.’
He’s getting agitated. ‘Like I said, home and telly.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So nobody can vouch for you?’
‘No. But …’
‘What were you watching?’
‘Netflix. House of Cards.’
Keegan pushes the CCTV photo from the marina across the desk. ‘That’s the car there, the one you say you were using.’ She stabs the photo with her finger. ‘And that’s you with the big heavy bag isn’t it?’
‘No way.’
‘This photo is taken at Havelock Marina at 8.03 pm. Ample time for you to get there from Nelson. It’s what, a sixty-minute drive at most? The weather and roads were good that night so probably nearer forty-five.’
‘Other people have keys to that car.’
‘Who?’
‘Dickie. He has a spare set.’
‘So you’re saying Mr McCormack took the car from outside your house for a few hours and then returned it?’
‘Why not?’
‘And fiddled with the satnav to incriminate you?’
He rubs his forehead, he wants all of this to go away. ‘Again, yes, why not?’
And that’s the crux of the matter. More proof is required to nail it but there’s enough to do a formal arrest and a taking of DNA and other samples, as we have already done with McCormack. Feargal will be put into the cells and brought before a magistrate at the earliest convenience, probably tomorrow, so he can be held in custody for longer. His home and office now become secondary crime scenes and forensics will be all over them. Maybe Beth Haruru will pick him as the man in the Woodbourne Tavern that night. Maybe Denzel will remember him driving by the marae. Maybe we’ll find phone and internet links between him and Des Rogers. Maybe we’ll locate Johnny Fernandez’s second drug-dealing phone, and Feargal’s photo will be on it. Donnelly is led away for processing. He’ll be put into a paper suit so we can also test the clothes he’s wearing. The twinkle and the craic have evaporated.
‘So, McCormack’s up next. Is he off the hook now?’
Keegan is flushed. She’s close to a result. ‘He’s due in this afternoon. I don’t see any harm in keeping the appointment unless Feargal confesses in the next hour or two.’
I’m a bit disappointed. Was that it? So soon, so easy?
To kill time before McCormack’s interview I head down the road to a cafe and grab a sausage roll and a coffee. The investigation feels like it’s once again out of my hands and DI Keegan well and truly has the initiative. A man not on my radar, Feargal Donnelly, is in the frame and it’s shaping up well. I can just sit back and let DI Keegan wrap up the case, then it’s so long Marianne. So why do I feel cheated? Vanessa would provide the answer instantly: control freak. There’s a text on my phone from the DC telling me my disciplinary hearing is tomorrow morning, here, at ten. And I haven’t organised the union lawyer. I give her a call and she’s pissed off at the short notice, it’s not like she hasn’t got enough on her plate with all the hundreds of other errant Tasman District officers trying to wriggle out of trouble, but she’ll see me half an hour before the hearing and we’ll take it from there. They do good sausage rolls here, huge chunky things that these days would probably be called artisan by some, and lethal by others. I slap on some tomato sauce and go for my life.
There’s a familiar face at the cafe window; a familiar face with an unfamiliar expression. It’s Sebastian Ryan, McCormack’s company lawyer, and he’s smiling and looking friendly. He’s coming inside.
‘I thought it was you.’
‘You were right.’
He puts his hands up in mock surrender. ‘How about a fresh start? I know I rub people up the wrong way. I blame my parents. I sometimes come across as …’
‘A smug snooty prick?’
He laughs. ‘Possibly. Look, I’d be lying if I said this was an accident. And I don’t expect you to believe for one
moment that I’m suddenly Mr Nice Guy.’
‘No danger there.’ What does he want? The answer’s no, let me eat my sausage roll in peace. Get lost.
‘It’s Richard.’
‘Dickie?’ I say, through an open mouthful of food, being deliberately gross.
‘He’s under a lot of pressure. I don’t know whether you’re aware, but McCormack Forestry is up for a public flotation next month and it’s not going as well as planned.’
‘Logging not what it’s cracked up to be?’
He hides his irritability well. He’s really trying. ‘This investigation business.’
‘The child murders?’ A flinch. Must I be so blunt when we’re talking about the poor man’s profit margin? ‘What about it?’
‘Richard has been over-stressed of late. Between you and me …’ Suddenly he’s confiding in me. ‘Richard’s judgement has been a bit off …’
‘Target?’
‘Exactly. He realises he should have kept a tighter rein on the car log. And now that Feargal’s in trouble.’
‘News travels fast.’
‘His solicitor called me. They’re bringing in the big guns, so I’m assuming the worst.’
‘Good idea,’ I say.
He nods grimly. ‘Anyway, my focus is on making life easier for Richard. So I’d like to know what we can do to assist your inquiry, and perhaps redeem the McCormack brand a little?’
I look at him like he’s nuts, in fact I’m aiming for the shit-on-the-shoe look that his social class do really well. The server brings over my bill and Ryan intercepts it and hands him a twenty dollar note.
‘Allow me,’ he says. ‘My treat.’
I recount my Ryan conversation to DI Keegan.
‘Redeem the McCormack brand?’
‘Yeah, that’s what he said.’
‘Tosser. How does he propose to assist our inquiry?’ The last few words with finger quotes. ‘Like it’s a grace and favour he dispenses rather than our fucking job to do as we see fit.’ Marianne’s childhood Liverpudlian accent strengthens the angrier she gets. Class war can do that for you. It’s a magical thing to be cherished and held close.
