by Finn Bell
Simultaneously John slips out from behind Tui, laying one hand on his shoulder and pressing his Taser against the centre of Tui’s back.
And to his credit, good, kind, Hot-Water Tui doesn’t even look surprised.
He just calmly looks around, that same, familiar, friendly smile on his face as he shrugs his stooped old shoulders and drops the scalpel to the floor.
Before it even hits the ground the door flies open and more police storm in and Tui’s short, skinny frame is dwarfed by several burly cops. He’s very quickly and efficiently seized, cuffed, and down on the floor, where he’s very thoroughly searched.
Even the bandage on his leg where his gunshot wound is, is pulled aside.
Not that there is much point as, aside from the scalpel he had in his hand, he is, like me, dressed in only a hospital gown.
After the police have lifted him back up to his feet, he’s pushed down in a chair and then actually cuffed to that as well. It’s only now that the police actually take their hands off him. Then most of them quickly retreat, and it’s just the twins flanking Tui and me.
Tui is the first to break the silence.
“How’d you know, then?” Tui asks me in a conversational, almost jovial tone of voice that just sounds way too normal for these circumstances. No fear. No anger. But then he really wouldn’t feel them. He’s never felt them.
And I finally, finally exhale completely.
Now it’s over.
Done.
All of it.
* * *
After Brumhilda left, I told the twins about everything. I told them about Tui.
Together we’d called Father Ress for advice, and he had suggested this entire scheme.
He’d told us earlier today, “When he’s captured, it is vital that you stay there, Finn. He may, depending on whether killing you is linked to his ritual, be quite affected. He will either want to say nothing at all or be quite talkative. That doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily want to tell the truth. But ritual or not, either way, killing is still killing. And we will have interrupted him. There will be an unfulfilled, incomplete sexual need for him. And the target of that tension will still be you. There will be a lingering intimacy for him. While the arousal lasts, he will feel close to you. And if we’re lucky, it will make him want to talk to you. To tell you the truth. And you just be honest, be real. He’s smarter than you. His brain is wired in ways to sense emotions that ours aren’t. You can’t lie to him or try to manipulate him. If he senses that, the magic will be broken. Just keep him talking.”
“Honestly, Tui, I didn’t know, not at all,” I answer, sighing, staring at him sitting there. I still can’t believe he looks like everyone else, just a normal person.
Someone good, someone I thought was better than me.
“I think I only figured it out in this hospital bed. When I realised what the Zoyls were doing out there, that they were human traffickers, slavers. I knew then that they didn’t take Alice, and they didn’t leave that bone out there six weeks later. It would make no sense. I wouldn’t put it beyond them to kill her if she had accidently found out what they were doing out there, but that would be to keep their secret. Why then go and leave her pubic bone out there weeks after? That would just create too much attention for them. And why take a young girl from right next door to where they live? Why risk it? They had a steady stream of people coming through that farm they could do whatever they wanted with, and nobody would ever know. But you knew, didn’t you?” I ask.
“Yeah, I knew. Found out years ago when old man Zoyl and his brother and wife were still alive. Darrell was still just a baby. I wasn’t much more than a boy myself back then. I hid in the bushes. I saw them herd these women off the boat at that mooring they have out there. All hooded and tied together in a row,” Tui says, smiling, looking down. And I realise he’s reminiscing, that this is a fond memory for him.
“I could never really get too close. They always kept a watch out when they had people there,” Tui says with a shake of the head. “It was hard for a young lad, knowing they had all of them in there but not daring to go in. Sometimes I could hear them, screaming and crying sometimes and it all sounded so good, but I had to be careful with the Zoyls,” he adds.
“So you figured it wasn’t the Zoyls. But how’d you know it was me?” Tui then asks in that same, curious, detached tone.
“I didn’t really know until I saw you coming for me before,” I answer, surprised at how calm I still sound. “Like I said, once I knew what the Zoyls actually really were, I had to reconsider everything that happened. Immediately a lot of things didn’t make sense. Why would the Zoyls do them? They didn’t want any attention. And . . . honestly, I was too scared of them. Paranoid. I thought they had to be behind everything. That they knew everything. But they were just people,” I say.
And I think that’s what makes it so much worse. Tui is clearly insane. His mind doesn’t work like ours but the Zoyls, they’re just people, normal on the inside, and they did these same things. Tui’s just sick, but to be really evil, you have to be sane.
“And then I thought well, if it now really wasn’t the Zoyls, then who? First off, it had to be someone older. Because we’re talking about someone who at least started doing things back in 1988 and was still around now. That cut out a lot of people. And I reckoned it had to be someone who knew me and knew the Zoyls. But more than that, they had to know who I was talking to and what about. So someone close, someone connected to all of us. And now we were down to only a few. And I realised it had to be someone who knew what the Zoyls really did out there all along. That’s why they took Alice. That’s why they left that bone out there. Because they knew suspicion would fall on the Zoyls, maybe even wanted them to get caught. It would have been perfect. Nobody would believe the Zoyls didn’t kill Alice if they found out what was happening out on that farm,” I say.
“Cor, that’s good, that,” Tui says, nodding happily to the twins. Then Tui looks back at me encouragingly and I think, just keep the conversation going.
“And then I thought there had to be a way for the Zoyls to find things out too. They mostly kept to themselves out on that farm. We met a few times, but that was it. How did they know who I was talking to? How did they know what I had found out? Why did they come to search my house that night? Because somebody had been telling them things. Maybe not everything, but little bits, enough to make them suspicious of me. And I know you go out there for your job,” I say. Tui actually gives a little laugh at hearing this.
“And then I thought about the things that had happened to me. And I can only really say with certainty that the Zoyls were in my house once, searching it when they thought I wasn’t home. But killing my cats, in broad daylight, that’s risky. The person who did that had to know where I was and for how long. And if you’re trying to keep a secret and avoid attention, why do that at all? But you knew where I was going. You suggested I meet with Albie, and he told me you guys had spoken. And you know me. You knew killing those cats would only make me more obsessed with the Zoyls. It was you who actually first told me about the Zoyls in the first place. And, even though I refused to believe it at the time, the Zoyls really were out at sea that night. You burned my house down. And it didn’t matter if I died or not, because by then all the attention was already back on the Zoyls. The police were involved again. You were invisible. It was just like before.
“But then things went wrong. I found out about the try pot and I went out to that farm just like you thought I would, but then I didn’t die.”
“Nah, you didn’t, and good on you, Finn,” Tui says with sincerity.
“Was that the plan? Follow me in, wait for them to kill me, and then kill them and be the hero?” I ask.
But Tui doesn’t answer, he just smiles at me, so I press on.
“And if all of this is true, it meant you knew about what happened to James. You knew about the try pot. Now, it’s possible that you were out there anyway and just chanced on
seeing what happened that night back in 1989, but I don’t think so. I think you did the same with James as you did with me. Told him little things. A little push here and there. And when he went out there that night, you followed him. And you saw it all. I think the plan with James has always been the same. Like with Alice, like with me; you wanted the Zoyls to be found out. But they were so clever. They actually got away with killing James.
“But then you did something strange, something I don’t understand. Instead of just watching it all play out, you came out of hiding. You helped me in that bush. You were there right next to me. Why?”
“Nah, I wasn’t helping you, Finn,” Tui answers with a smile. “I knew where the Zoyls kept their gas tanks in that shed, and when Archie was walking by it, I just couldn’t resist,” he says with a shrug.
“And you saw him. He was in pieces and still alive,” Tui says with big eyes and excitement in his voice. “That was a beautiful thing. That was holy,” he adds, nodding emphatically.
“I actually came to you to make sure. I came to kill you. You were in pretty bad shape already. I reckoned a few quick slices with the knife would do it. Then I could get on to Sean. Time was running out, and I knew the police would show up at some point. But then I saw Sean coming out with that diesel truck and I thought no, burning is better. I knew I was pushing it for time, but to see you go that way would be so good, so good,” Tui states calmly. “And then that police helicopter shows up and Sean runs off. And I had a time of it catching up to that boy. I’m not a young man anymore, you know. But I got him. He’s a good shot, too. Got me bang in the leg,” Tui adds, pointing down at his bandage.
“And then you learned that I’d survived and I’m right here in the same hospital. But thankfully I hadn’t woken up, hadn’t told anybody anything yet. But you were yourself wounded. And there were all these people by my bedside. I was never alone. Day or night. So you had to wait. And tonight was your first chance to kill me before I could think further than the Zoyls and point the finger at you,” I say.
“I didn’t think you were that clever at first, Finn. But you kept going and going. And then you didn’t die. Lucky. Stubborn. I knew you’d figure it out,” Tui says with a shrug.
“What I don’t get is why now? You knew all these things about the Zoyls all this time. Why only start all this up now? You could have tipped off the police about the try pot years ago,” I say.
“Nah that would be no good, just no good. The police would just take them away. Nobody would die. I wanted to wait. Look at everything that happened with Alice, with James, and with you. Look at what it’s done to Emily and Pruitt for years. And now this, all three brothers in one day. It’s been so good. I wanted to wait so it could be done right, and it’s been good, even without having you, too,” Tui says, then adds, “Besides, I’ve had enough over the years. It’s been a good old life.”
And something about the way he says it makes me ask: “What do you mean?”
“Prostate cancer. It’s already spread. They told me I only have a few months left now. So I thought better to finish this one now while I still can,” he answers easily, sounding as unconcerned about his own life as everyone else’s.
And then, because it’s the very last and only thing I ever want to know from him I ask:
“Where’s Alice?”
“Alice is in the sea,” he answers, as a final stubborn splinter of hope aches itself away inside me.
“She was a sweet one. Strong, too. So much hope in her. I tried to be careful when I took out that bone but she bled out. I took her out and put her in an oil drum and sank her out in the deep waters. I put flowers in with her too. She was special, she deserved that,” Tui says.
CHAPTER 46
In the predictable media furore that followed, some parts of the truth got out and some didn’t.
For a while our quiet little town at the bottom of the world was the centre of everyone’s attention. I tried my best to hide away from it all, but the press still found me.
Thankfully, when they did mention me, it was mostly as a “survivor of” or “another potential victim”. Some people forgot and some people didn’t, but eventually the world lost interest in us and moved on.
Tui died four months later in custody, still awaiting trial. I never saw him again.
But before he did, he told the police many things. I think he was proud.
They were searching and digging for months, and the body count just kept climbing. What they found was bad and it got worse. Until finally not even the twins wanted to tell me anymore.
As Tui used to say, he made the best of things.
The investigation into the Zoyls is still ongoing. Interpol and multi-agency cooperation.
The last I heard about it, they were making arrests in the Philippines.
Honestly, I didn’t want to know anymore.
Pruitt recovered.
Maybe it was the heart attack, maybe it was because it was finally all over, but he quit smoking and drinking and eating like that and lost a heap of weight. Goes to Zumba with his wife now.
He also had a change of heart and published the whole story in the Western Star one last time.
From 1988 to now, all of it.
The court seized the Zoyl farm and it was given back to the Māori. They went out there, straight from court, on the same day, and flattened it all. Later they turned it all back to bush and left it. There’s nothing out there now. Feels right.
I still owned the land my cottage used to stand on.
But I didn’t want to go back out there, and it felt wrong selling it. Then Tai’s daughters came up with an idea. At first I thought it would be too hard, but it turned out to be easy because I had friends.
My people helped me.
So if you ever make it all the way out to New Zealand, when you get here, go south.
Keep going till you get to the bottom of the South Island, to a town they call “the last town down.”
And there, ask to know the way to Smuggler’s Cottage, the last cottage at the end of the world, beyond the last town down.
If they don’t know of it, be glad.
Instead, ask for directions out to Albie’s Museum.
Once you’re on the road, keep an eye out for a sign that reads “Cotter’s Park.”
If you stop there, you may think it strange to find a children’s playground out there in the wild.
And if it happens to be a Sunday and the weather is clear, more often than not, you’ll find an old man and woman out there.
A brother and sister.
If you ask her who she is and what she’s doing there, she’ll say her name is Emily and that she’s visiting her daughter.
And she’ll smile.
Because she isn’t afraid anymore.
THE END.
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About the Author
Finn Bell lives in the far south of New Zealand where he writes full time. To find out more about him or his books visit www.finnbellbooks.com.
SLIGHTLY BIASED MOSTLY TRUE THINGS . . .
Alice’s Cake Tin
I’m happy to say that the “Newdick’s Parachuting Santa” cake tin is in fact real (and proof that there really is such a thing as more innocent times). Sadly, Newdick itself is no more. They were a locally owned New Zealand business specialising in baked goods operating between the 1920s and 1950s. Very occasionally, some of their whimsical, surviving tins still get bought and sold. I’m reliably informed the last instance was on eBay in the UK back in 2007. I’d love to know the story behind how it got there and survived all this time, and to know all the things that have been kept in it over the years.
Bees
Can bees actually smell fear (or rather our physiological reaction to the experience of fear)? Or somehow sense and respond to the internal mood, disposition, or intention of humans and
other animals? The definitive answer research offers us is clear: Kind of. Maybe. Umm.
To aid matters, science has obliged us with several conflicting views. Even a brief Internet search on the matter may leave you clogged full of fun terms like Pheromone Signature, Choreographed Pattern Triangulation, and (my favourite) Quantum Level Response. But if you talk to beekeepers, many of them will tell you things about bees and how they respond to people that will make you wonder. While you’re doing it, listen to how those people talk about bees. Often it’s not like they are talking about hundreds or even thousands of tiny insects, but rather like the swarm itself, as a whole, is like another, single person to them. Maybe they’re on to something. I hope so.
Benin
Benin does have the highest recorded twin birth rate of any country in the world. Again, estimates vary. The highest I’ve found says 30 per 1,000 births in Benin are twins. This does mean that you can actually end up having some fairly strange déjà vu-like experiences in Porto Novo.
Bible Leaves
Most things stated about the history and practices of whaling are true. Whale oil was made from blubber, which was cut away from the whale carcass in a process called flensing. These thin, large strips of blubber were called “bible leaves” by some whalers. It is said because they resembled the very thin, fragile, large sheets of Bibles from the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. I think maybe they named things to try and normalise it all. I think killing changes you, no matter what you tell yourself.
Cannibalism in Pigs
Cannibalism in pigs is possible, and sadly, has become more common than it ought to be. With the onset of high intensity farming practices around the world, there has been an increase in known cases. Even more macabre is that it will most commonly occur when piglets, or gilts, are grouped together in overcrowded conditions in factory farms. The phenomenon is not well understood, although some believe it to be a response partially to stress. There is an implied parallel with human beings, as there is mounting evidence that general population density (especially in urban areas) is correlated with an increase in the occurrence of psycho- and sociopathy. Maybe nature is trying to tell us something. If you’re wondering if pigs could eat a whole person in a matter of seconds. Yes. They can.
