Then she was in the passageway to the garage. The door seemed so far away, as if she were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope.
The walls began to close in and the floor felt as if it was shifting under her. Carla lurched forward, her movements clumsy and uncoordinated.
In front of the panelled door she paused, swaying unsteadily, then slowly she lowered the cold brass handle.
The door sighed open and a hot, meaty cocktail of pesticide, lawnmower fuel, and old blood winded her.
The refrigerator door stood ajar. For a moment, this irritated her. In the ordinariness of life, it should have been shut. Then she saw the dented beer can lying unopened on the ground, and the bloodied shovel.
Her eyes crept warily along the concrete and stopped.
Carla stared blankly at first, caught in that brief hiatus like when sliced skin has just been parted. Then, as a new wound colours red and the nerve receptors resound, so comprehension dawned.
Rebecca caught up with her. ‘Oh God, no!’ she cried out, bringing a trembling hand to her face.
Alien noises bubbled out of Carla’s mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut, but in vain. The snapshot had already been taken and would be the screen saver of her life from this moment on.
Carla crumpled in a heap beside her child, sucking in air with whooping gasps. Then she lifted Jack’s head onto her lap and with the corner of her skirt, began to wipe clean his face with meticulous maternal detail – his neck, his ears, his forehead. ‘It’s all right, my boy. I’m here. It’s alright.’
Rebecca turned and ran from the room, the sound of her retching mingling with the wail of approaching sirens.
Chapter Five
CARLA
‘Jack needs me,’ Carla screamed, fighting to free herself from the ambulance officer’s grip. ‘I won’t leave him. Don’t!’
‘Mrs Reid, we need to get you and your husband to hospital. I understand how you feel,’ the young man tried.
‘No, you don’t. Can’t … possibly.’
A siren severed the fracas, whirring in the background as an ambulance with Kevin on board retreated down the driveway.
‘Carla, love, come now,’ Rebecca said, taking Carla’s hand and caressing it. ‘We need to get you medical attention as soon as possible. Here, the blanket is sliding off you. You’re shaking. Lie back.’
‘But Jack. What about Jack?’
‘I know.’ Rebecca’s voice shuddered. ‘But they’ve sealed the scene. None of us can go back in. I’m so sorry.’
Carla sank back on the gurney and the paramedic secured a broad leather strap across her legs.
Another thought swam into her consciousness. She sat up. ‘The cows. Who’s going to milk the—?’
‘Rangi will sort everything. Now just you lie down. Come on, love.’
Carla gave over to Rebecca stroking her hair. The ambulance officer shot Rebecca a grateful glance.
‘Becks, my mouth. It’s so dry.’
‘I’ll see if—’
‘She can’t be having anything to drink,’ said an apparition in a blue boiler suit, as he glided past them. ‘Not till they’ve taken swabs.’
The driveway was jammed with unfamiliar traffic – vehicles crammed onto the front lawn, and people fluorescing in uniforms Carla had only ever seen on television. Cameras flashed, dogs barked, and emergency lights revolved. A white van was trying to reverse, the large satellite dish on its roof breaking a branch of the ash tree as it lurched backwards.
Rebecca climbed into the back of the ambulance with Carla. Someone closed one of the doors. Carla lifted her head and looked through the remaining rectangle of light. A band of red and white plastic – Police Emergency, Police Emergency, Police Emergency – barred her from her home. She closed her eyes. A paramedic was crouching beside her, taking her pulse. His gloved hand felt peculiar. It reminded her of the game ‘Dead Man’s Skin’ they used to play as kids, holding two forefingers together in a steeple while someone rubbed their own fingers over it.
She heard a voice rising above the noise of the idling engine and howling siren. The ambulance door banged and a shadow swept over Carla. She opened her eyes.
A large man in a blue uniform was sitting down on the stretcher opposite, his frame dwarfing Rebecca. His eyes met Carla’s – speckled grey eyes that sloped away under heavy folds of lid. His charcoal hair looked recently cropped, the blunt bristles not yet mellowed into shape, and his jaw showed the shadow of a day’s growth. Already wide across the shoulders, he was further bulked out by a bulletproof vest. His hands were big and each nail ended bluntly in a straight white line.
‘Mrs Reid, I’m Detective Inspector Steve Herbert.’ His solid voice promised safety. He placed a hand on her bare arm. It was warm. ‘I’m very sorry.’
He would be heading the investigation, he told her. Working round the clock to catch the killers – the people who had invaded her home, her life, her body.
And so the wheel of justice creaked, groaned, and began to turn.
As they made their way through the dawn to North Shore Hospital, Carla tried to answer as best she could Detective Inspector Herbert’s careful questions. Already blank spaces censored her memory. Like a schoolchild sitting her first exam, every answer seemed so important. As if Jack’s very survival depended on her accuracy.
But Jack was dead. Nothing could bring him back. Dead was for ever.
Her arrival at hospital brought more people, more questions, and more people – house surgeons, registrars, nurses, forensics, victim support – a blur of uniform and process. And through it all, DI Steve Herbert was there in the background, a quiet reassuring presence.
Carla lost track of time. Windowless fluorescent light replaced the flux of day and night, sunshine and shadow. After what felt like an eternity, she was transferred from the Emergency Department to a single room, where she was left alone with Rebecca. Mercifully, Rebecca didn’t talk, but instead just stroked her head till Carla finally drifted into a murky sleep.
‘Mrs Reid?’
Carla sat up robotically. Her tongue was thick, her mind furry with sleep.
A tiny grey-haired woman with an impish haircut had slipped into the room. ‘Mrs Reid, my name is Kathryn Pepper.’ She set down a large black bag. ‘I’m a doctor with DSAC. Doctors for Sexual Abuse Care,’ she said gently.
She had very blue eyes, pinched-pink cheeks, and a Scottish accent that softened the angles of her words.
‘I understand that you endured a terrible experience last night. Nobody should have to go through what you have. I am so very sorry.’
Carla felt the sting of tears. Sparse and thin they trickled down her cheeks.
‘I’m here to gather as much evidence as I can against those who’ve done this to you. I know it must be the last thing you feel like, but it really is very important.’
Carla nodded.
‘Would you like your friend to stay?’
Carla grabbed Rebecca’s hand in affirmation.
Doctor Pepper carefully explained each step of the procedure, and then Carla submitted to the examination, her inelastic and bruised tissues once more assailed.
‘That’s everything I need,’ the doctor finally said, meticulously sealing and labelling the last of several plastic bags. ‘You have tranquillisers, antibiotics and painkillers charted. We can give you a sedative now.’
Tranquillisers? Sedatives? Carla had scarcely swallowed a tablet in her life. ‘My husband,’ she said. ‘Nobody can tell me. Is he all right? The nurse, I think she was a nurse, promised to find out ages ago.’
‘I’ll go and see,’ Rebecca proffered, quickly escaping from the room.
Chapter Six
BEN
Ghetto-star rollin, high on ice and shine; put a bullet in your back you cross my nigga line.
The words jettisoned out of the ghetto blaster and slammed into the walls of the bridge before escaping into the night to blend with the drone of traffic overhead.
The six of them sat huddled around the radio. The smell of rotting rubbish mingled with the sweet, marijuana air.
‘Fuck off, Ben, if you can’t hack it,’ Tate said, spraying spittle over him. ‘You just a wannabe or what?’
Ben wiped his cheek with his sleeve. He hated that word ‘wannabe’. It drove straight through him like the shame he felt after the hidings Ryan, his mum’s partner, dished out, bruising Ben’s body, but mostly his mind. Ben was staunch. He had cred.
‘TT, I’m just telling you what’s going down, man. My auntie says—’
‘I don’t give a shit what your auntie says. Fuckin’ motherfucker.’
That’s why Tate was leader. He’d been born with metal running through his veins like the wires in a fuse box.
‘The shit’s swarming all over the hood. I saw a cop car this morning in our street, bro.’ Ben couldn’t help himself. Words just kept spilling out of his mouth, his bravado leaking like water through a sieve. He hated himself for his weakness.
Pumped and on point, and glock-shit-real; might roll in a grave, won’t never be your slave.
Tate straightened, his body thrusting forward in rhythm to the mantra. ‘If we go down, it’s cool, man. Cool. My badge of glory,’ he said, baring his teeth and picking at a piece of food stuck there. ‘Now pass the joint and shut up about the pigs. You been broken-arse ever since the one-eight-seven. It’s gettin’ on my wick.’
The others were looking at Ben with contempt in their eyes. It was okay for them to be cocky. The police weren’t hunting them. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. Ben had done the farmhouse job to gain respect, move up the ranks. But things had spun out of control. He hadn’t reckoned on them wasting anyone. The initial buzz of being part of something real was evaporating as fast as weed. ‘Whatever.’
Suddenly Tate lunged forward and flicked off the stereo and torchlight, extinguishing the graffitied hideout.
‘What the—?’
‘Shut it,’ Tate said, making a slicing motion across his neck.
Ben tossed off his hoodie and tilted his head, tuning in to the noises of the night. Lewis sniffed; his nose was always dripping. Simi rubbed his fingers together, the dull chafe of skin on skin. Then they heard it, the beat of bass intermingled with voices. Clods of air moved down Ben’s throat.
‘It’s the GDBs,’ someone hissed.
A bottle whistled through the blackness and exploded on a concrete pipe behind them. Guffaws and high-pitched shrieks, then another random missile.
Ben felt the glass spray over his back like a passing shower. He didn’t budge. None of them did, their eyes fixed on Tate, waiting for the command. Waiting.
None came.
No action.
The voices crossed over the bridge and faded. Ben breathed out.
Simi jumped up. ‘Let’s show them what’s bloody what!’ he said, wielding a razor blade, his voice caught between man and kid. ‘Time to dust them up’
‘Yo, Simi. Cool it,’ Tate cautioned, flicking on his torch and shining it into each of their faces like a searchlight seeking out the enemy. ‘We’ll tag the highway when the time is right. That’s gonna be our turf. We gonna own those motherfuckers.’
As Tate pumped the air with his torch, the light bounced around their lair, lighting up snapshots of concrete, mob messages, and a large cave weta clinging upside down to the dank roof. Tate gave a throaty laugh. Then they were punching the darkness with their fists, the echo of laughter swelling their numbers.
‘Hey cuz, where’d you get ya mean shiner?’
Ben patched his eye with his hand. ‘A hidin’ from Ryan,’ he said after a long pause, his voice robbed of power. ‘Got in the way when the dude was dealing to my mother, didn’t I?’
‘Cunt probably deserved it,’ Simi goaded.
Ben leapt up and grabbed the kid by the throat. ‘Don’t ever diss my mother. You hear me, or I’ll waste you, man. I swear I’ll waste you.’
Simi pushed him back into the wall. ‘Whoa! Cool it. Just joking, bro. You’re all wound up after your big night out with TT.’
‘I’m warning you—’
‘See what I scored today,’ Tate said, cutting into the aggro. He was holding up a white plastic packet. ‘Matte fuckin’ silver,’ he gloated, pulling out the spray can and shaking it like some barman mixing cocktails.
When it was Ben’s turn, he sprayed the stuff into the bag, bunched it round his mouth and nose, and inhaled deeply. Then the chemicals were working their magic, wiping away the white boy crumpling under the shovel, the woman screaming as TT dealt to her, the old man writhing on the floor like an insect on its back.
It was soothing, numbing, cooling. Ben was cruising, wasted, joining his mates with their sticky silver lipstick – aliens high on matte silver.
Beyond
I watch and I weep. You have diminished the mana gifted by your ancestors of the great river, by your forefathers on that first ‘great fleet’ of canoes. You have brought shame on te tangata whenua, on your hapu, your whānau, your iwi.
But what do you even know of such words – of kinship, clan, family ties and tribe? You cannot speak te reo Māori, the language that guards your history, that recorded your past. Your roots have long since been severed. Like tumbleweed tossed at the whim of every passing breeze, you roll free of tie and connection, free of community.
I am not far from you, yet you cannot hear my lamentations, nor my karakia. So should I cease my praying and turn my back on you? You are not the first to bring dishonour to our people. You will not be the last.
No, I stay. For now. You see, this story, your story, goes back further than you.
Chapter Seven
CARLA
It was hot and stuffy in the packed church. Two circles of perspiration were spreading out under the organist’s arms. She shifted on her seat and stretched out her legs to reach the pedals, puffy red flesh spilling out over her sandals like proving bread dough. The congregation stood.
Carla stared at the order of service. The pixelated image of her son looked back at her: languid brown eyes, disobedient hair, the thread of scar gently hoisting his upper lip.
A hymn filled the space outside her head, but Carla couldn’t sing. Instead, she allowed herself to be distracted by the children in the pews across the aisle. Rangi and Rebecca’s little girl was sliding her hands in and out of her dungaree pockets in an exercise of speed. Beside her stood a fidgety, flaxen-haired child with thin ponytails and transparent skin. She kept looking back, perhaps to see if Carla would break into sobs like she was supposed to. Then there were Bev’s boys, jostling and shoving as they tried to stand on each other’s toes.
Anxious to avoid eye contact with anyone, Carla tilted her head back and studied the dark beams of wood arching above her. She knew their pattern well, as she did the rest of the building – the liturgical-purple carpet, threadbare in patches; the wrought-iron candelabra; the simple wooden cross. She hadn’t missed a service in years.
The music tapered off and Allan, the chaplain, cleared his throat. ‘One of Jack’s less well-known interests was his love of poetry. A passion he shared with his father.’
Allan had come round to Geoff and Mildred’s place on the Monday to discuss funeral arrangements. Carla had been staying with her brother-in-law and his wife since being discharged from hospital. Geoff, a wiry, hollow-cheeked man, was Kevin’s younger sibling. He owned several electronic retail outlets across Auckland. Over the years Carla had remained civil for Kevin’s sake.
Allan smiled down from the pulpit. ‘And many a wintry Sunday night at the Reids was spent around the fire reciting verse.’
Carla found herself smiling as she thought back to those Sunday suppers. Tangy gouda and pickled onions. The words of Fiona Farrell and Kevin Ireland. Jack’s friends sometimes joining in on saxophone or guitar to transform the evening into a soirée of sorts.
Allan continued. ‘I remember one particular evening enjoying this lovely family’s hospitali
ty. Jack gave a great Sam Hunt impersonation.’ The pastor chuckled, then paused as if revisiting the occasion.
‘And Carla has asked me to read a poem, this poem, by Sam Hunt today.’ He looked down over his half-moon spectacles at the paper in his hand. ‘It is entitled “Winter Solstice Song”.’
We can believe in miracles
Easy a day like this.
For five minutes at sunrise the sun
Broke through, first time in weeks,
A kiss
I took to mean arrival
And five minutes up
F– d off.
The pastor’s voice faltered over the swear word, which he’d chosen to abbreviate. Mildred frowned. Geoff cleared his throat. Carla felt a fleeting freedom.
But it is
The year’s shortest day
When anything can happen,
Miracles ‘not a problem’
The sun five minutes with us
Came and left with a kiss.
We believe in miracles. That, love,
is all we have.2
The ensuing silence was broken by a baby’s cry, then the blowing of noses and a stifled cough.
Kevin was still in a coma. He needed a miracle.
The organist started up again.
‘Carla, it’s time,’ Geoff said, a guiding hand on her elbow.
It all felt so wrong. So unreal. Kevin at least should have been there beside her. Instead she was alone at the funeral of their only son, surrounded by other people. The Reid unit had been disassembled and the individual parts now much less than the sum of them. She felt like a lone piece of Lego.
The Last Time We Spoke Page 4
