Phantom of Terawhiti

by Des Hunt

  It was clear that walking around the zoo yelling ‘Tasha!’ and playing the Roldee at full volume was certain to attract too much attention. Some other technique was needed. It was Zac who came up with the idea of playing a game of pass the ball, where the ball would be the Roldee. Every now and then one of them would drop a pass. If it was Jess, then Zac would yell ‘Tasha!’ as if that were her name. To avoid being too one-sided, Jess would yell ‘Alex!’ when Zac fumbled. Not that they expected the kitten to answer, but it was better than broadcasting Zac’s name.

  What exactly they would do if Tasha appeared wasn’t discussed. Zac didn’t expect it to happen, but Jess was more hopeful. She had a theory that the animal killing the wallabies couldn’t be a dog. It went like this: any cage that could contain a wallaby would also trap a dog; hence, any dog would have been found after the first mauling; a second mauling indicated that the animal must be one that could get in and out of the cage; therefore it could be Tasha.

  They started with the serval enclosure as it was on the way to the Australian animals. The first thing Zac noticed was that the cage was covered with wire. The zookeepers obviously knew that servals were good jumpers. No serval would get out of that cage, which meant that one couldn’t get in either. If Tasha had come all the way over here for a romantic evening, then she would be out of luck.

  Zac felt a bit self-conscious when they first started playing their make-believe game with the Roldee. The balalaika music drew attention and their acting was terrible. Jess dropped it twice in succession so that Zac could call out, ‘Oh, Tasha!’ Then it was his turn to fumble and Jess yelled out, ‘Alex!’ Jenny stood to one side looking embarrassed.

  They did this a couple of times, walking up and down past the serval cage. Tasha didn’t appear. Nor did the serval in the cage. Most likely it was scared by all their antics.

  What did appear was a zookeeper. She came out of the house at the back of the cage.

  ‘Having fun?’ she asked with a smile.

  Zac turned off the Roldee. ‘I wanted to find out if servals like music,’ he said.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ replied the zookeeper. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, I’m doing a project for school on servals. I came to do some original research.’

  ‘Well, unfortunately you’re out of luck. Ours is asleep at the moment.’

  ‘Then maybe you can answer some of my questions,’ said Zac.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘When do they mate?’

  ‘Depends where they live. They will mate two to three months before the time when there is lots of food.’

  ‘My dad says they mate straight after having kittens. Is that true?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. The female won’t be ready to breed until her kittens are almost self-sufficient.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Zac grinned. ‘I’ll have to tell him he’s wrong.’

  The woman chuckled. ‘Be careful. Dads don’t like being told they’re wrong.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ said Zac. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Zac and Jess began to move away when Jenny stepped forward.

  ‘Can you tell me what the delay was this morning?’ she asked. ‘What was the “animal welfare issue”?’

  The zookeeper looked around as if unsure whether she should reveal that information. When she spoke her voice was lower. ‘We found a dog in the Australian enclosure. It’s been killing wallabies.’

  ‘Why wasn’t it found yesterday?’ asked Jess.

  The woman rolled her eyes. ‘It should have been. The thing had burrowed under the shelter.’

  ‘What type of dog?’ asked Zac.

  ‘Some sort of pit bull mongrel.’

  ‘What did you do with it?’

  Her voice went lower still. ‘It was put down.’

  There seemed little point to the zoo visit after that. They did wander around the place visiting most of the exhibits, but with little enthusiasm. Everyone was relieved when they made it back to the café for lunch.

  Zac nibbled at his food, his mind elsewhere. Although he hadn’t thought much of the zoo idea, it had been a glimmer of hope. Now, with that gone, there was nothing. They had no idea where Tasha might be. They didn’t even know if she was still alive.

  He was worried about the blood on the collar. They’d assumed it was from a scratch caused by the sharp branch. What if it was more than a scratch? If the branch had dug deeper, it could have pierced a major blood vessel in her neck. Or perhaps the injury was there before the collar was ripped off. Bryan Dixon had shot at her. Maybe he hadn’t missed. Perhaps—

  His thoughts were broken by Jenny’s phone ringing.

  Jenny picked it up and looked at the screen. ‘It’s Will.’

  ‘Hi, hon,’ she said.

  After that she said nothing for a couple of minutes. Her face, however, said lots. It changed in steps from mild interest to deep concentration. Zac and Jess stared at each other, knowing that Will’s message was something important.

  Eventually Jenny spoke.

  ‘And he says it’s not a leopard?’ she asked.

  Again she listened, this time for a shorter period.

  ‘Okay, hon,’ she said at the end. ‘We’ll go there straight away. See you later.’

  After disconnecting she took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘Will got a phone call from Lance at Makara Security. He claims to have seen a spotted cat at the northern end of West Wind. He says it’s too small to be a leopard, and too big to be an ordinary cat. He describes it as white with grey spots. He saw it just now, chasing a rabbit.’ She looked from Jess to Zac and back again. ‘Does that sound like Tasha?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Jess.

  Zac just nodded. He dared not speak in case it exposed his emotions. This was what he’d been wanting to hear. Everything was right: the colour, the size, the place — just up the road from Terawhiti. This time it was Tasha. He was certain of it. What else could the animal be?

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Zac’s conviction faded a little during the drive across town. It took most of 40 minutes to get to Makara Beach, showing how far Tasha would need to have travelled to have got there.

  The maths almost worked. The small boy had seen her near Happy Valley on Tuesday evening. It was now Thursday afternoon. It was a long way to go, but it was possible. Just.

  The problem was Alex. Surely the kitten would slow her down? Unless … unless the blood on the collar was from Alex and not from Tasha. It was a thought he couldn’t erase from his mind.

  Makara Beach was vastly different to the beaches Zac had visited around Auckland. Instead of sand it had gravel, the houses were baches instead of mansions, and the view wasn’t all that great. Yet it looked like it could be a good place to explore. That’s if this business was ever finished.

  Lance’s house was close to the beach. He was waiting for them with a topographic map unfolded on a table.

  ‘I’ve got to make this quick,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got a call-out to a faulty alarm in Johnsonville.’

  ‘When did you last see the animal?’ asked Jenny.

  Lance looked at his watch. ‘It’d be almost two hours ago now. I was taking my daily constitutional on the walkway.’ He moved to the map. ‘It was just short of the gun emplacements, where you walk along the ridge. The thing was chasing a rabbit. It’d be about there, I guess.’ He pointed to the landward side of the marked track.

  ‘Did she catch the rabbit?’ asked Jess.

  ‘She?’ asked Lance, looking puzzled. ‘You’ve been close enough to sex the thing?’

  Jess nodded. ‘Her name is Tasha.’

  Lance blinked a couple of times. ‘All right, I’ll take your word for that.’ A pause. ‘No, I don’t know if she caught the rabbit. They both went into some scrub.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, have you got all you need? Because I’ve really got to go.’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Jenny. ‘Than
ks, Lance. We’ll let you know what we find.’

  A sign saying Makara Walkway guided them off the beach onto a path running around the bottom of a rocky cliff. It appeared to be a well-used track, with wheel marks indicating that trail and mountain bikers also went that way.

  They walked in silence. Zac’s body was alive with anticipation and apprehension: his heart and mind craved hope, while his gut grumbled with doom. From the look of Jess, she was having similar feelings.

  After some minutes the path split, one track heading out to a point and the other climbing further up the cliff. Their route was up the cliff.

  Zac’s gut tightened more as they climbed. At the top was where Tasha was meant to be.

  The terrain opened up as they got higher. It looked much the same as Terawhiti: a mix of scrub and pasture, with many places where a serval could make a home.

  And there were also wind turbines, some fully visible in the distance, others poking their heads over nearby ridges.

  The track followed the ridge line, giving views down to the shore on one side and to a stream on the other. Tasha had been seen on the stream side.

  Jess started the Roldee. Zac began calling.

  They walked slowly to give Tasha plenty of time to respond. The Roldee wasn’t the only sound: a skylark sang overhead, and gulls screeched from over the shore. Other birds chirped.

  But there was no chirping from Tasha.

  When they got to the gun emplacements they realized they had gone too far. A woman sat on a slab of concrete looking out over Cook Strait, as soldiers would have during World War II. She turned around when she heard the music and watched them for a while before returning to the view. No doubt she thought them crazy.

  Retracing their steps, Zac and Jess reversed roles, hoping that Jess’s voice might be more successful in stirring Tasha into action.

  After a time, Jenny called out as well.

  That was the voice that worked.

  Tasha appeared out of scrub a hundred metres or so away. At first she stood, staring at them, unsure of what to do. Then she moved closer.

  Zac’s heart soared. ‘Tasha,’ he called softly. Then, louder, ‘Tasha!’

  But instead of advancing further, she stopped.

  ‘She looks a bit strange,’ said Jess. ‘Her fur seems longer.’

  ‘Probably brushed up from going through gorse,’ said Zac, although he, too, felt that something was wrong.

  ‘Tasha!’ called Jess, stepping out towards her.

  Tasha’s head turned to follow Jess. That was when Zac worked out what was wrong.

  ‘Her ears aren’t sticking up,’ he said.

  ‘Scratched by gorse, perhaps?’ suggested Jenny.

  Zac shook his head slowly. No, it couldn’t be that. Now he could see that the whole shape of the head was wrong.

  Before he had a chance to put his thoughts into words, another voice called out.

  ‘Annabelle!’

  Zac spun around. It was the woman from the gun emplacement.

  ‘Annabelle!’ she called again.

  That got ‘Tasha’ moving. She leapt forward and bounded towards the woman in a most un-catlike way.

  All the life went out of Zac’s body. It wasn’t Tasha at all. It was a dog. A dog called Annabelle.

  When Annabelle reached the woman, she circled around a couple of times before settling to walk alongside.

  Jenny, Jess and Zac waited for them to catch up. No one spoke. Disappointment surrounded them like fog.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said the woman, as she approached. If she sensed something wrong with the atmosphere, she chose to ignore it.

  She stopped. The dog also stopped and sat, looking up at them smugly.

  ‘What do you think of my leopard?’ the woman asked.

  They studied the dog. The coat had been trimmed and dyed to give the appearance of a big cat. It mostly worked, except around the head, where it was impossible to make the ears and nose catlike.

  ‘Bit small for a leopard, isn’t it?’ said Jenny.

  The woman laughed. ‘Yeah, I tried to make her bigger, but it didn’t work. She’s a labradoodle and they don’t come any bigger.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’ asked Jess, icily.

  Again the woman laughed. ‘Well, with all the to-do on Facebook about that Phantom of Terawhiti, I thought it was a good chance to get some publicity.’ She paused for a short giggle. ‘You see, I have a pet-grooming business. So I did Annabelle up and brought her out here. But so far hardly anybody has seen her. I was hoping someone would ring up the TV station and I could get on the news.’ Her laughter was more forced this time. ‘Maybe you could ring up and tell them for me.’

  There was a brief silence before Zac exploded.

  ‘You stupid bitch!’ he cried, his mouth spraying spit. ‘Dressing up your dumb dog as a cat. Lying to people. Making us think all sorts of things.’ He glared at her, gasping for air. ‘What do you think you’re doing, tricking us like that?’ His head dropped and his voice was almost lost as he mumbled, ‘How can you be so cruel!’

  Then he took off, sprinting down the path, his face twisted with pain and anger. He ran until they couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see them. But even then he couldn’t get the image out of his head: the picture of that dog sitting there and smirking at them. It was as if she was mocking them, teasing them, because she knew something they didn’t. As if she knew that the cat she mimicked was already dead.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Zac lay inside his bed, fully clothed, his body bunched up in the foetal position. He’d already been there for hours, and planned to stay there for many more. He’d run to his bedroom as soon as they got back from Makara Beach. His father had followed, but soon left after it was clear Zac wasn’t going to talk any time soon.

  He’d heard the others speaking in the lounge, so he assumed that his father had heard what had happened. Crawford would not be pleased. Members of the Morris family were meant to control their anger. Most of the time Zac could do that, but today had been just too much. That dog made up as Tasha was so ghastly. A labradoodle! What sort of dog was a labradoodle! And that woman laughing, thinking it was such a joke: Ha, ha, ha! Look what I’ve done to my stupid dog. Ha, ha, ha! I’ve made it look like your Tasha. Ha, ha, ha!

  When he wasn’t reliving the scene on the walkway his head quickly filled with if-onlys. If only he’d done this, if only he’d done that. If only he’d … But all the if-onlys in the world weren’t going to bring Tasha back. They’d exhausted all possibilities. They didn’t know where she was or how to find her. The best they could hope for was someone else seeing her. But that meant the police would be told and then she’d be shot. That’s if she wasn’t already dead.

  If only …

  If only he could go to sleep, so these thoughts would disappear for a while. But sleep wouldn’t come. Even when the light outside disappeared and he was lying in darkness, the scenes kept playing in his head like a video looping over and over. Some imagined, some real: the scene on the walkway; Tasha running in the light from the spotlight; Tasha lying injured in the scrub; Tasha being shot; a dead Tasha.

  Eventually he dozed off and slept dreamlessly for a time.

  When he woke it was the middle of the night. He was still fully dressed. Outside a storm was raging. Rain pelted at the window and on the iron roof. The wind howled, the sea roared.

  Zac rolled over. A shudder shook his body. ‘Oh, Tasha,’ he whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Hunger woke him early in the morning. It was mostly dark still. While the rain seemed to have eased, the wind had increased and gusts threatened to shake the house off its foundations. Loose iron clattered noisily.

  His dinner from last night was in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap — spaghetti and meatballs. He decided it would make a suitable breakfast. While it was microwaving, Crawford appeared.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘All right,’ muttered Zac, without looking at his
father.

  ‘I see you found your dinner.’

  Zac nodded.

  Crawford turned on the radio. ‘Let’s hear what the two idiots have got to say this morning.’

  That suited Zac. With the radio on he wouldn’t have to talk.

  Keith: … has stopped for the time being, but the wind seems to have picked up. Leaves and small branches are flying over me. Just as well I’m in the shelter of the entranceway or I’d get blown away.

  Sally: You hang on there, Keith, and I’ll get back to you shortly. That’s Keith Montjoy who this morning is outside Zealandia where an Armed Offenders Squad call-out is currently in progress. To other matters. The tail of tropical cyclone Zara is presently lashing Wellington City. Police are advising people to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary. Gusts of up to 120 kilometres per hour are being experienced in some places. All ferries have been cancelled, both inside the harbour and across Cook Strait.

  ‘This is like Wahine Day,’ said Crawford. ‘A tropical cyclone was involved that day too.’

  Great, thought Zac. Just what we need: yet another disaster.

  ‘Guess we’ll have to stay in today,’ Crawford added.

  But Zac was back listening to the radio. The bit about Zealandia sounded interesting.

  Sally: … for those who have just tuned in, there is an ongoing Armed Offenders call-out at Zealandia, otherwise known as the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. This is in response to a report that two persons carrying at least one gun were seen climbing the fence in the early hours of this morning. Keith Montjoy is there braving the elements and is with us now. What’s going on there, Keith?

  Keith: Not a lot that you can see. The AOS is in the fenced sanctuary. We have not heard any shots or anything like that. Although I must say that in this wind it’s hard to hear anything. I have, however, been able to get some background information. Alongside me is Colin Hills, who is one of the volunteers here at Zealandia. Colin, you have a theory about what is happening here …

  Colin: Yes, I have.

  Keith: Would you like to share it with us?