Show Me a Huia!

by Chris Barfoot

  “Would you say this was a kind of religious mania?”

  “It’s a not uncommon but rarely acknowledged psychiatric condition of clergy whose career has not otherwise been crowned with success.”

  Matthew nodded. It was all beginning to fit in.

  On the same visit Matthew had also interviewed Nurse Patel who corroborated the psychiatrist’s account.

  “Dr Richardson is such a gentleman. And he takes a personal interest in his patients, especially the one who was kidnapped. I only wish I hadn’t called him when Room 2 was having a fit, and it would never have happened. I keep thinking it’s my fault.”

  “Where were you when the patient was abducted?”

  “I must have been back at the office.”

  “Did you hear the sound of a scuffle?”

  “I didn’t hear anything, but even if I had I wouldn’t have been able to help. Dr Richardson had the key.”

  “Does he lock all the patients’ rooms?”

  “Oh no. But he did with that patient because he thought he was likely to steal drugs from the office. He even locked himself inside Tane’s room that night when he was treating him.”

  “You mean before you called him?”

  “When I knocked on the door to tell him about No 2, he had to unlock the door.”

  “Has Ngata ever stolen drugs?”

  “I don’t know. I only started last week.”

  Archdeacon Mountjoy expressed surprise at the events after the service.

  “Poor Tane! I hope the experience won’t put him off serving.”

  “I believe you asked him to serve tonight. Did you choose him because his name was Tane and he looked like Tane Ngata?”

  “As head server I can always rely on him to fill unexpected vacancies.”

  “Did you expect him to be kidnapped?”

  “Why would anyone want to kidnap my server?”

  “Were you expecting the kidnappers to break into your church?

  “Dr Corbishley invited his former colleague to attend our evening service. Dr Ngata, I believe, left Glenfern Hospital willingly. They did not need to break into the church. Our doors are open to everyone.”

  “Did you have any conversation with the patient during the service?”

  “During the service he came up for healing and before the service he wanted to make his confession to me as a priest.”

  “What did he say?”

  “What penitents tell me in their confession is entirely confidential.”

  “Were the alleged kidnappers known to you beforehand?”

  “I have been counselling one of them.”

  “I presume this was Dr Corbishley. He had been acting strangely previous to this, hadn’t he?”

  “Those who seek counselling from me do so in strict confidence.”

  “Including kidnappers and those who break and enter?”

  “I do not ask if they have police records.”

  “May I search the church and vicarage? It’s possible they may have hidden somewhere.”

  “By all means, Sergeant.”

  The interview was infuriating. The man was just mouthing words to deceive him. The body language gave him away every time. He fidgeted, he looked up to the ceiling or sideways when answering a question, he smiled in a sickly way after every lie. He had known before he searched that it was going to be a waste of time. The man was as guilty as hell.

  The trouble was he didn’t have enough evidence. Moreover, he could not afford to lose any more credibility by arresting a padre.

  The man of God was going to have to live with his own conscience.

  ***

  It was the first time Matthew had had a problem with vigilantes. The group at the church were all Pakeha, well-organised, clever, strong and prepared to use violence. He had a suspicion that they had incited the crowd against him. After the McAndrew assault, the commissioner had told the police to expect trouble, as vigilante groups were being formed every day in the main centres and country towns. These groups were said to be encouraging Pakeha motorists to carry arms, ostensibly for self-protection. It was likely that the vigilantes themselves had arms, and possibly were selling arms illicitly. Under-staffed as the police were, it was impossible to go round checking the licences.

  The trouble was that racial feeling was running high, and the police force was being accused of doing nothing about Maori highway violence. The Maori in the police force were taking the brunt of it. In some areas Maori policemen had been quietly transferred to avoid trouble.

  In his mind he saw again the tall, bronzed young man with the fair curly hair who appeared to be the leader of the vigilantes at St Peter’s.

  He was sure he had seen that face before.

  He went to the police computer, looked up the McAndrew file and studied the various photos taken at the time. One was of the vigilante group surrounding the Te Kuiti marae on the morning after the highway bashing.

  Why, that’s him in the middle!

  It was a media photo. There were no names mentioned in the caption or in the accompanying story. He initiated a check through police files.

  ***

  No one had driven the black Ford Cortina away after the service. Matthew reflected on its owner. Kate Fairweather had come to see him a few days before, regarding the McAndrew case. She had shown him some research which she had done. This evidence, she concluded, indicated that racial trouble was being deliberately stirred. He had some personal sympathy for what she was saying, but he had to accept that her conclusion was mainly supposition.

  “Has anyone investigated the movements of the vigilantes on the night of the McAndrew assault?” she had then asked.

  No, the police had not considered this.

  Then she had mentioned she had been talking to Susan McAndrew. “I was wondering why you agreed so readily with Inspector Molloy that it was war paint under her nail.”

  He hadn’t given it much thought. He had been surprised that his inspector knew anything about Maori customs at all.

  “Do you realise that the Maori didn’t use war paint?” she had asked.

  He had been taken aback. He was not strong on his Maoritanga.

  “Did you analyse the paint?”

  The Inspector had not attached much importance to it. In any case at the interview with Susan McAndrew, the paint under her nail appeared to have been removed – probably an understandable revulsion on her part.

  He had decided to change the subject. “Are you working with anyone in particular?”

  She had paused before she replied. “No, I’m working on my own.”

  He wondered whether she were telling the truth. He had made more investigations about her. She seemed a very calm, highly intelligent and competent person, with a background of respectability into which she could merge at will, the sort of person who is able to mastermind a criminal action and cover all her tracks. He wondered whether the huia connection was some kind of front.

  Matthew thought back carefully on the incident and the subsequent interviews.

  As a policeman he distrusted vigilantes. What did their presence at Te Kuiti and at St Peter’s mean? At St Peter’s, their object was to kidnap Tane Ngata. What was their purpose in that? What were they really doing on the night of the McAndrew assault? But they were Pakeha. How could there be a link?

  “How did you know he was Maori?” he had asked Susan McAndrew. Kate Fairweather had by implication asked the same question. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a simple question. In the present climate in the force it was political and racial dynamite.

  Part of the trouble was his superior. Ian Molloy was in charge of both the McAndrew and the Glenfern Hospital case, though he didn’t see any connection between the two. From his experience on the McAndrew case Matthew knew Ian Molloy’s likely reaction. It was not enough for a policeman to have merely feeling on matters of such sensitivity, especially if a supposition about Susan McAndrew’s story came from a suspected kidnapper.

&nbs
p; He decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

  ***

  Randall Richardson, who had already had a response to his prayer about the disappearance of his patient, was surprised at another phone call.

  “Randall, it’s Nellie Milliken here; I hope you don’t mind me ringing you, but I’ve just heard the news on the radio. I’m so sorry about what happened at the church tonight, and I’m sure it’s all some terrible mistake. I didn’t want to disturb the vicar as he seems to have policemen climbing all over the church and vicarage so I thought that I would ring you as warden so that you could tell me what I should do.”

  Miss Milliken was one of the “old faithfuls” at the church, so old that no one knew her age, but her energy in arranging the flowers, polishing the brass, cleaning the church, knitting garments and making marmalade for the church fair was legendary. “Only too pleased to help, Nellie,” he said.

  “I can’t get hold of that dear girl who borrowed my car to take somebody home from church and I’m worried about her.”

  “Which girl?”

  “Kate Fairweather. I’m in the Ornithological Society, you know, and she’s our secretary, a lovely person. I was so delighted that even though she belongs to one of those dreadful happy-clappy churches she was interested in our healing service and wanted to take a sick friend home afterwards. Now I hope she hasn’t got herself into some sort of trouble with those nasty kidnappers.”

  Randall could hardly believe his good fortune. “Hasn’t she got a car of her own?”

  “Oh, yes, one of those smart shiny modern cars, but she said she was lending it to someone else.”

  “Can you describe your car?”

  “It’s a Morris Minor. I’ve had it for twenty years. It doesn’t go very fast. When people behind honk at me, I let them past and then wave at them. But it gets me to church and the shops. I don’t drive at night and Kate picks me up to take me to the bird meetings.

  “So you drove it to church tonight. Do you remember the registration number?”

  “Just a moment. I always forget it. Let me just look at my diary. Here we are. TW 3400.”

  “How long did she say she wanted it for?”

  “She said she might need to have it for a few days. She had the friend staying with her and it might be useful.”

  “Did she borrow anything else?”

  “Only some of my clothes. She said she was organising a skit. She’s full of fun, you know. And she’s doing such a good job with the huia.”

  “What does she do?”

  “She goes around holiday programmes talking to the children. They all love her.”

  “Have you told the police?”

  “No, I’d much rather speak to someone at church first.”

  “Very proper of you. Don’t concern yourself about it anymore. I’ll do everything in my power to get the car back for you and notify the police if necessary.”

  “Thank you so much. That’s a burden off my back. I don’t want to get her into any trouble, you know. Besides we need young people so much at our church.”

  “Nellie, I understand you perfectly. What are Christians for if we can’t help each other?”

  CHAPTER 32

  At nine o’clock on Sunday evening an ancient Morris Minor with a cargo of elderly women swayed and whined its way up the Bombay hill. The lights of Auckland disappeared behind for the last time as it dipped over the top, descending into the blackness of the great Waikato valley and turned off on the road that led to Thames and Coromandel. The lady with the wide-brimmed hat which almost covered her face huddled over the wheel coaxing the last ounce of speed out of the ageing vehicle.

  Suddenly lights flashed ahead as cars were parked across the road. A white glove loomed out of the darkness, and behind it a blue uniform.

  “Good evening, Madam. Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?”

  A boyish face peered in at the window, looking puzzled.

  “My daughter has just been rushed to hospital in Thames,” the driver said in a tremulous high-pitched voice, tipping her wide hat even further down across her face.

  “Well, just be careful. And don’t pick up any hitch-hikers. There’s a mental patient gone missing and he may be violent.”

  “Dear, dear, how shocking!” the old lady quavered, and distractedly fumbled with gears, brake and starter until the old Morris Minor jerked and wobbled off down the Thames road.

  The old ladies did not proceed to Thames but plunged off Highway Number 2 on to the backcountry roads that wound through the swamps and the little hills around Te Kauwhata. Reappearing on the Hauraki Plains, the car, which now appeared to have somewhat younger occupants, darted and criss-crossed over the plains in a maze of country roads, leaving a trail of barking dogs at isolated farmhouses and startled cows in the dewy paddocks.

  One of the occupants broke the silence. “How d’you feel now, Tane?”

  “I never had much to do with church, but that man was a tohunga,” the other spoke slowly as if he was trying to form the words before he said them. “I’d made some terrible mistakes and I told him I was sorry. Then it all came out. I don’t understand how it happened, but I have never felt like this – for a long time. They had kept me on a drug to deaden the pain because I had terrible nightmares. But that fella knew what the trouble was and now the nightmares have gone and I can think clearly again.”

  “If you feel up to it, tell us what happened,” David said gently.

  “It goes back to my brother Hone, as you know.” David nodded. “He died because of something that happened in those mountains. I found out later that the elders believed it was a result of a curse because he had gone into a tapu valley. That was why no one said anything about where he’d gone and why he died. It had happened before. It was called “the valley of death”. So three years ago I made a secret expedition. You saw where I was going, didn’t you, when I looked at the maps? I’d worked out where the forbidden valley was.”

  David whispered, “So it was the Waitoa.”

  “The huia sanctuary!” exclaimed Kate.

  “Huia sanctuary?” Tane looked puzzled.

  “Just carry on,” said David gently.

  “That gorge almost killed me, but when I got out onto a flat I made two discoveries. A conical mountain almost all limestone stood near the mouth of the gorge. Over thousands of years the river had disappeared into the mountain and had made channels through it. But a rock fall years ago had diverted the river and I was able to explore and found these huge limestone caverns. I had discovered a hollow mountain.”

  “Amazing!” said Kate.

  But David was apprehensive. “After what happened to Hone, weren’t you afraid about going into the forbidden valley?”

  “I knew the teaching and I respected it. But I looked further than the elders. I was a scientist. I wanted to find out why it was forbidden. But first I was curious about the limestone and the original course of the river. The largest and lowest cavern continued beyond the mountain and appeared to be heading in a westerly direction. I had taken cave-exploring equipment, and as the cave was dry and the course level and the roof height reasonably high, I was able to explore it for some miles. I had no doubt that I was following the original course of the Waitoa River. Also, it appeared likely that this course, if it continued in its westerly direction, would eventually have come out on the Bay of Plenty.”

  Their eyes met, as Kate framed a word. David too was strangely excited, but he shook his head.

  “The next step was to explore the Bay of Plenty coastline. So on my way back I looked for geological indications all along the nearest stretch of the coast. At the top of the bay at a place called Pataratara where there was an old granite wharf, I found a depression in the ground which ended at a bluff on a limestone hill. Land slips had blocked the entrance, but I found a slit on the side of the hill and managed to scramble down into a much larger cave below. There were further rock falls, but the floor of this cave showed evidence of the same riv
er shingle as the Waitoa. I explored again for a mile or so. The direction was east. I checked the map bearings. It seemed almost certain that the limestone was continuous and that the Waitoa River had originally flowed out to the coast at that point.”

  He paused, and seemed unwilling to continue.

  David was puzzled. It was superb geological exploration. Only Tane could have done it. But one question remained unanswered.

  He waited.

  After a long silence Tane began again, but this time his voice seemed hesitant and he was breathing harder. “I was looking for the thing that killed my brother.”

  “You see, I was re-enacting his journey. He would have come through the gorge and he would have been exhausted. There was a wide, sandy beach there on a bend in the river. I too felt tired but I was alert and I took precautions. As you know I usually carry a Geiger counter. I tested the sand. I found there what I had long suspected. It was radioactive.”

  He stopped. There was complete silence in the car except for the occasional wheezing which came from the old engine and the sound of sleepy ‘mooing’ in the dark fields.

  “My suspicions were confirmed. Hone had died of leukemia because of exposure to radiation. But the worst lay ahead. I wanted to do what was right by him, to restore his name and the family name. The Hollow Mountain and the underground access belonged to the Whanau Apanui. I saw a huge tourist potential for the iwi if they could be developed. But the uranium was different. Though its mining was allowed in New Zealand, my conscience told me it might be better to forget about it completely, to leave it as if it had never been discovered. But the problem was too big for me. I needed advice. The trouble was that I was not used to asking for anything.”

  David groaned. “It was all my fault. So that was what you wanted to ask me. What I did was unforgivable.”

  Tane put his hand on David’s shoulder. He spoke more softly. “I was the one who did what was unforgivable. I insulted both you and your father. I never cared about anything except my own ideas. You were the only one who didn’t cold-shoulder me. I didn’t deserve to have a friend like you.”