Containment

by Vanda Symon

  A few days after the phone call Paul had popped down to the farm for a day trip, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I had been pleased and relieved to see him. The admission came with a certain amount of anxiety, though, but that was allayed by the Shephard-family smothering machine. Paul being Paul, he’d completely charmed them. Mum fell all over herself, playing the part of the gracious hostess, and Paul and Dad had that infuriating boy-bond thing and disappeared off to the shed for an hour to do man stuff. Naturally, Mum took the opportunity to interrogate me, but my years of training in mother-diversion techniques meant I was able to give her satisfying answers without actually divulging any information.

  Courtesy of the ever-present folks, Paul and I didn’t actually get any time alone. The avoidance tactics weren’t going to last though, as I had to return to the real world eventually and Paul would be heading to Dunedin the following weekend. I only had a little time to figure out what the hell I wanted.

  13

  My allocated recuperation time was over, and I could finally get back to doing what I did best. The occasion called for a front-door entry rather than slinking in the back way; besides, I liked looking at the massive work of art that greeted everyone who walked through the main entrance foyer of Dunedin Central Police Station. I thought it would look good in our flat. My security card made a very satisfying thwick as I slid it through the reader and the door released. I trotted up the stairs to the CIB floor, gave a cheery ‘hi’ to Laurie at reception and strode down the corridor.

  ‘So, did you miss me?’ I said to all as I swept, with flair, into the squad room. When in doubt, make a grand entrance, especially as I had made a rather grand exit last week.

  ‘Oh, look what the cat dragged in,’ Smithy said as he leaned back against his chair and stretched. ‘Decided to come back and join us, did you?’

  ‘Pretty shade of yellow there, Shep; nice.’ That was Reihana. ‘It’s the in colour this season, I hear.’

  I gave him a token hardy-ha look.

  ‘Cool, I don’t have to make the coffee anymore.’ That would be Otto.

  It was good to be back.

  ‘The rubbish bin’s just over there, if you need to throw up again. Try to get your aim right; it took the cleaner ages to get the last lot off the carpet.’ Smithy waved his arm to where they’d strategically placed the bin – right next to my desk.

  ‘Thanks, Smithy. Thank you so very much. Damn good to know you care.’

  ‘What are friends for?’

  I walked over to my desk, and when I pulled out my chair, there was a motorbike helmet sitting on it with a bright-yellow Post-it note stuck to it.

  I plucked it off and read it aloud: ‘“In case of emergency beach excursions”. Oh, ha ha, guys, I suppose you think you’re funny.’ Judging by the snorts and chortles around the room, they certainly did.

  I returned the helmet to the only bloke who was mad enough to ride a motorbike to work in an icy Dunedin winter, then plonked myself down at my desk, tapped my fingers on its veneer surface, and looked about expectantly.

  ‘So, where do I start? What’s happening? What’s the go?’ I asked Smithy.

  ‘Anyone would think you were glad to be here. Could you please try to be a little less enthusiastic? You’re showing us up.’

  ‘I’ve spent the better part of a week under the same roof as my mother, so, believe me, I am glad to be here. But I’m sure it will wear off, given time.’

  Smithy gave a small shudder, which looked ridiculous on a large man, but then he’d met my mother.

  ‘You could start by telling me how Mr Fists is?’

  ‘I take it you mean Felix Ford, the guy who organised your holiday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s out of hospital, doing okay, healing up, bones mending. He seems to have all of his faculties – well, the few he had to start with for someone thick enough to assault an officer – and he will get to use them very soon as I believe he’s due in court today,’ Smithy said. ‘I can find out what time, if you want to attend.’

  Did I want to see him again? Look him in the eye? Yes, actually, I did. Although the thought of it caused a faint squirmy sensation in my stomach, I felt a compulsion to keep him under watch.

  ‘That would be good if you could. What about the other man, Moustache Guy?’ My defender. I couldn’t bring myself to say Felix Ford’s assailant. He was rescuing me for God’s sake.

  ‘Iain Gibbs? He’s already had a hearing and pleaded not guilty to assault. His lawyer’s taking the angle that because he was defending an officer down, he shouldn’t be charged.’

  ‘Do you think it will work?’ I asked. Smithy shrugged. In a way, despite him going a bit overboard, I hoped it did. Hell, if he did get convicted, it would be another reason for Joe Public not to step up and help out if someone was in trouble. Why would you consider going to the rescue if, as well as the obvious personal risk, it carried the chance of prosecution rather than thanks? Iain Gibbs had gone too far, but, that aside, I’d always be grateful to him.

  ‘Is there anything else exciting happening?’ A week away seemed like a lifetime. My mother had that effect.

  ‘Not what I’d call exciting, no. We’ve tracked down the owner of the skull. Turns out he’s a big-time collector and an anthropology buff from Britain, who’s shifting house here. God knows why they’d want to emigrate to Dunedin, and after all this they’re probably asking the same question. It was among his household items and quite legit.’

  ‘So we called out the SOCOs and forensics guys for nothing?’

  ‘No, not for nothing. We’d hate for them to get lazy, so it’s good practice, keeps them on their toes. And they wanted to get a look at that ship before it was refloated and towed away. I don’t think any of us will forget that sight in a hurry – or the three-ring circus that followed. I have to say I felt a bit sorry for the old lady who found poor Yorick though. I think she wet herself.’ For a big guy with a don’t-shit-with-me demeanour Smithy could be a bit of a bleeding heart.

  ‘Well I wouldn’t be feeling too sorry for Granny. She was out nicking stuff, just like the rest of them.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So what about the skull owner? What’s his name?’ I asked.

  ‘Trubridge. Peter Trubridge.’

  ‘Well I bet Mr Trubridge wasn’t too pleased when he found out his belongings were strewn over the beach, being pilfered by all and sundry.’

  ‘No, apparently not. Someone local let him know what had happened, I gather. Interrupted his nice little tropical island stopover.’ Yeah, I’d be getting one of those in too if I was moving to a Dunedin winter. ‘He’s quite the collector, this Trubridge. Everything from art, to books, to artefacts – you know, ancient weapons, tools, fossils and bones, that kind of thing. He’s very keen for us to retrieve it all. So is his insurance company as it is all quite valuable. Not a happy family; the man’s kids lost half their toys and books.’ That explained the Lego I’d seen trodden into the sand.

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘Bummer’s right. So in answer to your earlier question about what we’ve been up to: not a hell of a lot. Mostly trying to track down stolen goods for the insurance companies. The majority of the containers on the ship were goods in transit. A few of those came ashore, along with a couple filled with commercial goods destined for Dunedin and just the one container with the household contents.’ It sounded like a bit of a scavenger hunt. Gosh, how jolly exciting. Didn’t sound like a CIB job to me.

  ‘So why are we doing this and not those downstairs?’

  ‘We started it because of the skull discovery and it kind of ties in with the assaults; half of downstairs is out with the flu, and we’ve got nothing better to do.’

  That was fair enough. ‘So where do you want me?’

  I could see from the look on his face he was about to make a smart-arse comment, but before he could let fly he hesitated and looked towards the door. I turned my head to follow his gaze. DI Johns stood
in the doorway. My body gave its obligatory allergic response.

  ‘Good to see you back, Shephard.’ Polite or sarcastic? I couldn’t quite tell which from the voice, though I could guess.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘If you’re looking for something useful to do, I’ve got a job that’s just come in.’

  DI Johns took sadistic pleasure in giving me the most menial or demeaning task he could find. He was a little more subtle about it these days: after a few complaints –not from me – his superiors had reminded him to play fair. But it was still his favourite sport.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, girding myself for the inevitable crap.

  ‘I need a detective on the scene for a body recovery.’

  I looked up, startled. He was offering me something decent – a body, not chasing taggers or litter patrol. Even Smithy looked surprised.

  ‘I can do that,’ I said quickly, before he could change his mind.

  ‘Good. The boat leaves from Port Chalmers in forty minutes. It’s a marine recovery so you’ll go out with the dive squad, and I guess you’ll need your wet-weather gear. Report to Sergeant Blakie.’ He gave his usual shark-like grin, then turned and headed down the hallway. I turned, looked out the window and took in the horizontal driving rain.

  Shit.

  14

  I wasn’t the only one along for this foul ride. As well as the police dive squad, who had been flown down from Wellington, and me, tricked into it by DI Dickhead Johns, we had a university student on board. She looked like a young Marilyn Monroe, but without the pout or the peroxide and, as far as I could judge, she was handling the trip far better than I was. Seasickness had never been a problem for me before now. I’d been on dozens of open-sea trips across the notorious Foveaux Strait between Bluff, at the southernmost end of the South Island, and Stewart Island. My Uncle Baz lived in Oban, so the resort town – as the locals called it – was a frequent holiday destination, summer or winter. My seediness today had to be a remnant of the whack to my head. My ear still had a tell-tale buzz and I was only ninety-seven per cent steady on my feet. Under normal circumstances, this pathetic one-metre excuse for a swell wouldn’t be a problem. At least I hadn’t fed the fish, yet.

  ‘So what you’re studying is kind of like the maggots and flies to a corpse principle, except on a submerged body?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

  ‘Nice. It must be a real conversation stopper.’

  She smiled. She was extraordinarily pretty for a nerdy type. ‘It’s not the kind of thing you bring up for general consumption. I learned a long time ago to sanitise it somewhat when chatting at parties, unless I’m surrounded by like-minded people.’

  ‘That would be people fascinated by death and decay, flies and maggots and rotting bodies, that kind of thing?’

  ‘Yes, sick puppies like me who don’t mind talking about decomposing pigs’ heads over a nice roast pork dinner.’

  That would definitely be a vegan-free zone. ‘Excellent, count me in for next time,’ I said. ‘So give me the layman’s version: decomp for dummies.’

  ‘Well, you can get a timeline and an approximate time of death by studying the life cycles of the invertebrates that inhabit a corpse on land. We’re looking at the same idea, but of course we can’t do that with flies and beetles underwater, they ain’t there, so we’re studying the colonisation of the body by bacteria. Like the bugs, they have a definite succession order in which they arrive at a corpse. We’re trying to establish a reliable timeline that can be used forensically to give a time of submergence and therefore maybe death.’

  ‘That wasn’t quite for dummies,’ I said, ‘but I get the idea. That’s pretty cool and would be damn useful for people in my business.’ If they could get it accurate and reliable enough to stand up to scrutiny in the courtroom, it would be bloody brilliant.

  Tamsin was a doctorate microbiology student at the University of Otago whose skills had been recognised by the forensics people. She was personable and chatty, which took my mind off the fact we were huddled in the cockpit of a small boat on choppy seas, in a shit of a wet southerly off the coast of Dunedin, in the middle of winter. However, it didn’t successfully distract me from the fact we’d be dealing with a cadaver in pretty bad condition sometime soon. A foot had been pulled up by a fisherman, who’d had the sense to buoy and GPS the spot. So here we were, looking for the rest of the foot’s owner. The foot had looked well nibbled.

  ‘Well, dealing with a real body is going to be a bit different to swabbing pigs’ heads,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’m not really looking forward to that aspect of it. My prof made me attend a post-mortem so I’d get to experience a body in less-than-perfect condition before I had to swab one, but I’m still not too sure about it. I suppose you’ve seen lots of dead bodies before?’

  Not lots, but they were all one too many. ‘A few,’ I said. ‘But this is my first up-close-and-personal with a sea recovery.’ I was impressed with the dive squad and the determined way they looked happy in their work, even though it must be revolting at times. ‘I haven’t been to a post-mortem yet, so you’re one up on me there. Oh, and I’ve never had to submerge and swab pigs’ heads before, so you beat me again.’

  ‘You’re quite fascinated by the whole pig’s head thing aren’t you?’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘I’ve just got this mental image of the strange looks you must get fronting up to the butcher, asking for “half a dozen pigs’ heads, thanks”. No offence, you just look a little bit too, shall we say, delicate for that kind of thing.’

  At this she laughed all the more. ‘Well, now that you mention it, being “delicate”, as you so nicely put it, helped, because one of the guys at the butchery department at the supermarket took a bit of a shine to me, so has been ever so co-operative. We’ve had pigs’ heads on tap.’

  ‘Nice.’ I was about to ask her how the local fishermen appreciated having dead pig bits submerged in the harbour, but then things started happening. It was action time.

  I’d seen and smelt some pretty disgusting things at home on the farm: carcasses in various stages of bloat and decay; entrails; effluent by the mile; but this beat all. The knowledge that this macerated, swollen, clearly scavenged-on piece of flesh was once a human being didn’t help at all in terms of reference points and landmarks. The fact that it was still partially encased in a wetsuit gave the only obvious clue as to its origin.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ was all Tamsin muttered before she visibly steadied herself and set to work with the swabs.

  Oh, dear, I kept repeating in my head as the body started to react to the air, and the putrid gases, previously dispersed into the water, were now airborne and found the back of my nose. The utter, utter stench was worse than anything I could have ever imagined possible, and I had to turn away and brace myself for a few moments before I could get on with my job.

  15

  Looking at this wreck of a body, I had the feeling dental records would be the only quick means of identification. No one would recognise anything from what was left of the face. In this age of CSI programmes, people seemed to expect DNA identification within half an hour. But the reality was that it was slow, took months even, and was expensive. Sometimes old technology did the best job. And at least teeth didn’t tend to get eaten. The extremities poking out of the wetsuit were well scavenged. The remaining foot had almost disarticulated, and the divers had encased it in a plastic bag to stop the water movement from the recovery finishing off the job. Ditto the hands. There was a large rip in the wetsuit along the back of the right leg and buttock, which had unfortunately allowed access to predators. Worst of all was the separately recovered, sodden, matted wad of orangish fibres that had once been hair but which were no longer attached to the head.

  The sight of this mess left me feeling sickened on many, many levels. This was once a human being, a living, breathing, animated person. Someone must have loved this person – mum, dad, family and friend
s – and had hopefully reported them missing. There hadn’t been any new missing persons that I’d been briefed on, although I’d only just put my foot back through the office door when I’d been whisked off here. A lot could have happened in the week I was away.

  You had to hope someone’s life made enough impact that people noticed when they were gone. Otherwise, it would be a very sad existence, like those poor people discovered years after they’d died, shrivelled up and mummified, and still seated in their armchair staring eyelessly at a blank TV screen, while their ignorant neighbours said inane things like: ‘They always were a bit quiet’ or ‘Now you mention it, there was a funny smell for a little while’; and their surviving children said, ‘We never really kept in touch, but how much do we get in the will?’

  My mind had a nasty habit of projecting forwards to people’s funerals, including my own, visualising the flower-draped casket centred reverently in the church. I wondered how many people would come out to mourn this poor person. Would it be dozens or would it be hundreds? Would there be any? That thought made this situation feel all the more forlorn. I hadn’t mastered the art of professional detachment. Part of me thought the day I did would be the day it was time to quit.

  Judging by the level of decomposition, they must have been down there a while, although I was hardly experienced on the subject and looks could be deceptive. In the real world no one could take one glance at a rotting body and say they’ve been dead for four days, three hours and thirteen minutes, give or take a second, as they did on the telly. And they most certainly didn’t pass judgement in full hair and make-up, with a plunging neckline, chunky jewellery and six-inch stiletto heels. We were all sporting non-shedding zip-up hooded jumpsuits and booties with matching face masks. They weren’t particularly glamorous, waterproof or warm. They didn’t protect against the stench either.