by Vanda Symon
‘Look, we really need to ask some questions about him. Can we please come in?’
A look of abject panic flew across his face, and I guessed there might have been a few, shall we say, implements of illegal substance abuse floating around the house. I took a few moments to enjoy his discomfort, but decided, in the interests of getting to the bottom of the murder investigation, we’d forgo the little stuff. We could always send someone back with a warrant later. We’d be calling in a team to go through the flat, regardless.
I looked him in the eye and said, ‘You’ve got one minute.’
He understood the message, loud and clear, and darted down the hallway, leaving us standing on the porch.
‘Is that what you’d have done?’ I asked Smithy.
‘That was minor-infringement guilt on his face, not major-crime.’
‘Glad we’re on the same wavelength.’
Whatever the cause of Mr Vague’s consternation, it must have been small because he appeared back in the hallway well within his allotted time, and had also managed to pull on an oversized and seriously tatty sweatshirt. Judging by the crumples, he’d slept on it. Judging by the food stains, he’d eaten off it too.
By the time we reached the kitchen and dining room, I was not at all surprised to see what looked like a week’s worth of dishes festering among the week’s worth of food scraps. And that’s just what was on the bench. The air was more than a little ripe. When he indicated the seats at the table, I felt a little reluctant, but the surface was more or less clear. It was slightly damp, which meant part of his forty seconds involved wiping as well as hiding. Nice effort, but unfortunately I’d caught sight of the dishcloth, and it wasn’t pretty. I avoided actually touching the table. Even Smithy looked a little cautious, and I knew his standards weren’t all that high. I’d seen him eat things that had fallen on the floor before. I wouldn’t let my dog eat something off this floor.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Jase. Jason Anderson.’
‘And what’s your date of birth, Jason?’
‘Eighth of the eighth, nineteen eighty-eight.’ He didn’t look as lucky as his birth date would suggest. ‘So what’s Clifford done this time?’ he said.
I was curious as to the ‘this time’ reference, as if the police showing up was a regular occurrence. I decided to ask about that later. For now, it was time to break some bad news. I was never sure how to start, but decided that, in this situation, he probably had enough of something mind-altering running around in his system to buffer any shock – assuming he would be shocked and didn’t have something to do with the death. I could see from Smithy’s face it was time to get to business and knew he’d be watching Jason’s reactions closely.
‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we believe Clifford is dead.’ It took a few seconds for Jason’s brain to register this news, the moment of realisation obvious by the sudden draining of colour from his face and the watering-up of his eyes. His mouth hung open and he didn’t, or couldn’t, say a thing.
‘We’ve confirmed his identity with a fingerprint, but still have to check his dental records.’
Finally words came out, with a hoarse whisper. ‘Do I have to identify him for you?’
My mind flashed to the bloated, gnawed remains, and I had to work hard to suppress the shudder. ‘No, that won’t be necessary. What we do need, though, is for you to tell us everything you know of Clifford’s activities in the weeks up to the last time you saw him.’
‘Do his parents know? He was their only child. Shit.’ Maybe he wasn’t quite as uncaring as his first impression portrayed.
‘No, not yet. We’ll be contacting them once we’ve confirmed the identification.’ That was something I wasn’t looking forward to. As OCB, it was my responsibility to inform the next of kin. It had to be one of the hardest parts of the job, and it was probably the reason I was informing young Jason here. Smithy would have realised what was in my immediate future and was giving me a practice run.
‘What happened? Did he have an accident?’ I was supposed to be asking the questions, not Jason, but for the moment his reaction had disarmed me. I couldn’t have been ballsing it up too much though, as Smithy hadn’t interjected.
‘No, it would appear that he was murdered.’
I didn’t think it was physically possible for someone to get any more pallid. ‘Murdered?’ he said, head now shaking with disbelief.
‘Yes, murdered. So we are going to need to know everything you can tell us about Clifford and his activities, and also we need to know about any other flatmates you have. We’ll need to have a search through his room and the rest of your flat for anything that could help us with our enquiries.’ I didn’t know how far we would get with the questioning of Mr Still-bombed-out-of-his-skull here. He might need another few hours to detox, probably down at the station. But we’d get the SOCOs in straight away and we’d ensure Jason wasn’t left alone in the house with any potential evidence, and the opportunity to hide, accidentally damage or contaminate it.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ he said. There was none of the furtive guilt and panic displayed before. He too seemed to realise there were bigger fish to fry.
24
‘So, what do you think of him?’ I asked Smithy as we walked back to the car.
‘Harmless.’
‘You think?’
‘Yeah. I’ve seen more spine in a jellyfish, and probably more brain cells. All bluff and bluster, that one.’ Not that he displayed enough life to manage bluff and bluster. Jason made an amoeba look complicated.
‘His reaction certainly looked pretty genuine, even if it was padded by something illegal.’ I thought about the state of the flat and their chosen lifestyle. ‘The drugs aspect could be something to look at. He was definitely using something, and our victim does have that drug conviction lurking in his past. Although I can’t picture Jason there as a drug lord and criminal mastermind. And, judging by the state of that flat, none of the inhabitants were living in the lap of luxury, provided by a roaring drug trade.’ Even the television was elderly, and was artfully situated on top of another, old console-type model, its screen smashed, with brick still in situ. ‘There’s always the possibility Clifford Stewart was small fry and did something to piss someone off that required his disposal. Mind you, dumb nut there seemed completely oblivious to his flatmate’s disappearance, let alone any potential risk to his own safety. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned that there could be any connection between drugs and Clifford’s demise, or that maybe, because he lived at the same address and clearly was using something himself, he could get caught up in this. But then, maybe we’re completely off the scent there.’ I was doing a bit of a monologue and turned to look at my partner. ‘Are you okay? You’re very quiet today.’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s just that you haven’t said much.’ Not that he was exactly garrulous usually.
‘Not feeling talkative.’
That was the absolutely wrong thing to say to me. I asked the natural next question. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘Nothing’s happened.’
‘But you just said you’re not feeling talkative, which means something’s wrong.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘Did I do something wrong back there? Did I make a mistake? If I did, you have to tell me.’ I thought I’d done all right. Maybe I shouldn’t have given Jason that head start, but Smithy said it was fine at the time. Was he just being nice to my face, but was annoyed underneath?
‘It wasn’t you.’
‘Then who was it?’
He gave me a long-suffering look that said he realised I’d badger him until he told me. With a defeated sigh, he announced his news. ‘I’m going to be a daddy again.’ He didn’t sound that enthused by the idea.
‘Well, congratulations. When did you find out? Veronica must be thrilled.’
‘That was my coffee-break surprise. I think she’s as shell-shocked as I
am.’
Oh. ‘Not planned, I take it?’
‘Hell, no.’ Smithy had come to love and family late in life, and Veronica was in her early forties, so I could understand how it might be a bit of a shock for all concerned. Their youngest had just started school, so I could see that going back to the baby days might not be that appealing.
‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone,’ he said.
‘Of course I won’t. And despite your obvious misgivings, I think it’s lovely news.’ I didn’t add the other thought clanging around in my head – rather you than me.
‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘So excuse me if I’m a bit distracted, but feel free to banter away, knock yourself out. I’m listening.’
Smithy’s bombshell had interrupted my train of thought, and it took me a few moments to pick up the thread.
‘What I was getting at is that I didn’t think Jason had the look of someone who had killed or harmed anyone, or of someone anxious that they might be next on the receiving end. He couldn’t even offer any suggestions in the enemies or motive department.’
There was silence from Smithy.
‘I don’t think his brain was that functional. He might be of more use when he’s not bombed out of his skull.’
‘True.’
25
Come the afternoon, Jason seemed to have recovered some of his memory. We’d been back to the flat earlier to see how the SOCOs were getting on. They brought us up to speed on a few of their discoveries so we would be armed with information for our second attempt at an interview with him. The SOCOs had also made a few disparaging asides about contracting something nasty from the cesspit squalor. While there I’d noticed several details about the flat that had escaped me in the sensory overload of my earlier visit, including the charming poster displaying every novelty condom known to man, and the one with the rather buxom young lady almost wearing a wet T-shirt.
Now we were in the clean and, by comparison, sweet-smelling environment of a second-floor interview room, trying to get sense out of Clifford Stewart’s flatmate.
‘Jason,’ I said, sharp. ‘We need to know everything we can about Clifford so we can find who did this to him. Help us here.’
His head jolted up so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash. If every weekend resulted in such a neurone-killing bender, he’d be down to the IQ of a flea in no time.
‘Yeah, of course,’ he said, blinking slowly, as if his lids were Velcroed to his eyeballs. The eyelid I’d noted for its droop earlier had lifted slightly, so I took that as a sign of partial recovery.
‘His friends. I need to know the names of all his friends.’
‘Oh, yeah. Well, we have a few of the same mates. Scotty, ah, Jonesy, Bulldog, Smithy.’ My Smithy’s left eyebrow twitched. ‘The touch rugby guys.’ What was it with guys and the need to Jonesyfy their names? You didn’t find girls chucking an affectionate ‘ey’ sound on each other’s surnames. No one would dare call me Shephardy.
‘Real names would be helpful.’
He squinted his eyes as if he was thinking really hard. I swear I could smell plastic burning.
‘Scott Palmer, Nick Jones – er … Nicholas Jones. Bulldog is Caleb Walsh. Josh – I mean Joshua Smith, Evan Williamson. God, who are the others?’
‘While we’re on the topic of nicknames, any idea where Richard got the nickname Clifford?’
Jase looked a little uncomfortable but still smiled as he told me: ‘Because he’s big and red and a bit of a dog.’ He may have thought the kids’ TV show reference was funny, but the image that immediately jumped into my mind was of the sodden matted mass of red hair the divers dragged up that wasn’t attached to the body. I shuddered and moved on to the next question.
‘Any friends not in your usual social circle?’
‘There are a couple of guys: Spaz, who he’s at uni with. And Frog.’
I gave him a look.
‘I don’t know their real names, okay? Spaz, everyone knows Spaz because he’s, you know, a spaz.’
I gave him one of my extra-special looks.
‘Geez, everyone calls him that,’ he said, palms up like, whoa, lady. ‘He walks kind of weird and lurchy, and twitches and stuff, and talks funny, but he’s supposed to be a proper genius. He’s got a beard, dark hair. He’s a student.’
‘Which department?’
‘Where?’
‘At the university. What department is’ – I struggled to bring myself to say it – ‘Spaz in?’ Could you charge someone with self-inflicted brain-damage?
‘I dunno. Computers?’
I gave up on that line of questioning before I was forced to grab his neck and shake him.
‘And Frog?’
‘He works at that second-hand place on George Street. You know? Where you can flog things off for money. Cash for Goods, I think it’s called.’
We referred to that place as Cash for Crap. It often came up on our radar, as the owner was pretty good at spotting and reporting anyone trying to offload stolen goods.
‘What about his girlfriend?’ I suspected Clifford didn’t have one, as what woman would let her man disappear for a couple of weeks like that without contact in some shape or form? Mind you, I also suspected that none of the guys in the flat would have had a girlfriend; what self-respecting woman would set foot in that dump?
‘Nah, he hadn’t had a woman for a while. Last one buggered off overseas, and that was the end of that.’
‘No casual flings?’
‘If he did, he didn’t bring them home.’
Surprise.
‘And where’s your other flatmate? When’s Leo due home?’
‘Dunno. Haven’t seen him for a few days. Probably shacked up at his missus’ place.’
Okay, maybe my theory was slightly off. Someone had managed to attract a woman, but it wasn’t far from the mark if he was at her place.
‘Have you got his cellphone number?’
‘Yeah.’ He sat there looking vague.
‘Then can we please have it?’ I said it very slowly, firstly to make sure it sank in, and secondly because, if I didn’t, I was likely to reach over and slap him one.
I smiled sweetly and sat on my hands. He got his cellphone out of his pocket and poked away at it until he came to the right number. He rattled off the digits.
‘It’s pretty clear that you dabble in some illegal substances.’
The young man looked shocked to hear the sound of Smithy’s subterranean baritone. Bless him, he saved Nasty Sam from having to make an appearance.
‘Was Clifford into narcotics?’ Trick question – we both knew of his previous conviction.
You could see the tussle of emotions on Jason’s face. If he was capable of that many thoughts at once, I’d pick he was weighing up dobbing in his mate versus protecting his own butt. Smithy’s voice had beautifully conveyed both query and threat. When he responded, Jason took the mumble approach.
‘Yes, he did a bit.’
‘Sorry, couldn’t quite hear that?’
‘Yes, he enjoyed the odd joint.’
‘And was this for his own use, or was he a bit more ambitious than that?’
There was a distinct hesitation.
‘Look, son.’ Smithy had pulled out the son card. ‘We’re not bloody stupid – we can tell you’re hedging. He was growing for supply, wasn’t he? Where was his plot and where did he store his harvest?’
The SOCOs hadn’t found anything in Clifford’s room, but no one with half a brain would risk being caught out in this flat, which may as well have had a neon-lit, six-metre-high ‘raid me’ billboard erected on its roof. This would explain why they found what looked like some hash, half a dozen ecstasy tablets with a dove stamped into them and a semi-live, barely-hanging-in-there marijuana plant in Jason’s room, but nothing in Clifford’s. They also found a couple of big, orange roadworks signs, some traffic cones and a Castle Street road sign.
Jason had a look of utter misery on his face. ‘
I don’t know. He never told me – he kept it secret. But his folks had a crib down in The Catlins. The times I went there I didn’t see anything, but maybe he hid something out that way? Dunno.’ Clifford must have had some sense. I wouldn’t have trusted this oaf with the whereabouts of a potential high either. The profits would have gone up in smoke.
‘When were you down there last?’ I asked.
‘Where?’
Lord, give me strength. ‘The Catlins.’
‘Oh, not since summer. Too friggin’ cold in that place. Nah, if we all went to the beach for a weekend, we went to another mate’s crib out at Aramoana.’
‘And when did you last do that?’
‘We had a big party out there a couple of weekends ago, you know, when that ship got stuck. That was so cool, man.’
When he saw the look on my face he shut up and decided not to look so enthused about it.
Jason seemed genuinely clueless and harmless enough, but he could also be dumb enough to do something stupid. You could never discount basic stupidity as a motive for murder.
26
My head felt like an overstuffed cushion, and its perpetual low-grade ache had escalated into something more substantial. It had been a full-on day anyway, but I’d then had to finish it off with the unenviable task of informing Clifford Stewart’s parents that their beloved and only son had been beaten to death, his body dumped into the sea. In a strange way it went better than expected – well, it seemed so at the time. I delivered my well-rehearsed news, and it seemed to stun them into silence. There wasn’t the wailing and hysterical rawness of grief that can be incredibly hard to witness. On the other hand, their muffled sobs and sober intensity left me with a deep-seated sense of distress.
Of course, they’d wanted to see the body, to touch and say farewell to their son. I hated having to tell them that, no, that wasn’t possible, and to try to intimate to them with kindness and without going into detail that he wasn’t in good condition. It brought back memories of my Nana’s death: of dressing up in my Sunday best as a little girl and going to the funeral home, fearful and unsure, my hands firmly gripped in Mum’s and Dad’s. She looked so tiny and out of place in the satin-lined coffin, her face, normally so animated, still and without expression. Dad lifted me up so I could kiss her goodbye. I reached out to touch her and felt with my own hands that she was hard, cold and indeed very much dead. There was no doubting it then, no room for a child’s imagination to concoct wild ideas and dreadful images. It demystified her death, and from that moment the nightmares stopped. There would be no such relief for Clifford’s parents. For them, the nightmare had just begun.