Containment

by Vanda Symon

  ‘Come on, you two, we’ll be late; save that for later.’ Maggie and Rudy, arm in arm, stepped in too, effectively blocking off the two idiots behind us.

  I took the opportunity to grab Spaz by the arm and shuffle him off in the direction of the Rialto. The other two dip-shits stepped back and let us through, a look of incredulity on their faces. We must have been quite a sight – Mr and Mrs Tall and Gorgeous, arm in arm, Little Miss Me, looking pretty damn good, even if I did say so myself, and Spaz, on my arm, looking somewhat relieved, and dare I say it, smug.

  As we got further down the street Spaz uttered with a lopsided grin, ‘Thanks. Do you do rescue bonks too?’

  ‘Don’t push your luck, Sunshine.’

  51

  ‘Well, Sam. Suddenly you’re everyone’s best friend,’ Smithy said, as I arrived in the office, ready for a fresh day of playing dodge-the-boss. ‘That should make a nice change for you.’

  Last night’s Hollywood escape into Sandra Bullock-land had helped my mood somewhat, as had the amusing encounter with Spaz, but not enough for me to turn off my bullshit-o-meter. I looked at Smithy, trying to judge whether he was being genuine or making a bad attempt at irony. From my standpoint, he looked for real, although you could never quite be sure.

  ‘Why?’ I couldn’t hide the suspicion in my voice. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘My, you are defensive this morning. Bearing in mind everything that’s been going on in the Clifford Stewart case, and a few apparent … coincidences.’ He winked at me as he said the c-word; quite an alarming sight on his craggy face. ‘They sent out a sniffer dog to the beach house, on the off-chance, and the thing went berserk.’

  ‘It found Clifford’s plot, or store?’ I asked. ‘But we had a pretty good look around the house and didn’t see anything obvious. And you couldn’t even get underneath it. Did they fan out and do a search further into the neighbourhood or something?’

  ‘Nope, this was better than that. You know those cartons in the wardrobe – the ones we suspected came off the ship?’

  ‘Something in those? Really?’

  ‘Really. Quite sophisticated actually. Three cartons contained tins of paint, some an off-white neutral colour, nothing outstanding or eye-catching. The heroin was well-sealed and attached to the tin, down inside the paint.’

  ‘So even if customs opened one up, they’d just see paint.’

  Tricky. Would it have been picked up if it was x-rayed? Powder in paint? Paint was just powder suspended in thick goop, so maybe not. Or maybe they just got lucky. ‘And the drug dog detected it despite the paint smell? That’s incredible.’

  ‘Actually, she scored two hits. The first time it was for a bag of weed hidden under the carpet in the wardrobe – someone’s little beach-time supply. But then she kept going off, so they looked for something else.’

  ‘There must be an amazing nose on that dog, because I know for a fact they’ve had some pretty bloody useless pooches over the years,’ I said. I recalled one that could barely find his own food bowl before he was retired off to an amused and grateful family. Looked like this handler was on to a winner.

  ‘Well you can imagine how proud Russ is about it; he’s become insufferable. I’m guessing the two of them may get a few flights around the country when word gets out about her abilities.’ Would they give a dog air points and a Koru Club membership?

  ‘Heroin. Well, the plot thickens. I know we only had a cursory look at them, but from what I saw the tin labelling was professional; even the cartons were properly printed, not just affixed stickers. So someone rather organised I’d say – in both senses of the word – has gone to a lot of trouble to import a load of heroin. And I’m guessing they wouldn’t go to that amount of trouble just for the three cartons we found in the wardrobe. There would have been a lot more in that shipment. Which means that, unless they were salvaged by our lot, there’s probably a few more tins floating around out there.’

  ‘The drug squad and customs are onto it. Thorne said they hadn’t heard any rumours of a major delivery, so this import is a pretty tight operation, going from the twelve tins at the bach.’

  ‘Crib,’ I corrected.

  ‘Bach, crib, whatever. Each four-litre tin had a hundred grams of heroin, so the twelve tins we found could have a street value up to three million bucks. Multiply that out by a few dozen more cartons, say, and that’s a pretty tidy sum.’

  ‘And a pretty good motive for murder?’

  ‘One of the best.’

  I thought about the timing here; it didn’t quite stack up. ‘According to the post-mortem, and the bacterial calculation, Clifford was killed two or three days after the ship stuck. Whoever this shipment belongs to, they would have had to react pretty quickly. And we’re also assuming that Clifford had something to do with the drugs. They were found at Felix’s crib, and just because they were good mates doesn’t mean they were in on something together.’

  ‘I’d have thought the fact his so-called mate has done a runner is a pretty good indication they were in on something together, and, gosh, now one of them is dead.’ I could have done without Smithy’s amateur theatrics attached to that last statement. ‘Look, that ship foundering and the looting would have made the news all over the world. The sender would have known about it, and I’m pretty sure the recipient would be scrambling to make sure their delivery was safe. I bet once they discovered their shipment was one of those on the beach, they’d have been on to tracking it down pretty bloody fast,’ he said.

  ‘But how could they know so quickly? All of those containers, including the ones still on the ship, have been quarantined for weeks. Look how long it took you guys to even get started on sorting out inventories for the insurance claims. The murder happened too soon after the event for them to have known for sure their drug shipment was pilfered.’

  ‘They might have driven out to Aramoana as soon as they heard, like half of Dunedin did. Then saw their container opened – they’d know the serial number. They might even have seen people carrying their stuff off, followed them and relieved them of their loads. Or Clifford somehow discovered the heroin in the paint; hell, he may have even been part of their organisation, saw an opportunity for some cash and tried to flog it off. Word gets around pretty quick. All he needed to do was try and sell it to the wrong people, then someone gave a whisper in someone else’s ear and, hey presto, Clifford gets paid a little visit.’ Smithy was just getting warmed up. This was the most animated I’d seen him for days. ‘They want to know where the rest of it is, hence the beating the crap out of him for information.’

  ‘But surely he wouldn’t have held out for some drugs and a few bucks? Wouldn’t he have just ’fessed up straight away? Why would they have to kill him?’

  ‘Shit, Shep, you can be naïve sometimes. Don’t underestimate these bastards. They probably had their fun, and they’d kill for less.’

  52

  ‘Detective Constable Shephard,’ I answered. I was looking forward to the day I could drop the constable bit and just use the D title. God only knew I’d have earned it. There was a long pause on the phone, and I was just about to hang up, thinking it was some wrong-number loser, or someone put through to the wrong extension, when a distinctive swallowed voice said: ‘Hello.’

  No introduction was necessary. ‘Hello, Spaz,’ I said, still inwardly cringing at his nickname. I’d tried to call him by his given name, Cedric, the previous night, but he’d made it quite clear he would refuse to answer to it. He called it an abomination, which, given his speech difficulties, needed no further explanation.

  ‘I need to see you,’ he said. I could almost feel the effort required for him to hold a phone in position, let alone talk into it.

  ‘Why? If you’re looking for a date because of last night, don’t even think it. I thought I’d made it pretty clear that was just to get you out of trouble.’

  ‘No. It’s about Felix. Nova. An hour.’

  ‘Felix Ford?’ I asked.

&nb
sp; ‘What about Felix Ford?’ a voice boomed from the doorway. My head spun around, I felt a lurch in my stomach. That man had a knack of appearing at exactly the wrong time. DI Johns looked like Thor, God of Thunder, on a bad day. ‘I thought I had made it quite clear you were to stay away from anything to do with that young man. Do you need your bloody head read? How stupid can you be? What’s so hard about following a simple instruction?’ he said, his voice rising in volume with each word. I couldn’t even look around the room for moral support; everyone else was off at lunch, so I stood there, phone in hand, gawping. ‘Well?’ he bellowed.

  ‘It wasn’t … I haven’t … It isn’t anything to do with the assault case, sir.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘It’s just someone downstairs getting back with some information for Smithy.’ I figured my face was blushing enough, adding a blatant lie to the mix wouldn’t be detectable amid the background glow. The shaking hands would be more difficult to explain. I lowered the phone to the desk.

  ‘Well take a bloody number and get them to ring back. I don’t want you so much as touching this. You are officially warned; you can expect the paperwork later.’ He threw me one more lightning-bolt look, and then stormed off down the hallway.

  I took a few deep breaths then raised the phone back to my ear. ‘Hello, are you still there?’

  All I could hear was a stream of staccato beeps.

  53

  ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  Curiosity had got the better of me, so I took a leap of faith and turned up at Nova within the hour. Told the boys in the office I was off to see the doctor about a gynaecological complaint; that way I knew there’d be no questions asked. Spaz had been waiting a while, judging by the empty coffee cup and cake crumbs. I was grateful he’d chosen the table down the back, by the door to the loo, and as far away from the windows looking out over The Octagon as possible. It would just be my luck for Dick Head Johns to decide to come here for a coffee and catch-up with the wife. I sat with my back to the corner, shoulder blades twitching.

  ‘Felix,’ he said, looking me in the eye with an intensity that made me wince.

  ‘What about Felix?’

  ‘He’s in trouble.’ Tell me something I didn’t know.

  ‘I am very well aware of that. He didn’t show up for court, so there’s a warrant out for his arrest. It looks a bit suspicious that he disappears just when his mate Clifford’s body turns up, don’t you think?’

  ‘He needs your help.’

  A snort escaped me before I could stop it. ‘My help? You do realise I was the one on the receiving end of his fists? You know, the little assault case he didn’t turn up for – assaulting an officer. Me. See the scar? That pretty residual yellow is not jaundice, mate. Why on earth should I help him?’ My voice must have got a little loud as the people at the next table turned to look.

  He leaned forwards and shifted his gaze so it felt like it pierced right into my brain. ‘Because you saved him. You saved me. You…’ he struggled to find the right word before falling back to the tried and true ‘…save.’ And gave a little shrug, like it was obvious.

  Those three little statements sucked the air out of my sails, and in one of those ‘clunk’ moments in life, I realised he was absolutely right. If I thought about it, I’d spent my entire life trying to save things. Spiders and their webs from the scourge of Mum’s vacuum cleaner, baby birds fallen from nests, half-dead hedgehogs, abandoned lambs, lame horses, and when it came to people, lame ducks. Sam Shephard, champion to the underdog. I was pragmatic about it. I was a farm girl after all and understood full well the circle of life and death – hell, I’d even killed dinner before today – but always, in the back of my mind, it was there. Policing was the perfect profession for someone like me: you got paid to save people, fix problems. And I knew in that moment, with absolute clarity, and against my better judgement, the same applied here.

  I returned his gaze and sighed.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  54

  My cover story worked perfectly as there were no awkward ‘Where have you been?’ questions when I got back to the office. No man on earth wanted the sacred feminine mystery shattered by an in-depth explanation of a woman’s gynaecological problems. TMI – too much information. What I did walk back into, though, was an impromptu team meeting with DI Johns taking centre stage. He gave me a censuring look but there was no interrogation, so I guessed my colleagues had filled him in on my supposed whereabouts. The ruse had clearly worked too well as no one had bothered to text me about this little gathering; the courtesy would have been nice. Mind you, the mood here wasn’t exactly warm. The crossed arms of the troops and the stare-em-down attitude of the boss made for an atmosphere you could carve. There must have been something in the water, because, impossible as it might seem, the DI had been even grumpier than usual this week. It was like he and Smithy were having a competition for most temperamental.

  The whole crew for Operation Toroa – the bird name they’d given the Clifford Stewart case – was here, and also Billy Thorne from the drug squad and some bloke wearing a New Zealand Customs uniform. They must have received some new information, otherwise this would have been saved for the end-of-day briefing. I hoped I hadn’t missed too much of it. Smithy would have to fill me in on any gaps later.

  ‘As I was saying, now that DC Shephard has finally decided to join us’ – he just couldn’t resist, could he? – ‘in light of news from Thorne’s sources, we have to look at the real possibility that the discovery of the heroin shipment and the death of Clifford Stewart are related. As everyone is aware, Stewart had a prior conviction for possession for supply – for marijuana, not heroin; but it still shows a level of involvement in the industry. Drug squad is working with Customs to trace back the point of origin of the heroin shipment we’ve intercepted, and also its intended destination.’

  I thought his use of the word ‘intercepted’ implied a level of prior knowledge on our part, instead of the reality behind the discovery – blind luck.

  ‘ESR are also analysing the heroin to determine its origins. This looks like a large and organised operation that would have been planned well in advance. Their plans would have been thrown into total disarray by the shipwrecking and their stock being looted, and they’ll go to any lengths to get it back.’ He took a good stare at me before addressing Smithy. ‘Malcolm, where does Felix Ford fit into this so far?’

  Smithy remained where he was, propping up a wall. The uninterested expression that had occupied his face a moment earlier morphed into one of semi-attention. I could see the DI had also noticed Smithy’s apparent lack of concern, and his scowl intensified.

  ‘Ford, as you all know, is the custodian of the bach where the heroin was found yesterday,’ Smithy said. ‘We also have a warrant out for his arrest, after he failed to show at the court hearing for his assault against Detective Constable Shephard here.’

  All eyes turned to me, and I dropped mine to the carpet. Despite the fact I’d been the victim, I could still feel the heat crawl up my face. Although, part of that might have had to do with what I’d just been up to and what I was planning for later this evening. Despite the unwanted attention, I could have kissed Smithy for the fact he hadn’t put in the usual politically correct, crap word ‘alleged’ in front of the word ‘assault’, as we always had to do in public for the lawyers’ benefit. I could vouch quite emphatically that it did happen.

  ‘We also now know that Ford’s Dunedin residence was the scene of Clifford Stewart’s death, or the attack that caused it. Ford can’t have been the assailant, as he was hospitalised at the time, but it is curious that both his residence and the property at Aramoana that he looked after have featured in this investigation. Felix Ford and Clifford Stewart were known to be good mates. They went to school together, and Stewart was at the party at the Fords’ Aramoana bach the weekend of the shipping accident. We know a number of people from the party parti
cipated in the looting on the beach – and cartons, including those with the heroin inside, were found in storage at the bach. That Sunday is the last confirmed sighting of Stewart. He could have been back at his flat in Castle Street on the Monday, but the witness, his flatmate Jason Anderson, is uncertain and unreliable. It does fit in with the estimated time of death that he was still alive on the Monday – or for at least part of it – but he didn’t turn up at work that day. His employers didn’t pursue his absence, assuming he was ill. It should also be noted that Leo Walker, the other flatmate, has been absent since the Monday, too, apparently gone bush for DOC. He’s since been contacted, and we’re awaiting his extraction. It’s not a large stretch of the imagination to think he might be involved in this somehow. Walker went to the same high school as Stewart and Ford, and, rather ironically, all three were in the same young enterprise group for their economics class. They manufactured and sold chocolate fudge.’

  ‘Shephard,’ DI Johns announced, causing us all to start.

  ‘Sir?’ My suspicion-o-meter immediately jumped into action at his acid tone of voice.

  ‘You’re off the case.’

  ‘But, sir…’ I started to protest. Even my overdeveloped sense of doom when it came to the DI hadn’t seen that one coming.

  ‘But nothing. You’re off. You aren’t to have anything to do with it. There’s too big a conflict of interest here. Felix Ford’s lawyers would have a field day. As it is, they’ll jump on the fact you went out to his crib at Aramoana, despite my making it very, very clear you could not be involved.’

  I looked over at Smithy whose face mirrored my surprise, but also seethed with annoyance.

  ‘No, I’m putting you on tidying up the thefts from the containers. Not the commercial ones – Billy’s squad and Customs are tracking those for drug trafficking. I’m assigning you to the personal property of that family emigrating. Think of it as light duties while you fully recuperate.’ There were times that man could look positively reptilian, and this was one of them. He oozed smug victory.