Containment

by Vanda Symon

  Before I had time to chicken out, though, the door opened inwards and there was Spaz, the guy who got me into this mess. He looked both relieved and apprehensive to see me.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said and gestured for me to enter.

  I noted a small but comfortable-looking flat with minimalist furniture, but maximalist books. It must have been Spaz’s home but I couldn’t understand for the life of me why he’d opt to live up a flight of stairs when he struggled to even walk. Either he was incredibly astute, or he’d developed the skill of mind-reading, as he said, ‘Good view and I like a challenge.’

  I was about to make a rude comment back, when Felix Ford walked into the room from what I guessed was the bathroom, judging by the flushing noise that followed him. He spotted me and froze, poised as if he was ready to bolt. The sight of him got my fight-or-flight mechanism on full alert too. After my mini freak-out the last time I’d entered a flat alone, I’d taken the precaution of wearing my stab-proof vest under my coat. I loathed the thing, and it made breathing an effort, but considering the circumstances I could put up with squashed tits. We eyed each other warily, waiting to see who would speak first.

  Spaz broke the impasse. ‘You going to arrest him?’ There was the million-dollar question. This could all be tidied up here and now if I did. Would they let me? Once again I wondered what the hell I was doing here.

  ‘By rights I should. But no, I want to hear what he’s got to say first.’

  I walked over to an armchair and perched on the edge of the seat. Felix sat, also perched, on the armchair opposite me, a coffee table separating us. Spaz sat on the couch, like a ref in the middle.

  I was about to say Well get on with it then, when Felix blurted out: ‘I’m sorry.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘Jesus, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you like that.’

  I felt a swell of shock and confusion rush through me. Finally, an apology, and, daft as it may seem, hearing him utter those simple words caused a fundamental shift in my mind and being. It washed away some of the apprehension at being here, and it washed away my inhibitions too.

  ‘Well, you bloody well did,’ I yelled. ‘What were you thinking? What could possibly have possessed you to hit anyone, let alone a woman, let alone a police officer?’ The flood of pent-up anger and hurt spilt out and I couldn’t stop the tide. It drove me back to my feet and I couldn’t stop the tears either. ‘I did not deserve that. I was just doing my job, and you chose to disregard me; you chose to carry on plundering; you chose to bloody well knock me out. I was concussed and ill. God, I was ill. I had to have a week off work. I’m still giddy now, and I’ve got a permanent headache, and I had stitches. See here?’ I pointed to my eyebrow. ‘I’ll always carry that scar and all because you couldn’t keep your fucking fists to yourself. And over what? What, I ask you? A box of stolen goods? Do you realise you’ve completely screwed your life and your future over a crap carton of … of … crap?’ I stood there, pointing at him, gasping with the force of the tirade.

  He sat there looking like a stunned mullet. There was a charged silence.

  ‘That went well.’ I turned and looked at Spaz with his deadpan face, and was amazed to hear a laugh burst out of me, then another. It was pretty ridiculous wasn’t it? Me breaking all the rules – being in contact, unbeknown to my superiors, with a fugitive who was on assault charges against me and a suspect in a murder case. Here I was giving him a good bollocking. My mother would have been proud. Well, she’d have been proud of the telling-off bit, but not the skulking around behind everyone’s back.

  I wiped away the tears, sat down, and this time slouched back into the chair.

  ‘Yeah, well, I am sorry – truly – to you, and also for the way the whole business has screwed up my life. If ever someone wished they could turn back the clock, that would be me.’ Felix sat back into his chair too and leaned against the armrest, his head in his hand and a look of complete misery on his face. I felt a momentary twinge of pity for him. ‘I should never have done that – any of it – because look what happened: I nearly got myself killed; I did get my best friend killed; and I hope I haven’t got the other one killed, and now I think the bastards are out to get me.’

  ‘Wait a moment,’ I said, not quite believing what I was hearing. We’d had our suspicions, but I never thought I’d be here for a confession. ‘What do you mean you got your best friend killed? What have you got to do with Clifford’s death?’

  He sat up straight, sighed and looked me in the eye. ‘Everything, I think.’

  58

  ‘Sorry? You’ll need to explain yourself. Start from the beginning.’

  Felix took a few moments to collect his thoughts. ‘Well, you know how the ship ended up on the rocks, and the containers washed up on the beach? Well, a few of us thought we might retrieve a few things from them. You know, find something interesting, maybe sell it, make a few dollars.’

  ‘Steal things you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not stealing, it was finders keepers, salvage rights.’

  ‘I’d challenge you to find a judge who’d agree with you there.’

  Spaz cleared his throat. He was right, it wasn’t the time to nit-pick.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, we got quite a few boxes and took them back to the crib. My folks have a place at Aramoana and we’d had a party there the night before. A few of us had stayed over rather than go all the way back to Dunners. That’s why we were out there in the first place.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that bit,’ I said. ‘Your bloody party kept me up half the night.’

  He looked surprised.

  ‘Yeah, I’d been staying out at Aramoana too. Why do you think I was on the beach in civvies at that ungodly hour? The police recovered the rest of the boxes you had hidden in your wardrobe, by the way, and a little stash of something else that shouldn’t have been there.’

  ‘Shit, did they?’ He knew exactly what I was talking about and assumed the weary look of someone wondering what the hell else can go wrong. Unfortunately for him, the answer to that little thought was ‘plenty’.

  ‘So what else happened that morning, Felix?’

  ‘Well, we did a few runs down to the beach, then Leo and Clifford decided to take some boxes into town early, before the police blocked off the road. They were going to take them to their flat. We thought we’d leave the rest at the crib for a bit, until all the fuss died down.’

  ‘Sorry, I thought you just said there was nothing wrong with taking it. Why the secrecy then? Still finders keepers, huh?’ I asked.

  Spaz gave the coffee table a kick. Admonished again. When I looked at him he was giving me an ‘ease up, lady’ stare.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘So what was in the boxes?’

  ‘There wasn’t anything really valuable: some nick-nacks, ornaments, pictures, some old books, stuff from a house by the looks, and lots of paint.’

  Paint, of the super-duper variety, with a kick. I held my tongue, and waited to see what he would divulge about it.

  ‘We thought we might get a bit of money for some of the stuff, so Leo and Clifford took several boxes with them to list, and we were going to get rid of some of the stuff with a friend in the second-hand business.’

  ‘List?’

  ‘On Free-Market.’ I raised my eyebrows. The internet trading website: online auctions, receiver’s heaven.

  ‘What day was this?’

  ‘Well, we had planned to meet up at my house in town and do all the online things that Sunday afternoon, but then I went back to the beach to try to score some more goods, and then, well, you know what happened.’

  My hand reached up and brushed across my eyebrow. I sure as hell knew what happened. I noticed his hand had automatic-piloted up to his head too.

  ‘So, what do you think any of this has to do with Clifford’s death?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t hear from either of them at all after that day. Not even when I was in hospital, whi
ch was weird because they were mates, you know? I can understand them taking a few days to find out, ’cos I was the last one left at the crib, and it took the police a day or so to get hold of my parents. Still, I thought they’d have visited me. But not even a text. When I got out, I rang up their flatmate, Jase. He’s the most useless prick you’ve ever met.’ I could second that. ‘And he hadn’t seen them for ages either. He didn’t seem too worried about it, but I thought it was odd. It wasn’t like them.’

  ‘I’ve met Jase. He seemed too permanently stoned to worry about anything.’

  ‘Yeah, you got that right. When I asked, he remembered them bringing some boxes home, but said they’d taken them away again.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ve seen their flat, right?’

  ‘The words “infested rat hole” jump to mind.’

  He smiled at my understatement. ‘We had this little business going, right, with Free-Market. Most stuff we sold we sent off in the post, but sometimes local people want to pick up rather than pay freight. We couldn’t have them pick things up from that flat, they’d get suspicious, so we’d always do any pick-ups from my place.’

  That made sense. By my recollection, Felix’s house was well maintained and in a reputable suburb. It wasn’t likely to make a would-be purchaser take one look and run a mile, unlike the other hovel, which would have had the buyer reporting the listing immediately. It did beg a question though.

  ‘Can you tell me why on earth they’d choose to live in that rubbish-tip hole in studentville and with a moron like Jase?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Rent was cheap. They both did a few papers at uni and poly and…’ he hesitated for a moment ‘…it was close to Clifford’s other business.’

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess what the other business was. Felix, it would seem, was not going to hold anything back. He must have decided I was his best route to salvation.

  ‘And that would be Clifford’s little pot sideline?’ Pot, grass, electric puha, marijuana – call it what you wanted, it was illegal.

  ‘Yeah. Students are good customers, and Jase had a number of friends in need, shall we say.’

  Ah, networking. I was sure their Otago Boys’ High School economics teacher would have been so proud. It was young enterprise at its best. And we all knew how much the NORML activists liked campaigning to legalise marijuana on campus, with their regular light-ups. It was the perfect place to blend in with your customer base. But it was all rather small-time on the scale of criminal activities.

  ‘You still haven’t said why you think this has anything to do with Clifford’s murder and Leo’s disappearance.’ I decided not to let him know right now that Leo was safe and sound. The man was on a roll, and I wasn’t going to slow the flow.

  ‘It has to. I can’t think of any other explanation for it. We never had any problems until we found this stuff. Life was sweet, and then suddenly, wham, all this shit happens. And there’s another thing: when I got out of hospital I found my flat had been broken into.’

  ‘Did you report it to the police?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t.’

  ‘Why not? Surely your parents would have noticed? They came over, didn’t they, helped you get settled back in? Wouldn’t they have reported it?’

  ‘The thing is, it wasn’t broken into as such – no broken windows, jimmied locks or anything like that – but there was no sign of any of those boxes, and my computer was gone. The guys wouldn’t have taken it – it was a proper PC, not a laptop, and they had their own. I didn’t actually tell Mum and Dad, because they were worried enough already. I couldn’t report the missing boxes, because technically I’d stolen them.’ Oh, he admitted it was theft now. ‘And I didn’t report the computer because, well, you know, the police weren’t very fond of me, and I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.’

  That was probably wise, all things considered. ‘Did you notice anything else about the flat, anything at all?’

  ‘A few things seemed to have been moved slightly, and it smelt a bit odd.’

  ‘How odd?’

  ‘I don’t know how to describe it; different.’

  It was time to divulge some other information he wasn’t aware of. ‘What if I was to tell you that forensics have decided your Pine Hill Road house was the most likely scene of Clifford’s death.’

  ‘No way, that’s not possible. Jesus!’ He stood up and started pacing backwards and forwards across the room, his hands clutching at his hair.

  ‘There were traces of blood spatter evidence. Someone had gone out of their way to clean up, so these traces weren’t visible to the naked eye, but we’ve got equipment that can point them out. It’s probably what forensics could smell, though, that alerted them to the right spot, cleaning products or damp carpet. It looks like he was beaten to death in your hallway entrance.’

  ‘Surely you can’t think it was me?’ he asked, almost pleading.

  ‘No, of course not. You were unconscious in hospital – you’ve got what everyone considers the most rock-solid alibi in history. What I do need to know is whether you can think of anyone who would do this to him, and to be straightforward about it. Do you think Leo could have done this to him?’

  I’d thought he looked shocked before. ‘Leo? No. No way, man. They were good mates. No bloody way.’

  I looked at him, could see how uncomfortable he was under my gaze. He turned away and went back to pacing the room.

  ‘You want to know what I really think, or what really worries me?’ he asked.

  ‘Please, fire away.’

  ‘I’m thinking, if Leo has disappeared, what if he’s been knocked off too, and his body just hasn’t been found yet? What if he’s dead too?’ When I looked at his distraught face, I had to put him out of that little piece of misery. He hadn’t finished yet, though. ‘And, I’m wondering if I’m next.’ I looked up, surprised.

  ‘Is that what your disappearing is about, and not showing up for court? You’re worried about your safety?’

  ‘Well, yeah, that’s part of it, and I just freaked out, you know? I’ve never been in this much trouble, ever. And it all just seemed to be getting worse and worse. I didn’t know what to do and I panicked.’ All of a sudden he seemed very young and very vulnerable, and it was hard to equate the guy who saw fit to punch me one over some loot with the strung-out, nervous wreck before me now. I tried not to feel sorry for him.

  ‘The justice system has to catch up with you eventually, Felix. You know that, don’t you?’ He nodded reluctantly. ‘And if you’re truly worried about your safety, if you hand yourself in, we can take measures to protect you.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t do that. Not right now. Not yet.’ He turned his head away, but not before I saw the tears in his eyes.

  ‘And you don’t need to worry yourself about Leo,’ I said. ‘We know where he is. He’s alive and well and quite safe.’

  The pacing stopped and he finally slouched back into the couch. ‘But…’

  ‘He’d been bush for DOC and has only just made his way out. He’s probably being interviewed as we speak. The thing is, we do have to look seriously at his involvement here.’ I was pretty sure, in light of the heroin discovery, which I wasn’t about to share, and the testimony from Trina, that Leo was not in the picture, but I wanted to hear it from Felix.

  ‘I can tell you, categorically, he would never harm Clifford. They were like brothers, you know?’ He added a quiet postscript: ‘We all were.’ I was tending to believe him.

  ‘So, you really think the stolen stuff from the ship is what this is all about? That it all started with that?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s the only thing that makes any sense.’ If only he knew.

  ‘Did Clifford or Leo have a key to your place?’

  ‘Yeah, so they would have let themselves in. They probably did the Free-Market listings there, started without me. My digital camera was missing too, b
ut I presumed they had borrowed it, to photograph the other stuff. Anyway, doing the listings at my place was better than at their flat, because Jase could be a nosey bastard, and really annoying, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they got sick of him and shifted camp.’

  ‘Do you remember the Free-Market username and password you guys use?’

  ‘Why?’ This was not the time to be coy.

  ‘We can look online here and see exactly what they listed and if anyone placed a bid. Or have you already checked that out with Spaz?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ He looked a little embarrassed.

  ‘What’s the problem, then?’

  ‘Our username is “cathnadam”.’

  ‘Who are Cath and Adam?’

  ‘No one. We just decided to choose a name that looked a bit mumsy-dadsy, you know? A couple selling off their junk, so it would look more legit.’

  ‘As opposed to “ripoffartistsl” or something like that?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He laughed. It sounded thin and strained. ‘The problem is, though, I can’t remember the password. I’ve tried to think of it, but nothing. There are a few things I can’t remember since I was out, you know. My computer at home was set up to log on automatically each time, so I didn’t have to think about the password, and now that’s gone too.’

  ‘What about your email? There would be a record of sold items on there.’ Every time I’d bought something from Free-Market, my inbox had been inundated with ‘you have won an auction blah, blah’ or payment instructions.

  ‘I can’t remember that password either.’

  ‘You could contact your provider and get it, or a replacement password.’

  ‘Well I would, but I’m in hiding, remember?’

  Good point.

  ‘I can help.’ We hadn’t heard from Spaz for so long it was a shock to hear him speak.

  ‘How?’ I asked.

  ‘Free-Market password.’

  ‘You know that?’ Matt asked. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Watched you. Memorised it. We can check it out.’ He gestured over to his little corner of technology, which looked pretty high-end.