Containment

by Vanda Symon

  From the outside people might have thought he looked harmless, but they’d have underestimated the man. On the inside he was as cunning as a shithouse rat.

  I decided I was really starting to like Spaz.

  59

  There was that familiar frisson in the air at work that told me DI Johns was still in his little mood after yesterday’s events. When the big guys tiptoed around him, you knew it was bad. I was keeping as low a profile as possible. It was easy to hide behind a computer when you were my size.

  My brief was to go through the insurance claim for the Trubridge family. I was surprised I was even allowed near it, seeing as it was distantly connected to the Clifford Stewart case, but courtesy of being short-staffed due to winter coughs and colds, and DI Johns’ personal need to let me know my station in life, it was my privilege. The task was made somewhat easier by the fact Peter Trubridge, as well as being a lust bucket, was a hard-core collector, and had photos and provenance for the more expensive or significant items in his collection. Fortunately for him, he was also vaguely paranoid and had taken the precaution of splitting his collection in half, so one container was on the Lauretta Express, and the other on a different ship due in later this week. Well, it was part paranoia, and partly because they had a hell of a lot of stuff.

  The superstars of his collection were air-freighted separately again; you know, the little Picasso, the Rembrandt, and something revolting and pickled by Damien Hirst. Don’t know how they would have managed to get that past biosecurity. Imagine if that had smashed and ended up on Aramoana beach. Urgh. They say art’s subjective, but there wasn’t any way in hell I’d have a semi-dissected and smelly looking fish on my lounge wall. Fish were for eating, preferably battered, with tartare sauce and a lot of chips.

  After a few hours staring at a godzillion auction pictures, I’d stumbled across several items that had once been safely ensconced in a shipping container. Fortunately the Free-Market guys were usually very helpful; when your reputation rode on being a site for the legal and proper trading of goods, it paid to co-operate with the police. You didn’t want the police ticking the box with the sad face and the poor rating, so, consequently, they had a dedicated liaison person just for us.

  I particularly liked the creative writing accompanying some of the sale notices: ‘We’re shifting off-shore, everything must go,’ or, ‘Selling on behalf of my grandmother who is going into a rest home,’ or, my personal favourite, ‘Estate items’. If only they knew that someone was dead and that some items put up for sale were the reason for it. Some of the auctions had closed, some were current, all were illegal.

  Being the paranoid type, I made sure I buried any dead certs from the cathnadam consortium among general searched or Googled items, just in case anyone decided to check on what I’d been up to. My butt seemed to be a regular target, so I thought it best to keep it covered.

  As far as I could tell, Shark-face Super Grump had now left the building and it was just Smithy, Reihana and me holding the fort. It was time to show my hand. I thought I’d go for the wide-eyed and innocent approach; I was sure they’d fall for it. Then I gave myself a sudden reality check. How did it get to the point where I was wilfully hiding the whereabouts of a criminal and filtering only relevant information to my colleagues? This could very well cost me my job. But in my heart of hearts, I knew I was doing the right thing. It passed the acid test for me, which was what Dad would do if he was in this situation. He would have looked out for the little guy too. The sharp realisation that one day soon I would not have Dad’s wisdom and reassurance to draw on hit like a blow to the chest. I took a deep breath, and put my fifth-form acting skills to the test.

  ‘Hey, Smithy?’

  ‘Yeah?’ You’d never know there had been a dust-up yesterday. If he was going to pretend everything was okay, so could I.

  ‘You know how DI Johns said I’m not supposed to have anything to do with the Clifford Stewart or Felix Ford cases?’

  ‘Yes?’ The desired level of suspicion was in his voice.

  ‘Well, I’ve found something here that may be of interest to you.’

  As anticipated, Smithy and Reihana came and peered over my shoulder at the computer screen.

  ‘I’ve been trawling through Free-Market for these insurance claims, and I came across a few items that look very familiar.’

  I flicked up the appropriate page and listened with satisfaction as the expected gasps came from behind my shoulder.

  ‘These listings for the paint appeared the day of the ship grounding, so I’m guessing the cans were looted and the offenders wanted to flick them off as soon as possible. Do you want me to check with our Free-Market liaison person to see who the vendor was and the purchaser? It looks like they bought it on the “buy now” option.’

  ‘No, no, we’ll do that,’ Smithy said. ‘Even though you were just doing what he asked, I don’t think the boss would appreciate you finding this, so how about we keep that aspect to ourselves?’

  Yeah, like I needed to be told. ‘Suits me fine. I’ve got enough to do and I don’t need any more crap from him.’ So far, so good.

  I dropped the next little pearler. ‘There’s more,’ I said, trying not to smile as the infomercial catch phrase ‘but wait, there’s more’ flicked through my brain and the image of a set of steak knives floated around. ‘I found it because I was following this listing.’ I clicked up the auction page for a small bronze horse sculpture. I tapped the provenance folder page for the object. ‘Firstly, I’m sure this is one of the things that was missing from the Aramoana crib after the break-in. If you look at the provenance it was one of a matching pair, and the two are worth a shitload of money. From the date of the listing, this isn’t the one taken in the break-in, so it must be the other one, stolen from the beach. I clicked the “see my other listings” link and found quite an array of goods from the Trubridges’ shipping container, and also – ta-dah – lots more paint. The vendor’s names are “cathnadam”. They’re address-verified, so it might be time for you guys to pay them a little visit when Free-Market coughs up the address.’

  ‘Great job, Sam.’ I enjoyed the praise from Smithy, even if it was ill-gotten. ‘Email me through the links and I’ll get onto it right away.’

  Somehow I didn’t think ‘Cath and Adam’ would be setting out the tea and bikkies.

  60

  It’s amazing how you can seem absorbed in your work and still manage to listen in on a telephone conversation. Most of the time I hated being in an open-plan office. They are so incredibly noisy, and they would have to be the most unproductive places on the planet; in fact, scientific tests had proved it. Between the phones ringing, people talking and continuous comings and goings, it was a wonder any work got done. And then there was the whole computer thing or, more specifically, the typing thing. I had learned how to tune out most noise, but Reihana’s typing had been the hardest to overcome. I had never heard anyone tap a computer keyboard so hard. It was more a thump than a tap. Each key strike seemed to take to the air, then explode, the force emanating out like little shock waves. I could swear it shook the desks. And of course it was slow. He was of the two-finger-and-no-long-term-memory-of-where-the-keys-were school of typing, so not only did I have to endure the noise, I had to live with the knowledge that whatever he was doing was going to take him three times longer than it would a normal human being. There had been numerous occasions where I couldn’t take it anymore and I’d wanted to rip the keyboard out of its USB port and ram it down Reihana’s throat. On those occasions I’d taken myself off for a little walk to prevent bloodshed on his part or hysterical screaming and a subsequent appointment with the station shrink on mine. So far I’d avoided having to kill him, but only because I didn’t want to have to explain to his wife that their kids were fatherless because he couldn’t type. Nowadays my response had simmered down to teeth grinding. But today I could put all the its uses. teeth gnashing aside because claustrophobic close proximity had

&
nbsp; After my little cathnadam revelation this morning, there had been numerous phone calls from the other desks, and the general level of excitement had been climbing. It reached its climax when Smithy set down the phone with so much force I feared for its life.

  ‘Sam, it’s official, I think I love you.’

  An interesting choice of words, after yesterday, I thought. I raised an eyebrow and gave him a look. ‘That’s nice, Smithy, but I think Veronica would have something to say about that. Not to mention Paul.’ He gave a ‘yeah, yeah’ wave as he came over to elaborate. Not that he’d give a toss about Paul.

  ‘Cathnadam’s address turns out to be rather interesting,’ he said, while doing a rugged impersonation of the cat with the cream.

  ‘How interesting?’

  ‘Extremely interesting. In fact, it happens to be the very same address as your friend Felix Ford. And the very same address where young Clifford Stewart met his untimely end.’

  ‘Really?’ Even I was impressed by my acting skills.

  ‘Really. So they’re not some couple getting rid of a few things from the junk room. Looks like it’s just a front for his stolen-goods disposal scheme.’

  ‘That’s a cunning ploy, isn’t it? Let people think it’s all mumsy-dadsy and above board.’ I plagiarised Felix’s words. ‘I wonder how long it’s been going on?’

  ‘According to their records, cathnadam have been trading for well over a year, with ninety-seven point eight per cent positive feedback. There were twenty-two items listed on the afternoon of the boat grounding. Fast mover, young Felix; saw an opportunity and wanted to clear his stock as quickly as possible, I imagine. Eight cans of paint, and fourteen items that will have most likely come from your manifest there, Sam.’

  Thank you, Smithy. He’d delivered the perfect opening for my next pitch. It was a bit of a concern though. Smithy wasn’t as unaffected by everything yesterday as he was making out, and the home-front situation must have been bad. Because normally he’d never make that kind of mistake, especially as I’d done the exact same thing a few days ago. I was shameless enough to take advantage of his faux pas.

  ‘There’s a little problem with all that,’ I said.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as on the afternoon of the boat grounding, Felix Ford was in a coma in hospital. Remember?’ I indicated the yellowing souvenir on my face. ‘It would have been a bit hard for him to be conducting business.’

  ‘Shit. You’re right.’ He looked a little deflated.

  Reihana took up the logical train of thought: ‘Which means that his little cathnadam business must have been in partnership with others. Either his business partners are ruthless and cold-hearted, and carried on without him while he was hospitalised, or they were unaware of his little health issue.’

  ‘I’d like to think the latter, but you never know these days,’ Smithy said. ‘So who exactly are the partners, then?’

  ‘Given the friendship between Felix Ford and our murder vic, I would hazard a guess that Clifford Stewart was one,’ I said. ‘And considering he’s the dead one, you have to wonder if it was him who did the listings, and came a cropper because of them. What about Leo Walker? Surely he’d have been in on it too. What did he say when you interviewed him?’

  ‘Slight delay there: crap weather in Fiordland delayed them tramping out, so we’re not expecting him until later today. But I agree with you there, given their schooling history he’d be a likely candidate for the second-hand goods scheme.’

  ‘What did the Free-Market guys say about the purchasers?’ I asked.

  ‘The paint, all eight cans of it, was sold using the “buy now” option by someone going under the name “Dun297”. The purchase was made at ten thirty-five that evening, so I suspect the drug importers realised their shipment was inadvertently waylaid and were pretty quick to start recovering their goods. That’s very fast work on their part, but then Free-Market would be an obvious place to start looking.’

  ‘And it doesn’t take much imagination to realise they may have been a little anxious about it all and called around promptly to pick up their purchases, and also to have a little chat with the vendor to find out whether he had any more. The fact that a beaten-up body turned up in the harbour has to make the possibility of a drug-related killing very high.’

  ‘It sure as hell does,’ Smithy said. ‘Free-Market has provided the details of the purchaser, but I doubt they’ll be genuine or easily traceable. This import operation is too sophisticated for them to be that stupid. I’ll get onto the Internet provider to get a record of the email correspondence. Hopefully it’s still on the server and we can track things from there. We’ll be needing a lot more of the drug squad’s services though.’

  ‘Did they give you a list of purchasers for the other items?’ I asked.

  ‘Not over the phone. They didn’t detail them at all, and I didn’t ask specifically because I was more interested in the paint, sorry. But they’re going to email through a full report for me soon. Then you’ll be able to chase up some more of your exciting insurance job.’ Smithy did sarcastic well.

  ‘I take it that means you’re not going to reward me for providing the breakthrough by letting me help out on the enquiry?’

  Reihana snorted.

  Smithy was pretty close to it too. ‘Not in a million, Shep,’ he said. ‘It’s not worth my job, or yours.’

  61

  Billy Thorne, the drug-squad man, was in a bit of a lather. He’d been talking with a few of his more intrepid contacts. These weren’t your Joe-Average low-life scavengers or parasites. These were people who made the Mob wince, who took private enterprise to a whole new level. Speaking of wincing, DI Johns was in the room, so I was down the back, doing my very best impression of an inanimate object. It was a surprise he hadn’t asked me to leave the meeting to make coffee, or fetch muffins, or something else suitably demeaning. I’m sure it wasn’t an oversight. My suspicion-o-meter told me my presence would have been somehow strategic.

  Billy addressed the group: ‘It would appear that we have a new player in the import market. My gang contacts were emphatic they knew nothing about this import, but they were intrigued. In fact, if they could figure out who was behind it I imagine they’d be keen to muscle in on the act. We’ll be keeping a close watch on them in case they try to intercept any other paint that turns up. But they were the easy ones to deal with. Another of my contacts seemed a little bitter that something of this scale could have been happening under his nose when he knew nothing about it. Not even a whisper. I imagine there will be a bit of behind-the-scenes enquiring going on there. That could be useful for us.’

  ‘So, are you thinking new players in the local market? Or that Dunedin was just a transit stop for distribution elsewhere?’ Smithy said.

  ‘I’d say Dunedin was merely a transit stop. Normally there’d be word on the street of a delivery. A bit of pre-emptive marketing, as it were, to generate business and anticipation, but in this instance there’s been nothing. The other curious thing is that the drug of choice is heroin, which is pretty rare round here nowadays. That suggests Dunedin wasn’t the final destination. Round here it’s mostly methamphetamine, or its manufacturing ingredients, especially in the gang circles.’

  ‘So if it’s new players, they’re proving to be good at keeping a secret. We have no idea of the level of ruthlessness within their organisation?’ That was DI Johns. Billy Thorne was one of the few people the DI always treated with respect. Had to wonder what Billy had over him.

  ‘No, we don’t; they’re an unknown quantity. If it had been the big-business guys, I’d have no doubt whatsoever they’d be prepared to torture and kill to reclaim their goods. But all we have is a strong suspicion that the death of Clifford Stewart was at the hands of the people expecting a delivery of heroin smuggled in paint cans. A suspicion based on timing and no hard evidence. They appear to be very organised and, as you said, secretive. The shipment was despatched from China. The miles of paper
work required for customs and the importation of goods was in correct order. Naturally, most of it will be counterfeit, but for the purposes of getting the goods into the country, they dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. If the shipping order is correct, after we deduct the cartons that remained on the beach and weren’t stolen, there are another twenty-four cans unaccounted for. The shipment was for a gross of paint tins.’ My brain had to dredge out the figure 144. ‘Of course, to put customs off, not all of those may have been carrying heroin, but it is a huge shipment overall. It’s entirely possible we have a new Asian group on our hands. I’ve got Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch squads with their ears to the ground, in case they were the ultimate destination. Also, it’s possible the importers may have spread their risk. The major centres have flagged this as urgent and are also looking closely at shipments into their ports.’

  ‘And what have you got on the paint shipment delivery address here?’ asked DI Johns.

  ‘The PO Box number provided was for a non-existent import company with a non-existent premises in Ward Street.’

  My ears pricked up at that. Spaz’s flat was in Ward Street. I was dying to ask what was at the given address, but the presence of Dick Head Johns in the room inspired me to keep my mouth shut. Instead I mentally projected every thought wave and vibe I could at Billy to cough up that information voluntarily.

  ‘Cellphone contact number was for a pre-paid. Majority of calls for that number have been through the Dunedin central tower, or neighbouring. Calls logged to and from have all been pre-pay phones. These people are careful.’

  ‘And none of the calls were to or from Clifford Stewart or Felix Ford?’ Okay, the DI hadn’t forgotten me. He stabbed me with a look as he mentioned Felix’s name.

  ‘Negative. Or to Leo Walker, the other flatmate.’