by Ben Onslow
She turned and looked at him. “Why ask if you already know?”
He glanced at the rear-view mirror just in case they were being followed.
“Why would you do it?” Though Josh would do something like that just for the hell of it. His younger brother didn’t back off from anything that looked like fun just because it might be dangerous.
“It’s exciting. And if you get your tag on a rail car, it’ll go all over the country, and everyone will see it.”
“And that’s worth nearly getting caught and arrested?” Matt was as irritated with her as he got with Josh when he did something stupid and dangerous.
She shrugged. “Either you understand, or you don’t.”
“I guess that pretty much goes for everything.” He waved at the graffitied walls they were passing. “Any of this your work?” he asked.
The girl shook her head. “No, rape’s not my thing.” Then she grinned at him. She’d deliberately repeated his words from earlier. She was quick and had a sense of humour. She pointed to a set of letters high up on the wall.
“That’s a tag. One colour with the artist’s name or mark. It’s just getting rid of someone else’s work. To show disrespect.”
Then she pointed at a bigger, more colourful tag. “That’s a throw-up. It’s a more complicated tag. It usually has two or more colours and bubble style lettering. It’s like marking your territory.”
As he drove past, he looked at the two lots of graffiti but couldn’t see the difference. He glanced across at her. She had her hands in her pockets and was slumped down in her seat.
He looked in the rear-view mirror again. No lights behind them. They weren’t being followed.
“I’m Matt,” he said.
“Charlie,” she responded after a pause.
“Where’s your backpack?”
“It’s still there.” She sighed and looked out the window again. “I guess I won’t get that back.”
“Does it have anything in it that will identify you?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Like my credit cards, passport or driver’s licence?”
“Yeah.”
She snorted.
Okay, he guessed if a teenage girl was living in a condemned parking building, foreign travel and owning a vehicle wouldn’t be top on the list of things she’d spend money on.
“Where did your mates go?” They just seemed to disappear and leave her to look after herself.
She shrugged again. “I guess they headed home.”
“Why wouldn’t they wait for you?”
“Probably didn’t see me get hurt. They’ll think I went the other way.”
“I’ll take you home. It doesn’t look like you’ll be walking anywhere soon.”
She looked at him from under her hood.
“Just drop me near the café. Billy will come and get me.” She pulled a phone out of her pocket and tapped a message.
“Who’s Billy?”
No answer.
He drove on through the city.
When they were close to the café, she asked, “Are you a cop?”
He glanced at her, and she smirked at him from under her eyebrows.
“Well?” she asked.
“Why would you think that?”
“Billy reckons you are. He said the way you dress doesn’t look right. And you seem to be hanging around watching.”
“Billy your boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “No, he just looks after us.” She nodded at the jacket and boots. “Now you look like you’re in your own clothes. You look good. You should dress that way all the time.”
He gave a half-laugh. “Thanks for the fashion advice.”
“So, are you a cop?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.” Though what was the point in denying it? It didn’t sound like she’d believe him.
“Bullshit,” she said. “You’re undercover. Why else would you be hanging around the CBD all day and night with nothing to do?”
He shrugged. He obviously wasn’t very good at this. Still, he only had another couple of days, and then he’d be back in Auckland and back in uniform.
“What are you investigating?” Charlie asked.
“I’m not a cop, but if I was, I don’t think my boss would be too pleased if I discussed the details with you.”
“I think your boss is the fat, scruffy guy you meet up with every couple of days.”
He sighed. So much for secret squirrel.
They’d made it to the café, and he pulled into the car park at the front.
“Is Billy coming to get you?”
She looked at her phone and shook her head. “He hasn’t replied.”
“Do you want something to eat?” He fancied a burger and couldn’t just ditch her and go inside. Besides, she seemed observant. Maybe she could tell him where the meth was coming from. She seemed to know Fraser.
“Are you buying?” she asked.
He nodded. “Food in exchange for information.”
“So, you are a cop.” She looked out the window. “I don’t know anything,” she said reluctantly.
“But you know Fraser?”
“I guess.”
That was a start. “Come on.” He got out of the car, went around to her side and opened the car door. “A burger with no strings.”
They settled at the table by the window with burgers and fries. She’d opted for water. He had another coffee and watched her as she delicately picked up a chip.
“If tags and throw-ups aren’t your thing, what do you do?”
Charlie dipped her chip in the sauce. “Blockbuster. Wildstyle. Sometimes a piece if I’ve got time.”
“And they are?” He hadn’t heard of any of that.
“A blockbuster is like a massive throw-up, but it can be done with rollers. It’s fun and fast. Wildstyle is a fancy throw-up. A piece is a masterpiece. It takes time and skill.”
“Well, you live and learn,” he said.
She grinned, then ate the chip and grabbed another one.
“If you aren’t a cop, why are you hanging around with nothing to do? Guys your age who look like you do and talk like you have jobs.”
“I just got back from overseas, and I’m working out what to do.” He might as well use the line Draper had suggested.
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where overseas have you been?”
Now he could stick with the truth. “Europe, Canada, Bali, pretty much everywhere with snow or surf.” He took a mouthful of coffee. Still good. Consistent.
“Doing what?”
“Snowboarding when there was snow. Surfing when there were waves.”
Charlie looked at him suspiciously, still not buying it. “How do you afford to do that? Your family rich?”
Well, they weren’t badly off, but there was no way his father would fund the way he’d been living for the last few years.
He shook his head. “If you’re good enough at something, there are always people willing to pay you to teach them.”
She looked sceptical. “You just rock up to them and say, I’ll teach you if you pay me.”
“Pretty much.” He picked up the burger and bit into it. With a certain type of woman who hung around resorts, that’s the way it worked. Money, accommodation and sex on tap. Not a bad deal all round. He and the two mates he’d been travelling with, the ones with the coffee shop, had a pretty good scam going.
Then he’d met a girl while he was in Zurich, and she’d asked him the same question Charlie had. “How can you afford to do this?”
He hadn’t gone into the details with the girl. But it had been that conversation that made him realise he wasn’t exactly proud of the way he was financing his lifestyle, and he probably should make some decisions about his future.
Luckily, his mates had started to think along the same lines, and they’d all come back home. Tom and James had finished up in Queenstown running the coffee shop and art gallery.
With the same scam on the side, he suspected.
A couple of times in the last month he’d started to think he should be helping them. It might be more fun.
But now he was grown up and responsible.
Charlie nibbled on the chip, then leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“Prove it,” she said.
“How? I don’t carry my passport around.”
“Your phone. If you’ve got selfies on it, that’ll prove where you’ve been.”
He thought about that. Draper had made him clean up the phone. Anything related to the police college or Manakau had been deleted. And she was right, every photo on it now was him with Tom and James surfing, snowboarding or drinking. He handed his phone over.
She pressed the button at the bottom, but it stayed locked.
“How do you open it?”
He leaned over and pressed his thumb on the button, and it opened.
She spent a while flicking through the photos.
“Who are they,” she asked as she handed the phone back.
“The mates I travelled with.”
“Why were you at the rail yards if you weren’t investigating something? You haven’t told me that.”
For a moment, he couldn’t come up with a good reason.
Then he had a brainwave. Why not pretend to be what Draper suggested?
“Like you said, I need a job, and I was keeping an eye on my future boss.”
Now he was grown up, responsible, and pretending to be a drug dealer.
“Who’s that?”
“Ernest Barnes.” He watched her carefully to see if she recognised the name. She did. She bit the side of her lip, and he could see the fear in her eyes. “You know him?” he asked.
Charlie picked up another chip pretending to be relaxed. “I’ve heard of him. Why would you want to work for him?”
“I hear he’s the big man in the area.”
She nodded. Then looked at him assessing. After a long pause, she shook her head. “No, you’re not a drug dealer. I still think Billy’s right. I saw the dates on those pictures. The last one was taken a year ago. You’ve been doing something for the last year.”
He released a breath. If a sixteen-year-old girl could suss him out, He really would have to get better at this undercover thing.
Charlie looked over at the door to the café. A kid a bit older than she was, but still a kid was coming up the steps.
She stood up. “Billy’s here. Thanks for the burger and chips.”
“You didn’t eat them.”
“I had enough.”
The kid came through the doors, glanced around and then came over. He looked suspiciously at Matt. Then Charlie. The kid was tall, skinny and pale.
“What happened?” Billy must have had a bad case of acne when he was younger. He still had the scars. He was dressed the way Matt had been trying for earlier but wore the look like it was his. “What are you doing with him?”
“I tripped and hurt my leg.” Charlie nodded at Matt. “He helped me get away.”
“Thanks,” Billy said to Matt. Then looked at Charlie who had grabbed the edge of the table when she’d tried to move. “Come on. I’ll help you.”
He draped Charlie’s arm over his shoulder, and they limped together across the café and out the door.
Matt watched them cross the road and then go down the side alley. Billy had to help Charlie over the half wall at the bottom of the parking building, and then they disappeared from sight.
Chapter 5
MATT FINISHED HIS coffee and burger and decided to call it a night. Tomorrow he’d contact Draper and report the meeting Barnes had at the rail yards. It didn’t seem important enough to tell him tonight. There had been no evidence they were picking up drugs or anything else illegal. What he’d seen didn’t look good, but it wouldn’t be enough to get a search warrant.
Anyway, picking up Charlie and taking her back to the parking building meant he hadn’t followed Barnes and Fraser, so he didn’t know where they’d taken the packages.
He got to his flat and let himself into the building. He lived in an apartment over the top of a grocery shop. The shop seemed to stay open all night, and there was a constant stream of customers. Draper said it meant he could come and go at odd times without being noticed. It had that going for it. Plus, it had off-street parking behind the store.
He climbed the stairs, found his key in his jeans pocket, and unlocked the door. The flat would have been quaint, with its double-hung windows and lead lights, if it had been painted since it was first built. It didn’t seem maintenance was big on his landlord’s agenda. But it had a kitchen, a bathroom, a washing machine, a couple of bedrooms and a lounge. So it was a place to live for a while.
He took off his jacket, hung it over the back of a chair and wandered to the window. He could see the street down below. Deserted and cold looking, with the mist still hanging around the streetlights.
Funny how much Charlie reminded him of his kid brother Josh. The same crazy, do anything for the fun of it attitude and a smart mouth. Slender like Josh, and straight dark hair like he had. But Josh had grey eyes and was tall.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the empty street. Josh used to worship him, but the last time he went home, he’d fucked that up.
Their father had sent them out to round up some sheep. They’d both been sitting on motorbikes, watching the dogs push the animals through a gate.
“You lot party?” he’d asked Josh. He hadn’t seen him and his mates much in the last few years, but they’d always pushed against the rules, and he guessed they hadn’t got any better as they got older.
Josh turned his head just enough to look at him. All grey eyes and fringe that flopped over his face.
“Jesus,” he said. “You haven’t changed.” Before he left for Europe, Josh had accused him of trying to be his father.
His brother went back to watching the sheep meandering through the gate.
Matt didn’t back off. “Do you?” In the last couple of months working in Manakau, he’d seen first-hand what drinking and letting it get out of hand could do.
“A bit,” said Josh.
“Be sensible about it,” he said. “If you go to a party and you’ve been drinking, don’t get behind the wheel. Walk or take a taxi.”
“Yeah,” Josh said.
“I’m serious.” Matt turned to look at him again. He’d attended a crash a couple of days earlier, and the car had been filled with kids about the same age as Josh and his mates. They’d got drunk. Stolen a car. Driven it around for a while before they were spotted.
Cops in a patrol car had tried to pull them over, but they’d taken off. And even though the chase had been abandoned straight away, they’d finished up crashing into a barrier on the motorway. Two kids dead, and three seriously injured. If they did live, their lives would never be the same again.
He didn’t want Josh and his mates to end up like that.
Josh lifted his chin and held his hands up. “I’m sensible about the drinking,” he said.
“Good,” said Matt. He’d wanted to say more. To make sure Josh listened to him and stayed safe, but he’d backed off that time. He didn’t want his brother to get annoyed with him. And as far as he knew, Josh was sensible.
“When does Eli turn up?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Friday night,” said Josh. “He should be here about when I get home from school.” The last of the sheep went through the gate. Josh climbed off the bike and went and shut the gate. He came back and swung his leg over the seat. “Want to go after deer tonight?”
Matt nodded. “Yeah.” It had been a while since he’d done that. “Where do you want to go?”
They went hunting together that night. It was all good.
Then Saturday after lunch, Josh got a call from one of his mates. Josh and Eli grabbed a couple of towels.
Matt came out of the back door just as they were leaving.
Where
are you going?” he asked.
“Karangahake. Meeting Leo.” Josh slid into the cab of the ute with Eli and took off.
About an hour later, Matt decided a swim wasn’t a bad idea, and he got in his car and went down to the river and found Josh and his mates.
Some of them were on the grass drying out. The others were lined up on the bridge ready to jump into the water.
“Hey, Matt.” Niam got a beer out of the box beside him and waved it. “Have a drink.”
“Thanks.” Matt took the bottle, sat on a log, and had a sip as he watched proceedings. Eli climbed over the barrier and leapt. He tucked up tight and hit the water hard. The splash almost reached where he was.
“Bomb!” yelled Niam. He turned to Matt. “You going to have a go?”
“Getting too old, I’ll give it a miss.”
And it went on like that. Matt sat there and talked, didn’t really drink, and watched what was going on. The river flowed. The heat pressed down and bounced off the rocks. Josh and his mates climbed up to the bridge, got to the middle, climbed over the barrier, and jumped into the water.
They swam, waded to the bank, sat on the grass, had a bit to drink, yelled instructions to the jumpers, and then did it all again. They climbed higher each time. First the struts, then the crossbar, then the girder at the top.
Exactly what Matt and his mates spent all summer doing at the same age.
Then Zac misjudged the jump. He was standing on the barrier holding on to a strut, and maybe he lost his footing or was off balance. He fell more than jumped and went splat in the river.
“Shit.” Matt leapt up. He got to the water as Zac bobbed to the surface. The kid swam a few strokes and stood up, slow and wobbly.
Matt waded into the water and helped him up on the grass and then lying down.
“You all right, Zac?”
“Yeah.” He managed to sit up.
“Nothing broken?” asked Matt. Zac shook his head. He was shivering. Matt looked over at Josh. “Go to my car and get the rug.”
Josh got it and gave it to him.
By then, the others had come over.
“Belly flop,” said one of them.