by Alan Carter
‘Hold on,’ I plead. ‘Just hold on.’
The light is fading from her, like when the sun slips behind the mountain in winter. Her grip on my arm loosens.
‘Hold on.’
Bit by bit, it’s coming. Moments later Latifa is disentangled and breathing freely again. A drink from my water bottle, some deep steadying breaths.
‘What happened?’
Another gulp. Her lower lip trembles. More deep breaths. ‘I got hit from behind, side of the head. Next I know I’m trussed to a tree with this thing around my neck.’
‘Can you describe the attacker?’
Another pause. ‘He wore a ski mask. About four, five centimetres shorter than you, similar build. He had a handgun. Held it to my head. Right-handed.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Clothing. Smell. Anything particular? A way of moving?’
‘Cigarette breath.’ She describes generic dark outdoors tramper gear. Macpac labels.
‘Hands?’
‘Average size. Gloved. But thin gloves, like cyclists wear.’
‘And he cut away your alarm.’
‘Yes.’ She lowers her gaze. ‘Felt me up. Dirty bastard.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. He left when he heard you shouting down the hill.’
He’s not long gone but still he could be anywhere. I’m not game to leave Latifa to go looking for him in that dense tangle of bush. We discuss bringing the chopper in. Latifa doesn’t want to. She’s able to walk back to the vehicle. The blood on her face is superficial from when she fell after the first blow. She doesn’t want to cause a fuss.
‘He left you to die.’
Fiercely back at me. ‘You think I don’t know that?’
‘How did he know you’d be up here?’
She shrugs. ‘Saw me come this way? Followed me?’
‘So he knew where you were going and why.’
‘He’s our water-tank shooter?’
‘Not your average hick playing at target practice.’
Latifa sips again from the water bottle. ‘What’s his point?’
My mind returns to my encounter with Thomas earlier. This attack on Latifa has Cunningham written all over it. En route and back in mobile range I call DS Will Maxwell to see if he can spare some uniforms from the murder enquiry to come and collect Latifa’s car while I take her down to the hospital in Blenheim for a check-up.
‘Sure,’ he says when I explain why. ‘Know who’s behind it?’
‘Got some ideas.’ The gist follows.
‘We need to nail them to the floor. Bastards.’
‘Proof might be a problem.’
‘Worry about that later, Nick.’
It’s tempting but rules are rules. Aren’t they? It’s a promise I made to myself, and Vanessa, after my flouting of them put my own son in peril not so long ago. Except Brandon Cunningham seems to be making up his own. Driving back from Blenheim after Latifa’s been checked and had her cuts and abrasions cleaned up, I realise I’ve forgotten my own appointment with the Havelock GP and now they’ll be closed for the day.
‘So where to from here?’ Latifa is playing cool and tough but the look in her eyes tells me she’s unmoored, caught in the undertow. I hate seeing her like this.
‘Let’s get you home.’
Face it. There was never a hope in hell of me keeping my promise to Vanessa. Bugger the rules. I broke them when I paid a visit to Gelder’s shack to snoop around and I’m already in grief because of that. Now Cunningham is sequestering land and, according to Charlie Evans, firing machine guns in rural NZ, and I think he’s behind the attacks on Latifa and Thomas, and the water-tank snipings.
To hell with him. If he’s looking for trouble, he’s found it.
8.
Neither DC Keegan nor the Blenheim Commander are prepared to authorise the deployment of the Armed Offenders Squad on Cunningham at the Lodge.
‘There’s no proof, Nick. His lawyer will scream blue murder if we go in with the ninjas.’
‘What about the machine guns?’
‘Are you sure your old farmer friend isn’t imagining things? Some of those rapid-fire semi-automatics can sound scary but they are still legal.’
‘What are civilians doing with weapons like that?’
‘Ask the politicians and gun lobby. The fact remains.’
Static and hiss. Is it the mobile reception or my state of mind? ‘The land stealing, Charlie’s broken fence?’
‘That’s a civil matter, Nick.’
She’s right, I know that. ‘Cunningham’s playing us for fools. He can’t be allowed to get away with attacking one of our own.’
‘If it was him.’ Keegan cups her hand over the phone and sends someone away. ‘Look, what happened to Rapata was an outrage, but we have to do this by the book. Gather evidence, by all means we can invite Cunningham in for another conversation, but we do this right or we don’t do it at all.’
The investigation into the attack on Latifa is to be run out of Nelson. To be fair it’s probably a good idea; my eyes are clouded by red mist and Will Maxwell has enough to contend with. ‘Is there any intelligence on Cunningham we need to know of? Surely he’s come to the attention of the US authorities?’
‘I’ll ask around. In the meantime you need to stay calm, keep an open mind, and let us investigate the assault on Latifa diligently.’
The insistent beep of call waiting. I sign off and let her take it. There’s been a sprinkle of rain overnight and the breeze is fresh with pine and salt. It’s low tide and the mudflats shimmer in the weak sunlight. Leaving home this morning, Vanessa was unhappy about my missed medical appointment and worried, both for me and Latifa.
‘Whatever’s out there, it’s toxic.’
The doctor is not due back in town until tomorrow but I’ve secured a replacement appointment and promise to be at this one. It’s first thing so there’s less chance of me being waylaid. Latifa has been ordered to take leave for a few days. She didn’t want to, and fiancé Daniel is not due back until the weekend. Has she even told him about the attack? Rather than go nuts on her own at home, she’s gone to stay with a friend near the marae. Steve from Traffic is helping me out and he’s on SH6 doing what he does best.
There’s no end of things to be getting on with. I could be working my way through the list of plumbing jobs Bruce Gelder did before he died. Or looking into the identity of my half-corpse from Butchers Flat. Or signing up for Occ Health and Safety seminars and collating local crime stats to feed to the volume crime intelligence bods. But all I want to do is beat the crap out of Brandon Cunningham and send him packing.
Intelligence.
Maybe I can do some of my own intel gathering while waiting for official word from DC Keegan. Plugging in his name and pressing ‘search’, I find a plethora of American Brandon Cunninghams on Facebook, Twitter, Instagam, LinkedIn, college sports, real estate and so on. I check the images for him but his pic doesn’t show up. Apply a few more filters, some racial and geographical profiling.
Still nothing. He stays off social media. He doesn’t get himself in the papers. How does somebody who, over here at least, revels in getting in people’s faces manage to keep his own off the internet? I’m going to have to be patient and wait for DC Keegan to come up with the kind of stuff you don’t find on Google.
And then something does catch my eye. The search engine has picked up the ‘Brandon’ and ‘Cunningham’ parts but because they appear as a hyphenised surname the story is way down on page six of the matches. The Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, South Dakota: Gerald Brandon-Cunningham bids farewell to his colleagues in Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office. Deputy Brandon-Cunningham was leaving to spend more time with his family, in particular his teenage daughter who was recently diagnosed with leukaemia. Sheriff Davis wished his deputy well and hoped the Lord would bless him and his family at this tragic and difficult time. Thoughts and prayers et cetera. And the
re he is, my Brandon Cunningham, shaking hands sombrely with Sheriff Davis at the leaving do. A daughter with leukaemia: the last thing I expected or wanted was to be feeling any sympathy for the bastard.
That’s it. As far as I can see he doesn’t appear before or since. It’s a remarkable achievement in this day and age. Some disgraced celebrities would pay a fortune to disappear from the internet like that. Is that what’s happened? Has he been professionally wiped from cyber history with the Argus Leader story a missed speck of dust? If so, why? Or perhaps he really is just a nobody who managed to never get noticed. No, I don’t buy it. The internet is full of nobodies, people make a lucrative career out of it. Nowadays you have to work hard to avoid getting noticed.
The news about his daughter has blunted the flint of my anger. The need to beat his brains out is less urgent. Maybe I can wait for more information, for more evidence. Forensics have the snare which almost garrotted Latifa, and have taken casts of foot and tyre prints in the vicinity. I can sit and wait for them and for DC Keegan’s intel probe. Maybe the Nelson Ds will do it all for me.
To take my mind off it, I go back to the Mummy and an email waiting for me from Professor Bardawi. The DNA matches that of Karel Havelka, the semi-retired do-gooding meddler from Blenheim. Specimens of the missing man’s DNA had been taken from a comb and toothbrush when he disappeared. I’m going to have to visit his widow to give her the news.
Since Karel Havelka went missing his wife, now widow, has developed early onset dementia and lives in a nursing home just down the road from their house in Springlands, Blenheim. It’s a cruisy forty-minute drive from Havelock south and east through rolling green hills, cow pasture and vineyards. Maria Havelka is a striking looking woman, a picture of health and wellbeing, the kind you see on ads for retirement funds and Rhine cruises. Immaculately dressed, she’s made up as if she’s heading out to afternoon tea with friends. But she isn’t going anywhere and she hasn’t a clue who I’m talking about.
‘Karel?’
‘Your husband, Mrs Havelka.’
‘Who?’
‘Maybe if you come back tomorrow morning.’ The nurse checks her watch. ‘She’s sometimes better first thing, after her medication.’
‘Do I know you?’ Mrs Havelka is peering closely at me.
I smile. ‘I’ll pop back tomorrow.’
‘Karel was always tilting at windmills. I knew it would get him into trouble one day.’ Her eyes fill with tears. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
She’s back with us, but for how long? ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That Māori boy. The father. Was it him?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘When are they coming?’
‘When are who coming?’
‘My daughter and her husband. We’re going out to lunch.’ It’s half past three. As far as I know from the records, her daughter lives in Dunedin, the other end of the South Island.
The nurse gives me a signal that time’s up. ‘They might have been delayed, Maria. I’ll check.’
Maria Havelka sits up straight in her chair and shakes my hand demurely in farewell.
‘Does the daughter visit often?’ I ask the nurse on our way back down the corridor.
‘Never.’
The professor’s full report is in my inbox on my return. Havelka was executed with a single shot through the back of the head as he was kneeling. His body was then cut in half with a chainsaw.
‘The ligature marks?’ I ask over the phone.
‘They’re real. As to where they fit into the chain of events? I’m unable to say.’
There are also traces of seed pods and other vegetation on the body which, according to the flora expert, suggest he was killed somewhere else and then dumped at Butchers Flat.
‘Any suggestions where?’
‘She believes that some of the specimens are only likely to be found within the reserve at Pelorus Bridge or maybe from other national parks in the region, say Kahurangi or Nelson Lakes.’
‘That’s a big area.’
‘Can’t be any more specific at this stage.’
‘Thanks, Professor.’
I trot down the road to the Gelder murder room in the town hall to bring DSS Maxwell up to speed. He’s dishing out jobs to his core team as I head his way. Gemma gives me a look which I’m unable to read right now.
‘Poor bastard,’ says Maxwell when I’m through. ‘So we need to talk to that boy’s dad again.’ He checks his notes. ‘Morgan Hopu.’
We know from the record he was interviewed at the time of Havelka’s disappearance but, as anticipated, he was lawyered up and gave us nothing. ‘Not going to be easy to pin this on him after all this time.’
‘Chin up, Nick. As my mum used to say, where there’s a Will there’s a way.’
He’s uncharacteristically upbeat. I take a punt. ‘Progress with Gelder?’
‘Of sorts.’
‘Care to share?’
‘Traces under the fingernails, the few he had left anyway. He put up a struggle.’
‘Any matches?’
‘Not yet.’
No, I’m thinking. There won’t be unless and until you get samples from me. ‘Anything else?’
‘Keep you posted.’
Guessing from his smug look there’s quite a bit else but he’s holding it close. ‘I might need somebody with me when I go and see Morgan Hopu. Anybody spare?’
‘Take Gemma with you. She’s keen to see how you work.’
Back home by just after six-thirty. I’ve arranged to visit Morgan Hopu at his lawyer’s offices in Nelson tomorrow after my doctor’s appointment. Gemma will take us from Havelock in her car.
‘Everything okay, like with the doc?’ she’d enquired.
‘Purely routine. Meet you outside the town hall here at nine.’
Vanessa asks about my day as we crack open a local pinot noir so I give her the gist.
‘How’s Latifa bearing up?’
‘Brave face but she’s rattled. Anyone would be.’
‘And you don’t know who did it?’
‘I have my suspicions.’
‘Look where that got you with Gelder. Don’t go off half-cocked, Nick. You made us a promise.’
Paulie wanders in from feeding the chooks. ‘What promise?’
‘Not to get you a puppy for your birthday. You know I hate dogs.’
‘Not funny, Mum. Can Mim sleep over Saturday?’
‘Sleep over?’ Vanessa and I lock eyes. ‘I thought you were just going to invite her for an after-school play?’
‘Sleep over’s better.’
‘Is her grandad okay with that?’
‘Michael? Yeah. Sure.’
‘And her mum?’ asks Vanessa.
‘Of course!’
‘So what did you have in mind?’
‘You make yummy food. We watch videos, eat pizza.’ A shrug. ‘Sleep over.’
‘Got it all worked out haven’t you?’
‘Pancakes for brekky. Ice cream, blueberries.’
‘Her grandad and mum aren’t able to share the drop-off or pickup duties with us?’
‘Sheesh, Dad. Want me to have friends or not?’
Vanessa smothers a giggle.
‘Yes, but …’
‘But nothing. They prob’ly have stuff to do.’ He gives me a warning frown. ‘Important stuff.’
Well that settles it.
Later, with Paulie in bed, Vanessa snuggles up to me on the couch.
‘I suppose it’s nice that Mim’s folks are happy to pack her off to our place for a night?’
‘Of course it is,’ I say. ‘It’s just what Paulie needs. Isn’t it?’
‘I hope it’s not some cruel game. I read a thing recently about these disgusting guys who were competing to bed the ugliest girls. Preying on their need for affection, for acceptance. People can be … I don’t know.’
‘They’re only kids, maybe we should take it at face value?’
‘There’s some
twisted kids out there, age no barrier.’
‘Jeez, I thought cops had a bad attitude to humanity.’
‘They do. Especially you.’ She punches my arm. ‘Okay, maybe it is a pretty yucky thought.’ Stroking my arm where she hit it. ‘Any funny turns today? Forgetfulness, whatever?’
‘No. All good. And I’m seeing the doc first thing.’
‘Want me to come? It’s just round the corner from school. I could organise cover.’
‘No need. It’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah, you’re right.’ She doesn’t sound convinced.
‘Really. It will.’
‘Cuppa tea?’
‘Sure.’
I see her reflection in the kitchen window as she flicks on the kettle. Staring blankly out into the dark night.
9.
The doctor is very English, a home counties accent but not overly posh. I can imagine her playing hockey with extra determination to compensate for her perceived lack of good breeding. She seems businesslike and capable and this isn’t going to be an easy run.
‘So tell me what happened.’
Are doctors like priests? Is the Hippocratic Oath the same as the Sacrament of Confession? Can you spill all and count on them to hold your secrets dear? Perhaps not. ‘I was at work, I’m a police officer …’
‘That accounts for the uniform,’ she says with a half-smile.
‘Yes, right. I was carrying out a routine property search.’
‘This was when?’
I give her the date and an approximate time. ‘And I must have slipped on something, banged my head.’
‘Where?’
‘In this shed …’
‘I meant where on your head.’
‘Oh. Here.’
She inspects it. ‘Nothing much more than a bump now. Skin isn’t broken. Doesn’t appear serious but we can have it X-rayed or scanned.’
‘And that’s all I can remember until the following morning.’
‘Complete blank?’
‘Yes,’ I lie.
‘But you remembered your name, your way home, your family, all of those things?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve had no similar symptoms since?’
‘No.’