by Alan Carter
‘Hunters, poachers. Some of them are less respectful of property boundaries than others.’
‘The photographing?’
‘Weird, yeah. Maybe he was scouting for a burglary. Didn’t expect the screaming. Got scared off?’
A shake of the head and he helped Mim pack her stuff into the car. After they left, I scouted around for any traces of our intruder. Nothing. Either he never existed or he covered his tracks well. But if he was there, who might it be? Any number of candidates – Cunningham, I know, has me in his sights for what happened at the Lodge. Would he be so bold? Absolutely. We probably shouldn’t be hanging around in such an isolated location for that reason alone – another cross for Vanessa to mark up on her mental balance sheet. It could be LeBlanc who we know is still out there and has so far evaded the crack back-country scouts of the AOS and the helicopter and drone flyovers. Maybe it was Michael himself, keeping a watch and rechecking the doors and windows. It was a bit of a coincidence him making such a weird controlling request and then, hey presto, it comes to pass. Hell, for all I know, my old adversary Sammy Pritchard might have reinstated his fatwa against me from his low-security prison in Yorkshire while awaiting release. My understanding is that he’ll be home in time for a merry Geordie Christmas because his manners inside have been impeccable. Maybe I’m his Yuletide gift to himself.
It’s a relief to get everybody out of the door this Monday morning and, death shrine aside, even the Lodge seems peaceful today as I drive past. Coming into range there’s a message on my mobile from Maxwell to head straight to the murder room. I do so, pulling up behind DC Keegan’s Audi.
‘What’s new?’ I accept the coffee and bikkie passed my way.
‘Everything,’ says Keegan. ‘Internal affairs have been sent over from Wellington to investigate the death of Melvyn Cody. Pending the outcome of that investigation, Will here is stepping aside from his role in charge of the Gelder case.’
A glance over at Maxwell, it’s clear he’s not too happy about it. ‘Seems harsh.’
‘It’s not a demotion,’ insists Keegan. ‘It’s just an administrative precaution. An accountability and transparency measure.’
‘Somebody has to take the fall at times like this,’ says Will staring at a neutral spot on the wall. ‘Justice will no doubt prevail.’
‘So who’s in charge in the meantime?’
‘I am,’ says Keegan. ‘Will is still on the team but will focus primarily on Havelka. I hear you met up with Nigel Watson recently?’
‘Yes. Hard to pin down any connection between the west coast murders and this one, except for similar MO and ballpark timing of around six years ago.’
‘And I understand my predecessor awaits your call?’
Ex-DC Ford. I forgot to follow up over the weekend given the excitements of the sleepover. ‘You’re well-informed.’
‘He called me. Stickler for protocol, always was. Wanted to check I was in the loop.’ She smiles icily. ‘Which I am. Now.’
‘So you want me to brief DSS Maxwell on Havelka?’
‘You fellas can work it together. It’s better you both step away from Gelder for a while.’ She refills her coffee from the plunger. ‘Until the dust settles.’
This is a polite way of saying that we are indeed taking the fall for the Lodge fiasco after all. ‘You’ll have an awful lot on your plate, running Gelder and being district commander.’
‘Don’t fret, Nick. Time management is my forte.’
‘Any developments on Gelder?’
‘One or two. After the autopsy on Melvyn, his DNA pinged in the system. He was inside the dark blue van as well as up at Gelder’s shack.’
‘Oh.’
‘Indeed. And it turns out that his unregistered rifle was the one that fired the bullet you requested a lab job on. What was that about?’ I explain about the water-tank snipings. ‘A mischievous kid with a gun and time on his hands in that feral valley of yours,’ says Keegan. ‘Who’d have thought?’
‘Except the snipings seemed to be targeted.’
‘The goal being?’
‘God knows.’ I then outline the possible connection between the water-tank sniper and the attack on Latifa.
‘You think a fifteen-year-old boy could have done that?’
‘Once the snare is activated, the job’s done. He didn’t need to overpower Latifa by then. As for what kind of mind can do that? Teenagers are watching all sorts of twisted stuff these days and some of them are very capable of taking the fantasy further.’
‘But? You don’t look like you believe it yourself.’
I can’t explain about the similar snare marks on the tree in Pelorus Bridge. Havelka’s tree. It’s too long a bow, those snares are in wide usage. The hunters who use them could probably show me a hundred trees with the same marks. ‘I don’t know. Any news from the team working Latifa’s case?’
‘Not so far. Have you passed your theory onto them? It could be a nice neat wrap-up. The boy being dead and all.’
‘Speaking of neat stitch-ups, it seems weird that if LeBlanc and the kid were the ones driving the Gelder van, that it should be the Lodge CCTV that helps catch them.’
Maxwell is staying quiet. He’s staring at his phone. ‘Somebody just sent through a photo of me and my family on a picnic from this weekend.’
My phone buzzes with an incoming message too.
‘It’s a declaration of war.’
Both Maxwell and I have received photos of us, or our homes, and/or our loved ones. In my case, that included our sleepover guest, Mim. Unknown sender but it will turn out to be a pay-as-you-go or stolen SIM.
‘It may well be,’ says Keegan. ‘But we’ve now been well and truly warned off any further interaction with the Lodge. We can’t go kicking their doors down again.’
‘On the basis of undisclosed intelligence from the spooks?’
‘On the basis of a recent botched raid during which a child died.’
‘And we’re just meant to sit back and accept this?’ Maxwell is grim-faced. ‘That’s my wife and kids in that photo. Those bastards were following us over the weekend to a school fête for fuck’s sake.’
‘Maybe you could send your family out of town for a while. A holiday maybe?’
‘Sure, and then I hear they’ve been stabbed in their sleep in a Rarotonga resort. This fucking stinks, Marianne. Find out what we’re dealing with here, because if it’s a bunch of psychos who have diplomatic immunity, then we may as well pack it in now.’
Will Maxwell is impressive in full flow. I have renewed respect for him.
At that moment there’s a brisk rap on the door and a bloke in a suit comes through without being invited. ‘Brightwell. Internal.’ He nods like he’s just done us a favour. ‘How’s it going, ma’am? Can I have a word with DSS Maxwell?’
‘Not right now, Greg. Give us ten.’
‘The sooner we clear up this matter, the sooner we can all move on.’
‘And the sooner you close the door and go away, Greg, the sooner still.’ The door closes. Another knock. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
It’s Latifa. ‘Sarge? I just got this weird SMS.’ A pic of her and Daniel on their back verandah canoodling.
‘Okay,’ says Keegan with a sigh. ‘I’ll headlock the spooks.’
Accompanying Latifa back up the road to the cop shop, I bring her up to speed on the water-tank sniper revelation. So was Melvyn her attacker too?
‘The kid?’ She thinks about it a while. ‘No, it was no kid that did that to me. Those eyes were much older, had seen a lot more.’
‘You’ve never said that before.’
‘Yeah, I have. Heaps of times.’
‘Not with such emphasis on the “much”. How much “much” are we talking here?’
She gives it some thought. ‘Much. The more I think about it the more I reckon he was pretty old, like even as old as you.’
Wow. Ancient. ‘Forties? Fifties? Sixties?’
‘Something like that
. Can’t always tell with Pākehā.’
‘Well that’s progress. And, as far as we know, it’s not connected to the water tank snipings. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘What, and he just happened to be lurking there? Bull crap. I wasn’t some random tramper he lucked upon.’
‘So it still puts somebody else from the Lodge in the frame. LeBlanc maybe. If he and the kid worked the Gelder murder together, maybe they worked the water tanks and targeting of you too.’
We’re at our desks now. ‘Yeah, but I checked LeBlanc’s file photo and the eyes didn’t match with him either.’
Keegan’s question about the water-tank snipings. To what purpose? Was the kid just letting off steam or was there something else behind it? Everything else about the Lodge suggests ulterior motive. ‘Can you look into it?’
‘Sure.’ Latifa glances up as a shadow appears on our threshold.
It’s Thomas Hemi. Eyes bloodshot, face unshaved, hair wild. ‘Jaxon’s missing.’
Jaxon hasn’t been heard from since late afternoon yesterday. Thomas and Ruth didn’t start to worry until mid-evening. Spent the precious hours since, phoning, looking, hoping against hope.
‘He didn’t answer any calls and none of his mates had seen him.’ He’d said he was catching up with friends from school. They were going dirtbiking on one of the logging skids over the river. ‘Good jumps to be had,’ says Thomas, eyes full. ‘They’re not meant to go there but fuck, some good’s got to come out of all that ugly shit.’
‘But they didn’t go?’
‘Yeah, yeah they did but the other kids went home when it got dark.’
‘Six-ish?’
‘Thereabouts.’
‘And you’ve definitely covered all mates or other possibilities. There’s nobody else out there?’
‘Nah.’
‘Was everything good. No arguments or anything?’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘You’ve said he’s gone off before and done his own thing. He’s at that age.’
‘Not this time.’ A hesitation.
‘Tell me.’
‘Friday, after school. He came home in a shitty mood. That Yank buddy of his getting shot. Shook him up.’
‘Yeah,’ says Latifa. ‘It would.’
‘Told me he got a text from Melvyn on Friday.’
‘Melvyn was dead by then.’
‘Exactly.’
‘What did it say? Did he show you?’
Thomas bows his head in anguish. ‘It said, see you soon brother.’
21.
So we’ve got the AOS hunting LeBlanc, regular police and emergency services searching for Jaxon, and a new round of threats from persons presumably in the Lodge. Meanwhile Maxwell and I are sidelined and nobody is allowed to touch Cunningham and his cronies. Right now there are a number of good reasons for me to go to Nelson: lean on Keegan to find out what the spooks are saying, talk to ex-DC Ford about those west coast cases, maybe even drop by to see Nigel Watson and ask him why he’s lying to me. Phoning ahead, I learn that Keegan has skipped over to Wellington on an afternoon flight with the aim, I hope, of lassoing those SIS Ringwraiths personally. Good on her, if that’s the case. I’ll still head west though; a sense of mission is important to me right now while everyone else does more useful stuff like search for murderers and missing kids. Maxwell has a stay of execution, unofficially running the Gelder show until Keegan gets back from the capital this evening. On that matter, ‘Are we still getting the Gelder bush block searched again?’
‘Yeah, mate. But we’re a bit short-handed right now. Why?’
I tell him my glow-worm cave theory.
‘Nice to see the memory slowly returning.’ A grin. ‘Leave it with me, Nick.’
‘It’ll all work out, Will. They can’t pin this on you.’
A wry smile. ‘Watch them.’
Ex–district commander David Ford lives on a five-acre block on Cable Bay Road south-east of Nelson on the way out to the Happy Valley Adventure Park. It’s a solid eighty-minute winding mountainous drive from Havelock. We had previously arranged to meet in a pub in the city but appointments are an ethereal concept in this job. Ahead of me there’s a minibus full of prospective paintballers, quadbikers and flying-foxers. Across the water in the distance some of the higher peaks in the Abel Tasman National Park are dusted with snow. Ford is waiting for me on his front verandah like he’s got nothing better to do and loves standing around in a snapping wind.
‘Keeping well?’ We shake hands.
‘Very.’ He invites me across the threshold. ‘Coffee or tea?’
We settle on tea and he’ll be Mother. He’s got a couple of comfy armchairs facing floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of those snow-capped peaks.
‘Stunning,’ I say, accepting a chocolate biscuit. ‘Thanks for accommodating the change of venue and time.’
He shrugs. ‘So what do you want?’
‘You were in charge of a murder case about five, six years ago over in Westport. A motel manager name of Robertson.’
‘What of it?’
‘There’s been a similar-style killing on a bloke called Havelka. Half of his body was found up at Butchers Flat recently.’
He nods. ‘Keegan gave me the gist. I remember the Havelka disappearance.’
‘The only suspect of any worth is Morgan Hopu.’
‘Yes, I can imagine.’
‘Did Hopu feature in the Robertson case in any way?’
‘Is there any mention in the case file?’
‘No.’
‘There you are then.’
‘Nigel Watson mentioned some footprints that weren’t included in the case file either.’
‘Footprints?’
Blood from a fucking stone; and I thought this bloke kinda liked me. ‘Two sets leading in, none out.’
‘Watson told you that?’
‘Yep, he seemed surprised that it wasn’t on the file.’
‘It’s the kind of thing that should be, isn’t it?’
Deep breath. ‘You’d think so.’
‘Nigel’s a funny fella.’
‘In what way?’
‘Every. More tea?’ He tops up my cup. ‘Likes his little games.’ A car crunches on the gravel outside. ‘That’ll be Wendy. I’ll just help her bring the shopping in. Then maybe we can take a walk?’
‘Sure.’
Is this what retirement is about? Stretching out moments, drawing out expectations. Putting the crossword down half-finished so there’s something to do later. Shopping unpacked and a warm hello from Wendy, who enquires after Vanessa and Paulie, then it’s back outside where Ford steps into his gumboots and I zip up my jacket against the wind.
A dog has appeared at his heel, a labrador: friendly and obedient as Ford would expect of everyone around him. ‘Nigel should’ve been sacked years ago but he’s a survivor. Knows how to duck and weave. He’ll be picking up his pension soon I expect.’
‘A few months, I think.’
‘Can’t see him needing it. He’ll be well set up.’
‘The suspense is killing me.’
Ford chucks a tennis ball for the dog. ‘There’s no mention of footprints in the file because there were none at the scene.’
‘So how did the victim get there? And how did the perp get in and out without leaving any?’
‘We assume in along the shoreline and out the same way. Robertson’s body was at the high-tide mark. Because of the storm it was an even higher tide than usual. Any traces washed away.’
‘So what’s Watson talking about then?’
The dog’s back, dropping the ball at Ford’s feet. ‘He’s a mischief-maker, attention-seeker. Never cut it in the job races, always pipped at the post. Probably thought he should have got my job when I left, instead of Keegan.’
‘He didn’t seem that bitter and twisted to me.’
‘His type never do. But the mischief is one thing, being bent is another.’
/>
‘Evidence?’
Ford picks the ball up. Tosses it high and far. ‘Never found any but I had strong suspicions.’
‘Based on?’
‘Leaked intelligence, tip-offs, wasted raids, funny coincidences, that kind of thing.’
‘If he’s getting handouts where are they coming from?’
‘What was that name you mentioned before in relation to Havelka?’
‘Morgan Hopu?’
‘Good place to start.’
‘You said earlier you’d cleared this chat with Keegan?’
‘Yep.’
‘Does she know you’re accusing one of her serving officers of corruption?’
‘She worked the other case, didn’t she? The girl in Robertson’s motel six months earlier.’ Ford whistles, summoning the dog.
‘Lucy McLernon.’
‘Watson was on that one too, if I remember rightly.’
‘And?’
‘And Keegan’s pointed you in his direction for a reason.’ The dog drops the ball at his feet again. He picks it up and gives me a grin. ‘Fetch!’ he says, throwing it out there.
Nigel Watson tells it differently.
‘Good try, mate.’
‘So have you had dealings with Morgan Hopu?’
‘He’s a well-known local gangster of long standing. Of course I’ve come across him in my job. But taking handouts from him? Get fucked.’
Late afternoon. The sun casting long shadows and it’s home time for the Nelson office workers. We’re grabbing a quick wine in a bar up the top end of Trafalgar Street near the cathedral tower. It’s a pretty flash place and so are the prices. ‘It’s what’s being said.’
‘Yeah, by Ford, that bitch Keegan, a few others.’
‘Why might they be suggesting it?’
‘Ask them. Have you checked their bank balances lately? Yeah, I live in a nice house in Atawhai. We save, don’t piss our money against the wall, don’t have kids to blow it on, and my wife has a good job. Try asking Ford who paid for his country mansion.’
‘It all gets a bit “he-said, she-said” doesn’t it?’
‘But you’re happy enough to follow it up if Ford says it first, eh?’
‘Ford reckons the footprints weren’t mentioned in the case file because there weren’t any.’