by Alan Carter
A quick scan. ‘Whatever Gelder was doing there was on the books and, we assume, with the full knowledge of Cunningham and, possibly, Bryant.’
‘Cunningham is dissembling.’
‘Not very well,’ I say. ‘We’ve nailed his lie pretty quickly.’
‘It’s a thing these days, heads of state look straight down the barrel of the TV camera and let you know they’re lying, they don’t care, and there’s not a damn thing us mere mortals can do about it.’ Maxwell draws his eyes away from an incoming on his computer. ‘He’s wasted our time and resources looking for a non-existent body in their drains. Now we’re left with a tidy-up bill.’
‘Maybe that’s the message. Don’t go digging up stuff that doesn’t concern us or perhaps doesn’t even exist. But we do know the steel rings existed, we saw them on video.’
‘Bryant told you that room was going to be a morgue. Post-mortems. Stuff like that?’
‘Morgues don’t need those hoops in the wall. Dead people don’t need to be tethered.’
Maxwell shrugs. ‘They’re gone now.’
‘The morgue is also the place where you access the panic room.’
‘Panic room?’
‘They’re another thing these days. Every mansion has one. Check out Grand Designs.’
Maxwell shakes his head irritably. ‘We’ve got enough to wrap LeBlanc up for Gelder and Jaxon Hemi. Maybe we should walk away from this.’ Right now that’s fine by me. I bring him up to speed on the west coast trip. ‘This Robin Walker is a person of interest then?’
‘He’s the only one not accounted for. The plods over that way are looking into the supposed hunting accident suffered by Whakakitenga elder Stuart Batty. Unless he tripped and fell on his own gun we assume somebody was there and saw what happened. Likewise I’m interested in Francis Stilton’s supposed suicide.’
‘So we’ll put out a national alert for Robin Walker and keep chipping away at whatever we have. Avenging angel or accomplice. Which way are you leaning, Nick?’
Good question, but I find myself leaning towards the latter.
That theory lasts until about lunchtime. I was enjoying a quiet cuppa with Latifa who had been telling me that her enquiries at social services and at Lisbet Havelka’s old school proved inconclusive.
‘Behaviours consistent with being abused but it never got to the next level of investigation.’ Latifa grimaced. ‘It happens a lot.’
Gemma barges through the door and slides a photo across the desk to me. ‘Nine years ago. A restaurant in downtown Wellington. Birthday celebration for an old but not so loyal friend of Lucy McLernon’s. Check out the handsome guy with the big smile and his arm around Lucy’s shoulder.’
‘Oh fuck,’ says Latifa.
Thomas Hemi.
‘Look cosy, don’t they?’ Gemma is jubilant. ‘Now we know why he didn’t want us sniffing around his property.’
‘He and Ruth were married by then. Two kids.’ Latifa shakes her head. ‘Maybe it’s not what it seems.’
‘Not according to the old friend. She had the hots for Thomas herself and was spittin’ that he and Lucy were, as she put it, going at it like bunnies.’
‘And about a year later Lucy herself was married and pregnant.’ That drunk and disorderly report I read on Thomas. The first blemish for years in his changed life. From gangland enforcer to family man to cheating lover, and then back to family man. Was Thomas our avenging angel?
‘Let’s ask him,’ says Gemma.
The Hemi family have returned home. They must be the only people still living beyond Deep Creek where access is via the temporary bridge installed by army engineers. There’s a weight limit on all traffic and it feels like we involuntarily hold our breaths and suck our stomachs in as we pass over the long drop. We, being Gemma, me and Latifa. Gemma wasn’t happy about the latter being there but I pulled rank and waved the cultural sensitivities card.
‘Latifa will be an asset,’ I insisted.
‘Fuck asset,’ Latifa had whispered under her breath on our way out to the car. ‘I just want to be a fly on the wall when it goes down.’
It’s a nice day and there’s a pang of something like nostalgia driving past our burnt-out ruin. I can’t see us returning and I’ll miss that stunning river view. Our chickens and goats have been adopted by Thomas and roam freely in his side paddock as we drive through the gate. Thomas is chopping wood again and Ruth is back working in the vegie garden. Their youngest will be at school.
‘This looks serious,’ says Thomas, resting his axe.
‘It is,’ agrees Gemma. She shows him the photo. ‘That is you, isn’t it?’
Ruth is taking an interest. She’s put down her shovel and wipes her hands on her shirt as she approaches. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing, love.’
Gemma slots the photo back into her file. ‘Will you tell her or will I?’
It’s like watching a slow-motion train crash. I should stop Gemma but I’d be playing this pretty much the same way if I didn’t know or care about Thomas and his family. Eggs. Omelettes. It’s part of our training along with empathy, cultural sensitivity and target practice.
‘Can I have a moment alone with my wife?’ He looks both at Gemma and me. ‘Please?’
‘Sure,’ I say, overriding Gemma. Maybe it’s my own impending doom but empathy suits my purposes today.
They walk back to where Ruth was working in the vegie garden, speaking in low and increasingly urgent voices. A gasp from Ruth. Then she turns and strides into the house.
‘Ready now?’ says Gemma on his return.
Latifa offers to go and be with Ruth and Thomas acquiesces.
‘We first met on this – I don’t know what you’d call it – spiritual boot camp thing on the Kapiti coast. I’d been searching for years. Looking for some kind of meaning. I was sick of the gang stuff, the senseless violence. Going nowhere.’
‘Weren’t you already out of it by then? Teamed up with Ruth?’
‘Yeah, trying to make it work. I hadn’t been in trouble for a while but it’s hard to make a clean break. Always somebody wanting a new favour or calling in old ones.’
‘What about Lucy?’ asks Gemma. ‘What was she there for?’
‘Escape her folks I guess. They controlled her, she said. Always judging, expecting. Treating her like an infant.’
‘Must have been tough for her,’ murmurs Gemma.
‘Fuck you,’ says Thomas. ‘Want to hear me out or not?’
I cast Gemma a warning glance. ‘Go on, Thomas.’
‘We sparked. At first I admit I was flattered by all this attention from a rich, beautiful Pākehā wahine. But it went deeper than that.’
‘Did it?’ says Gemma. ‘According to her friends, you were Lucy’s secret love. Her parents never knew, only selected friends. She wasn’t fully committed, was she?’
‘Guess not.’
‘But you were and you still carried a torch for her.’ She takes another sheet of paper from her file. ‘That’s quite a while after, eh?’
‘The drunk and disorderly.’ I give him the date and location. ‘That was you, wasn’t it?’
‘She’d just texted to let me know she was getting married.’
‘Then she gets pregnant, then she runs away to, what’s it called?’ Gemma checks her notes. ‘Whakakitenga. Is that how you say it?’ A nod. ‘Then she runs away from there. Ends up raped and killed.’ Hemi flinches. ‘Must’ve eaten you up, something like that.’
‘Yeah. It did.’
‘And so you hunted them down: Robertson, Havelka, Batty. Whoever else. Polished off your old skills. Got your utu.’
‘Great little story. Can you prove it?’
‘If we dig up your property will we find the other half of Havelka?’
‘Who?’
‘Why did you refuse us access last time?’
‘Because you’re Pākehā and this is my land.’
Gemma knows she’s not going to get any further today
without hard evidence. Or trying once more to press a few buttons. ‘What happened with Ruth?’ she says softly. ‘Not got that fire you’re searching for?’ Gemma packs her stuff away and stands, casting a glance back to the house. ‘You threw it all away for a little rich white girl who denied your existence to those that mattered to her. Now you’ve lost it all: Ruth, Jaxon. And it looks like you’re going to spend the rest of your life in jail.’
His eyes fill and he hefts his axe again. We tense but he heads for the woodpile. ‘You know where to find me.’
The return drive is sombre, each of us locked in our own thoughts. I’m wondering how Thomas could know where to look after Lucy died, but then again he had access to his brother Morgan’s excellent intelligence network. If Havelka hadn’t crossed Morgan’s path for other reasons he’d never have entered the frame for Lucy’s murder. Thomas Hemi – avenging angel? No.
‘I don’t buy it.’
‘What?’ says Gemma.
‘The coincidence. Havelka being responsible for the death of one brother’s son and the other brother’s lover. Ridiculous.’
‘You need to get out more, Sarge,’ says Latifa. ‘New Zealand is a village masquerading as a country.’
‘And then Thomas somehow gets to know and kills him before his brother can exact his own revenge? Nah, it’s crap.’
‘Not going to be easy getting an excavator over that bridge,’ muses Gemma. ‘Maybe we can borrow that one of Thomas’s?’
‘Are you listening?’
‘Nick, I know you and Thomas have this bromance going but it’s clouding your judgement. If it was anybody else in that photo, you’d be in like Flynn.’
Would I? What are the chances? Thomas is invited to the station at Blenheim tomorrow to submit to DNA and other testing and a formal interview. It’s the start of a long process and we’re far from having the goods on him so there’s no hurry or cause for arrest just yet. Is he a flight risk? Something tells me not. ‘What did Ruth have to say for herself?’
Latifa leans forward from the back seat. ‘Right now she doesn’t care if we lock him up and throw away the key.’
‘There you go,’ says Gemma. ‘Even his wife’s on my side.’
Maxwell is more gung-ho. ‘You should have just brought him back. Kept him locked up, ready for tomorrow.’
I look to Latifa for reassurance. ‘I think Sergeant Chester is right, sir. Thomas and his family have been through a lot lately. He’s not a violent, or desperate, or unpredictable man.’
Hmm, I’m thinking. You should have seen him on Deep Creek bridge the other night.
‘I hope you’re right,’ says Maxwell.
‘And if it is him,’ says Latifa, ‘I can categorically say he’s not the same man who attacked me.’
‘Which lends weight to the avenger theory then, doesn’t it?’ says Maxwell. ‘And the assault on you remains a separate matter. Rope marks on trees being the only connecting factor.’
So if Thomas is our avenging angel responsible for the deaths of possibly three men, we need to now lock down a timeline, establish or refute alibis, make links, join dots. We need witnesses and forensics putting Thomas with those dead men.
‘Any news on the hunting accident or the suicide?’ I enquire. ‘Or Robin Walker?’
‘Stilton was found by his wife in their barn. He’d taken an overdose. She’d tried to resuscitate him. Too late. Tragic.’
‘Evidence of foul play?’
‘None. There were whispers of him being involved in scandal at that Whakakitenga place you mentioned. Maybe he couldn’t stand the shame of exposure.’
‘Batty and the hunting mishap?’
‘No witnesses. He was on his own. Had the gun propped against a rock. It slid, went off, took the top of his skull with it.’
‘Filthy luck.’
‘Isn’t it just? No news of your Robin Walker. He hasn’t gone through immigration in the last however many years since it was computerised. Or touched his bank account, paid tax or claimed any benefits or been to a doctor.’
‘Family?’
‘Not known if he had one. Every chance it’s not his real name and Whakakitenga took him at face value. Like the French foreign legion.’ And later the boy’s club burned or shredded whatever trace of him there was. ‘Maybe Thomas Hemi took care of him.’
‘Or maybe he’s our killer.’
‘All these maybes.’ Maxwell grins. ‘And it’s still only Monday.’
In the remaining few hours of today we attempt to draw a timeline and hopefully a net around Hemi. Darren Robertson, Karel Havelka, Stuart Batty and Francis Stilton all died within about a six-month period during which Robin Walker also disappeared off the radar. Stilton was the first to die and, on the face of it, by his own hand. Was his remorse and guilt a trigger for the revelation of who was involved and what was to follow? Next came Robertson, a month later, executed on a black sand beach near Westport. Then Stuart Batty cops it in a freak hunting accident inland from Greymouth heading up towards Arthur’s Pass. Last of the known dead is Karel Havelka a few months later, again executed, this time in a forest glade at Pelorus Bridge. Thomas Hemi relentlessly tracking down those he believed implicated in his secret lover’s appalling death. Is he capable of such wrath and vengeance? Sure. I saw him in action against LeBlanc. He’s capable of cold-bloodedly throwing a man off a high bridge.
If you believe in the End Times then the only rules are the ones you write yourself.
36.
Back from an early morning trip to Nelson hospital for a pre-op shakedown. I’ve lost nearly a kilo since last weighed but my blood pressure is slightly elevated. Funny that. After the anaesthetist had finished his interview with me, Dr Copp got out her iPad and explained in great detail what she planned to do. I nodded bravely when what I really wanted to do was close my eyes, plug my ears and sing ‘I’m not listening, la-la-la.’ My fate is not in my hands. That’s what these Doomsday preppers don’t get. When it’s time, it’s time. Even Mother Nature’s silver seed must wither and die eventually. Nobody escapes. We are all doomed.
Thomas Hemi has submitted to a few tests of his own and now we have his spit, hair, and fingerprints on file. He’s brought a lawyer with him. I half-expected him not to but this is serious stuff. Her name is Melanie and she does lots of work for the iwi. Apparently Thomas has been spending more time down at the marae since Jaxon was killed. He seems to be reconnecting with the community he once rejected. I get to watch the proceedings on video in an adjacent room at the Blenheim cop shop while Maxwell and Gemma do the honours. Gemma looks tired, like she’s been putting in the hours. DC Keegan has come over from Nelson and is taking an interest too. We sit shoulder to shoulder, takeaway coffees on the go. Keegan brought her keep cup.
Formalities finished, Maxwell leads the charge. ‘You understand why you’re here, Mr Hemi?’
‘Yes.’
‘We have some questions regarding your whereabouts over a period of approximately six months around six years ago.’ He gives the precise dates.
Melanie leans in. ‘For the record, my client has not been charged and is here of his own volition to assist you with your enquiries and is free to leave at any time. Right?’
‘Correct,’ says Maxwell. ‘Should anything change you will be the first to know.’ He then invites Thomas to account for himself.
‘Six years ago?’ He leans back in his chair, hands behind his head. ‘That’s a long time. I was probably around the farm, doing jobs, or hunting, delivering firewood. I really can’t remember.’
‘Try,’ says Gemma sliding an A4 printout of the dates his way.
Thomas looks at the dates. Twirls the paper with his fingertips. Makes a show of trying to think. ‘Nah, sorry.’
‘Maybe we can help.’ Gemma brings up an image beamed from her iPad to a screen on the wall for all to see. ‘An ATM camera on the main drag of Westport. That is you isn’t it?’
‘Looks like me.’
Gemma’s been busy
. Trawling through whatever evidence was collected at the time. Old CCTV and other stuff which didn’t trigger anything, then suddenly dings a bell. ‘You’ll notice the date and time.’ She reads it out for the record. ‘Less than forty-eight hours later, Darren Robertson was found shot dead less than a kilometre away.’
Thomas shrugs. ‘Got any pictures of me shooting the prick?’
‘We talked to Robertson’s wife, Zara. She reckons she saw you in the pub the same night you went to that ATM. Taking a lot of interest in Darren.’ Gemma reads from her notes. ‘Watching him all night, he was. Thought he fancied him or something. Pervert.’
‘From what I hear, Zara doesn’t see too well after a few Jack and Cokes.’
‘So you do know who Zara is then? Know her habits?’
‘After Lucy died, I took an interest. Lucy meant something to me even if not to the cops. They were getting nowhere. Word was already out that Robertson was a sleazebag. Obviously I was looking at him.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ asks Maxwell. ‘I would have if he’d done that to the love of my life. Raped, gutted.’
‘Sergeant, please.’ Melanie puts down her pen. ‘That language is designed to inflame and distress.’
‘So, Mr Hemi. Why were you stalking Darren Robertson?’
‘Gathering evidence. Doing the cops’ jobs for them.’ Keegan snorts into her coffee. ‘And you know what? I don’t think Robertson did it either. He might have been there, or led them to her. But he’s a panty-sniffer, not a killer.’
‘Them?’ says Maxwell.
‘You know their names already.’ Thomas prods the dates sheet. ‘Looks like, what, three or four of them?’
‘You tell us who they are.’
‘Fucked if I know. The ones you mentioned yesterday. Whoever they are, if they’re dead that’s fine by me.’
‘You really don’t know their names?’
‘No, apart from that Havelka bloke. I was there when you found him. Remember?’