Stop Looking

by A C Praat

  Mishra took his hand and pressed it between her own. ‘You do. You helped Philip. I know he’s not easy.’

  ‘It’s amazing what he did, Mish.’

  Raffe paused, and Mishra looked up, intent on what was coming. His green eyes searched her face and her heart raced, a habit hung over from when she still wanted him.

  ‘Leaving you was the hardest thing he ever did. That’s what he told me.’

  Mishra dropped her gaze and Raffe’s hand. ‘The note said: Hope the sabbatical works out. Do you think he meant to see me in Wellington?’

  Raffe scuffed his shoe through the sandy grass. ‘He didn’t mention the note to me.’

  That wasn’t what she expected to hear. She needed reassurance. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’

  Raffe shrugged. ‘He didn’t want us to tell anyone. I don’t know – maybe once the fuss had died down.’

  Neither of them were going to spare her, it seemed: not Raffe with his willingness to take Philip’s side, nor Ra with her bloated bodies. Charging into her bedroom, Mishra slammed the door, causing all the pictures to rattle in their frames.

  ‘Five minutes, Mish,’ Ra called from the other side.

  Mishra heaved in a deep, calming breath and wrapped her hand around Philip’s pendant, clenching it until her fingers were numb and the chain bit into her neck. Bloody Philip.

  ‘Here.’ Ra handed her an apple and a piece of toast when she emerged into the hallway.

  ‘I don’t know what he was thinking, Ra.’

  Ra shrugged. ‘None of us ever knows what’s going on in other people’s heads. I like to think he did it in some perverse effort to spare Raffe and Lexi any more trouble. Might have heard them making up.’

  Mishra returned her smile. Ra was making an effort.

  They were quiet as they bumped along the track through the farm. Ra leaned out the window to key in the code that would release them. Their phones beeped simultaneously. Once over the cattle-stop, Ra pulled onto the verge, flattening the knee-high grass, while they checked their messages.

  Mishra tapped in her password and waited. Two messages. One from Fran: Are we entering anger phase yet? Love KR.

  KR? Annoying Kübler-Ross again. YES! Mishra texted back. Once a clinician …

  The other was from Astrid Lyon, the academic hosting her in Wellington. Welcome to NZ! So sorry to hear of your loss. Have a lovely place in the country at your disposal. Let me know flight details and I’ll pick you up from the airport. Warmest wishes.

  Her face puckered and her eyes burned. A part of her had expected Philip to magically appear once she set foot in New Zealand. Hope and grief made uneasy bedfellows.

  She glanced at Raffe in the rearview mirror. He held his phone loosely in his hand, resting in his lap, and stared out the window.

  ‘News?’ Ra asked.

  ‘Lexi’s back in Adelaide.’

  ‘Ah.’

  At least he knows where he stands, Mishra thought, then bit down on her frustration. What a horrible thing to think! ‘You, Ra?’ she asked.

  Ra turned her head left then right, checking for traffic. ‘Aunty’s posted his picture on the whānau page.’

  ‘But–’ Mishra stopped. What was her objection? ‘It’s a private group, right?’

  Ra sent her an admonishing glance over the rims of her sunglasses. ‘Course. Private as they get with a whānau like mine.’

  ‘Ra! Roberts is still looking for him and God knows who else!’

  ‘Relax, will ya? I told you, whānau is whānau. We’ll know if somebody new joins the group. Nothing gets past my aunties.’ Ra nodded toward her phone on the dashboard. ‘Have a look.’

  Mishra picked it up. The group had three hundred members. The latest post had a headline: ‘Seen this fella?’ And a blurry image of Philip beneath it. You could tell he was blond, young and male but not much else.

  ‘Where’d you get the photo?’ Mishra asked.

  ‘Off the website of his old job,’ Raffe replied.

  ‘Got a better one?’ Ra asked.

  Mishra shook her head as she stared at the image of Philip. Both she and Philip liked privacy, shying away from parties and social media, and both were leery of photos. She wished now she had taken at least one photo of the two of them together. ‘I need to see.’

  ‘Need to see what?’ Ra asked.

  ‘Where he’s been these last few weeks. The last place –’ The words stuck in her throat.

  ‘I’d feel better knowing that a life jacket’s missing,’ said Raffe from the backseat.

  Ra pushed the truck into gear. ‘Opua it is.’

  They were quiet as they looped and soared and dropped, following the highway through the countryside. Wire-and-batten fences surrounded hilly fields, some dotted with sheep, some with furrows of trees – olives, Mishra noted – and these enclosures were interleaved with patches of furry, deep-green bush. She was surprised at how many eucalypts were in evidence, reminding her of home.

  ‘Paihia,’ Ra said as they cut down through bushy hills to the coast again. ‘Waitangi – that way.’ She thumbed in the opposite direction.

  Mishra’s gaze swept around the bay to a bridge and then a cluster of buildings on a low point that strayed into the sea. She’d heard from Ra about the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document. A sense of injustice and struggle was something that she and Ra had in common. And now she was finally visiting Ra’s country, capturing a glimpse of the place that shaped her best friend. Yet all she really cared about was finding Philip. ‘It is such a beautiful place, Ra.’

  Ra nodded. ‘Yeah. That isn’t everything, though, is it?’

  Mishra sighed, not wanting to think about whatever dark side Ra was alluding to.

  They threaded along a two-lane road with white sand on one side, giving way to myriad little islands speckling the sea, and on the other side a thin line of houses and hotels backing onto the hills. Round a point the road took them through the township of Paihia – the restaurants, hotels and pavement billboards proclaiming its status as a tourist destination. Mishra wasn’t into resorts, but she could see the appeal of this place. She scanned the water while they wound back into the hills then descended to a ferry terminal that carried passengers and cars to somewhere called Russell, and finally rounded another hairpin bend to the marina where they stopped.

  ‘This way.’ Raffe led them along a road with cars parked on the hilly side and boats on the other. Several piers jutted out into the marina with a breakwater beyond. It was a small city of boats – launches for coastal cruises, sailing boats not much bigger than dinghies, right through to sleek single and double-hulled racing yachts.

  Raffe’s yacht was berthed among other ocean-going vessels, most appearing abandoned except for the neighbouring one. An older man, a wave of greying hair sweeping from beneath his cap, was sharing a pot of coffee with a woman in the cockpit of their yacht.

  ‘Good day for it,’ he called, raising his mug as Ra and Mishra followed Raffe onto the twin-wheeled cockpit of Alice.

  ‘Certainly is,’ Raffe called back. He stepped down the companionway to the cabin and unlocked it. Ra followed.

  Mishra studied the deck. Three days ago Philip had been on board – right here. She walked round the edges of the deck, scouring the teak boards for any sign of him, and wondered where he had jumped off.

  ‘Mish?’ Ra called to her from the cabin.

  Gleaming woodwork and cream upholstery reflected the light flooding in through the overhead hatches and portals in the cabin. It was like a small but luxurious apartment.

  ‘That was his cabin.’ Raffe pointed to a door to her left.

  She pushed it open. All those weeks Philip had been here. He must have left something behind, some clue of his intentions. He’d sent the flowers after all. The aft cabin was a double berth with cupboards near the door and along the outer, curved wall. The bed was stripped, a pile of rumpled sheets and a couple of pillows the only evidence that the cabin had
been used recently. It smelt of antiseptic and damp cotton.

  Mishra knelt on the bed then crawled in, her head meeting the curved hull beneath two oblong windows. The bulge of the steps from the companionway above intruded over her knees. She didn’t think of herself as claustrophobic – she was small enough to fit into most spaces comfortably. But Philip? He was tall. When he wasn’t coding he liked to be outdoors, running. How had he coped in this narrow space? Even with the windows and neutral décor it was dim.

  But Philip had liked dim. It was one of things she’d teased him about – his preference for night over day. Maybe he would have been okay in here.

  She ran her hands under the pillows, then under the mattress, finding nothing but lint and dust. The cupboards alongside the bed and those near the door were also empty. If he’d left anything it wasn’t in here.

  Raffe was standing in the doorway, watching her, his arms crossed, a resigned look on his face. Of course they’d already checked the cabin – checked everywhere. ‘We seem to have all the lifejackets.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mishra sank down onto the side of the bed again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mish.’ He paused. ‘Lexi and I went through everything, and I mean everything.’

  ‘I know. I’m doing it for me. My own sanity.’

  Raffe nodded. ‘We’ll wait on deck.’

  The tiny ensuite – no bigger than a cupboard – was also empty, and spotless. It reminded Mishra of her search through Philip’s flat in Adelaide when they first knew he was missing. Philip liked to have everything just so. And that’s how he’d left his flat – spotless – as well as, it seemed, the yacht. Though how had he managed it after weeks of being sick? And he must have been frightened, knowing he was going to cast himself into the sea on the edge of a country he’d never even visited.

  She shook her head as she searched the aft cabin on the starboard side, though it was clear from its musty smell and lack of bedding that it hadn’t been used for a while. Outside the cabin she dropped into the plush swivel chair that served the navigation area – a corner of the cabin that looked into the galley and living areas. A range of electronic instruments were stacked up the wall on one side of the desk. She opened the drawers beneath the desk, which revealed a collage of charts, pens, rubber bands, restaurant brochures and maps. Philip wouldn’t have liked the mess.

  ‘Mish?’ Ra called down from the deck.

  She pushed the drawer closed and stepped up through the companionway.

  ‘Let’s walk,’ said Ra, taking her arm and propelling her off the deck on to the pier. Behind them Raffe was securing the cabin.

  ‘What is it, Ra?’

  ‘Did you see Jolly Roger and his wife on the boat next door?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She could hear Raffe trotting behind them along the pier. When they reached the road he joined them on Mishra’s other side.

  ‘He asked me if I was selling the yacht,’ said Raffe.

  Why were they hustling her off the boat to tell her that? ‘So?’

  Raffe was scanning the piers and services along the marina. ‘They thought I might be selling because of the interest in her.’

  Mishra shook her head. ‘What interest?’

  ‘Last night, quite late, there was a guy checking out the yacht. He actually walked round the deck, looking in the hatches.’

  ‘A guy?’ Mishra repeated. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not much else to tell, by the sounds of it. He didn’t speak to them and it was dark.’

  ‘Hair colour, eye colour? Fat, thin? Philip!’ Mishra asked.

  ‘Shit! Didn’t even think of Philip. He wasn’t specific. Said the guy had a cap on …’ Raffe turned and jogged back down the road toward the pier.

  Mishra and Ra followed.

  ‘I might consider selling,’ Raffe was saying to his neighbour as they arrived. ‘The guy last night – taller or shorter than me?’ He stood up straight on the pier.

  The man frowned and looked at his wife. ‘Shirl?’

  Shirl raised her sunglasses and squinted at Raffe. ‘About the same height.’

  ‘Did he have curly blond hair? Quite slim?’ Mishra asked.

  Shirl was shaking her head. ‘Dark hair, I reckon. Short at the back. Quite tidy, he was. Your sort of build but older.’ She smiled at Raffe.

  ‘Thanks,’ Raffe said. ‘Could I give you my number in case he comes back?’

  Ra commandeered Mishra’s arm again. Not Philip. Mishra let Ra usher her back along the pier, feeling sick with disappointment. As they walked, something was tugging at her memory.

  ‘Shirl said the guy was older,’ Ra said. ‘Could have been Roberts. With his contacts he might know you’re in New Zealand. It didn’t sound like he was planning to give up the search when he visited you, Mish.’

  ‘You think he followed me here?’

  Ra shrugged. ‘What else did he have to go on? You’re Philip’s girlfriend. And Raffe’s in New Zealand now even though they told the investigators they were going to New Caledonia. That looks suspicious.’

  ‘Roberts.’ Mishra sighed. ‘How are we going to find Philip if he’s poking around?’

  Ra scanned the carpark. ‘Well, he isn’t here now. Reckon it’s time for some sightseeing.’

  Mishra didn’t want to go sightseeing. She wanted to look for Philip. Raffe caught up with them. ‘Anything else?’ Mishra asked.

  Raffe shook his head.

  ‘We could start with Waitangi,’ Ra continued, ‘plenty of beach to search around there, and Roberts might think we’re doing regular tourist things if he’s spying on us.’ Ra squeezed her arm. ‘We’ve got the search up the coast covered, okay? Loads of people pitching in after the post last night.’

  ‘I agree,’ Raffe added. ‘Better if they think we’re not looking for him. We don’t want to lead them to his door.’

  Mishra bit down on her frustration. It made sense to be careful if someone was following them. And yes, they could search the beaches round Waitangi – but that was miles from where he jumped.

  ‘Mish?’ Ra asked as they reached the truck.

  ‘I don’t see we have much choice.’

  She didn’t miss the look of dismay shared by Raffe and Ra above her head. Let them think what they bloody well like. How could they possibly know what she was feeling? She slammed the door of the truck and crossed her arms, staring resolutely out the window as Ra drove back up the hill.

  ELEVEN

  Earlier that same Saturday morning, before Mishra and her friends arrived at the marina, Brett pulled up in the carpark at Opua, wishing he was on vacation rather than a mission. This was exactly the spot he’d want to holiday, with its beautiful beaches, bush, clean water – and everything feeling like it had been freshly washed. Which it had, he thought, switching off the radio. The weather forecasts here tilted wildly between sun and showers.

  He put on his sunglasses and cap, then checked his reflection in the mirror. Today he was doing his best to look like a boatie-tourist cross. The camera hanging around his neck with its powerful zoom lens would come in handy if he spotted anything suspicious and the calico duffel bag held a variety of communications tools.

  Strolling along the boardwalk, he cast his eye down each pier, searching for Raffe’s yacht. There weren’t too many with twin wheels in the cockpit; even his untrained eye should spot it.

  There.

  As he walked along the pier toward the yacht two things became apparent: the yacht next to Raffe’s was occupied by an older couple who were sitting on the deck, a pot of what smelt like coffee between them, and Raffe’s yacht seemed deserted. He could hardly stop to check out the yacht with those two watching him.

  ‘Guten Tag,’ he said to the couple as he passed them, then wandered to the end of the pier, paused, stretched, and sauntered back. They looked the type to talk your ear off, but the woman contented herself with a vigorous wave, and the man nodded his head when he doubled back. His ploy had worked.

  Just a
s he swung back into the driver’s seat of his rental, the truck containing Mishra and her friends crawled past, then backed into a park, three cars down. Crap, that had been close. Brett watched the truck decant Mishra, Raffe and Rawinia who made a beeline for the yacht. How long would they be?

  He opened the door and stood up, one foot still in the footwell in case he needed to beat a hasty retreat. They had reached the yacht now, and were greeting the older couple, then they disappeared below decks. Now was his chance.

  Grabbing his duffel bag, he walked along behind the cars until he reached Rawinia’s truck, where he elbowed the back door. No response except a dull ache in the back of his elbow; the truck was too ancient to be fitted with an alarm. Good.

  He attached the GPS tracker, fresh from its box, to the bottom of the chassis, then slid a wire down the side of the driver’s door and tugged to release the lock. The interior of the cab was worn: the carpet was salted with sand, while old maps and bits of paper were wedged into the pockets in the doors. Perfect. He placed the bug between two maps in the pocket of the passenger door and jiggled them until it was out of sight. It was a little bulky, but it had the benefit of transmitting to his radio scanner and recorder for over thirty days. If they hadn’t found Philip in that time he would be ready to give up. The downside was the transmitter only had a range of a few kilometers, so he’d need to stay close if he wanted to listen in. Brett closed the door and snuck back around to his car, slouching into the driver’s seat. He plugged the scanner’s adapter into the cigarette lighter and waited.

  Twenty minutes later Rawinia and Mishra were headed back up the pier with Raffe in tow. Wait – they had turned around. They were talking to the older couple on the yacht next door. Had the couple mentioned him? The German greeting would have put them off, even if they described him.

  Mishra didn’t look happy as they trudged back up the pier to the truck. He adjusted the scanner to the bug’s channel and listened, holding his breath.

  ‘Mish?’ he heard. And then Mishra’s voice, ‘I don’t see we have much choice.’

  Brett smacked the steering wheel in triumph. He’d done it!