by A C Praat
Astrid laughed again. ‘Course! We’re very civilised, you know.’
Mishra smiled. Astrid lived in Wellington. If Mishra was over an hour’s drive away this woman wouldn’t be popping in every other moment. The way Mishra felt right now, that was something to be grateful for.
‘Shall we?’ Astrid asked, standing up.
Mishra nodded.
The drive began with a tour of the bays around Wellington. Astrid talked continuously – the fountain, the marina, the stadium – but grew more quiet once they’d motored down the highway through the Hutt Valley and began to climb through the Rimutaka ranges. She’d been right: the drive wasn’t for the fainthearted. The road was cut into the sides of the mountains, where grasses and low shrubs clung on to stony slopes. As they climbed higher and higher the wind grew in strength until they reached the apex, where a café braced itself against the prevailing nor’wester. Mishra was glad she didn’t get car sick. Astrid said she could never be a passenger on this road – it gave her the heebie-jeebies. The steep drop off, never more than a foot away from the passenger’s side of the car, certainly was a distraction.
Heading down the other side of the ranges the view opened out to the Wairarapa plain, a patchwork of fields and bush framed by the hills on either side. It was breathtaking. There was a train, Astrid told her, that went through the mountains using long tunnels – it came fairly regularly and wasn’t too pricey. The train also joined up with the regional bus network. A car wasn’t necessary. That was something – Mishra needn’t be stuck in the backblocks if she didn’t want to be. And she didn’t want to be. How would Philip find her out here?
She sighed.
He wouldn’t be looking, by the sounds of that note. Or he wouldn’t be allowed to look. Somebody had to be holding him. Who would send a note like that? Not threatening, exactly. She itched to pull it out of her bag again and study it from all angles.
He doesn’t want to see you. He’s too scared to tell you himself, said the voice of self-doubt inside her head. ‘No!’
‘What was that?’ Astrid asked. They were driving through a small country town: a collection of antiques shops, cafés, a cheese shop and a pub. Then Astrid turned onto a road that led further into the unrelenting green of rural New Zealand.
‘Nothing.’ Mishra wound down the window and inhaled the blossom-scented air. ‘Very pretty,’ she said, changing the subject.
‘Another twenty minutes and we’ll be there. You wait!’
‘Tell me about Copenhagen,’ Mishra asked. ‘What’s your topic?’
‘Community and new urbanism,’ Astrid said.
‘Copenhagen seems to be the pinup city for how we should all be doing things.’
‘Isn’t it? But I think that ignores the way initial conditions shape cultural and historical trajectories. You can’t just pick up a given set of social arrangements and transplant them somewhere else.’
Mishra nodded. This was the Astrid that intrigued her. Astrid continued to talk as they belted through the countryside: pasture, mostly, with straggles of trees here and there breaking up the flat terrain. And then they were travelling down an escarpment and across a river, and the pastures began to transform to vineyards and olive groves, some behind low shelter belts and others behind stone walls. Horticulture gave way to a village: shops of weatherboard in a colonial-style and a beautiful two-story pub on the corner of the town square. Mishra wished she was staying there.
‘I’ll just pick up a few things.’ Astrid drove around the square, which housed a stone war memorial and a few oak trees, and parked outside a local supermarket. Mishra trailed through the supermarket after Astrid, adding wine and cheese and fruit and artisan bread to their basket. Maybe one day she’d come back here when her life was more settled. This was the kind of rural living even she could get used to.
Finally they were sweeping up a wide gravel driveway lined with young oaks, and then the reveal. As Astrid promised – a two-story Tuscan-style villa in pale-yellow render topped with orange tiles and, yes, its own square tower. A box and lavender garden enclosed a terrace on the north side.
‘This way.’ Astrid disappeared around the side of the turret to the entry on the eastern wall. A vast door, purloined from an old church by the look of the scratched timber and iron hinges, gave onto a tiled entrance. The walls were roughly plastered and painted white. To the right was an archway to a cottage-style kitchen. Mishra passed through the kitchen, following the flow of the layout to an open-plan dining and living area that would gather sun all day. She paused before the open stone hearth, which was bordered on both sides by French doors opening onto the garden terrace, and wished it was cold enough to light a fire. She was suffering a distinct sense of dislocation as she followed Astrid up the stairs. She was in a romantic, Tuscan-themed hideaway, in New Zealand, and her not-dead English boyfriend was in hiding, or being held, and she wasn’t to look for him.
Upstairs the turret room was flooded with light from the high windows under the eaves. A desk and armoire painted with daisies were its only furnishings. On the other side of a landing the master bedroom gave onto a balcony overlooking the terraced garden. An antique tall boy held a jug and basin and also a jar of purple tulips set among sprigs of rosemary and branches of olive. It was a place to be shared. Mishra sat on the edge of bed, denting the puffy duvet inside its waffle case, and tried not to snivel.
‘Oh!’ Astrid sat next to her and squeezed her shoulders. ‘You’ll be all right.’
Mishra closed her eyes and wished Astrid gone. How could she possibly know Mishra was going to be all right?
‘I lost my husband just over two years ago.’
Mishra opened her eyes and turned to Astrid. ‘Oh. I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
Astrid shrugged. ‘So you see, I’m all right. I can’t promise more than that. Still feels like early days.’
I shouldn’t be so quick to write people off. Her worry about Philip stopped her from seeing anybody else; she’d barely listened to Astrid on the way over the hill. ‘Shall we open some wine?’
Astrid laughed. ‘I wouldn’t recommend that route either, though Lord knows I tried it.’ She stood. ‘Another time. I have to drive back tonight. Gracie and Stuart are expecting takeaways for dinner.’
Even worse! Astrid’s poor children. She’d driven Mishra all the way here just to turn around and go straight back over that appalling road. ‘I’m sorry, Astrid. I didn’t know about your husband or your kids. You’ve been so kind and I’ve been terrible company.’
‘These are dark times for you, Mishra. I hope this place allows you to heal a little. It helped me.’
After Astrid left, Mishra sat a long time in the terrace garden, sipping wine and eating bread dipped in olive oil. The garden sloped gently away to a wire fence that marked the start of the olive orchard. Grey-green trees, not even twice Mishra’s height, stood sentinel in neat rows. In the distance, beyond the grassed and furrowed plain, the mountains were beginning to blur into dark-navy humps as the sun dipped behind them and the sky blushed rose. The sparrows were singing their evening song and the wind had mellowed to a soft zephyr. Mishra realised she had a house to herself for the first time in years. Anything was okay here: rage, anxiety, grief. No one to check herself for.
Stop looking.
Again, she ran through all the possibilities that could elaborate on that pithy command. Stop looking because … we don’t want you to find him; he doesn’t want to be found; you’re wasting your time – he’s already dead.
She dropped her bread. If that were true, why send a note at all? Unless it was someone who cared enough to curtail the misery of the continuing search?
Stop looking … or else.
Was it a threat?
Someone was trying to keep her away.
Hope the sabbatical works out. The note Philip had left her might not have been a coded message. Maybe Philip had friends in New Zealand all along who had agreed to help him, and they’d sent the
note. That would have been a risk. But with the media reporting the investigation was over, perhaps whoever it was felt they could let their guard down.
She drained her glass and stood, catching a hand on the stone table for balance. Ra was expecting a call. She’d be waiting at the cattle-stop by the farm gate.
Upstairs, Mishra stood on the balcony outside of her bedroom, her phone in her hand, and waited for Ra to pick up.
‘Mishra?’
Mishra’s greeting stuck in her throat. It was good to hear Ra’s voice.
‘Mish?’
‘Someone sent a message to the department. All it said was “Stop looking.”’
Silence from Ra’s end except for the wind sifting across the microphone.
‘Anything else?’ asked Ra.
‘No.’
She imagined Ra leaning on the gate, working out what to think – what to say – as confused as she had been.
‘What if it’s Roberts?’
‘Why would he send a note?’ Ra asked.
‘To warn us off?’ Mishra said. ‘Heard anything your end?’
‘Nope. But it sounds like somebody’s got him. Somebody who knew about your relationship and knew how to contact you.’
‘What if it’s Philip?’
Another pause. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. Sorry, Mish. Hey, it’s not wise to spend too much time on the line. Are you safe?’
Mishra felt like she could fly if she stepped off the balcony.
‘Mish?’ Ra asked. ‘You been drinking?’
‘Yes. And yes, I feel safe. I’m in a villa in the back of beyond.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow same time,’ said Ra.
The line disconnected.
Down on the garden terrace, half a bottle of wine invited Mishra’s company. She drifted back down the stairs, picking up a container of olives on the way, and pushed through the French doors. She collapsed onto her chair. Above, the sky was immense and the first stars were emerging out of the twilight.
‘Stop looking,’ she said, raising her glass. Philip must be all right if someone bothered sending the message. That was more than she could say this morning. More than Astrid could say about her own husband.
But where was he?
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘Stop looking. Who would send such a note?’ Sauers asked.
Brett stared through the windscreen of the rental car, ignoring Sauers’ pointed gaze. It was growing dark in the country lane, just down the hill from Mishra’s hideout in the Wairarapa. He switched on the ignition, checked over his shoulder for traffic, then crawled up the hill. You could just see the turret from the bottom of the driveway, but not much else between the columns of slender trees arching toward the house. Earlier they’d watched Astrid leave. Apart from that all had been quiet – until Mishra’s phone call with Rawinia a few moments ago.
Brett considered plausible alternatives to the truth of who sent the note; a truth that was making itself known in the flush burning his ears. ‘I don’t think it would be Roberts. His strategy was to follow Mishra to find Templeton. Why would he warn her off?’
‘But the kayaker? If that was Roberts’ ploy, he is still looking in Northland.’
Brett nodded. ‘Roberts has a few tricks up his sleeve. He worked in defense too, back in the day.’
That information didn’t seem to be news to Sauers. What else did he know about Roberts? Or the other concerns that Hebden wouldn’t divulge to Brett?
‘Stop looking. No signature. It’s a warning.’ Sauers clenched his gloved hands together in his lap.
Today the gloves were black leather. Brett hadn’t asked him about that particular behavioural tic. Not yet.
‘It could be Philip,’ Sauers said.
‘We don’t know if he’s alive.’
‘Mishra does seem discouraged.’
Brett glanced at Sauers, then indicated to turn left at the square into Martinborough. Sauers didn’t sound discouraged. He sounded hopeful.
‘It’s the kind of note Philip might write,’ Brett said. ‘Curt, thoughtless.’
Sauers was staring at him again. ‘You don’t like him.’
Brett pulled into a park outside their hotel. Not so elegant as their Wellington apartment: painted breeze-block and cheap aluminum ranch-sliders. It reminded Brett of the neighbourhood he grew up in.
‘And Mishra deserves so much better,’ Sauers suggested. ‘Someone more like you.’
Refusing to respond to the goading, Brett opened the car door and slid out, then headed to reception for the key. When he returned, Sauers was leaning against the side of the car, arms crossed, their luggage at his feet.
‘Room 4.’ Brett picked up his bag and followed the path along the line of identical rooms to number four. He wanted his own room, but the bug in Mishra’s book was linked to Sauers’ phone. It was cued by human voices – or any sound in the human vocal range – and sent a text when activated at the transmitting end. Brett didn’t want to miss anything.
‘An ex-boyfriend?’ Sauers ventured as they sat at their handkerchief table, a bottle of beer in front of each of them. ‘With curves like that men are probably lining up for a turn.’
An image of Sauers’ wiry, pale body covering Mishra’s warm curves sent waves of revulsion over Brett’s skin. ‘Been meaning to ask,’ he said. ‘What’s with the gloves?’
Sauers raised his hands to eye-level and twisted them left and right. ‘Burns.’
Brett’s nose twitched, a wrinkle of sympathy that he quickly tamped down. Sauers was the enemy here.
‘A long time ago.’ Sauers clinked the bottom of his bottle against the neck of Brett’s beer ‘Better forgotten. Zdorov’ye.’
‘Zdorov’ye,’ Brett repeated then swigged his beer. ‘You’re Russian?’
Sauers finished his mouthful and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. Learning over the table, he clinked his bottle against Brett’s a second time and said, ‘Prost.’ The corner of his mouth quirked up before the bottle met his lips.
Brett shook his head, unwilling to join in the game.
‘Come. Let us see what’s on TV.’ Sauers stood to retrieve the remote resting beside the monitor on the opposite side of their room. As he dropped back into the chair, he said, ‘My money is on a lover.’
Brett slumped back, extending his legs to cross his feet at the ankles. Let Sauers hypothesize: the more random candidates the better.
‘Hebden, perhaps. If he can’t have her, no one can.’ Sauers snorted once through his nose, a strangled laugh.
Brett glared at the screen. A boyband, each member dressed in a pair of ragged jeans and a designer T-shirt, was showing off their dance moves and miming the soundtrack. ‘Volume,’ he said.
If Sauers wouldn’t be drawn out, Brett sure as hell wasn’t going to give him anything.
* * *
Brett startled awake from a rough shove to his shoulder.
‘She’s not alone,’ Sauers hissed into his face. ‘Listen.’
Brett squirmed to sit up as Sauers switched to speakerphone.
‘Jesus!’ It was a man’s voice. A pause and then, ‘Are you Mishra? You nearly scared me to death.’
‘Not Philip?’ Sauers muttered under his breath. ‘Who?’
Brett held up a hand for silence. It definitely wasn’t Philip – the voice was too expressive and carried a nasal twang. The man was a local.
‘Likewise,’ Mishra said. ‘Who are you?’
‘Matthew,’ said the man.
Sauers glanced at Brett.
Brett shrugged back. Matthew: that name hadn’t come up before. ‘We’d better get out there.’ He pulled on his jeans and jacket. Sauers was already dressed and waiting at the door, phone in hand.
‘Astrid’s ex?’ Mishra asked.
‘Only to historians of ancient social history,’ came the reply.
The guy was flirting with her. Brett scooped the car keys from his bedside table and slammed the door after him.
�
��The French doors downstairs were open, banging in the wind,’ Matthew said.
Silence from Mishra.
‘I don’t usually … forecast is for rain later and nor’westerlies. Mind you secure the doors.’
‘Her landlord,’ said Sauers as they drove around the square and headed east for Mishra’s turret house.
Brett slowed to the speed limit. No point in drawing attention to themselves.
‘Wait!’
Brett stood on the brakes in response to Mishra’s shouted command.
‘I’m sorry about the door,’ she said. ‘I should have closed it properly.’
Sauers shook his head.
‘Coffee?’ asked Mishra.
‘Yes, coffee,’ Sauers replied. ‘Nothing to see here.’ But he left the phone on as Brett U-turned back toward Martinborough. The only useful piece of information they gleaned from the short exchange between Matthew and Mishra was that he would drive Mishra to the bus station on Tuesday morning.
Once more on duty, sitting just beyond the driveway to Mishra’s house, they sipped their takeaway coffees. Sauers had lapsed into watchful silence. He’d probably been messing with Brett last night, but Brett couldn’t forget the comment about Hebden: If he can’t have her, no one can. He was sure Mishra hadn’t even met Hebden.
‘You didn’t fix the bees,’ Brett said. ‘On Friday you didn’t touch them.’
Sauers raised his cup to his lips, then paused. ‘Just following orders.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
The vaulted ceilings of Wellington Railway Station reverberated with the clip-clop and murmur of thousands of commuters spilling into the capital, Mishra among them. She wasn’t big on crowds, and everyone seemed to know where they were going. If she stopped to check her phone they’d likely crush her in their zombie-like determination to make it to their offices on time.
‘Chews Lane,’ she said to the taxi driver.