‘Bugger,’ she muttered, getting off the swing. Gus was sweet, mostly, but depending on the day and his mood, he could sometimes be creepy.
‘Hi, Aroha,’ he said, standing in front of her. Too close. Always too close.
He reached out for her hair that fell in long sheets on either side of her face, capturing it between his fingers. She stepped back but he held on tight, caressing it between his thumb and forefinger. She jerked back, wincing as her hair pulled through his grasp.
He didn’t seem to notice. ‘You’re pretty. Like my friend Tania. Do you know where she is? She’s gone. Can’t find her.’ He frowned, adding more lines to a face that was full of them.
‘No,’ Aroha said, thinking if he acted like this around Tania she’d probably bolted. ‘I need to go now.’ Eager to get away she swung her bag onto her shoulder, annoyed he’d ruined her day. She looked at her watch and calculated if she left now she’d be just in time for period two, Science. As far as classes went, her favourite.
She walked into Crawton High School as the nine-hundred-strong student body was changing classes. She joined the throng, just another bored student counting down the hours till the end of the day. In the classroom she took a seat at one of the benches at the back. If anyone tried to sit by her a steely look in their direction always took care of that. Instead of Mr Marsh at the front of the room in his skinny-leg jeans and too-tight polo, trying desperately to look cool and failing, stood Mrs Haywood’s daughter. Aroha had forgotten her name. She was dressed in a black suit and white shirt, her dark hair pulled back into a tight, low ponytail. She looked as if she belonged in the big city, not backwater Crawton. Aroha figured her for a big-city woman. She didn’t look nervous like most relievers did when they had to face a group of unknown sixteen-year-olds laughing and whispering. She looked a bit uptight but in control. And she didn’t look anything like Mrs Haywood, who had blonde-grey hair, always knotted messily on top of her head, often with a pencil sticking out the top, and pale skin covered with freckles that had merged over the years. Just like Aroha didn’t look like her mother. Her aunties constantly commented, ‘She’s all Kingi.’ Which only made her mother’s existence even more mythical — born out of a dream, or a nightmare, Aroha thought.
‘Good morning. My name is Ms Haywood,’ she said, one hand coming up and quickly smoothing the hair on the side of her head. ‘Mr Marsh will be away for a few days and I’ll be filling in.’ Ms Haywood was easy and confident in a room full of kids she’d never met, and Aroha envied her.
Excited whispers cut through the initial silence. A reliever meant easy or no work. The whispers steadily turned into a wave of chatter and laughing till Ms Haywood slammed a textbook down on the desk. Everyone stopped and looked. Aroha noticed her lips had disappeared as she stared at the classroom. After a pause, she smoothed back her hair with one hand and, without admonishment, carried on.
‘Please say yes if you’re here.’ She went down the roll and got to Aroha’s name. For starters she pronounced it right, not like most of the Pākehā teachers who couldn’t wrap their mouth around the ‘ro’, turning the middle of her name into ‘row’.
‘Yes,’ Aroha said.
Ms Haywood looked up and gave her a nod and a tight smile.
‘Right, Mr Marsh didn’t have time to leave me any notes, so I’ve set up an experiment which you can all have a go at today. Listen up. I can help you when we get started and you have instructions on your desk, but I only want to say this once. In a boiling tube you want magnesium and hydrochloric acid. Put the bung of the delivery tube in so that you can collect the gas. The ice-cream container will be filled with water so fill the measuring cylinder with water. Turn it upside down, put the end of the delivery tube in and you’ll see the water level go down as the gas is collected. Put a lit taper into the gas you’ve collected, and you’ll know it’s hydrogen if it explodes with a loud squeaky pop.’
Aroha watched as most of the class listened and then got to work. Ms Haywood had won the class over the moment she said ‘explodes’ — she knew what she was doing.
Aroha began. She loved experiments, and it was even better when she wasn’t saddled with a partner. She read the instructions and moved through the experiment methodically as Ms Haywood wandered from bench to bench checking on students’ progress.
The whole class turned as a loud pop echoed around the classroom. Ms Haywood came over to her bench. ‘Great work, Aroha.’
Aroha didn’t say anything. She was pleased with the experiment, but even more pleased that Ms Haywood had remembered her name.
Half an hour later the bell sounded and the class filed out. Aroha hung behind and said, ‘Thanks, Miss.’
‘You’re welcome, Aroha. Good work today.’
With Geography next, one of her most-loathed subjects, and figuring the day couldn’t really get any better, Aroha decided it was the perfect day for a walk out to the big lake.
Chapter 23
Zoe stood in front of the open fridge that night with a glass of whisky in her hand. There was not much on offer, which wasn’t surprising as she’d been to the supermarket only a couple of times since she’d been in Crawton. She’d been living on takeaways and beans on toast.
She went to open the freezer and sighed when she heard the knock at the door. Opening it she saw Richard Bailey standing in front of her, dressed in what she assumed was his uniform — a dark, tailored suit, white shirt and tie.
‘Yes?’ she asked, annoyed already.
‘So sorry to bother you, Zoe,’ he said, sounding anything but apologetic, ‘but I was wondering if you had a moment to talk about your mother’s property.’
Jesus. At this point I’d rather open my door to a Jehovah’s Witness.
‘This is a bad time,’ she said, trying to fob him off, thinking of the signed papers hidden away.
‘It really will only take a minute. You probably don’t realise that your mother’s section is worth quite a bit of money.’
‘Section? What about the house?’
‘Right. The house, well—’
‘You don’t care about the house, do you? If I sell to you, you’ll happily bulldoze my childhood home to the ground so you can build yet more houses and earn a shitload of money. Am I right?’ Zoe may not have had the happiest memories in this house, but he didn’t need to know that.
Bailey stood in front of her, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping its last breath. ‘If you could just let me come in a moment, we could discuss—’
‘Not interested.’ She slammed the door in his face.
Back in the kitchen she put Richard Bailey from her mind and opened the freezer. She looked at the neat Tetris-like arrangement of frozen ready meals Lillian had on offer. She took a lasagne from the freezer and a piece of paper fluttered to the lino.
Now what? A shopping list, or another piece of the puzzle? She scooped it off the floor and brushed off the flakes of ice. The ink had stained in places, spidery veins reaching across the page, but she could still make out Lillian’s hand writing.
Met with Megan today. Need to get this down before my brain scrambles it, as it does these days.
Max Vincent at the bar regularly. Megan overheard Garth on the phone with someone. He said something about giving him Tania a few months back, then she heard him say ‘What about Megan?’ and that he’d try and set it up.
I’ve told her she should quit her job but she’s told me she needs it. And that she wants to know what happened to Tania.
I suggested going to see Max Vincent but she told me he’s no good, he’s always at the bar and knows about the drugs that go through the place and doesn’t care.
I’ve told her if she insists on working at such a place, I’ll drop her off and pick her up for all her shifts no matter what time.
It was pretty much all the same information from the USB stick Zoe had ret
rieved on Friday. She wondered if Lillian had forgotten about the USB stick and written these notes or wanted to be certain someone would find her clues and so had left them in as many places as possible. Why Lillian had chosen to hide it in the freezer, she had no idea — Lillian probably didn’t either.
Zoe heated the lasagne in the microwave. She sat at Lillian’s desk by the window in the lounge, eating straight from the tray, trying to ignore the slight plastic taste of the food. She stared at the note which was slowly defrosting and growing soggier by the minute. She could go down there tonight. Sitting on the outskirts of town, like a child in the naughty corner, the Crawton Tavern was frequented by a mixture of drunks and under-age kids who didn’t have a hope of getting into more respectable pubs and bars. She’d wait till a bit later. There would only be a handful of regulars there now, and she wanted a bit of cover. After all, she had no idea what she was walking into.
*
The Crawton Tavern was surrounded by a few weatherboard houses with paint peeling and torn net curtains hanging in the window. At 9.30 p.m. Zoe pulled into the gravel car park, which was over half full and, ignoring the snarling coming from behind a wooden fence, walked over to the door.
Inside, she felt as if she had stepped back in time sixteen years. Just like Lillian’s house, nothing had changed about the Crawton Tavern. It had the same jukebox in the corner which was now screaming out Green Day’s ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ while a man and woman threw themselves around the dancefloor at the back, beers in hand. The whole place reeked of cigarette smoke, as apparently the tavern had not taken note that it had been illegal to smoke in bars for more than a decade. Wooden tables scarred with cigarette burns were strewn around the room. A group of men had dragged three tables together and were in the middle of a rowdy game of darts. Zoe’s appearance halted their conversation for a few seconds before they turned back to their beers and back-slapping. As she walked to the bar, the sticky floor halted each footstep for a fraction of a second. She sat on a stool after quickly wiping off what looked like cigarette ash. To her left, through saloon-style doors, came the jovial bells and whistles of the pokies, hungrily devouring rent money. The bartender, a muscled man with dreads down to his waist, wiped the counter with a cloth that hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine for some time. Thinking she recognised his face, she watched as he stared at the three women sitting at a table close to the bar. They were whispering between themselves and occasionally throwing him flirtatious glances. Zoe had no idea why. He looks as filthy as that cloth. Zoe cleared her throat to get his attention. He gave her a lazy grin full of stained teeth and leaned closer, bringing with him the strong odour of marijuana. ‘What can I get you?’
‘A beer, please.’
‘What kind?’ he asked, while still staring at the women.
‘Anything’s fine.’
He poured Zoe a handle and as she handed over cash she noticed the tattoos adorning his hands. Amateur work: five dots on the webbed part between his thumb and forefinger, skulls on both hands and neck; playing-card suits on his knuckles. They all screamed jail time. ‘Do I know you?’ she asked. He didn’t seem like the chatty type and she didn’t want him going back to the group of women.
He looked at her properly for the first time, his dark eyes narrowing. ‘You’re Zoe Haywood.’ He didn’t smile in recognition. He didn’t seem interested in her.
‘Yeah, right. Did we go to school together?’
‘You don’t remember me?’
‘No sorry.’
‘Tai Ngata.’
Her memories clicked into place. Tai, a year younger than her. Suspended at least three times while she was at school, constantly in trouble. She had a feeling Lillian had had a bit to do with him.
‘Of course,’ Zoe said, desperate to start a conversation. ‘Have you worked here long?’
‘A while now, yeah. You used to hang out with Alex, eh.’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘And that Faith girl. Remember her? She wasn’t at school for long though. Buggered off somewhere. Don’t blame her,’ he grunted, pouring himself a beer.
Zoe hadn’t thought of Faith Marsden in many years. She’d started Crawton High School mid-way through their second-to-last year. Alex and Zoe had taken her under their wing and for six months they’d been inseparable until she ran away from her foster-mother’s place. Zoe wondered what she was up to now, and if she remembered her time in Crawton.
Zoe sipped at her beer and saw Tai’s gaze shifting back to the women. ‘Do you know a Megan Harper or a Tania Myer,’ she asked, diving in.
The grin on Tai’s face slipped. ‘Who’s asking?’
‘Well, me,’ Zoe said.
‘They both used to work here. Tania was the cleaner, used to come in in the mornings. That was a good six months ago. Didn’t stay for long. Megan worked behind the bar.’
‘Where are they now?’
‘What do I look like, their mother?’
‘I just wanted to make sure they were safe.’
‘Fucked if I know. I figured they got sick of the job and buggered off.’ Tai shrugged. ‘You can talk to Garth if you want. The manager. Not sure what else he’ll have to say, though.’
He led her down a dark corridor, past the toilets and a door that had ‘Staff Only’ written on it. He knocked on the door at the end of the corridor and walked in. ‘Someone here to see you.’
Zoe walked into the office, the sounds of what was obviously porn coming from the laptop on the desk. A man, Garth she assumed, clicked the mouse, muting the sound, but still staring at the screen. ‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Name’s Zoe. Zoe Haywood.’
Garth looked up then. Zoe didn’t know what she saw in his eyes. Familiarity? Did she know him? She didn’t think so. His bald head shone under the fluorescent light overhead, biceps strained in a white shirt as he rested his arms on his desk, hands clasped. He picked up the lit cigar from the plastic ashtray to his side, his full lips wrapping around it as he studied her. His eyes started at her feet, lingered on her breasts and finally made their way to her face. Zoe felt the need to run home and have a shower.
‘Take a seat, Zoe.’ He waved his hand towards the tan vinyl sofa that took up most of the left side of the wall.
‘I won’t be long,’ Zoe said.
Garth glanced back at the computer screen. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Megan and Tania. It’s just that … well, I know they haven’t been heard of in a while and I was just wondering if you knew where they’ve gone?’
Garth gave a non-committal shrug and sucked on his cigar, sending a plume of smoke up into the air where it settled on an already stained ceiling.
‘Tania worked as a cleaner here?’ Zoe prompted.
Garth sighed, realising Zoe wasn’t going to go anywhere until she got answers. ‘She worked here for a couple of months as a cleaner. Would come in around eight each morning to give the place the once-over.’
‘And then what? She just disappeared?’
‘No, she quit and left.’
‘She didn’t just run off? I’ve heard from a friend that she went missing.’
‘Who’s this friend?’ Garth pushed his chair back and came around his desk, closer to Zoe. He was a big man and he was obviously pissed off she was here asking questions.
She didn’t want to involve Gus so said, ‘They were supposed to meet and she never showed up. He never saw her again.’
‘How’s that my problem? Maybe she wasn’t interested in him.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Zoe thought for a moment. ‘So she handed in her resignation six months or so ago? Did she give it to you in writing?’
Garth sat heavily on the sofa. Zoe felt too close to him and moved a couple of steps back towards the door and stood on Tai’s foot. ‘Shit! Sorry, I didn’t realise you were still there.�
�
Tai’s smile in response wasn’t friendly. His eyes were narrowed, and Zoe got the feeling he was standing guard.
Garth let out a laugh. ‘Hand in her resignation? Are you for real? I paid the girl cash in hand a hundred bucks a week to mop floors and clean toilets. It wasn’t exactly some high-flying executive job. She rang me one evening, said she wouldn’t be coming in the next day, and I never heard from her again.’ He grunted and took the cigar from his mouth, a string of saliva hanging like a tightrope between it and his lips. He swiped a meaty arm across his mouth.
‘I understand Sergeant Vincent came and asked after Megan. He said he’d looked into it.’
‘Ah, yeah. Sure.’
‘What did he ask you?’
‘Why should I tell you?’ Garth stood up again and came to stand in front of Zoe. She only came up to his chest, and had to will herself to look up into his pale blue eyes, show him she wasn’t scared — when in fact the guy scared the shit out of her.
Garth opened his arms to reveal damp patches under his arms. ‘Look, I’m sure Megan’s fine. Mighty kind of you to worry about her like you are, considering you have no idea who she is or what she gets up to. She’s a pain in the arse, unreliable, a druggie who owes me a shitload of money. My advice is to forget about her. Tai, give the lovely Zoe a drink on the house.’ Conversation over, he returned to his laptop and immediately the sound of a woman having an orgasm filled the air. ‘Unless you want to hang around,’ he winked.
Zoe pushed past Tai, both men’s laughter ringing in her ears long after she left the bar. It hadn’t been a complete waste of time. She was positive Garth knew something about Megan’s disappearance, Tai too. There was a couple of times when Garth’s face betrayed him. She knew he was lying. She needed more but didn’t know where to go next.
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