Death on Demand

by Paul Thomas

  McGrail swivelled in his chair, awaiting Charlton’s response with an expectant expression.

  Charlton decided the best form of defence was to pretend he hadn’t been attacked. “Who knew you’d talked to him?”

  “It was after four on a Tuesday afternoon,” said Ihaka. “The only other people there were a couple of young women, student types, and the guy making coffee.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  “I understood the question the first time. Maybe you should focus on who Yallop discussed it with.”

  Charlton shook his head. “Jesus, you’ve got a lot of attitude for someone who’s been busted doing precisely what he was ordered not to do.” He turned to McGrail. “Sir, seeing Sergeant Ihaka seems incapable of letting this go, I’m going to have to ask you for an assurance that when I get to work tomorrow he won’t be in this city, let alone in this building.”

  McGrail nodded thoughtfully.

  Charlton waited for verbal confirmation, but none was forthcoming. He got to his feet. “If I can make a suggestion, sir, you might want to personally escort Ihaka onto the plane and secure the doors. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’re pretty busy right now.”

  “Never rains but it pours, eh?” said Ihaka.

  Charlton eyed Ihaka coldly from the doorway. “Until we meet again. Let’s see if we can make it a nice, round decade this time.”

  “Busy’s an understatement,” said McGrail when the door closed. “They’re stretched to breaking point.”

  “Boo hoo. What’s the story with this suicide?”

  McGrail told him what they’d learned so far: how Lorna Bell had spent her last few hours; that her distraught husband wasn’t aware of any reason why she’d take her own life; that there were no medical issues, although she’d recently undergone minor cosmetic surgery and had more planned; that she didn’t leave a note.

  “Pretty fucking weird, wouldn’t you say?” said Ihaka.

  “Which particular aspect?”

  “Well, the haircut for a start.”

  “I wouldn’t attach too much significance to that,” said McGrail. “Think of it as a variation on clean-underwear syndrome.”

  “She’d had cosmetic surgery and there was more in the pipeline, right? Are you really going to book yourself in for a nose job or arse suction or whatever if you’re planning to pull the plug?”

  “People are contrary,” said McGrail. “They think one thing one minute, and the exact opposite the next. I don’t see it myself, but I’ve heard it said that the ability to hold contradictory views simultaneously is evidence of a sophisticated mind. Secondly, money wasn’t an object, and when money’s no object people find all sorts of daft things to spend it on. Thirdly, I dare say we wouldn’t have to look too far to find a psychiatrist who’d tell us that cosmetic surgery is a manifestation of low self-esteem.”

  “She didn’t leave a note.”

  “You’ve seen the studies, Sergeant. The percentages vary, but they all make the point that quite a few suicides don’t.”

  “Okay,” said Ihaka. “A guy gets the sack. His wife shoots through with the kids – turns out she’s screwing his best mate. She convinces some dickhead social worker that he’s a potential child molester, so he’s denied access. If that bloke sticks a shotgun in his mouth, it’s pretty fucking obvious what was on his mind, so who needs a note? This woman, her life’s a bed of roses, yet suddenly she’s out of here without a word of explanation.” He shook his head. “If you ask me, she hadn’t been building up to this: something came at her out of the blue, something she couldn’t handle. So why didn’t she tell her nearest and dearest?”

  “The studies also conclude that the nearest and dearest sometimes withhold or destroy the note, whether to protect the victim’s reputation or their own.”

  “Doesn’t that possibility worry you?”

  “We’re policemen,” said McGrail. “We like to know everything. The poor woman killed herself, and there’s an end to the matter. If she did so because her husband was a swine, then he’ll have to answer to a higher power than the law.”

  “Some of us don’t buy that.”

  McGrail nodded. “Oh, I’m well aware of that. One thing about being a believer, it takes away the temptation to play God.”

  At six o’clock that night Ihaka was at the airport swearing at an automatic ticketing machine. If he hadn’t been wearing jandals, he might have been kicking it as well. His cellphone rang.

  “Where are you?” asked McGrail.

  “The airport.”

  “Which one?”

  “I haven’t left yet,” said Ihaka. “And if these fucking machines don’t give me a break, I probably never will.”

  “Well, they are designed so that any fool can use them but, as we know, Sergeant, you’re not just any fool.” McGrail waited for a reaction, but his little joke fell on stony ground. “Doesn’t matter, though. You’re not going.”

  “I’m not?”

  “There’s been another murder,” said McGrail. “This time I was able to persuade Charlton that he could do with another pair of hands, even if they’re yours.”

  “Christ, how did you do that?”

  “I simply pointed out that his people are overwhelmed and you’re an experienced homicide detective who knows this city like the back of his hand. Besides, this has nothing to do with the Lilywhite case, so there’s no reason why you and Firkitt should bump heads.”

  “You still had to pull rank, right?”

  “Charlton’s too canny to let it get to that,” said McGrail. “But I may well have given the impression that I would’ve if I had to.”

  “Do I have a say in this?”

  “Of course.”

  “The reason I ask is it seems to be taken for granted that I’ll put my hand up for this gig.”

  “Yes, I can see how it might look that way,” said McGrail. “All I can say is, I had to move fast. Obviously you’re entirely at liberty to say this isn’t my patch, this isn’t my problem, I’m going back to the Wairarapa. It would be somewhat embarrassing for me, but that’s not your problem either.”

  “I’m normally immune to emotional blackmail,” said Ihaka. “In fact, it brings out the worst in me. On the other hand, I’m flattered that you’re prepared to resort to it. I’ll be in first thing.”

  A jogger found the body, clad only in a pair of boxer shorts, in Cornwall Park. The deceased was a white male aged about thirty whose final hours had been as hellish as Lorna Bell’s had been leisurely. Several of his fingers had been broken, there were cigarette burns all over his chest, and he’d been methodically beaten until his system couldn’t take any more. It had “drugs” written all over it.

  Ihaka was assigned a detective constable. Joel Pringle was twenty-five and had the look favoured by quite a few young city cops: gym-built, short, styled hair, moustache and beard set. Ihaka associated this look with guys who could sit all day at their desks with sunglasses perched on the tops of their heads, who’d rather be seen as cool than capable even though cool cops were a contradiction in terms, who weren’t as tough as they looked and nowhere near as tough as they thought they were.

  He rang Van Roon. “Joel Pringle. What’s the story?”

  “He’s a good enough soldier,” said Van Roon. “No Sherlock Holmes, obviously, but give him a job to do and he’ll do it.”

  “Okay, now let’s have the bad news.”

  “He’s one of Firkitt’s boys.”

  “So he’s a plant? Fucking great. Every move I make’s going straight back to Firkitt and Charlton.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Tito, what did you expect?”

  “At least I’ve got Beth Greendale. McGrail jacked that up when we were going to run the Lilywhite thing as a cold case.”

  “Maybe she’s McGrail’s eyes and ears,” said Van Roon.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Look, mate, all I know is McGrail’s a bit of a political animal these days,” said Van Roon. “
It goes with the territory. I’m sure he’s pleased to have you back because he knows you get the job done, but don’t assume it’s you and him against the rest. McGrail didn’t get where he is today by not putting his own interests first.”

  “I worked with the guy for thirteen years,” said Ihaka. “I think I can trust him.”

  “Mate, you’re not listening – he wasn’t ADC then. Look, I don’t know what’s going on up there, but it sure as hell isn’t business as usual. If I was in your shoes, I wouldn’t trust anyone.”

  Ihaka laughed. “Jesus, you should hear yourself. And to think you used to call me cynical.”

  “You know what?” said Van Roon. “You were right to be.”

  In the first twenty-four hours Ihaka and his team made zero progress towards identifying the dead man. On Tuesday morning a young Kiwi Asian woman came into Central with a photograph of her boyfriend, who’d uncharacteristically stood her up on Saturday night and wasn’t answering his intercom or his phones. Because the boyfriend, whose name was Arden Black, was a white male aged thirty-one, Tiffany Wong soon found herself face to face with Ihaka.

  The photo wasn’t much help: Arden Black was extremely good-looking, as the dead man might well have been before his face was pulped. The extent of the damage and disfigurement meant there was little point in putting Tiffany through the ordeal of looking at the body.

  She and Arden had been an item for almost two years, but living together wasn’t on the agenda because her parents didn’t hold with it and Arden liked his space. He had fingers in a few pies: he part-owned a café, did some modelling and photography, dabbled in scriptwriting, and had a meet-and-greet gig at a bar cum late-night supper club, which basically involved setting a benchmark of attractiveness and cool that discouraged unattractive, uncool people from trying to gain entry. Ihaka thought Arden had “drugs” written all over him.

  Tiffany had heard about the Cornwall Park corpse on the radio. She was sure it wasn’t Arden, but she just couldn’t keep those dark thoughts out of her head. This was so unlike him: he was well-organized, punctual, and hated putting people out – you wouldn’t meet a more considerate person. In fact, her father had paid him the ultimate compliment, saying that if it wasn’t for his round eyes, Arden could have been Chinese.

  Ihaka said, “Lots of drugs around that nightclub scene.”

  Tiffany snorted, but with amusement rather than indignation. “I guess,” she said, “but it wouldn’t matter to Arden – he’s way too health-conscious. I mean, he’s got this look he gives me if I have a second glass of wine, like ‘What the hell, Tiff? Do you have any idea what you’re doing to yourself?’ Here’s another thing: his Sunday morning workout was like non-negotiable. Didn’t matter what was going on, if I was sick as a dog. Shit, it didn’t matter if he was sick as a dog, he did a big weights workout on Sunday morning. I checked with his gym: he didn’t show.”

  She was obviously telling the truth, not that it proved much either way. Men were good at compartmentalizing and some women didn’t force the issue, preferring to stay away from the sealed-off areas on the basis that what they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. Besides, there were drug dealers who wouldn’t dream of using their own product and despised those who did. On the other hand, the medics had said that if the dead man hadn’t been in such good physical shape, his torment wouldn’t have lasted as long.

  “What sort of underpants does Arden wear?”

  Tiffany looked almost affronted. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Every little bit helps,” said Ihaka, gesturing vaguely. “These things are just a process of elimination.”

  “Actually, he’s got a bit of a thing about jocks,” she said, as if Ihaka could relate to that. “He only wears plain white pure cotton boxers. Moschinos. He’s got like fifteen pairs.”

  Ihaka restricted his reaction to an expressionless nod, resisting the temptation to glance at the open folder in front of him. He was 99 per cent sure that the dead man shared Arden’s thing about jocks.

  Pringle knocked and entered. “Quick word, Sarge?”

  Ihaka followed him out into the corridor. Pringle’s face was tight with excitement or perhaps alarm.

  “What’s up?”

  “There’s been another one. A woman dumped in a quarry in Mount Wellington.” Pringle paused for effect. “Wearing nothing but a pair of knickers. Same thing: cigarette burns, broken fingers, smashed to shit.”

  Ihaka dragged a meaty hand across his face. “Fuck.”

  “You reckon we’ve got a serial killer on our hands, Sarge?”

  “Slow down, son.”

  Maybe Auckland really did have a serial killer whose monstrous thrill was to strip his victims down to their briefs and club them to death after some low-tech torture, but Ihaka’s money was still on drugs. Just as Jonathon Bell rang his lawyer when he had a problem, the maniacs in the dope business reached for their baseball bats.

  They’d know one way or the other soon enough. If there was a psycho out there, two strikes in forty-eight hours suggested he was way gone, totally in thrall to the voice inside his head telling him that he was a higher being, unbound by law, convention or morality, and ordinary humans were fair game, to be hunted down and annihilated for sport and pleasure.

  And if that was the case, it wouldn’t be long before another near-naked, pulverized corpse turned up.

  8

  The murdered woman was in her mid-thirties, medium height, with dark hair and a trim figure. So was a guest who’d checked into an Ellerslie motel over the weekend and promptly disappeared. Ihaka sent Detective Constable Joel Pringle out there.

  He rang in an hour later. “Sarge, her name’s Eve Diack. She’s from Wellington. She checked in early Sunday afternoon, dumped her bag in the room, and called a cab. That was the last anyone here saw of her. The bed wasn’t slept in either night. She told the manager she was on a flight home first thing this morning, so when she didn’t check out, they knocked on her door. Her gear’s still in the room, but it doesn’t look like she’s been in there since Sunday.”

  “The motel’s got her details – address, cellphone, credit card?”

  “Yep. They tried ringing her, but there was no answer.”

  “Okay,” said Ihaka. “I’ll send a team out. You get back in here. Wellington cops, phone records, cab company – in that order.”

  Arden Black’s dental records made it official. Now the dead white male had a name. Soon he’d have a home with drawers and cupboards and locked filing cabinets; he’d have a background, a routine, a lifestyle, a call history, a social circle. And maybe bad habits, dubious friends, murky dealings with people who needed to be handled with extreme care.

  Home was on the top floor of a low-rise apartment block on the harbour side of Parnell Rise. One look told you two things: Black was fanatically tidy, and he liked his toys. The kitchen was a design magazine cliché right down to the bowl of lemons: wall-to-wall stainless steel, Italian bar stools, state-of-the-art German appliances. The living room had a Bose sound system and a flat-screen television that occupied most of one wall. Arden stared moodily out of several framed studio portraits. There was a shot of him on a beach, pearly grin splitting a lean, tanned face and abs like brickwork. It made Ihaka feel like a sumo wrestler.

  There were no photos of Mum and Dad or freckled, gap-toothed nephews and nieces, no mates-for-life scenes from his twenty-first birthday party or big brother’s wedding, no high-school first fifteen, no OE shots of him in front of the Eiffel Tower or trying to get a rise out of a sentry at Buckingham Palace. It was as if the road that led to Cornwall Park began right there, in an apartment that looked and felt like a display home.

  Also conspicuous by their absence were the usual trappings of hedonistic bachelorhood: drugs, pornography, a little black book. Having as jaundiced a view of human nature as the next cop, Ihaka took the fact that Tiffany’s photo was out of sight in the bedside table drawer to mean that she hadn’t been the l
ast woman to enter Arden’s bedroom.

  Hypothesis: Arden had another woman in his life. Question: why hadn’t she come forward?

  According to Tiffany, Arden never left home without his iPad. Seeing he hadn’t been killed at home, it followed that it had been taken or disposed of by the killer. Ditto his Alfa Romeo. He backed up the information on his iPad onto his laptop, which he kept in the bedroom in case he woke up during the night with a script idea that was bigger than Ben-Hur. The laptop was gone.

  Hypothesis: whoever killed Arden used his keys to get into the apartment and remove the laptop. Question: why?

  Tiffany’s parents lived in Epsom, in a two-storey house, whitewashed stone with a grey slate roof, down a long drive.

  The doorbell was answered by a middle-aged Asian man with a military crew cut. Ihaka identified himself and was taken through to the kitchen, where Tiffany was perched on a bar stool watching an older woman, presumably her mother, chop vegetables.

  They looked at Ihaka expectantly, too unworldly to assume the worst. He’d seen this done and done it himself often enough to know there was no point in trying to break it gently. Only fools believed their hushed euphemisms or watery-eyed empathy made a scrap of difference.

  “I’m really sorry, Tiffany,” he said. “Arden’s dead. That was him in Cornwall Park.”

  Tiffany stared at him, knotting her eyebrows, unable to believe that all the scenarios with happy endings which she’d constructed to account for her boyfriend’s disappearance had turned out to be wrong, and the one which she’d persuaded herself was too far-fetched for words had turned out to be right. Her mother dropped the chopping knife with a clatter and hurried to the other side of the bench. Tiffany placed her forehead on her mother’s chest and howled like an abandoned puppy.