Death on Demand

by Paul Thomas

  Ihaka sighed and swore. In the old days he reacted to this sort of inconvenience by proceeding directly to the nearest fast-food outlet. He’d had plenty of time to think in his Wairarapa exile and one of the things he’d figured out was that it made no sense to punish himself for other people’s failings, such as being unable to make the planes fly on time.

  As he turned to go and find a newspaper and a cup of coffee, he found himself face to face with Ron Firkitt.

  “Sodding off back where you belong, eh?”

  Ihaka shook his head. “Just a flying visit. Where are you off to?”

  “Same as you.” Firkitt’s eyes narrowed. “You a member of the Koru Club?”

  “No.”

  “Thank fuck for that.”

  Firkitt was already on board, in an aisle seat up the front. He didn’t glance up from his magazine as Ihaka shuffled past, heading for the middle seat in the third row from the back. The aisle seat was unoccupied. The kid in the window seat was lost in the music coming through his earphones. He didn’t even open his eyes when Ihaka sat down.

  The cabin crew went through, closing the overhead lockers, but Ihaka knew better than to entertain the hope that he wasn’t going to be sandwiched. Sure enough, there was movement up the front: an enormously fat man was coming down the aisle like a slow-motion avalanche, trailed by an attractive blonde woman. The other vacant seat was in the very back row, but Ihaka knew he was going to have this fat bastard’s arse coming over the armrest all the way to Wellington. Whenever he flew he played a morbid game, watching people come down the aisle and trying to guess which one would end up beside him. His system was simple but reliable: rule out the presentable women, then pick the most obvious freak from the rest.

  Every fucking time, he thought. Why me? What the fuck have I done?

  The fat man stopped at Ihaka’s row. He gazed longingly at the empty seat. He glanced at Ihaka, who thought he detected malicious amusement in his eyes, black dots in a doughy expanse, like sultanas in a bun. This is his idea of fun, thought Ihaka: squashing people on aeroplanes.

  The behemoth drew a long, rattling breath and plodded onwards. The blonde woman checked her boarding pass, slipped off her shoulder bag and sat down.

  “Welcome to row twenty-five,” said Ihaka, his voice husky with sincerity. “We saved you a seat.”

  The woman smiled enigmatically. She kicked her bag under the seat in front, buckled up, leaned back and closed her eyes, as if trying to block out the safety announcement.

  She was in her late thirties, guessed Ihaka, with slightly wild shoulder-length dark blonde hair and the slim, firm body of someone for whom exercise was a duty, done willingly but a duty nonetheless. If she missed her yoga class she’d fret all day and have a bad night’s sleep. She had long, elegant fingers with chipped, unpainted nails. A gardener, he thought, maybe a vego who only eats what she grows. She was wearing blue jeans tucked into ankle boots and an oversized white shirt with a wide brown leather belt. There was a greenstone tiki around her neck, a stack of bangles and clasps on either wrist and rings on every finger except the wedding ring finger. He didn’t read anything into that. She was obviously a bit counterculture, so a wedding ring would be against her principles. In fact, marriage would be against her principles. She’d probably been shacked up with a fellow bohemian for twenty years.

  She was sitting dead still, head back, eyes closed, giving off a strong “do not disturb” vibe. First time I’m sat next to an attractive woman, he thought, she goes into a trance. Still, it was better than having to fight off Hippo-Man.

  The plane took off. Ihaka tilted his seat back and closed his eyes. Next thing, he felt a prod on his bicep. The woman had twisted around in her seat to stare at him.

  “You were snoring,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I said,” she said deliberately, “you were snoring.”

  “I couldn’t have been,” said Ihaka. “I wasn’t asleep.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know I wasn’t asleep because I was thinking.”

  “Really?” she said. “What were you thinking about?”

  “I know this sounds lame,” he said, “but I can’t tell you – it’s confidential.”

  “Lame,” she said. “Excellent choice of word. But just as a matter of information, you don’t have to be asleep to snore.”

  Ihaka sat up straight. “Do you know that for a fact, or did you read it in a magazine you flicked through at the supermarket but didn’t buy?”

  The woman paused, looking at nothing in particular, perhaps asking herself why she was having a debate about snoring with a perfect stranger. “My ex-partner used to do it. All the time.”

  “Which is why he’s ex?”

  She looked away again, grunting with bemusement. “There was a bit more to it than that. Getting back to the matter at hand…”

  Ihaka made a placatory gesture. “Look, if I was snoring – and I’m sure you wouldn’t have made it up just to initiate a conversation – I apologize. I’ll try to keep my eyes open.”

  “Thank you,” she said, getting a notebook out of her shoulder bag. “I hope I didn’t break your concentration.”

  “No problem,” said Ihaka. “Mind like a steel trap.”

  Suddenly Firkitt was looming over her. “Sorry to butt in,” he said to her, “but would you mind swapping seats? I need to talk to this guy. We’re police officers.” He stood aside to let her out. “I’m in 2C.”

  She looked at Ihaka questioningly.

  “I wasn’t aware we had anything to talk about,” he said, “but yeah, we’re cops.”

  She shrugged and stood up. “Never let it be said I don’t cooperate with the police.”

  Firkitt watched her all the way down the aisle. “Top sort,” he said sliding into the vacated seat. “Nice face, nice arse. Don’t look at me like that – you didn’t have a shit’s show.”

  “Maybe not,” said Ihaka, “but getting knocked back by her beats talking to you any day. Since when did we have anything to discuss?”

  “Oh shit, sorry, my mistake,” said Firkitt. “For a moment there I had you mixed up with a police officer. I thought you might like an update on the Lilywhite case, but you’re obviously more interested in passing crutch.”

  Ihaka stared at him. “You get me kicked me off the case, now you want to brief me on it. What is this shit?”

  Firkitt returned the stare. “Am I happy you’re back? No. Do I want to have anything to do with you? No. But the reality is you’ve got knowledge of this case so I’m being professional and putting the personal shit to one side for the time being.”

  “Very noble,” said Ihaka, “but it’s your case now. You pushed for it, you got it and you’re fucking welcome to it. There’s no point giving me an update because I’m not interested. I’ve got enough on my plate.”

  “Why did I expect anything different?” said Firkitt, shaking his head. “You don’t give a shit, do you?”

  “I know you and your boss don’t do anything without a reason. Let me guess: Charlton’s worried that if it ends up going nowhere, there’ll be a review of how it was handled, so he’s covering his arse? Fine, I’ll play along. Just don’t expect me to take it seriously.”

  Firkitt put his head on the headrest. “We’ve got nothing, basically. Bell’s off-limits – he’s still all broken up over his wife. I spoke to the dentist, Anderson. He pretty much accused me of making the whole thing up. I fucking set him straight on that, but he had nothing useful to contribute. I’m seeing Saunders, the MP, this morning.”

  “What about those other cases?”

  “The bloke whose mother went for a gutser, he and his wife buggered off to Sydney as soon as the inheritance came through. The TV guy fired up big-time: ‘How dare you imply that I might’ve had something to do with the murder of my best friend and partner, blah, blah, fucking blah.’ He won’t talk to us without his lawyer there.”

  “Did he ring true?”


  Firkitt shrugged. “Everyone’s a liar until proven otherwise. Problem is, the only way to make the case is to establish a connection between the perpetrator and the beneficiaries, but we don’t have a clue who the perpetrator is. In fact, we’ve only got Lilywhite’s word for it that there is one.”

  “You get anything from his ex-girlfriend?”

  Firkitt shifted in his seat. “There’s a different issue there.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She only wants to talk to you.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  Firkitt ignored the question. “Well?”

  “It’s your case,” said Ihaka. “If you want me to talk to her, I’ll talk to her. What did you make of her?”

  “You mean apart from thinking she could’ve done a hell of a lot better than Lilywhite?”

  “Yeah, apart from that.”

  Firkitt thought about it. “You look at the facts and you think, oh yeah, she’s just another dirty little gold-digger running on cunt-power, but I don’t know. There might be a bit more to her than that.”

  “And you wouldn’t say that lightly.”

  “No, I fucking would not.” Firkitt stood up. “I’ll see if Blondie wants to swap back. If she does, you could be in with a chance.”

  A minute later the woman was back.

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep you away, eh?” said Ihaka.

  She rolled her eyes. “Actually, I always ask for a seat down the back – you’ve got a better chance of surviving a crash. So you work with that guy?”

  “Well, yes and no. We’re both currently working out of Auckland Central and there’s some overlap on our cases, but that’s it. We actually hate each other’s guts.”

  “Good for you. What sort of police work do you do?”

  “You might’ve noticed there’ve been a few murders lately.”

  “God, yes I have. What’s going on?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  “Have you caught many murderers? I mean you personally.”

  He nodded.

  “Will you catch this one?”

  “Yeah, we’ll get him all right.”

  “You’re sure it’s a he?”

  “They usually are. This one definitely feels like a he.”

  “How come you’re so confident?”

  Ihaka gave her a look. “How would you feel if I wasn’t?”

  She nodded. “Good point. Well, best of luck. Now I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to do some more prep for my appointment so…”

  As the plane taxied to the terminal, Ihaka asked, “So what do you do?”

  She rummaged in her handbag for a business card, which identified her as Miriam Lovell, freelance journalist. Seeing Ihaka’s eyebrows lift, she said, “Don’t worry, you didn’t speak out of school.”

  “Actually,” he said, “I was just wondering what would happen if I rang this number.”

  She shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

  The seatbelt sign went off. “I’m going to have to go like the clappers,” said Lovell. “Hope you get your man.”

  Then she was off, murmuring apologies as she pushed and manoeuvred her way up the congested aisle.

  There was a driver waiting for him. Ihaka dropped him off in town and headed out along the foreshore motorway.

  To Ihaka Wellington meant sagging skies the colour of birdshit and pedestrians leaning into the wind as if they were entering a ruck. People were always saying you can’t beat Wellington on a good day, and this was obviously what they meant: a perfect sky, the harbour as flat and inviting as the crema on an espresso, dry warmth, crisp light. Too nice a day to be working, he thought. He should be in a restaurant down on the waterfront, or a little café out Eastbourne way, having lunch with Miriam Lovell instead of heading over the hill to see a mother whose kids had been clubbed to death like seals.

  He liked the way Wellington branched out from the scraps of flat land between the hills and the sea, snaking up the gullies and along the ridges, pushing into the elements. It must have taken cussedness and vision to impose a city on this unruly geography. Auckland looked as if it just grew, like weeds.

  He went past Petone and through the Hutt, following the river like the joggers and dog-walkers. A few years ago a woman went for a walk along this stretch of river. She had people coming for lunch so her family knew something was wrong when she wasn’t back in good time. They found her under a tree, strangled – another pathetic sex crime. The guy who did it claimed he’d blacked out. It was amazing how many murders have been committed by people who claimed to have been unconscious at the time. In the midst of life, there is death. Even here, on the riverbank where mothers push their prams.

  He drove over the Rimutakas to Greytown, aka Gaytown. It had been just another zombified little country town until a few gays from Wellington jazzed it up. Now people came up from Wellington for brunch at the cafés and restaurants along the main drag or a bed and breakfast stay-over.

  Sheila Duckmanton ran a B and B in what used to be the family home, a pleasant villa in half an acre of lawn and flowerbeds backing onto a sports ground. It was business as usual, although to look at her you wouldn’t have thought she’d pick herself up from one death blow, let alone a combination. She was petite and fine-featured – the children had inherited her looks – with prematurely white hair scraped back into a little old lady bun. It didn’t take Ihaka long to realize that appearances were deceptive.

  She offered him a cup of tea. He said he was fine, but she made him one anyway. They sat out on the veranda, him in a wicker chair that was more comfortable than it looked, her in a swing seat. Ihaka suspected she was going to spend a lot of time out there, swinging to and fro, tracking the disintegration of her simple dream of home and family.

  “I’ve been crying for Eve,” she said, resolutely dry-eyed, “but not for her brother. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to the fact he was never coming back.”

  “Why do you think he took off like that, Mrs Duckmanton? I know a lot of kids can’t wait to leave home, but they don’t just disappear.”

  “Why overlook the obvious? He didn’t care. We didn’t mean a thing to him. I kept telling Eve that, but she wouldn’t accept it. And look where that got her.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Why do you think she was in Auckland? She was looking for him. I think she found him and got caught up in some dirty work he was up to his neck in.”

  “By the time she got to Auckland, he was already dead.”

  “You’re the detective; I’m just a widow trying to make ends meet by letting strangers stay in my house. All I know is if she’d washed her hands of him, she’d still be alive.”

  “Why couldn’t she let it go? From what I’ve heard, they weren’t all that close.”

  She got the swing seat moving. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to. She doted on him, right from when they were toddlers. When I lost my husband three years ago, Eve got it into her head that finding her brother would somehow make up for that, make us a family again. I told her not to bother. Even if you find him, I said, he won’t want to have anything to do with us. He said as much that one time he rang, right at the beginning. Don’t look for me, he said. After that he never got in touch, not once. What does that tell you? But when Eve got a bee in her bonnet, she didn’t take much notice of what anyone said. And now she’s gone too.”

  “What made her think he was in Auckland?”

  “She bumped into an old school friend who’d seen him in Sydney.”

  Ihaka waited for elaboration, but none came. He took it as the first sign of the disorientation he’d half-expected.

  “You mean Auckland,” he said gently. “The friend saw him in Auckland?”

  “If I’d meant Auckland,” she said with a snap, “I would’ve said so. I’ve still got my marbles, thank you very much.” She talked over Ihaka’s apologetic murmur: “He was with that Va
nessa Kelly. She lives in Auckland, so that was good enough for Eve.”

  “You mean the Vanessa Kelly who’s on TV?”

  “Who did you think I meant?”

  Vanessa Kelly had been on television as long as Ihaka could remember. She’d started out as one of those weather girls who make an anticyclone over the Tasman sound like “Your place or mine?” She became a reporter on the network news before finding her natural home on an infotainment current-affairs show. She could do it all: leak fat tears while brushing flies out of a starving African child’s eyes, grill a Solomon Islands warlord with a yen for decapitation, and generate such chemistry with male celebrities that you wanted to tell them to get a room.

  Her glamour and volatile private life made her a women’s magazine fixture. She’d been through three marriages and, if the gossip was to be believed, there weren’t many hale, male heterosexual New Zealanders of any note she hadn’t pinned to a mattress. Like many celebrities, she sought to neutralize time by reinventing herself at regular intervals. Her latest stunt, according to a magazine article Ihaka had skimmed in a café, was claiming to have discovered the joys of celibacy.

  “She’d be a bit old for him, wouldn’t she?”

  “She’s famous,” said Mrs Duckmanton, making it sound like a crime.

  “When this friend said Warren was with her, did that mean…?”

  “She said they were all over each other like a rash. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?”

  “It’ll do for now. Going by what you said earlier, Eve hadn’t actually told you that she’d seen Warren?”

  “No. She hadn’t been up here for a month or so, which was unlike her, but she rang every few days. I could tell something was going on from the tone of her voice, but all she’d say was that she was getting warm. I knew what she had in mind. I knew my Eve better than she knew herself sometimes. She wanted it to be a surprise. She wanted to bring him back and for us all to live happily ever after. But that’s the thing about life, Sergeant: there aren’t enough happy endings to go round, so some families miss out.”