by Paul Thomas
“The Departure Lounge? You’re fucking kidding me.”
Ihaka shook his head. “I’m not kidding. Tell me what you think of this idea.”
A constable escorted Denise Hadlow into Ihaka’s office.
“Behind closed doors, eh?” she said. “Scared I’d cause a scene? Scared I’d blab your dirty little secret, Ihaka sluts around with murder suspects?”
“Actually, that’d probably do wonders for my reputation. I’ve got a proposition for you. How would you feel about ringing Craig and telling him pretty much the truth – that the cops are giving you a hard time?”
“What would that achieve?”
“If he’s not the hitman, he’ll probably say something like, well, as long as you tell the truth, you’ve got nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if he is the hitman, he’ll probably try to kill you.”
“Put your life where your mouth is, eh?”
“Well, if you’re so sure…”
“Yeah, well.”
“Having second thoughts?”
“No, I was just thinking. Remember I said you could say Warren was a bit emotionally retarded? Same with Craig. They both walked away from their families and friends and never looked back. Craig’s the least sentimental person I’ve ever come across, and that’s coming from someone who’s not exactly sentimental herself. Like if I died tomorrow, he’d be upset for a couple of hours then life would go on. So he’s unsentimental. So what?”
“Something you should know: one of the cases Lilywhite put us on to involved a guy called Phil Malone, whose business partner was murdered. The partner didn’t want to sell the company. Malone did. Once the partner was out of the way, Malone sold the company for a shitload. A couple of days ago, someone threw a hairdryer into Malone’s bathtub. He was in it at the time. Here’s the kicker: Malone used to hang out at the Departure Lounge. So will you do it?”
“You’ll be there, right?”
“Yeah. And the street will be crawling with cops.”
“So what could possibly go wrong?”
“Are you up for it tonight?”
“You mean am I up for it after that session with your pet gorilla?”
Ihaka nodded.
“You should take a look in the mirror, Sergeant. He wasn’t half as rough on me as you were.”
Hadlow made the call: “Hi there, it’s me. What’s up? Not great, actually. It’s kind of why I’m ringing. The cops are getting really heavy, and I don’t know what to do. About Chris Lilywhite. Yeah, I know he’s dead, so’s his wife. Remember I told you Chris had a heart-to-heart with that cop, Ihaka? Well, apparently he confessed that he hired someone to kill Joyce. Now they’re giving me a hard time because they reckon I might’ve egged him on and put him in touch with a hitman. How the fuck I’m meant to have done that, I’ve no idea. Also, they’ve found out from his bitch daughter that I spoke to Chris after he’d seen Ihaka. Why? I’ll tell you why: because they’re saying if Chris was killed to shut him up, the killer must’ve known he was talking to Ihaka. Jesus, Craig, just settle down, I’m getting to that. When I say I had nothing to do with it, they come back with well, who did you tell? I keep saying no one, and they keep saying I’m full of shit. I was down at Auckland Central all fucking afternoon getting abused and screamed at by Ihaka and this other goon, and they say they’ll keep doing it till I tell them the truth. Well, the only thing I’m not telling them is that I told you. Yes, I know, I can imagine it’d be a real pain in the arse for you, but I can’t take much more of this shit. I’m telling you, it really sucks. I’ve got a nine-year-old kid, for Christ’s sake. I fucking hate it when Billy comes home from school and there are cops here, or when he has to go next door because I’m down at the police station. You there, Craig? Oh yeah, and they’ve also connected me to Warren. Right, they’ve gone all the way back to Greytown, and because I wasn’t upfront about it, that’s another black mark. Yeah, I know they’ve arrested a couple of guys. I don’t know – believe it or not, they don’t share that sort of information with me. Anyway, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Sure, come round by all means, I’m not going anywhere. I think there’s still a bit of that bourbon left. No, he’s having a sleepover. Okay, see you soon. Ciao.”
She put the phone down. “Was that all right, sir?”
“Yeah, good,” said Ihaka. “Okay, this room’s wired for sound and vision, so the boys in the van across the road can see and hear everything, and I’ll be hooked up to them. Just act normal. If he sees you’re nervous or not yourself, he’ll get suspicious. Where does he usually sit?”
Hadlow shrugged. “The sofa, I guess.”
“Okay, I’ll be on the other side of that.” He pointed to the door leading to the stairs. “So if he’s on the sofa he’ll be pretty much in front of me when I come in. Whatever happens, when I come through that door, just get the fuck out of the way. You got that?”
She shrugged, giving him a look that said, what do you take me for?
“You’re very relaxed.”
“I don’t think he’s a killer, remember?”
“He’s coming, isn’t he?”
“I more or less asked him to.”
“Why did he want to know if Billy’s here?”
“Gosh, let me think. Maybe he likes Billy.”
“Sentimental old Craig.”
She made a sarcastic face. “You really think it’s him, don’t you?”
“You can feel when you’re getting close,” he said. “Things start to fit.”
“And you have an instinct for this stuff?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I have an instinct for this stuff. I don’t know what that says about me.”
He had Firkitt in his ear, from the surveillance van with blacked-out windows parked across the road: “Car coming. Slowing down. Gone past. Pulling up now. Lights off. Driver getting out. Single male, coming your way. Why didn’t he park right outside? Cagey bastard, eh? Wearing a polo and board shorts, so unless he’s got a derringer up his arse he’s not carrying. Here we go. At the door now.”
Denise Hadlow led Craig into the living room and offered a drink. He declined.
“There is some bourbon there.”
“Still no.”
“That’s not like you.”
“Maybe you’re seeing another side of me,” he said.
“Oh?” She poured herself a glass of wine. “Would that be a new side or an old side you’ve kept hidden?”
“Bit of both.” He studied her, taking his time. “Have you ever thought about what it would be like to kill someone?”
“Jesus, Craig, where did that come from?”
“Have you?”
“No, I can’t say I have. I can safely say the thought’s never occurred to me.” Craig was slumped on the sofa, head resting on the arm, staring at the ceiling. “Are you okay? You want a Panadol or something? You seem a bit—”
“A bit what?”
“I don’t know, just not your usual self.”
“What is my usual self?”
“I’ve known you for sixteen years, Craig: this is not your usual self.” He sat up, tilting forward, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped. “And if this is the new you, I’ve got to say I preferred the old one. Can you get him back?”
“Oh, you won’t be seeing that guy again.”
“Can you knock it off? You’re making me nervous.”
“You know, at the club, it took me a while to get used to people who didn’t know me from Adam telling me stuff they wouldn’t tell their best friends. They certainly wouldn’t fucking dream of telling their wives or girlfriends, because nine times out of ten it involved them. Booze has got a bit to do with it, but I worked out it’s mainly because they can’t tell their best friends. There’s something going on in their lives that’s eating away at them, and they’ve got to let it out. So they tell me. Believe it or not, I’ve been asked if I know anyone who could take care of a troublesome person. Permanently.”
“What di
d you say?”
“‘Maybe’. Which of course means, ‘You bet I do’.”
Hadlow sat very still, holding eye contact. “Who’s that?”
“Ever since I was a kid I had this thing, this question always in my head: what would it be like to kill someone? Before we met I was seriously thinking about becoming a mercenary, would you believe? The places those guys operate, you could do any fucking thing. No one gives a fuck. Trouble is, it cuts both ways in your Third World hell holes, and that bit – other people trying to kill me – never had much appeal. When I was away, I had this brilliant idea: to become a hitman. Best of both worlds: you get to kill people, and you get paid for it. I’d be Mr Invisible. The client would never set eyes on me, and there’d be nothing to connect me to the client or the victim, so I’d be sweet as long as I didn’t fuck up in the execution – if you’ll pardon the pun. But you know what? If it hadn’t been for you, it would’ve been just another daydream, something you think about to pass the time when you’re on a train for eighteen fucking hours, or hanging around some shitbox airport. When you hooked up with Lilywhite, it was like a sign from above.” He spread his arms, beaming at her unnervingly. “This is your destiny, my son.”
“Did you kill Joyce?”
“Uh-huh. Pretty good job, if I say so myself. The cops didn’t even call it murder.”
“One of them did.”
“Oh yeah, good old Ihaka. Look where it got him.”
“Did you kill Chris too?”
“Yep. Too late, as it turned out. The damage had been done. Bit of a fucking tragedy all round, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, first off, I didn’t get paid for it – major bummer. And if he hadn’t had an attack of conscience, or if I’d got to him in time, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You don’t have to kill me, Craig. You know you can trust me.”
He chuckled, a throaty, self-satisfied sound. “Darling, if I didn’t have to kill you before I came over, I sure as hell do now. Look on the bright side: it’ll look like a rape that got out of hand, so you’ll get some action on the way out.”
Craig stood up, producing a flick knife from the pocket of his shorts and popping the blade with a casual snap of the wrist.
“Go, mate, go,” barked Firkitt.
Ihaka threw the door open and came in with a Glock semi-automatic in both hands. “Police,” he bawled. “Drop the fucking knife. Do it now.”
Craig stared at Ihaka and the pistol, rock steady, pointing at the tip of his nose. Then he slowly turned his head towards Hadlow. “You set me up,” he said, his voice tinny with disbelief. “You fucking bitch.”
Craig lunged at Hadlow. Standing side-on, Ihaka shot him in the chest, dead centre, knocking him flat on his back.
The front door crashed open. Firkitt came in so fast he almost tripped over Craig. He steadied himself, gulping in air. “Holy fucking Jesus.”
Hadlow, eyes glazed, was pressed back into the chair with her knees drawn up and her hands balled into fists. She looked like she’d been in a car crash. Firkitt stepped over Craig to brush her shoulder with his fingertips. “It’s okay, sweetie. You did good. You did real good.” She looked up at him like a grateful child, her eyes clearing.
Ihaka squatted on his haunches beside Craig, the pistol dangling from his right hand. “Better get the medics,” he said. “This prick might live.”
Firkitt looked at him oddly. “They’re right outside,” he said. “I’ll get them in.”
As he left the room, Hadlow said to Ihaka, “Believe me now?”
He nodded, “Yeah, I believe you.”
“So I’m not a suspect any more?”
“No, you’re not.”
“Good,” she said. “In that case you can get the fuck out of my house.”
16
Superintendent Finbar McGrail told Tito Ihaka to take a couple of days off. As he put it: “Creating messes is your forte, Sergeant. Best leave the cleaning up to others.”
On his way home from a long weekend at his family’s bach at Tauranga Bay, Ihaka dropped into Auckland Central for an update from Beth Greendale.
She’d accounted for the eleven women on Denise Hadlow’s list. One was in France doing a cooking course on a barge drifting down the Garonne from Bordeaux to Toulouse. Another was living on the Gold Coast, but not picking up her phone or responding to messages. Two claimed they didn’t know, indeed had never heard of, Arden Black. Greendale was pretty sure one was lying and suspected the other found it hard to keep track of the men in her life. Two pretty much slammed the door in her face.
One claimed she’d met Arden for an exploratory lunch, but had been turned off by his obvious and intense self-adoration. Another admitted to an affair, but became highly indignant when Greendale suggested Black was only in it for the money. Of the three who admitted paying for it, two were adamant they weren’t being blackmailed and Greendale was inclined to believe them. They’d weaned themselves off Arden more than a year ago and hadn’t had anything to do with him since.
The one who owned up to being blackmailed told a very similar story to Helen Conroy. Her last session with Black was a fortnight before he was murdered. Shortly after the murder, the blackmailer rang her with the same threats, demands and instructions.
On his way out, Ihaka bumped into Charlton and Firkitt.
“There you are,” said Charlton. “I want a word with you.”
Ihaka glanced at Firkitt, but he had his default expression, an unfocused glower, in place.
“I’m on a day off,” said Ihaka.
“So what are you doing here?” asked Charlton.
“I was in the neighbourhood; I popped in to see how Beth Greendale’s getting on.”
“On what, this blackmail thing you chose not to tell us about?”
“You had a lot on your plate.”
Charlton turned to Firkitt. “You hear that, Ron? It was for our own good. Wasn’t that thoughtful of him?”
“That’s Ihaka for you,” said Firkitt. “Thinks of everyone but himself.”
“An example to us all,” said Charlton. He turned back to Ihaka. “What’s happening?”
“I think we’re starting to get somewhere.”
Charlton nodded. “That’s the sort of briefing I like. Short, sharp and to the point, but without omitting any relevant details. You just love flying solo, don’t you? Well, Sergeant, to paraphrase what your patron saint Finbar the Devious said to me just a few days ago, if you claim ownership of a case, it’s your arse on the line.” He paused. “That was a high-risk operation the other night.”
“He ran it past me first,” said Firkitt.
“I’m aware of that,” said Charlton sharply. “I heard you the first time. So I’m telling both of you, it was dangerously risky. What if he’d pulled a gun and shot her in the face when she opened the door?”
“That wasn’t the hitman’s MO,” said Ihaka. “He’d always tried to make it look like something else. And we had a plan B if it looked like he had a firearm.”
“What about Yallop?” said Charlton. “I seem to remember someone walked up to him and put one in his head.”
“So far,” said Ihaka, “there’s nothing to connect Yallop to Howard – unless we found it when we searched Howard’s place.”
“We didn’t,” said Charlton. “Still, seeing as you rather miraculously managed not to kill him, he might have something to say about that and the old woman in Remuera in due course. Any chance the blackmail was a joint venture between him and Black?”
“It’s possible,” said Ihaka, “but my gut feeling is that Black wasn’t in on it…” Suddenly Ihaka’s head was awash with bright light. It was like flinging open the curtains at noon on a summer’s day. The contents of the room, previously shadows within shadows, sensed rather than seen, were now in plain sight.
Firkitt saw the flash of comprehension light up Ihaka’s face from the inside, like a Chinese lantern. “What’s up?”
“I could have something,” said Ihaka. “I need to think it through.”
“Well, off you go, Sergeant,” said Charlton, almost jovially. “The sooner you think it through and knock this thing on the head, the sooner you’ll be back in Wairarapa.”
Ihaka sat on his veranda in the late-afternoon sun, replaying snatches of conversation in his head.
Margie Brackstone asking: “Did Arden’s death have anything to do with his love life, for want of a better term?”
Denise Hadlow saying, “All those fine, upstanding people, Chris’s friends, would probably believe the worst of Warren, just because he was different.”
Him replying, “And because he was fucking their wives.”
Her coming back with, “They didn’t know that. And what you don’t know can’t hurt you.”
Him asking: “If Warren was Mr Nice Guy, why was he murdered?”
Denise replying, “Maybe they just got the wrong guy. Maybe it was as fucked-up as that.”
That was it, right there. And it was fucked-up, all right.
It was 4.15. Denise Hadlow finished work early so she was there when her kid got home from school. He felt a flutter of nerves as he dialled. His scenario was clean and logical and the pieces clicked into place like a Rubik’s cube, but it all hinged on the answers to a couple of questions.
“We missed you at the cricket on Saturday,” she said.
“Really? What part of ‘fuck off’ did I misunderstand?”
She laughed. “I was – what’s the word? – overwrought. Besides, you weren’t coming to watch me.”
“I thought you and Billy were a package deal.”
“Not at cricket,” she said. “He’s on his own out there. I just thought it would’ve been a chance to see what happens when you’re not being a cop and I’m not a suspect.”
“Didn’t we try that?”
“Yeah, but then you went and spoilt it by becoming a cop again.”
“That’s what I am, Denise.”
“You don’t have to be with me. Not any more.”