As the driver pulled onto the wharf, he told Kevin there was a change of plan. He was to meet Brett at the steps down to the jetty where private boats were moored. The driver pointed out the direction and Kevin, taking his briefcase, made his way towards the jetty.
The waterfront was busy as usual on a sunny January day in the school holidays. There were teenagers on roller blades and skateboards, family groups with babies in front packs and toddlers in pushchairs. Ferg’s Kayak Hire was in full swing and older people were wobbling along on e-bikes they were trying out for the first time. Kevin had no interest in these leisure activities but noticed everything. He was used to keeping his eyes peeled, especially in Wellington where there were many people he still knew. The great and the good and a sprinkling of the mean and the bad.
As he walked towards the jetty he spotted someone vaguely familiar coming towards him. A tall lean sixty-ish man, walking briskly. He looked in good shape, wearing expensive-looking leisure gear and smart boat shoes without socks. Kevin felt an instantaneous dislike in the moment before he recognised him. It was Michael Peston, he hadn’t seen him since the eighties. Hadn’t he gone overseas to some atrociously hot country to do good deeds? The two men’s eyes met, holding a gaze briefly, before both looked away and walked on, Kevin turning towards the jetty steps.
He spied Darya standing at the top of the steps. ‘We are lunching on the harbour today. Go on down, Brett will be along soon and I will wait for him here.’
Kevin descended the steps towards a catamaran. A crew member he felt he’d seen before stood at the head of the gangplank. ‘Go on down to the cabin.’ It was a large comfortable-looking boat. Kevin noticed that it was for hire by charter or available for one-hour harbour tours. He didn’t much enjoy boats, but it was a pleasant day and he thought their meeting might be less tense in an environment where they could speak frankly. And he had a thing or two to say to Brett, who looked set to let him down again. Kevin was going to insist on being paid a full fee, even if the sale didn’t go through, and another fee for the immigration work. That would make up, three decades late, for being ripped off when the poison didn’t kill Lange, or even put him out of action entirely.
He slid open the glass door into the cabin and stepped cautiously down the three steps, half-blinded by the contrast between the dim interior and the strong sunlight outside. Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him further in. He was regaining his balance as he heard the door slide shut behind him.
Sitting at the table was someone who would strike fear into the heart of anyone familiar with New Zealand’s small gangland culture. Instantly recognisable despite his dark glasses was the man known locally as the Chief. Kevin had seen photos of him–as now, wearing a dark well-tailored suit. On occasion he had had dealings with his associates. And dined in his restaurants. And made use of his brothels. ‘Sit down’ said the Chief, gesturing at Kevin with a pistol. ‘Don’t say a word.’ They sat in silence. Kevin half turned his head, to see the hefty man who’d pushed him into the cabin standing behind him. The man’s impassive face and cold stare frightened him and he turned back to see the pistol waving threateningly. He kept still, his heart pounding, a flush rising that made the back of his neck prickle. The gangway clanked as it was pulled on board, the anchor chain ground its way in noisily, there was a smacking sound as ropes hit the deck. The engine revved and Kevin could see through the high cabin windows that the boat had begun gliding away from the wharf.
After a few minutes the man, still pointing his gun, said to Kevin, ‘You’ve been a bit of a blabbermouth. Time to shut your mouth for good.’
‘Listen,’ Kevin heard his voice come out as a croak. ‘I don’t know who’s paying you, but I can pay you more. Tell them you’ve done it, and I’ll scarper. I’ll leave the country. God’s truth.’ It was an unfamiliar oath, and it didn’t have any effect.
The man laughed. ‘I don’t think you could afford us.’
‘Just tell me,’ said Kevin. ‘My old mum’s got property worth a packet–I’ll get it sold and give you the lot.’
The Chief gave a chilling smile that reached nowhere near his eyes. ‘Say your prayers, mate. You’re bound for a watery grave.’ He nodded to the man behind. The last thing Kevin experienced was a burst of pain and an overwhelming darkness.
Brett was already seated at a table in Shed Five when Darya walked into the restaurant. He was looking at his phone and didn’t notice her approaching. Darya smiled as she slipped into the seat opposite him and observed her husband. Brett was ageing gracefully. His height, his charming smile, his cultivated voice all could make heads turn. His wealth helped, too. It was a careful haircut, an elegant suit and beautiful Italian shoes. Darya was well pleased with him and certainly would not countenance their being pulled apart by nonsense thirty years old.
‘Hello, darling,’ she said. He was surprised. The endearment was unusual.
‘Hello,’ he said with one of those attractive smiles, ‘but where’s Kevin, and are you planning to lunch with us? You don’t usually want anything to do with him. And Kevin and I will have business to discuss. The land sale has hit a bump, some Māori thing.’
‘Kevin won’t be coming,’ said Darya calmly. With that a phone dinged. It didn’t sound like Darya’s, but she fished it out of her pocket and said, ‘Oh, excuse me a moment.’ She stood up, walked to the ladies’, replied to the text with ‘3784’, then dropped the phone in the special bin for sanitary products. That was a good lead Kevin had given her, but Brett was right, the man had been a fool. She walked back to the table. Brett looked at her, puzzled.
‘Kevin won’t be coming?’
‘No, he won’t be coming ever. You don’t need to worry about him and his loose tongue again.’ Then she picked up the menu and glanced at it. ‘Shall we have oysters? Bluff oysters? They’re one of the things I enjoy about this country. But Brett, I do not like the earth shaking and I think in coming days you may hear some things about Kevin. It would be better for us to leave this place. We should go back to London where we have friends of our own class.’
Brett sat perfectly still. His face whitened. Then he picked up the menu. In a tight voice he said, ‘Darya, I have asked you before not to interfere in my business interests. A piece of land in New Zealand would have suited me. I am not going to ask what you’ve done, I don’t want to know. But I tell you this, I might look instead at something in the New South Wales highlands. No problem with residency there. And if I go there to negotiate a deal I will not take you with me.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Darya, keeping her voice steady. ‘Now, oysters, half a dozen or a dozen each?’
23
‘Dwell I but in the suburbs of your good pleasure?’
Lauren didn’t leave Wellington immediately after Deirdre suggested she should. But she found herself more safety conscious than usual. The chain secured her front door in the evening; she didn’t take bush shortcuts on her walks.
By Friday she was in Auckland. She had felt reluctant to ask Kirsten if she could stay for a while and she didn’t tell her why. Their phone calls recently had been stilted. The relationship was fraught. But Kirsten met her at the airport, a good start to the weekend, and it went well from there. They went to a party on the Saturday night, mostly a different crowd from the Greece group. They lay in bed late on Sunday morning, then strolled to a nearby café for lunch.
By mid-week she wasn’t so sure. Kirsten had a frenetic regime. She went to work early, didn’t get home till after six and was always buzzing with the latest triumph or setback. No sooner was she home on the Tuesday than she rushed out again for a Zumba class, and told Lauren she’d be out on Wednesday night as well for her workout at the gym. So they usually dined late. Kirsten would drink two or three glasses of wine, crash out in front of the television and then fall deeply asleep as soon as she hit the pillow. Lauren began to feel overlooked.
On the Wednesday evening they had a quarrel. Kirsten came in late after her work
out. She seemed agitated and had hardly put down her sports bag when she told Lauren there was something they needed to discuss. Lauren was startled, she had been feeling like a spare wheel, but she didn’t think Kirsten had noticed anything wrong. She made Kirsten a green tea and herself a black one and sat down beside her on the sofa, afraid of what was coming.
‘What was the name of that aged care facility you were poking around in?’ Kirsten asked abruptly. Lauren was offended at her tone, but replied, ‘Karori Gardens.’
‘Damn!’ said Kirsten. ‘I really wish you’d leave all this alone, you put me in a difficult position.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘We’ve just landed a new account.’ Kirsten mentioned the name of a well-known company whose business was aged care. ‘They’ve just purchased Karori Gardens. They’re changing the name and are tarting it up. They want to feature the makeover in a new series of ads.’
Lauren couldn’t figure out what that had to do with anything. She looked puzzled and Kirsten went on. ‘I was talking to their comms person today, she’s doing a risk analysis, because of course you can’t have any negative publicity just when a new campaign is going to air.’
Kirsten wouldn’t meet Lauren’s eye. She looked over her shoulder, apparently contemplating the garden, then clenched her jaw. ‘I suddenly put two and two together and realised that’s where you’re claiming a murder happened. Though it seems unlikely. If word got out that the police are investigating, it wouldn’t look good for my client. Lax security and all that.’
Lauren’s cheeks went hot. She felt anger coursing through her. ‘This is a murder investigation, who the hell cares about your client’s reputation! A woman I respect was probably killed. Isn’t that more important?’
Kirsten squirmed. ‘I knew you’d take that tone. Look, I didn’t bring it up with the client, I wanted to get confirmation from you first that we’re talking about the same place.’ Her tone changed, less pleading and more direct. ‘And don’t forget, Lauren, I could have been badly hurt, even killed, in your car because of your interfering.’
They were at an impasse. Lauren served up the simple meal she had prepared and they ate in silence. She was glad the flatmates were out. The evening passed slowly. They were both determinedly reading and said little to each other. By next morning the tension had lessened. But Lauren felt at a loss. No apartment of her own to mooch around in, no dog to walk, no community garden to help in, no one to go on outings with during the day. She spoke sternly to herself. Right, find a yoga class, do some long walks, visit the art gallery and the museum. Such a regime should see her through the week.
Thursday found Lauren walking up Mt Eden, determined to enjoy the stunning views across the Waitemata as far as Waiheke and the outer gulf islands. She kept remembering Kirsten’s accusation. Kirsten could have been killed, and Lauren should have apologised again. She was too angry at the time. Now she shrugged and wondered again how long the relationship would last.
She made her way down by one of the tracks circling the volcanic cone, then walked into the village. There she spent time browsing at the local bookshop and decided to lunch in the café on the corner. It was crowded as usual, and she glanced around from habit, but of course there was no one she knew there. She picked up a newspaper from the pile against the window and took it to a free table, then went to place her order.
She was idly leafing through the paper when she froze. Kevin Driscoll. The name leapt out at her. Missing. Police asking to be advised of any sightings. Description: male, age 64, medium height, greying hair, no distinguishing features. An unappealing photo accompanied the story. It went on to describe him as an immigration consultant from the North Shore and a former Member of Parliament. Last known to have arrived at Wellington airport on Friday 19th January. There are fears for his safety. If Mr Driscoll sees this, will he please report to any police station. (Lauren thought that was unlikely.)
She sat and stared at the paper but she wasn’t seeing it. Why would Kevin disappear? Why were they worried for his safety? Was that even true? Her thoughts raced round and round. She told herself firmly to calm down. She took a deep breath and considered if Kevin might have arranged his own disappearance. Only if he was scared of someone finding him–or finding out about things he’d done. For all she knew, he had lots of shady deals going on.
A waitress brought her an omelette and a flat white. Lauren scarcely remembered to thank her, she was thinking so hard about Kevin. She picked up a knife and fork but continued to ponder. Kevin was spending a lot of time on Brett’s affairs so probably it was something to do with Brett. He was scared of Brett? She screwed up her face, took a mouthful, and thought, surely he wouldn’t run from Brett? That business of ‘taking Brett down with him’ that she’d overheard suggested that he didn’t expect any retaliation. Perhaps he was wrong. Or could he have taken his own life? That didn’t seem likely. The worm was too narcissistic to take that way out of a scrape.
For a moment, Lauren attended to her food. As she sipped her coffee, she considered another possibility. Perhaps someone had made away with him–but who? The finger pointed at Brett, but she couldn’t quite believe it. Dammit, that veneer of politesse that Brett’s upbringing and wealth gave him made it hard to think of him as a common criminal. She’d sooner believe it was Darya.
Darya! Lauren still couldn’t make her out, really. Such a surprising woman. That story of pointing a gun at Brett was extraordinary. Clearly she had Brett under her thumb. And there was no way she was going to see their luxurious lifestyle threatened. Darya might do anything to stop Kevin taking Brett down with him. But surely she didn’t know anything about the Lange plot.
Lauren was so deep in thought that she started when the waitress came to clear her table. She smiled, stood up, said thank you and absently tucking the café’s newspaper under her arm, set off at a brisk pace down the road to Kirsten’s house.
The phone rang for a long time before Mrs Driscoll picked it up. She sounded quavery, but when Lauren identified herself her voice hardened. ‘I told Kevin about you visiting and he said you were trouble, trying to make up things about him. I thought you said you were checking out naturopathy courses.’
Lauren thought quickly and decided not to make excuses. She replied, ‘I’m sorry Kevin thought I was trouble. I was phoning to say how sorry I am to hear he’s missing.’ She crossed her fingers. ‘You must be very worried.’
‘Worried! It’s beyond belief. I don’t understand it at all. It’s just not like Kevin to miss my birthday. He’s always made sure he’s home with me. Last Saturday it was and I’d made a roast dinner for us. And I waited and waited and the vegetables got cold, then I put them in the oven and they dried out.’ Her voice broke. Any suspicion she had of Lauren was overwhelmed by the need to tell her story. ‘And he wasn’t answering his cellphone so on Monday I rang his work and he wasn’t there either. That Jason Snell said he’d been in Wellington for a meeting but hadn’t been in touch. Jason thought he’d be in later.
‘I rang in the afternoon and he was still not there. Still nothing on the cellphone and it was making a funny noise.’
Lauren murmured sympathetically and Mrs Driscoll went on. ‘It was me who phoned the police. First they told me not to worry. They said I should wait a few days. Treated me like a fussy old woman. I set them right. I told them Kevin Driscoll was an important man with all sorts of overseas clients who couldn’t be kept waiting for him to turn up.’
‘Absolutely.’ Lauren was encouraging, though it was unnecessary. Mrs Driscoll paid no attention to her listener and continued her monologue. ‘They left me hanging at the end of the phone for a very long time. Then the officer came back and said they’d start making inquiries straight away. Making inquiries! I want them to find him. And then he started asking me all sorts of impertinent questions. How had Kevin seemed when I saw him last? Was he worried? Tense? Hmph. My boy. All they need to do is find him. Useless.’
Laur
en made more soothing noises and asked if Mrs Driscoll needed any help or company (an emphatic ‘no’) and ended the call. What Mrs Driscoll hadn’t been able to tell her was what really interested her. Why institute a full-scale search so early? Deirdre must be wanting to talk to Kevin.
Damn, she didn’t want to be stuck up here in Auckland. She and Kirsten were clearly drifting apart, the good times merely obscuring the widening crevasse. She determined she would return to Wellington at the end of the weekend. She had felt unsafe because of what Kevin might do, given what she thought he had already done; now she didn’t know what to think.
On Sunday, Michael rang, calling her cell. ‘Hi Lauren. You still in Auckland?’
‘Yes, back tomorrow, what’s up?’
‘I wondered if you’d caught up with the news–Kevin Driscoll has gone missing. Had you heard?’
‘Yes, and I spoke to his mother; it seems no one knows where he is. He didn’t show up at work either. But I can’t look into it too much–Deirdre gave me a telling-off for prying.’
‘You might be surprised to know that I’ve met your lovely policewoman too.’
Lauren could imagine the twinkle in Michael’s eye and suppressed a smile. ‘I got in touch with them,’ he went on, ‘because I saw Kevin on the waterfront the day he went missing. Haven’t seen him for years, but it wasn’t hard to recognise my tormentor from those times.’ He struggled to make light of the pain that had cut deep. ‘Not a pretty face, and still a bad fashion sense. I think he recognised me too but we didn’t acknowledge each other. He was heading down some steps onto the jetty where the pleasure boats depart. Deirdre seemed to think that was a useful lead.’
The One That Got Away Page 18