Starlight Peninsula

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  Why had Arthur connected the names?

  She looked at Arthur’s handwriting. ‘Who is Mereana Kostas?’

  ‘Well, it’s an unusual name. There was a Mereana Kostas in Auckland and she’s a missing person,’ Da Silva said. ‘She disappeared years ago. No trace.’

  ‘Why did Arthur connect her name to Simon Lampton? And who is Simon Lampton?’

  The male detective leaned over and put a hand on Da Silva’s sleeve. She nodded, picked up the file. ‘Eloise, just give us another second.’ They got up and went out into the hall again.

  Alone in the room, Eloise wished for a giant gin and tonic, a mountain of Valium. Perhaps if she just tip-toed out now, they could draw a veil, forget all about …

  Da Silva marched back in and sat down, slapping the file on the desk. ‘Right. Sorry. We don’t know why Arthur put the names together. We interviewed Lampton. He was staying, would you believe, at the Prime Minister’s summer compound at the time. Apparently Arthur contacted him twice by phone because he was a friend of David Hallwright, and Arthur wanted to write about Hallwright. Lampton fobbed him off, and that was it. Didn’t Arthur tell you this?’

  ‘He was cagey about projects, or so busy he didn’t get around to telling me. He used to do too much, too many things at once. I always thought if he could just slow down and concentrate on a few …’

  ‘He didn’t tell you who Mereana Kostas was? Didn’t mention her?’

  ‘No.’

  Should she tell them about the photo of the girl in Arthur’s file? But look at silent O’Kelly’s expression: not so deadpan now. A flicker of interest there, in his hard grey eyes. Eloise fell silent herself. A missing woman and a friend of David Hallwright. Arthur had made notes about these people, had even contacted Lampton and not told her, a fact she put aside for later, as possibly hurtful. But the notes in Carina’s basement included current politicians too, powerful ones: Justice Minister Ed Miles, the Finance Minister Colin Cahane.

  It was back, the sense that Arthur had got himself in trouble, had somehow gone too far. She’d dismissed it as irrational …

  Concentrate. Focus.

  ‘Is Simon Lampton still in politics?’

  Da Silva made a wry face. ‘He was never in politics, he was just in the PM’s circle. Best friend of the Hallwrights, big party donor. He’s a doctor. Obstetrician and gynaecologist.’

  Eloise frowned, some vague memory stirring. The sun was suddenly shining directly into the office, casting a harsh glare on the drab furniture and lighting up Da Silva’s wild blonde hair. O’Kelly’s face looked feral, too avid. Something new had entered the room.

  She stood up.

  They didn’t move, only looked at her.

  ‘You’ll be busy. I’ll let you get on.’

  ‘No rush,’ Da Silva said. ‘Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?’

  ‘I’ve got an appointment.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  Their interest frightened her. She’d expected to be fobbed off. It was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come.

  ‘Like I said, just a whim …’

  Stop talking. Just stop.

  Riding down in the lift with Da Silva she asked, ‘What happened when you interviewed Simon Lampton?’

  ‘Not much. He said Arthur was just another journalist wanting gossip on the Hallwrights.’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Lampton? Nothing special.’

  ‘You made a sort of face when you said his name.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘As if you had an opinion of him.’

  Da Silva shrugged. At the door, she gave Eloise her card. She took it and said, ‘But all the questions were answered.’

  ‘They were.’

  ‘I see that now.’ Eloise bowed her head.

  Da Silva looked amused, as if she detected something false in Eloise’s tone.

  ‘Barrel of energy,’ she said, and walked away.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘I couldn’t even see who was in the bus stop and it came to me: The girl in the bus stop is crying.’

  ‘Spooky,’ the Sparkler said.

  ‘The information just arrived of the blue. And so I walk past and there she is, sobbing away.’

  ‘ESP.’

  ‘Actually, life’s usually the complete opposite. Mostly you have facts in front of you, staring you in the face, and you can’t work them out.’

  Gulls cried outside. There was the sound of steady crunching. The Sparkler and Silvio were eating popcorn while watching a Soon and Starfish cartoon, the girl lying along the top of the sofa, the dog lounging on the cushions. Eloise was in the kitchen, fixing herself a drink.

  She looked over at her niece’s comically skinny legs, made slimmer by a pair of over-large sneakers. And the girl looked up and met her eye, with a steady gaze. Rachel Margery Hay Hillman: she was a powerful child. Eloise had a photo album of her niece in her head; she was vital, she was like electricity. The Sparkler running, or dancing around in the rain, or out on the dry peninsula, watching the toe toe go up in flames …

  ‘I promised Carina I’d cook something healthy. So I got sushi.’

  ‘Cool.’

  The details of the evening had been worked out. It being a school night, the Sparkler would be picked up by Carina later in the evening, but Silvio had arrived with luggage, because he was going to sleep over. Eloise had unpacked his bed, also his blanket, bone, leash, chew toys, and sack of biscuits. There was a list of instructions on his routine: hydration, feeding, walks, shits.

  ‘No fires,’ Carina said, and Eloise had promised.

  ‘So, after the news, we’ll take him over to the park and then have our sushi and then you can watch your film, okay?’

  Eloise squeezed in beside Silvio on the sofa. She was unsure how it was going to go with him. What did he do most of the time? Just lie around? Did he need to be talked to, entertained? He was a disturbing presence, too intelligent to be ignored.

  Soon and Starfish ended. They switched to the news: Mariel Hartfield and Jack Anthony wore matching colours, her jacket, his tie. They shared an upbeat moment over a quirky item, then their expressions went solemn; he introduced a piece on an African famine and warned: Some scenes may disturb.

  Now politics, Jack Dance, answering questions in the House. Yes, he was the minister in charge of security services. No, he had not known the GCSB was spying illegally on Kurt Hartmann. If the Opposition had proof, they should produce it. Put up or shut up. To a question from Opposition leader Bradley Kirk on unemployment, Satan Dance responded with a taunt: he wasn’t surprised Mr Kirk was worried about unemployment, as his own job security was shaky.

  Then a live cross to political editor Sarah Lane, and reports that Justice Minister Ed Miles was doing the numbers, in the hope of unseating Jack Dance.

  ‘The polls, Mariel, are ringing alarm bells for the National Party. If the party’s and Dance’s personal ratings don’t improve, we may start to see a serious push for change. Former prime minister Sir David Hallwright arrived in Auckland this week, and there has been speculation on several blogs that Sir David will meet with Ed Miles and his supporters.’

  Ed Miles, caught on camera emerging from a lift, said, ‘I have no leadership ambitions at this stage. I’m not even thinking about the question at this point. As I stand here now, I unequivocally support my leader, Jack Dance.’

  Mariel Hartfield thanked Sarah Lane and the bulletin moved on: crime, celebrity gossip, international news, crime, unusual weather events around the globe, the drought, traffic, crime. And then the Doormat, with her spiel and her rows of little suns.

  Eloise herded niece and dog out into the hot evening air. The girl in the bus stop is crying. Information had come unbidden, out of thin air — but it was useless information. Layers of the world were hidden from her. She kept going around it: Arthur had been interested in a missing woman, in Simon Lampton, who was a friend of David Hallwright, and in Colin Cahane and Ed Miles, who
, back then, were Hallwright’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Police. What was Arthur’s angle?

  As they walked, the Sparkler outlined Silvio’s routines. They discussed where they should put his bed, Eloise eventually settling for the bottom of the stairs. From there he could sound a warning and she could hole up in her room upstairs with the phone.

  ‘I might get my own dog, see. So I thought I’d try out Silvio.’

  ‘Mum said you could move in with us if you wanted.’

  ‘Did she say that? Really?’ Eloise looked away, more touched than she wanted to admit.

  They were standing on the edge of the dog park. ‘It’d be great to live with you. But I love the house and the peninsula. I’m going to have to move, but I don’t want to.’

  They ate sushi. Eloise drank chardonnay and proved herself useless with homework, with maths and science. A studious silence: the Sparkler bent over her spelling book, mouthing the words Because Through Harmony Bright, while Eloise tried to concentrate on her book.

  The Sparkler finished her homework and moved on to her treat: a movie about teenage vampires.

  Eloise sipped and frowned down at the page. She was nearly through The Great Gatsby.

  He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about … like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.

  What a grotesque thing a rose is. It was true. Not just the thorns but the soft, fleshy folds, as grotesque as ponga stems covered with hairs, their fronds curled like ears. And what were trees but growths erupting out of the land? But look at the peninsula, how beautiful it was.

  Her hands flew to her ears as Silvio erupted in a shocking explosion of barks, and half a glass of chardonnay shot across the carpet.

  On her knees mopping with a napkin, she said, ‘God! If he does that in the night I’ll have a heart attack.’

  ‘There’s someone at the front door,’ her niece said, without taking her eyes off the screen.

  Eloise went silently to the hall and looked through the peephole. Relief: it was Nick, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, holding a shopping bag. How rugged, how nice he looked. But he raised his hand — and waved. She drew back from the peephole, disconcerted.

  She opened the door. ‘How did you know I was looking?’

  ‘Hi. I don’t know. I heard you, I suppose. How are you?’ He came in. There was a smell of cut grass, of the lemon-scented verbena bush that grew along the edge of the property.

  He held out the shopping bag. ‘Apples.’

  She took the apples, thanked him. ‘I’m looking after my niece. You want a drink?’

  Turning, they bumped against each other. Eloise’s scalp prickled.

  Out on the deck, so as not to interrupt the movie, she poured him wine, eyeing his brown hands. So suntanned and capable.

  She took a recklessly large sip of wine. ‘I did something unusual today.’

  ‘What was that then?’

  ‘I visited the police.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  She waited and then said into the silence, ‘It was probably a bad idea.’

  Still he didn’t say anything.

  ‘It was partly because of what you said, about it being good to confront the past. I realised that when my … when Arthur died, I didn’t ask any questions. I just accepted what I was told. So I wanted to go back and ask about it.’

  He leaned back in his chair. ‘But it was a bad idea, you said? I suppose they fobbed you off.’

  ‘No, that’s what made me nervous. They didn’t. They seemed to want me to hang around. I wished I hadn’t gone there.’

  ‘They thought you were going to confess. It was me, officer. I pushed him.’

  Eloise didn’t say anything.

  ‘Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say.’ He reached over and touched her arm.

  ‘No, it’s fine. They probably did think something like that. I should’ve let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry. They’ll be super busy, overworked. They won’t want to bother with a closed file.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  Nick looked away over the estuary, as though thinking about something else. Birds flew over, high and late. In the distance a gull was screaming.

  The way he’d brushed past her in the hall. Now he seemed distracted, only half-listening. She said, ‘There was some mention of politicians.’

  Silence. Nick suppressed a yawn and rubbed his face.

  ‘Past and current ones,’ she added.

  Now he looked at the backs of his hands and said lazily, ‘What kind of mention?’

  ‘Arthur was interested in David Hallwright’s close circle when Hallwright was PM. Apparently he contacted one of them not long before he died.’

  ‘Contacted who?’

  Eloise hesitated. ‘One of them.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s in the file.’

  ‘Arthur never told you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is there anything else in the file?’

  ‘I don’t know. They didn’t show me.’

  ‘So you’re not much further on. Unless you’ve got some other information.’

  Eloise looked away.

  Nick said, ‘Did Arthur leave any clues?’

  ‘Well, there is something …’

  His eyes were on her, but now they heard Silvio making a racket and the Sparkler’s voice, and Carina appeared in the doorway.

  Nick stood up. ‘I’d better get going. Things to do.’

  Eloise made herself look neutral.

  He nodded to Carina and left by way of the deck, crossing the lawn past the charred toe toe stump.

  Carina watched him go. ‘Did I interrupt?’

  ‘No, he’s got things to do.’

  ‘He’s sort of …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Carina frowned. ‘Nimble, shadowy.’

  ‘Why shadowy?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because he’s so nimble.’

  ‘Right. Thanks for that, genius. How useful. Want a drink?’

  ‘No, school night. Well, actually, the movie’s still going.’ She sat down, and Eloise got her a glass.

  ‘I did something today. I went to the police.’

  ‘What police? Why?’

  ‘CIB homicide. I wanted to ask about Arthur.’

  ‘But, you know what happened.’

  Eloise stared at the estuary. How much had she just told Nick? Too much? She turned to her sister. ‘I’ve been worrying about it all afternoon.’

  ‘Worrying about what?’

  ‘Okay. Arthur died and I accepted what they said. But it doesn’t seem enough of an explanation, that he was stoned on sleeping pills, walked out of the flat and fell down a retaining wall.’

  ‘It was a freak accident, sure.’

  ‘When he died, Arthur was interested in the Hallwrights. He wanted to write about a National Party prime minister. He’d researched Hallwright’s inner circle, and before he died he contacted Hallwright’s best friend, Simon Lampton, who was the doctor who adopted Roza Hallwright’s baby. He rang him twice.’

  ‘Did you know he’d done that?’

  ‘No. The police told me today. Listen, in Arthur’s file, the one I took from the flat, there’s a photo of a girl with the name “Mereana” written on the back. I don’t know who she is. And in the police file there’s a picture of a note in Arthur’s handwriting that says Simon Lampton forward slash Mereana Kostas. When I asked who Mereana Kostas is, the police said she’s a missing person. She disappeared from Auckland years ago. So Arthur’s put together the name of Hallwright’s friend Lampton, and a missing woman. And he had a photo of the missing person — or at least of a girl called Mereana. Which isn
’t a common name. He’s rung up Lampton twice and been given the brush-off. Then he died.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you anything?’

  ‘He was hyperactive, remember, always thinking up some new scheme. I couldn’t keep up. I wanted him to slow down and focus. I nagged a bit — I think he deliberately stopped telling me what he was up to.’

  Carina reached into her bag, brought out a single bent cigarette and lit it.

  ‘Rations,’ she said. ‘You’re thinking about all this now because Sean’s left and you’re out here by yourself.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Come and stay with us for a while. We’d love to have you. Honestly.’

  Eloise refilled her glass. ‘I keep dreaming about Andrew Newgate.’

  ‘Come and stay. Tonight. I mean it.’

  Focus. Concentrate. ‘Carina, think about it. Arthur’s death was unexplained. It had to be investigated. Right? So the police must have looked into it: Lampton, the missing woman, Arthur’s death, and asked themselves whether any of it was connected.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘So that means, at the very least, there was a police inquiry that involved Hallwright’s circle, of which parts are unexplained. The missing woman is still missing. And we don’t know why Arthur put her name with Simon Lampton.’

  ‘Well …’

  Eloise said, ‘The detective told me Lampton was staying at the Hallwrights’ summer residence when Arthur contacted him. It was the holidays when Arthur died, remember. Arthur’s notes say that there were other people at the residence, too, at the same time.’ She tipped up her glass. ‘Want to know who?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ed Miles. He was police minister back then.’

  ‘How did Arthur know that?’

  ‘He would have stalked them, like any journalist. He’s got a phone number for a housekeeper with a Chinese name. Maybe she was his source. The finance minister was there too — Colin Cahane. Some of it would have been common knowledge. Hallwright was our first “celebrity PM”, remember. There were all those magazine stories about what he was doing.’