by Alan Carter
I’m sorry but that pain isn’t over yet. I do promise though that I will catch this bastard, whoever he is.
43
After three days of revisiting the Pied Piper evidence, and the now-associated Rogers and Fernandez cases, things have moved swiftly. A combination of GPS/satnav and CCTV puts either the old convertible from McCormack’s fleet, or McCormack himself and his new BMW, at Havelock Marina in the days before Prince Haruru, Jamie Riley and Qadim Reza were found. Now a review of the marina CCTV on Tuesday night – the night immediately preceding the discovery of Jamie Riley’s body at the shoe fence – has McCormack’s beemer parked nearby and being loaded up with a large sail bag from Serenity II, around eight p.m. The loader is an unidentified person with a baseball cap pulled low. That Tuesday morning, I had met McCormack to report the vandalism damage to his boat. They were going nowhere that day. So what was in the bag and why didn’t Keegan’s team pick it earlier? It was early Tuesday evening they say, a long time before the boy’s body was found, and they were focusing on suspicious movements in the middle of the night. Plus it was McCormack’s beemer and posh boat. Who’da thought that could be suspicious?
Richard McCormack has been invited in for a chat and given two days’ notice – that’s the kind of preferential treatment you get when you have money and influence. It’s more than enough time for him to bring in his Wellington-based lawyer, a woman with strong family connections in the higher echelons of government.
Fiona Knight has a stare that could sculpt diamonds. She and DI Keegan face off on either side of the desk. To ginger things up a bit, Marianne has invited me into the room to assist with the interview. It’s highly provocative and she hasn’t sought the DC’s approval for the tactic.
‘I’m figuring we might only get the one crack at him,’ she smiled grimly as we headed down the corridor. ‘May as well go for broke.’
McCormack is in the kind of suit you wear for a day’s corporate raiding. Or to appear before a parliamentary committee where you intend to let the oiks know who’s boss. Keegan has put us opposite each other: Richard and Fiona, Nick and Marianne. A chilled Otago Pinot Gris and some lobster, and it would be a perfect double date.
The recording equipment is running. Fiona Knight begins by establishing that her client is here of his own volition and is keen to assist the investigation in any way he can and to remind us that he can, and will, leave any time he wishes.
‘Absolutely,’ confirms DI Keegan with a beam.
Knight flicks her fingers irritably. ‘You may proceed.’
DI Keegan starts by asking McCormack to account for his whereabouts in the hours preceding the discoveries of the bodies of Jamie Riley and Qadim Reza. His lawyer hands over two A4 sheets, one for each victim, duly accounting for those hours. Keegan then inquires similarly in regard to Prince Haruru.
‘Who?’ The case has not been linked publicly in the media.
Keegan elucidates.
McCormack frowns. ‘That was five years ago, Inspector. But I will check my diaries from then and if I can help I will.’
‘Thank you.’
At this stage everything is essentially an unchallenged open account. We want his story first. We hope to tear it apart at a later date. Keegan hands McCormack and the lawyer each a list of stolen or damaged items reported to the insurer after the break-in at the McCormack Forestry offices. She asks McCormack to read out item six.
He obliges. ‘Sundry display photographs.’
‘Stolen or damaged?’
‘Stolen.’
‘Strange thing to steal.’
‘I don’t profess to know what goes through the minds of these low-life morons.’
Keegan hands him the photo I found in Des Rogers’ U2 CD: him, a big cardboard cheque, Denzel Haruru and his cousin Prince, among others. ‘Was that one of them?’
He studies it in its transparent cover. ‘I believe so.’
‘Are you able to explain how this image came to be in the possession of a retired and now deceased police officer named Desmond Rogers?’
He frowns. ‘No.’
‘Mr Rogers was found murdered recently.’ Keegan names the date.
He raises the groomed eyebrows. ‘Shocking. Do you believe there’s some kind of connection?’
Change of tack. Keegan pushes a still photo from the marina CCTV across the table and announces for the tape what it is: an unidentified person, tall and probably male, loading a sail bag into the boot of a BMW the night before Jamie Riley’s body was discovered. There’s a date and time printout along the bottom. ‘Is that your car, Mr McCormack?’
‘It’s one of our executive fleet, yes.’
‘Do you normally drive it?’
‘I often drive it.’
‘Were you driving it on that night at that time?’
‘I’d have to check my diary.’
‘Let me help you,’ I say. ‘It was the evening of the same day you made a complaint about vandalism to your boat. We met that morning down at the marina. Remember me?’
He meets my eye. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Around ten hours after this picture was taken, the body of James Riley was found nearby. He’d been tortured, raped and murdered.’
‘Yes, it was on the news. Terrible. How can I help?’
‘You can let us know if that’s you in the photo,’ says Keegan. ‘And what’s in that bag.’
He studies the picture again. ‘No, that’s not me. And I don’t know anything about the bag.’ There’s a tensing as he looks at it.
‘So who could be driving your car?’
‘Not my car. The executive fleet. We have around a dozen people entitled to drive that vehicle. Eight of them are male, six of them, including myself, are young and/or tall enough to be that person. The other two are a lot older, shorter and perhaps rounder. And this is assuming none of those original six then loaned the car to somebody else.’
Very comprehensive. It’s like he expected the question and prepared for it.
‘Is there a log of who books the cars in and out?’ asks Keegan.
‘Yes, you’ll have to talk to my PA about that. But I think it’s a pretty loose system.’ A chilly smile. ‘I trust my team implicitly.’
DI Keegan is closing in on what she hoped to achieve from this interview. But she wants it on record. ‘Yes, we will need to speak to your PA, and your executives, and to examine company records, including computers. We’ll be in touch to arrange an appointment. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter, Mr McCormack.’
‘That’s it?’ says Fiona Knight.
‘Yes.’
‘Cheap trick.’
‘Excuse me?’
She flaps her hand in my direction. ‘Having that joker in the room.’
‘This is a murder investigation, Ms Knight. Not a game.’
‘Yeah, right.’
I’m focused on McCormack as he leaves the room. He’s troubled. Either he knows we’re onto him, or he knows who we should be onto.
The DC is waiting for us in Keegan’s office. Not happy about me being in on the interview but biting his lip nevertheless. He seeks reassurance and Keegan obliges.
‘Mr McCormack is cooperating fully with our inquiries and is prepared to allow us to interview his employees and go through their files, both paper and electronic. That will happen over the coming days, sir.’
‘Anything from the interview itself that adds to, or diminishes, your suspicions?’
‘Nothing concrete.’
‘But?’
‘It’s early days, sir.’
‘Here’s hoping you find something in your trawl.’
We all go our separate ways: the DC to brood about his corporate reputation and his budget submissions, DI Keegan to dish out jobs to her team. And me back to the farm to wait for further developments and instructions from Keegan. I’m deemed too much of a risk to return to normal duties pending next week’s disciplinary hearing. The DC has acceded to Keegan’s request
for me to remain involved with the investigation but on an extremely tight leash.
‘I like the sound of that,’ Keegan purred jokingly, once the DC was out of earshot.
It elicits a rush of blood down below. The danger hasn’t passed in my self-inflicted chaotic love-life.
Driving back from Nelson through Rai Valley, I see more denuded hills. Sometimes I think I’m getting used to it, but today they still look raw and unloved: a wounded landscape. I’m glad my vendetta is unsettling McCormack. He deserves it.
At home Paulie is triumphant, ‘Eight eggs today, Dad. Look at them.’
They’re big and brown, as promised by the sustainability book. ‘Fantastic,’ I say.
‘Got a joke for you, Dad.’
‘Okay.’
‘What’s a Kiwi Hindu?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Lays iggs, bro.’ We hoot and high five.
Vanessa wants to know how it went with McCormack, so I tell her.
‘Miss Piggy did well, then?’
I’m not sure how long this will go on for, perhaps forever. But it could be a whole lot worse. ‘Early days, yet.’
‘And David still doesn’t want you back at work?’
Is her reminder that she’s on first name terms with the DC deliberate? A code-cracker could spend years deciphering Vanessa’s choice of words.
‘No. Except as needed on this case. There’s a disciplinary hearing next week. I’m meant to have booked the union lawyer.’
‘Have you?’
‘No, not yet.’
She hands me the phone. ‘Get onto it. Then when you’re done, the goat shed needs clearing out.’
‘I’ll do it,’ says Paulie.
‘No,’ says Vanessa, firmly. ‘Your dad will.’
But I let him help anyway.
It’s Friday evening, and we decide on a family walk up the road before dinner. Past our place, it’s no longer sealed and Paulie finds himself sliding on some of the steep gravel turns. He doesn’t look like he’s too sure about this. It appears the loggers have nearly finished on that small, immature block over the river; McCormack’s spiteful little project. It’s a beautiful evening, fading sunlight dances on the river rapids, birds dart among the trees, and the air is filled with warbling and clicks and whirrs. Now and then the stench of roadkill or discarded mammals rises from a gully.
‘Pooh-ee,’ says Paulie, pinching his nose. ‘That stinks.’
There are random diggings into the side of the hill where a hundred and fifty years ago men chanced their arms at a gold find, only to discover after a month or two of gruelling bare-knuckle work there was nothing but another empty hole. And I wonder already if we’re wrong on McCormack or, even if we’re right, that we’ll never get enough to prove it in a court of law, and a clever well-connected brief like Fiona Knight will help him walk free. It’s the way of things with people of wealth and influence: they rarely end up paying for what they’ve done.
‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’ Vanessa has stopped by the side of the road, looking back towards our house, a red roof perched on a hill, poking out from behind the trees and bushes. I join her and she links her arm in mine. ‘That’s ours. This …’ her spare arm sweeps the river below, ‘is ours.’ Paulie has picked up a handful of gravel and is dropping individual stones into the waterfall scurrying down the hill below us. ‘He is ours.’ She turns to me. ‘Show me what you’ve got that beats this. Show me what you’ve got that’s worth throwing this away for.’
I show her my palms, they’re empty.
‘Exactly,’ she says.
There’s a tightness in my chest. I know she’s right. But it doesn’t stop me worrying that I’m still capable of throwing this all away.
44
We are woken early by a call from Latifa on the landline.
‘Denzel has gone missing.’
My immediate thought is that he’s another one of those loose ends that the killer is tidying up. He knows something even if he doesn’t yet realise it. But I try to stay calm. ‘Give me the details.’
‘Uncle Walter says he didn’t come home last night.’
‘He’s fifteen and not unknown for being a free spirit.’
‘Not anymore’ says Latifa. ‘Walter thinks there’s cause for concern and he’s not a man who would worry unnecessarily about stuff like this.’
We agree that she will pick me up and we’ll head out to Uncle Walter’s place. No uniforms, her car, not official business so I don’t break any more rules. I bring Vanessa up to speed and she hands me a mug of coffee. She looks like she’d prefer me not to get involved but this is a missing boy only a few years older than Paulie. ‘Is this going to end badly too?’
‘I hope not.’
When we arrive, Uncle Walter tells us he’s already checked with Denzel’s mates. Nothing. Likewise Charlie Evans hasn’t seen him. A worried Walter is a new experience for me. He seems smaller, older, more vulnerable.
‘Was anything bothering him? Acting strange, out of sorts?’ asks Latifa. ‘Since that dropkick got killed up the valley, he’s been on edge.’
‘Fernandez?’ I say.
He nods. ‘Denzel’s jumping at shadows, locking the door at night. We never lock the doors around here.’
‘Can we look in his room?’
‘Help yourself. Fucken pigsty if you ask me. Good luck.’
Denzel’s room is classic teenager: clothes on the floor and spilling out of drawers, a fug of testosterone and sweat and overdue laundry. A poster on the wall of some shirtless six-packed rapper, another of a young woman wearing nothing but tribal tattoos. We rummage around but find nothing of interest or which seems unusual.
‘Is anything missing that you’re aware of?’ I ask.
Walter nods assuredly. ‘His crossbow.’
‘We confiscated it.’
‘He got himself a new one with his wages from Charlie’s place.’
‘Charlie’s paying him? I thought it was meant to be restorative justice for the alpaca.’
‘Yeah, it is utu. But Charlie’s got a soft heart to match his soft head.’
‘Mobile?’
‘Yeah, that’s gone as well.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Nah. Don’t think so.’ He looks at me, there’s a plea in his eyes. ‘You bring him back safe, hear me?’
I glance at Latifa. We’re thinking the same thing. Denzel is probably in hiding. But he’s not privy to the kind of information we have about the list of people before him who have been the victim of violence or accident over the last few weeks. Only Johnny Fernandez. It’s a big conclusion for the boy to have jumped to. So what precisely made him jump?
‘Beth,’ says Latifa.
‘What about her?’
‘She’s probably been spooking him with her voodoo shit. Telling him ghost stories.’
We pay her a visit. She’s a late riser and we find her sitting on her front verandah with hubby Peter having a breakfast cuppa and ciggie. ‘Denzel? What about him?’ She coughs and the birds fly from the trees.
‘Done a runner,’ says Latifa. ‘Scared shitless about something.’
‘So he should be.’
‘Why, what have you been saying?’
‘Whakatupato. Johnny Fernandez was a sign. A warning.’
‘Why should Denzel have anything to fear from evil omens, Beth?’
‘Our whole family is cursed. Mākutu has been sung to us. Cursing song. Look at us. Princey. Deb. Daddy Walter. And Denzel too.’
‘What about you?’ says Latifa. ‘You’re a Haruru. Aren’t you worried about the curse?’
She nods towards her husband. ‘Too fucken late.’
Another cup of tea and a second ciggie and Beth admits that she may have spooked the boy beyond what might have been necessary. But she does seem to have made the connections through police and news reports and word of mouth about the growing list of people associated with the case who seem to be meeting very bad
luck.
‘You’re probably on that list as well,’ I remind her.
‘Yeah.’ She squints at me through a curl of smoke. ‘You too, Sergeant, eh?’
It had occurred to me but I’m figuring this bloke prefers softer targets: children, medicated women, flabby drunkards, anaemic stoners. I’ll be way down on his list. Or so I hope.
She draws deep on the ciggie. ‘I’m going to meet him again, the killer. See him and remember him. No more Men in Black shit.’ She points at me. ‘And you are going to bring us together.’
‘Let me guess,’ says Latifa. ‘This all came to you in a dream?’
‘You, my girl, are losing touch with your people and your culture. Probably that coconut job of yours. You need to reconnect, go on a pilgrimage or something like those people do at Mecca.’ A parting cough as she heads back indoors. ‘Pull your head in, girlie, he’s got plans for you, too.’
‘What does she mean by that? Silly bitch.’ Beth has got under Latifa’s skin.
‘Probably just pointscoring, putting you in your place.’
‘Yeah, well. Didn’t need to do it like that, did she? Could’a just slapped me or something. You don’t use the spirits to score points.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Easy for you to say.’
We’ve got a list of family and friends spread around the region, indeed the whole of the country, from Auckland to Dunedin. In this situation, probably the best place for Denzel to hide out would be a big city hundreds of kilometres away. Could he have got on the Interislander with his crossbow? Possibly. Or maybe he’s hitched a lift south. Latifa will go into the office and make inquiries. We can’t think of anything else. Walter doesn’t want to make it official yet. When and if he does, we can call in Search and Rescue, other police regions, the media, and such.