Marlborough Man

by Alan Carter

  She drops me back at the farm and there’s a message for me. I’m to call DI Keegan. I do so and tell her about Denzel, off the record.

  ‘Cause for concern?’

  ‘I’ll keep you posted.’ I ask if there are any developments.

  ‘Our Kaikōura Ds got a fix on the white car spotted in a petrol station down the road the night Rogers was killed. It’s part of the McCormack executive fleet.’ She says the last two words with quotation marks in her voice. ‘But the driver is wearing a hoodie and big-peaked baseball cap and pays in cash. The young guy on the cash till hasn’t got the best memory, he’s a pothead. Kaikōura. Who would’ve imagined?’

  ‘The executive fleet log?’

  ‘Nonexistent. New kids on the team fill it out to impress the boss but after a few months nobody bothers.’

  ‘Satnavs in the cars?’

  ‘The geeks are on it. Will let you know.’

  ‘Office computers and diaries?’

  ‘Ditto. And we’re lining the execs up for interviews. All of them, including the women and the shorter, older blokes who don’t fit the description. Doesn’t mean they don’t know anything.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Traffic took another look at the crash report on the ute that went over the cliff with the dodgy boat skipper in it. Marks on the road and on the vehicle are ambiguous and there was significant damage to the ute as well as rain and alcohol involved.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘One theory puts a second vehicle just behind, ramming the ute over the edge. Impatience and road rage on those twisty turns. Not unimaginable.’

  ‘Theory never pursued?’

  ‘Why would you? Too hard, nobody around, and the dead bloke was a dipstick. Pity about his mate but apparently he was a bit of a loser too. Life’s too short, so to speak.’

  We’re both feeling the same buzz. ‘It’s taking shape, isn’t it?’

  ‘Like a sculpted blancmange.’

  Sunday. The loggers have taken a weekend break and peace has returned. Paulie is on his Play Station and Vanessa wants to have angry sex with me. If we must. Afterwards, she’s less angry. We have lunch on the back balcony overlooking the river and it looks glorious and crystal clear.

  ‘Let’s go for a swim,’ she says, polishing off her bun.

  And so here we are standing on the smooth stones naked in the early afternoon, threading our way into the freezing water where, until recently, I was drowning the last of the feral cat family that invaded our property. Vanessa looks stunning, girlish in a way I haven’t seen her for years. I can’t take my eyes away from her nipples.

  ‘Water’s cold, isn’t it?’

  She’s looking further south on me. ‘Sure is,’ she grins.

  We slip down into the depths, gasping for breath. It seems impossible to remain, but we do. One minute, two, three and then we’re swimming and ducking under. At last, enough is enough, and we dry each other on the shore as the sandflies hover around us. There’s a loud noise. An engine, approaching up the river, out of sight around the bend. A helicopter. It comes into view, flying quite low, maybe no higher than a hundred metres, its shadow dancing on the hillside. Forestry? Department of Conservation? On a weekend? There are no markings on it. Vanessa doesn’t care. Naked as the day she was born, she gives it a cheeky wave. It sweeps off up the river then swings back around and flies over us again on its way back to wherever it came from.

  45

  It’s another beautiful spring day, Paulie is back at school and Vanessa too, called in on relief. I’m at home, reading through the list DI Keegan has emailed to me: the McCormack Forestry executives with access to the company cars. There are four cars and twelve people. Although she has insisted on interviewing all of them, younger and older, male and female, it is already evident that some can be eliminated from our inquiries. Of the two older employees that Richard McCormack referred to, one was in hospital having a colonoscopy and the other was on holiday, whitebaiting over at Haast, on the days of interest. One of the women is clearly too petite to be the figure on the marina CCTV loading the sail bag into the BMW. The other, well maybe, she’s taller and more statuesque, but I don’t see it. A woman wouldn’t do these things to a little boy, surely. Yes, there are exceptions and some famous monstrous couples out there but I’m prepared to believe my instinct here – this is the work of one bad man.

  Which leaves eight people, including McCormack himself. Of these, only four, again including McCormack, were with the company five years ago and had access to the executive fleet around the time Prince Haruru was killed. They are Feargal Donnelly, Operations and Logistics Manager; Brian Wheeler, Marketing; and James Onslow, Research and Product Development. All of the others have only joined McCormack Forestry in the last couple of years. So there’s a shortlist of four people who have had access to the company cars for all three child murders and the murders of Rogers and Fernandez. Oh, and the suspicious demise of the boat skipper.

  DI Keegan has anticipated my next question. Was there an accident or damage report on any of the fleet cars immediately following the boat skipper being shunted over a cliff? No. The offending shunter must have been using a private vehicle, not the company car. The shortlist of four executives has been run through national and international databases and none have thrown up any flags of interest for previous bad deeds. While all twelve will have their telephone, email and internet records checked, the focus resources-wise is on the shortlist and they have also been scheduled for a second round of interviews commencing today. Marianne signs off with a happy face emoticon.

  I hear it again. The helicopter coming up the river. Not as loud, flying higher. I step out on to the balcony. It’s the same one as yesterday, no markings. Others that come this way – Forestry, DOC, police, Search and Rescue, the Marlborough Sounds tourist flights – I know their markings. Is it McCormack trying to spook me, get me to back off? Is it Sammy Pritchard failing to keep his word, showing that his handshake counted for nothing?

  Who the fuck do you think you are and what makes you think I would listen to you?

  And his parting words.

  Travel safe, Nicky …

  But thoughts like that just take me back down the road to ruin. I need to curb the paranoia. It’s just a helicopter, a prospector, joyrider, whatever. And if it does turn out to be an emissary of Sammy’s, then I really will make that call that gets him shivved in the showers.

  I take a drive down the valley in the Toyota. I’m on edge and need to be out doing something. The Fernandez house has been cleared as a crime scene and I stop for a nose around. The lamb is still bleating so I take it some food and fresh water. It doesn’t work; it’s a dedicated bleater. The pig dog has gone. The door is locked but it doesn’t take long to locate the key, which is under the nearest plant pot; it’s like that in these parts. Inside are the same residual crime scene chemical smells I encountered at Des Rogers’ place. Less of the single-man fug here and more of the meaty tang of a recently cleaned bloodbath. I’m really not in the mood for searching for clues. Detective Maxwell’s team has already done that and I have reasonable faith in his abilities. Besides, I’m no longer obliged to convince people that McCormack needs to be looked at.

  But still I find myself floating through this shabby ghost house with its echoes of a nascent family life. Might Johnny and Shania and their bub have eventually made something of themselves? A halfway decent,

  if often tough, existence. People do that, don’t they? They change and grow. They give life a go even if it’s a life many of us might shudder at.

  I’m closing the front door and locking it when the phone goes inside. The landline. I open up again, and rush to grab it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Denzel’s voice.

  ‘It’s me, Nick Chester. Where are you, Denzel? People are worried about you.’

  The phone clicks and hums. Why would he be ringing Johnny Fernandez? He knows he’s dead. It must be Shania
he wants to talk to. There’s something she knows or can do for him. I call Detective Maxwell and tell him what’s just happened.

  ‘Yeah, weird,’ he agrees.

  ‘Maybe I could talk to Shania, try and find out what it might be about?’

  ‘Not a good idea, mate. She’s a victim of crime and you’re suspended.’

  ‘Not fully. Talk to DI Keegan. If she clears it, you’re covered.’ He does and a few minutes later he calls back with the address of Shania’s mum in Seddon. Back to earthquake central. I thank him.

  ‘No worries. DI Keegan and I agree, if there’s any wild-goose chases then you’re the best man for them: resource and cost neutral.’

  ‘So I can’t claim the petrol and a pie for lunch?’

  ‘Yeah, nah, sorry.’

  Shania’s mum lives in a cute weatherboard place on the outskirts of Seddon. It’s well-kept, the lawn is mowed, and there are flowers here and there. I begin to see where the halfway respectable flourishes at Johnny’s house have come from. Shania’s mother seems an open and good-hearted woman, forgiving of her daughter’s flirtation with the dropkick end of town.

  ‘Lovely accent you have, Geordie isn’t it?’ I nod confirmation. ‘Had a fling with a boy from Newcastle when I was young. He was very funny and surprisingly good in bed.’

  ‘I’m from Sunderland meself. Good in bed? Newcastle? You sure?’

  She chuckles. ‘Shania’s out back with the bub. Go through. Tea, coffee?’

  ‘Tea’d be great, thanks.’ On the back verandah Shania is breastfeeding the toddler and modestly pulls a blanket up at my approach. I introduce myself.

  ‘Yeah, I remember. You’re the one that found Johnny.’

  I ask how she’s going and she says not bad considering she’s been widowed at the age of eighteen. There’s a toughness about her, but it’s not bitter. She doesn’t embrace victimhood or seem to be at the mercy of tempestuous fate. Mum appears with the beverages and leaves us in peace, and Shania switches the child over to the other breast.

  ‘I was at the house this morning, taking a look around.’ Shania doesn’t question it, she assumes that because I’m a cop I can do exactly that. ‘The phone rang while I was there. I’m pretty sure it was a kid called Denzel, Denzel Haruru. Know him?’

  ‘Yeah, he and Johnny were mates when they were kids.’

  ‘Have you seen him recently?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I’d never heard of him until about maybe a month ago. Then he was round our place a few times after that. He was working further down the valley, at the alpaca place.’

  ‘Did you talk to him, or do you know what he and Johnny talked about when they were together?’

  She tilts her head at the toddler. ‘I was usually getting dinner together or feeding her. They laughed, talked about old times, trouble they used to get into. Smoked some dope. Drank some beer.’

  ‘Nothing specific come to mind? Nothing you wouldn’t have expected to hear?’

  ‘No, what’s this about?’

  I tell her about the alternative theory on Johnny’s death. That it wasn’t drug-related, nor was it tied into old grudges with Gary Farr and North Island gangs.

  ‘Those kid murders? No way.’

  ‘It’s a possibility we’re exploring. He might have known somebody who had or has a link to them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Exactly. Did Johnny mention anything to you, anything about people from his past?’

  ‘Nah. All he had was schemes about how to score the next lot of easy money. Never ever came to anything.’ There’s a look in her eye, opaque.

  ‘Except?’

  ‘Except he heard about some cop that he used to know, dying down in Kaikōura. He said it gave him some ideas about where to get a few bucks for next year’s firewood.’

  I wait but there’s no more. ‘That’s it? Nothing else?’

  ‘Another easy money scheme.’ She tears up, extracts the bairn from her nipple, rearranges her clothing.

  ‘Denzel would have known about Johnny dying, so I’m thinking he must have been ringing you instead. Any idea what about?’

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  I’m obliged to leave it there and believe her. But there’s something she’s holding back. Shania takes the toddler to her bed and Mum shepherds me towards the front door. ‘It’s a blessing in disguise,’ she murmurs. ‘I have my daughter back. Now we can start over.’

  What was Denzel after? He’s afraid and in hiding. He needs something that he thinks will protect him. Johnny kept guns on the property even though he shouldn’t have with so many infringements against his name. Did Denzel want more firepower than his one-shot crossbow? If so, he could probably have just gone up there, broken into the shed and taken something. Or did he believe that Johnny held some other talisman that would protect him from evil spirits?

  I’m driving through Blenheim and the petrol light has come on, so I stop to fill up. Is Denzel in danger? If Shania is now the holder of the talisman that got Johnny killed, is she also in the line of fire? Two blocks away from where I stand, Deborah Haruru, Prince’s mother, is still recovering from an overdose that she didn’t take. Her mind and memory are on the mend and she has given us the lead on the McCormack car that drove by the marae a week before her son was taken. Surely she is still in peril? I ignore the warning sign about mobiles and petrol tanks and call the iwi home, asking after her.

  ‘Yeah, she’s good,’ says the warden. ‘Good enough to move on soon. Plenty of people lining up for a spot here, unfortunately.’

  I thank her. A car horn toots. Someone wants me to get a move on. ‘In a hurry? The petrol only pumps as fast as the machine lets it.’

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he says. ‘The policeman.’

  I recognise him too. It’s McCormack’s lawyer, Latifa’s tutor, Sebastian Ryan: in the job just nine months according to the personnel files. Unfortunately he’s not on our shortlist of four as he really does deserve a going over with a telephone directory to the kidneys. ‘Not at work today? You’re a long way from Nelson.’

  ‘None of your business, I’m afraid.’ He smiles falsely and thumbs at the next car behind him. ‘There’s a queue forming.’

  Those class-war hackles of mine are on the rise again. Us and them. The Shanias and Deborahs and Denzels of this world, we can’t take all of them into protective custody. I study Ryan in my rear view. The best thing is for us to lock Richard McCormack away, quick smart. Lock him away so tightly that all the money and the best lawyers in the world can’t get him out again.

  In my absence, Latifa is ensconced with Traffic Man again.

  ‘Get me out of here,’ she pleads quietly into the phone. ‘Before he drags his brain out through his nostril.’

  We arrange to meet up in the Havelock Town Cafe where I order a flat white and a chunk of rocky road while I’m waiting. Some backpackers are there stretching out their drinks while they access the free wi-fi. I think about the German brothers, about whether their careers as assassins have recovered from the early setback. I think about that helicopter floating up through the valley, following the path of the river to our house. I think about Sammy Pritchard and try to recall whether or not, behind the badness, he was an honourable man. But then he has profited hugely from trading in human misery; what do I expect? No. It’s paranoia, nothing more. But with good reason, people have been dying around me. Axes, claw hammers. I’m wading through a gore fest. Who wouldn’t be jittery?

  Latifa interrupts my dark reverie by taking a bite out of my rocky road. ‘Yeah, I’ll have one of those and an L&P.’

  I go to the counter and place the order. ‘Any news on Denzel?’ I ask on my return.

  ‘Nothing. Uncle Walter is getting frantic, ringing me every half hour. None of the mates or family knows anything.’

  I tell her about the phone call at Johnny Fernandez’s house and about my subsequent visit to Shania in Seddon.

  She rips open her L&P and gulps down the sugary water. ‘F
or somebody who’s suspended, you’re putting yourself about a bit.’

  ‘It’s this or twiddling my thumbs at home.’ Which reminds me, I need to clean out the chook shed at some point and feed everybody, livestock included. I talk to her about my underlying concern: Denzel, Beth, Deborah, all of those Harurus theoretically in danger. Should we be looking after them more?

  ‘Denzel’s taken matters into his own hands. Deb’s in the halfway house and their security has improved since last time. Beth’s big and ugly enough to look after herself and Peter’s no shrinking violet when it comes to the biff.’ She polishes off her rocky road and casts covetous glances at mine. ‘Maybe you should add yourself to the list. You’d have to be getting up his nose more than anyone.’ She makes a grab for my slice but I’m too quick. ‘Speaking of noses, I’d better get back to my colleague in the office.’

  Her phone goes and from her face I can tell it’s not good news. ‘Shots fired out on the Sounds. Patrick Smith’s place.’

  I shouldn’t be here but nobody was going to stop me. Traffic Man never gave me a second glance. Initiative isn’t his strong point: infringements and road rules are his world; people are complicated. We’ve commandeered a boat from the marina and Traffic Man is driving. The wind has picked up, as it often does on the Sounds, but it’s a much nicer day than the last time I was here. Even from a distance, we can see that there’s quite a commotion around Patrick Smith’s place, both on and off the water. The AOS ninjas are on their way by helicopter; they’re probably getting a bit sick of Patrick Smith by now. Join the queue.

  Two vessels are moored to Smith’s jetty–Patrick’s new boat, Caravaggio II, and another containing four men: Uncle Walter and three young sturdy blokes from the marae. The boys in the marae boat are shouting and swearing but they’re not game to get up onto the jetty. The reason is that Patrick stands above them with his gun aimed. The one I approved the licence for. Patrick’s orange tent is pegged just along from the jetty with the fly flapping in the wind. He has a table and chair set up outside with another for his stove and a tarp rigged over the top for shelter. There’s a figure sitting glumly in the camp chair.