by Denis Martin
We reached the top and Kat stopped to do some stretches. And to let me get my breath back, I suspected gratefully. I plonked myself down on the lookout bench, watching her. “What’s the tattoo?” I asked. “The one behind your ear?”
She was doing sit-ups, but stopped suddenly, turning side on so I couldn’t see it. Then she reached up and flicked the band off her ponytail, letting her hair fall over her shoulders. “It’s not a tattoo. It’s a birthmark.” Her voice was uneven, brittle.
“And don’t you like it?” Something was wrong, and I wasn’t sure what to say. So I decided on the truth. “I thought it looked neat … cool. Suits you.”
She didn’t answer. Sat there staring at her feet, chewing at her lower lip. That lip always got a pounding when she was upset. “No,” she said at last, still speaking strangely. “I’m … I’m sensitive about it. Don’t like anyone seeing it. Okay?”
“Yeah, course.” Couldn’t work out what was going on, but I knew there was more to it than she was telling me. “Is that why you always have your hair down?”
She nodded, still working away at her lip.
“Well, I’m not going to tell anyone about it. Promise. But I meant what I said – I like it.”
She began getting up. “Let’s get going.”
“Can I see it?”
She was on her feet now, her back to me, body rigid. Frozen. She stayed like that for ages – several seconds. I couldn’t see her face. Then she lifted one hand and pulled her hair aside. She wouldn’t look at me though. Just stood there, and I realised she was trembling. It was a birthmark all right – a dark kidney shape about the size of my big toe. Against the natural tan of her skin, I thought it was beautiful. But I was wild with myself too. I’d really upset her and there’d been no need. Anyone with half a brain would’ve backed off.
So what was I going to do now?
I wanted to put my arms around her, to stop her trembling. I wanted to touch that beauty spot, to rub my thumb over it and somehow make it better, to make her feel better about it. I wanted … but then my tiny brain kicked in. And for once I quit while I was ahead.
She dropped her hand, letting her hair fall back into place, and I saw some of the tension go out of her shoulders. But still her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. We hardly spoke on the downhill run. I could tell she was troubled, her mind grappling with something I didn’t understand – though she didn’t seem mad at me. When the path widened on the lower slopes she moved over so we could run side by side.
Eventually, the walking track joined the road and we spread ourselves even wider, Kat running in one wheel rut with me in the other, a rough strip of weeds and grasses between us. She was still deep in thought and it made me uncomfortable. Causing her grief was the last thing I wanted.
Finally, I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Kat,” I blurted, “can we stop for a bit? I want … I need to talk.”
“And you can’t talk when you’re running?” She glanced across at me.
“No, not this kind of talk. Please?”
We had almost reached the valley flats now where the bush gave way to farmland, and she pulled up beside a wooden gate leading into a paddock on our right. She leaned her back against it, spreading her arms along the top rail and turned to me. A nod invited me to speak – her eyes and her frown warned me to choose my subject carefully.
Still breathing heavily, I looked at her for a moment. Wondered how to start. I had to say something. “Hey … I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on. When we stopped up there,” I pointed vaguely back the way we’d come, “I upset you. Didn’t mean to, but I know I did. I’m really sorry.”
She was staring at me, still grappling with something in her mind. At last she spoke. “It’s okay. I’m just a bit mixed up. Not your fault. Forget it.”
Forget it? How could I? There was something else I wanted to say too. She hadn’t wanted to show me that birthmark. It was something she kept hidden. It had stressed her something awful, but she had shown it to me. She’d trusted me enough to let me see it. And it made me feel special. In a way, I wanted to thank her – only somehow I couldn’t.
Kat smiled, but it was a thin and desperate thing. “D’you want to walk the rest of the way? Not far to go.”
“Fine. Suits me.”
I could see the entrance to her place across the paddock from where we were standing. A black four-wheel drive was parked in the shade of some cabbage trees not far from her letterbox.
“You got visitors?” I asked.
“What?” She whirled, peering over the gate, and I saw her fingers suddenly clench, a white-knuckled grip on the top rail. But only for an instant. Then she backed away, dropping into the roadside ditch behind a clump of flax. She was pale and her eyes were searching mindlessly. “Shit,” she muttered, fumbling for her mobile in the zip pocket of her trackies. “Get out of sight.”
“What’s the …?” I began, and then stopped, crouching beside her. “You won’t get a signal here. Not in the valley.”
She didn’t answer. Intent on the phone, thumb working feverishly. “Shit,” she repeated, and then looked up at me, trembling. Her eyes were usually hard to read but this time they were screaming. And the message was fear – she was scared out of her wits. “Can I come with you? To your place? I need to use the phone.”
“Yeah, course you can. But why?” Again I stopped. She’d tell me in her own time.
“We’ve got to stay out of sight. Cut through the swamp there and then follow the mangroves upstream till we get to your place. Don’t let them see us.”
I didn’t argue. Whatever or whoever was in that four-wheel drive had well and truly thumbed her panic button. And her fear made me scared too. Really scared.
CHAPTER TEN
The MX-5 wasn’t in the carport, and I cursed inwardly. There’s never an adult around when you need one. Something was terribly wrong, and I wanted Dad to be home.
I pointed Kat towards the phone in the hall and tried to listen from the next room. She spoke much too quietly for that, so I was still in the dark. If I was going to find out what was going on, I’d have to wait until she told me. If she told me.
After she’d put the phone down she followed me through to my bedroom. It felt strange having her there, though it didn’t seem to faze her. The spare bed was a dog’s breakfast of dirty clothes, and I shunted some of them aside to make room. She sat down and I perched opposite, on my own bed. She seemed to have recovered a bit – still uptight, but not quite so jumpy.
“Can I wait here for Blissy? For Mum? She said she’d pick me up here.”
“Yeah, of course.” I was trying to catch her eye, but she was gazing around the room nervously. “How about telling me what’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” At last her eyes settled on me but they looked numb, and she was nodding as if trying to make up her mind. Her bottom lip was clenched between her teeth. “You don’t want to know. Honest.”
You don’t want to know. That might’ve been true a couple of weeks ago, but not any more. I’d sucked myself right into it. “For God’s sake, Kat. You’re frightened as hell. And that’s making me scared. You’ve gotta tell me something.” I was pleading.
There was a long silence. Finally, I broke the deadlock. “I’ve got no idea who they are, but do you want me to go and see if they’re still there? Should be able to see that bit of the road from the bush line behind the cottage.”
She stared at me for a moment, still thinking, and then nodded. “Yeah, good idea. I’ll come with you.”
The four-wheel drive wasn’t there. I could practically feel Kat’s relief, but then we saw it again. It emerged from the bush further up the road, not far from the gate we’d been standing beside when I’d first seen it. We watched as it headed slowly back in our direction, stopping short of the bridge that linked our side of the valley with the main road. A Pajero, and there seemed to be two people in it. They waited there for maybe a minute, only a couple of hundred met
res beyond Kat’s place. Then they turned across the bridge and accelerated onto the main road, disappearing from sight up the valley towards Tairua.
“Well, they’ve gone,” I breathed, “whoever they are. You gonna tell me about it?”
“Nothing to tell.” She paused, frowning. “It’s just … There was a guy back in Australia. And he was pestering Blissy … Mum … and we’re a bit worried he might’ve followed her over here.”
“Is that why you came here? To get away from him?”
“No, not really.” She lowered her eyes, and I knew I wasn’t going to get much more out of her.
“But there were two of them in that Pajero.”
“Yes. It probably wasn’t him at all. Probably just some developer looking for a bit of cheap land.”
“And where does the bloke in the Ford fit in? The one who was following you?”
“He doesn’t.” She hesitated. “I told you, he’s a cop. And he wasn’t following me.”
I knew she was lying, but didn’t say anything. Better to keep my mouth shut.
We made our way back to the cottage. I found some juice in the fridge and poured a couple of glasses. She nodded her thanks but wouldn’t sit down. Took her drink over to the window, staring out. But there was nothing out there.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, watching her. “When are you expecting her?” I asked.
“Anytime now,” she said, turning away from the window and lowering herself onto the bay seat. My old acoustic guitar was leaning against the wall and she picked it up, idly running her thumb over the strings. It was well out of tune, and she began tweaking the E string, head tilted, listening. Then she stopped, shaking herself like someone surfacing from a dream. “Sorry,” she said, putting the guitar aside. “Pretty rude, eh? You don’t go round tuning other people’s instruments.”
I grinned. She could tune my instrument anytime she wanted. But it was good to see her worrying about something other than black four-wheel drives and strange men. “Help yourself. It’s miles out of tune. So Jed was right.”
“Jed? How do you mean?”
“He told me you had a guitar. Maybe we oughta have a jam session sometime.”
She looked puzzled, but there was a touch of anger too. “How would he know?”
“Doesn’t matter. He just said he’d seen a guitar at your place. Thought it was yours.” I picked up my guitar and handed it back to her. “You gonna finish tuning it?”
She stared at me for a second without answering, and then continued adjusting the strings. “I don’t really play it,” she said. “Just a few chords.”
But that wasn’t what her fingers were telling me. She finished tuning it and then slid through a bluesy chord sequence. For someone with only the basics she wasn’t having too much trouble, playing bar chords with her hand wrapped around the neck like Jimi Hendrix. Using all five fingers.
“Why the hell didn’t you try out for the performance group?” I asked her. “What are you doing in the choir?”
She shrugged and turned towards the window.
Dad’s MX-5 was pulling into the driveway. Now that he’d finally turned up, I was wishing he’d left it a bit longer. Almost before he was out of the car, I saw Kat’s mum turning into the driveway behind him. She stopped her Subaru beside the little sports car. I’d never met her before, or even seen her close up, but I could see what Jed meant when he said she was filipticious. If I was twenty years older, I reckon I’d have been getting pretty excited too.
She introduced herself as Blissy, but she only stopped long enough to gather Kat up and depart. I had the impression she had a lot on her mind. Strange though – whoever Kat got her dark features from, it wasn’t her mum. Blissy was a blond, with blue eyes and a clear tan.
Dad moved back to his own car, wrestling with a stack of supermarket bags on the passenger seat. “D’you want to give us a hand with these?” Then he nodded towards the Subaru. It was just driving out onto the road. “What’s going on? They didn’t seem too happy.”
I stooped to pick up a couple of bags. “No, guess not.” Wasn’t quite sure what to say, but I told him about the four-wheel drive and how Blissy had told Kat to wait for her at our place.
“Hmmm,” he said darkly. “Sounds like maybe her creditors have caught up with her.”
“Creditors?”
“Debt collectors. If those guys were after Blissy, and she doesn’t want them to find her, I’d say she did a runner from Australia and left a mess of debts behind.” Then he smiled. “Nice-looking kid though.”
Kat, a nice-looking kid. I nodded.
She wasn’t at school next day and that really worried me. I knew something was wrong and kept picturing the fear on her face when she’d seen that black Pajero. I spent the whole day in a jumpy mood.
She was still on my mind when I reached home. Why hadn’t she been at school? What was wrong? I wanted to go and see her. Wanted to make sure she was all right. But I didn’t dare. I’d never actually been inside their place, and I wasn’t too sure of my welcome. I remembered the look in her eyes when I’d offered her help once before. When she was chundering her heart out on the foreshore after seeing that burnt-out car. Kat was a loner – she didn’t like other people nosing into her business.
At last I decided to grab my trainers and go for a run. There was a four-wheel drive track up the ridge behind our cottage, and I knew it passed close to the back of Kat’s place before twisting its way up to the tops. Jed had taken me up there on his motorbike not long after we’d arrived. Deep down I suppose I was hoping to bump into her or maybe catch a glimpse of her. But I knew it wasn’t likely.
The first part of the track was steep, really steep, and I’d slowed almost to a walk before I got close to where Kat lived. That was okay. The slower I went the more chance of seeing her. No luck though. I stopped on the track above her place. Stood there getting my breath back, and peered down through the trees. I could see the back of the cottage, everything in deep shadow except for a narrow strip of sunlight where a couple of towels hung from a clothes line. Apart from that, there was no sign of life.
I wanted to go down there – to see if Kat was home, to see if she was okay. Or just to see her. But I was too chicken, like a kid peering down from the high dive, scared to jump. I stood there for ages, letting my breath recover, imagining what she’d say. And it wasn’t just her anger that worried me. Kat was terrified of things I didn’t understand – and I was finding that really scary. Blissy’s car wasn’t down there, but I found myself scanning the whole area. Looking for a black Pajero or a dark green Ford.
For God’s sake, Cully. There’s nothing to be frightened of – except the shadows in your head. No Pajero, and no Ford. And anyway, you’re neighbours. Friends. She’s off school … sick, and you’re out for a run. Why shouldn’t you drop in to see how she is?
I could think of several reasons why I shouldn’t head down there, but finally I took a deep breath, blanked out my mind, and began scrambling towards the cottage. My heart was hammering out its own tune and my eyes were like butterflies, searching everywhere. I reached the yard and carried on before I lost my nerve. Skirted the clothes line and made for the back door. I knocked and then stepped back, listening. Nothing. No movement inside.
I wanted her to be home, but at the same time there was a sense of relief. It would be much easier if I didn’t have to explain why I was there. Not that I could’ve explained anyway, because I didn’t understand it myself. Kat was just a girl – a good looking one, but still just a girl – and I’d met plenty of those before. So how had she managed to take over my whole life like this? And why had I been so desperate for that to happen? Couldn’t understand it.
Steeling myself, I knocked again, but still there was no response. No sound from inside, and nothing moved. Not even the furtive twitching of a curtain.
The cottage was empty, and I was feeling more and more like an intruder – or even a prowler. I turned away across the yard and
scrambled back up to the track. A final glance behind me and then I carried on jogging, trying to make sense of things. There was no one inside the cottage. I was sure of that – so where was Kat? If she wasn’t at home sick, why hadn’t she been at school?
It was a long climb, but eventually, I reached the top and stopped to give my lungs a rest. The view was fantastic, out across the ridges to the sea and then to the offshore islands almost on the horizon. My eyes passed over it all, but hardly anything was registering in my head. Too full of other matters.
Deep down I’d known the cottage was empty – even before I’d gone down to knock on the door. Kat couldn’t have been home. Blissy’s car wasn’t there, and even if she was sick, there was no way Kat would’ve stayed in that cottage by herself. I remembered the terror in her eyes yesterday when she’d seen that four-wheel drive Pajero parked outside. So, where was she?
I set off again, back the way I’d come.
The going was much easier downhill, and I pushed myself, making good time. But when I’d almost reached Kat’s place again, I came to a slithering stop. A four-wheel drive wagon was parked on the side of the track above the cottage, almost hidden by surrounding bush. Not a black Pajero. This was a dark grey Toyota with tinted windows. It hadn’t been there earlier, and I didn’t recognise it. What was it doing there?
A door slammed at the cottage, and I parted the bushes at the edge of the track to peer over the bank. Still hoping to catch a glimpse of Kat. But there was something scary about that Toyota and the hairs on the back of my head were tingling. Why would anyone leave it there? And who?
I got the answer to that one almost straightaway. Blissy’s car was parked in the yard and she was standing with Kat outside the kitchen door, talking to a man. A big man with his back to me. And then he turned side on, and my pulse rate leaped right into the red zone.
It was Bullyboy. Kat’s phantom stalker.