True Stars

by Kidman, Fiona

  ‘It was best that you didn’t come.’

  ‘She mattered more than he ever did. In fact, I mean, you know, I ask myself, did he ever, though it seemed so clear at the time. It was all such a long time ago.’ The sea in Evans Bay was bleak. Windsurfers fluttered on the waves, breaking the grey surface. ‘It’s hard to walk away from mistakes. I’d like to have got closer to Sarah, d’you know? We were friends in that tidy suburban way that pushes everything under the rug, but it never went far enough. I wish she was my friend now.’

  ‘She didn’t go to the funeral either.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. So what did Toni leave for me, a pair of his unwashed socks? Surely Sarah could have had those.’ Her laughter sounded like a dog bark to him.

  ‘Rose, stop.’

  The coffee cup rattled in her hand against the saucer. Not for the first time the foolishness of their lives struck her. She could see how their group had turned in on itself. They hadn’t achieved what they had hoped. In the end they were devouring one another. She tried to see them as they all saw themselves in 1981, but it was like looking at a blank screen. At last she wanted to cry for Toni, but she was afraid Nick would think it was for herself.

  ‘So what is this about anyway?’

  ‘All right then. You remember giving Toni the time sheets you’d kept on your caller?’

  ‘No, not that, I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘Please. Just for a minute. I might be able to help.’

  ‘All right. But I don’t think anyone can.’

  ‘You know I’d been feeding the computer for the electoral rolls?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Toni asked me to help her do an AI.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Computerspeak for artificial intelligence. She knew more about computers than she let on. AI’s a bit crude — the computer doesn’t actually think for you, but it does help to sort out your ideas and set up a path, or a number of paths that you can explore. It sorts out possibilities, if you like.’

  ‘That’s what she showed me when she came here?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What my investigator calls critical path analysis?’

  ‘Quite. After she’d seen you, we began to take it further. We made a complete list of each person who worked within a ten-street radius of Power Street. These are what I did.’ He opened his briefcase and produced sheets of computer paper. ‘Then we tried to match them alongside the people you might know.’ He took an envelope out of the briefcase and opened it. Lists emerged, written in Toni’s elegant old-fashioned copperplate which had always amazed Rose. It was headed up ‘Known’, ‘Probably Known’, ‘Maybe’.

  ‘That means, “known” to you, of course. The bottom of the scale is “maybe” because in a sense you know everyone in Weyville because you’ve lived there all your life and she hadn’t. Then there’s a list of ticks, indicating the ones that are shift workers. None of the shift workers get past “probably known” — to you, that is, meaning they’ve been Party supporters, they’ve come to functions, things like that, but not people we thought you’d know really well. But it doesn’t eliminate them. After awhile, gaps began to show up. There were gaps in the Power Street roll, for instance, that we couldn’t work out.’

  ‘This is where the telephone box is, the one where they traced the call?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I told her it wouldn’t be anyone in that street. He’d have been caught when the police put a watch on the phone box if he lived in the area.’

  ‘Are you sure they watched it, or were they just humouring you?’

  ‘Surely they wouldn’t do that?’

  ‘The police are too busy to take harassment seriously. The chances are, they looked sympathetic and did sweet f.a.’

  ‘Campbell seems all right. He’s been kind.’

  ‘So I gathered. I wondered why. It took me a long time to work it out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because kindness was all he could offer you. Let me take you a bit further. After that call was traced, didn’t your caller start ringing mostly in the middle of the night?’

  ‘That’s right. Because they don’t monitor in the middle of the night unless it’s life and death, it costs too much. And nobody’s ever been certain that I was telling the truth. It always happened when Kit was away.’

  ‘Do you realise what you just said? Look, how did the person know that the trace was on your phone?’

  ‘I suppose … well, I did suppose, because you can sort of tell. You hear clicks on the line. So if you’re watching out for them, you know.’

  ‘All right, but if your caller was afraid he was being watched, would he have known that the trace was taken off at nights?’

  ‘Well, it depends on who he is.’

  ‘Exactly. It’s somebody who knows about these things. And it’s somebody who always knew when Kit was away.’

  ‘So it’s someone close to me. That’s been obvious for ages. Look Nick, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there’s more than one of these people.’

  He looked crestfallen. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s not what you thought when you told Toni about it.’

  ‘Well. I thought it was one. But I know differently now.’

  Nick reflected on this information. ‘All the same, short of your immediate family, who knew just when Kit came and went?’

  ‘There were a number of you in the Party who were close to us. You, Harry, Matt, usually Toni herself, which meant Lyle too even though he wasn’t what you’d call in the Party. Only of course, it’s neither of them. It’s happened since … well, you know …’

  ‘Since you came back?’

  ‘Last night. Long story.’ Rose shuddered.

  ‘No wonder … well, you don’t look great.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Briefly, she told him what had happened the night before. He listened intently.

  ‘I swear there has to be more than one of them,’ she said when she had finished. ‘It changes things, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know. One person behind it, perhaps?’

  ‘That’s possible.’ She rubbed her hands across her eyes. ‘It’s true it felt like one person up until last night.’

  ‘Let’s go back to thinking of it as one person for the moment.’

  ‘To fit your theory?’

  ‘It’s too good a theory to give up. It doesn’t wipe out what we discovered.’ He looked grim. ‘Bear with me a bit longer?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, you’re right, that we’d narrowed the range. But what would any of us be doing in Power Street in the middle of the night, often night after night? I mean, we’d have done it from somewhere more convenient, closer to home.’

  ‘He’s rung in the daytime too.’

  ‘But always in batches of time. At certain times?’

  ‘I knew it had to be a shift worker, yes. I did wonder quite a lot about Matt. Or Hortense, for that matter, if it was a woman. Oh cancel that, I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘I could have, I suppose. But it seems unconvincing.’

  ‘You see, we were looking for one perfect profile. Somebody who always knew where you were. One person who could be everywhere and not be noticed. The same person had to understand what made people frightened. Calling at your house and cutting your dog’s throat, throwing paint stripper over your car, throwing things at your house, making phone calls from telephone boxes. Perhaps he didn’t do it all himself but he had to have the capacity to do it if he needed to. That’s one person at work, I’m sure. After all, he turned up in Wellington. Surely a whole gang of them didn’t turn up here together?’

  ‘They could have. Kids on the move.’

  ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Because …’ He balled up his hands, impotent to make her understand. ‘They wouldn’t h
ave all that information that I’ve just been talking about. It’s too sophisticated.’

  ‘All right. So what? Tell me who it is.’

  ‘Wait. Toni and I went over and over it. We spent so much time going through the rolls that Morris got jealous. Of me, for God’s sake.’ He gave himself a downward deprecatory glance. ‘He started going on at her about it.’

  ‘Was that how Lyle found out?’

  ‘Oh God no, somebody told him.’

  ‘Nice of them.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. But it did make Toni look differently at Morris, him carrying on about me. It was so kind of … silly.’

  ‘So was it still on between them when Lyle killed her?’

  ‘No. Pretty wasted effort. If you see what I mean. Except I think she’d had all of them, so she’d have left Lyle anyway. She was planning to move out for awhile and sort something out. She rang the afternoon she died and said she couldn’t do any more, but she’d give me all the information we’d collected and I should get it from her as soon as possible because she might go away. She was very nervous. She had the idea that her phone was being tapped. Everything had got to her, much the same way as it had got to you. And Lyle was always lurking round listening to her phone calls as well.’

  ‘Poor Toni.’

  ‘Yeah, that doesn’t say half of it.’ His glasses misted over and he was silent.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ he said, ‘as far as your mystery caller was concerned, I thought I had every house matched — but there’s always the chance of one or two slipping through. Somebody converts a few rooms into a flat and the tenant doesn’t register on the roll and you’ve got a mystery spot. There isn’t a record of where every person in the country lives, it simply doesn’t exist. You can get close but not that close. And it’s a long time between census counts.’

  ‘I know. Remember how we canvassed people who swore they were Labour one week and the next week you had the dogs on you because tenants had shifted or a house got sold?’

  ‘All of that. Well, Toni went out canvassing in Power Street.’

  ‘Off her own bat? It’s out of her area.’

  ‘She wanted to check the register. She only called where there were gaps.’

  ‘She did that for me?’

  ‘And she found a place just like the one I’ve described. It’s just rooms really, at the back of a house, not even a flat. The woman who owned the place wouldn’t tell her who lived in them, she said the tenant had very important work and didn’t want his identity revealed. But she told her one thing, just before she threatened to call the police — she said it was no use coming round here looking for him because he worked odd hours.’

  Rose glanced through the names on Toni’s list again, nodding, paused, her finger stopping at a circled entry with a red exclamation mark alongside it. In the next room Sharna was stirring.

  ‘And this one has the shift worker in the rooms at the back of the house?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘It says “Maybe”?’

  ‘She had an idea. I did another print-out of the area by occupation.’

  ‘You could do that?’

  ‘A hack-out. Oh never mind. Look, I don’t know for sure … I might still be pissing in the wind.’

  ‘Nick, please.’

  ‘I think a cop lives there.’

  In the stillness of the room, she thought, It has to be.

  ‘Turn the list over, Rose. I nearly lost that bit of paper when the cops had it. They held it in their hands but they never turned it over.’

  Lightly pencilled on the back of the list were the words: ‘Shift worker absent on leave in Wellington, July 9 — 20.’

  ‘Does it tie in?’

  ‘I’ve got the dates written down somewhere. I think that’s about the time I got pestered after I came down here.’

  ‘That’s what I expected.’

  She said, ‘He wouldn’t have had a typewriter when he came to Wellington.’ It sounded stupid, ordinary. She couldn’t think of what else to say. She shook her head, dazed. ‘How would she have found out these dates, d’you think?’

  ‘She bought a lot of dresses.’

  ‘Dresses?’

  ‘Sergeant Campbell’s wife runs the dress shop. She knows when everybody takes leave.’

  ‘My God. Lola Campbell. So Toni probably knew who it was, as well.’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘Why didn’t she tell you straight away?’

  ‘Because of being scared about the phone. She would have told me that night when I collected the envelope.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who it is, Rose?’

  Glimpses, so quick that they seemed almost subliminal, switched on and off in her brain.

  ‘Oh yes. It’s Teddy O’Meara, of course.’ She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t seen it right away. ‘Every shift, coming and going, he went to that phone box. All that time.’ She shook her head, trying to clear it of what she saw. ‘He was supposed to be helping me. Oh, Nick, how could he have done it?’

  Beneath the glitzy towers that line Lambton Quay marched the Weyville protesters. It was a curious assembly. When the people piled out of the buses it felt as if there was a crowd of them, but against the new buildings and the high glass walls they appeared just a handful. A small group at the front carried a banner protesting mining rights in the reserve, which was what the march was supposed to be about, then there was a crowd of farmers, the ones who had set out earlier in the year and never made it, and behind them a group of the unemployed who fitted the same description, and behind that a larger group of people who had lost their jobs since then.

  Nobody paid them much attention, although a couple of tomatoes had been lobbed at the front of the march near Kirkcaldie and Stains and a few motorists banked up down Grey Street sat honking.

  Those of the marchers who had not visited Wellington for some time gazed up in wonder at the high empty rooms that flanked the street, wondering where the people were who were supposed to occupy so many of the buildings.

  ‘No mining rights, leave our trees, keep out blights,’ yelled the first group. ‘Jobs, we want jobs,’ the tail end of the march was chanting.

  ‘Get your act together,’ a bystander shouted.

  ‘Make up your minds.’

  ‘Get back to work.’

  ‘It’s all right for you jokers,’ Henare Muru shouted, but it wasn’t and he earned an egg for it.

  Sharna was enjoying the ride in her pushchair. For the first time since Rose had taken charge of her she was laughing, in little yelping grunts. Nick pushed her along, dodging ruts in the street.

  ‘You’re doing a great job,’ Rose panted, half running to keep up with him.

  ‘Great kid.’ Sharna gazed up at him with adoring eyes. It had been love at first sight of his hand-painted tie.

  Behind them the crowd was beginning to swell. Bystanders were coming off the pavement and getting mixed up with them, apparently not caring much what the demonstration was about. It was a long time since Rose had marched; the sight of the police coming towards her made her stomach lurch for an instant, but smiling and courteous they directed the group to the side of the road to let traffic edge past and seemed not to notice them unduly, or if they did, not to care about their presence.

  ‘Why O’Meara? Why would he have done it?’ she said, jogging along beside the pushchair. Nick appeared oblivious of the crowd, he was enjoying the laughing child so much.

  He looked round them briefly. ‘Think about it,’ he said.

  It was almost as if he had forgotten about O’Meara. But she couldn’t. Nothing could alleviate the sense of rage and betrayal she felt.

  Outside Parliament ropes had been slung up hurriedly to keep the group off the courtyard. The group was cantering now, hardly believing that this was the last obstacle.

  And it wasn’t. The police appeared in a steady stream from the side entrance and formed a phalanx acr
oss the steps.

  ‘We want Kendall, give us Kendall,’ the marchers shouted.

  He emerged at last, a thin tired man with a greying beard whom Rose hardly recognised, although it was less than two days since he had walked out of the flat leaving her behind with Larissa and the fish and chips. At his side stood Harry Ryan, apparently still the loyal lieutenant. Matt Decker followed a few paces behind, not aligning himself with Kit, even though he advanced with the group.

  Kit raised the megaphone. ‘Friends, welcome to Wellington,’ he cried, his voice crackling through the spring afternoon.

  A wild hoot of laughter greeted him.

  ‘Where’re your Cabinet colleagues? Have they left you to carry the can?’

  ‘What about the mining rights? The bush belongs to us.’

  ‘I’ll be happy to meet a group of you inside Parliament Buildings to discuss any concerns you have. There should be no more than four in the group.’ His words frayed.

  ‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.’ The farmers took up voice against him.

  ‘What about New Zealand? New Zealand belongs to us. What have you done to New Zealand? Sold it out to foreigners. Well you can’t have bloody Weyville so easily.’ Henare Muru’s voice carried above the megaphone. One of the protesters started banging a kettle drum and the lone representative of the Weyville Pipe Band screeched into life, playing a dirge.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Kit tried to shout above the racket, ‘the decisions are not mine, I can only represent your concerns.’

  ‘Yes, but are you going to?’ Nick called back through cupped hands. Rose grabbed the handle of the pushchair.

  Kit looked straight at Nick, and at her. He lowered the megaphone, handing it to Harry with a muttered aside, and turned abruptly on his heel.

  Harry raised the megaphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ His voice trembled and he was greeted with jeers. ‘Mr Kendall … Kit says he’s got nothing to say to you until you’re prepared to talk sense to him.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to get into the march, Kit. It was just happening.’ Rose was drinking tea in his office and trying to feed Sharna a bottle at the same time. She thought that the child should be doing more for herself.