Dead Shot

by Wendy M Wilson

  “Is Mette not here?”

  “I haven’t seen Mette since last Sunday,” said Maren, looking worried. “Did she not tell you where she was going?”

  Frank shook his head, wondering how much he should tell Maren. “She told Agnete she was coming out to see you two days ago…”

  “Two days ago? My God, Frank. Where is she?”

  “Were you away from the house the day before yesterday?”

  Maren’s face cleared. “Yes, of course. We went into Fielding to buy clothes for these two.” She gestured towards Agnete’s children. “They’re shooting up…”

  “Where would she go if you weren’t home?”

  “Well, she’d probably just wait for us,” said Maren. “At least for a little while. Or go back to Agnete’s place, although she doesn’t really like Agnete. She could have gone to the clearing…but there aren’t many people there she would know nowadays…she might not realize that.”

  Frank seized on that. “The clearing. Of course…that’s where she must have gone…”

  “Did you two have an argument?” asked Maren. “Why did she leave and not tell you where she was going?”

  “I was away,” said Frank. He saw Maren giving him a quizzical look and admitted, “We did have a small disagreement. Look Maren, I’m going to the clearing to see if she’s gone there. And after that I’ll go back to Ernest’s place and see what more Agnete has to say. I’m sorry to worry you…”

  “Let me know when you find her,” said Maren. “I’m sure she’s alright, but…”

  He rode away, thinking about the body beside the trap, and trying to believe that it had nothing to do with Mette. How had Paddy Boyle got into the pony trap…or had he? Was there some other reason that the body and the trap were in the same ditch? Had he kidnapped Mette and…no. She wouldn’t have shot Boyle at close range in the back of the head. She’d never even touched a gun. It was the kind of thing a gang would do. He had been killed by his own people for some reason.

  Another hour got him to the clearing. It was much as he remembered it. He’d seen Mette here two years ago for the first time, standing in the garden in front of what was then Maren and Pieter’s cottage. She was living in a lean to at the back of their cottage. Seeing her standing in the sun, laughing with her sister, had hit him like a bolt of lightning. Seeing the place where she used to live, now with a weedy garden and roof needing repair, hit him once more, but differently. He wished he could go back and do it all again, not wait to meet her but talk to her right in that instant.

  The other cottages in the clearing looked deserted, although one had some washing hanging in the back. He dismounted and knocked on the door. A sallow-faced woman who looked as if she wasn’t getting enough to eat came out and looked at him, saying nothing.

  “Good morning,” Frank said. “I’m looking for my…a young woman who used to live here…”

  The woman shrugged. “She doesn’t live here now - there are no young women living here. Just three families. Mine, the Mortensen’s, and the Jensen’s. A few of the cottages are used by single men from the saw mill from time to time.”

  “Who lives in that house,” said Frank, pointing to Pieter and Maren’s old cottage.

  “An old woman. Don’t see her about much. The children think she’s a witch. Nobody comes to see her…just people with washing for her.”

  She wasn’t here then. So where on earth was she?

  “She had a visitor yesterday,” said the woman suddenly. “A man on a horse.”

  “The old woman had a visitor?”

  “Yes. Then he left with a young woman…”

  Frank stopped himself from shaking her. “What young woman?”

  “Never seen her before. She was young, very light hair, tall…he took her off on his horse. He must have been her husband…she wasn’t too keen to go…”

  Frank was off his horse and running towards Pieter’s old cottage in an instant. He tore open the gate, which came off its hinges and raced to the front door. He hadn’t noticed before, but the front door was ajar. He hammered on it anyway, afraid to scare the old woman inside. When no one answered he pushed open the door and went inside. There were only two rooms: a sitting room and a bedroom. The bedroom door was closed, and he opened it, his heart pounding. Mette had left with a man on a horse. She was not in this bedroom. But he had a horrible feeling about the fate of the person who might be inside.

  He found the old woman. She was lying on the bed on her back, her eyes half open and bulging, her blackened tongue protruding between her lips. Approaching the bed he could tell by the angle of her head that her neck had been broken.

  “Is she dead?” said a voice behind him. The woman from the other cottage had followed him in.

  “Looks like it,” said Frank. “Which way did the man on the horse go when he left here?”

  She nodded towards the saw mill. “That way. Aren’t you going to get the police?”

  “I will,” said Frank. He was desperate to get moving, to chase after the man who had taken Mette. But he needed to make sure the woman was safe first. “Is your husband at the sawmill? Shall I send him home?”

  She nodded, biting her lip. “He won’t like it…he’ll lose pay…but his name is Mads. Tell him to come as soon as he can.”

  “I will,” he said. “I promise. Go into your house and stay there until Mads gets here. I’ll send the police from Palmerston. It may take some time…”

  “What are you going to do.”

  “I’m going to find my wife,” he said, hoping it was true. Who could have taken her? Was someone rescuing her from the old woman and taking her home? Seemed unlikely. But thinking of that, he turned and went back to the woman, who had not yet followed his suggestion to go inside, but was standing in her weedy garden watching him leave.

  “What did he look like, this man on the horse?”

  She thought about it for much too long. “Medium height, brown hair. About your age. Not dressed like a toff or anything. Tweed trousers with a leather vest. Shirt sleeves rolled up. He looked like a working man.”

  He had to be satisfied with that. She had narrowed it down to half the men in Palmerston. Not much to go on. He took off, trying to keep himself calm, not to let emotions overwhelm him. Mette’s life might depend on it.

  At the saw mill he stopped to alert Mads, speaking to the manager who reluctantly agreed to send Mads home. “Look,” he said. “A woman has been murdered - it’s the second murder victim I’ve seen today. You should close down the mill and send all the men home. You can’t leave the wives by themselves at times like these.”

  The manager sighed. “I suppose I should. They could probably make it up by working a full day on Saturday…”

  “Where does this track go?”

  “It splits a hundred yards on. One way goes to out to Longburn and Karere, the other to Awapuni and the race track. Awapuni is closer.”

  Frank was torn. Karere was where Bishop Monrad, the ex-premier of Denmark, had lived, and his son Viggo still lived there. Viggo Monrad had saved Pieter from the Armed Constabulary once, and he was a trusted man. Mette might have gone there on her own, especially if she was in trouble. But that didn’t take the ‘working man’ into account. If this whole thing was connected to racing she was more likely to have been taken to the race track. He could ask the stable hand who’d been working there earlier if he’d seen anyone suspicious.

  Once he reached the fork in the track he headed towards Awapuni. When he had checked out the race course and spoken to the stable hand he would go back to Ernest and Agnete’s place and see what they had to say. He hoped they had a good explanation for lying to him.

  16

  The Hut in the Woods

  Mrs. Gammel had been right about the number of people living in the clearing. Bernard dragged Mette out to his horse and no one came out to stop him even though she screamed as loudly as she could. A woman with two ragged children peered from the doorway of one of the cottages, a
nd then went back inside. Everything else in the clearing was still. If there were any men still living here they would be at work in the sawmill, and women who heard her would think first about protecting their children. She imagined women hiding inside their cottages, scared, wondering what was going on. She wouldn’t blame them for not coming out. She hoped Bernard had not seen the woman who did; he seemed intent on not leaving any witnesses.

  He threw her onto his horse and climbed on behind her in a mockery of her first encounter with Frank, when he had saved her from Anahera, the Maori rebel. She had been looking for food in the bush and had found a wild piglet. Then Anahera had appeared from nowhere and tried to take it from her. She had run from him and straight into Frank’s path. He was on horseback, and a tall dark man, and for a minute she had thought it was Anahera. But everything good in her life had come from that meeting. Why had she grown so worried about him saving her all the time? It seemed so foolish now, when she needed to be saved.

  Bernard settled himself behind her. “I wouldn’t scream again if I were you,” he said. “I’m staying off the main track, and if you cause me too much trouble I’ll hobble you and leave you in the woods. Behave yourself and you might see your husband again.”

  He slapped the horse on its rear and they took off on the track towards the saw mill. She knew the track passed close to the saw mill before it continued towards the race track, but it all went by too quickly; she bumped up and down and clung to the saddle, her arm throbbing. The sawmill was buzzing with activity; she saw men in the distance manning the giant saws, but no one close enough to help her.

  She had a quick glimpse of the race track through the trees, and after a few more minutes they stopped at a ramshackle hut in the woods. She guessed that they were on the far side of the track and about two hundred yards into the woods. If she could escape she would at least have somewhere to go. In spite of what he said about hobbling her and leaving her to die, she knew how to find her way home. She’d spent hours walking in the bush, understanding the position of the sun and the way the trees sat on the slopes. She didn’t dwell on his promise to hobble her, however. She couldn’t imagine how he would do that, and didn’t want to think about it.

  He jumped from the horse and dragged her down after him, paying no attention to how she landed. “Welcome home.”

  The hut had once been a home of sorts, built in the early days of the colony and long since abandoned; it was slowly returning to the bush, the wooden slats rotting, the roof caved in, and the windows filled with jagged, broken glass. But the windows also had wooden slats nailed across them as if to keep people out - freshly nailed wood by the look of it. The slats would also keep people in.

  He pushed her through the door and followed her in to the hut. “See this door? Solid Totara. Don’t think you’ll be able to force it open or break it. And if you can climb out through the roof, go ahead. It’s rotten and chances are you’ll fall and hurt yourself. You’ll lie on the ground with a broken back and die slowly.”

  “Are you going to leave me here?” asked Mette. She could feel her voice quivering and took a deep breath to calm herself. Would it be better if he was here, or if he left her by herself as night came? Of the two options it would be better to be alone.

  “Would you like me to stay?” he asked. He picked up a wooden plank and grinned. “Of course you wouldn’t. Don’t worry. You’re not my type. I prefer a woman with a bit of steel in her backbone. One who fights back.”

  “Will you come back…?”

  “Depends what your husband says. What do you think you’re worth to him?”

  “He has no money,” said Mette. “But I have twenty pounds…” She reached into her skirt pocket, but remembered she’d she spent some of the money to send Wiki to Foxton on the coach. “No, I have fifteen pounds…here…” She took it from her skirt pocket and held it towards him.

  He took it and tucked it into his trouser pocket. “Thanks luv. That will come in handy.”

  “But…but…” She knew it would be pointless, but she had to tell him. “I’m having a baby…can’t you understand…?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll keep that in mind to put some pressure on your husband. Thanks for telling me.”

  He left and she heard him drop the wooden plank across the door and knock it into place.

  She sat on the floor and cried. There was nothing else to do. She was locked in an old hut in the woods with no food or water. It was not cold yet, but it would get cold overnight and she had no way of keeping warm. If Frank was here he’d be looking for a way to escape or making himself a weapon out of a piece of glass, but she’d been through too much. She didn’t want to give up, but there didn’t seem to be any way out of this fix.

  Eventually she had no more tears. She sat on the floor holding her knees and wondering what she could do. She didn’t want to let Frank down by not being brave. She should at least find out what she could see through the window slats - maybe even consider climbing out through the roof. If Bernard had not left her here to die he would be coming back. And what might happen then terrified her. What if Frank couldn’t raise the money to pay a ransom? And was it just about a ransom, or was Ernest trying to get rid of her? What had Mr. Robinson said in the letter that had upset him so much?

  The window nearest to the door was not sheltered by the surrounding trees, and sunlight shafted through and sparkled in a muddy puddle left on the floor by the recent rainfall. What she could see through the gaps in the slats was not encouraging. A cluster of pine trees had grown around the pathway to the door, the branches reaching out and blocking the view of anyone passing on the track. Even if she spent all her time standing at the window, someone might ride past without her being able to alert him. The window at the back of the hut was completely blocked by dead trees and bushes.

  She inspected the roof carefully. Bernard had said she should not try to climb out that way, but why should she trust him? She should at least climb the wall and see if breaking through the roof was a possibility. Although she was nervous of heights, she had always been a good climber; as children she and her sister and brother were always dangling from tree branches pretending they were pirates.

  She reached through the broken glass, grabbed hold of one of the slats across the window and pulled herself up onto the sill. The sill was cracked and rotten, but she managed to balance on it by holding on to the frame. Her head was just below the level of the rafters and she could see they were as rotten as the window sill. But one looked a little less rotten. Leaning forward she got her hands around the beam and gradually let it bear her weight. It held her for a few minutes, but as she swung herself back to the sill there was a loud crack, and the rafter broke in half. She landed on her back on the floor; the beam hit the ground vertically, bounced, and fell across her chest.

  She lay under the beam for several minutes before she marshalled the strength to push at it. She managed to raise it a few inches, but then nothing. If she let it go it would fall back on her, and she was unable to move it sideways. She moved as best she could and let it fall on the least painful place, across her ribs.

  Unable to move, all she could hope for was that Bernard would come back and free her. She fell into a kind of trance, aware of where she was, but half believing she was somewhere else. She forced herself think about her life with Frank, how it had been so far, and how it would be in the future. She imagined the three of them - She, Frank, and their child - a boy - picking peas from the garden, or running up the hill to the blind in the high paddock. Frank was carrying the boy, who was laughing in delight as he bounced along in Frank’s arms.

  She heard the child ask if he could pick the mushrooms under the pine tree, and she replied, no, not if the mushrooms had red caps. Red caps grow under pine trees. Don’t eat them. Don’t even touch them. If they don’t kill you they’ll make you insane. She reached out her hand, trying to stop the boy from picking the red-capped mushrooms, her heart in her throat. Please. Please. Don’t p
ick those mushrooms.

  17

  The Pledge Tent

  The race course bustled with activity. The tent was now tethered in the centre of the paddock, panels drawn back showing the interior, where men were setting up chairs and signing tables on a canvas floor. The chairs faced a stage built from boards laid across bricks, and a woman in a striking red and black outfit paced the boards reading notes, her lips moving, her free hand making emphatic stabs. A pair of spectacles was perched on the end of her nose. She looked like a woman who could persuade people to sign the pledge. Ernest would be putty in her hands if he was involved in this campaign.

  Frank was curious. He’d assumed the person who primed the audience for the signing would be a man. “Who’s that?” he asked a worker carrying a table top across the canvas floor to place on top of two wooden horses.

  “Sister Patterson,” said the man. “Best elocutionist in New Zealand. And you should hear her sing. Breaks your heart. She’ll get ‘em signing. You should come…you’ll be wearing a blue ribbon before the night is out, I promise…”

  “Doubtful,” said Frank. “But I won’t be coming tonight. Right now I’m looking for a stable hand I ran into this morning.”

  “Don’t see too many stable hands in ‘ere,” said the man. He let the table rest on its end and looked around. “Not that you can tell. There’s a few working men, but they all look about the same. But more likely he’d be in the stables, wouldn’t you say?”

  He left the tent and went across to the stable. Two men he knew from the racing world were having an intense discussion outside. They greeted him with nods.

  “Afternoon Sergeant Hardy,” said one. “Could you settle a disagreement for us? The jockey club has made an application to the stewards of the Wellington Jockey Club to legalize the use of the totalisator in Feilding. Mr. Weber here says the totalisator is…”