And then he spied, wedged under the canvas thing, another item, a plastic capsule. Small and light. Brightly colored. He pecked at it hesitantly, probed it with his tongue. He picked it up in the claws of one foot, but as he launched from the ledge into the sky, a strap dangling from the object snagged on a rock and jolted it from his grip.
His lost prize spiraled down and down into the valley below, fluttering fluoro yellow for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine seconds. It hit a boulder with such force that it instantly snapped the pin obstructing its activating mechanism, a pin so carefully inserted many weeks ago by a saboteur with dreadlocks.
And it skittered and banged and came to rest wedged among rocks, its radio signal winking into life, its strobe lights flashing and flashing and flashing at the big empty sky so far above.
***
It wasn’t that she saw water. The terrain here didn’t allow for that. But what she did see was a widening of the sky to the east. For days, they’d seen nothing but mountains in every direction, lurking in groups, jostling for a better look at the Lost. Crowding around, obstructing their view, tripping them up at every opportunity. But now, pausing on the brow of a hill as she brought up the rear, Callie could see a gap ahead, narrow but definite. An absence of mountains.
It had to be the lake.
“Hey, you guys!” she called. The three ahead of her stopped concentrating on their feet and turned back to look at her. “It’s more open down there.”
They peered towards the east, and Erica clambered onto a rock for a better view. “It has to be the lake, surely?”
“I think so. I hope so. I hope this wilderness isn’t going to throw us another curveball—a swamp or an impassable river, or one of those smaller lakes you need a boat for, like we had the very first day.”
“The only way to find out is to go and see,” Erica said.
“How long do we want to push on?” Jack said. “We’ve got maybe three more hours of daylight left, and we’ve been walking a long, long time today. We don’t want to be making camp in the dark if we can help it.”
Callie looked at Rachel for her opinion, and saw her massaging her temples with fingers that betrayed the telltale tremor.
“Rachel, sit down.” She fished in her pocket for the energy bar, broke off a chunk and gave it to her friend. Everyone found a place to perch, and took a rest break. Please God, whoever you are, don’t let my best friend die, thought Callie.
After a few minutes, Rachel seemed more settled. “I really want to keep moving,” she said. “If we can possibly get to the lake today, I want to go for it.”
“You’d better hang on to my pack all the time now,” Jack said. “And we can carry you if we have to. I mean it. We have to make those carbs last as long as we can.” He turned to Erica. “How are the knees?”
She shrugged. “Like pumpkins. I’m sure they’ll feel brand new though, if we get to the lake. I say we go for it too, while ever there’s light. And even afterwards. We’ve still got some battery power in our headlamps.”
He looked at Callie, and raised one eyebrow in question.
She nodded. “Yep. Let’s do it. Onwards and upwards. Or downwards, as the case may be.”
“Onwards and downwards!”
He turned and plunged back into the rainforest, Rachel’s weight dragging down on his pack. Erica followed, and Callie slotted into her place at the back.
51
“No survivors?” barked Peter into the radio. Fury rippled along his arteries and he wondered if he might actually have a stroke. When the call came through from Wellington that a Personal Locator Beacon registered to Bryan Smithton had been activated, hope had surged through the search room. Even though his very next thought had been: If they’ve got a PLB, why the hell didn’t they activate it a week ago? It had taken only four hours from the first appearance of the signal to the search team’s arrival on the spot. You just couldn’t do it any faster than that. And whoever had activated the thing hadn’t stuck around to wait for the rescuers they’d summoned. Just an orange body bag on a ledge. There were precious few hours of daylight left, and so much wilderness to search. He swore in technicolor, but kept it clean when he turned on the radio again. “Do the retrieval, while the other crew starts to search a radius. We’ll get another fixed-wing over there. Keep me posted.”
“Ellen!”
Peter wheeled around in time to see Amber putting a chair under Ellen’s backside to stop it sliding to the floor. He swore again, and strode across the room—just a couple of steps for a man of his height. “What’s the matter, Ellen? Have you eaten today?” His voice was harsh, a combination of frustration with the missing trampers who’d shot through when they should have stayed put, and regret that he’d ever allowed Ellen into the search room now that things were hotting up and it was so hard to ask her to leave. Amber, in the middle of getting Ellen to put her head between her knees, shot him a reproachful look. It didn’t work.
“This isn’t a romance novel. If you’re going to be swooning all over the place, you’d better wait back at the hotel. I need my staff to be doing their jobs. We’re stretched to the limit.” The next look from Amber had moved well beyond reproach to sheer poison.
But the rebuke seemed to have a reviving effect on Ellen, a bit like the smelling salts of old, and she sat up and gathered her wits, her spine long and straight. “So, is she dead?” Her voice was carefully controlled.
“I don’t know.”
“But I just heard you say there were no survivors.”
“Oh.” He lost a little momentum, suddenly on the back foot. Perhaps not so unreasonable for a woman to faint if she thought she’d just heard that her daughter was dead. “That’s not what that meant. They haven’t found six bodies in a row.” He didn’t mention that they had found what appeared to be one body—it wasn’t helpful, especially when he didn’t even know if it was male or female yet. “But whoever activated the beacon didn’t stick around. That’s what I meant by no survivors. Whatever survivors there may be, they have not stayed with the beacon.”
There was a pause. “So is it possible that she is still alive?”
“With what I know at present, it’s possible. I can’t guarantee it though.”
“Possible is enough for me right now.” She paused again. “So you’re probably pretty cranky with them for not staying with the beacon.” There was just the slightest challenge in her eyes. Gotcha, it said, or something similar. You’re angry with them, and you took it out on me.
He conceded to the challenge with the merest twitch of the corners of his mouth. “That would be a reasonable assumption.”
She stood, a fluid and elegant movement, and reached for her shoulder bag slung over the back of a chair. “If I’m at the hotel, is there any way for me to know how things are progressing? Could I phone here, or would that be too disruptive?” She was all business now, professional, respectful. Leaving the awkward moment behind them, ignoring it, not rubbing his nose in it. A seriously classy woman, and way out of his league, by anyone’s measure.
“We’ll contact you the moment we have news of Rachel.”
“Thank you.” She turned and left quietly, her posture dignified but not stiff.
Amber shot him another glance, this one loaded with razor blades, and returned to her post.
Peter watched the assistant’s prickly back for about a second, and then followed Ellen down the corridor and out onto the street.
“Ellen!” She turned and waited politely for him to reach her. She didn’t remove her sunglasses.
“Listen, Ellen, I’m sorry that I was rude to you just now. You’re right that I was reacting to other stresses when I spoke to you in that manner. I apologize.” He didn’t believe in beating about the bush when it came to apologies.
“Thank you Peter. I did feel insulted by your attitude”—she didn’t pull punches either—”but I’m not going to take it to heart in such a circumstance. It also gave me some clarit
y about how things have changed in the past couple of hours. I don’t belong in there this evening. My presence there is no longer helpful, even to me. Things are extremely intense now, and you all need to be able to speak quickly and without restraint.”
“Thank you for understanding that.”
She did take her sunglasses off then, and looked intently into his eyes. “Peter, I have a natural desire for reassurance and hope—any mother would. But anyone can do that for me—someone down the coffee shop, for instance.” She waved her hand down the street in that general direction, but kept looking at him. “What I need above all things from you right now is for you to do your job. I have enormous confidence in your ability to do so. It is my daughter’s very best chance for survival.” She smiled slightly, and nodded once. “Go with God.”
52
In the fading light, Jack couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a roof. A man-made structure. Was he just hoping for a roof? Growing delirious with the stress of it all?
The last break had stretched from five minutes into twenty-five, when he saw more fish in the river, quite a group of them clustered in a shallow stretch. The spear fashioned from Adam’s hunting knife, duct-taped to the end of a sturdy stick, had proven effective not just once but three times. Dinner was now dangling from the back of Erica’s pack, swaying silver in the evening light. He felt like a proud caveman.
When Rachel started to show warning signs of another hypo an hour later, he worried that the delay for the fish had been a huge mistake. It had cost them half an energy bar to bring it under control.
He was still fretting about it now, as he labored over a slimy boulder, hanging moss slapping at his face. Rachel was strapped by the shoulders to the harness of his rucksack, Callie and Erica supporting one of her legs each. She had objected to being carried, but they had insisted. They had to stop her burning energy so fast.
Callie was somehow also managing the weight of Rachel’s rucksack clipped to her front, and he could hear the ragged breathing of the others even over the pounding and roaring in his own head.
But that was surely a hut that he could see ahead, through the trees.
53
Two bodies, both male. That left a man and three women still unaccounted for—out there somewhere. But the light was too far gone and the team were on their way back in. There’d be no more searching tonight.
Peter turned and picked up the phone. No answer from the pathologist. He glanced at his watch. No wonder. It was well past business hours. He drew a finger down the list of numbers taped to the wall, and dialed Jonesy’s cell phone. It rang eight times, but he finally answered.
“Sorry to call so late. I’ve got a couple of incoming for you.”
“A couple?”
“Two males. One appears to have a gunshot wound to the head.”
As expected, he heard an appreciative whistle in his earpiece. “A gunshot wound! What do you make of that?”
“No idea. It’s certainly a game-changer. But then, I didn’t really know what game we were playing before.”
“Definitely murder though now. You can’t argue with a bullet.”
Peter paused, uncertain how much he could ask of the man on the other end of the line. It was irregular, and he couldn’t have explained why it seemed so urgent. Just an instinct that he needed to be fully informed before he confronted the survivors, which could be as soon as tomorrow. “Jonesy, I don’t know if you could do them tonight?”
“What, and miss this? Can’t you hear that angelic singing in the background? I’m at the school musical—my oldest girl’s in the chorus.”
“Kids are important, trust me. You need to stay at that.”
He snorted dismissively. “By the time your two bundles of joy get down here, it’ll be over. I’ll congratulate the star, give the necessary hugs and kisses, and head on down to the crypt.”
“Thanks mate. I really appreciate it. Call me any time you have anything to report.”
“Never fear, I’ll call you every hour till dawn.”
Peter laughed. “Can’t wait. Talk to you then.”
***
Peter heard the front door of the police station swinging open, and heavy footsteps scuffing their way down the corridor.
He turned in time to see Hemi walk in, and gave him the best smile he could muster. “Big day huh?”
“You betcha,” Hemi said, grinning. He rummaged in a plastic bag he was carrying, and tossed a paper-wrapped burger down on the desk, where its meaty aromas exploded into Peter’s nostrils, then rummaged again and drew out a bag of greasy hot chips, which he dumped on the desk between them. Lastly, he extracted a burger for himself. He pulled a chair out, its back towards him, and straddled it, then began to eat the burger without ceremony, one big bite after another, grabbing chips to add to the mix as a kind of chunky condiment.
Peter followed his excellent lead. “Mate, I’m going to get the mayor to commission a statue of you,” he said between bites. “You’re seriously a lifesaver.”
“Yeah mate. That’s what they say.” He grinned again. “We managed to get the PLB,” he added around a mouthful of bread roll, a smudge of tomato sauce at the corner of his mouth. “They weren’t gonna bother, but I said we had to give it a try. I’m gonna have a look at it tonight, see if it was faulty or anything. Must have been some reason they didn’t activate it.”
“Anything obvious?”
“Nah. But I reckon a kea dropped it. They’d been at the guy’s rucksack—big hole in it, and stuff spread out everywhere.”
“So simple a kea can activate it.” But not a group of humans with opposable thumbs.
“A kea and a seven hundred meter drop.”
Peter’s eyebrows went up. “That big?”
“Yep. If it was jammed, that might have released it. I’ll give it a check. Not sure if I’ll find anything, but it’s worth a try.”
The meal concluded, Hemi stood, held his fist to his breastbone, burped deep and resonant, batted his eyelashes, pursed his lips and in a sweet voice said, “Excuse me.” He moved to the large-scale topographical map on the wall, and Peter followed, still chewing his own burger.
“We found the first body here, on a ledge,” he said, pointing. Peter handed him a red-headed pin, and he slid it into the map. “And the second one was here”—another pin—”just above a landslide. That’s the one with the hole in his head. Much bigger landslide bit further downstream, about here. Full-on tree avalanche, goes all the way to the ceiling. Look’s like God’s waterslide.” He looked at Peter. “Not easy to get past that one. You’d have to cross the river, but even if you did, not a friendly slope the other side.”
“Where do you reckon they’re headed?”
“Well, we know they were up towards Poison Bay, because of where we found the girl’s body, right?” He pointed at the other red pin to the north. Peter nodded. “I reckon they were trying to head east—which is what I’d do too. They have to know Lake Te Anau is back thataway, even if they’ve got no maps. But they had to keep finding walkable passes. They’re not climbers. So I reckon they’ve come up here along the Burnley, and maybe had trouble with those landslides. Shoulda happened day before yesterday, I’d say, when they had the big rain event over that side.”
“Makes sense.”
“Most important thing is, the guy on the ledge, now I’m no Gravedigger”—his nickname for the pathologist—”but it looks to me like he fell from a much narrower ledge above it. I think they were heading up Mount Paice. I managed to track them into a boulder field below Gunpowder Pass. Probably could have found more signs up in the tussocks, but we had to keep moving before we lost the light.”
“Where would they go from there?”
“Two alternatives. You can get into the Rossmay valley or the Altham over that pass. I hope they took the Altham—it looks harder at first but it leads all the way to the lake, and there’s even a conservation hut at the end of it. The Rossmay just leads further back into th
e wilderness. It’s a horrible valley for newbies.”
“Could they do the length of the Altham in a day?”
“If they were motivated, and they started early, I reckon they could. Depends if they’re injured, and how sick that girl is with the diabetes. There was no rain out there today, so it would have been a pretty sweet run if that’s where they are.”
Peter stared at the map. “I’m thinking we’ll take the cavalry to Altham Hut, see what we find.”
“Sounds like a good place to start.”
But can I bet my career on it? thought Peter, as he continued to stare at the map. Altham Hut. A lovely big pebbly apron jutting out into the lake in front of it, well and truly wide enough for a helicopter, or even two. A beautiful spot for a night rescue if you had a chopper with the right equipment. It was time for some fast and confident talking. He picked up the phone to Invercargill.
***
Beyond the map, through one thickness of wall, lay the lockup. Tom had his ear pressed hard against the smooth surface. He’d been listening ever since he heard Hemi scuff-thumping down the corridor. He continued to listen, and when Peter eventually put down the phone, he moved back to the narrow bunk and sat, silent, thinking.
54
It was amazing how good a survival meal of fish and ferns could taste, if you ate them in a warm, dry hut while a gentle rain pattered onto the corrugated iron roof and fizzled in the undergrowth outside. Fish and ferns that had been cooked over a fire that crackled and hissed inside a cast iron potbelly stove, while flickering light seeped out the stove vents into the hut.
There was even a pile of dusty firewood on the little veranda, provided by some gracious previous user months ago, or perhaps a conservation worker. It looked like it should be enough to keep the fire burning all night. They had to keep that column of smoke streaming up into the sky. Their “bat signal” as it were. Here we are, rescue us.
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