Phantom of Terawhiti

by Des Hunt

  By the time he got to the flat where Breakneck Creek branched off, he was hoarse from calling and deafened by the noise from the Roldee. Still, he pressed on up Breakneck, going through the gorge and up to the ruins of the stamper battery. He stayed there for some time, hoping that the big cat would appear as she had done on the first day.

  A fantail kept him company for most of the time, but no other animal. If Tasha was around then, like Jess, she didn’t want to know him.

  On the way back he crossed the ridge so he could search the scrub behind Hermit’s Hole. Finally he checked inside the cave. Nothing had changed from the morning, except that the blood outside was now almost black.

  Back at the house there was still no signal on the mobile network, which meant he couldn’t go online and check the latest postings on Facebook. For the first time in more than a week, he felt the isolation of the place. It made him realize how important Tasha had become in his life. Without her, this place was nothing.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Wednesday began no better than Tuesday had ended. Zac rose late after a night broken by long periods of restless sleep and unpleasant thoughts. The first thing he did was check his phone for a signal — there was none.

  Crawford wasn’t in the living area, although from the dishes in the sink it was clear he was up; no doubt he was in the spare bedroom trying to write. Zac grabbed a couple of bananas and left the house.

  His first task was to check Hermit’s Hole and the surrounding bush just in case Tasha had returned during the night. He didn’t have great hopes, but it would be stupid to go looking in other places when she might still be in the local area.

  She wasn’t. Nor were there any hints that she had been.

  The only good news was that there was also no sign of pig hunters, Neanderthals, or any other person who could make the day any worse than it already was.

  He was walking back to the house, head hanging low, when the phone in his pocket chimed. It seemed that service had resumed. The message was from TotalCom, apologizing for the outage. It had been sent half an hour earlier, suggesting that he’d been out of range when the signal had come back on.

  Immediately, the day seemed brighter. Now they could locate Tasha. With any luck, before dinner time they would have her and Alex back in Hermit’s Hole.

  He rang Jess, hoping that she’d had time to text the tracking device. The call went straight to voicemail. He disconnected without leaving a message, annoyed that she’d turned off her phone.

  Maybe he should ride over there. Yes, that’s what he would do. The sooner they started on this, the better. He put the phone in his pocket and began running. But after a hundred metres or so, he stopped and pulled it out again. He didn’t need Jess’s phone to contact the device; his own one could do it.

  After finding the number of the SIM he texted where r u.

  Seconds passed before the answer came back: 41° 19.151' S, 174° 45.515' E.

  ‘Where’s that?’ he said out loud. He didn’t know whether it was nearby or hundreds of k’s away. Without a mapping app, the numbers were next to useless. What now? he sighed.

  But then it dawned on him: the special app wasn’t needed. Any mapping program that took latitude and longitude would do, and there were heaps of those on the internet. He started to run.

  41° 19.151' S, 174° 45.515' E was on the side of Happy Valley, eight kilometres east of Terawhiti. It was not quite in the suburbs of Wellington, but very close. The nearest houses were in Mitchell Street.

  Eight kilometres! That’s a long way in one night.

  It seemed too far. So he sent another text to the device. The data that came back was unchanged. Tasha had indeed travelled eight kilometres, and that was in a straight line. It would be more like ten k’s, taking the hills into account.

  A long way. Far too long for a cat carrying a kitten. Alex can’t have been with her.

  Would she leave him behind?

  Zac thought not. Not unless the kitten is dead.

  He tried to put that thought out of his mind and concentrate on Tasha. Perhaps they should try to find the path she’d taken. He was working on that when his phone rang. It was Jess.

  ‘I’ve found her!’ she said. ‘She’s near Karori Stream. Mum’s going to—’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Karori Stream! She’s still on Terawhiti. Thank God!’

  ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘From the reply to my text, of course.’ Jess’s voice was becoming shrill.

  ‘When did you send that text?’

  ‘Yesterday! You were there. It wouldn’t go out.’

  ‘Have you sent one today?’ asked Zac.

  ‘No. Didn’t have to. Yesterday’s one would have gone when the signal came back on.’

  ‘It must’ve come back on for a moment sometime earlier,’ said Zac. ‘Because she’s not near the Karori Stream any more; she’s over near Happy Valley.’

  ‘That’s miles away!’ said Jess. ‘She can’t be there.’

  ‘Hang up,’ said Zac, patiently. ‘Send another text, then call me back with what you get.’

  It took less than a minute.

  ‘You’re right. We’ll pick you up in ten minutes. Make sure you bring the Roldee.’

  Mitchell Street might have been eight kilometres by the route that Tasha took, but it was more than twenty by road.

  It was a dead-end street running along the top of a ridge. The houses were neither expensive nor cheap, with cars outside that were well looked after, but not the latest model.

  Jenny drove to the turnaround area at the end and parked.

  She turned to Jess. ‘You’d better check she hasn’t shifted.’

  No one spoke as Jess sent the text and waited for the reply.

  Zac was fidgeting in the back seat, keen to get out and do something. Jenny was checking messages on her phone.

  ‘She’s still there,’ said Jess. She held the phone for the others to see. ‘She’s the other side of the houses.’

  ‘You go get her,’ said Jenny. ‘I need to return some calls.’

  They left the car.

  ‘How do we get to her?’ asked Jess.

  ‘The satellite view showed a small park further along,’ said Zac. ‘We can probably get through there.’

  Whether it was a park or just an empty section was unclear. Local kids obviously used it for a park; there were bike tracks leading down to the edge of the bush. A small boy was playing with a digger in the dirt alongside a fence.

  ‘Hello,’ said Jess. ‘That’s a good road you’re building.’

  ‘It’s not a road,’ replied the boy. ‘It’s a rubbish dump. I’m making one like where Daddy works.’

  Jess smiled. ‘It’s a very good dump.’

  ‘Yeah. Great dump,’ said Zac, walking away. ‘Come on, let’s go find her.’

  ‘Are you looking for the tiger?’ asked the boy.

  Zac stopped.

  He turned back. ‘Did you see a tiger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday. Mummy let me come out and play before I went to bed. That’s when I saw the tiger.’

  ‘What was it doing?’

  ‘Walking.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  The boy pointed to the bush. ‘It went in there.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone?’ asked Jess.

  ‘I told Mummy. She said I was making things up, but I wasn’t. I did see a tiger.’

  ‘Were you scared?’

  ‘I was at first. Then I saw the teddy bear and I knew it wouldn’t hurt me.’

  ‘A teddy bear?’

  The boy nodded. ‘It was in the tiger’s mouth.’

  Zac and Jess stared at each other, puzzled. Then Jess’s face spread into a big grin. ‘Alex,’ she said. ‘She’s still got Alex!’

  ‘Then let’s go find them.’

  Jess paused long enough to say goodbye to the boy before following Zac into the bush.


  Straight away they knew there was a problem. The land fell away steeply, almost vertically in places. And the bushy scrub was almost impassable. On top of this, there was no knowing exactly where Tasha was hiding. What they really needed was a GPS navigator that would tell them exactly which direction to go and how far.

  Instead, it seemed the best they could do was call out and play the Roldee. When neither worked, they turned to bushwhacking: bashing their way through the scrub with branches pulled from a tree.

  They had to work downhill, because the slope was too steep to head back up. Sideways was just as tricky, with their feet slipping on the wet undergrowth. It was hard to imagine that Tasha had come this way, especially carrying a kitten in her mouth.

  Twenty minutes later they were scratched and bleeding and ready to give up. That’s when Jess found the path. They’d been close to it all the time, but the thickness of the undergrowth had kept it hidden. Although it wasn’t much of a path, it was a whole lot better than the zigzag they’d been taking. This was more like the route that Tasha would have chosen. Zac began looking for signs of her passing: paw prints, fur caught on branches, or anything else that would show she had passed that way.

  But it was Jess, not Zac, who found the proof.

  Just a few metres down the path she found what had brought them there. But the discovery gave neither of them any joy. Lying to one side of the path was Tasha’s collar with the Pet-Tail attached.

  Zac picked it up. He studied it for a moment before wordlessly showing it to Jess. She nodded. It didn’t take much thought to work out what had happened — blood on the collar and a nearby broken branch were the clues. The collar had caught on the sharp branch and, when Tasha had pulled to get free, the collar had come off. At fault was the rusty clip: it had fallen apart. As had their chances of ever finding her.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ said Crawford, ‘is why she would be over there. Why would she go all that way when she’s more likely to find food around here?’

  ‘She could be in a panic,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Or she could have been chased by dogs,’ suggested Will. ‘If she’s close to houses, then dogs are sure to sniff her out. She’s very vulnerable carrying that kitten.’

  Talk of dog attacks didn’t help Zac’s mood. He was already at a low from spending five fruitless hours searching for Tasha. They’d gone up and down Happy Valley before moving to the nearby landfill, thinking that smells from the rubbish might have attracted her there. They’d found no sign of her anywhere. Now they were back at Terawhiti discussing whether Alexei Berezovsky should be told of the latest development.

  ‘There aren’t a lot of houses around that area,’ said Jenny. ‘If she stays this side of Happy Valley then the land is not a lot different from around here.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that she’s unlikely to have much contact with people?’ asked Will.

  Jenny spread her hands. ‘I don’t know. If we tell that lawyer and he asks the police for help, then I can’t see that there’s much anyone can do. Not until there’s a sighting or something.’

  ‘Then they’ll shoot her,’ said Jess. ‘Won’t they?’

  Nobody was willing to offer an answer.

  ‘I’m happy to leave it for another twenty-four hours,’ said Crawford, breaking the silence. ‘I’d prefer that it be sorted without my involvement becoming known. That would only add all sorts of complications.’

  The other adults nodded. Doing nothing was better than facing up to the consequences of the alternatives. Shortly afterwards the McGonagalls left. The decision had been made: Tasha and Alex would have another night on the run. Then the matter would be considered again.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Fewer than twenty-four hours passed before Zac and Crawford pondered Tasha’s fate again. The discussion was triggered by a brief item on the TV news that night.

  It began with film of an animal enclosure.

  ‘A mauled wallaby was discovered in Wellington Zoo this afternoon,’ said the voiceover. ‘Zookeepers found it hidden behind a shelter in the Australian enclosure. Much of the hindquarters had been eaten. George Mitchell, the Australian Species Conservator, said the wallaby was one of a rare subspecies of the tammar variety.’

  George Mitchell appeared on screen. ‘This subspecies is extinct in Australia,’ he said. ‘It is now found only in New Zealand, on Kawau Island, and in zoo populations such as ours. The loss of any individuals is disturbing, particularly the manner in which this one died.’

  The presenter reappeared. ‘Zoo officials believe the wallaby was killed by a dog. In the past dogs have been brought over the fence and left there. However, this is the first incident since a 7000-volt electric fence was put up some years ago. It is likely that the dog was thrown in from a tree. The culprit is yet to be found.’

  A commercial break followed.

  Crawford turned to his son. ‘Well? What do you make of that?’

  ‘Are you thinking of Tasha?’ asked Zac.

  His father nodded.

  ‘No way!’ said Zac. ‘Why would she go into a zoo?’

  Instead of answering, Crawford went into the spare room. He returned a moment later, opening a map.

  ‘Show me where you found the tracking device.’

  It took a while for Zac to get his bearings on the map. ‘There’s the dump. So it must be … there!’ He stabbed a finger at the place.

  Crawford leaned forward and drew a ring around it with a felt-tip pen. ‘Now we need to find the zoo,’ he said.

  That took longer, as neither had been there. Eventually they located it in the next valley east of Happy Valley.

  ‘That’s about two kilometres away,’ said Crawford. ‘She could easily have reached there.’ He traced a line on the map. ‘If she followed this path, she could even get there without going through housing areas.’

  Zac was not convinced. ‘But why would she go there? It must be easier to get food around here than there.’

  ‘Maybe she wasn’t after food,’ suggested Crawford. ‘What if the zoo has servals? Get on your computer and find out.’

  It took just minutes to get the information he wanted. Wellington Zoo did have a serval. Zac showed his father.

  ‘Then that could be the answer,’ said Crawford. ‘She was looking for company.’

  Zac shook his head. ‘They’re solitary animals. They don’t go around in groups.’

  Crawford smiled. ‘Even solitary animals need to get together at times. Is the zoo serval a male or a female?’

  ‘It didn’t say.’

  ‘If it’s a male, then I’d say she was looking for a mate.’

  ‘So soon after having kittens?’

  ‘Lots of mammals have to mate soon after a birth. I know that’s what happens with racehorses.’ A pause. ‘What do you think?’

  Zac didn’t know what to think, so he said nothing. Part of him wanted to believe that Tasha was in the zoo, because that meant there was a chance of finding her. Another part hoped she wasn’t there: he didn’t want to think of her as a wallaby-killer.

  The Keith and Sally Morning Show was blaring from the kitchen when Zac appeared for breakfast.

  Keith: What’s the weather got for us today, Sally?

  Sally: Not good now and getting steadily worse throughout the day, I’m afraid. A southerly is kicking in, and then the remnants of tropical cyclone Zara will pass to the east of us. By tomorrow morning, Friday, there will be gale-force winds with rain, heavy at times. We’ll keep you posted on developments. But at this stage you can be sure it will be most unpleasant for commuters heading to work this morning.

  Keith: It won’t be great for those who work outside either. Certainly not for those searching for an animal intruder at Wellington Zoo.

  Sally: I was wondering when and how you’d get that bit of news in!

  Keith: As the official Phantom of Terawhiti news station, it is our responsibility to raise the matter.

  Sally: Oh no! Don’t start
that again.

  Keith: I have to. Another mauled wallaby has been found this morning. It, too, has been partially consumed.

  Sally: Yes! Eaten by a dog.

  Keith: That’s what zoo officials are saying, but they haven’t seen the animal, so it is only conjecture.

  Sally: And you’re saying it’s a leopard?

  Keith: Not me, Sally. I just report what others say, and many are suggesting that the Phantom has made it into the zoo.

  Sally: Except you are forgetting that a phantom is just that: a ghost, illusion, mirage, chimera, delusion, figment of the imagination. Take your pick. None of the dictionaries say a phantom is real.

  Keith: We’ll see. And if there are any new developments, you’ll hear it first from us: Dub Dub, 86.6 FM. The official Phantom station!

  Music came on.

  Crawford appeared out of the toilet. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked.

  ‘What? About the storm? Yeah, I heard it.’

  ‘Not just that,’ said Crawford. ‘About the zoo.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘I think you and Jess should go there.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘The same as you did yesterday in Happy Valley. Call out. Play that Roldee thing. It’s worth giving it a try, Zac.’

  ‘All right. How do we get there? Are you going to take us?’

  Crawford shook his head. ‘I’ll give Jenny McGonagall a ring. See if she’s free.’

  There was a long queue waiting to go into the zoo when they arrived at 10.40. The website said it opened at 9.30, but obviously not that day. As expected on the second to last day of the school holidays, there were lots of family groups. Some of the younger kids were getting restless and moaning about the delay. When it finally opened at 11.10, there was a mad rush to see the animals — almost as if the children thought the animals might leave if they didn’t have spectators.

  Zac, Jess and Jenny’s entry was more restrained. They took in the blackboard sign that apologized for the delay due to ‘animal welfare issues’, and moved on to the Tuck Shop where Jenny could have a coffee while they planned a strategy.