‘What are you doing here, Diane? You’re supposed to be deep in the Rimutakas checking out a missing person.’
So it had been Sean’s idea to send me out of town. Or more likely, he and McFay had cooked up that little job for me together.
‘I’m paying my last respects to my sister’s killer, that’s all. What’s wrong with that? You think I might dance on his coffin or something?’ I tried to make it sound unlikely.
Sean wagged his head non-committally. He’d seen me do worse.
‘We’re working here, Di. You know that. Seriously. What are you doing here?’ He stood between me and the departing mourners, keeping his voice low. I tried to keep mine down too but I was the one facing the departing congregation.
‘What do you think I’m doing? I want to know who killed Snow,’ I hissed. ‘And why would be good too,’ I added, ‘but I’d settle for who.’
I didn’t like the sensation of my back against the wall and I stepped up eye to eye with Sean. It was a position we’d been in many times before. Being this tall also made me pelvis to pelvis with him. It wasn’t the first time for that either. We held each other’s look for some time before he raised his hands in mock surrender and stepped back to give me room to move.
‘How about we grab some fresh air,’ he said, touching my wrist for attention and sliding back his cuff to reveal the tiny microphone. It seemed to me that Sean and I had always spoken in code.
Knowing we were being recorded for a possible court case, if not posterity, we made small talk as we walked along Brougham and into Ellice Street. When we reached the traffic lights at the Basin Reserve, Sean lifted his wrist to his lips and told the guys back in the van that he was switching off and going to lunch. He’d see them back at the station. He threw me an all-too-familiar rueful look as he discreetly slid his fingers between shirt buttons and unplugged the mike from the battery taped to his chest. I responded with an equally all-too-familiar look.
We crossed the road and meandered into the cricket grounds, where we settled ourselves on the grass bank and chatted for a while about inconsequential things, easing into it. There were a couple of people in the stands eating lunch and a groundsman, hands in pockets, staring glumly at the pitch. That exultant cry I’d heard from the hearse must have been someone at practice.
Sean asked about the John Doe. I told him how the body had been delivered to the station in a wheelbarrow. I told him what a jerk I thought the sergeant was. I didn’t mention Robbie or his nice handshake and smile. Then there was a bit of a pause and I readied myself for the dressing down I knew was coming.
‘You know you’re going to have to stay away from this case, Di,’ Sean said, brushing grass from his palms. ‘You’re just going to have to trust that we’re on it. I’m on it.’
I watched him flick blades of grass from his sleeve. He was going easy on me and I appreciated that.
‘It’s got nothing to do with trust.’
I felt his eyes on me but I kept my gaze on the Ladies’ stand. Someone was sitting up there. Probably a cricket fan remembering games past — that big six they almost made if only they hadn’t played the ball on to the stumps. I could feel myself choking up and the last thing I wanted was to break down in front of Sean. I needed to convince him I was calm and cool and not going to lose it any more. I didn’t trust my voice so I waited until the swelling in my throat subsided.
‘So what is this about then?’ he asked.
‘I need to know why she died,’ I said, my voice breaking on the last word. Sean must have heard it because he breathed in deeply then reached out and rested his palm on my knee. He gave me a minute before speaking.
‘There is no “why” Niki died. You know that. You heard Snow’s confession.’
I shot him a look and he shrugged apologetically. ‘Gemma told me she’d given you the tape.’
I looked back at the cricket fan. Of course Gemma would tell Sean she’d given me Snow’s confession tape. I didn’t blame her.
‘Snow killed Niki — end of story. He did it because he could and now he’s dead.’ He took his hand off my knee and hunched forward. ‘And like it or not, it’s my job to find out who killed him.’
‘It was your job to find out who killed Niki. Now the bastard’s dead and you act like that’s the end of it. Well, it’s not the end of anything for me.’ I didn’t mean to get so angry. I didn’t know I still could.
Sean put his hand back on my knee. I felt the dry warmth of it through my jeans.
‘Let it go, buddy.’
Sean used to call me buddy when we were first together. It was the closest we ever got to pet names. I loved it because it was such an understatement. We were always so much more than buddies. I fought off those memories. My throat was so tight it felt like there was a noose around it.
‘I can’t, Sean. Letting it go would be like letting her go. The only way she goes on living is if I remember her.’
It sounded weird even to me and I’d said more than I’d meant to. I didn’t want to talk to Sean about Niki. That’s all I talked to him about for six months after she died. He was great about it at first but there came a time when he wanted to talk about something else and I wouldn’t. I knew it was driving him away — knew I was driving him away. I needed Niki in the foreground of my life. I needed to live and breathe her all day, every day. It was my duty, because if I forgot her, even for a minute, then in that minute she didn’t exist. She was nothing. I had to keep Niki alive by thinking about her, by remembering her. I didn’t blame Sean for leaving me. Well, I did blame him, but I understood it. I suppose in my better moments I even forgave him. I wasn’t so forgiving about the girlfriend he took up with pretty much straight away.
‘Look, Sean’ I said. ‘I know it’s your job to investigate Snow’s murder and I’ll keep out of your way, I promise. But I’ll never stop trying to find out why Niki died. You know that about me.’
‘Yeah, I know a lot about you,’ he said. I couldn’t argue with that.
‘The thing is,’ I explained, ‘Snow was just the enforcer. Someone else ordered the hit on Niki. I need to know who that person is and why they wanted Niki dead.’
I could feel Sean’s impatience growing. He tugged out a handful of grass.
‘You don’t believe that crap Snow was on about, do you?’ he said, chucking the grass away. I hoped the groundsman wasn’t watching. ‘No one ordered a hit on Niki. She probably laughed at his tiny dick and that was enough to set him off. Snow murdered her because he was a scumbag.’ He finally turned directly to me. ‘Listen to me, Diane. McFay has cut you a break and you’re back working with us. Don’t blow it. Let me investigate this homicide without stumbling across you every five minutes. If I find out anything about Niki’s death in the process, I’ll tell you, okay? But, please, for your own sake, stay out of this.’
If I didn’t let it go he’d have to tell McFay. I knew Sean didn’t like delivering this warning. But he was right of course. I was risking both our careers.
‘Okay,’ I lied. ‘But since we’re on the subject of Snow’s homicide — have you got any leads on who might have killed him? Just so I can send the guy a happy-face balloon, you know?’
I didn’t expect an answer but I did appreciate the grin. Sean was always generous with those. He forgave easily. Much more easily than I did. We were companionably silent for a while. Then, just as I was about to stand, he hunched forward and ripped out another handful of grass. He had something else to say. I leaned back on my elbows and waited.
‘Listen, Diane,’ he said, running his fingers through his hair and combing in some blades of the Basin Reserve’s finest green. I resisted the urge to pluck them back out. ‘Since you’re back at work, and most likely you’ll be working out of HQ, there’s something you should know, and I thought it was better coming from me.’
I watched his shirt rise and fall as he took in a couple of deep breaths. He aimed his voice towards that guy in the Ladies’ stand.
; ‘Sylvie’s pregnant. I mean, we are. We’re having a baby.’
My world tipped and that sandwich made its presence felt again.
I think I congratulated him. I know I walked back with him to his car and accepted a ride to town but declined his offer to sign me into Central. I’d sort out my access to HQ tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I even kissed him goodbye on the cheek. Best of all, as I moved the case file from the passenger seat to the back, I managed to read Snow’s last known address. Not bad considering I had to read it upside down — an old party trick of mine that I always knew would come in handy one day. I guess I’d gone on to automatic.
I crossed the road and used the toilets in the public library. Being a multi-tasker I wrote Snow’s address into my notepad while I peed and switched my phone back on. Then I held my wrists under the cold tap and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked pretty much like I always did. So how come I felt like I’d been hit by a train?
I was drying my hands when my phone rang. It was Robbie offering to drop my vehicle off the following night. He would drive it into town and a mate would drive Robbie’s vehicle so they could get back home. Robbie said maybe we could have a drink together and he could hand my car keys over personally rather than putting them back under the front seat where he’d found them. He suggested meeting at The Tasting Room, a bar in Courtenay Place that I knew quite well.
He said maybe I could bring a friend along so his mate had someone to have a drink with as well. He said all this without taking a breath. I said that sounded like a good idea and suggested eight o’clock the following night. It was only after I’d rung off that it dawned on me I’d just agreed to a double date.
They say timing is everything.
CHAPTER 8
The library was busy but I didn’t have to wait long for a computer to come free. At Pussy Galore that night, Chloe had told me that Richard Brownlee was the one client she thought would be totally pissed with Niki for deciding to leave the sex business. That he was obsessed with Niki and jealous of any other guys spending time with her. I googled the name, highlighted the New Zealand icon, and hit the search button. Six hits immediately appeared on the screen. I opened them all in separate windows and clicked through each of them.
I learnt that Richard Brownlee was the managing director of a property development company, Brownlee Property. The ghosts of a couple of companies he’d been involved with that had gone belly-up appeared, but I’d need to dig deeper than the internet to uncover what they were all about. They may have been genuine failures or, more likely, created for the purpose of shuffling money across a pack of companies which were then deliberately folded.
A school class photo on a ‘Searching for lost friends’ site didn’t tell me much, except that in year nine he was the shortest kid in the second row, olive-skinned with very dark, straight hair, and that he, along with every other boy in his class, had struggled with the myriad physical side effects that accompanied puberty.
Richard’s name appeared in a number of applications to the city council, mostly to do with re-zoning issues. There was no R. Brownlee listed in the white pages, but there was a J. and R. with a residential address in Karori. Possibly he’d listed his wife’s initial first to avoid searches, or of course he could be a really modern, liberal, Mr Nice Guy who thinks it’s just fine to have his wife’s name first in the phone book, and who also happens to be a regular client at a strip club where he nurtured an obsession with my now-dead sister.
I was prepared to keep a totally open mind about him, at least until I met the prick.
Brownlee Property had a landline number listed in the white pages but no business address other than a post box which I could tell by the numbers was in the Marion Street post office. It might have been that he shifted his business offices into whatever site he was developing at the time and then moved on as soon as he’d sold it. On the other hand, it could be that he didn’t like being found too easily. You can’t be subpoenaed via a post box.
I gave up my terminal to the schoolkid waiting in line to use it, but not before deleting the history cache. Then I rang Brownlee Property and asked to speak to Richard. The receptionist said he’d gone for the day. I angled my head to see the library clock. It showed five thirty, so he’d cut loose early.
I told her I’d catch him at home then, making it sound like I did that all the time. She snorted a derisive laugh but I didn’t know if it was aimed at my pretence that I had his home number or the idea that Richard would be home any time soon. She told me she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone where he was, not ever, but that I could find him at a bar in Cambridge Terrace called Charlie’s Angels where he’d be ‘having a meeting with a bunch of other jerks’.
She managed to weight the word ‘meeting’ with a ton of irony. When I said I might drop by the bar now, she told me to knock myself out and that she, on the other hand, was going home to have a very hot, very cleansing shower, and then she was going to find a new job on Job Search and never have anything to do with that cock Brownlee ever again in her entire life.
I guess I got her on a bad day. Or a good day, depending on your point of view. I thanked her and wished her luck finding a new job. She said ta and told me to feel free to tell the arsewipe that she’d quit and pocketed the petty cash as her severance pay.
The bar now calling itself Charlie’s Angels had been operating as a drinking hole under different names for as long as I could remember. It had been used as a money-laundering joint by a series of owners over the years and I didn’t imagine this incarnation was any different in that respect. The room itself was impressive with an eighteen-foot stud and walls painted icing-sugar white. The bar was a room-length sweep of dove-grey Cararra marble behind which the tuxedoed staff, men and women, polished glasses with Irish linen cloths which they tucked into their pristine knee-length aprons.
Remembering I’d been messing around with a decomposing body in a shed in Wainuiomata that morning, and lying on the grass at the Basin Reserve cricket ground being delivered a cruel bouncer from my ex-husband less than an hour ago, I gave my jeans and sleeves a bit of a brush down. That would have to do.
I ordered a Campari and soda from the young woman behind the bar who, I couldn’t help noting, was dressed a damn sight better than me. She had the whole white shirt, bow-tie with starched apron over well-pressed suit pants thing going on. She made it look stylie, androgynous and immaculate. Try me in that number with the apron, and I’d look like someone’s itinerant grandmother.
The drink was delivered to me with a flourish. When I lifted the glass to take a sip, the tiny circle of pink fizz left on the bar surface was wiped away with a murmured apology. From this close I could see the grey marble was shot through with pale brown capillaries. I swirled my oily pink drink with the swizzle stick and checked out the clientele.
I spotted Richard Brownlee immediately. He was in the middle of a group of suited men at a high table next to the windows. The other guys squatted on stools but Brownlee remained standing. I guessed he didn’t like his legs to dangle. He didn’t look too different from his school photo: in his mid thirties now, he still seemed to be struggling with puberty. Nature hadn’t helped him with the no-doubt much anticipated teen growth spurt. It had sucked his frame up to a lofty five foot five, before cruelly abandoning him.
He was wearing a royal blue, extra-wide pinstriped suit. I could hear the salesman’s pitch that the vertical stripes would give the illusion of added height. They didn’t. He’d used a fair bit of hair gel which gave him a slippery appearance, though I think he would have managed that look without any help from product. My guess was that slippery came naturally to Richard Brownlee. He’d cultivated designer stubble which only emphasised his triple chin. A glass of beer was clutched in one hand, his phone in the other.
I stopped myself from picturing Niki having sex with this guy, but not before I’d imagined his hands on her. I knocked back my Campari in one hit, caught the attentive eye of the bartender
, and had another one delivered. When it arrived, I picked up my glass and approached the flock of preening peacocks.
‘Richard Brownlee? I’m Diane Rowe,’ I said, holding my hand out.
His swagger at being singled out by a woman in a bar was quickly replaced by dismay when he registered our height disparity. No way was standing beside me going to make Richard Brownlee look good, which was fine with me. He hitched his butt cheek up on to a stool and studied me, paying particular attention to my crotch and tits.
‘Have we met before? You look familiar.’ He wiped his beer hand down his thigh before taking my hand. His shake was a damp bone-cruncher. The other guys formed a casual ruck facing away from us, though I could tell from the set of their shoulders they were listening and I caught a couple of winks pass amongst them. Charming.
‘No, we’ve never met, but I’m told you knew my sister,’ I said, getting straight into it.
He looked genuinely confused. ‘Really? Well, I know a lot of people, babe. And if your sister is as good-looking as you are, I certainly hope I do know her. What’s her name?’
‘Niki,’ I said, watching him closely. ‘But you knew her as Bonnie.’
I saw the memory kick in and a fleeting look of fear pinch up his face. It was erased as quickly as it appeared and replaced with a broad smile. His teeth were wide-spaced and resembled little tombstones.
‘Yeah, I knew Bonnie. Nice girl. I was sorry about what happened to her, but, well, you know, she played rough …’ He left the sentence unfinished. I really wanted to knock those little tombstones over. ‘They ever find the guy who did it?’
I took a sip and carefully put my glass down. That way it had less chance of ending up in his face.
‘Actually, Richard, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, the cops know who killed her, but they believe someone paid that person to do it and I was thinking, maybe that person was someone who didn’t want other people knowing they’d become obsessed with a young dancer. That mightn’t be good for family relations or it could be bad for business. So I was thinking, Richard, that maybe you might know who that person is.’
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