by Else, Chris
We stayed on in Epuni for a couple of months. There didn't seem any reason to move, except that Michelle made me nervous. I was not at all sure what she would do if we ever bumped into her by accident. I'd never thought of moving back to Te Kohuna, because my life there hadn't been what you'd call great. The family was real keen on Gith though, as she was on them, and I started to feel it would be good to have some friendly people around us.
One day, when we were up there on a visit, Ma said casually (or maybe it wasn't all that casual) that Jock Stern, who ran the local service station and automotive repair shop, was looking to sell up. His arthritis was getting real bad and he just couldn't do it any more. I talked to him, and then I talked it over with Gith. Back in Wellington, we went to see Peter Vanray. In a couple or so months we were there.
***
I PUT THE package in an old navy blue duffle-bag and shoved it on top of the wardrobe with the rifle. Then I walked down the drive to the service station to relieve Pita.
'Everything okay?' I asked him.
'Cool,' he said. 'There's only one thing. Somebody's been taking an interest.'
'How do you mean?'
He pointed over the road towards the bus shelter, which backed onto the western edge of the Domain. 'Fella hanging about over there.'
'Who?'
'Billy Cleat.'
'Oh Jesus!' I said. 'The last thing I need is that creep hanging around.'
Pita nodded. 'Ae.'
'Has he gone?'
'Ae. Took off maybe half an hour ago.'
'I wish somebody would give him a job and get him off the streets.' I'm not sure why I said that. I guess when it came to Billy I always had to be pretending somehow.
'He's got a job,' Pita said, looking at me. 'Well, he does casual stuff, eh.'
'Who with?'
'Ray Tackett. He's done a bit of stuff for Ray.'
What? 'How come?'
'That's Ray,' Pita shrugged. 'I do his books. Keep things straight for him. He's employed a lot of fellas over the years.'
'What — casual labour? Contracting?'
'Ae.'
'Is he into buying and selling stuff?'
'Not that I know of.'
'You know a bloke called Wayne Wyett?'
'Ae,' Pita said. 'He does work for Ray too.'
***
LATER THAT EVENING Gith found the package and wanted to know what it was.
'I don't know,' I told her. In fact I had a rough idea what it was and knew I should probably take it straight to the cops. If I did that, though, I'd have to tell them how I got it. 'It belongs to Wyett. Or a mate of his. Or a mate of a mate. Whatever. We'll just hang on to it for a while until I figure out how to deal with it.'
It was a risk. It went right against all the good advice I'd been giving myself about keeping safe. I figured, though, that Wyett hadn't seen me, and neither the old lady nor the woman in the bedroom were going to describe me all that well. Whatever was in the package, I thought that keeping it would piss somebody off. Wyett, for choice. Maybe, with luck, it would get him into trouble.
Gith wanted to know more and I wasn't sure what to say. In the end I gave her the truth, kind of. I didn't say anything about the woman in the bedroom. And I didn't ask her what she'd been doing scratching round on top of the wardrobe.
***
LEAVING TE KOHUNA seemed like an even better idea after the call I got the next day from the Old Man. I'd been waiting for it but I was surprised at just how mad he was.
'Christ!' he said. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
'Dunno. Living my life.'
'Do you realise? Do you have any bloody clue?'
'I'm sorry, Dad. That's just the way is.'
'No it's not. You can't go on like you're doing. It's unnatural. It's probably bloody illegal. It has to be, surely.'
'It makes no difference to us, Dad. I'm sorry.'
'Well, it makes a bloody big difference to me. I don't want you in this house — or her either. Not until it stops. You understand me?'
'I understand you.'
'Jesus Christ! The bloody Tacketts are sniggering like there's no tomorrow. I can hear them from here!'
That got to me. I was suddenly as mad as he was. 'Is that all you care about, the bloody Tacketts? For Christ's sake. Are they more important to you than your own bloody family?'
'Don't you speak to me like that!'
'Oh, piss off, Dad.' I hung up on him.
I had to tell Gith about that too. She cried when she found out what he'd said. I hated him even more for that.
'Listen,' I told her, 'we'll not stay here. We'll go somewhere else. The business is in good shape. We can sell it, or even pay somebody to run it for us. What do you say?'
She nodded.
We didn't move, though, not then. In a couple of days the talk about us had taken second place to something bigger. The police found a body up on Moss Vield's farm. Anneke Hesse.
10
SHE WAS IN a bush-filled gully that ran up into the hills towards the eastern end of the Vield place, the end nearest Te Kohuna. She had no clothes on and after so many weeks exposed to the weather she was in a pretty bad state. The cops still had Moss locked up because of Dagmar, and they slapped a murder charge on him straight away. I wasn't much in on the gossip. I was sticking to my word about not going back to the pub, and nobody else much was talking to me. Except for Monty, Tom and Hemi.
'How are you, mate?' Monty said, settling himself into one of our verandah chairs. Sam lay down on the decking at his feet.
'Could be worse.'
'You heard the news?'
'I have.'
'Seems like they've got Moss nailed now.'
'Anybody could've put that body there,' I said.
'Nah. It's tighter than that. They've got forensic evidence. Stuff they've known about for weeks, it seems.'
'What forensic evidence?'
He shrugged. 'Dunno. Something in Moss's wagon.'
'Who told you that?'
'It's the talk of the town, as they say.'
'Do you know the bit where they found her?'
'Not sure where it is exactly. Can't see it from my place. There's a lot of gullies up there. Some of them you'd never get into.'
'And she was left out in the open?'
'Seems like it.'
'Why didn't he bury her?'
'Strange workings of the criminal mind,' he said. Then he looked at me. 'You still don't think he did it, do you?'
'No,' I said. 'I don't. But I honestly don't care that much any more. Gith and I have just about had it with this place. I thought I belonged here but it looks like I made a big mistake on that. I guess I was away too long.'
'How long?'
'Ten years.'
'Yeah, well.' He sounded like he thought so too. 'You thinking of moving on?'
'Yup.'
He thought about it for a bit, sipped his beer. 'Don't blame you, to be honest, but, you know, nil carborundum and all that. Don't let the bastards grind you down.'
'Yeah, right.'
'Where'll you go?'
'Don't know. Might just take off and see a bit of the world. Gith's hardly been anywhere. Me neither, if it comes to that.'
She came out of the house just then and stood in the doorway for a second, looking at the sunset. Then she bent down next to Sam. He gave a whine and lifted his nose up to her as she stroked his head and pulled his ears. His tail thump-thumped on the wooden boards.
'You've got a knack,' Monty said.
She gave him a big smile.
***
TOM HAD A lot more gossip than Monty. He brought his own beer, too, which I was glad of.
'They found a hank of her hair in Moss's wagon. They reckon it was ripped out by the roots.'
'Anything else?' I asked.
'Nah. They reckon he cleaned it up real good. The only fingerprints were his. Nothing else. But he missed the hair.'
'Who told you?'
'Poor kid,' I said.
'Yeah. Left out in the open to rot like that. All he did was cover her with a bit of fern, apparently. Oh, and another thing — and this is real weird — he tied her bra to the branch of a tree.'
'What?'
'That's how they found her. They saw this thing waving in the breeze and they went to have a look. And there she was. One weird fella, that Moss.'
'They haven't found him guilty yet.'
Tom looked at me. 'Oh, but he's mad. I mean, he's always been mad. Look at that thing with his old man. Seriously disturbed, I'd say.'
'Doesn't make him a vicious sex killer.'
'Well, they don't know about the sex, do they? The body was too rotten to tell.'
I didn't answer. I wasn't sure I wanted to get into an argument with Tom about what I thought.
'We all know Moss,' he said, like this proved something.
'Well, I can't say I do,' I answered. 'I don't think he's even been a customer of ours. Always buys his gas in Katawai. It's a couple of cents a litre cheaper down there.' And that is just the point, I thought. He wasn't here that Monday.
'Tight? Oh yes.' Tom said. 'Tighter than a Scotsman's arse. You know that quad bike he was trying to sell? Well, I went and had a look at it. Asked him if I could take it for a test drive. He said sure, but he was going to charge me for the gas if I didn't buy it! I told him to get stuffed.'
'When was this?'
'A while back. Before the cops got here.'
'After Anneke went missing?'
'Maybe. Around that time. Why?'
'Would he want people driving round there if he knew there was a body up in that gully?'
Tom looked at me and shrugged.
***
AFTER THAT EVENING I started to think about the murder again. I didn't want to but I couldn't stop myself. There were so many things that didn't fit. I knew Moss Vield hadn't been driving that van, and I was absolutely sure that Anneke had got into it. Had the driver turned off into Pakenga Valley Road? It was only a hundred metres or so north of the service station. That would be why nobody had seen the van on the highway. There were maybe a dozen houses straggling up from the town end of the road, and then the two farms plus the bush further on. Anneke had been taken somewhere there, maybe all the way to the lake, and then later dumped on Moss's farm. And a bra tied to a tree to show where she was? That was weird. If Moss had found her what would he have done? He might easily just have buried her. He wouldn't have wanted to go to the cops. Was the killer relying on that? The same thing would apply to any vehicle tracks. You could drive all over Moss's place, leaving tread marks from one end of it to the other, and he would never tell anyone. He would be mad as hell, and would set all kinds of traps or keep watch with a loaded shotgun, but he wouldn't say a word. He was the perfect guy to be set up. And somebody had set him up, that was easy to see. Somebody had planted Anneke's hair in his wagon. Only two choices on that one. It was either the killer, or the cops being way too keen. And if it wasn't the cops, then the killer had to be a local — a local who drove a white van. And that took us back to the list.
Perhaps I shouldn't have, but at that point I started to tell Gith what I was thinking. She knew about the body anyway — it had been all over the TV news when it had first been found. She listened like she was taking all my ideas in. As I talked I started to get worried that it would upset her. It didn't seem to, though. It was a bit odd. She hadn't been seriously upset for a while. She hadn't done any of her curling up and head-rolling stuff since . . . The last time was the day of the show. Even after she'd been out in the dark in Tackett's van, being grabbed by those bastards, she hadn't zoned out the way she used to. It went along with other changes, too — like her saying we shouldn't hide, like her sending me off to the pub when I wanted to keep an eye on her.
Gith doesn't think the way other people do. I'm pretty sure that's because she can't make sentences in her head any more than she can out loud. This means her ideas join up in shapes and sounds and feelings. The mechanics of an engine are no trouble, but people talking is a real problem. She can follow all right, at least sort of, but sometimes the only way she can contribute is by doing something. When I'd finished all my what-ifs and yes-buts to do with what happened to Anneke, Gith just stared at me. Then she jumped up and ran out of the room. She was back in a couple of minutes, wearing a light jacket and carrying our binoculars. She grabbed my arm and started pulling at me. I let her drag me out into the kitchen and through the back door. She set off over our paddock in the direction of Bobrown Hill. I followed her.
It was a fine evening, the air still warm, the sky clear. It took us maybe half an hour to get to the top of the hill. It isn't that high, fifty metres or so, and on our side the slope is pretty shallow. From the top, though, on the other side, it goes down steep and gives a good view over the flat space of Pakenga Valley. We could see the last of the houses and the two farms. We could see the Vields' place: the house and the buildings round it, all the roofs a dark red. On the other side of the road and a little further up was Monty's house, yellow brick with a tiled roof, his farm sheds further away up a little rise. We could see the way into Monty's and the two sets of holding pens, and then the Vields' gate. To the right from the gate was the narrow dirt road I'd driven the day I'd been up there, winding into the back of the farm and round to the house.
Gith was pointing towards the ridge on the far side. Her eyes were sharper than mine. I couldn't see anything. She took out the binoculars and had a look. Then she handed them to me. It was awkward using them with my glasses on but I got some kind of picture after a few seconds. On the edge of the bush, where the fingers of the ridge reached down towards the paddocks, there was a vehicle, a white four-wheel-drive with a police logo on the side. Next to it, half hidden by a patch of scrub, stood a yellow tent. Was that where they found her? Somewhere there. The thought gave me a shiver.
Gith was pulling the binoculars off me then. She trained them on a house below us. It was right on the boundary of one of Monty's paddocks, a scrappy-looking place with a rusty roof and a yard full of junk. Stretched out in the sun on some kind of lounger was a bloke. He was wearing jeans and a red shirt that was unbuttoned so he could get the sun on his chest. He had a bald head. Suddenly Gith was excited, pointing, reaching out and pulling at my arm, pushing the glasses at me. I looked. The guy was lying back with one hand behind his head. He was holding a mobile up to his ear with the other. The red shirt had big white flowers on it.
'Who's that?' I asked, turning to her.
She looked at me and bugged her eyes, staring like a mad person.
'The guy with big eyes? That's him?'
'Gith. Think tho.'
I looked through the glasses again. The bloke had closed the phone and was standing up. In the yard, something moved out from among the junk. A black dog, wagging its tail.
Gith was pulling at my arm. She wanted to go, to get down there.
'All right,' I said. 'We'll do a drive-by. Just one. But keep out of sight.'
We ran back to the house, climbed into the Surf. It took us less than five minutes to drive round the corner and up the first stretch of Pakenga Valley Road. The place we'd been looking at was on its own, maybe thirty metres from the next house. It was rough looking, with a rusted roof and a wooden paling fence around three sides. The front yard was tarseal, like Wyett's. Parked outside was a clapped-out Toyota Starlet, red with at least one hubcap missing. As we drove past, the bloke with the red shirt came down the driveway from the back yard. The dog was with him. Gith ducked away when she saw him, hiding her face. I accelerated but tried to do it so he wouldn't see.
'Is that him?' I asked. 'The bloke from the van?'
'Gith.' She looked at me, scared.
I'd never seen the bloke before. He can't have been around for long.
I drove the hundred metres or so to Monty's drivewa
y, did a three-point turn and came back down the road towards town. The Starlet was just pulling out as we got there. We finished up right behind. It gave me plenty of time to see the numberplate.
He turned right onto the main road and we followed. My first thought was to turn into our place and let him go, but Gith was pointing, wanting me to keep on his tail. He went on past the war memorial and turned left into Anzac Street, headed along the edge of the Domain. There were no other vehicles round and I kept back a fair way. He turned right into Church Street. I stopped.
Gith started pulling at my arm and pointing. She wanted me to keep going.
'He'll see us if we get too close.'
He was maybe halfway down Church Street now. I leaned over and took a notebook out of the glovebox to write down his number. Suddenly Gith was pointing. The Starlet had pulled up at the kerb and the bloke was getting out.
I scribbled the number and started up again, swung a right and drove slowly towards the parked car. I knew where he had gone, though: 29 Church Street, home of Rick Parline.
I drove on past and turned right into Basingstoke Road, back to Main Street and home. Straight away I looked the Starlet up on the LTSA database. It was registered to Peter Wilson Kocher of 103 Stock Road, Katawai.
***
I'M NOT SURE why Hemi came round to see us but I appreciated it. Maybe he had professional reasons. Maybe he was just being friendly. Maybe he liked talking with Mozart playing in the background. This time, though, Gith came out onto the verandah with us. I started to chew Hemi's ear about Anneke Hesse. He listened the way he always listens — taking it all in, sitting still except for a shift in his chair now and again. He said almost nothing until I came to the bit about the bra in the tree.
'How do you make sense of that?' I asked him. 'I reckon whoever put her there wanted her to be found. They wanted Moss to find her because they figured there was a good chance he'd just bury her and say nothing.'