by Nick Spill
“They don’t. They were killed in an explosion about twelve years ago, maybe more, in Pukekohe.”
“Explosion?” The inspector pressed his eyebrows together.
“Yeah. A septic tank blew up over their car. So the police said.” Clovis gulped. What was he saying? He was talking to the police.
“Oh.” The inspector looked at Cadd. “Who’s next of kin?”
“Her whole family lives down there. I’ve met her grandfather, Sam Look. He was her legal guardian. I don’t have his address, but he’s still down there. Plum talked to him on the phone when we came back from New York.”
“Cadd. Call our friends in Auckland South and get them to visit this Sam Look right away. I want a report on my desk by two.” He left the room, scratching his chin. He was too old for these all nighters.
Inspector Grimble came back into the room twenty minutes later. Cadd was going over the papers in front of him. Clovis could barely keep his eyes open.
“Are you sure nobody else was in the house or was coming over or could just walk in?” Grimble asked.
“Quite sure.”
“How tall did you say Plum Blossom was?” Grimble remembered her height from the passport, but he wanted to play this out, gauge Tibet’s reaction. Tibet was not telling him everything.
“Five foot two.”
“That’s odd. Very odd. There was a body in the house.” Grimble scratched his chin and casually observed Tibet who was about to burst into tears.
“It was very charred,” he continued.
“No!” Clovis stood up. Grimble could see the sweat stains on his shirt.
“Calm down, Clovis. Let me finish. The corpse is at least six foot tall. We’ll check dental records, but other than that, it’s …” He wanted to say “toast.”
“That’s bizarre.” Clovis held his head in his hands. He was genuinely relieved that Plum had not been in the house, but he knew that the detective was playing with him. Clovis was so wound up he did not know how to react. He let everything show on his face. He thought of Mel and the story she told of how she had knocked out the big man and left him on the floor. How could that house have burnt down? How could it be an accident?
“Yes. It is. Looks like arson and murder. I’m afraid we’re going to need to talk to you later. Please don’t leave town. You will be valuable in our investigation. Cadd, see he gets to where he’s going.” Grimble checked the missing person’s report for Clovis’s contact address. “Who is this Matthew Bounder?”
“Fellow musician.”
“Good. We’ll put an APB out for Miss Blossom. We’re most anxious to talk to her about this.”
“You have to find her. She just wouldn’t disappear like that. This is a total mystery to me.”
“Likewise.”
Chapter Five
Tuesday
The police car dropped Clovis off at a small wooden house, near the Domain on Park Road. Clovis had not seen Matthew Bounder for seven months, but he was there to answer the doorbell and stare suspiciously at the departing police car. There was a smell of cremated toast, cigarette smoke and cats coming from the kitchen. Matthew had been the singer and leader of the group Dogs Breath and a later group the Cat’s Pajamas. Clovis had played electric violin with him.
“Clovis! Fancy seeing you. I thought you were in New York! Are you a cop now or an informer?”
“Are you going to invite me in?”
“Fuck! Come on in. I’m serving the breakfast of champions.” Matthew leered at Clovis.
Dishes were piled in the sink, waiting for a miracle. Four cats meowed on the cluttered Formica table waiting for a separate miracle, whilst the toast sent smoke signals from an Art Deco pop-up toaster that refused to pop up. Clovis found the telephone and quickly dialed Mel. Matthew poked the blackened toast out of the toaster with a large serrated knife.
Mel answered on the first ring. She could not go to work until she had heard from Clovis. She had not been able to sleep, haunted by the sight of the body bag. Clovis let out a big sigh when Mel told him that the police had not contacted her yet.
“They’re not coming back here, are they? I mean, Clovis, this is so irresponsible of you. You were always like this. Shit! This fucking toast.” He looked at Clovis with wild eyes. The kettle on the gas stove began to scream. “I’ve plants in the back and god knows what else around here. Shit! They’d put me away for life!”
“Sshh! I’ll explain in a minute.” Clovis cupped the receiver and glared at Matthew, who was pouring water into a filter bag of recycled coffee grounds.
“It’s okay.” He went back to talking to Mel. Wiremu had disappeared up Mount Eden as soon as Mel had returned. He had left a message for Clovis saying he would do everything he could to find Plum. Mel thought he meant it. He had thanked Henry for all the food and hospitality before departing. There was nothing Clovis could say to console Mel about the body. He did not want to tell her, but felt he had to, in case the inspector sprang it on her.
Breakfast with Matthew Bounder helped Clovis put some perspective on his situation. Matthew still wore his curly blond hair past his shoulders. His hairline had receded, and his once golden locks were now plain mousy. Six foot four and thin as a beanpole, he had taken to wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Years of dropping acid, smoking homegrown weed and singing his songs in front of an over amplified band had done things to his brain that were reflected in his appearance. His eyes were glazed. His mouth was half open with an occasional glob of saliva hanging from his lower lip. And he had a constant sniffle that never developed into a cold.
Matthew still had an excellent voice, despite or because of all the abuse he had heaped on his body. With a range of three and a half octaves, he could fly into a searing soprano or come down to a deep gravelly blues voice from lungs that had inhaled far too many legal and illegal substances.
“Hey! Why don’t you play with my new band?” Matthew’s eyes lit up as if hit by a Buddhist reawakening. He was about to pour some light brown coffee into a cracked pottery mug for Clovis.
“What’s it called?”
“Particle Board.”
“Sounds solid.”
“Yeah.” Matthew grinned. “Wall of sound. My voice has never been better. We might have Billy. You remember Billy? He’ll play if he’s not inside. And your buddy Rua. Why don’t you join us this Friday? We’re playing in a pub in Ponsonby.” Matthew had spilled most of the coffee over the table in his excitement. A large ginger cat with only three legs hopped over and started licking up the mess. Trust Matthew to have a caffeine-addicted cat, Clovis observed.
“I’m a little superstitious about pubs in Ponsonby right now.”
“Why? You don’t like coconuts?”
“No. It’s a long story. Thanks for breakfast. But I need a car to get around today. It’s really important.”
“Uhh?” Matthew had his mouth full, with the remains of what was edible from the table that the cats had not eaten. The thought of Clovis doing something important was alien to Matthew.
“Someone burnt down my house last night.”
“Wow! Heavy!”
“So I need a car.” Clovis thought that sort of stoned logic would appeal to Matthew. He underestimated his host.
“Why? Did you drive around in your house before?” Matthew saw that Clovis was about to burst into tears. “I didn’t know you could drive.”
“Plum taught me.”
“Are you still hanging around with her?”
“Well, we were together, but she disappeared last night.”
“Fucking shit. You do everything at once. Is this some kind of police mystery? I mean, that was a cop car that dropped you off, right? It wasn’t the Mongrel Mob with a stolen car. And Plum is Chinese. I mean, really Clovis. You can’t fool me. I mean, I’ve been around, and I’ve survived.”
“They wanted to talk to me about my house, that’s all. Look, it’s really important I get going. You’ve still got your Studebaker, haven’t you?”
Matthew nodded.
“Well. I’ve given the cops your number, in case they have to reach me. I’ll call you this afternoon. Is that okay?”
“What? I’ve got a whole nation of plants out the back. You know, there is a drug war going on. Maoris, bikies, the drug squad, everyone and his mother. They had a bad crop last year and now there’s a drought, and with prices going sky high, it’s got out of control.”
He eased out of his chair, somewhat exhausted from so many coherent words spewing from his mouth at one time and reached over to the car keys hanging on a nail. “Don’t get caught up in all this shit. Otherwise you’ll be mown down in the cross fire. Remember Willie the drummer in Dog? Well, he was a courier. They found him tied up, bits of him missing. The good bits. And three bullet holes in the head. Three! Fuck! He was brain dead when he was alive!”
Matthew threw Clovis the keys. “Bring it back by six. You owe me a guest gig. Okay? Friday night.”
“Of course. Thank you, Matthew. And I’m not caught up in anything like that. I promise.”
“Just be careful with my fucking car. It’s like a wife to me.”
• • •
Clovis tried to block out all negative thoughts of Plum as he steered the ’58 Studebaker down the Southern Motorway to Pukekohe. The dashboard was covered in fake leopard skin that had faded in the sun. A plastic skeleton hung from the rearview mirror. The fuel gauge was stuck on full.
Clovis had not seen Grandpa Sam for a year. He drove up to a large wooden house that looked abandoned. When he turned off the motor, Clovis was overcome by the isolation and quietness of his surroundings.
He walked around the back of the house on a gravel path. An old man was squatting next to a small patch of parsley, weeding, his back to Clovis. Clovis stood ten feet away at the edge of the path. There was a chicken coop nearby and a row of glasshouses, full of gigantic tomato plants.
The man stood up slowly. He turned around and stared at Clovis with a face that showed no sign of recognition. He wore a spotless white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, black trousers and rubber sandals. With his clear light skin he could have passed for a young sixty, but he was well into his seventies. He gave Clovis his blank stare.
A young detective from Auckland South had visited Sam Look that morning to inquire about Plum Blossom. Talking too slowly and too loudly, the detective had asked Sam if he spoke English. The detective left, convinced the old man was deaf, mute and unable to comprehend even the simplest English phrases.
“I’ve come about Plum Blossom.”
“Why did you bring her back?”
“Can we go inside and talk? This is very serious. She’s missing.”
Sam Look motioned to Clovis to follow him into the house. They sat in the dining room. The wooden furniture, everything about the house was very old, but still functional and clean.
In the dark interior, an older woman shuffled around in what Clovis took to be the kitchen. She appeared at the table briefly to pour tea into two bone china cups. Then she disappeared. Ancient lace curtains blocked out most of the sunlight. Sam sipped his green tea. Clovis cleared his throat and began at the end; the burning house, the disappearance of Plum, the tall man waiting in their house, and the appearance of one of Terry the Turk’s henchmen that sent Plum into hysterics.
Sam finished his tea.
“She called me a week ago to say hello. Why did you come back here with her?”
“Why not” Clovis felt uneasy.
“Because Plum was tied up in some very bad business with that man.”
Clovis was shocked. This was the first time he had heard Sam raise his voice.
“But that blew over, didn’t it?”
“Something like that never blows away. It blows up!”
“I don’t understand.”
Sam allowed a small muscle in his face to twitch as if to say that was the stupidest statement he had ever heard.
“This man, Terry Turner. I know him. He came here a few years ago. He sat right where you’re sitting now. He talked about making a deal.”
Clovis sat motionless.
“He wanted me to grow some plants for him. He offered me a good price.”
“And?”
“The next year he wanted to grow more. Much more. The price was better, but I said no. My youngest grandson dropped out of University. He was an addict. He almost died. I bought him back here. He is better now, but I never see him.
“We had our opium in the old days, but it was in moderation. For ourselves. It was different then. Now everything is too fast. Everyone wants everything immediately. It’s a no waiting world. They are greedy. So along come these people like Turner and use this weakness and get rich. I do not want anything to do with that.”
“But what about Plum? How does she fit into this?”
“This man came to see me. He came with another man, with a face like a bulldog but eyes of a little rabbit. Light blue, like ice. Then Mr. Rabbit Eyes came alone one time. He threatened me. They had convinced some relatives over in Mangere to work for them, so he said. And they never admitted it, but I can believe it. There was a lot of money at stake. There is little money in cabbages and onions compared to that. Easy money has a very high price. You get nothing without paying for it.”
The old woman appeared again and silently refilled their tea before shuffling off. Clovis could not make out if Sam was staring into his eyes or over his head. The gaze, like Sam’s voice, transfixed him. He no longer thought he was sitting in a rundown house in the middle of nowhere. He felt he was in the center of the universe and he was about to receive some secret that would unlock this whole mystery and he would be able to find Plum Blossom, safe and sound.
“Plum found this out the hard way. That man lured Plum into working for him, giving him a chance to get back at me. I forbade her, but she would no longer listen to me. She thought she was smarter.”
“What can I do?”
“To find her, you have to go and see this man. Better yet, get someone else to check on him. You will mean nothing to him.” He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “You have to convince him without him knowing, that he can use you or your friend. You understand?”
Clovis felt he had been handed a riddle. He would need time to think it through. “How can I do that?”
“Have you got a strong friend?”
“Yeah! Wiremu. He’s a leader of some Maori gang and carries a shotgun up his trousers.”
“Ah.” Sam allowed his face to break into a slight grin. “Then this is the man you want on your side.”
“But he’s in hiding. From the police.”
“So much the better.” Sam stood up, picked up his cup and saucer and disappeared into the kitchen. When he reappeared, Clovis followed him out onto the back veranda. Clovis squinted his eyes at the bright sunlight.
The old man raised his head to the sky and gazed at the high grey clouds.
“It’s going to rain tomorrow.” He walked back to his parsley patch.
• • •
Clovis did not hear the peculiar noise the Studebaker made as other cars roared past him on the way back to Auckland on the Motorway. All Clovis could think about was what Plum Blossom had not told him.
He pushed down on the accelerator. The Studebaker lost speed. Clovis wrestled the rack and pinion steering so he could stop on the shoulder. The fuel gauge indicated three quarters full. He got out of the car and could not find the release for the hood. Clovis knew nothing about cars. First his girlfriend goes missing, then his house is burnt down with someone inside and all his sheet music and his orchestral parts go up in smoke, and now the car he has borrowed breaks down in the middle of nowhere! How could Matthew keep such an unreliable car? He had to hitch a ride. He put the car keys under the front seat and slammed the door shut.
Clovis stuck his thumb out. A gang sped past in a blur of black leather, deafening him with the roar of their Kawasakis, Hondas and Harley Davidsons. W
hen the dust settled, Clovis saw a giant blob of spittle on his trousers.
For half an hour Clovis talked to the cars and trucks that sped by him.
“Look! I’m harmless!” he shouted. “All I want is a bleeding lift back to Auckland! Just because I’ve got red hair and a beard and I’m over six foot and two hundred pounds doesn’t mean I’m a bleeding murderer. For Christ’s sake, I’m a classical violinist!”
An old black Mercedes sedan screeched to a halt in front of Clovis’s raised thumb. A tall gawky man in his late thirties climbed out of the driver’s seat.
“G’day, mate! Trouble with ya car?” He bounded over to the hood, caught the release and lifted it up. He stuck his balding head inside the engine.
“Turn on the ignition. It’s in neutral right?”
Clovis did as he was told. The motor turned over but did not catch.
“Any petrol?”
“The gauge’s stuck.”
The lean man grinned and strode over to his trunk. He pulled out a tin can of petrol and emptied most of it into the Studebaker’s tank. Leaning over into the engine again, he poured some petrol into the air filter. He poked around with his hands and nodded to Clovis to turn on the ignition. He then reached into the engine. It turned over several times with no effect.
“Looks like yer fuel pump’s crook. Wanna lift into the city?”
Clovis found out his savior’s name was Lance Beefeater. Lance the only son of a gentleman farmer, preferred to drive at 80 miles per hour. He had left his father in a ranch near Taupo.
“It’s for soaks trying to dry out. He goes in, gets cured, comes home, gets bored out of his brains, hits the bottle and gets bombed out of his skull. Misses mother. She blew her brains out last year. Lived in Hamilton. They call it Suicide City. She had a TV in every room, three cars, a maid, went bowling twice a week, and she still couldn’t hack it. Makes you wonder, don’t it? I mean, what’s the point? If you’ve got everything?”
Clovis was at a loss as to how to talk to Lance Beefeater. Words came out of his mouth like warm milk squeezed from a cow’s teat. As they approached the Epsom exit, Lance interrupted his monologue.