Blossoms in the Wind

by Ross Richdale

  Adrian grinned. How could she be so calm when he was a bundle of nerves? He glanced up when he heard a car pull up and a door slam.

  "Neighbours," Chloe said. "They're a good family but Ralph does shift work. Usually he's so considerate and is real quiet."

  Her expression changed to concern when the back door rattled as if someone had stepped in without even a knock.

  Adrian stood up and with adrenalin pumping through his veins, headed for the door with dour thoughts rushing through his mind. He went to fling the door open when someone else opened it before him and he just about knocked Ava over as she barged in the room.

  "Oh my God, Ava!" he gasped and stood back, embarrassed about his concerns mere seconds before. "What are you doing here?"

  "Jeff is in bed," Chloe looked surprised "What is it Ava? Is something wrong?"

  Adrian shut the door and turned to see Ava's eyes staring at him.

  "I'm sorry Dad," she whispered. "I've come to set everything right."

  Adrian frowned and glanced across at Chloe who just raised her eyebrows a little. "Do you want me to get Jeff?" she asked.

  "No. You're the two I want to talk to." Ava looked to be on a verge of tears but Chloe beat him in placing an arm around her shoulders.

  "Sit down, then," Chloe whispered. "Like a coffee?"

  Ava nodded and a moment later with a steaming coffee in her hand she fixed Chloe with an intense gaze. "I want you and Jeff of course, to come and live in our house... it's bigger than this one with four bedrooms, Jeff can have the bedroom in the attic and the baby can be in the sunroom adjacent to the main bedroom I know you love each other... I've never seen Dad so happy as he's been in the last few months... Damn what anyone else around says... Nobody really cares." She stopped, gazed at her coffee and the tears flowed down her cheeks. "I promise I'll stay away from Jeff while we're home. Logan said the only reason you haven't shifted in together was because of me and my... " She glanced up. "Well, you know! "

  Adrian grimaced for that was the very topic they had been talking about earlier. It had been Chloe's suggestion that they do nothing for a few months, she'd become a solo mother and see what happened to the two teenagers. He wasn't entirely happy about her reasoning but had agreed, for what were six months in a whole lifetime? Jeff and Ava might shift out to an apartment together or drift apart and go their own ways. Most eighteen-year-olds were ready to shift out from their parents' home, anyway.

  He studied the pair, his tall slim teenager daughter and rotund partner. They were now hugging each other and, oh hell; Chloe also had tears in her eyes.

  He slipped out and tiptoed along to Jeff's bedroom. The lad was sound asleep so he gently shook him.

  "What is it?" a groggy Jeff asked as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  "You'd better get out here, Jeff," Adrian said. "I need a hand with two bawling females."

  CHAPTER 9

  Ava scrutinised the living room around her and grinned. Even though they had avoided shifting out heavy items such as most furniture, the refrigerator and washing machine by the decision to rent out Chloe and Jeff's home fully furnished, there was a huge amount of personal property that was now packed in dozens of boxes throughout the house.

  Jeff was connecting up electronic gear in his attic bedroom and Logan was flitting around being more of a nuisance than help but he grinned at Ava as he carried out an armful of empty boxes by to toss on a trailer in the garage to be taken on a later trip to a recycling depot.

  "We're lucky with that final load," he said. "Have you seen the sky?"

  "No why?" Ava replied.

  "Whopping black clouds and they're advising locals on the radio to stay inside. A lightning and hailstorm is due over the city at lunchtime. Apparently winds from the east and west are about to hit each other right over the city."

  Ava grinned. Logan was into that sort of thing whereas she never really took that much notice of the weather. Within an hour though she and a million other Aucklanders were enthralled or even scared by the lightning that forked across the city, the resulting rumbling thunder and following hail and downpours. With little warning, hail the size of fifty-cent pieces thundered down and the back yard and the nearby roofs soon had the appearance of a snowstorm.

  Unusually, the storm continued for an hour or more. When the hail subsided, torrential rain followed. Stormwater drains couldn't handle the deluge and the nearby roads became flooded. Luckily, Ava's place was on a slight rise so storm water ran off their driveway to flood the road. She followed Logan and Jeff into knee-high water that pooled on the road. Several properties at the corner had water pouring through them and locals were attempting to sandbag their doors.

  It happened so quickly with radio and television reporters continuing accounts of flooding everywhere. Apparently the northern areas of the city were the most affected and several motorways were closed because of flooding. The normally busy city ground to a halt for much of the day.

  "Nice view," Jeff said after lunch when Ava joined him in his new upstairs bedroom. The rain had finally stopped and sun appeared over the drenched surroundings. The flooding down the street was in view and a tractor had arrived to pull a car out from floodwaters near a neighbour's property. "I'm glad we're on a rise."

  "Yes," Ava said. "It's happened before but I can't remember it being this bad. Usually, the storm water drains cope and surface flooding goes away after an hour or so. It looks as if we'll be stuck here for ages." She walked across to Jeff's corner desk that he'd brought with him. On it was his computer, a television set, printer and other equipment. "You manage to get it all sorted?"

  "Yeah. Luckily your Dad has installed optic fibre and I've set up a booster modem, you know one of those modern ones that can spread a signal throughout a large house such as this?"

  "More or less," Ava replied. "So we'll never see you downstairs?"

  Jeff grinned. "Well, with my own bathroom and that open landing with couch and so forth..." He chucked. "I could become a hermit up here."

  "But won't," Ava replied.

  "No," Jeff looked serious. "Once Mum and Adrian decided to move in together everything happened so quickly. How did you persuade them?"

  "Me? It wasn't just me," Ava whispered. "We all knew what we wanted but didn't want to say too much in case we hurt feelings."

  "And you broke the ice?"

  Ava laughed. "I could claim the credit but it was really Logan who motivated me..." She continued on to explain everything that had been said. "Little brothers can be a pain but I'm glad he gave me a shove," she concluded.

  "Yeah," Jeff replied. "In some ways he is the least affected and took a rational view."

  He reached out to grab Ava but she ducked away and hit him lightly on the shoulder. "No Jeff, not here at home. That's what I promised Chloe and Dad."

  Jeff nodded. "So let's go for a drive?"

  Ava laughed and waved out the window. "With the street flooded out there! Come on, there's still dozens of boxes to unpack downstairs including half a tonne of baby stuff."

  "Yeah, Mum did get carried away a little, didn't she?"

  DISTRICT NURSE JADE Wright enjoyed her alternate Fridays for this was when she'd make a north-western circuit from Waitakere Hospital, her home base, through country roads and isolated areas to visit mainly elderly patients. Her circuit usually reached a mid-point near the coast where Salty O'Hannigan lived in a tiny cottage. Recently, he had an ongoing leg ulcer that had refused to go away. Mind you, she was sure that he never really followed her instructions on how to keep it clean and dry. He was a beachcomber who knew almost everything about his stretch of the coastline that consisted mainly of cliffs and a couple of isolated beaches fed by streams from the bush country around. Ask him a question about the tides, weather, birds or fishing in the area and he'd give amazingly sophisticated answers.

  She drove into the driveway, parked beside the dilapidated truck that was his only connection with the outside world and frowned for he was wait
ing by his opened front door. This was unusual for on most occasions he'd be in an outbuilding where he sorted out piles of junk he'd found on the beach over the years or glued shells together into mosaics on canvas rectangles. These were beautiful designs that Jade would often take back to town for him to be sold to a small antique and art shop that paid quite generous prices for them.

  "Hi Salty," she said as she stepped from her car. "Hope the recent thunderstorms haven't affected you, too much."

  "Good for the business, Lassie," Salty drawled with still a trace of Irish accent that hadn't been lost though he once told her he'd never returned to the old country in sixty years. He nodded at a box filled with shells of all shapes and sizes that sat on the step. "Got a wee problem that I was going to phone the police about. Batteries dead in the phone and I knew you were coming so I'll tell you, instead."

  Jade grinned. "You found some more glass floats and netting from a South Korean fishing boat?"

  "Nope. Far more serious, I'm afraid. If you've got a spare half-hour I can show you."

  Jade knew that Salty's half-an-hour was usually twice that long but she only had two more patients to visit on the way back so she nodded. She changed out of her shoes into gumboots that she always carried, grabbed a raincoat for there was a bit of a breeze blowing in and gave Perky, his dog, a pat.

  "Lead the way," she said and followed the elderly man and his dog down a narrow zigzag track behind the cottage.

  "Tide's still going out so there's no problem with the waves," he said as they walked along a narrow strip of black sand beneath towering cliffs. "These high spring tides bring the waves right in to crash against the cliffs," he said. "Just a few corners away."

  Moments later they came around a corner to another small rocky beach. Perky barked and ran ahead while Salty climbed a small incline and nodded down the other side. Jade followed and gasped at the sight.

  There, wedged in between two sharp rocks, lay a man's body. Though tattered and torn he appeared totally out of place for he wore a business suit.

  "Poor bugger's had more than being bashed on the rocks or drowned," Salty said and poked the corpse with a stick he was holding. "Been shot in the neck and the chest too. Someone wanted him to disappear but hadn't counted on the flash floods that the streams around can have."

  "And you haven't touched him?" Jade gasped.

  "Nope, just a few pokes with my stick. He's wedged in tight so wasn't taken out again by the ebbing tide."

  Jade gulped. She'd seen many corpses in her time but the view of this battered body sent shivers up her back. She took out her mobile but Salty merely smiled.

  "No reception here, Lass," he said. "You can call out when the road gets to the hill top you came down. No hurry though, he ain't going nowhere!"

  "Guess not," Jade whispered. "When did you find him?"

  "Perky here found him after the big lightning storm two days back. I reckon he floated down one of the streams and out to sea" Salty rubbed his beard. "Hasn't been dead long. Body's in too good a condition. I reckon a week at the most."

  "You're right," Jade said. "Come on. I need to call the police." She smiled. "But I'll clean your leg up, first?"

  Salty turned away from the corpse. "It's feels better, you know. That ointment you gave me to use last time seems to be working. Still got time for a cuppa tea."

  Jade nodded. "Yes," she replied. "I also brought some muffins with me. They're in your grocery bag."

  WHEN JADE CALLED THE emergency number to report the body, the operator was polite but somewhat remote until she explained that there were gunshot wounds involved. At that point she was instantly switched through to a police officer.

  "This is Detective Inspector Andy Tullock speaking. Please give me full details about the corpse you found swept up on the beach."

  Jade told the inspector everything she knew and was told that a helicopter would be dispatched as soon as possible. Would she and Mr O'Hannigan return to the site and wait?

  About forty minutes later Salty and her sat on a rocky outcrop overlooking the place where the body was jammed between the rocks. The tide had receded another hundred metres so there appeared to be room for a helicopter to land on the beach.

  Jade had expected the typical red and yellow rescue craft but instead a navy blue police helicopter appeared over the southern cliffs. She stood, waved and watched as it circled around landed on the nearby sand.

  Two police officers and a man in a white coverall emerged, brief introductions made and Salty led them along to where the body was.

  "My guess is that it was swept along from one of the streams north of here," Salty said. "If it had been tossed off a boat it would not have landed here. There's a swift current along the cliff base that is fed from these streams while further out the open ocean would have swept the corpse along the coast."

  "You know about the local tidal patterns, Salty?" Andy asked.

  Salty chuckled. "You could say that. I have often found stuff here that came from the streams, especially after a storm. Mainly cow carcasses in with the tree trunks." He nodded up the beach that was strewn with some quite large trees amongst the debris. "First human remains though."

  Jade stood back and watched as the men inspected the corpse, photographs were taken and a stretcher used to carry the body out. Everything was accomplished quickly before the inspector returned to her. 'We'll get a formal statement from you both back in town next time you're there but there is no hurry."

  "I doubt if you'll get Salty to come in," Jade said. "He rarely leaves the immediate area. Prefers his own company and it actually took me months to get him to trust me."

  Andy nodded. "I know the sort. Your statement will be fine. He's told me just about all we need to know, anyway. The police examiner confirmed that the body had gunshot wounds that probably killed him and he would have been dead before being swept away." He shook her hand and walked across to Salty who was watching the corpse being loaded aboard the helicopter. After a brief farewell the trio climbed aboard and the helicopter flew off.

  "They knew him," Salty muttered.

  Jade frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "Didn't know you could get reception here and not at the house but you can. That policewoman with the iPhone brought up a photograph of the guy. Apparently, it made a cross reference to the photo they took of the corpse. She didn't know I was watching and listening. Often happens to me. I blend into the background, I guess." He grimaced.

  "So who was it?"

  Salty shrugged. "By their body language and conversation, I reckon it must have been some criminal they knew rather than a local farmer but I never caught any name."

  "That's something. I would have hated it to have been someone who lived in the area."

  By now they were walking back up to Salty's cottage. She turned down an offer of another cuppa and headed out to complete her circuit. Even with the summer long daylight hours it would be dark by the time she arrived home.

  CHLOE NOW HAD MATERNITY leave and with ten days until her daughter's birth and the hot weather she quite appreciated the time at home alone during the day. Jeff, Ava and Logan were into their last few days at school and Adrian was working through until Christmas.

  She was enjoying an iced coffee and reached for another chocolate. She felt slightly embarrassed about her craving for chocolate but not enough to stop munching one. She was about to stream another movie on TV when she heard a knock on the door.

  Outside stood a policewoman and another woman dressed in a business suit that seemed entirely out of place in the close to thirty degree Celsius and high humidity. At least the afternoon thunderstorms cooled the city down.

  The woman in ordinary clothes flashed a badge and smiled. "Detective Sergeant Gloria McKenzie and with me is Constable Lois Matene. Am I speaking to Mrs Chloe Sutton?"

  Agonising thoughts flashed through Chloe's mind. Had something happened to one of kids...Jeff did drive his sports car too fast and Logan was a real tearaway on
his bicycle? Could it be Adrian?

  "Please come in out of the sun," she said as she attempted to hide her fears.

  The pair stepped in but remained standing in the kitchen.

  "What's wrong?" Chloe gasped.

  "Your estranged husband is David Sutton, I believe?"

  Chloe stared at the detective as relief flooded her body. "We've been separated for almost a year but what's he done now?" she gasped. She avoided the young constable's look but couldn't resist defending herself, if that was the word necessary. "I have a new partner and I'm carrying his child, not my former husband's. Has David filed a complaint about me to the police."

  "No," Detective Sergeant McKenzie said. "A body has been found swept up on the west coast north of Piha Beach."

  "David's dead!" Chloe gasped.

  "We believe it is his body but a formal identification is necessary. Officially you are still his next-of-kin, hence our visit here today. If is this a convenient time, we'll provide transport for you? The whole procedure should take an hour or so."

  "I can come now," Chloe said.

  The trip across the city to North Shore Hospital morgue was really just a blur in Chloe's mind, as was the walk along a typical hospital corridor and into a small room that contained a sheet-covered body on a hospital slab. A man who presumably was a pathologist stood across from them with a neutral expression on his face.

  "Are you ready, Chloe?" the detective asked.

  "Yes."

  She gulped as the man removed the sheet covering the corpse's face. It was him! There was no doubt about it. "It's David, my former husband," she said.

  The pathologist nodded, covered the face with the sheet again and the identification was over. She had mixed feelings as her mind flashed back to distant good times. After all he was Jeff's father! It was twenty years ago when they had first met. She was perhaps naive and was taken in by his rugged looks and oozing confidence. At the time she believed there was nothing he couldn't do.