by Tina Clough
Now that he has made the decision he wants it over and done with. And so do I, before he changes his mind.
‘Could you start over? Tell it from the beginning so I don’t have to drag it out of you. I’d like to have it really clear in my mind, not in bits and pieces.’
Dao gets up and returns with a cell phone. ‘Do you mind if we record it?’
Tama stares at her for a moment, but unexpectedly he nods. He seems to be in the grip of some fatalistic state of mind now that he has made a decision, as if whatever happens now is out of his control.
‘I first heard of Hope when we discovered that a Pakistani brother and sister, who came here as immigrants, had been in touch with her some time ago. They were being monitored. There were some things that didn’t quite stack up after they came here. I actually thought we had dropped them about a year ago, satisfied they were OK, but I was wrong. They must have spoken to Hope on the phone before she went away. At that time her number was just a random phone number on one of their phones and meant nothing to us. But a short time ago they sent an email to her indicating that they had given her names of contacts in Pakistan and now they wanted to hear how she got on. She invited them to visit that weekend.’ He looks at us as if expecting comments.
Noah is ready to leap in, but Dao gets in first. ‘Carry on.’
‘This made Hope a person of intense interest, of course. We started monitoring her phone and her emails. A colleague and I were told to put AV into Hope’s flat before those two visited her. We knew from her emails that she was going to be out for several hours one day, so we went in and put AV in – that’s audio and visual, sound and pictures. It was quite time-consuming – an old concrete building, thick walls, high up. We got it done just in time – she returned earlier than we had counted on. We saw her coming back as we were driving away.’
He sighs, as if the recollection of that day is something that saddens him. ’But the visit from that brother and sister gave us nothing to go on. The contacts they had provided for Hope seemed to have been a list of safe houses for abused women and nothing was said that was grounds for suspicion. But now that we had access to her phone messages and her emails, old and new, we found things of concern and she was classified as a security risk.’
Noah jerks in his chair. Dao quickly gets to her feet, ostensibly to check that the phone is still recording, but I catch the look she gives Noah. He subsides again. Tama stops talking and watches her until she puts the phone down. ‘OK, carry on.’
‘Hope was in that airport blast in Peshawar a few weeks ago, on her way back to Auckland. She was dragged to safety before the second bomb went off – by one of the terrorists.’
He glances at Noah, as if to monitor his reactions. He has noticed how on edge Noah is, wants to avoid a confrontation.
‘And then?’ I say. ‘There’s obviously more.’
‘Yeah, there is. That rescue was very unusual – unheard of. There must be a link between her and the terrorist, something that overrode his normal training. They just don’t do that sort of thing. We checked every single thing about her travel arrangements, her flight and hotel bookings and her Google history. She had not pre-booked any travel or accommodation at all within Pakistan and she was there for over four weeks. That’s very unusual. She must have used cash, taken local transport – she moved around leaving no trace. She had researched railway and bus routes before she left, all of them up in the north-west, the part closest to Afghanistan. There’s lots of Taliban activity up there, camps in the mountains. That border means nothing when it comes to terrorist activity.’
He drinks some of his beer, thinks for a moment. ‘There were a couple of strange text messages on her phone. First one from someone in Pakistan, who reported on the health of a child after some accident, not long before she returned to New Zealand. No response from her. Then after the airport blast, when she was back here with a damaged arm, another message from the same number asking if she was OK and was she back at home. She replied and said all was well. And the person at the other end texted back: You saved my son, I saved you, now we’re quits, or something like that.’
I am pleased with how this is going. Tama thinks he is telling us things we don’t already know. He is giving us a lot more detail than I had expected. We will soon have a very complete picture based on Hope’s journal and his information. I am keen to know how much they managed to find out, things we don’t know yet.
‘Tama, what do you know about her saving a child? Anything?’
‘Perhaps she saved a child, just by chance, no connection to anything in particular. Or maybe she visited a terrorist camp, and something happened to a child while she was there. We simply don’t know, but there must be a link to terrorists – whatever the context. And that made her a person of top-level interest to both countries. We got in touch with Pakistan and they got what we needed from Peshawar, from the hospital and the police and the airport authority there. We got a complete set of video recordings from the airport, her X-ray from the hospital, the name of the hotel where she stayed the next two nights until they got the replacement flights sorted. We know she lost her suitcase, which flight she came back on, who she sat next to – everything. Can I use the bathroom, please?’
‘I’ll show you.’ Dao gets up. ‘Don’t trip over Scruff. He likes to know everything that’s going on.’
She is doing a great job of injecting little bits of trivia, reducing tension. Tama smiles at Scruff and follows Dao down the length of the room. Noah sits forward with his arms resting on his thighs, stares at the floor and says nothing. We wait in silence. Then Noah looks up with an angry look on his face and makes as if to speak; I hold up a hand. ‘Not now.’
‘Let’s go back to what you said about her potential involvement with terrorists,’ I say when Tama returns. ‘I agree it seems unusual that a terrorist saves someone in a situation like that. If she was there researching terrorism, he might have recognised her from a visit to a terrorist training camp. Or maybe he knew her from when she saved his child just by chance somewhere else, completely innocently. What do you think?’
I want to hear how their reasoning went. What they based it on. I hope Willow will be able to use this information to our advantage.
‘But that’s not the point.’ Tama is a bit more relaxed now, loosening up, open to discussion. ‘Someone like that terrorist guy who saved her – God knows, he wouldn’t save his own mother if she suddenly turned up. It’s not what they do, not the right thing when someone else is a willing suicide bomber, sacrificing their life. Maybe Hope is involved with terrorists somehow, by chance or on purpose. But there must be a strong connection of some kind. Perhaps she’s not involved with the terrorism side at all. I don’t think she is, I’m not sure why. And obviously our top guys in Wellington have decided that too, because they dropped the case not long ago. Just before she disappeared the second time.’
‘Do they know she disappeared a second time?’
‘No, not as far as I know.’
‘And you are not going to tell them?’
‘I can’t. It’s difficult to explain, but I simply can’t. There are aspects to this that are outside any normal scenarios that we deal with.’
I hand my phone to Dao. ‘We can stop recording now. Let’s have another drink.’
I want him to relax, hope he will pay less attention to every word he says. His frank disclosure of so many details is very surprising; I expected him to be more circumspect. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but I am intrigued by how open he has been. There is some kind of back-story here, something that will explain why he has told us so much. I wish I knew what it is.
I sit back with my beer. ‘What we haven’t told you, Tama, is that Hope wrote a journal about her travel and of her life in general, like short stories. Noah found them on her laptop. And some on a USB stick.’
Tama has a cracker with cheese halfway to his mouth; his hand stops mid-air.
He looks confused. ‘Did you know this already? Why didn’t you say?’
‘I wanted to compare what you told us with what she had written. You would not have told us in the same way if you knew. Some detail would have been lost.’
‘You said the cops are not investigating? Why not?’
Noah speaks for the first time since we sat down. His voice is hostile, resentful. ‘Her file is flagged “no action”. Like Hunter said, they just blocked me every time I went. Said another agency, obviously your outfit, is investigating and it’s flagged for no police action. And …’
‘Bollocks,’ interrupts Tama decisively. He has picked up the vibes of Noah’s feelings, noticed my interventions. ‘Sometimes there is a block on someone, because we’re already dealing with it and we don’t want them alerted by having cops going around asking questions. But as soon as our active investigation is at an end, the block is removed.’
‘But it’s still there on Hope’s file,’ says Dao. ‘Either it didn’t get removed or someone put it back. It’s not just that the police didn’t take Noah seriously – it’s been confirmed by his lawyer.’
‘Jesus!’ Noah rubs his face, exhausted and depressed. His voice has taken on a higher pitch. ‘I can’t believe this fucking mess. Some bastard has taken her, and we can’t get action! How are we going to get that block removed? It must be taken off, so I can go back to the cops and get them to investigate.’
‘Let me sum up,’ I say, trying to make eye contact with Noah. His voice has an edge of hysteria. Any moment now he’ll start pacing and raving. He glares at me, frustrated and angry, but I continue. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Tama. You knew that someone had abducted her and that she had escaped and come back to her flat. But that’s not when you started following her, as you put it, “to protect her”. You’d already been doing that for a couple of weeks. Why?’
‘There were some other things that came up, not terrorist-related – I began to wonder if she was safe. I followed her on my own initiative, nothing to do with work. Nobody told me to or knew I was doing it. And everything seemed fine. I was beginning to think it was my imagination. The abduction took me totally by surprise.’
‘You knew she had been abducted and escaped. Didn’t you find it odd that the surveillance was stopped, that your bosses decided there was no need to keep track of her?’
‘Things didn’t happen in that order. I only knew about the first abduction after we were told to close the operation down. I did ask my boss why they had changed their minds about her status and he said that everything was taken care of.’
Dao’s eyes are riveted on Tama; her chin has done its upward tilt again. ‘But you didn’t believe that assurance, did you? Because you continued to watch her, but now you were actually watching her flat, not just when she went out. So you suspected that something else would happen?’
He nods and stares at his hands for a moment, then he gets to his feet. ‘I have to go. I’m sorry, but there are things I simply can’t tell you.’
He starts across the floor towards the stairs, stops and turns around. ‘But I will see what I can do, if I can give you something more definite. I’ll call you, Hunter, in the next couple of days.’
He is not looking at Noah; I can’t say I blame him.
As soon as he has left, Noah leaps to his feet and starts pacing back and forth, unable to sit still. ‘I don’t trust that bastard. He’s lying, I’m sure of it. He’s a fucking liar!’
‘What are you talking about? Of course, he’s not lying.’ Dao is shocked and angry. ‘How can you say that, when he’s going to try and get us something that might risk his job? He wants to help us.’
Noah expression is one of stubborn resistance. He is nearly shouting. ‘No way! That’s absolute rubbish! He’s just stalling. He’ll call you and say he couldn’t figure out how to remove the block on Hope’s file and that he can’t find out anything more. I didn’t trust him from the start. He’s shifty. Maybe he took her. He seems obsessed with her. He wasn’t protecting her! I don’t believe a word that lying bastard said.’
I am not going to interrupt him; I want to know exactly how furious he is, maybe get a clue to his inner demons. Perhaps this outburst will clarify what his problem is. I can’t work with him if these crazy mood swings are going to make him unreliable.
Dao looks at me, dismayed. ‘Hunter, tell him! He’s so wrong, it’s ridiculous. I totally believe Tama, don’t you?’
I keep my voice calm, as if it is not really important. ‘Yeah, I do. I can’t understand why you call him shifty, Noah. What did he say that seemed shifty?’
‘Nothing, it’s not what he said. He’s so smooth and he knows he can con people with his good looks – tried to impress us with what he might be able to do, which will never happen. It’s a con-job. You’re both too gullible. He knows something – and we’ll never find out.’
From the look on Dao’s face she is just about to tell him what she thinks of him.
‘OK, Noah,’ I say and send a silent signal in Dao’s direction. ‘If that’s how you feel, I think we should reconsider what we do next. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will put a different perspective on it. I’m not prepared to discuss anything further until you’ve calmed down. Let’s wait and see if Tama is going to be helpful or not.’
He scowls at me and leaves nearly straight away. Even his back looks stubborn and indignant as he walks to his car. I close the door behind him and walk slowly up the stairs, deep in thought.
Dao is collecting up glasses and bottles, still seething with impatience and fury. ‘That man! He’s a nervous twit. And don’t tell me not to say that, I know his sister is missing and I do feel very sorry for him – but he is so stupid. I’m really fed up with him.’
She looks at me for a response, but I say nothing; she needs to have her full say. ‘He doesn’t like handsome men! That’s what it is – he has some in-built prejudice against good-looking people. I’m amazed he likes you.’
She is so cross and feisty, like some miniature avenging angel. I start laughing and that makes her even angrier.
‘What’s so funny? It’s not funny, Hunter. This is serious. He might have scared Tama away and he’ll never tell us anything more.’
‘It is very funny that you think he might not like me because of my looks, Dao. I’m not remotely handsome.’
‘I think you are. Very.’ And then she laughs too. ‘And you know what I mean. He’s jealous of Tama’s looks, but it comes out as suspicion of everything he says. Instead of admitting to himself that Tama is very handsome, he kind of translates it into – whatever you call it. Sort of casting doubt on him. What do we do now?’
Noah’s outburst against Tama was irrational and I doubt that he can be trusted not to do something stupid and ill-considered. Should I back out of this before he creates a mess? How will Dao feel if we don’t continue trying to find Hope?
‘What do you think?’ I say instead of answering her question. ‘We have several options. We can wait and see if Tama gets the block taken off Hope’s file and then Noah can go to the police with Willow. Or we can tell Noah we can’t continue to help him if he doesn’t trust Tama, because we believe Tama is crucial to our search for Hope. And I honestly think he is. We can work with Tama and let Noah muddle on by himself, maybe feed him information Tama gives us – if we can trust him with it.’
We decide to talk about it in the morning. We tidy the kitchen, set the ground-floor alarm and go up to the bedroom level with Scruff.
‘Look at him, can’t wait to go to bed,’ I say as he runs ahead of us up the stairs. ‘He’s been sleeping beside the sofa the whole evening, the lazy thing.’
‘He’s worn out with that hole he’s digging. If it gets any deeper, he will tunnel into Nigel’s place.’
I make a mental note to fill it in and put some pavers over it in the morning.
Chapter fourteen
I wake up in the middle of the night. Dao i
s on her back, so I know she is awake; she never sleeps on her back.
‘Worried?’
‘No, not worried. Just surprised at Noah – I didn’t see it coming. I mean, I knew he was weak and difficult, but I didn’t expect him to be so vicious.’
‘He is a very strange man – and probably not someone we can depend on. What do you think we should do?’
She turns on her side and replies without any hesitation. ‘We have to carry on. We’re not doing this for Noah, we’re doing it for Hope. I think we should do what you said before, carry on, use Tama as much as we can and tell Noah what we think he needs to know. And Willow, of course. But we can’t have those two guys in the same room. Next thing he’ll say those things to Tama and he will think it’s racial prejudice or something.’
‘I totally agree. Anything else?’ I know that analytical mind of hers is working away, sorting information, deciding on priorities.
‘Yeah, a whole lot of things. I want to talk to Benson again. Not in his office, somewhere else, private. Maybe he can see what’s in that file even if there is a block on it. There are things that would be useful to know. Like, was the mask inside the wheelie bin? Did they fingerprint the bin? Was the rag that he doped Hope with in the bin? Can they DNA test the mask and rag, if they have them? Do they know what was on the rag? I think I’ll call Benson in the morning.’
I suddenly remember how she reacted to something when we were talking to Tama. ‘You know when Tama said he was trying to work out who it was that took Hope the first time. Did you believe him?’
‘I think he was being evasive. Perhaps I should say cautious, seeing I understand him a bit better now. I think he replied the way he did on purpose. It sounded to me as if there was a part missing.’
‘How do you mean, missing?’
‘Well, I just felt it was as if he could have said, “I’m trying to work it out, but I’m pretty sure I know who he is.” People do that sort of “half the truth” thing sometimes, you know.’