Fallout Page 9

  ‘Well, I did my best for Eddie’s sake, but eventually I just couldn’t take any more of it so I had him on. Silly thing to do really, him being so black and white — and sexist, although he tried to pretend otherwise. We yelled at each other for a few minutes, then he jumped up roaring that he wasn’t going to be harangued in his own house and stalked off with his Barbie doll of the month in tow. He was still in a huff the next morning, so I got Eddie to take me to Featherston and caught the train home. It was my first and last visit. Whenever Waitz was in the country Eddie had a standing invitation, but I had a trespass notice so there were quite a few weekends when I was here and he was there. At least, that’s where he said he was.

  ‘Not long before the vanishing act, I was out with a colleague, an older woman who, it would be fair to say, had done extensive research on the male of the species. I drank too much and therefore talked too much, including giving her a full and frank rundown on the state of my relationship with Eddie. She said, very matter of factly, “Well, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but he’s obviously fucking someone else.” When she spelt it out, I had to admit there were an awful lot of telltale signs. She also pointed out that I only had his word for it that he really was spending those weekends at Waitz’s place.’ Fraser put on a Mae West drawl: ‘For all you know, sweetie, he could be shacked up with some tart down in Oriental Bay.’

  ‘I presume you had it out with him?’

  ‘Actually, no. I hardly saw him over the next two or three weeks. He was working on the election campaign and Waitz was around — so he said. I suppose I was in that hopeless state of not wanting to ask the question because I was afraid I wouldn’t like the answer. And then he was gone.’

  ‘You were quoted as saying he’d been distracted and offhand.’

  ‘As people on the horns of a dilemma tend to be.’

  ‘But it still came as a shock?’

  Fraser leaned back staring at the ceiling. ‘That’s what I told people. To be honest, though, even when things were hunky-dory, I had this vague sense, a foreboding I suppose you’d call it, that one day I’d look around and he’d be gone. And one day he was.’

  Eight

  Tito Ihaka drove across the Hauraki Plains to Coromandel Peninsula through drizzle as fine as a spray of perfume.

  Ethan Stern’s widow lived in a solar-heated cabin on a hillside a couple of kilometres inland from Coromandel township. Ihaka parked in front of a carport housing an old lawn mower, an older Japanese hatchback and a brand-new mountain bike. When he got out of his car, pinpricks of moisture settled on his shoulders like microscopic insects whose lifespan is measured in minutes. He smelt fresh-mown grass. A strip of lawn ran down the side of the cabin to a vegetable garden big enough to feed a commune.

  In Ihaka’s experience, semi-rural fringe dwellers didn’t bother keeping up appearances. You expected neglect and overgrowth, mounds of tyres and the rusting shells of long-abandoned vehicles rising like atolls from a sea of weeds. He reminded himself that he’d visited such properties in a professional capacity; the occupants were, as they say, known to the police. P-heads mostly, too fucked up to care that their kids were feral or the lawn hadn’t been mowed for a year and a half, so feckless they’d let their property turn into a rubbish dump rather than go to the tip. Jeanine Stern wasn’t like that. She wasn’t known to the police.

  The front door opened and two dogs catapulted out, one a ball of white fluff that fizzed and yapped around Ihaka’s ankles in a not unfriendly manner; the other a dark, rangy animal with a tail like a question mark, the sort of dog Ihaka had heard described as ‘all ribs and cock’. This one kept his distance, pacing to and fro, eyeing Ihaka sullenly.

  Dogs didn’t bother Ihaka. The way he looked at it, they had more reason to be scared of him than vice versa. Perhaps the larger dog sensed that because he wheeled away and trotted back inside. After a flurry of indecision, the fluffball followed, leaving Ihaka and Stern to get acquainted.

  She was tall and bony — sharp shoulders and hollowed-out, angular features — with an American accent and grey hair that looked as if it had been cut by someone, perhaps Stern herself, in a tearing hurry and a foul mood. Holed, shapeless jeans and a tatty grey pullover reinforced the impression of an ascetic personality and lifestyle. He wondered if that was a philosophical choice or an adaptation to circumstances, and whether she would’ve gone in a different direction if her husband hadn’t broken his neck, becoming an earth mother in a flowing floral dress with a trail of hippie hair and the contours of her body softened by childbirth.

  They went in. She offered a range of herbal tea options, all of which he declined. When she apologised for not having coffee in the house, he assured her that he never drank the stuff after midday, which wasn’t remotely true but seemed to relax her.

  Ihaka sat on a barstool at the kitchen bench while she carried on making soup, piling greens and root vegetables into a huge pot on the cook top. It smelt a lot better than vegetable soup as he knew it.

  He asked what had brought her here.

  ‘A friend of mine who lives over the Black Jack Road found it. I’m not hard-core like her — like, I want to be able to go to the movies without it being a day trip — but I’d always had a hankering to live in the country. You remember Green Acres — Eva Gabor and Arnold the pig? That was my favourite TV show when I was a kid.’ Stern burst into song, grinning goofily and conducting herself with a wooden spoon, throwing out her arms on the last line. ‘Green Acres is the place for me, farm livin’ is the life for me, land spreadin’ out so far and wide, keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.’ She resumed stirring, head down. ‘Not that I grew up in Manhattan. Sorry about that. When you live by yourself in the country, you get a bit hazy about how normal people behave around each other.’

  Ihaka shrugged. ‘Who’s normal? Besides, you’ve got a nice voice.’

  She made a pull-the-other-one face. ‘I guess you’re not that into music. As I was saying, I’d always liked the idea of going country. One reason for coming to New Zealand was to get the hell away from the political scene we were in. When you start feeling guilty if you haven’t been roughed up by the cops for a few days, it’s a pretty good indicator that you’re taking life — and yourself — a tad too seriously. The other big attraction was the clean, green, under-populated thing. We were planning to get a place within striking distance of Auckland so Ethan could either commute or rent someone’s spare room while I stayed at home with the babies. Well, after the accident babies weren’t a happening thing and proximity to Auckland wasn’t a consideration, so Aotearoa was my oyster. I’ve been here more than twenty years now. You know what’s funny? When my Auckland friends come down here, they go on about the lifestyle, the stress-free existence, how living in Auckland’s such a pain in the ass. Then they get back in their great big four-wheel-drives and go home. And I’m listening to them thinking, actually, I could use some of that bright lights, big city action. But here I am, and I’m pretty sure here I’ll stay.’ She paused. ‘Now I get that your friend — Miriam is it? — is doing a PhD, which explains her interest in the obscure and long-forgotten, but what brings you down here?’

  ‘Just curiosity, really. I’m Jimmy Ihaka’s son.’

  ‘You’re looking at me as if that name should mean something.’

  ‘He was one of the trade union guys your husband knocked around with.’

  ‘Well, there was no shortage of them. I doubt I’ll be much use to you — not that I’m too clear on what it is you’re after. I sat out Ethan’s slow dance with the working-class heroes. As I said, for me, coming to New Zealand was a way of going cold turkey on politics. It was meant to be a joint venture, but Ethan couldn’t help himself.’

  ‘I guess that’s not so easy when you’re a Political Studies lecturer.’

  ‘I’m talking about activism, extra-curricular stuff. By the way, did Miriam manage to
find Ethan’s diaries?’

  ‘Well, that’s sort of why I’m here,’ said Ihaka. ‘That and curiosity. You put your husband’s papers in cartons and sent them to the Political Studies department, right?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Well, Miriam found the cartons in some storeroom, but the diaries weren’t there. Someone beat her to it.’

  ‘You make it sound kind of sinister. She wasn’t the only person interested in those diaries. I tried to tell her that, but once she’d got a lead on them she was off in a cloud of dust.’

  ‘Who else was?’

  Stern frowned and looked away. The daffy songstress had left the building, replaced by the quasi-recluse who two decades ago had come to the conclusion that hell is other people. She put a lid on the saucepan, turned down the heat and tidied the bench that didn’t need tidying. ‘I did hear you right: you’re a cop?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘So is this like an investigation?’

  ‘No, this isn’t a police matter; it’s strictly personal. I’m just trying to find out a bit more about my old man. He died a week before Ethan; I was nineteen. He was a pretty passionate union man, but I never knew much about that part of his life. I’m interested in the diaries because Miriam seems to think he’d feature quite prominently.’

  The personal thread and almost simultaneous bereavement seemed to disarm her. ‘Sorry, I was having an acid flashback to my student radical days. Rule number one: never trust a pig.’

  ‘I haven’t been called that for a while,’ said Ihaka.

  ‘Actually, I like pigs,’ she said. ‘There was Arnold, of course, and I’ve had a couple here. You know, they’re really quite intelligent.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. I like pigs too, but I’m picking you’re a vego.’

  ‘Don’t go there,’ she said firmly. ‘If I dwell on the fact you’re a cop and a carnivore, I might freak out completely. Where were we?’

  ‘You were saying Miriam wasn’t the only one interested in the diaries.’

  ‘Right. Not long after Ethan died — like a few days — I got a call from some union guy. They’d let Ethan sit in on some confidential discussions and he wanted to know what had happened to his notes. I told him I’d had quite a lot on my mind, what with my husband going for a jog and never coming home, and hadn’t given the fricking notes a moment’s thought.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d remember the union guy’s name.’

  ‘Strangely enough, I do: he was Mister Small. As he was talking, I was thinking, you must be the opposite of Mister Big.’ She shook her head. ‘Shows you how spaced out I was, but that’s why I remember it.’

  ‘Which union was he?’

  ‘Give me a break. Then a couple of days later this post-grad student — whose name I don’t remember, assuming I ever knew it — knocked on my door. His story was that Ethan had told him there was material in the diaries that might be useful for his doctorate and he was welcome to it. Sinister would be overstating it, but I did think it was kind of odd. For a start, he didn’t look like the post-grads I’d come across, who were either buttoned-down, earnest to a fault, or space cadets from the outer rings of the counter-culture. This guy looked like he actually worked for a living. As for Ethan saying “help yourself”, I was thinking, “Really? Are we talking about the same guy here?” Ethan was a bit obsessive at the best of times, but those last few months he had a real bee in his bonnet. He’d come home from hanging out with his union buddies and start scribbling away. When I’d suggest he could maybe spend a few minutes reacquainting himself with his wife, he’d say he had to get it down while it was still fresh in his mind.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Why hadn’t he —?’

  ‘Taken notes at the time? I assume he figured that would’ve been pushing his luck because whatever they were talking about was meant to stay within those four walls. Anyway, I told this guy I just hadn’t had a chance to go through Ethan’s stuff. That night a woman who worked with Ethan dropped by to see how I was bearing up. When I mentioned I was getting hassled, she said why not just pack up all Ethan’s stuff and send it to the department? It seemed a sensible solution so she came back the next night with some cartons, we chucked everything in and put them in the trunk of her car, and that was the last I saw of them.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Her name was Julia Prince. We didn’t stay in touch; I’ve no idea what became of her.’

  ‘What do you think Ethan was planning to do with it?’

  She shrugged. ‘Publish it in some academic journal or political magazine, I guess. Ethan was more ambitious than he let on. He wanted to stir things up, make a bit of a name for himself.’

  ‘So what was the big story? You must’ve had some idea.’

  ‘All he told me was it would cause a stir and cost him some friends. I took that to mean it wouldn’t show the movement’ — making speech marks with her fingers — ‘in a positive light. Some of Ethan’s friends were real black-and-white: if you said or did anything to undermine the cause, you were a capitalist imperialist lackey. They really did talk like that. Actually, once upon a time, so did I.’

  Stern walked Ihaka to his car. The drizzle had stopped, but the wind had swung around to the south. She looked almost offended when Ihaka urged her not to linger. ‘Do I look like I can’t handle a bit of wind chill?’

  ‘No, you don’t. Shall I keep you posted?’

  ‘Why? Where exactly do you see this going?’

  ‘I don’t know — probably not very far. I just thought you might be interested.’

  ‘I’ll get by,’ she said. ‘I’ve got through the last however many years without giving it a thought. I don’t mean Ethan, the rest of it.’

  As he negotiated the shingle drive down to the road, Ihaka could see Stern in his rear-view mirror. She stood like a statue, the cold wind plucking at her pullover, making sure he was going back to where he came from, leaving her to her dogs and vegetables and green, empty acres.

  Ihaka hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He’d been hoping that Jeanine Stern would offer him some soup, but maybe it had to last her all week. Or maybe she just didn’t break bread with carnivores. Or pigs.

  He stopped for fish and chips in Tararu, thinking he’d take them down to the beach and eat listening to the sound of the sea and the seagulls screeching their disapproval of his presence and diet. But as he came out of the takeaway joint it started to rain. Hard rain, hammering on the car roof and cascading down the windows. Sitting in his car Ihaka felt the desolation that settles on tiny coastal communities when winter closes in. He ate quickly, keen to be on his way.

  Why was he in a Coromandel hamlet eating takeaways and watching the rain hose down? Because the ache had started again. Years ago it had dwindled to a kind of simmering resentment of the shitty hand life had dealt him, his father dropping dead well short of the Kiwi male’s average life expectancy. Ihaka wasn’t sure what that was, but he knew Jimmy hadn’t got close. Father and son drastically short-changed.

  Thirty-odd years of feeling aggrieved, but eventually coming back to that’s the way the cookie crumbles. How else could you process it?

  Some of that resentment had been directed at his father: the undisciplined lifestyle, the disregard for family history, the tough-guy code that you only went to the doctor when you’d lost the use of a limb or a bodily function had gone completely haywire, stuff coming out the wrong exit or not coming out at all. A man didn’t go to the doctor because he had an ache here or a pain there, because he wasn’t feeling a hundred.

  But what if it wasn’t his genes or his lifestyle? What if someone robbed him of a big chunk of his life? He’d be seventy-eight now, a cantankerous old bugger wanting to know where the fuck his grandkids were. Some of the time, anyway. A while ago Ihaka had asked his mother, ‘What would Dad have been like if he’d got old?’ She’d closed her eyes, esca
ping into memories. ‘Just the same,’ she’d said. ‘My darling Jimmy.’

  Ihaka shuddered, clamped his eyes shut, gripped the steering wheel to stop his hands shaking. He really hoped there was nothing to this; he really hoped the old man had died of natural causes. If not, there would have to be a settling of accounts. There would have to be utu.

  His phone rang. It was Finbar McGrail.

  ‘And where are you on this dismal day, Sergeant?’

  ‘Right now I’m in Tararu.’

  ‘Don’t know it.’

  ‘On the Coromandel, just the other side of Thames.’

  ‘I see. And what are you doing there?’

  ‘Getting some food into me for the first time since sparrow fart. You couldn’t ring back in a few minutes, could you? My fish and chips are getting cold.’

  ‘Afraid not, I’m just going into a meeting. Can I take it the fish and chips in Tararu are worth driving all the way from Auckland for?’

  ‘I wish,’ said Ihaka. ‘I’m just passing through, on the way back to town.’

  ‘So which particular aspect of the Polly Stenson case took you to Coromandel?’

  ‘No, it’s the other thing.’

  ‘The personal matter?’

  ‘Yep.’

  When McGrail eventually spoke, his voice had a bite that Ihaka wasn’t used to receiving, although he’d often heard it inflicted on others. ‘Now I want you to listen very carefully, Sergeant, because I’m only going to say this once. Your current rather enviable circumstance is a direct consequence of my strong interest in the Stenson case which, as you may recall, is an unsolved murder. While I understand you’re exercised by the possibility that there was more to your father’s death than met the eye, the Stenson investigation must take precedence. If I conclude that, contrary to our agreement, you see it the other way around, you’ll be back on the roster in double-quick time, and I’ll find someone who won’t be distracted. You would of course have the option of reopening negotiations with DI Charlton, but I’ve never thought of you as someone who believes in fairies at the bottom of the garden.’