Settlers' Creek (18 page)

The outside walls of the new Kaipuna public toilets were covered with glazed tiles; a foaming watery mosaic of colour and swirl. Box went in and pissed a weak yellow stream into the stainless steel urinal. When he came out he stood with his face to the late afternoon sunshine.

To get to the beach he had to walk up a short path over a steep dune fringed with lupins. When he reached the top of the dune, there it was below him, the wide shingle beach, and stretching out all the way to the curve of the horizon, the ocean. Big, big sky above. Although there was very little wind the waves rolled in hard. Box watched the swells coming across the water to within a couple of metres of the beach before suddenly rearing up at the spot where the deep water turned shallow. Each wave broke down almost instantly with a throaty roar. As the water was sucked out again, stones whispered backwards and forwards.

The shingle rolled away from him down to the water in a series of three storm-cut plateaus. It occurred to Box that
if he started counting right now, he’d die an old man before getting through a fraction of a fraction of the grey stones on this beach. Each one was lathed by the wave action into a variation on oval. Not one was bigger than a chicken egg. Through the grey, the odd white stone or shell stood out. At his feet was a tangled frill of bleached driftwood, dead crab carapaces and hollow serrated pincers, seagull feathers and the litter of cans and plastic. He could smell the distinctive pong of drying kelp.

Up the coast to the north were the mountains, steep and bush clad. Box had hunted in one of the valleys when he was in his early twenties. He’d gone with a couple of mates from the army. He couldn’t remember many of the details or if they’d had any real luck with the hunting. But that had been the last time he was in Kaipuna.

Someone was coming up the path. Box turned and saw a uniformed policeman. The cop was walking towards him, his polished black shoes sinking into the shingle with each step. The policeman was about Box’s age, but overweight by at least twenty kilograms. He was breathing through his mouth by the time he came to a stop in front of Box.

‘Gidday. Am I right in guessing that you’re Mr Saxton?’

‘That’s right.’

The cop thrust out his hand. ‘Brent McKenzie.’ The black lettering on the badge above his breast pocket said ‘Senior Sergeant’. They shook hands.

‘Box.’

The man raised his eyebrows. ‘As in cardboard box?’

‘Right. That’s what everyone’s called me since I was a kid.’

‘Did you spend a lot of time hiding in boxes?’

‘Something like that. Just out of interest, how did you know where to find me?’

‘It’s a small town. I saw your ute parked back there. You’re not a local and you don’t look like a tourist. Do you mind if we have a talk?’

‘Sure.’

The policeman looked back towards the buildings. ‘My office is only two minutes’ walk. We’ve got good coffee.’

Box looked up and down the broad empty beach. ‘Sure, why not, eh?’

He followed the policeman down the track and across the car park. They walked side by side down Marine Parade, heading away from the shops, until they came to a single-level brick building. A sign made out of blue steel letters that was fastened to the side of the building said ‘Police Station’. Except someone had taken the first two letters.

McKenzie saw him looking. ‘Little buggers. That’s gunna be fixed later in the week. Can you believe that we’ve got to order a P and an O all the way from Wellington? There’s a local guy could’ve replaced those in a day, and for half the price, but apparently the ministry’s got an official manufacturer of blue letters.’

‘Do you know who took them?’

‘I’ve got my suspicions.’

Box followed him inside. A young officer stood behind the reception counter. He had red hair and wispy sideburns. He looked at Box curiously.

‘Could ya get us two coffees, Tim?’

The redhead frowned. ‘That will be your fourth today. Margaret said not to give you more than three.’

‘Are you gunna tell her, Tim? Cos I sure as hell aren’t.’

The young man sighed and looked at Box. ‘How do you have your coffee, sir?’

‘Black, thanks, with three sugars.’

Box followed McKenzie into an office at the front of the building. Over the road was a park and only a hedge blocked out a view of the ocean. Sitting on a shelf near the desk was a framed photograph of a younger, slimmer McKenzie. He was standing at the back of a launch and next to him were two boys, one on either side. The boys were obviously his sons: the same round faces, although their hair was dark. All three of them held up fishing rods from which dangled decent-sized snapper.

‘Take a seat.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Your coffee shouldn’t be too long. We finally got an espresso machine a couple of months ago but Tim’s the only one who can work the bloody thing. Every time I try, I end up with a cup of muddy river water.’

Box didn’t smile. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

McKenzie looked at him and his eyes narrowed slightly. The grin slid down off his face and Box saw how, in the course of a single breath, McKenzie had slipped off the chatty small-town cop persona like a wet jacket.

‘I was sorry to hear about your son.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ve got a couple of teenage boys myself.’

‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘Not a thing. But it’s what you might be going to do that I’m worried about. I got a call saying that you could be up here and I’d just like to know what your intentions are.’

‘I’m not really sure.’

McKenzie laid both hands flat on the desk. He looked down at them and drummed his fingers. ‘That answer doesn’t really help me much, Mr Saxton.’

‘I can see that.’

‘What we’ve got here is a rather delicate situation. There’s a lot of cultural factors to consider.’

‘Maori culture?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about my culture?’

‘Mr Saxton, I sympathise, I really do, but you’d be best to try and settle this thing through the courts.’

‘That’s what the police in the city told me as well.’

‘And they were right. I don’t want to be rude, but what did you think you were going to achieve by coming up here?’

‘Best case?’

‘Why not.’

‘I thought that I might take my son’s body home to be buried by his real family in a place we’ve chosen ourselves.’

‘That’s not going to happen — not soon, anyway.’

‘You asked for best case.’

‘Yeah. I did.’

The policeman took a deep breath and shook his head. He stood and went to the window. Box saw the way that his shoulders had rounded from years of sitting behind a desk, this same desk probably. From where he sat, Box could see past the policeman to the park opposite. Two blond tourists in puffy jackets were sitting at one of the picnic tables, eating fish and chips out of a bundle of white paper. The girl threw a chip to a seagull and within seconds at least twenty more white and black shapes came swooping in, beaks wide, cawing and scraping before they even landed. Box couldn’t hear anything through the glass but he imagined the shrill rolling screams of the birds.

The policeman turned back to him. ‘Here’s what I think, Mr Saxton.’

‘Box.’

‘Okay, Box. I think that when we’re finished talking you should leave this office, get in your ute and drive back home. When you get there the first thing you do is you talk to your lawyer. Try and get this mess settled as soon as you can.’

‘Is that an official request from the police?’

‘No. That’s just my opinion.’

‘Because it sounds a little like you’re trying to run me out of town.’

McKenzie smiled grimly. ‘This isn’t the wild west. You’ve done nothing wrong. Look, frankly, my main concern is that if you hang around town for long enough, you could get hurt. The local Maori aren’t going to take it well if you do something daft like barging onto the marae in the middle of a tangi, like Charles Bronson.’

‘I always preferred Eastwood.’

McKenzie huffed air out of his nose and scratched his head. ‘I’m not sure you understand the dynamics up here. This place isn’t white and middle class. Some of the local Maori boys aren’t exactly saints. More than a few of them have done time in gangs, Black Power mainly.’

‘I can look after myself.’

For the first time McKenzie let a note of annoyance creep into his voice. ‘This isn’t a movie, mate. You look pretty fit but if one of those big Maori fellas hits you in the head then you fall down and you don’t get up. The next thing that happens is you wake up in the hospital. That’s if you’re lucky.’

Box stood up so that he was facing the policeman across the desk. ‘I appreciate your advice.’

‘Look, personally, I don’t agree with what they did, but there’s a long history of Maori having disputes over where
a body should be buried. Your stepson wouldn’t be the first body to be snatched by a raiding party. You need to sort this out through the courts. That’s my advice.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you going take it?’

‘I’m certainly going to think about it.’ Box looked across at the picture of the smiling man and his sons with the three gape-mouthed snapper. McKenzie followed his gaze. ‘Out of interest, what would you do if it was one of your sons?’ said Box.

The policeman narrowed his eyes. ‘I take your point. But I still think you should go home and talk to your lawyer. There’s no other way to sort this mess out.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

McKenzie’s eyes went back to the photo on the shelf. He pursed his lips. ‘If it got to this point, I’d be talking to my lawyer.’

‘Do you reckon?’

‘That’s what I’d do.’

But Box didn’t believe him, not a word. ‘Thanks for your advice.’

He turned and left the office. As he passed the front counter he saw the young red-headed officer carrying two cups of coffee in from another room. He was sorry that he’d missed it. He felt like he could do with another shot of caffeine, anything to get him through this day.

The two puff-jacketed tourists had left the park. They’d probably been driven away by the cold sea breeze and the shadows of the trees, which had lengthened out, stretching
over the picnic tables. Although the food was gone, a couple of seagulls still hung around, too thick or too stubborn to go elsewhere. He passed through a gap in a ragged hedge and was back on the stony beach. He stripped off his shoes and socks and placed them on the shingle with the socks tucked one into each shoe, then walked down to the water. The ocean was a foaming lick against the beach. Box hesitated, and stepped in. The water was pinching cold. It almost immediately numbed his skin. He could feel the shingle like smooth ball-bearings moving beneath the soles of his feet. Reaching down, he rolled up his jeans as high as he could and waded out until the water came to just below his knees.

Box stopped and simply stood and looked out to sea, past the orange buoys and the three fishing boats moored there, past the hazy point where the water turned from pale to darker blue. Eventually he closed his eyes. All the better to shut out the world.

For how long?

He didn’t know and didn’t care.

Until the bites of the sandflies swarming around his face and the backs of his hands brought him back. The light had faded and the boats had lost their detail.

Box turned and stumbled out of the water. The stones against the soles of his feet didn’t register anymore. A piece of glass could have opened him up and he’d be none the wiser until he saw the blood. He collected his shoes and socks and carried them back up to the picnic table, pulled them on over wet feet that still didn’t feel as if they belonged to him.

Box looked up. ‘Shit!’

A young Maori guy had stepped out of the shadows.
He wore baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. His cap was on backwards.

‘Sorry, man. I just saw you out there. Wondered what you were doing.’

‘Nothing. Just thinking.’

‘You okay?’

‘You gave me a shock. For a moment, I thought, I thought that you were someone else.’

‘Another good-looking guy.’ A big grin and a laugh.

‘Yeah.’

‘See ya. Take care, eh. Chill.’ And he walked away, heading towards the main part of town.

Box watched him go. For a second there he’d been looking at Mark. Not that they really looked that much alike — but for a moment, in the shadows, with his cap on backwards like that.

Box took a deep breath. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

When his shoes were on he started to walk. He had no idea where he was going. He just needed to move, to pump some life back into his body. He followed the curve of the bay. No idea what the hell he was going to do when he got to the end of the beach. Box only hoped that by the time he got there his hands would have stopped shaking.

It was dark by the time Box turned up the hill towards the subdivision. This road was obviously new. The white light of his headlamps pulled him up through engineered curves laid across the otherwise barren hillside. Out on the edge of the light, sheep stood, still as fibreglass statues.

Just beyond where the road levelled out, were two tall rectangular pillars, one on each side of the road. Box slowed down to have a look. They’d been put together using large river stones, encased in rectangular cages of galvanised steel. It was a design feature that had been flavour of the month with architects a few years ago. He’d used the same thing himself on a couple of the houses Saxton Construction had built. Tussock and flax were planted at their bases.

The name of the development had been cut into a heavy steel plate of artfully rusted steel: ‘Seaview’.

A hundred metres up the road a large map of the development was set up on a tripod of wooden stakes. Box saw that none of the sections were below fifteen hundred
square metres. The biggest were monsters at three thousand. There were two large reserves set aside and what looked to be an artificial lake. Despite the recession the sign boasted a lot of red sold stickers. Box found Plover Lane on the map and drove on.

Despite the number of sections that had sold, the houses with lights on in the windows were still heavily outweighed by bare land and half-completed shells where timber framing cast long latticed shadows on the ground as he passed.

Plover Lane was right on the edge of the new housing; a dead end that fish-hooked off Albatross Crescent. Box had seen from the map that all the houses on the north side of the lane would have uninterrupted views across a reserve and out to sea. Clearly, he was driving past some of the best sections in the development: two thousand square metres most of them, and that didn’t count the reserve in the front. These were the big-ticket sections, the first to be sold and built on.

The houses showed blank faces to the road. Obviously they’d been designed to look north, up the coast, for the all-day sun and the million-dollar views. All Box was left to look at from the road were wide roller doors on the garages and glimpses of lighted entranceways hidden behind flax and lancewood landscaping. There were low lights in the gardens and crushed shell paths and exposed aggregate in the concrete driveways. He saw several flash letterboxes, one-offs, that matched the houses.

Tipene’s place — if the woman in the information centre had got it right — was the second from the end. Box drove slowly past. The lane finished in a bulbous shape, like the end of a thermometer. Beyond the cul-de-
sac the land reverted to farm. He turned the ute to follow the tight curve of the road and heard the recurring click from the rooted CV joint that sounded loudly whenever the wheel was swung hard to the right. The noise was loud in the darkness of the deserted street. He glanced around but there was no sign of life.

He drove past number sixteen again, then pulled over in the shadows between the street lights.

Even from the road Tipene’s place was impressive. The roof was broken into separate halves which angled in from the left and right of the building, one slightly higher than the other. The two steeply angled sections met in the middle and appeared to overlap. Between the roof and the smooth concrete of the exterior walls was a layer of glass, broken every few metres by what Box guessed were steel supports. The wide eaves of the roof were lit from below. The effect was to make the roof appear to float free of the rest of the house. The architect’s intention was clear enough: the house resembled a bird, a gull — no, he thought, better still, an albatross — a huge sea bird gliding effortlessly over the dark ocean. Box knew from experience that architectural features like that didn’t come cheap, not for design or construction. He was looking at a house that had cost a shitload — to use the official developers’ jargon. There was obviously good money in showing dolphins to tourists.

Box reached over, flicked open the glove box and took out the binoculars that he used for hunting. He hung them around his neck, then zipped his jacket up over them so they wouldn’t move around enough to be annoying. As he got out of his ute, he glanced up and down the street but saw no one.

Box walked up the street to the nearest building site. The sky was clear of clouds and the autumn air was cold now that the sun had gone. The slight onshore breeze carried the familiar building site smells of fresh sawdust and cement, soft and dusty as baking powder. He watched as a cat appeared from among the bushes close to him and slipped furtively along the edge of the footpath, moving in and out of the gutter. It got so close that he could see where its ears were tattered and punched like a bus ticket.

Box stepped from the footpath onto the cut-up, uneven earth. After a few metres he was beyond the reach of the nearest street light. He had to walk carefully. The darkness hid the rutted ground and the offcuts and chippy’s bric-a-brac that was scattered everywhere. It would be easy to slip and hurt himself. He stopped by the plastic portaloo that rose up suddenly on his left and, close up, reeked of chemicals, and waited until his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. After a while he could make out the thick concrete foundation still boxed up and prickled with metal rods and pipes. He waited patiently. The moon was a fingernail cutting off being full, though of course that was a mixed blessing. He could use the moonlight to see by but it worked both ways: people could also see him. At last he moved on, still choosing his footing carefully.

There was no fence between the building site and the reserve, which turned out to be an open expanse of native grasses and tussock, with some low bushes on the far side where the land began to slope away sharply, nothing tall enough to block the view. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Box could see up the coast to the starless hole in the night sky that was the mountains. Even with the moonlight the ocean was invisible, defined only by its edge,
by a few car headlights following the coastal road north and by the lights of the occasional farmhouse or bach on the narrow strip of land between the ocean and the mountains. To the south were the lights of the town.

He moved carefully across the open space to the low plantings on the far side of the reserve. The bushes were laid out in a belt about five metres wide. He moved in a crouch through tussocks and scrappy hebes until he came out adjacent to number sixteen. Box unzipped his jacket and pulled out his binoculars. The Zeiss FLs worked well in low light. That was why he’d forked out the big bucks. Back when he had the money. Back in the days when he was still hunting regularly. The lenses sucked in light from hidden sources, even at dawn or near to the closing of that long buttery twilight that you get in the mountains in midsummer. He lay down at the edge of the bushes and, using a clump of tussock to keep his body away from the damp ground, trained the binoculars on the house in front of him.

The entire north side was glass — walls of glass. Everything was crisp and clear through the binoculars. The lower level of the house appeared to be one large open-plan space. The kitchen and dining area were on the left and there was a sunken lounge on the right. There was a room above the kitchen: the master bedroom, he guessed.

Box couldn’t help imagining how Tipene would be able to lie in his bed and watch the sunrise. Like a bloody king. From up there there’d be views all the way to Rarotonga.

The only person he could see was in the kitchen. It was an older woman. She was short and heavy-set and her hair was tied in a grey braid that hung down thick as a tail between her shoulder blades. He remembered her from
the house. She’d been the one who’d come out of the toilet muttering and eyeing him darkly. There was the rapid flicker of a television screen coming from the lounge space but he could see no one in there. Maybe the old woman was one of those people who liked a television on in the house, for company.

He scanned the two houses on either side. There were lights on and people home in both but he could see no one who was actually standing at the window looking out. Even if they were looking, probably all they would see from inside the lighted interior was darkness.

When Box was sure that no one was watching, he raised himself off the ground and, still in a half crouch, moved across the reserve towards the house. Only the beginning of the mown grass showed where the reserve ended and the boundary of Tipene’s house began. Box thought of the tiny front lawn at the place where he and his family were living, of the pathetic square of concrete out the back that was barely a courtyard.

He moved closer, more cautiously now, aware that there might be security lights, but none came on. There was a swimming pool; of course there was. The pool was fenced off and he lay on the ground at the edge of the railings and again used his binoculars to study the house.

The woman in the kitchen was in her sixties, maybe even older. His first impression of her had been that she was short and squat. Now that he had time to study her Box decided that she was just fat. She moved awkwardly around the large room, rolling her weight into one hip, as though her leg or her foot was causing her pain. Box watched her lean over the stove and use a ladle to spoon something from a pot onto a plate she held in her other
hand. Her mouth moved. A few seconds later a boy of about thirteen or fourteen raised his head from the couch in the lounge, where he must have been lying down. The boy got up and was almost to the table when the old woman gestured and pointed back towards the lounge. The boy shrugged, went back and picked up the remote control and switched off the television before returning to the dining table.

A tall Maori woman came into the room, entering through what Box guessed was a hallway at the back of the kitchen. He hadn’t seen her before. Box guessed that she was Tipene’s wife, although there were other possibilities; maybe she was a younger sister, or some other relative. She was wearing a long dark green dress that flowed over her tall frame, as though she were going out somewhere. The binoculars were good enough for Box to see the blue make-up around her eyes and a greenstone pendant worn high, almost at her throat. Box wondered if this was the woman Liz had told him about — the one Tipene had had an affair with, the one Liz had found out about, before he ran out on them.

The old woman served up two more plates of food and carried them to the table. All three sat. Box watched, fascinated, as they began to eat.

Knowing that he shouldn’t wasn’t enough to stop Box pulling over outside the bottle store. It was part of the Mariner Pub, a big blue brick of a building that squatted down on Marine Parade. The bar was on the ground level, cheap rooms above. The bottle store was obviously an afterthought, tacked onto the side, catering to those who, for
whatever reasons, wanted to drink their booze elsewhere.

Box went in. His body was stiff from lying on the ground for so long. After the darkness up on the peninsula the fluorescent lights inside the door were an irritating overhead flicker.

‘What’ll it be, fella?’ The man who came out to serve him had greasy hair that was slicked back off his forehead and hung down at the back in a limp ponytail.

‘A dozen CDs, bottles, not cans.’

‘You want those cold?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Right you are.’

Box didn’t like drinking out of cans. He couldn’t stand the press of thin aluminium against his lips or the occasional metallic tang that came in with the taste of the beer. Thick glass, cold and smooth against his mouth, was the way he liked it.

Only a swing door separated the bottle store from the main bar. As he stood waiting at the counter Box could hear the rumble of laughter from the people drinking, along with the click of pool balls one against another, and the fake electronic music from the jingle-jangle pokie machines. All the sounds ran together into a single teasing babble.

‘You okay, fella?’

‘What?’

‘You don’t look so good.’

‘I’m fine.’

Box paid for the two packs of beer and, six bottles in each hand, left as quickly as he could. He was already thinking about the taste of the first drink. Behind him the sounds of the bar faded. He’d cracked one open even before he started the ute’s engine.