Death on Demand (25 page)

Someone from the nightclub announced that Danny Howard, the manager, was putting on drinks, everybody
welcome. The latecomer stood aside as the others streamed out, taking no notice of him. If he was at the wrong funeral, Ihaka thought, he would have worked it out by now. He could have slipped out unnoticed rather than being the last to leave.

Ihaka followed him out of the funeral parlour, across the road and down the street to an old, mud-splattered station wagon. He tapped on the driver's window, showing his ID.

“Detective Sergeant Ihaka, Auckland Central. I'd like to talk to you.”

The guy frowned. “What about?”

Ihaka couldn't help smiling. “People keep asking me that. The bloke who was cremated back there was murdered. When people are murdered, we have to go round asking people questions until we find out who did it and why.”

“Oh yeah?” The tone suggested he still didn't get it.

Ihaka got into the passenger seat. “Let's start at the beginning,” he said. “Who are you?”

Even that question seemed to take him by surprise. He eyed Ihaka warily for thirty seconds. “Glen Smith, but what…?”

“See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Okay, Glen, what was your relationship with the deceased?”

“Warren? I went to school with him. We were mates. At least I thought we were.”

“When did you last see him?”

“I can tell you the exact day,” said Smith. “Boxing Day, 1998. We drove down from Greytown in the old man's ute, me and Warren and a couple of other guys. We dropped him off on Lambton Quay – he was meant to be catching the ferry over to Picton – and went to the cricket at the Basin. I watched the whole game, saw Tendulkar get a ton.”

“Wasn't Warren a cricket fan?”

“He wasn't into sport, full stop. Like the rest of us played footy, but Warren? No way. We used to give him a hard time about being scared of breaking his nose or something and messing up his pretty face. One time he said, ‘The difference between me and the rest of you guys is that I don't have to go out there and show how brave I am to get a root.' It was bloody true too.”

“Did he actually go to Picton?”

“Shit no, that's when he took off. Turned out he bullshitted everyone. His olds thought he was with us, we thought he was camping with his sister, buggered if I know where she thought he was. By the time everyone realized they'd been had, he was fuck knows where.”

“So you came up for the funeral?”

“No, no, I work in the market gardens out at Pukekohe – Mum sent me the death notice from the local paper.” He shrugged awkwardly. “With Eve gone and Sheila – that's Warren's old girl – pretty much wiping him, I thought if I don't front, there won't be anyone from the old days. Not that he gave a shit about them, obviously. Or us.”

“Did you have a sense of that back then?”

“Not at all.” Smith was relaxed now; he didn't mind going back in time. Perhaps adulthood had been a letdown. “That's why it was such a bloody shock. Far as I knew, he was the same as the rest of us – pretty keen to get away from home, but it wasn't like Greytown was the arsehole of the universe. I've always wondered if the shit we gave him over the woman in the café had something to do with it.”

“What was that about?”

“Well, Warren was a chick magnet, right? I mean, he just took his pick of the girls our age. He had a part-time job at a café run by this couple, Donna and Craig. Donna was pretty bloody choice, but in her mid-twenties I guess, so she
was out of his league. Warren might've been too cool for school and all that, but he was still a kid. Anyway, Warren started going on and on about Donna, plus he was hanging out at the café even when he wasn't working, so a few of us were saying, ‘Jesus mate, what's up with this Donna? Are you in love with her or what?' He'd be going, ‘No, no, I'm just saying she's really cool,' or whatever. Then one day Donna and Craig shot through; didn't say a word to anyone, including Warren. He tried not to show it, but you could tell he was gutted. Everyone gave him fucking heaps. You got to remember he was the man, different girlfriend every second week while the rest of us were wondering where our next hand-job's coming from. The sheilas ripped into him as well, because he'd given most of them the old bum's rush at some stage. You'd have to say he handled it okay, but it must've pissed him off. Here's a guy, ever since his balls dropped he's had chicks all over him and guys envying him, now suddenly he's copping shit from everyone. So as I said, I wondered if that had something to do with him buggering off.”

Ihaka was looking at it another way. Donna and Craig just up and disappear. Warren follows suit. Was it copycat, or did he know where they'd gone and go after them?

“You remember their surnames?”

Smith shook his head. “Don't think I ever knew.”

“Would anyone in Greytown?”

“Doubt it. I'll ask Mum, but it's a long time ago now. Most of that crowd have scattered.”

“How well did you know Eve?” said Ihaka.

“Well, she was Warren's big sister. I had a bit of a crush on her to tell the truth, but as far as she was concerned I was just one of Warren's little mates. She probably couldn't tell us apart. Christ, she bloody doted on him, though. I used to say to my sister, ‘Why are you such a bitch? Why
can't you be more like Eve?' You can probably guess what she came back with.”

“Why can't you be more like Warren?”

“Spot on.”

 

Ihaka never saw Finbar McGrail's old house, but from what he'd heard it was exactly what you would have expected back then: a modest family home in an unremarkable street in a suburb notable only for having more Bible-bashers per capita than any other in Auckland. Now that he'd moved up in the world, home was a gracious villa on a leafy section on the slopes of Mt Eden.

Ihaka stood on the wide veranda, waiting for someone to answer the door and having second thoughts about his spur-of-the-moment decision to drop in unannounced on the Auckland District Commander at 9.30 p.m. The door was opened by a lanky teenager in baggy surf shorts and a singlet, with a baseball cap on backwards keeping heavy-metal hair off his face. Apart from all that, he was the spitting image of his old man.

Before Ihaka could introduce himself, McGrail Junior said, “You're Sergeant Ihaka, right? I met you a few years ago when Dad took me into Central. We arrived just as you were giving someone a blast. It was quite an eye-opener.”

“I remember. You were just a little squirt.”

“Well, it must be seven or eight years ago now. I'm David, by the way.” They shook hands. “Come in. You're here to see Dad?”

“Is he around?”

“Yeah, he's in his study.”

Ihaka followed David down the corridor. “I suppose you picked up a few new words that day?”

David threw a grin over his shoulder. “I was straight onto Google as soon as we got home.”

He knocked and put his head around the door. “Sergeant Ihaka's here.”

From within: “Really?”

Ihaka thanked David and went in. McGrail was sitting at what looked like an old farmhouse kitchen table surrounded by stacks of documents, each a foot high. Bookshelves covered one wall and the curtains were partially drawn over the French doors which opened out to the rear of the section. Behind McGrail was a sideboard with framed family photos and some bottles and glasses on a silver tray.

McGrail got up, peeling off his reading glasses. “This is an unexpected pleasure. Can I offer you a nightcap?”

Ihaka shrugged. “Well, if you're having one.”

McGrail directed Ihaka to a chair and handed him a glass of port. “To be savoured.”

“As opposed to drunk?”

“As opposed to swilled.”

Ihaka took a sip. “I don't suppose you get this by the cardboard box at the local Pak'nSave?”

“I shouldn't think so,” said McGrail. “Nineteen ninety-four was an outstanding vintage.”

“Speaking of the finer things in life,” said Ihaka. “Nice place you've got here.”

“We like it.”

“Be worth a bit, wouldn't it?”

McGrail smiled thinly. “Have you had your house valued lately?”

Ihaka shook his head.

“You should. You'd probably find it's worth quite a lot more than it was five years ago. But I don't suppose you called in at this hour to compare property portfolios.”

“I'm still curious about Blair Corvine.”

McGrail looked down, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, we're back on that subject, are we? I would've thought you had enough to be going on with at the minute.”

“You know I've talked to people, I've read the report, I've kept my ear to the ground, but I haven't seen or heard any mention of what Corvine told you, presumably in this very room, just before he was shot.”

“About thieves stealing from other thieves?”

“And the whisper that a cop was in on it.”

McGrail went through his routine: sniff, sip, swirl, swallow. “Corvine had no names, no details, just a rumour he'd heard from one of his outlaw acquaintances. As you know, Sergeant, the criminal fraternity accuses us of all sorts of things, knowing that there'll always be some useful idiot who'll give it credence. Having said that, I didn't dismiss it out of hand. I asked Charlton to look into it.”

“And?”

“Well, as you can imagine, information was hard to come by because the victims weren't filing into Central to lay complaints. He established that there'd been an uptick in what one might call dog-eat-dog activity, but found no evidence of what Corvine was talking about.”

 

On his way home Ihaka rang Detective Inspector Johan Van Roon in Wellington.

“You seen where McGrail lives these days?”

“Yeah, I have,” said Van Roon. “Not too shabby, is it?”

“In my subtle way I invited him to put a ballpark figure on it. He ignored me, of course. What would you say?”

“I'm no expert, but I wouldn't have thought you'd get much change from one and a half mill.”

“Fuck me, nice for some. And his beverage of choice is 1994 port, an outstanding vintage, so he tells me.”

“What did I tell you?” said Van Roon. “It's all changed up there, mate. Every bastard's looking after number one.”

Ihaka was having breakfast – porridge, boiled eggs, Vogel's with cholesterol-free spread, tea with two fewer spoonfuls of sugar than he used to have – when Helen Conroy called to say she'd tracked down the woman who introduced her to Arden Black. She'd lost touch with Margie Brackstone when Margie and her husband moved to Akaroa, where they had an apparently charming bed and breakfast.

He told her there'd be a press conference in an hour's time to announce arrests in connection with Black's murder, but so far that hadn't led to progress on the blackmail front.

“Well, it's only been a few days,” said Conroy. “I know I shouldn't expect miracles, even if I can't help praying for one.”

“Let me know if you hear back,” said Ihaka. “I prefer to work alone, but I'm prepared to make an exception for God.”

When Margie Brackstone answered the phone, Ihaka told her, “Listen carefully, Mrs Brackstone. I'm Detective Sergeant Ihaka, calling from Auckland. I need to talk to you about Arden Black, but I'm picking that's a conversation you won't want to have if your husband's around.”

“Uh, no. Not at all.”

“Is he there now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here's what you do. When I finish talking, you say, ‘I don't think we're really interested, thanks all the same,' and hang up. If your husband asks, tell him it was someone wanting you to take part in a survey of drinking habits, or whatever. Get yourself sorted so you can talk, then ring me at Auckland Central. What do you say now?”

“Look, I don't think so, thank you. I'm rather busy just now. Goodbye.”

 

“I thought I'd put all this behind me,” said Margie Brackstone three hours later. “I just heard on the radio that two men have been arrested.”

“There's still a few loose ends,” said Ihaka.

“Did Arden's death have anything to do with his love life, for want of a better term? Not that love had much to do with it.”

“One of the loose ends is motive. We don't know why he was murdered. Are you okay to talk?”

“Yes, my husband's having lunch with some friends over at French Farm vineyard. I pulled out at the last minute. The only good thing about being prone to migraines is that they're very useful when it comes to getting out of things. Just as a matter of interest, how did my name crop up?”

“I asked a client of Arden's how she got involved; she put me onto Helen Conroy, who put me onto you.”

“I see.”

“No one else knows about this, Mrs Brackstone. As I told Helen, I can't make promises, but I'll do my best to keep it just between us.”

“That would be enormously appreciated.”

“So how did you meet Arden?”

“I was walking the dog in Cornwall Park one Saturday morning and ran into this woman I vaguely knew, who was there watching her little boy play cricket. It was a
bit awkward, really, because she'd had an affair with a friend of ours who was quite a bit older than her, and the general consensus was that she wasn't smitten by his looks and personality, if you get my drift. As it turned out, we did her an injustice because she walked out on him. Anyway, while we were chatting, Arden appeared and she introduced us.”