Surrender (24 page)

‘How long did he survive?’ she asked, determined to know.

I saw Robbie hesitate, weighing up how much to tell her.

‘He survived for some time in the cave,’ I said. ‘That’s where he wrote the message to you.’

She nodded without turning to face me.

Robbie picked it up from there. ‘It looks like he may have crawled out of the cave to look for water, and then was unable to climb back up.’

I saw her take this in. So did I. For the first time since my kidnapping I realised how Boris had actually died.

Jane voiced my thoughts. ‘Oh my God. He died of thirst.’

I allowed myself a single lip-lick. ‘No, we don’t think so,’ I lied. ‘Most likely he died of exposure. It’s one of the most painless ways to go. He would have just drifted off.’

In the silence I could feel both Robbie’s and Jane’s eyes on me. By the time I looked up again Robbie was talking to Jane about the body, asking if she’d like to claim the ashes, but before she could answer, the door opened and a big blond-haired man filled the
doorway. His smile faltered as he took in Robbie’s police uniform and my battered appearance.

‘This is my son,’ Jane said by way of introduction.

Robbie held out his hand to the man. ‘Robbie,’ he said simply.

The big man smiled tentatively at his mother as he shook Robbie’s hand.

‘Mischa O’Neill,’ he said. ‘What’s all this about?’

‘Nothing,’ Jane answered, before we had a chance to respond. ‘Apparently there have been burglaries in the neighbourhood, and they’re going door to door reminding people to lock up.’

Mischa glanced at the backpack on the sink bench.

‘I found it in the attic,’ she said simply. ‘Now that I don’t have your father to worry about, I thought I could go for a tramp. But it’s a bit past it.’

On the drive home we talked about Jane’s lie, and I admitted to Robbie that I wasn’t a very polished fibber. I said he needed to know that if we were, you know, going to see more of each other. Without taking his eyes off the road Robbie grinned, and said that was fine with him, because he was a bit of a truth-fan himself. Except when it came to avoiding telling people the gorier details of how their loved-one died. That kind of lying was cool with him. We drove in silence for a while. It was a first-class silence, and right in the middle of it I noticed that Robbie had very sexy wrists.

He pulled the car up outside my place but kept the motor running. Wolf barked once — his greeting bark. He’d recognised the sound of Robbie’s car. Robbie screwed up his face in apology.

‘We kind of bonded,’ he admitted.

‘Yeah, I noticed,’ I said. ‘Okay, he lives with me, but you get visiting rights. Deal?’

He turned that grin in my direction. ‘Deal,’ he said, and took
my fingers in his. We sat like that, fingers entwined. It felt good. It felt more than good.

‘Give me a day or two, okay?’ I said. ‘I need to let some bruises heal.’

‘Okay,’ he said, giving my fingers a little squeeze. ‘You let me know when you’re ready. I’m not going anywhere.’

He kissed my fingers, an odd, courtly gesture. Sexy as all hell.

F
our or five years ago, two men, brothers, went fishing at dawn off the Island Bay coast. Experienced boaties, big strong blokes in their forties who, according to their families and friends, should have been able to swim to shore from pretty much anywhere. Nobody knows what happened: neither their bodies nor their little fishing boat came home that day.

The families set up a vigil on the shore. Every day and every night someone was there on the beach peering out at the Strait, willing the men to come home. Of course it was on TV and in the local papers — one of those stories you get caught up in despite yourself. The frightened-looking huddle of the kids, siblings, and cousins, squabbles and rivalries forgotten for now; the wives staunch and proud. The kind of people who never ask for help from anyone, but asking for it now:
Could yachties keep a look out for any sign of the men?

As the days went by, the story was no longer front page or even second or third page news; and then, when weeks passed, I had to search the paper to find any reference to it … a second and then a
third unsuccessful search … and then, finally, nothing. The men never did return. Their bodies were never found.

I thought about the brothers a lot in those first weeks, hoping against hope they’d managed to clamber ashore somewhere and were waiting for someone to collect them. I was eager for the big breaking story of their being discovered by the captain of a fishing vessel, or sighted on some unlikely rocky outcrop. A few kilos lighter, maybe, and shyly grinning through a couple of weeks’ growth, saying, ‘Nah nah, it wasn’t all that bad — the worst was having to listen to him snoring.’ Something like that.

But that story never happened, and eventually I forgot about the brothers. I forgot about the little huddle of cousins waiting for their dads to come home. And then a couple of months after they first went missing, I was walking Wolf around the rocky coast and stumbled upon a little cross made of driftwood with a dirty, old woollen beanie stuck on top of it. When I looked closer I saw a hand-carved message in the upright stick. It said, simply, ‘we Love you Dad’. The cross was surrounded by a collection of little offerings: a handmade bracelet of tinfoil trinkets, a plastic miniature truck, a paua shell with kisses scratched into it. I guessed they were love-gifts and messages from the men’s children, or maybe little charms, amulets to lure the men’s spirits back to shore. I knew these men were good dads, and I knew too that no matter what you believe happens to you when you die, somehow, somewhere, those two brothers would be keeping an eye on their broods of kids left behind. If anything was going to hitch this world to any other one, those heartfelt, powerful little love totems would do it.

The handmade cross wasn’t there any more, and the beanie and talismans were long gone, but the spot still held a magic for me, still felt sacred. Tapu. I sat nearby, balanced the simple little cardboard box of Niki’s ashes on my knees, and looked out across Cook Strait
towards the South Island. I could tell from the jagged horizon line that there was a big swell out there, and my heart swelled with it.

I told Niki I was sorry. Sorry for everything. And I told her it was time for me to let go. Not let go of her, but time to let go of trying to make it better for her, of trying to control her. I didn’t want ‘retro-bution’ as Stoke called it. I didn’t want revenge. I didn’t even want to understand
why
Vex had ordered her death, or why Snow had killed her. Like Gemma said, that way lies madness. All I wanted was to remember Niki with love.

I rubbed a smooth shell between my thumb and finger, and watched Wolf enact a wildebeest fantasy as he dragged a pile of seaweed along the narrow piece of sand between the rocks. I told Niki to rest easy in my heart and memory. In the distant horizon I could just make out the snowy peaks of the Seaward Kaikouras. I remembered the words of the Baxter poem:

He was only eighteen when he wrote that, and the thought made me smile. I continued the rest of the verse.

But I didn’t need to recite the rest of the line. That was enough. I didn’t care if anyone heard me. It was time for Niki to ride easy,
and if anyone should surrender their anger it was me.

I did a lot of letting go there on that wild, windy coast. I let Niki’s ashes go with the gentle northerly, and watched them disappear into the surf and sand beneath. And then I asked those two missing fishermen if they’d mind very much keeping an eye on my little sister for me. I asked if they’d make sure she keeps warm and that she laughs a lot.

And I let the tears go too. I howled all the tears right out of me. I put my fists between my legs, aware of the bruise left by Ross, and hugged myself, and then I let him go too.

Gemma had told me that, when Ross abducted me, Sean had Vex removed to a safe-house. I assumed it was to keep her safe from Ross, but his reasoning was more complex than that: if she was innocent she needed protecting; if she was guilty he’d know exactly where she was. I’d underestimated Sean. Maybe I always had. And with that thought I let Sean go too. Gone, gone, gone.

As I drove away from Island Bay, my heart felt light, and I realised I was ravenously hungry. It felt like my first real hunger in years. I’d call Gemma and see if she wanted to join me for fish and chips and a beer on Lyall Bay beach. I heard Wolf’s little yelps of pleasure as his tongue flapped in the wind. And I’d buy him a battered sausage, and he could run around on the sand pretending he was a young dog again.

And maybe tomorrow I’d ring Robbie and ask if he was free.

EXTRACT FROM MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

Diane Rowe, our fearless missing persons expert, will once again take us on a dark ride through the underbelly of a city not prepared to give up its secrets easily.

N
o amount of make-up could disguise the prison grey of her skin. Karen started right in, giving me no chance to set the ground rules.

‘I want to hire you to find my daughter, Sunny. Her father was granted custody when I went away.’

‘Went away’, huh? So we were going to talk in euphemisms.

‘I want you to make sure she’s safe.’

Okay. That got my attention. ‘You think he’s molesting her?’

She lifted her shoulders but that was all the answer she gave.

‘Have you told the police?’

‘It’s all in there.’ She stared at the plastic bag on the table willing me to pick it up. ‘I haven’t seen Sunny since the day I was arrested. She was seven. She’ll be nearly fourteen now.’

She saw me do the calculation. That kind of time is reserved for the very worst crimes.

‘I’ll pay you, of course.’

I thought about it for a full five seconds. That’s how long it took me to calculate my fiscal position. Since we were in the game of euphemisms, I’d describe my bank balance as ‘lean’.

I slid a prepared one-page agreement across the table to her and she reached for my pen and signed without reading a word of it. She was elated. Grateful. The page was pushed back across the desk. Her signature was back-sloping. It wasn’t the only sign Karen lacked confidence. Her nails were bitten.
She had trouble looking me in the eye. She’d picked up an odd blinking mannerism.

‘I just need to know she’s okay, that’s all.’

We sat in silence. I was thinking I had no right to judge her. What was going through her head I had no idea. Maybe nothing. Seven years in prison, you might learn how to do that.

‘There’s something you need to know,’ she said, straightening her back. ‘I tried to hurt her.’ For the first time she looked me straight in the eyes. Held my gaze. ‘That’s what I went away for. I tried to kill my daughter.’

I think I said ‘Oh’.

‘My excuse back then was that I had a P habit. Half the time I was off my face, the rest of the time I was doing everything I could to get that way. But that wasn’t what it was. I was empty.’ She stared directly at me. ‘That was before I found God. Before He found me.’

I didn’t even try to hide my scepticism but she lifted her face as if to take the blow full on. ‘He gives us all his love, you know,’ she said. Dry as an autumn leaf. ‘I told Sunny to buckle up and then I let the car roll into the gorge. A guy fishing upriver dived in and managed to get her seat belt undone. Pulled her to the surface. Gave her mouth to mouth. He saved her.’

There was nothing, absolutely nothing I could say. She didn’t need me to respond.

‘Thank God,’ she added, in that different way Christians say it. I saw the blotches of red bloom across her neck. Saw the internal struggle as she forced the confession out of herself like some kind of exorcism. I wouldn’t have been surprised if her head had spun 360 degrees. Well, okay. Maybe a little surprised.

‘I tried to kill her. I tried to kill my beautiful little girl.’