All Saints: Love and Intrigue in the Stunning New Zealand Wilderness (The New Zealand Soccer Referee Series Book 1) (7 page)

“How many
meltdowns can one kid have in a day?” Helen asked with a sigh, watching as
Lawrie Hopu sat on the carpet with his arms clasped around his knees. She
shovelled her sandwich into her mouth and eyed the back of his head with
nervous anticipation.

“Something’s
not right,” I whispered, observing the hunch in his shoulders. “I’ll speak to
Vanessa at the end of today. The educational psychologist needs to assess him.”

“Good
luck with that!” Helen snorted. “Those guys are like hen’s teeth and I know
Melissa in Year 6 has been waiting a year to be seen on the state. The only
other way is to pay privately and I can’t see our boy’s aunty having four
hundred dollars in spare cash lying around.”

I nodded
and wished I had it, figuring it would be a good use of my money. I jerked my
head towards the mess on the two tables and whispered to Helen. “If you could
run to the staffroom and check the last few trays of cookies, I’ll clear up
here. He’ll be fine for a few minutes.”

Helen
rolled her eyes and peeked through the wide windows into the playground. “If
you’re sure. The other babies were quite shaken up when he started throwing
stuff around. Emma’s sitting on Carly’s knee outside the window and Dannie only
just stopped crying by the looks of it.”

My eyes
strayed to the classroom assistant from Year 4, who cuddled one of my children
on the bench outside and watched a ball game in progress. Lawrie’s body still
appeared bunched and tense on the carpet, no energy left in his small frame.
I’d never seen a child morph into a Tasmanian Devil; not in nine years of
teaching various age groups. It was spectacular and terrifying and neither
Helen nor I had the faintest clue what kicked it off.

“Lawrie?”
I approached the little boy and waited until he gave me eye contact before
smiling. “Feel better?” I asked, noticing the delay before he nodded.

“Bet,”
he said and his chest hitched. I sat in the miniature chair I used for group
teaching and reading stories and held my arms out to him. “Want a cuddle?”

“Cuggle,”
he parroted and I saw the powerful need in his eyes. I beckoned with my fingers
and he stood, his gait listing to the left as he lurched into my arms, a bundle
of fragile bones and overlarge clothing. I settled him on my knee and
controlled my breathing, desperate to infuse love into this confusing child.
His eyes looked sticky from salt tears and his nose stuck to his sleeve as he
swiped across it. Reaching next to me I offered him a tissue and felt my heart
crack as he showed ineptitude with the simple task.

“Blow,”
I said, laughing as he huffed into it and we spent an amusing five minutes with
me showing him something Alysha’s son learned as a toddler. I cleaned up his
face and straightened his hair with my fingers as he sat on my knee with his
chest giving an occasional hitch.

“What am
I going to do with you?” I whispered and he nodded.

“Do wiff
you.”

I
pressed him into me and rested my chin on his head and when Helen returned she
found the child peaceful and the classroom still a mess. “You’re a soft touch,”
she mouthed and I pulled a face at her and stuck my tongue out.

“I need
to clear up the mess, Lawrie. Would you like to go outside with Mrs Morris? She
needs someone strong to hold her hand and keep her safe.”

Lawrie
looked at his palm, the tiny fingers splayed out like a rose. “Hand,” he
repeated. “Ho han.”

“Yeah,
hold hands.” I smiled at him and filled my expression with reassurance. He
hopped off my knee and wobbled and I straightened his metal framed glasses on
the neat little blob of a nose. “Be a good boy with Mrs Morris.”

Lawrie
watched me leave the room and I heard the click of the outer door as I strode
to the front office. Putting my head around the door frame, I caught the eye of
Julie, the school secretary. “Hey, Jules,” I said, chewing my bottom lip. “Have
the files come from the kindy yet? I wanted the one for Lawrie Hopu, in
particular.”

Jules
wracked her memory, staring at a white space on the ceiling for inspiration. “I
don’t think so. We’ve got the others but I remember you asking for that one at
the start of term.”

“Yeah, I
really need it,” I replied. “I don’t want to go rushing in and call his family
for a meeting without all the facts, but my gut tells me there’s something
going on with that little boy.”

“Hmmmn.”
Julie ran a hand through her blonde hair and nodded. “He lives with his aunty
in a state house not very far away. There’re heaps of children and the place is
a mess. She’s on her own and to be fair she works long hours to feed them.”

“He
doesn’t have siblings or cousins here though, does he?” I asked, feeling a
headache build as my brow knitted. “I wonder where they go.”

“Oh, he
does. There’s three cousins here and the older ones are at high school. They’ve
got nothing, Ursula; it’s really sad. I’m fairly sure Lawrie’s mum’s in prison
and there’s an older child farmed out somewhere else.” Julie watched me with
concern. “I’ll ring the kindy while you’re in class this afternoon and pop down
if I find anything out. I’ll also take a wander outside after school and see if
I can pick up any gossip, but I doubt it. She keeps to herself and is often
rushing off to her next job.”

“Thanks.
I’ll take him out myself and see if I can chat to whoever comes for him.”

I strode
back to the classroom and tidied up the mess as fast as I could, using cream
cleaner to get the impacted cookie dough off the plastic matting. By the time
the bell rang for the end of lunch the classroom was its usual orderly self and
I had steeled myself for the firemen visiting,  a session on the last five
letters of the alphabet followed by a story.

The
visit from the fire brigade proved a success, with the children squealing at
the awful sound of the two-toned siren and the colourful, flashing lights.
Helen grumbled about the lack of young firemen although the men looked pumped
and muscular. “They only sent the crusty old ones!” she complained and I
laughed as the children clambered over the huge truck.

“There
isn’t one over forty!” I snorted. “Stop being a pervert.”

“I
wouldn’t kick that one out of bed for farting,” she conceded and winked at a
dark haired man whose tee shirt fought to contain his rippling muscles.

“That’s
sexist!” I rebuked her under my breath. “You’d have Bert in here waving his
fists if someone said that about you.”

The
fireman ignored Helen and gave me the slowest, laziest wink I’d ever seen and I
flushed with embarrassment. My teacher aide glared sideways at me. “Typical!”
she sniffed and went to retrieve one of the little girls who’d managed to get
her pinafore caught on the gear stick and embarked on ninja moves to free
herself. A sound of ripping material met Helen at the truck door.

At the
end of the school day I led Lawrie outside to meet his carer, feeling a tug on
my hand as he gravitated towards a fretful looking girl near the back of the
playground. With dark hair scraped back into a severe ponytail and a curvy
body, she had Polynesian roots and a similarity to Lawrie. I caught Helen’s eye
as she delivered the other children to their waiting parents, one at a time.
“Hi.” I made my voice sound bright and the girl glanced around her as though
irritated at being singled out.

“What’s
he done?” she asked, her tone acerbic.

“Nothing.”
I watched her with my senses on alert. “He wanted me to meet his aunty. Is that
you?”

“Not
whaea,” Lawrie muttered and I maintained my smile, hiding my misgivings.

“I’m his
cousin,” she answered, relaxing as I kept smiling and stroked a lock of dark
hair out of Lawrie’s face. “My ma picks up her other kids from their school so
I get this one.” She chewed her lip and moved from foot to foot. “What’s he
done?”

“Nothing.”
I brushed away the earlier meltdown and bent my knees to meet Lawrie’s eyes.
“Bye, mate,” I said to him with gentleness. “See you tomorrow.”

“Morrow,”
he said and gave me a beautiful smile, complete with missing front teeth.

I
watched as the girl led him out of the school grounds and away from my
protection, wondering what waited for the small boy at home. She didn’t reach
for his hand and he trooped along next to her, shoulders hunched and eyes
raking the ground through his silver-rimmed glasses.

Standing
in the playground made me accessible to the other parents and I answered the
same question five times about lost items of clothing and heard four excuses
relating to incomplete homework.

“They
only have to colour a bloody sheet!” Helen grumbled as we packed up for the day
and turned off the lights. “You didn’t ask them to work out the theory of
relativity in their little heads, for goodness sake!”

I
shrugged. “We’re just trying to form good habits for when they’re at high school.
It’s not compulsory at this age but it helps the class move along faster if
they’ve talked about it at home.”

“Don’t
know how you stay so cheerful,” Helen intoned as I closed the classroom door
behind me. “They drive me nuts!”

“Perhaps
you’re in the wrong job.” I grinned and she narrowed her eyes at my teasing.

“The
kids are fine; it’s the parents who need shooting.”

I stuck
my head in Julie’s door but found her talking to an irate parent who waved an
allergy leaflet in the air and complained in a nasal, irritating voice. “It’s
not my fault that kid’s got a peanut allergy,” she raged. “My son’s always had
peanut butter in his sandwiches. He won’t eat anything else.” I raised my
eyebrows to ask Julie if she needed help and the slight shake of her head meant
the mother was about to be dispatched with good grace and politeness without
winning her argument.

Vanessa’s
attendance at a conference for primary school principals postponed the usual
Monday night staff meeting and I caught the bus back to my apartment with sore
feet and a sense of relief. My apartment felt even emptier and I ate a wilting
salad from the tiny supermarket near my street. I’d just curled up on the sofa
with a mindless soap opera when the buzzer sounded for the outer door.

My hand
shook as I wielded the receiver and answered, my heart thudding at the thought
it might be Teina. I needed to talk to him; not knowing where I stood caused a
hard knot in my chest. If he’d lied about having a wife or girlfriend, I needed
to hear it so we could go our separate ways instead of hankering after a man I
couldn’t have. I regretted my juvenile overreaction and needed to say the words
out loud.

“We’re
looking for Ursula Saint,” the dismembered voice said and I heard the noises
from the street behind him.

“Why?” I
asked, keeping my tone short. I’d had too many crank calls, people trying to
access the building and a homeless woman with a shopping trolley who tried to
get in and sleep in the downstairs lobby.

I heard
the male clear his throat and then he replied. “We’re with New Zealand Police,
Mrs Saint. We’d like to talk to you.”

I hung up
the phone and to be on the safe side, used the lift to get downstairs instead
of buzzing them in. At the front door stood two intimidating police officers,
both over six feet and five inches apiece. My footsteps faltered as I walked
towards them and judging by the look they gave each other; I knew they’d seen
my hesitation. Feeling like a criminal without having done anything wrong, I
opened the front door and allowed them to walk past me. They turned in unison
and I stood in the hallway in my bare feet with wariness in my face. “How can I
help you?”

They glanced at each other again;
the proverbial double act. The family from the ground floor emerged and clattered
past with the average noise of two parents and three small children. The
smallest child rode on her father’s shoulders and he ducked to negotiate the
front door lintel without braining her.

“We’d like a chat in private,”
said the cop with blonder hair than his counterpart and I shrugged.

“Do you have ID?” It sounded
ridiculous to ask when they stood before me in police issue uniform, stab
resistant vests and chattering radios on their left breasts. Without comment,
both reached into their trouser pockets and pulled out wallets with identifying
cards in them. The numbers matched those on their epaulets and despite a
chronic case of hat-hair on blondie, they looked like their pictures. “We can
go up to my flat then,” I said, noticing the father of the dark-skinned little
family glancing backwards with an anxious look on his face as he closed the
front door behind him.

I padded to the lift and it was a
silent and awkward ride up to my floor. I used my key to let my new friends
into the apartment and then indicated the lounge. “Do you guys want drinks?” I
asked out of politeness and they shook their heads. Blondie sat forwards on the
sofa and flipped out his pocket book, readying his pen while his companion
cleared his throat.

“Can I just stop you?” I asked,
raising my hand palm outwards in a universal stop sign to emphasise my point.
“I don’t want to press charges; it was a family dispute and it’s over. He lost
his son a few months ago and hasn’t got over it yet. The family’s really angry
at him and I know my aunt rang him and gave him at yelling at which he won’t
forget in a hurry.” I touched my sore face and tried to ignore the cut on the
inside of my swollen lip. “We’re good thanks.”

Blonde cop looked at his darker
haired mate and there it was again, the exclusive communication. “Have you been
assaulted, Mrs Saint?”

My jaw hung open and I closed it
with a snap. “No, I felt lonely so bashed myself about a bit in the hope that
someone would visit and I could use the sympathy vote. Why are you here?”

“Not about that.” The dark haired
man stood up and approached me, his eyes widening at the left over make up
covering my cheek, now visible under the glare of my kitchen spotlights. I
should’ve kept them downstairs in the dim lights of the lobby. He stood over me
and leaned his hand on my kitchen counter. “Did you report this?”

“No!” I shook my head and
frowned. “My cousin did but I don’t want to press charges.”

“Assault’s assault, miss,” he
said, tilting his head to assess the damage. “Who hit you?”

“Why are you here?” I repeated,
backing away and occupying myself with filling the kettle and flicking it on to
boil.

“Do you know a man called Mark
Lambie?” the blonde cop asked, joining his colleague at the counter but leaving
the fake marble surface between me and them. I turned and leaned my bum against
the dishwasher.

“Yes, of course I know him,” I
said. My eyes widened. “Why? What’s happened?”

“What makes you think something’s
happened?” the dark haired man asked and I blanched.

“Because you’re asking questions
about him.” I stared from one to the other and resisted the urge to roll my
eyes like a stroppy teenager. “If he’s at home right now eating his tea, why
are you here asking if I know him?”

When they stared at me with
deadpan expressions I reached for my mobile phone and dialled Dad’s number.
Blondie wasn’t quick enough and Dad answered after one ring. It was a lottery
whether he kept it in his shirt pocket or the back of his trousers but he’d
complained it gave him a dead leg from his wheelchair in the ass pocket, so I
banked on him having moved it. “What?” he snapped and I body blocked blondie as
he tried to lean over my head.

“What’s happened to Mark Lambie?”
I asked and even the cops heard his aggravated yell which echoed around my
small kitchen. It started with five expletives and continued in the same vein.

“He’s done a runner!” he
shrieked. “In-the-bloody-season!” He inhaled and I looked at the cops with
something like apology as he launched again. “Bleedin’ selfish bugger. What the
eff does he think he’s playing at?”

“Ok, thanks,” I squeaked and at
blondie’s look of pure menace hung up, palming my phone behind my back. I could
tell by their look of shared exasperation they hadn’t expected me to do that.

“He’s missing,” I said with
assurance. “Dad said.”

“What do you know about his
disappearance?” the blonde cop said and I blinked and stared at him. I felt
tempted to repeat my father’s string of dirty words but felt the mood change
and didn’t want to find myself being processed at the police station in town.

“Dad says he’s done a runner and
he’s cross. The season started on Saturday and Uncle Mark’s the coach for the
first team.”

“Is he your actual uncle?” the
dark haired cop asked and I nodded, shook my head and then nodded again.

“I’m not sure. We all grew up
calling him Uncle Mark. Dad’s generation call him Lambie.”
Or Lardarse, Lazy
Scheister and Lecherous Lambie
. I kept those to myself.

Blondie leaned his bum against my
counter and I realised it rested at the same height as Teina’s. The thought
gave me a sick feeling and I tried to concentrate. “Mrs Lambie reported her
husband missing on Saturday morning when he failed to return from a wedding
reception.” His eyes flicked over his notebook. “Other members of the wedding
party report seeing you go outside with Mr Lambie after the main course.”

I nodded, my eyes wide and a sick
feeling in my stomach. “That’s right. He went outside for a smoke and didn’t
seem that drunk at first but then he got worse and worse and ended up sitting
on the floor. Another guest at the reception helped to get him into their car
and we drove him home. We sat him on the doorstep. I don’t understand why his
wife says he didn’t return. We sat him there and rang the doorbell.”

“So you didn’t see him into the
property?”

“To his front door, yes. He threw
up all over the grass verge outside and covered himself in it.” I wrinkled my
nose. “He’s really heavy and there were only two of us. We propped him upright
against the front door and rang the bell. He seemed fine.” My colour rose as I
contemplated what might have happened. A vision of Mark wandering into traffic
or falling into a waterway made me cringe in my gut. I swallowed. “We should
have made sure he was safe, shouldn’t we?”

I stepped around the counter and
dragged out a dining chair, skirting the two intense males as I slumped into a
seat. “Damn!” I said. “I feel terrible. Where could he have gone?”

“Who were you with?” the dark
haired cop asked and my stomach took a flying flip and plummeted south.

“I’d never met him before.” I
shrugged, playing dumb. “He was on his phone in the car park and knew Uncle
Mark. He was a guest at the reception and offered Mark a ride home. I helped
him to the car and didn’t want to go with them, but he said he couldn’t manage
on his own so I went.”

“You got into a car with a
stranger?” I deserved the accusatory barb in blondie’s voice.

“It was an emergency!” I
protested. “And Uncle Mark knew him.”

“What’s his name?” Blonde cop
poised his pen over the notepad and I held my breath. Dumb seemed like a viable
option so I maintained the slumped posture and the irritation at my own lack of
care for a drunkard.

“Poor Uncle Mark,” I sighed,
staring at the back view of my front door. “He called the man Foxy, I think.
Yes, that was his name; Foxy. Mark definitely knew him.”

“So, you dropped Mark Lambie at
his house, rang the bell and then what?”

Then what indeed? Oh the glorious
benefit of hindsight in spotlighting the errors of one’s conduct and the
playing out of consequences. I tried not to think of Teina’s luscious olive
skin or the sweep of his fingers across my thighs in the big double bed. I
swallowed. “He dropped me here and left.” I wondered if condensing the truth
counted as lying and kept my wince as a virtual expression, firmly on the
inside of my head.

“He dropped you here and left?”
Blondie scribbled in his pad and the dark haired man eyed me with veiled
suspicion. “What time was that?”

I shook my head realising I
didn’t know. We hadn’t turned the TV on or timed ourselves at any particular
activity. “I have no idea.” I sounded surprised even at myself. “We left as the
main course finished and drove for maybe twenty minutes to Uncle Mark’s place.
It took five minutes to get him out of the car because he kept barfing and then
five more minutes for him to stagger up the front steps.” I raised my eyes to
meet blondie’s gaze. “Someone in the street must have noticed us. He was pretty
obvious and quite loud.” I closed my eyes and added up the minutes alone with
Teina on the drive home. “Probably another twenty minutes and we were here.
Foxy saw me inside and that was it.”

“Was it?”

My heart took a tumble as colour
flushed into my face and my slow burning temper came to my aid. I stood, not
wanting my sluttiness to go in that notebook in the crabbed left handed script.
“You want to know why I left the wedding so early?” I asked and both men
watched for cracks in my armour, part training but mostly instinct making them
stare at the freak show. “I got married in that club house,” I spat, raising my
voice. “My husband died six months ago and you lot scraped his body off the
bonnet of his car.” I took a huge breath inwards. “Mark Lambie asked me to go
outside while he smoked and I went because I’d had enough of all the
congratulations and false smiles. When he needed help I gave it and yes, I
didn’t go back and eat wedding cake and drink Jack Daniels with a fake grin on
my bloody face. Are we done here?” My fists balled by my sides and I strutted
to the front door, swinging it wide open.

With a look of mutual acceptance,
the police officers mobilised and strolled through the door. Blondie turned,
opening his mouth to speak and I jabbed a finger in the general direction of
his chest, somewhere above my head. “And you know what? Next time someone’s
rolling around on the floor because they’ve had too much alcohol, I’ll step
over them and call you. How about that?” I slammed the door in a single fluid
movement and enjoyed mild satisfaction at the way the sound echoed around the
whole lobby and bounced off the metal doors of the lift.

Behind the door I thumped my
forehead with the heel of my hand and chastised myself with each and every one
of my mother’s stock phrases.

“When first we practice to
deceive, what a tangled web we weave.”

I couldn’t admit to my night of
passion with Teina, not because I knew he was a referee and a member of the
third team on any pitch. Not because my father hated all referees and judging
by Saturday’s performance, Teina Fox in particular. I couldn’t admit it to two
serving police officers because I knew it made me look like the usual Friday
night slapper who decorated the insides of their cars with puke and took up
space in the drunk tank, slinking out with a hang-over and an apology in the
crude light of day.

“Yeah, I’m ashamed!” I admitted
to the empty flat and to myself. My mother’s other favourite phrase chased me
into bed that night and I cringed under the weight of her voice.

“Your sins will always find you
out.”