Justice and Utu (13 page)

‘I reckon that dark-hulled ship's getting ready to leave,' Damien commented, pointing to the three-master, which was being mobbed by rowboats. ‘They're loading it up.'

Mat followed his gaze. ‘Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's anything to do with Venn. We've got to get a better look.'

The little headland above Matauwhi Bay obscured the town from view. From the waters, voices carried through the air — female voices — and Mat and Damien had to skirt carefully about a spot where a pile of clothing lay untended, and girlish laughter echoed. ‘Maori chicks swimming,' Damien exclaimed softly, and Mat had to grab his sleeve to stop him from going closer.

‘Mind on the job, dork,' Mat whispered urgently.

‘It's like having a chaperone, hanging with you,' Damien moaned playfully, but he allowed himself to be drawn away.

They hefted their sacks again, and followed the track inland, climbing for a short distance beneath the broken and overgrown pa walls. A church spire appeared ahead, and they heard European voices shouting. Damien looked at Mat for guidance.

‘We need to go down to the shore. Wiri said this Sload guy lives by the big hotel.'

The first house they came upon was a brothel, where a seedy-looking man was leaning on the gate, chewing tobacco and whittling a piece of wood into what might have been a Virgin Mary statuette. He looked over the boys carefully as they approached. ‘Good day, fellas,' he drawled. ‘Hefty load ye got there.'

‘Sure is,' Damien panted. ‘Barley, for Mr Sload.'

‘From Mr Smith of Okiato,' Mat added, reciting the story Wiri had fed them. ‘And bloody heavy.' He staggered on, using the sacks as an excuse not to stop and chat.

‘You come on back after, y'hear,' the man called after them. ‘Some o' the gals can give you a wash-down, know what I mean?'

‘Sounds good,' Damien called back, far too sincerely for Mat's liking.

They staggered past the church, which was scarred with musket balls. A cluster of men was gathered beside the fence, cleaning a cannon. There were men everywhere, the closer they got to the centre of the settlement. Tiny cottages with sailors and soldiers leaning against verandas drinking from kegs of ale. Thumping piano music and a ragged chorus
resounded from the upstairs window of a tavern. Barefoot children were swarming about, oblivious to all but their own chasing games. Women slouched about in long dresses with low-cut bodices: European, Maori, Asian, Islander, even an Australian Aboriginal with tangled hair to her waist. But most were Maori girls, clad in a mixture of traditional and European clothing. They eyed Mat and Damien up and down briefly, assessed their wealth, and then ignored them. The streets were just strips of dried mud, and stank of rotting fish and open drains, which steamed nauseatingly in the February heat. A team of horses was dragging a massive kauri log to the docks. It wasn't all colonial and old-world, either. Mat saw evidence of trade with the real world: an old transistor radio on a fence, with a group of men standing around listening to what sounded like a very old boxing commentary. He saw more than one replica shirt of the Auckland Blues rugby team. There were cigarettes and chewing gum, and even a sleek-looking open-topped classic car parked on Chapel Street. They both stopped to peer at it, as much for respite from their loads as curiosity.

‘She's a beauty, ain't she, boys?' the man polishing it commented, looking them over. He sounded American, which put Mat immediately on guard. ‘Ninety-thirty-seven Oldsmobile, first ever semi-automatic transmission. She can do the Akarana run in under a day.'

How recently
? Mat wondered.
Is it Venn's?

‘Sweet,' Damien said admiringly.

The driver peered at him with a cocked eyebrow. ‘Sweet? That's not an expression I hear in this world often,' he observed.

Mat saw Damien flinch. What had been an innocent moment was suddenly steeped in danger. ‘We've not been here long,' Mat told the man. He infected his voice with what he hoped was an echo of tragedy. ‘We were in a car smash in Whangarei, three years ago. Been jobbing across north Aotearoa ever since.'

The man blinked a little. ‘Ah. Sorry to hear that, boys. This is a rough town, so you look out, y'hear?'

‘Thanks. Whose car is that, if you don't mind me asking?' Mat responded.

‘Boy, if I told ya, I'd have to shoot ya.'

Mat gave what he hoped was a knowing shrug, and picked up his sack again. He led Damien down to the shore. The Duke of Marlborough Hotel, New Zealand's oldest pub, was easy to spot, the largest building in the row. A multinational array of girls was leaning from the upper balcony. One waved encouragingly at him.

‘Is that Mr Sload's place?' Mat asked the first man he saw. He jerked his head towards a tumbledown shed next door to the Duke of Marlborough. ‘This barley is for him.'

‘I ain't local, boy,' the man, a sailor, replied. ‘But it's a still-house, so if that's barley, then I'm guessing that's your place.'

‘C'mon, let's dump this stuff and get a drink,' Damien said fervently. He waved at one of the girls on the balcony, and immediately they were all calling down to him. The welcoming calls sounded false and desperate to Mat; the thought of going near them gave him the shivers.

‘Let's stay on task, man,' he growled at Damien. It felt like there were too many eyes on them here.

‘Just blending in, man,' Damien replied. ‘Wouldn't be
natural to not take an interest in the local chicks, would it?'

They went to the still-house shack and knocked. It was opened almost immediately by a man whose tangled grey curls fell over his shoulders and mingled with his beard; he looked like a badly fed gnome. ‘Yargh?' he spat.

‘Uh, Mr Sload?'

‘Yar. Oo're you?' The man's eyes flickered over them warily. He stank of whisky, as if he bathed in the stuff. Perhaps he did.

‘My friend
Wiremu
said to bring you this barley,' Mat said meaningfully.

Sload's eyes widened. ‘Wiremu!' His eyes darted about. ‘C'min, c'min.' He hoiked and spat against his own wall, a phlegm-filled wad that clung to the timbers thickly. Damien wrinkled his nose, then hoisted the sack one last time, swung it through the door and followed it through. Mat went after him, into a chaotic mess of spilt grain, rusted metal cylinders and overturned pails. Amidst it all was an unmade bed with yellowing sheets and piles of clothing. Newspapers rotted on the floor, and the whole of the shed reeked of sweat and urine, old food and whisky.

‘Gross,' Damien muttered under his breath.

Mat almost gagged on the smell, but went to the back door and prised it open. The back of the house was a tangle of undergrowth and rusting metal machinery. There was no-one lurking.

‘Wishkee?' grunted Sload, proffering a grimy bottle half-filled with amber fluid.

‘No, thanks. We're friends of Wiremu. We're looking for Sebastian Venn and some, ah … associates of his. Are they here?'

Jeremiah Sload stiffened at the name of Venn, and his eyes narrowed as he heard Mat out. He seemed to be making some kind of calculation.
Probably whether it's better to cash us in to Venn or the other way around
.

‘D'no,' the brewer slurred.

Damien snorted. ‘How can you not know? This town only has twenty houses!'

Sload scowled and spat into his own laundry pile. ‘D'no. I'snot seen 'im.'

‘Wiri said you'd know.'

‘Sed rong, din'ee. Don' bluddy no. G'wask summin elsh.'

Mat sighed. ‘I have money for you.'

Sload looked interested for the first time. ‘Sov'rins?'

‘Yes, gold sovereigns.' Wiri had slipped him a small purse in case bribes were needed. ‘Now, have you seen Venn? He would have got in last night or this morning. And are any of the ships in the harbour his?'

Sload's face clouded over, and became cunning. ‘Showus d'munny, den we'kin tork.'

Mat glanced at Damien, then fished out a gold sovereign and showed it to Sload, who looked at it like it was the Holy Sacrament at Mass, before pocketing it again. ‘Well?'

Sload took another swig, farted and scratched himself. ‘Word'zat Vennz downat t'Bish's place.' He jerked his head southwards, back the way they'd come. ‘An' dat's Bully 'Ayes's ship oot dar, be'in set fair t'sail. Tyde'zat'ate.'

‘Eh?' Damien said.

Mat, who'd been listening determinedly and felt he'd worked out the cadence of Sload's speech, translated. ‘He says Venn may be at the Bishop's house. Wiri says Bishop
Pompallier has a house at the south end of the Strand.'

‘There is a
bishop
here? In this godforsaken place?'

‘Yeah. Catholic. And Jeremiah says that someone called Bully Hayes owns the ship they're loading up. They're likely to sail at eight.' He turned back to Sload. ‘Who is Hayes?'

Sload spat again, with even greater gusto. The reason for the slimy coating on the lower walls of the interior was becoming clearer by the minute. ‘'kin' Yankee crook. Frenna Venn.'

‘Friend of Venn's? OK.' Mat frowned, then flipped the sovereign at Sload. He looked at Damien, who was regarding Sload with undisguised disgust. ‘We need to verify this. It's all just hearsay. Venn might be at the bishop's. Hayes is a friend of Venn's, but it could be coincidence.'

Damien nodded quickly. ‘Anything to get out of here.' He headed for the door.

Mat caught his sleeve. ‘Let's go out the back way. We can't go to the bishop's openly, and there's too many people out on the shoreline.' He turned back to Sload. ‘Can we go out the back?'

Sload shrugged. ‘Shor. Folks'll see ya tho. Jus' act nat'ral, yar? An' ey'll no tell nuffin. Kiniva nudda sov'rin?'

Mat eyeballed the ragged little man doubtfully. ‘One more sovereign, if you don't tell anyone we were here.'

The man grinned, exposing rotting teeth, yellow and black stumps. ‘Shor. No tellin', ha!' He put out a wizened little hand, accepting another sovereign reverently, then opened the back door. ‘Bish's place izunda da hill, sou'fend atown, yar! G'luk.' He offered a filthy hand. Mat took it reluctantly. Damien settled for waving.

They spent the first minute outside in the back-yard jungle gulping fresh air gratefully.

‘What a ghastly man,' Damien panted. ‘And the place was a tip.'

‘Needed a woman's touch,' Mat agreed wryly. ‘It made even Riki's room look clean.'

‘I swear there were snot-monsters under the bed, man. What a way to spend your afterlife!'

‘Yeah, it makes you wonder about people, doesn't it?' Mat looked about them. They were at the back of the row of houses that fringed the shoreline, but there were more buildings scattered about the gentle slope that rose behind the town. He peered to the south, where a two-storey house could be seen, fringing the bushlands beneath the township side of the headland. ‘I bet that's the bishop's house! If we skirt the old church, we can cut back through the bush and come up behind it.'

Damien nodded eagerly. ‘Let's get out of this place. This “Hellhole” is one hell of a hole, man. Let's blow it as fast as possible!'

They left Sload's yard and skirted the back streets, nodding at passers-by as if they belonged here. Away from the frenetic bustle of the docks, with its riot of humanity, there was an air of lethargy about the town. Men lay drunk or asleep in the shade. More than any other place in Aotearoa that Mat had seen, Kororareka seemed tainted by all the worst vices of humanity.

The men fixing the cannon by the church eyed them warily, but no-one challenged them. Such slackness seemed characteristic of this place. They ducked off the track back
to Matauwhi Bay, then scrambled through the unkempt undergrowth beneath the pa until they were deep in a thicket of native bush. They quickly found themselves atop a steep bank behind the bishop's house.

Pompallier House towered above the collection of smaller buildings before it. It primarily functioned as a printing press, tannery and storehouse for the Catholic mission. In the rear were open vats for softening the leather used in bookbinding, and the stench rising from them was like an open sewer. There were strips of leather everywhere, drying in the sun, and discarded tools lying about higgledy-piggledy. A singsong of children's voices echoed from somewhere out the front; they were reciting a lesson. To the right was a yard full of broken tools of various colonial trades — butter churns, broken-handled hammers and tongs, bellows filled with holes, smashed casks and kegs, and old wagon wheels. There was plenty of cover, although a young Chinese maid was hanging out washing only a few yards below them.

Mat used skills learnt from Jones to dampen their sound as they slipped unseen through the bush, seeking a way down. The sea gleamed in the early evening light, the sun still high in the western sky. It took another two minutes of careful circling before they found a place to drop from the bank above the back of the house. Mat was preparing to spring when a loud, imperious voice spoke from within the top levels of Pompallier House.

‘
Monsieur,
I protest! I most strongly protest!' The accent was French.

A low voice replied, beneath Mat's hearing. He put fingers to his lips, and motioned for Damien to stay still. The
Chinese maid was walking away, her laundry basket empty. She disappeared around the front of the house. Mat nodded to Damien, and then began to make his move.

‘La pauvre petite!'
the Frenchman exclaimed above. ‘You must let me help her!'

Mat couldn't catch any reply, his concentration going into slipping down the bank; Damien followed a second later. They pressed into the space behind a shed, measuring the distance to the back door. Up close, the tanning vats were almost unbearable. Mat made some guesses:
Venn has commandeered this building. They're using the house for something. Something the bishop doesn't like
.