Surrender (11 page)

Gemma shifted back into her chair, the napkin still captive in her fist, the knuckles as white as the linen. The hit from Peaches was nothing compared with this one. I took a few small breaths, waiting for the pain in my stomach to ease. Gemma’s words were scrambled in my brain like a tipped-over Scrabble set.

I must have managed goodbyes, and I know I retrieved the plastic bag from under the table. Robbie stood when I did, and Wayne hitched his eyebrows in a gesture of goodbye, but Gemma stared out the window.

The southerly from Kent Terrace was a welcome smack in the face — its freezing blast numbed my headache on impact. It made my eyes stream. Well, that’s what I would have told anyone who asked.

I
t’s bullshit that the innocent sleep soundly while those with guilty consciences toss and turn all night. I slept long, deeply and dreamlessly, and woke befuddled, with no memory of how or when I went to bed. Possibly I was in denial. I pressed the tender spot on my hairline where Peaches had clobbered me with the cricket bat. I remembered that all right. Well, not the clobbering itself, but the after-effect. The scratches from my struggle with the sash window looked ugly, and a smudge of bruising was already forming across my shoulder. My neck was seriously sore when I pressed it, but I had more effective ways of hurting myself than pressing bruises. I couldn’t turn my head fully without lightning-like pain, and there was a high-pitched ringing in my left ear which I spent an idle minute cupping my hand over then lifting off. That created an oddly appealing underwater
wha-wha-wha
. A single girl has to make her own fun in bed.

I was starting to get bored with this game when I suddenly realised there was another body behind me in the bed. I went very cold and very still as I tried desperately to remember what I’d been
doing, and who I’d been doing it with, before I fell asleep. I drew a blank. Whoever he was, his breath was so foul I could smell it over my shoulder, and he had a very unattractive snore. Who the hell had I picked up? I was considering panic as an option, but, since whoever was pressing the duvet into the back of my legs was deeply asleep and clearly not expecting trouble, I reckoned I could probably handle him. I took a deep breath, flipped over to confront my bedmate, and came nose to nose with my faithful hound. His good eye stared right back at me, the blind one at this close range as milky as an opal. I snorted my relief.

‘Oh my, what big teeth you have, Wolf,’ I said. I don’t think he got the fairy tale allusion, but it’s hard to tell. I suspect he makes a point of not laughing at my jokes until I’m out of sight. At this thought I gave myself a stern talking-to about anthropomorphism and the need to get out more, which reminded me of seeing Robbie last night, which in turn reminded me of Gemma and what she’d said about my relationship with Niki — and that got me out of bed and into the shower pretty damn fast. I wasn’t ready to excavate that little number yet.

While Wolf scooped his jaw methodically through his breakfast biscuits, I crunched on a slice of toast with Marmite and thumbed through yesterday’s missed calls on my phone. The prefix of one unknown number was the same as Robbie’s landline, which lead me to conclude the call had been made from Wainuiomata.

I rang the number and it was answered so quickly that I had to shift a mouthful of toast before I could speak. It was Scott Wilborough, the ranger who’d found my John Doe. He told me Robbie had asked him to ring to set up a time to take me in to where he’d found the body. Now was a good time if I was free because he was heading back in there to check on his possum traps. I got the distinct impression Scott wasn’t keen on taking me anywhere, and
that he wasn’t expecting me to be able or willing to accompany him out to the Rimutaka State Forest Park on such short notice. While he talked I walked to the eastern side of the house and peered out towards the Palliser coast. Grey rain pounded down from a grey sky on to a grey harbour, blocking any evidence of the Rimutaka Range from where Scott was speaking. I guessed he was staring out at the rain and wearing a malicious grin.

‘Beaut,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.’

He grunted, and warned me the hike into the hut was steep, and would be difficult in this rain, ‘… what with slippages and run-offs and all,’ but should only take a couple of hours each way if I didn’t ‘dawdle’. I suspected that Scott’s version of a dawdle was what I’d call a brisk jog, but I knew if I wanted to see where the body had been found I had to agree to the ranger’s terms. He spoke in short huffs, away from the mouthpiece, which made him hard to understand, until I asked if I could bring my dog along.

‘I’ve got kiwi and other ground-dwellers up there, and I don’t want some yappy, fluffy piece of city-dogshit tearing around undoing all my work.’

He must have heard me grinding my teeth, because he added that it was dangerous to take a dog in because there were a lot of dead possums and bait where we were headed. As a topper, he said that poisoning was a terrible way for a dog to die. Rather than argue, I wrote a note telling Damian that Wolf hadn’t been walked today, and I was likely to be gone until early evening. I refused to acknowledge the doleful look Wolf threw at me as I left. You spend one night in bed with your dog and he acts like you’re going steady.

By the time I drove into the Rimutaka State Forest Park the rain was even heavier, but despite the rain and the grisly reason for my being there, my heart lifted at the sight of all that green. I muttered
a short prayer as I forded the creek; my car had once been caught in a flash flood, and I wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. But it turned out to be a doddle, the water barely reaching halfway up the tyres. There was a moment of surge when I felt the car lean like a compliant dancer, but then the wheels made traction, I gunned the engine and shot out the other side.

I spotted the ranger as soon as I pulled into the car park where we’d arranged to meet. He was a real Sir Ed of a man, mountainous and clearly impervious to the inclement weather. His oilskin stopped abruptly just below his crotch. Bronze, hairy legs went all the way down to sockless hiking boots. He stood very straight, looking like a staked tomato being watered, as he waited for me to approach. The absence of socks I could deal with. Eccentricity isn’t a problem. But I did send up a heartfelt prayer that the ranger was wearing shorts under that all-too-truncated raincoat.

After the briefest of introductions I slung my daypack over one shoulder, and we set off at a brisk pace into what’s known amongst amateur trampers and family walkers as the Orongorongas — a state-owned forest abutting a hilly Department of Conservation-managed area of native bush shot through with small rivers. The first section of the track is used mainly by dog walkers and groups of picnickers. After that it’s a good couple of hours’ hike in to the first hut, and from there on, hidden away in the bush, are more basic shelter huts for trampers and hunters.

By international standards there’s not much to trophy-kill, but the area’s been used by generations of hunters looking for the odd pig or deer. It’s regarded as a win-win situation for both the hunter, and the Department of Conservation who view these animals as pests. I guess it’s not such a win-win for the deer or pigs, but the scarred and staunch pig dogs I’ve passed on the tracks always seem intent on having a good time.

Scott wasn’t a talker which was fine with me. Going at the pace he set, I wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of keeping up my end of a conversation anyway. I was content to try and not fall too far behind or slide down slips that suddenly appeared, or lose my footing and disappear without trace into a hidden water hole. Peaches’ Kookaburra had left my head feeling like a cricket ball after a five-day test match and I was doing my best not to jar it. We walked abreast for the first twenty minutes of the main track, and despite the rain I warmed up pretty quickly.

Where the trail was about to descend towards the river, Scott parted an enormous fern to reveal a track leading up the hill. I’d never been into that area of the forest and didn’t know the track existed. I presumed that we were heading to a DOC or tramper’s hut, or that the ranger had a hut of his own. He hefted himself up the first step, grunting at me to follow, and so I did. We climbed steadily for about ten minutes, before the track once again flattened out. Apart from keeping a watch for ankle-twisters, there wasn’t much to do except put one foot in front of the other. With Scott in front, we tramped on in silence for another hour or so.

There’s something companionable about tramping together through wet bush, even if you’re not too keen on the company, and soon I sensed Scott had walked himself into a better mood. When he stopped letting branches flick back in my face, I knew his feelings towards me had improved, and when he actually held his hand out for me as we clambered up a slick, muddy bank, I knew our relationship had entered a new phase. By the time we reached the hut, things were downright amicable even though we still hadn’t spoken a word to each other.

We dropped our packs on the tiny veranda, Scott pocketed a bottle of water, and we continued for twenty minutes through dense bracken and manuka until the ground grew boggy and demanded
careful footwork. The rain was relentless, and I’d completely lost my sense of direction when Scott finally pointed out the spot where he’d found my John Doe.

I paused to catch my breath and surreptitiously put a cooling hand on my bruised neck as Scott hunkered down and uncapped the water bottle. After a moment’s hesitation he held the bottle out to me — an act of good manners in the bush. I dropped down beside him, leaned against a manuka and drank deeply. Before handing the bottle back I wiped the mouthpiece. Hey, I could do bush etiquette too.

Scott pointed at the big rata tree facing us, and told me how he’d come through here from a hut five kilometres to the northeast. He was laying traps as he went, and when he spotted the rata from up on the ridge he decided it would be a good place. It was a beautiful tree, at least a hundred years old, and he was keen to help its chances of survival. The tree would also act as a marker when he came back through to see what he’d caught.

He stood and pointed up the ridge to show me the direction he’d come from, then stood with hands on hips, breathing easily, watching me and waiting for any questions. We listened to the sounds of the bush: the raucous call of the tui, the
peep peep
of piwakawaka, the drone of wasps, and below us, the trickle of a stream, all dampened down by the hiss and shush of the rain.

Straightening, I felt a cramp in my thigh muscle, but I wasn’t going to give Scott the pleasure of seeing me wince. I don’t know a lot about trees but I remember being told that the roots of a tree spread out to roughly the circumference of its canopy. I tilted my head to see the treetop etched against the marble sky, an action that reminded me painfully of the effect cricket bats have on the back of skulls. Fine rain drifted through the canopy on to my face, along with the occasional big splosh down my neck from the rata’s
branches. I estimated the roots would stretch thirty feet from the base of the trunk to the furthest reach of its branches, and I turned a full circle, to get a sense of the space this tree had colonised. I could hear the trickle of the stream directly below, but even though the much bigger river wasn’t far away, I couldn’t hear it. The bush muffles sound, which explains why people get lost so easily. You can be ten steps from a river, but if the bush is dense enough, you won’t hear it. You could scream your head off and not be heard by someone fifty paces away. It was an unnerving thought.

Scott was using his hand as a rain visor as he stared up the ridge again. Then he turned and pointed at my feet. ‘It was right where you’re standing. He was lying facing the tree, curled round it a bit, like a baby, but with his arm over his head like so.’

I took a step back, partly because it felt wrong to be standing on the exact spot the body was found, but also to put some distance between me and the ranger. He was a big guy, and now, lulled by the rhythm of the walk, I realised how very solid and male he was. As if sensing my shift in mood he approached the tree and struck a classic male pose, with one hand against its trunk and the other on his hip, as he continued his story.

The details fitted what he’d written in his report, but with enough embellishments to reassure me that he wasn’t spinning a story by rote. He finished by saying he’d looked around for the head but couldn’t see any sign of it and suspected it was long gone. To dampen any sense of unease, I squatted at the base of the tree and carefully moved aside the pine needles and rotted humus. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but as they say, you never know until you find it.

I glanced up to see Scott give the trunk a gentle pat as if it was a highly strung horse in need of reassurance. Maybe this guy did the odd bit of tree-hugging when he was alone. I kind of hoped he
did. I mean, who has ever been molested by a tree-hugger? Apart from trees, that is.

I looked around at the topography. From this side of the tree, something was obvious that hadn’t been in the photos.

‘His body was washed down from up there on the ridge somewhere, wasn’t it?’ I indicated the mist-shrouded hill face. ‘The rata stopped the body from going all the way down to the river.’

Scott took off his cap and used his forearm to wipe the rain from his forehead, taking his time to answer. ‘Yeah, that’s my guess. You get massive rains in here. I reckon there was a big dump, his body got sluiced down, and the trunk snagged it. If it hadn’t, he’d have gone all the way and chances are we’d never have found anything.’

I peered up the ridge, trying to calculate how difficult a climb it was going to be. The dense, misty rain clung in clouds to the canopy overhead.

‘You didn’t mention that in your report,’ I pointed out.

‘I was asked to write a
report
. I wasn’t asked my
opinion
,’ he responded with a shrug.

The guy had a point, and since I needed him to find my way out of this place I decided not to argue about it.

‘If you
were
asked your opinion, how far up the ridge do you think the body was? Before the big rain, I mean.’

Scott pushed himself off from the tree and started to clamber up the incline. Within seconds he’d disappeared and all sound of him was gone. I hesitated, wondering if he’d gone off for a pee, or if he was mad at me and needed a few minutes on his own. Not having much in the way of choice, I headed after him. I’d only gone about fifteen paces when I banged right into him as he waited patiently, holding up a thorny branch for me to climb under. I muttered a thanks but he didn’t respond. This truly was a man of very few words.