Death on Demand (30 page)

She'd accounted for the eleven women on Denise Hadlow's list. One was in France doing a cooking course on a barge drifting down the Garonne from Bordeaux to Toulouse. Another was living on the Gold Coast, but not picking up her phone or responding to messages. Two claimed they didn't know, indeed had never heard of, Arden Black. Greendale was pretty sure one was lying and suspected the other found it hard to keep track of the men in her life. Two pretty much slammed the door in her face.

One claimed she'd met Arden for an exploratory lunch, but had been turned off by his obvious and intense self-adoration. Another admitted to an affair, but became highly indignant when Greendale suggested Black was only in it for the money. Of the three who admitted paying for it, two were adamant they weren't being blackmailed and Greendale was inclined to believe them. They'd weaned themselves off Arden more than a year ago and hadn't had anything to do with him since.

The one who owned up to being blackmailed told a very similar story to Helen Conroy. Her last session with Black was a fortnight before he was murdered. Shortly after the murder, the blackmailer rang her with the same threats, demands and instructions.

 

On his way out, Ihaka bumped into Charlton and Firkitt.

“There you are,” said Charlton. “I want a word with you.”

Ihaka glanced at Firkitt, but he had his default expression, an unfocused glower, in place.

“I'm on a day off,” said Ihaka.

“So what are you doing here?” asked Charlton.

“I was in the neighbourhood; I popped in to see how Beth Greendale's getting on.”

“On what, this blackmail thing you chose not to tell us about?”

“You had a lot on your plate.”

Charlton turned to Firkitt. “You hear that, Ron? It was for our own good. Wasn't that thoughtful of him?”

“That's Ihaka for you,” said Firkitt. “Thinks of everyone but himself.”

“An example to us all,” said Charlton. He turned back to Ihaka. “What's happening?”

“I think we're starting to get somewhere.”

Charlton nodded. “That's the sort of briefing I like. Short, sharp and to the point, but without omitting any relevant details. You just love flying solo, don't you? Well, Sergeant, to paraphrase what your patron saint Finbar the Devious said to me just a few days ago, if you claim ownership of a case, it's your arse on the line.” He paused. “That was a high-risk operation the other night.”

“He ran it past me first,” said Firkitt.

“I'm aware of that,” said Charlton sharply. “I heard you the first time. So I'm telling both of you, it was dangerously risky. What if he'd pulled a gun and shot her in the face when she opened the door?”

“That wasn't the hitman's MO,” said Ihaka. “He'd always tried to make it look like something else. And we had a plan B if it looked like he had a firearm.”

“What about Yallop?” said Charlton. “I seem to remember someone walked up to him and put one in his head.”

“So far,” said Ihaka, “there's nothing to connect Yallop to Howard – unless we found it when we searched Howard's place.”

“We didn't,” said Charlton. “Still, seeing as you rather miraculously managed not to kill him, he might have something to say about that and the old woman in Remuera in due course. Any chance the blackmail was a joint venture between him and Black?”

“It's possible,” said Ihaka, “but my gut feeling is that Black wasn't in on it…” Suddenly Ihaka's head was awash with bright light. It was like flinging open the curtains at noon on a summer's day. The contents of the room, previously shadows within shadows, sensed rather than seen, were now in plain sight.

Firkitt saw the flash of comprehension light up Ihaka's face from the inside, like a Chinese lantern. “What's up?”

“I could have something,” said Ihaka. “I need to think it through.”

“Well, off you go, Sergeant,” said Charlton, almost jovially. “The sooner you think it through and knock this thing on the head, the sooner you'll be back in Wairarapa.”

 

Ihaka sat on his veranda in the late-afternoon sun, replaying snatches of conversation in his head.

That was it, right there. And it was fucked-up, all right.

It was 4.15. Denise Hadlow finished work early so she was there when her kid got home from school. He felt a flutter of nerves as he dialled. His scenario was clean and logical and the pieces clicked into place like a Rubik's cube, but it all hinged on the answers to a couple of questions.

“We missed you at the cricket on Saturday,” she said.

“Really? What part of ‘fuck off' did I misunderstand?”

She laughed. “I was – what's the word? – overwrought. Besides, you weren't coming to watch me.”

“I thought you and Billy were a package deal.”

“Not at cricket,” she said. “He's on his own out there. I just thought it would've been a chance to see what happens when you're not being a cop and I'm not a suspect.”

“Didn't we try that?”

“Yeah, but then you went and spoilt it by becoming a cop again.”

“That's what I am, Denise.”

“You don't have to be with me. Not any more.”

“It's not over. I'm being a cop now.”

Her voice went flat. “So what do you want?”

“That list you sent me. Would Lorna Bell have been on it if she was still alive?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Just answer the question. This is important.”

“Jesus, all right. Yes, she would have.”

“Tell me about it.”

“She came into the café when I was there. Pure coincidence. I introduced her to Warren and it was like, okay, thanks Denise, we'll take it from here. I mean, let's face it, they were made for each other.”

“How so in her case?”

“She was bored out of her tree. Had been for years.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. That was the last time I saw her. And as I told you, with Warren and his women, I didn't ask and he didn't tell.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“It's almost the end of the season. Billy's only got two more games.”

“Summer's gone, winter's in your eyes.”

“What?”

“It's another song.”

She said, “What is it with these lyrics? Do you collect them?”

“No, some just stick in your head.”

“I'm surprised there's any room.”

“Should I take that as a compliment?”

“That's up to you,” she said. “Like everything else.”

 

Ihaka rang the superintendent of Paremoremo. “You keep a record of every visitor, right? Who they visit and when?”

“Yep, it's all here on the computer. What do you want to know?”

“Has Jonathon Bell ever been to see John Scholes?”

“You mean
the
Jonathon Bell?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Why would he have anything to do with Scholes?”

“Just a thought.”

“Bell's been here, but not to see Scholes. We've got his mate Mark Wills.”

Mark Wills was a wheeler-dealer who got badly burnt in the global financial meltdown. Taking a leaf from John DeLorean's book, he tried to restore his fortunes with a monster drug deal, but he fucked that up too and now he was doing time in Paremoremo medium.

“I don't know if you ever saw that piece on
60 Minutes
,” said the superintendent, “about how Wills's friends had rallied around to keep the family in the family home and his kids in private schools? I suppose writing a cheque's the easy part – Bell's the only one who's ever been to see him.”

“How's Wills doing?”

“Oh, he's all right. These guys can relate to someone who had a fortune and lost it, and of course he got brownie points for the drug deal if not the execution. Having said that, he does have someone watching over him.”

“And who might that be?” said Ihaka.

“Let me put it this way. If Scholes didn't give a damn what happened to Mark Wills, he would've had a bumpier ride.”

“I thought Wills was on the bones of his arse.”

“People like Wills are never broke, are they. Don't they always have cash tucked away in trusts or offshore bank accounts? But you're quite right: Scholes isn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart.”

 

Ihaka borrowed Firkitt's best surveillance guy, Detective Constable Jack Booth. What made Booth so good was that he was twenty-five but could pass for fifteen with his baby face and scrawny build. In baggy shorts and an extra-large
T-shirt, with a back-to-front baseball cap and a skateboard under his arm, you'd pick him as just another zoned-out juvenile cluttering up the streets. Put him in a sharp suit and an Audi, and you'd pick him as just another amoral young opportunist. Either way, he didn't set off alarm bells, even in the most paranoid heads.

After a couple of days, Booth brought in some photos of the target with a young woman. They'd had lunch together, they'd had dinner together, they'd gone home together. Ihaka sent Beth Greendale over to the Langham Hotel to go through CCTV footage from the evenings on which Helen Conroy and the other blackmail victim had made the handovers. When Beth called to say the target's girlfriend turned up both times, Ihaka decided it was time to make his move.

 

Jonathon Bell sat behind the antique desk in the darkened study of his Paritai Drive mansion, half-illuminated by the light from a desktop lamp. He was wearing a Lacoste polo shirt and shorts, having just come off the tennis court. Ihaka could smell the exertion from across the room.

He tried to visualize Bell before his wife's self-destruction: a rich man's year-round tan and the sleek, in-the-pink appearance that comes from avoiding the workaday chores and money worries and penny-pinching that grind down ordinary folk, leaving them dull-eyed and grey-skinned, always on the verge of a creaking yawn. Now there were grooves in his face, but they weren't evidence of character or self-denial. They were symptoms of torment, like corrugations in the landscape caused by subterranean turmoil. Cops often see men put on a brave face out of old-fashioned notions of propriety or manliness, and are good at sensing when the grieving is for appearances' sake. According to Firkitt, who'd seen him in the immediate aftermath, Bell
hadn't stood on his dignity and hadn't needed to pretend. His grief had been raw and unrestrained.

“This had better be good,” said Bell. “The chaps weren't too thrilled at having to call it off at one set all.”

“Pass on my apologies,” said Ihaka unapologetically.

Bell gestured with his sports-drink bottle to the dark-suited figure hovering in the background, barely visible in the gloom. “My lawyer. Well, one of them anyway.”

“You and I should have a private chat,” said Ihaka. “No lawyer, no notes.”

Bell glanced at the lawyer, inviting his input.

“I don't think so,” said the lawyer.

Bell's gaze switched back to Ihaka. “You heard the man.”

“This isn't an official contact,” said Ihaka. “No one at my end knows I'm here. I thought you might be interested in hearing what I know, as opposed to what we're saying.”

“About what?” asked the lawyer.

“What do you think?” said Ihaka, looking straight at Bell. “It's a nice night. We could go for a stroll around the estate.”

“I suppose there's no harm in that,” said Bell, getting to his feet. “David, help yourself to a drink. If I'm not back in twenty minutes, send out a search party. Sergeant, if you'll follow me.”

Bell led Ihaka out through a side door, around an immense swimming pool and onto an all-weather tennis court. The floodlights were still on and unflatteringly bright, turning their faces into riots of blemish and discolouration.

“Private enough for you?” asked Bell, with a wary half-smile.

Ihaka looked around. Everything beyond the bubble of harsh light had been swallowed up by the night. It felt as though they were in the middle of nowhere. “This is fine.”

“Must be some secret you've got there.”

“It's not my secret,” said Ihaka. “It's our secret.”

Bell's smile expanded. “Really? That seems pretty unlikely.”

“I'm investigating a couple of murders, a guy named Arden Black and his sister…”

“Let's cut to the chase,” said Bell. “What the hell's it got to do with me?”

“Nothing,” said Ihaka. “Nothing at all. I just came out here to see how the other half lives.” He stared at Bell until his gaze slid away. “Shall I continue?”

Bell shrugged: if you must.

“Fourteen years ago, just finished school, Arden left Greytown and never came back. There was a phone call home to say don't come looking for me, then silence. They didn't have a clue where he was. He came to Auckland and hustled around, as guys like that do. He was a handsome rascal with a thing for older women, and found he could have his cake and eat it too because some older women were prepared to pay for his company, if you know what I mean.