Milkshake (22 page)

A filthy bathroom and a tiny kitchen area, identified as such
only by a chipped ceramic sink and food-encrusted cooker, completed
the scene of domestic hell.

“You can share with me.” Ed directed David to the bedroom at
the front of the house. He threw his bag, claiming the cleaner
looking of the two beds, and then followed it.

“Think I’ll have a nap,” he said, looking at his watch and
noting it was nearly three in the afternoon.

“Good plan,” agreed Ed. “I’ll get one of the boys to go and
stock up for the next few days. We can get take-away for tea.” The
bedroom door clicked as Ed shut it behind him.

There were two possibilities for escape. Firstly David could
play along for the rest of the evening before creeping out in the
dead of night. Then he would have to get past a sleeping Ed, out of
the door and away. He intended to head back towards the port, which
he estimated was probably a half hour’s walk away. Then he would
have to wait around until the offices opened in the
morning.

The second idea was to go now, or at least as soon as someone
went to get supplies. They were bound to take the Hilux. Once his
escape was detected, the others would either have to follow him on
foot or wait until the car came back. This would give him time to
get away. He could get to the port before the offices shut for the
day and locate the shipping company who were looking after his
container.

David lay perfectly still, listening to the others moving
around the house. With the bedroom door shut, voices were muffled.
He heard keys jangling. The front door on the other side of the
bedroom wall banged shut. There was the clunk of a car door, the
chugging of the engine and the nostril-tingling exhaust fumes
seeping in through the cracks around the window frame.

David listened intently, trying to guess the sounds the house
was making. Two people were moving around. There was a rattle as a
door opened, the glass jarring in its frame as the door was unstuck
with a forceful tug. Someone had gone into the back garden. There
was a hissing sound which turned into splashing. They were taking a
shower.

This was his chance. The bathroom sounds were masking all the
others the house made. David could not tell when the person who had
been in the garden might wander back into the house. Slowly he sat
up, aware that for every movement someone made in this house, it
appeared to make a corresponding one, generating a creak or a
groan.

Collecting his bag, he put his weight on both feet and slowly
stood. The longer he took to creep out, the more likely it would be
that his escape would be discovered.

It was four carefully placed steps to the bedroom door. He
pulled on the handle. For a moment he thought Ed had locked him in.
The door was old. A keyhole would have gone right through to the
other side. There was no keyhole on his side. There was no lock. He
pulled harder. The top of the door moved away from the frame but
the bottom quarter was wedged against it.

He took a breath, pulling the door forcefully but
continuously, trying to avoid wrenching it. He would close the door
behind him so they would still think he was in there,
asleep.

He took three steps to the front door, two down the concrete
steps then, increasing the pace down the drive, turned right, back
down the street.

He had run fifty metres before realising he had left the front
door open. This was a heck of a long street. If the car drove back
in the next ten minutes he would easily be seen. .

The purposeful run slowed to a puffing jog. He continued on,
carefully admiring as many gardens as possible, trying to keep his
face turned away from the sight of any oncoming car
drivers.

He came to a junction. Ahead of him the busy main road that
ran along the base of the cliffs and around into the city centre.
He could either take the footpath next to the road or walk down the
steps to the beach below and continue, hidden from the
road.

Luckily, the tide was out. He left the footpath and made his
way down onto the solid tidal sand.

From here it looked as though he could safely walk all the way
along to the port. He could see cars on the road above. Any driver
looking down would be looking straight into the late afternoon sun
and see him only in silhouette.

The beach gave way to jagged slippery rocks and his gentle
jogging became two handed clambering. Finally the rocks fell away
into gently lapping waves. At this point, even at low tide, the sea
came all the way up to the wall beneath the road.

He looked for a path through but there was no way of telling
how deep the water would get as the sea wall curved around a gentle
bend. A concrete staircase led back up onto the road. There was no
other choice. He would have to make his way back up and walk as
quickly as he could to the dock gates.

As his head reached the level of the pavement above, his heart
sank. By now it was the start of the afternoon rush hour. On the
other side of the road, the traffic heading out of the town was
creeping slowly home, nose to tail. With their vehicles travelling
at walking pace, the drivers had little incentive to concentrate on
the road ahead. They were texting, talking, staring out into the
bay or watching people walking along the beach.

There was no way he would be able to walk past without being
spotted. They could casually step from the Hilux, drag him kicking
and shouting back across the road, and bundle him into the back
before the car in front had even moved forward.

Two joggers overtook him. David decided to match their pace,
staying close enough behind so, from the road, they appeared to be
a trio. He kept pace and managed to make up a hundred metres
before, without warning, they crossed over and disappeared up the
driveway of one of the expensive-looking houses that nestled at the
base of the cliff.

Head down, not daring to meet the gaze of any driver coming
the other way, the jogging continued, The path curved more sharply
now. David knew this meant he was near the port. He could clearly
see cranes and shipping containers. Finally, with the sea wall now
behind him and the town centre within sight, a sign pointed to the
next road on the left, PORT ENTRANCE.

He slowed, catching his breath, hoping to appear casual, not
bright red and wheezing, before asking the gate keeper for
directions to the shipping company who had handled their container
of possessions.

“Third building on the right,” he said,
looking slightly perplexed as the pedestrian ducked under the
barrier that he usually had to raise to allow people
through.

David felt the need to apologize having denied him the chance
of performing this most important task. “Sorry, just arrived, no
car yet.”

“How are ya?” enquired the young lady behind the reception
desk of Alexander Shipping.

“Um, I’m fine.” He hesitated, realising he
had no paperwork or means of proving who he was. “My name is David
Turner and I think my container may have arrived. Your company is
handling it for me. The thing is I need to get into it quite
urgently. There are some bits and pieces I need and … ”

Whilst he had been talking, the receptionist had scanned her
computer screen. She interrupted him. “Yes, David, your items were
landed three days ago. We needed the container for another urgent
shipment, so all your stuff has been checked by Customs and it’s
sitting in our secure warehouse in Tahuna.”

“Where?”

“You drive round Rocks Road and the warehouse is just off
Parkers Road.”

“But I don’t have a car. “ The thought of retracing the walk
that had just taken him half an hour was not appealing and the
warehouse would be closed by the time he got there.

“Not a problem, David,” she said. “It’s on my way home. Just
let me call John the warehouse manager to let him know you’re on
your way and then I can finish up here and drop you off. I’m
Debbie, by the way.

David waved appreciative thanks to the mystified-looking
gatekeeper. A few minutes ago the guy had no car. Now Debbie from
Alexander’s was driving him around.

As he made his way along Rocks Road for the third time that
day, David carefully explained how they had arrived earlier in the
week, flown down from Auckland and were staying in a
motel.

“Which one?” Debbie was trying to make polite conversation,
little realising that David was making the whole thing up as he
went along.

“The one near the airport.” He had seen several large
passenger planes come in low over the beach whilst making his way
to the port and, not having heard a thunderous crash behind him,
could only assume they had landed safely. There is always a motel
near an airport. So that, he lied, was where they were
staying.

“Cool, so are you planning on living in Nelson?”

His mind raced with images of what had happened in the past
week - murder, international intrigue, the future of the world’s
fuel source. All she needed to know at that moment was that, yes,
they were planning to buy a house in Nelson.

Debbie’s car joined the queue of slow moving traffic. She
pointed out Tahuna Beach, the plantation of pine trees half way
around the bay and the mountains, silhouetted in grey-blue between
the sea and late afternoon sky, the Western Ranges, which in turn
joined the Southern Alps as they snaked their way
southwards.

“You certainly picked a good spot in the world.”

If only you knew.

They pulled into the car park of an industrial warehouse unit.
The warehouse manager greeted them and Debbie drove off.

David was taken across the large, cold empty warehouse to a
gloomy corner. He could make out packing cases and cardboard boxes
of various sizes. There were shapes wrapped in brown paper that
were comfortingly familiar. A lampshade, a wheelbarrow and, propped
up against a wall, the package he was looking for.

David began pulling at the stiff corrugated cardboard,
searching for a loose edge to tear. Even though he knew exactly
what to expect, it still felt like Christmas morning.

Finally the last piece of brown tape was carefully removed.
His motorbike was unwrapped and gleaming like new, even in the dim
half light of the warehouse.

The warehouse manager helpfully checked down the manifest.
“Your helmet should be box number thirty four …. there you go.” He
plucked the box from the top of a pile of similar sized boxes.
David bent down and reached beneath the rear mudguard until he
found the spare ignition key exactly where he had taped it weeks
previously. He put the key in the ignition and turned it to unlock
the handlebars, then pushed it off the centre stand and wheeled it
away from the rest of his belongings. He stood back admiring
it.

“Shame you can’t just ride her
away.”

He was right. In his eagerness to reclaim his independence,
David had completely overlooked the fact that in order to ship his
bike safely, he had removed the battery and drained every last drop
of petrol, oil and brake fluid.

In her present state, she was useless. The warehouse manager
must have seen the look of disappointment on his face. “Not to
worry, Dave, I’ll give Greg at Lightning Bikes a call if you like.
They’re only just up the road. You can wheel it up there and they
can have you back on the road in a day or so.”

A day or so was not soon enough. David needed to be able to
ride her away now. Escape was not really a viable option if he had
to push 160kgs of motorbike around with him.

“Greg says take her over and he’ll have a
look at her now for you.”

David walked the bike to the other side of the warehouse where
he opened a large sliding door leading out onto the street. He
signed for his bike. The signature matched the one on the original
manifest that David had completed himself as the boxes were packed
into the container, back in the UK.

“Take a right at the end of the street. Lightning Bikes is
about three hundred metres down. Greg’s expecting you.’

As he walked his machine towards the line of perfectly parked
motorbikes, another problem dawned on him. David had ridden this
bike overseas many times before - in France, Belgium and Germany.
But here, in New Zealand, he could not ride on his British plates.
They would be plainly obvious and eventually he was likely to be
stopped by the police. As he had permanently imported the bike, he
would have to register it. That would involve getting a new set of
plates. It could take days. His carefully considered plan to regain
his freedom was looking worse by the minute.

By the time he reached the bike shop, Greg, a short rotund,
bald Englishman, was already waiting to greet him. As he rested the
bike on its stand and offered his hand, another plan had just about
formulated in David’s head.

There were two things about Greg that helped to crystallise
plan C. He was obviously a passionate biker, and the Union Jack
above the shop doorway, together with the Triumph dealership sign,
indicated their shared heritage.

David explained he had collected the bike straight from the
warehouse as soon as he had arrived in Nelson and he needed it
urgently. His wife was still in the North Island with the ownership
papers. Greg gave the bike a cursory check over. “Well, she’s
certainly survived the trip alright. Nice bike. Don’t see many of
these over here. If you ever want to sell her, let me know. Give us
a call in three days and she’ll be good as new. I’ll get a WOF done
as well.”