He remained silent. His patience was of a quality Sam hadn’t encountered before. She dropped her gaze and began to worry at the cord around her hands.
He said, ‘If I explain, you’ll be required to give up certain things.’
‘What do I have to give up?’ Sam would offer whatever guarantee he wanted. She was confident that she couldn’t be held to any promise she made.
But, as it turned out, it was hope she couldn’t keep.
Part Five
Shortly before the sun came up, after three hours of fruitless searching, Bub spotted a smudge of smoke rising from the chimney of a house east of the settlement. He and Theresa went up its driveway, while William and Dan came at it through the gardens of an adjacent property. Theresa tackled the front door, while Bub went in the back. Dan and William burst through a set of French doors into a room coloured by the faint orange glow of a dying fire.
They searched the house, but it was deserted. And when they gathered in the living room, they saw the silk ropes lying in the seat of a white leather recliner.
Later that morning Belle went, as usual, up to the reserve to feed her kakapo. Theresa insisted on delivering her right to the gate. As they made their way through the arboretum, Belle riding pillion on her own quad bike, Theresa kept turning her head to shout instructions over her shoulder. ‘It should take me twenty minutes to check the fence in both directions. Then I’ll come back to the gate and wait for you.’
They arrived at the reserve, and Theresa issued her final instruction. ‘Lock yourself in. We can’t have anyone else taken hostage.’ She gunned the bike’s engine and set off along the fence line.
Belle watched her friend go, and turned back to the gate.
There was something wrong. The padlock was closed but the chain looked looser than she’d left it, as if someone had removed the lock from the links and fastened it again, leaving the chain a little slack. Belle hauled on the gate and found it had more than its usual give. She stayed still for a long time, clasping the lock and listening to the sturdy putter of the bike receding up the firebreak. She pressed her face to the mesh. Its weave was so tight that up close every hole served as pinhole magnifier. What Belle could see through each tiny hole was super sharp. Fragments of the view jumped into life, rounded, jewel-like, and as inclusive as a reflection in a convex traffic mirror.
Suddenly, there was Sam, looking back at Belle, vivid and magnified, as if seen through a drop of dew.
Belle jumped away from the fence, backed right off so that the mesh became a semi-transparent smoke. She could still see Sam—Sam’s glossy hair rippling as she bolted away into the forest. Belle called out, then rushed to the gate, spun the tumblers on the combination lock, and twisted the padlock off the chain. She pulled the gate open so fast that the chain sang through the bars and came loose, bashing her knee.
Belle limped up the track into the forest. She shouted Sam’s name. Then she stood still and listened. She sensed that Sam was standing too, perhaps not very far off, her back pressed to the trunk of a tree.
Two adolescent kaka arrived, screeching and fluting by turns. Fat, forward, and nimble, they landed on a branch directly above Belle, snatched at the same perch, lost their balance, and swung upside down, eyeing her hopefully all the while. Only last week one of this pair had picked a hole in Belle’s backpack to steal a muesli bar.
‘Shhh! I’m trying to listen,’ Belle told the birds—to no effect.
She went on into the forest, calling. She skirted the clearing where the hopper was and walked all the way up to the limestone overhang. The shallow cave was empty. The rock drawings looked sinister, revised by what Belle now knew about them.
She stood on the ridge and called for a time, then limped back down. As she was passing through the clearing on her way to get feed from the storage shed, she saw that the hopper was full already, and that several kakapo were perched on the trough, grazing. Boomer turned his mild, whiskered face to her, spread his wings, plonked down, ambled over, and picked playfully at one of her bootlaces. She submitted for a time to his attentions, then made her way back to the gate. She went through it and locked it behind her.
Theresa was waiting. She looked concerned. ‘You never leave the gate open.’
‘Sam’s in there. She ran away from me.’
‘She knew the combination to the lock?’
‘She’s been up here a few times, and she wrote it down. She writes things down to remember them. The desk in her room is covered with notes to herself.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Theresa said, and looked a little guilty. ‘How did she seem?’
‘She ran away from me, Tre! What do you suppose he did to her?’
They stood in silence gazing at one another, then at the dark bush beyond the fence. The kaka could be heard screeching and fluting, as happy and unperturbed as ever.
‘Let’s just wait for a time,’ Theresa said. ‘If she doesn’t show, we’ll come back later and call some more.’
‘Oscar said that when he ran to get help he thought she was trying to talk to the man in black—to engage with him,’ Belle said. She peered at the forest. ‘Maybe he’s in there too.’ Her heart gave a lurch and her skin went cold. She hated to think of the stranger anywhere near her kakapo. ‘Maybe she ran from me because she’s protecting him.’
‘You mean like Stockholm Syndrome?’ Theresa said, and at Belle’s frown of incomprehension, ‘You know—when hostages become emotionally attached to the people holding them captive.’
‘That sounds a bit dodgy.’
‘Well, yes. But let’s face it, Sam is already dodgy about William. He hits her and she camps by his door and pleads.’
‘Maybe she is crazy, like William says.’
‘He doesn’t think she’s crazy, he thinks she’s pretending to be crazy.’ Theresa leaned on the bike, crossed her ankles and folded her arms. She looked like someone settling in for a long wait.
Belle said, ‘She fed my birds.’
‘But that’s her, isn’t it? The dishonest, or disturbed, but ever helpful Sam.’
At noon Holly stood at the head of the long table she’d set for lunch and carefully counted the place settings. For several weeks now she had sometimes found herself laying fourteen places. Before Bub and Belle had uncovered the meaning of the reserve’s petroglyphs she’d been able to tell herself that she was only anticipating a time when Bub’s firefighter would join them. And Curtis would choose to come back. Then it turned out that the man in black was an enemy. Holly had tried to be more mindful. But she kept getting her head count wrong. She’d set about the task, and this would waylay her—this invitation.
Now the Man was revealed, and Sam was missing, and Curtis was still shunning them—so there were eleven for lunch. And yet when Holly took the cutlery from the drawer, despite her vigilance, she’d gone into a fugue and had, this time, set the table for fifteen. She’d wished Curtis and Sam back, had issued her usual forgetful invitation to Sam’s captor, and then one more, to some other ghostly guest.
Holly looked around the dining room. No one had arrived yet. She gathered up the extra knives and forks, swiftly and discreetly, and returned them to the kitchen.
*
In the late afternoon, when Theresa and Belle had gone back to the reserve to call for Sam, William said to Bub that he wondered why no one had thought to look for her where she’d most likely hole up if she meant to avoid them, but still be out of the weather.
‘Her bach?’
‘Yes, her cottage.’
They went along Matarau Point and stopped just out of the view of anyone standing at the bach’s front windows. They had a quick consultation about how to tackle Sam if they found her. Then William went in by the ranchsliders, while Bub went in the back. They converged in the living room. The rug Lily had slept under that first night—a homemade rug of brightly coloured peggy-
squares—was neatly folded and draped on the arm of the couch, perhaps by Lily herself all those weeks ago. William looked into the bedroom. The bed was made. ‘She’s been back at some point,’ he said.
‘If it was your house, wouldn’t you?’ Bub asked. He drifted off in the direction of the bathroom.
William checked the wardrobe, then, for good measure, got down on his knees and looked under the bed. There was a file box there. It was labelled Sams.
William slid the box out, removed its dusty lid, and began to leaf through the papers. He found an insurance policy for house and contents. He found the last will and testament of one John Waite, whose beneficiary was his only niece, Samantha Pehipehi Waite. He found an employment contract for Samantha Waite, from Mary Whitaker Rest Home, and a certificate to state that Samantha Waite had attended a food hygiene course. He found tax certificates and tax returns for Samantha Pehipehi Waite. He found a student ID, for Waikato University, the year 2000, for a Samara Pehipehi Waite, whose date of birth was 1967. There were forms from the Department of Work and Income for Samantha Waite, whose date of birth was also 1967.
William upended the box and spread its contents on the floor—no longer simply browsing, but looking for something. Bub leaned in the doorway. ‘What have you got there?’
‘What does it look like? How about you? You were gone a while.’
‘It’s a nice place,’ Bub said.
‘Huh,’ said William, casual and surprised. He’d found two birth certificates. And a notice of a change of name by deed poll.
Bub said, ‘Belle and I have been thinking of finding someplace where we can have bit more privacy, and cook for ourselves—all that.’
‘So you and Belle want to play house,’ William said, and held out the two certificates and the notice of deed poll.
Bub took the papers, but didn’t look at them. ‘You have a knack for making everything sound trivial.’
‘Trivial or insincere, dishonest or mad—I can make things sound all sorts of ways. I’m a lawyer.’
‘But why are you on our case?’
‘I’m not. Bub, please look at what you have in your hand.’
The birth certificates were pinned together with a rusting paperclip. They were for two infant girls, born the same day—the second of October, 1967. Their mother’s name was Ngaire Catherine Waiti. Their father’s name was not given. The notice of change of name by deed poll was also dated 1967, and was for a John Waiti, who had changed his surname to Waite.
Bub said, ‘I didn’t know that sad bastards were still anglicising their names back in sixty-seven. Not that that happened much anyway.’ He looked at the birth certificates, flipping back and forth from one paper to the other. ‘Okay. So this is the root of Sam’s nutty shit. She’s a twin.’
‘Bub, who the hell names twins Samantha and Samara, and gives them the same middle name?’
‘Giving your kids the same middle name isn’t unheard of. I bet Pehipehi is their dad’s family. And a fanciful teenaged mum in sixty-seven might have called her twins Samantha and Samara. Bewitched was on TV.’
‘That was Samantha and Sabrina. And Bub, do the math. 1967. Sam isn’t in her forties.’
Bub frowned and scratched his head.
‘But this is her.’ William handed Bub the student ID card.
Bub studied Sam’s beautiful face, her baleful expression. ‘2000,’ he said. ‘Samara Pehipehi Waite. It sure looks like her.’
‘Check out the date of birth.’
Bub steadied the card with his other hand and peered at it. There was a short silence, then. ‘Some people hold their age well.’
‘Right,’ said William, with no discernible expression.
‘What else can it be?’
‘Is Pehipehi just a name, or does it mean something?’
Bub screwed up his face. ‘It might be, but it isn’t one I’ve heard before. Waiti is a local name. There was a Waiti shearing gang who worked Stanislaw’s Station right up to the time the Stanislaws gave the land to the crown. “Pehipehi” means something like “ambush”.’ Bub scratched his head. ‘Yeah. You’re right—this is very weird.’
On their way back Bub and William spotted Curtis sitting on the veranda of the bed and breakfast, wrapped in a blanket and sunning himself.
Bub said, ‘We didn’t notice you there when we went past before.’
‘You were so busy searching for the man in black that I was invisible to you.’
William said, ‘News flash—we’re now looking for Sam, who is hiding from us since being captured and detained by the man in black. So that’s progress of a sort. We’ve swapped one hopeless task for another.’
Bub thought that Curtis looked pale. ‘Are you okay, mate?’
‘You people always manage to miss the man in black, sometimes by just minutes. He was here a short time ago. He’s often here. Whenever I come out to enjoy a bit of afternoon sun, he appears on the path and stands so that his shadow falls over my feet. He knows what trouble I’m having keeping them warm.’
Bub met William’s gaze. William frowned, then said to Curtis, ‘Are you feeling all right? Is there anything we can do?’
Curtis curved his lips at them. It was more a smirk than a smile. ‘I’d be perfectly fine if I wasn’t being bothered by people putting their shadows on me.’ He looked down at William and Bub’s shadows, which had combined with the stripes of the paling fence in a way that reminded William of his own reflection in Sam’s bathroom mirror.
‘Have you seen Sam?’ William asked. ‘Is she one of the people who has been bothering you?’
‘She was over there, on the beach near the backpackers.’ Curtis pointed across the bay.
The beach below the backpackers was empty.
‘What was she doing?’
‘Just standing there on her two good legs.’
William turned his back on Curtis and whispered, ‘I think we should get Jacob to give Curtis a visit.’
Bub nodded. He gave Curtis a friendly wave. ‘Do let us know if you see her again.’
‘I don’t know that I will tell you anything. I think people should be allowed to avoid others if that’s what they want.’
‘This is Sam we’re talking about,’ William said.
‘Do you suppose that, because she’s not very bright, Sam has no rights?’
‘This rights business is always a balancing act,’ William said. ‘Sometimes people need to be looked after, even when it isn’t what they want.’
‘Your opinions on that subject are strongly biased,’ Curtis said. ‘You forget that I know a few salient facts about you.’
‘Huh?’ said Bub. ‘What have you got on William?’
They ignored him, and William said to Curtis, ‘Well, what I know is that there are miserable people—children for example—clustered under every freedom-loving fanatic’s carnival float of privacy.’
Bub looked nervously at William. He was used to these occasional rhetorical flourishes—but there were times when it seemed to be more than just William saying something flashy to silence whoever he was arguing with. These glimpses of something passionate and personal in William’s rhetoric were like spotting a Minotaur making its way through the maze of a formal garden. Bub put his hand on William’s arm. He said to Curtis, ‘We’ve got to get going. Enjoy the sunshine.’
Jacob walked to Matarau Point in the late afternoon, carrying his small bag of basic medicines. He found Curtis in bed. Curtis had beads of sweat on his forehead, and was shivering violently. Jacob was alarmed, but he didn’t want to worry Curtis. He fetched another blanket and spread it on the bed, then sat down beside Curtis and took his hand. ‘How long have you been like this?’
‘I don’t know. For longer than I’ve minded being like this.’ Curtis looked aged and stricken.
‘Did you have a fever when William and B
ub stopped by?’
‘Maybe a mild one. I think I was surly with them. Was I making sense?’
‘Not entirely.’
‘I haven’t been myself for some time.’
‘What do you think the problem is?’
Curtis shuddered. ‘A long slide.’
‘A decline? Because of Adele?’
Curtis shook his head.
‘I think you’re dehydrated,’ Jacob said. ‘For a start I’m going to make you a sweet drink.’
But Curtis would not release his hand. ‘Something’s here. I hoped it was my wife. That Adele was sustaining me, telling me that she was all I would ever need. But it’s something else.’
‘What?’
Curtis glared into the dim corners of the room. ‘Something at the foot of the slide. Something with its mouth open. I thought I could fix myself. But look what I’ve done.’ Curtis gestured weakly at his body, finally releasing Jacob’s hand.
Jacob got up. ‘I’ll make you that drink. But I need to ask—did you take something?’
‘No. I haven’t been in my right mind. I wish I’d stayed that way. It would be better than lying here thinking what a fool I am, and what a trouble to you.’ Tears filled Curtis’s eyes and spilled onto his faintly yellow cheeks.
Jacob got up and turned on the overhead light. He took Curtis’s pulse, which was fast and thready. He found his thermometer and slipped it under Curtis’s tongue. The man’s teeth were chattering. Jacob said, ‘Please be careful, you don’t want to break that.’
The thermometer gave a beep. Curtis had a temperature of thirty-nine. Jacob told Curtis that, for a start, he’d get some Panadol and water into him. Then he’d find some sweet soda. He popped the pills out of their blisters and pressed them into Curtis’s palm. He lifted Curtis’s head and shoulders and arranged another pillow beneath him, then went into the bathroom to get water.
The shower stall was splashed and puddled with blood. Jacob opened its doors and looked down at what he first supposed were crumpled masses of bloodied bandages. But then he noticed the dropped knife, and he realised that what he was looking at were three conical plugs of flesh—skin, fat, muscle—each around five centimetres in length.