Authors: Des Hunt
Tony didn’t return to the caravan again until it was dark. As soon as he entered he became suspicious. There were things that were not quite in the right place and his bed had been partially made—that was something he never did. At some stage between leaving the caravan at lunchtime and now, someone had been in and searched the place.
Yet, whatever they’d searched for hadn’t been found. Nothing was missing. The most obvious item to steal was the camera, and it was still sitting on the bench connected to its charger. He shrugged and got ready for bed. Probably he was imagining things again.
He picked up the camera and crawled into bed. He would normally have taken the camera to the lounge computer at lunchtime and put the photos onto a CD. Yet finding the cloth had been upsetting and backing up the photos had slipped his mind.
He turned the camera on and scanned through the images. Some were rubbish, but most were good, especially the ones of the weka. There they were, looking more like farmyard hens than a threatened species. They were all
good photos, but it was the last two Tony was most interested in; they would show the piece of red cloth. Yet when he tried to advance to them, the camera said there were no more images. He tried several times in several different ways, without success. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the last two photos no longer existed.
He sat in bed, reliving the moment when he had first seen the red cloth. Yes, he had taken photos—two of them. And the camera had performed normally. There had been no beeping to say the card was full. Just in case, Tony now checked the amount of memory left—there was heaps. The intruder
had
found something: two photos that had now been destroyed.
Yet the room didn’t need to be searched to find the camera. The intruder was looking for something else, and Tony knew what that would be. It was the piece of red cloth now sitting in his trouser pocket. With growing unease, he got out of bed, checked the bolt on the door, pulled the curtains closed, and then took the cloth out of the pocket and put it under his pillow. Tomorrow he would take it to a safer place.
Tony took one of the easier tracks in the morning so that he could walk without having to think about where he was going. He wanted his mind to concentrate on one thing: the red cloth, now secure within his pocket. He wanted to know what to do with it.
Hiding it was the easy part. The hard part was who to tell. There was no use telling anyone around the lodge. Nobody would believe him after his performance on Christmas Eve. They would find all sorts of boring explanations for a piece of red cloth being buried in the dirt near Duggan’s place. The only other alternative seemed to be the police. There was that number on the website, he could call that. What would happen then? The answer was simple—everything.
There would be police visiting the lodge, asking questions, digging in the bush. Everyone in Charleston would soon know, and then it would be on TV and radio, and in the newspapers. Tony was sure that Betty would be unhappy with that sort of publicity, and so would Christine.
And what if the police found nothing? That didn’t even bear thinking about. It would be a disaster.
No! There was no use telling anyone until he had more evidence. Something nobody would be able to argue with.
He walked for two hours, tossing the dilemma about in his mind and coming back to the same thing. The weka had dug only a little way into the dirt. It was likely there was more stuff beneath, and the only way to find out was to dig deeper. Tonight he would take a shovel and finish what the weka had started.
Straight after lunch Tony went to the shed to hide the piece
of cloth. He wanted a place where Fred was unlikely to look, for a while at least. In the end he chose the back of an old gas heater. Unless the weather went crazy, it wouldn’t be needed for months.
He sat at the bench and began his afternoon’s work—polishing the wooden bases for the next batch of concretions. Rose came in and joined him. She was now working with the concretions herself, using the ones that had stones in the middle. She would hollow out the stone, replace it with a piece of polished greenstone, and then create a lid out of the top. They looked like an uninteresting rock mounted on wood, until the top was lifted and the beautiful greenstone carving was revealed. They were very popular.
About mid-afternoon Fred came in and started pottering around. To Tony’s dismay he headed straight for the old heaters. ‘What are you looking for, Fred?’
‘A gas regulator. The one on the barbecue has seized up.’
Tony looked around urgently. He had seen one somewhere. ‘Look on the top shelf,’ he said, quickly.
Fred did so. ‘Ah! You’re right. Ha! You’ll soon know your way around here better than I do.’
Tony had started to reply when the shed was rocked by two loud blasts coming from outside. It was followed by a moment of silence before every animal in Charleston started making noises: dogs barked, seagulls cried and weka screeched.
‘What was that?’ yelled Rose.
‘Shotgun blasts,’ said Fred without hesitation. ‘That’ll be Jamie.’
‘What’s he shooting?’
‘Possums or rabbits or blackbirds. The things eat his crops. Every now and then he gets fed up with them and does something about it.’
Tony said nothing, but he was thinking that the blasts sounded a lot closer than Duggan’s property. After Fred had left, Tony said, ‘Come on. Let’s find out what Duggan’s been up to.’
‘What if he’s still out there?’ asked Rose, in a small voice. ‘He’s got a gun, remember.’
‘All right, we’ll wait ten minutes. But then I’m going, even if you don’t want to.’
After ten minutes they set off along the track towards the caravan. Tony was remembering the weka in the trap. He had never believed Duggan’s story that the traps were for possums. If the man knew the weka were digging up things, then he had reasons to want them dead.
It took twenty minutes to find them. They were in the scrub between the caravan clearing and the terrace. Sirloin and Tenderloin were dead; also Polony. Black Pudding was badly injured. Frankfurter and Salami were trying to take shelter under the feathers of their dead mother.
Rose stood staring, her face frozen in shock. Tony let out a single swear word, before bending down and grabbing the two live chicks.
He handed them to Rose. ‘Take these to the caravan.’
Rose still stared.
‘Rose!’ he said sharply. ‘I said take these to the caravan.’
She scooped the tiny birds into her arms and, robot-like, turned and left.
A while later Tony joined her. She was sitting on the bed, rocking to and fro, still with the birds in her arms. ‘Where’s the other one?’ she asked, softly.
‘Dead.’
She looked up. ‘Dead?’
Tony sat beside her. ‘It was never going to live. Not even if we got a vet. I had to do it.’
Then they both cried. They cried in love and in anger: love for the dead birds and anger at how they had died. And somewhere in there, they cried for themselves and their failure to protect the wonderful birds.
Rose was the first to recover. ‘We’ve got to do something about it,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘He can’t get away with it.’
‘Not yet,’ breathed Tony, scarcely loud enough for her to hear. Then a little louder, ‘Not yet.’
‘Why not? We’ve got to make him pay.’
‘We can’t prove anything. How do we know it was Duggan?’
‘Because he’s the one who’s been trying to trap them.’
‘We only think that.’
‘Don’t you want him punished?’ she asked angrily.
‘Yes! But I don’t want it to be like last time. We were sure then, remember?’
Rose calmed just as quickly as the anger had flared. ‘What are we going to do then?’
Tony stood. ‘First, we’re going to make a home for these
little guys. Then after that…Well, we’ll see.’
Tony hung around the lounge after dinner, waiting for Duggan to appear. He wanted to know that the man was here and not standing on the terrace watching him. There was no knowing how the Scotsman would react when his full secret was discovered.
Duggan duly arrived, his face set in the goodwill-to-all-people smile. Oh, how Tony wanted to wipe that fake smile from the man’s face. He felt like walking up to him, there and then, and accusing him of the murder of Monique Lafleur. Instead, he held his tongue and went to the toilet.
From the toilet, he slipped out of the building, hoping the others hadn’t seen him. After collecting a shovel from the shed, he started down the track.
‘Tony, wait,’ called a voice from behind. It was Rose.
‘Damn,’ Tony said to himself as he stopped and waited.
‘I knew that’s what you were going to do,’ said Rose, when she caught up. ‘I knew you would want to bury the weka. I want to help too.’
Tony thought quickly. If that’s what she thought he was doing, then that is what he would do. Then he smiled. What better place to bury them than under the overhang where they had enjoyed their sand baths. If he dug up something else, then he could claim it was purely accidental, plus he would have a witness. Though how she would react when
he dug up something grisly, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure what
he
would do.
They each took an adult and a chick, with Tony making sure he had Black Pudding. He didn’t want Rose seeing how he had killed the injured chick.
The beginnings of a path had formed between the glade and the overhang. They followed it in silence. As soon as they got to the overhang Tony knew that Duggan had already been. The dust bowl was now filled with moist soil. Someone had dug where the cloth had been, and that could only be Duggan.
He began digging the grave. After a while Rose said, ‘That looks easy. Let me do some of it.’ So he did.
It was easy to dig because it had just been dug over, perhaps as close as an hour before. There was now no hope of finding more clues in this hole. However, when Rose tired, he took back the shovel and worked until he hit the hard clay base. There was nothing.
The limp birds were placed in the bottom. Then Rose stood close to the edge and spoke: ‘I’m sorry for what that horrible man did to you. Not all humans are like him. We will make sure that he suffers for what he did. We will get your revenge. And please, do not worry about Salami and Frankfurter. We will keep them safe, and make sure they get old enough to have their own babies so that there are still weka around here. That is our promise. So now you should rest in peace. Haere ra.’
After that they refilled the hole and left.
Tony woke to the peep, peep, peep of the chicks in their banana box home. They were hungry. It was time for him to become a mother weka—now
he
was Tenderloin.
He had scavenged a length of plastic netting just for this purpose. Loaded with the netting, the shovel and the box, he walked a short distance into the scrub. After forming a circle out of the netting, he placed the chicks inside and then dug. The moment he turned over the dirt the chicks dived in, grabbing the ants and other creatures he’d uncovered. After three clumps they were starting to tire. Then he uncovered a worm. They both went for it at the same time, grabbing an end each. Now it was a tug-of-war—the first sign of any sibling rivalry. Neither was prepared to give in. It was not the food that mattered now, it was the principle. Around and around they went. First one would be winning, then the other. Eventually the worm broke in two, allowing them both to claim victory.
Tony sat on the ground watching, and thinking about what to do about Jamie Duggan. The man had out-smarted him again. He was elusive. Every time Tony thought he
had something to nail Duggan with, it would disappear like smoke into the air.
By itself, the piece of cloth was useless. Tony had to find the rest of whatever had been buried. It must have been in a form that Duggan could carry, and it was unlikely he would want to carry it far. The mine seemed the most likely place. He could have easily moved to the entrance without being seen; there were lots of places to hide it; and Duggan knew the layout of the mine.
‘Yes,’ he decided, ‘the mine is the place to look—and the sooner, the better.’
Instead of taking his morning walk, Tony went straight to the mine. He wanted to get it over and done with before Rose got up. The last thing he wanted was her calling out ‘Tony, wait!’ when he was halfway along the tracks. He didn’t want her to know about the cloth until later. The last thing he wanted was it becoming part of Charleston Chitchat.
Only after he’d entered the mine did he remember what day it was—New Year’s Eve. If Nick was right, then today there would be an earthquake. A ripple of fear ran down Tony’s spine. The mine was not a good place to be, if and when the earth started shaking.
He had hoped that Duggan might have left some signs of his visit. Yet there was nothing obvious. So many people had been in the mine recently that any footprints had
merged into nothing more than a crazy pattern.
He moved deeper into the mine, without any clear idea of where he was going. Over the past week he had spent more than ten hours exploring all the side passages. Without some sort of clue it could take that long again. He certainly did not want to be in the mine all that time.
There had to be some trace of Duggan, otherwise Tony would be here forever. The man would have been carrying something, possibly something big. The side tunnels were narrower than the main one. It was difficult to carry things without scraping the sides. If there were going to be any clues, that’s where they would be—scrape marks on the sides of the tunnels.
Now that he had something to look for, he felt more confident. At each side tunnel he explored as far as the first narrow place, looking for scrapings. He found old ones that he had made himself, but nothing recent.
After about the tenth futile attempt, he became aware that there was someone else in the mine: there was a light further up the tracks.
‘Hell,’ he whispered. ‘He’s here.’
Tony ducked back into the tunnel he had just left, fumbling with the lamp to turn it off. Finally it was dark. Feeling his way along the wall, he edged further away from the main shaft.
When his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he saw a dim outline of the entrance to the side tunnel. Slowly it got brighter. Then he could hear the sound of boots clumping on the floor. Or maybe it was the pounding of his own heart
he could hear. It was pumping so hard he felt it would burst out of his chest.
Then the clumping stopped. The glow remained steady. The man had stopped. He was listening. Tony held his breath, but could not still his heart. He could almost hear it echoing off the walls.
After an age the clumping returned and Tony took the chance to exhale. Now the light was bright enough to reach Tony. If the man looked down the side branch, he would be sure to find what he was looking for. Tony edged deeper into the dark.
‘Is there anybody there?’ called a voice, distorted by echoes. Tony froze as the man became framed in the entrance way. He was peering directly at the boy. Then Tony let out a huge sigh of relief—the figure was too tall for Duggan.
‘Nick?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Is that Tony?’
‘Yeah. I’ll come out.’
A moment later they were alongside each other. ‘You gave me a scare,’ said Nick.
‘Not half as much as you scared me,’ replied Tony. ‘I thought you were Duggan.’
‘That is who I thought you were.’ Then they laughed. It was a welcome relief from the tension.
‘What are you doing—’ they both started at the same time, causing more laughter.
‘I was taking some readings in the uranium grotto. I wanted to see if they were higher than before.’
‘Are they?’
‘Yes, slightly. I did not expect much difference in this rock.’
‘Is there still going to be an earthquake?’
‘Yes. But I think it will be later than I said. Maybe tonight.’
The later, the better, thought Tony. Then he thought of Duggan’s big night—Hogmanay. An earthquake around about midnight would make sure things went off with a bang.
‘So, why are you in here?’ asked Nick.
Tony explored the possible answers he could give. None of the lies seemed right, so he told the truth. ‘I’m looking for something Duggan has hidden in here.’ He went on to tell the whole story: the attempts to frighten him, the weka, the piece of cloth, the empty hole, everything.
When he had finished, Nick took some time to speak. ‘I think you are right,’ he said, slowly. ‘He is hiding something.’ A pause. ‘It does not surprise me that he killed that woman. I have seen his temper. He tried to hit me. If he hit the woman…’
‘I’m going to prove that he did it,’ Tony said with determination. ‘All I have to do is find the evidence.’
‘I will help you,’ decided Nick. ‘For the sake of a fellow countrywoman.’
Now, both of them searched the walls. They would take a side tunnel each, and if there was no brush mark at the first narrow part they would abandon it. All the time Tony marked their progress on his pattern board.
It was Nick who found the scrape that showed where Duggan had left the main track. From there on it was easier. There were fewer side branches and the tunnels were narrower—the marks were often only metres apart.
With each new confirmed sighting the tension built in Tony’s body. This was real scary stuff. He was hoping to find something, and then again he wasn’t—it all depended on what they found.
After following the signs on the walls for ten minutes, they came to a dead end. A large sand fall filled the passageway. Tony looked at his board. ‘I’ve explored here before,’ he said. ‘And there were no sand falls then. It ended in solid rock.’
‘The sand is still moist,’ observed Nick. ‘This has come down recently.’
They both looked at the ceiling. It was one of the few places in the mine that had a sand-filled roof. A large patch had fallen down, but there was something strange about it.
‘Shine your lamp at the edge there, Tony.’
Tony did. ‘Aha,’ Nick said excitedly. ‘Look there! He’s brought it down with a shovel.’
Tony looked and clearly saw the curved imprint of a shovel blade. ‘Got him,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ve got him.’
Twenty minutes later, Tony was not so sure. It was hard work shifting the sand. He was regretting not bringing his own shovel. Nick would dig through at the top for a metre or so, and then Tony would burrow down until he reached the hard floor. They figured the evidence would be resting on the floor, not below it.
On what seemed like the hundredth burrow, Tony’s fingers finally touched something that was neither sand nor floor. It felt like fabric.
‘Found it!’ he yelled.
Furiously they made the burrow wider, scattering sand like dogs digging up a bone. As soon as light got to it, they could see it was a blue backpack. They collapsed back in the sand breathing deeply from the exercise and excitement.
Nick was the first to speak. ‘It is only a small pack.’ It was small—not a lot bigger than Tony’s school bag.
‘But it must be hers,’ said Tony, leaning forward to brush sand from the surface.
The first part uncovered was a small patch with three blocks of colour; one blue, one white, and one red.
‘It is hers, or somebody else who is French,’ said Nick quietly. ‘That is the Tricolor, the French flag.’
A little while later they were in no doubt. Below the flag, in faint but clearly readable letters, was the name
Monique Lafleur
.
‘Shall we look further?’ asked Tony with a thumping heart. More than ever, he was scared of what they might find.
‘I think we should lift the pack and see what is underneath.’ Nick’s voice revealed the tension he also was feeling.
Quietly, they dug around the sides. One side was rotten and through a hole poked the remains of a red T-shirt.
‘That’s the cloth that I found. So it wasn’t her dress.’
Tony felt a surge of relief. He had imagined all sorts of things about that piece of cloth. Now he knew that it had not been on her body—at least not when she was killed.
‘The whole thing is falling to bits,’ said Nick. ‘I think we had better leave it where it is. The police can dig further. It is not our job.’
Tony pulled his camera out of his schoolbag. ‘I’ll take photos.’ He moved into position and began a set of flash shots, getting closer with each one until he was too close for the flash to work properly.
Then they began putting the sand back.
Tony said, ‘We should tell the police straight away. I can soon get the number.’
Nick continued working for a while. ‘There is no hurry. We will leave this so that Duggan will not know we have seen it.’
‘Do you think he’ll come back?’
‘No. But just in case we will put it the way that it was.’
When they were finished, they stood checking that everything was right. ‘We will tell the police when the earthquake has been,’ decided Nick. ‘It would not be right to bring them in here when there is going to be an earthquake.’
‘Shouldn’t we do it now?’
‘No!’ said Nick. ‘I have too much on my mind at the moment. We will do it later.’
‘What if Duggan shifts it again?’
‘He will not shift it. He will be celebrating all night. He will not be coming back here.’
Tony was far from happy with that plan. He wanted revenge for the weka, and he wanted it now. Plus he was hoping to impress Rose by doing something quickly. Yet now was not the time to argue about it. He would raise the matter again later.