Page 15 of Bay of Plenty

The sea dazzledin the moonlight as I walked Bevan home along the beach.

“Hopefully, I’ll meet this Rina and give her some shit about putting up with you,” I said.

Bevan gave me a soft punch on the arm.

“And I want to see your parents too,” I said. “I’ve missed them.”

This earned me a sidelong look from her. “Well, they’ve lived in the same house for twenty years if you’d wanted to send a Christmas card.”

“Sorry.” I swallowed hard.

This was going to be tricky. She’d get suspicious if I started digging immediately.

Bevan’s mother, a lounge singer from Hong Kong, had loved glitter and glamour, embracing the spotlight of local amateur theatrics. Her father had his gumboots firmly planted on the farm. They’d raised pigs, and it made for some funny exchanges between them, especially about holidays.

“I remember how your mum wanted a holiday in Fiji,” I said. “Her collection of sarongs—she still got those?”

Bevan smiled and nodded.

I thought of a segue. “Bet she took that holiday after thewinery sale,” I said. “I mean, it must have been like winning the lottery.”

“What are you asking?” Even in the moonlight, I could see her jaw tense. Maybe she’d questioned the sale price too. “Where are you going with this?”

“No, nothing. Just saying, two million is a lot of money. A windfall.”

“It wasn’t awindfall. It was a fair price for a business on a prize piece of land. Completely aboveboard.”

I backed off. Of course, I was sorry she was upset, but it was also a tactic to keep asking questions. “Oh, shoot. I’m not saying they did anything wrong. You know I love your parents.”

We walked in a strained silence for a few minutes. She could help me in another way. Our editor always said that small crimes often accompanied a larger one. If Snow was running drugs through his winery, it might have resulted in other crimes.

“I’ll be honest with you.” I scratched a guilty itch around my neck, knowing I was half-lying. “Since I’m here for some time, I need to find a good story to work on. Pitch it to a new newspaper and try to reclaim my life. I’m thinking a crime story might be the best way back in.”

She recoiled. “Crime? But aren’t you more about financial scandals, consumer rip-offs, that sort of thing? All those stories I read of yours were about restoring people’s holidays, homes, pensions, savings. Isn’t your strapline that you’ve recovered millions of pounds for your readers?” She eyed me warily. “Why the change in topic?” She stopped and put a hand on my arm to swing me around. “C’mon, this is me. Don’t tell me you’ve already got a lead? Are you planning to scoop me in my own town?”

“Let’s be real. If anything’s going on, you’re the one with the loyalty of the locals. You’ll always get the story first.” This was probably true, but I was being evasive, and my throat felt tighter with every word. “You know I’ve always wanted to cover crime because of what happened to Janey.” She nodded. This, at least, was true. Back in London, Jack, the chief police reporter, had boxed me out of the crime beat.

“What about that huge spread you wrote on the two local gangs?” I asked. “A brilliant story, beautifully written, Bevan.”

She sighed. “Okay. The two gangs around here? They’re very powerful and control the drug trade in New Zealand. For the past decade, they’ve been cooking up P—that’s what we call meth—in the bush.”

Were my parents involved in meth?Oh God.

“That’s exactly the sort of story I’d be interested in,” I said. “What else can you tell me?”

“Young Maori men make up these gangs. Many of them had tough home lives—abuse, learning differences, poor education, poor health care. Often they’re sucked into the penal system early in their lives.”

I knew the devastating stats. Maori made up seventeen percent of the population nationwide, but more than fifty percent of the prison population.

“These young men are in pain,” she continued. “The gangs offer them what appears to be stability, loyalty, and family. It’s a complicated story, and it needs to be written by an experienced and sympathetic local. Not an outsider who might make assumptions or up-front judgments like—” She stopped herself.

“Like I did in the Fontaine case,” I finished her sentence.How I hate that story and what I’ve done to my life through it.

Six months ago in London, while investigating the story,I’d made the mistake of assuming the working-class father was the good guy, and Fontaine, who was titled and seemed privileged, was the villain. Turned out they were both in the wrong, and Fontaine suffered for my mistake. He’d attempted suicide because of my story and had checked himself into a psych ward.

We passed a tangle of seaweed rank with a decaying fish head. The soured night air seized my throat. It haunted me day and night that one of my stories had caused such pain. All I’d wanted was to ease people’s suffering, to help them. And here, for this man, I’d done the opposite. The newspaper lawyer and my editor told me he was already seriously depressed, as if that was an out. It made me feel even sicker. It was honestly almost a relief when the board decided I had to be sacrificed.

“Hey, I know you need to get your career back on track.” She shook her head. “But the gang P story is very negative. If you write it, you’ll never be able to come back here again.” She squeezed my arm. “You’ve changed. But, still, I want the best for you. Don’t do this story because you feel hopeless. Kia kaha. Stay strong. Make the right choice.”

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