Page 38 of Bay of Plenty

Declan considered this for a moment, raising my hopes. He shook his head. “That’s a major expedition into the mountains,hauling tents and sleeping bags and water and food. I could be gone for days on what might be a wild-goose chase. And everyone would wonder why I’ve left.”

At yoga, all the deep breathing and stretching did nothing to calm my frustration.

Afterward, I gave Declan a quick peck on the cheek. “Hey, meet you at home. Just wanted to chat with Kui.”

He headed off with Mum and Rosemary, casting back a nervous eye.

I took Kui’s elbow. “I need to ask you something.”

*

I wanted to be honest with Kui that I needed leads.

“Snow’s never going to let me into the winery. I’ve hit a bit of a wall.” My stomach went tight. “Any update from Kingi? Or from Rangi about the winery?”

We were knee-deep in the ocean. After yoga, she suggested we talk while I help her dig for pipis, white shellfish buried in the sand. She’d changed into her swimsuit. I was still in yoga gear.

“No, nothing, sorry.” She looked anxious as the waves whipped around us.

“I need to talk to more people, but as you say, do it naturally.”

“Hmm.” She dropped her head thoughtfully. Something in her bucket made her face light up. “Look, I’m collecting pipis for the hangi at the marae tonight. Why don’t you come?”

Despite the cold wind, my heart heated at the thought of a traditional meal at her tribe’s meeting house. “Oh, Kui, thank you. This is such an honor.” I bit my lip—Bevan’s words about taking advantage prodded me. “It feels abit duplicitous, somehow, that I’ll be at your marae as a sort of cover for the investigation.”

“You’re doing a good thing for this town. You still think of yourself as an outsider, but you’re part of us. You need to believe that. People will see they can trust you like I trust you. But don’t let me down, girl. None of your journo questions.”

The noonday sun blasted through the chill warming me through.Kui thinks of me as an insider. I’d been so sure that staying an outsider was the only way I could be a successful journalist, because that way you saw with fresh eyes, beyond what other people accepted. But now I wondered if I’d just convinced myself of that.

Grinning, I gave her my promise. I followed her lead, rotating my heel into the sand, feeling for the sharp edges that marked out a clutch of buried pipis.

Mid-twist, I caught a familiar profile beyond the beach. My smile dropped. Sarge, still hanging around his car after yoga. I cried out at a sudden prick under my toe, bent into the sea, tore the pipis from the sand, and threw them into the bucket.

Was he watching me or waiting for Kui?

Kui must have seen my worried face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

I told Kui about my conversation with Snow, and how Sarge had bad-mouthed me after Janey died. And that Sarge had dismissed what Janey’s dad told him about the shoes.

She nodded and gazed off into the distance. “Do you remember the rahui for Janey?” Rahui was a sacred Maori rite restricting swimming and fishing in an area where there’d been a drowning.

“Vaguely, not the details,” I said, swirling the pipis into the bucket. “Why? Did something unusual happen?”

A stealth wave crashed on Kui. She stumbled back, and I grabbed her.

“I led the prayers on the beach,” she said, once she’d righted herself. “Next thing you know, the newspaper turned up, like it was some sort of photo op. Sarge was with them, and he admitted he’d given them a call. I was not happy about it. Nowadays, young kids think you should publicize these things like it’s entertainment, but I considered it sacred, and I definitely didn’t want my photo on the front page of the newspaper. And it was out of character. Sarge had never been much interested in our culture before. He kept saying to the newspaper reporter that Janey was killed on the rocks and the sea took her, and we must honor her for the sake of her family and community.”

She didn’t need to remind me that no trace of Janey’s body was found. Nothing. No limbs or pieces of clothing washed up on the beach.

“So he was driving it home that she’d jumped off the cliff and—” I took a deep breath and shuddered. “This is tough to say… that sharks had eaten her?” My eyes were drawn to the point, the rocks high and jagged. I pictured Janey falling—I knew she had to have been pushed—down onto the rocks, dropping into the cold, shark-infested waters. I thought about the terror that gripped her as she fell. A giant hand seemed to squeeze the air from my lungs. Surely she didn’t survive to see and feel the sharks circling?

“Yes,” she said, crouching in the water. “I would have understood if it was Janey’s dad—but why Sarge?”

I glanced at him again. He was walking towards us. The wind whisked up the skirts of the sea, spraying water at us. I shivered, but it was at the thought of him. “He had so much power, and everyone was too scared to challenge him. He’s still all ego and elbows.”

“I can’t write him off as easily as that,” she said, rising out of the water with a handful of shellfish. “After Janey died, he was very good to my boys. They didn’t have a consistent father figure. But even Sarge couldn’t turn Kingi around. Of course, we had no idea why Kingi was rebelling. Later, when the court case against that evil priest was publicized, and Kingi told us what happened, Sarge was the one who encouraged Kingi to give evidence. Didn’t make the pain go away for Kingi, didn’t bring this closure therapists always talk about, but at least he felt he was taking some sort of action.”

I pulled up some pipis, fighting to keep a footing as the waves sucked at my legs. Mum had told me about Kingi coming forward. But I was stunned to hear that Sarge had encouraged it.

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