The Only Secret Left to Keep Read online

  “That might date it better, then,” the doctor said. “Good find, Wilkins.”

  The woman blushed and backed up a step, looking uncertain on whether to get back to the hole in the ground or stay.

  “What do you mean?” Ngaire asked. “Do you know what event this is from?”

  Dr. Gangarry looked from Ngaire to Deb to Wilkins and shook his head at their puzzled expressions.

  “The tour,” he said, not enlightening anybody. “Apartheid? Race wars? Protests?” He sighed deeply and ran a gloved hand through his fringe again, this time leaving streaks of charcoal on his forehead like made up wrinkles. “The Springbok rugby tour of 1981. We could be looking at a thirty-six-year-old corpse.”

  Chapter Two

  “If you start investigating another old murder you’ll begin to get a reputation,” Deb said, using her swipe card to open the rear security door to the station. “I’ve seen how those things work on the telly. You do a couple well, and pretty soon you’re dying a slow death amongst the paper files of the cold case division.”

  “We don’t have a cold case division.”

  “Not yet.” Deb waggled her finger. “But just you wait. I’ve got a feeling that Gascoigne has something special lined up for you.”

  “Yeah, right.” Ngaire smiled, but anxiety made her throat clutch so that she had to swallow twice to get rid of the lump. “I got the distinct feeling that I’m still under probation.”

  Deb laughed. “You’ll be on probation until the day you retire. Having the temerity to leave our blessed union and then,” she twirled her right finger in a circle above her ear, “being idiotic enough to come running back.”

  Ngaire tossed her notebook down on the desk pad and logged into her computer. “You should be grateful I did, otherwise you’d still be traveling shotgun with Redding.”

  “There are worse things I could be doing,” Deb said, taking a seat at her own desk and spinning on her chair. “I could be working on a forty-year-old murder case, for example.”

  “If it is a murder.”

  Deb snorted. “Did you really buy that ‘he could have wandered off the main road and died’ bullshit.”

  “I presumed the good doctor was talking about suicide.”

  “Well, duh.” Deb spun her chair around to face Ngaire. “When was the last time you saw a suicide do the world a favor and bury themselves?”

  “I heard of a guy who topped himself inside a funeral parlor once.” Ngaire pressed enter on her first page of notes and waited for the semi circle to stop rotating. “The dude bundled himself into a coffin before taking an overdose.”

  Deb stopped spinning. “That’s sick. Who found him? Some grieving family shopping for a casket?”

  Ngaire remembered where she’d heard the story first. Findlay had a wealth of strange anecdotes or tall tales always at the ready. “No. The funeral director found him almost straight away. He’d triggered the alarm. They carted him off in an ambulance, and he survived.”

  Deb looked at her expectantly, but Ngaire just raised her hands. “True story, so there’s no punchline. They pumped his stomach, and he was right as rain.” She paused and then amended her statement. “Or as right as anybody who wants to kill themselves in a coffin can be.”

  A door slammed open on the far side of the station and Gascoigne strode out into the main room. Ngaire had heard on the grapevine that the district commander had been breathing down his neck about the exploding burglary rates and it tallied with the worsening of her boss’s mood. She couldn’t work out if an old murder made that situation better or worse.

  “What did you find out?”

  And hello to you, too.

  “Not much at this stage. The team will continue to excavate the bones until they’ve located as much of the skeleton as they can find. If it was a murder, Dr. Gangarry doesn’t think they’ll be able to get a profile. The DNA will be too degraded, and there’s little chance of them being on file.”

  Gascoigne drummed his fingers on the edge of Ngaire’s desk. “No cause of death?”

  “Not even sure if it’s suspicious at this stage. The body is an adult male, and they found a badge near the body from the Springbok tour.”

  The DS turned to her, a deep frown creasing his forehead until a decade’s worth of wrinkles appeared. “The body’s that old?”

  “I told Ngaire you might want her to head up the cold case division if she can solve this one,” Deb interjected, earning herself scowls from two different directions. She sighed. “It’s possible there’s no connection between the badge and the body. The landslip tossed everything about up there, and that’s after the fire already had a go.”

  Gascoigne crossed his arms. “What makes you think it wasn’t connected?”

  “The badge said, ‘Woman against the tour’ and the skeleton was probably male,” Deb said. “The doctor said everything got moved about so much he might never be able to sort out what remnants of clothing belonged to the body and what was just rubbish blowing about.”

  “What do you think, Ngaire?”

  Deb raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. Well, excuse me.

  “Until Dr. Gangarry gets back to us, we don’t have any other leads to follow. If you wanted us to start with missing persons, that gives us a date and sex to narrow it down, at least.”

  “Did the court process the kid who found the body yet?”

  Ngaire shrugged and looked to Deb. “I think they’ve processed him out on bail already. Did you want us to pick him up?”

  “He just fell into the body? There’s no suggestion that he knew it was there and wanted to cause a distraction?”

  “Not from the reports of him screaming his head off. I think he was more concerned about getting away from the skull than he was about his arrest and his twisted ankle.” Ngaire shrugged. “From what I gather, he was an opportunistic burglar.”

  “Yeah,” Deb added. “Neighbors went back to their evacuated house to check if the cat had come back and caught him going through their drawers. He’s gone through the youth court up to now for burglarizing homes, but just graduated into an adult.”

  It was as though Gascoigne didn’t even hear her. “Follow up on the missing persons and see if there’s any likely candidates,” he said, his eyes already tracking the entrance of another set of officers. He rapped his knuckles on her desk. “Keep me up to date. No matter if it’s murder or not, we need to track down this guy’s family.”

  “Of course, sir,” Ngaire said and shot a concerned glance at Deb as he stalked away, intent on his new prey. “Is there something going on between you two that I missed?”

  “Not that I know of,” Deb said, turning to face her computer. “What year did the doctor say this happened, again?”

  “1981.”

  Deb groaned. “You know what that means.”

  “Paper records.” Ngaire scowled, then brightened again. “But if it’s an open case, everything should at least be scanned into the database. I’m sure they have to keep that stuff updated every year.”

  “Time permitting, I believe is the phrase that comes into use there,” Deb said, shooting a grin over her shoulder. “But I’m game to try, I’ll work back from December, and you work forward from January.”

  Ngaire clicked through to the dated records search. “Deal.”

  “Do you think the good doctor could estimate a height for us yet?” Deb grumbled a few hours later. “If the skeleton is extremely tall, that would cut my workload right down.”

  “Except that these files are just what people remember,” Ngaire said before stifling a yawn against the back of her hand. “Average height could be tall for some of the people reporting. Unless they’re parents, most of mine don’t even have an accurate measure.”

  “I don’t see a lot of these people as going missing,” Deb said. She stood up from her desk and bent backward until her spine popped, causing Ngaire to clench her teeth and turn away. “What I see is a lot of men walking away from naggin
g girlfriends when they suddenly remembered they didn’t have anything in common.”

  “Wouldn’t it be nice?”

  “What’s that?” Deb looked down at Ngaire with a concerned look on her face. “You’re not thinking of going walkabout again, are you? Only, I haven’t got over the last time, just so you know.”

  “Not me. I’m just thinking of the freedom of walking away and not looking back.”

  “Findlay calling you a bit too often, is he?”

  Ngaire blushed and got up from her desk to help herself to coffee. A nightmare had sprung her awake the night before, bolt upright and panting. Even using every relaxation technique she’d been taught, the adrenalin rush only subsided in time for her morning alarm to belt out its annoying tune. If she was going to keep her eyes open while scrolling through the old records for another few hours, she needed something to keep her going.

  “He hasn’t been calling me at all, recently,” Ngaire said after she gulped down half the cup. “I think that there may be a new love interest on his horizon.”

  “Can hardly blame him.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Ngaire retorted, her voice so sharp that a few heads turned from farther back in the station room. She cleared her throat and drank the rest of her coffee, her hopes for the reviving effects greater than the reality. “Sorry,” she said, turning to Deb. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

  “Well, that’s an opening that I’m definitely not going to follow up on,” Deb said with a smile. “I think I might have a few options here.”

  “That’s good,” Ngaire said, pushing her chair over to Deb’s desk. “Because I’m not finding anything.”

  “Sam Andie. A young male, early twenties. His family originated from the US, but he came here as an exchange student and stayed. The parents followed a semester later. His mom reported him missing on the sixteenth of August, almost as soon as he went missing. Last known sighting, the fifteenth. That was the day of the first Springbok test in Christchurch.”

  Ngaire glanced over the scant details. Gaps littered the form. The photograph showed a young African American man, his expression open and smiling. Even with the altered styles of two interim generations, he was handsome. His teeth displayed the even spread of early dental intervention.

  The shot was a school photo judging from the crest on his blazer and the peculiar stiffness of his white shirt. The medical section was curiously blank, and the details on the known associates had been skipped altogether.

  She flicked further down the page, but the information began and ended with the form. “Did they even search for him?”

  “God knows. I think we owe the dungeon a quick visit. The drive will do us both good. Or . . .” Deb eyed Ngaire up and down until she began to feel uncomfortable. “You could go on alone and save us both wasting our time.”

  “Boy, that’s mighty generous of me, isn’t it?” Ngaire muttered, still puzzling over the lack of details. In her experience, Americans weren’t known for their laid-back approach to government employees doing nothing. “That sounds like the kind of thing somebody would do only if their partner volunteered to call up doctor grouch.”

  Deb laughed and held her hands up. “Okay. It sounds like a fair swap.”

  Ngaire picked up her notebook and jotted down the few details they had available. As she headed toward the door, Deb called after her again.

  “Hey, watch out for paper cuts down there.”

  Ngaire raised her eyebrows, waiting for the joke to play out.

  “Just saying, the last few times you went off on your own, it didn’t work out too well for you. The world is a big, bad, and dangerous place.”

  Turning back to the door, Ngaire nudged it open with her hip while she flipped Deb the bird with both hands.

  The archives were housed down in the basement of the central records office—a ten-minute drive from the station—and the entrance was controlled by the might of a single guard who signed visitors in and out with a ballpoint pen. Given the extensive computer options available, Ngaire wondered if the man needed a push to embrace modern technology. On the other hand, no one had ever hacked a biro and refill pad to change information.

  She showed her badge and signed where he pointed after the man had laboriously copied down her information.

  “When you need to come back out,” he said, locking the bars behind her. “Just give me a yell. If you can’t see me, then press the buzzer on the wall.”

  Ngaire hoped that in case of fire the barred doors would automatically open. A fear stoked by the smell of ash drifting on the morning breeze spread out over the city from the continued conflagration on the hills.

  The bricks down in the basement rooms were dry now, but a grubby watermark near the ceiling showed the level a previous flood had reached. Like most of the city, this area of town hadn’t been saved from the liquefaction that flooded Christchurch in the wake of the earthquakes. A broken water main had saved the lower levels, avoiding the sludge hardening into concrete.

  A large unit with sliding shelves lined one wall, while individual file cabinets were stacked against the others. Cardboard signs with handwritten letters were the only directions to where the various records were housed.

  With the weight of the building felt in every hair on the back of her neck, Ngaire made short work of locating the missing person’s report. She pulled out the file—a manila folder with two single sheets of paper inside—and sighed.

  Turning back to the drawer, Ngaire had a quick finger flick through to check there wasn’t another folder she was missing. Nothing. If there was anything else on record, it must have been misfiled.

  Checking what she had, Ngaire surmised that it wasn’t likely. A police officer had taken the report, and that was the last piece of action that had been done. It was noted clearly on the top hand corner that the missing man had most probably moved on of his own accord. What that was based on, Ngaire didn’t know. There certainly weren’t enough notes to back up the decision.

  The scant notes on the computer seemed to be a wholly accurate copy, but Ngaire took a couple of quick photographs and emailed them back to herself at the station.

  Maybe the missing fellow had turned up. That scenario would explain the lack of action. Explain too, that his parents hadn’t filed a dual report with more information than the casual friend had managed to provide.

  After re-filing the folder, Ngaire walked back to the barred exit and pressed a buzzer when she could see nobody manning the desk. A minute passed while she shifted from foot to foot, clearing her throat just to break the weighted silence.

  Where was he? Ngaire pressed the buzzer again, trying to stem the rising tide of fear that gradually filled her body. The silence of the basement was replaced with the growing thunder as blood pulsed harder and harder through her eardrums.

  Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.

  She leaned forward and clutched the cold metal bars. Their installment was more recent than the flooding, they were shiny and reflective. Strong. Ngaire bent her neck forward until her forehead rested on them and her eyes stared straight down at her shoes.

  “Sorry ‘bout that. I heard your buzzer, but nature was calling.”

  The guard had a steaming cup of coffee in his right hand. He had to swap it to his left to fish out the swipe card to set her free.

  Nature, my ass.

  Ngaire bit back her indignation in favor of getting the hell out of there. The trip was already wasted, she didn’t need an assault against an officer on her record. Once upon a time, the petty display of power wouldn’t have phased her in the slightest. It would be glorious if she could return to those days.

  You handled it okay. You’re doing all right.

  The constant affirmation in the front of Ngaire’s head was undermined by a barrage of images from the back of her memory. Each one hitting home in a determined effort to weaken her position and leave her helpless in the grip of panic.

 
Stupid brain.

  As she got back into her car, Ngaire thought for a second of all the adult missing persons who had just upped stakes and moved away. The freedom of that decision, abandoning all care and responsibility for your loved ones on the whim of a moment, stole her breath away in envy.

  Once upon a time, her dad had picked up and left behind everything he knew to pursue the life that more closely aligned to the one he’d envisaged. The ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere, New Zealand, wouldn’t be Ngaire’s choice, but he’d formed strong supporting bonds with the community around him.

  Likewise, one day her mother had announced she was leaving to pursue an acting career overseas. Goodbye husband, goodbye daughter. At the airport on the day of her departure, Marylin hadn’t even turned to wave.

  The urge to leave pumped through Ngaire’s veins, prevalent in her bloodstream. No matter that she struggled daily to make sure the mortgage on her house was paid and no bills were set aside to grow interest or red lettered follow ups.

  But Ngaire’s dream had always been to work in the police and protect the public from criminals. Whether the ones who knowingly set out to terrify their communities or the people who fell into dirty work when the wrong person led them astray.

  Only a mad woman would run away from her dream occupation. Especially one that ate up her time, so there was nothing left for anyone else. Not even her closest friend.

  Ngaire pumped the gas pedal to make the wheels squeal as she pulled out into the flow of traffic, and smiled.

  Chapter Three

  When Mrs. Andie opened the door later that day, Ngaire saw from the expression on her face that she knew why they were there. It crumpled, falling in upon itself until it appeared composed of nothing but a gaping mouth. The lips were parted to release a cry of pain or horror, but no sound emerged. Maybe the grief was simply too large to make it through such a small gap.

  “Can we come inside, Mrs. Andie?” Ngaire asked in a quiet voice, protocol taking over. “I’m Detective Ngaire Blakes, and this is Detective Deb Weedon.”