Tom Culhane was tapping away on his keyboard, the remains of a fish-and-chip meal wrapped in newspaper beside him. He had risen early to take his wife to Dr. Boorman’s private clinic, and although the atmosphere had been tense in the car, he still had a strong sense of belief.
A new life was starting for them in Auckland, far from Rosemary’s father and his hold over her, far from his own father, too. Boorman would find a cure—he had to, he was being paid enough. No more miscarriages. It didn’t matter that she was thirty-eight, it was just a matter of time. The change of air would be good for her, would get her out of that obsessive neurosis for a while. After all, Boorman hadn’t found any genetic incompatibility, so there was still hope, and the transfer to Auckland was a good sign. They would pull through, both of them, they would be a couple again. Condemned to keep the marriage going all by himself—given that Rosemary was already falling back into her old ways, only emerging from her depression to sit in front of the TV, wild-eyed, for a news bulletin or a movie—he would save her, and at the same time save his marriage. You just had to believe it, that was all.
In other words, Tom Culhane was an incurable romantic. Osborne’s arrival was about to turn everything upside down.
Having taken a pill, swallowed down with the help of a coffee from the machine, a coffee he had immediately thrown in the trash can, Osborne greeted Culhane with a muttered hello and, without even mentioning the previous night’s reception, sat down in front of the computer. His desk was a mess.
“Any news about the shark woman?” he asked.
Culhane dismissed his wife from his thoughts. “Joanne Griffith? Yes, the routine stuff anyway. Some relatives of hers identified the body.” He looked in his notebook. “Joanne Griffith, thirty-five years old, lived in Waiatarua, near Auckland, unmarried, worked as an accountant for a construction company. Her disappearance wasn’t reported because everyone thought she was on vacation. I’m putting together the addresses and phone numbers of her friends and relatives in order to reconstruct her movements.”
“Did Gallagher ask you to do that?”
“Apparently I have a talent for boring tasks,” he said ironically. “How about Melrose? Any leads?”
“No.”
Filling the room with bluish smoke, Osborne switched on the computer and began a new search. Of Kirk’s four victims, three were directly linked to Fitzgerald’s investigation: Officer Wilson, Kirsty Burrell, whore and informer, and her roommate Kathy Larsen. Only Samuel Tukao seemed at first sight to have no connection with the case. But he had been the first victim, and his disappearance didn’t seem to have worried many people.
It took Osborne a while to find any trace of him. Samuel Tukao had practiced as a lawyer in Mangonui, in the north of the island. There was no answer from the law firm, but he finally managed to track down Tukao’s widow to Russell, on the Bay of Islands.
Mrs. Tukao didn’t sound surprised to get a phone call from a police officer. Two other officers had paid her a visit the day before to ask her questions about her husband’s death.
“Your husband has been gone for weeks,” Osborne said, surprised. “Why didn’t you go to the police before?”
“That’s where you’re mistaken,” the widow retorted. “I haven’t slept for two months. Sam disappeared suddenly, without a trace, so obviously I informed the Mangonui police immediately!”
“Then why didn’t anything happen?” Osborne went on. “Didn’t the local police investigate?”
“Yes, of course, but . . . well, they thought he’d run off and left me. They say that’s the most common scenario. I think the main reason they tried to plant that idea in my head was to stop me worrying too much. They couldn’t fool me, though. A woman knows these things instinctively. I knew something had happened to Sam, I knew he hadn’t run off with another woman.”
“How exactly did your husband disappear?”
“He just vanished,” she said, wearily, with a sob in her voice. “He took his car to go fishing, as he did every Sunday morning, and never came back.”
“Was your husband still working?”
“Yes, though he was nearing retirement.”
“Who came to question you?
“Two officers.”
“From Auckland?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know their names?”
“Well . . . ”
“They did introduce themselves, didn’t they?”
“Yes.” She sounded confused. “Yes,” she repeated, as if searching in her memory. “Officer Dow . . . or Dowd, and Officer Mertens . . . ”
Osborne didn’t know them.
“What did they tell you?”
“Why are you asking me all these questions? They questioned me for hours and—”
“Just answer me.”
Mrs. Tukao let out a long sigh. “The two officers told me my husband had been a victim of the serial killer, the one they talked about on television. Such terrible luck. To be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s awful.”
Osborne was thinking hard. What was Kirk doing so far north? Waikoukou Valley was three or four hours by road from Mangonui. Why had he risked transporting Tukao’s body such a long distance? The other victims were more local.
“Is it possible your husband knew the killer?”
“Quite impossible!”
“Does the name Zinzan Bee mean anything to you?”
“Zin Zamby? No.”
