“Tukao’s a Maori name,” Osborne insisted. “Do you still have links with the community?”
“Only my husband was a Maori,” she corrected him. “But he was as assimilated as could be.”
“What do you mean?”
Osborne’s curt tone made her uncomfortable. “Well,” she said, “Sam never had much contact with the community. Perhaps because of his standing, you know. Success often makes people envious.”
“So does social climbing,” he said. “So your husband didn’t keep in contact with his tribe? It wasn’t the Ngati Kahungunu, by any chance?”
Zinzan Bee’s tribe.
“No,” Mrs. Tukao said, her voice sounding increasingly febrile. “Sam was a Tainui.”
Osborne felt as though his whole metabolism had suddenly changed. He said goodbye and hung up, his hands damp.
Tainui: the man who had been tortured to death was a Tainui.
A kind of electric shock went through him. Hana was half Tainui.
No, he wouldn’t call her.
He wouldn’t do anything as stupid as that.
What would he say to her anyway? Question her about the possible links between some members of her tribe and a man named Sam Tukao, a lawyer from Mangonui? How would that made him look? Like a cop! A dirty cop! What a homecoming that would be! The comeback of the century! No, he hadn’t come back to see her again, let alone to ask her questions. She had already answered all his questions.
No, there had to be another way.
Pita. Pita Witkaire. Of course. The old Tainui chief knew everyone. He was the right person to fill Osborne in on the lawyer’s activities, not Hana. Obviously!
Culhane watched, intrigued, as a disquieting look of triumph spread over his partner’s face.
Osborne kept typing away. This time he discovered that Pita Witkaire still lived in the marae on West Coast Road. He lit an umpteenth cigarette and phoned, but there was no answer. He tried again—Witkaire might be in the training room—without success. The adrenalin fell as quickly as it had risen. A leaden cloak fell on his shoulders. A dead weight.
Osborne rubbed his face as if trying to erase it.
To erase himself.
To vanish from sight and finish sleeping off his death, the way he had in Sydney, with a double of her in every pocket, to be brought out like a joker.
Hana.
What had become of her, where was she living, what had she been doing all this time? He had no idea. But she was there, like an invisible wave on the surface of everything. He still couldn’t make up his mind. She might be able to tell him something about Samuel Tukao after all. At the very least, she’d be able to tell him where her grandfather was. Of course, she could just as easily send him packing . . . Yielding at last, Osborne began his search.
After a fruitless examination of the phone book, he checked all the services he could think of in the city. Cell phone, gas, electricity, heating, electoral rolls, car and motorbike and scooter registrations, bank records, ATM cards, records of online banking transactions, credit records, declarations of income, travelers’ checks, health insurance, civil liability, insurance policies, medical care, social security, welfare benefits at work, unemployment benefits, invalidity benefits, government aid, subscriptions to cable TV and Internet and newspapers and magazines, garbage collection, sanitary fittings, deliveries, house sales and purchases and rentals, car rentals, hotel and theatre bookings, plane and boat and train tickets, memberships of associations, courtroom files, stock-market transactions: the records appeared one after the other on the computer screen. But it was all in vain: Hana was nowhere to be found.
Had she run away? Had she guessed that he would come back? Was she hiding?
From what?
From whom?
From him?
Osborne must have been looking strange, because Culhane, sitting at the other end of the room, forgot his own screen for a moment.
“What are you looking for?”
“My wife,” Osborne replied, without even looking up.
* * *
315, 320, 338 . . . After a long race with the wind, Osborne parked the Chevrolet outside 341 West Coast Road, slammed the door, and walked toward Pita Witkaire’s marae.
Fifteen years had passed since the first—and last—time he had been here. Paul hadn’t known it at the time, but it was a Maori custom that visitors first submit to the wero, a kind of friendly challenge thrown down to those who wanted to join the marae. The purpose of the custom was to create a bond. But, haunted by what he had seen as a mocking look from Hana, he had fled as soon as he had finished his dance—undoubtedly a pitiful performance—dying of shame and impotent rage at the thought that she could have abandoned him to his fate like that. He’d been an idiot. He’d misunderstood. He’d misunderstood everything, right from the start.
With these dark thoughts in his head, Osborne made his way beneath the giant ferns he had once thought would protect him and came to the first huts.
Pita Witkaire was known in the community for his cultural activities. As master of ceremonies, he upheld the honor of the Tainui at the intertribal encounters that took place every year. The competition, intended to replace the wars of old, was due to be held in three weeks, but Osborne didn’t see anyone about. The school yard was empty, the windows closed. All was silent. There was a smell of neglect in the air, which he found unfamiliar. The marae seemed deserted.
Pita Witkaire’s house was farther on. Although mounted on piles, it seemed to be fighting a losing battle against the advance of the bush. Osborne forced his way through the exuberant ferns and at last managed to climb up onto the terrace. There, he looked in through the dusty window pane. As there didn’t seem to be anybody inside, he forced open the sliding door. The living room was sparsely furnished, the kitchen spotless. Everything was neat and tidy, with a vague musty smell in the air. He climbed to the upper floor, visited the different rooms, and was forced to accept the evidence of his own eyes: Pita Witkaire’s house was uninhabited. All that remained were the dead flies under the living room window and the strange impression that he had arrived too late.
Moving his finger over the living-room table, Osborne estimated the accumulation of dust as being several weeks’ worth. One strange thing: the electricity wasn’t working, but Witkaire’s things were still in the closets. Had Hana’s grandfather abandoned his cultural activities?
