The case was turning out to be complicated, and Osborne was getting nowhere. He decided to approach the problem the other way around. Who might have a grudge against Melrose? Surely the Maoris?
Although Osborne knew him mainly for his books, Nick Melrose had begun his rise as an exporter of exotic timber—mainly from the kauri tree, now practically extinct thanks to him—then as the promoter of self-assembly house kits. After which, he had bought a number of fishing grounds and created a company called Sealord Products, which within ten years had become the largest fisheries company in the country. When, in 1993, the government bought half the shares in the company on behalf of the Maoris, in accordance with Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi, which stipulated that the Maoris would retain 10% of all quotas—many of the tribes lodging complaints no longer had access to their fishing grounds, a traditional activity and the source of their staple food—Nick Melrose had sold the company to a Japanese consortium in protest. The sale, plus bonuses and stock options, was estimated to have earned him 250 million dollars.
Since then, Melrose had become a scathing critic of the process of national reconciliation started by the Waitangi Tribunal. Fearing, like many pakehas, that the whole thing would spiral out of control, he had launched a series of self-published books that had been consistently successful. Melrose had in addition bought shares in a number of companies and was on several boards of directors.
It was Tom Culhane who had unwittingly put Osborne on the right track. Although Melrose had sold the fisheries company to the Japanese, he had kept his construction business. The house kits had sold so well that the firm had grown to the point of swallowing half a dozen of its competitors. What with purchases of factories, subcontracting, and construction, Melrose and his army of managers now controlled a large part of the property market. One of his subsidiaries was the leading construction firm in the country: Century.
The firm that Joanne Griffith, whose drowned body had washed up on the beach at Karekare, had worked for.
Osborne had been looking for something that connected all these cases. Maybe this was it.
It was five in the afternoon by the time he parked the Chevrolet on One Tree Hill. A uniformed security guard immediately appeared behind the electric gate, accompanied by a Beauceron sheepdog with gleaming teeth. A man with a low forehead and thick eyebrows, Grayson was the new guardian of the temple.
“Mr. Melrose isn’t expecting anyone,” he said.
“Neither am I,” Osborne retorted. “Tell him I’m here.”
He showed the guard his badge. The dog pushed its muzzle through the bars and barked loudly.
“Be quiet, Circo!” Grayson cried, and went off to talk to Melrose.
The weather was heavy, the air full of water. Osborne was dying from the heat. He soon saw Grayson come back with his sheepdog, whose teeth were now bared.
“All right,” he said, while the dog growled. “Mr. Melrose has asked me to say that he can’t spare you a lot of time as he’s very busy with his novel and—”
Osborne pinched the dog’s nose very hard through the bars of the gate. “I won’t be long.”
Grayson frowned at his dog’s sudden passivity, then reluctantly opened the gate. At the end of the leash, the dog watched him pass, baring its teeth but keeping its ears down.
The garden sprinkler was on, even though it had rained the night before. Osborne walked down the drive to the terrace, where Melrose sat writing in a short-sleeved Ralph Lauren shirt.
“Have you found anything?” he asked without a word of greeting.
“Not much.”
Melrose looked up from his laptop. “I have a book to finish and not a lot of time to spare. What do you want?”
“I wanted to talk to you about a young woman found dead on a beach on the east coast. Joanne Griffith. Know her?”
He showed Melrose a glossy photograph: brown hair, not especially pretty, rather a stern face in spite of the smile.
Melrose pulled a face. “No. Who is she?”
“An accountant. A model employee of Century.”
“I don’t know any Joanne Griffith,” Melrose said, as if stating the obvious.
“She worked for you.”
“So do hundreds of people. You surely don’t suppose I know all the people who work for me! Does this have any connection with the burglary?”
Osborne lit a cigarette. “I thought you might be able to help me.”
Melrose didn’t think Osborne looked good, with his twisted sunglasses and messed-up nose. “Well, you were wrong,” he said curtly. “I don’t know this drowned woman of yours, but I’ll send flowers to her family. How’s that?”
The sprinkler made the stones on the drive rattle.
“How do you know she was drowned?”
“You mentioned a beach,” Melrose said, with a shrug. It was impossible to detect anything in his stony eyes.
“Management, speculation, property, construction,” Osborne went on. “You have fingers in many pies. That must make for a lot of competitors who’d stop at nothing to bring you down.”
“So what? That’s business.”
“Nice attitude. Any sworn enemies?”
Melrose sighed fatalistically. “Dozens of them,” he said, “even hundreds, all anxious to take my place. That’s business, too. But the reason I’m still here is that I deserve to be. Now, have you disturbed me just to tell me that?”
His authoritative tone must make quite an impression at board meetings. Osborne was sweating under his shirt, and the amphetamines weren’t helping.
“Does the name Zinzan Bee mean anything to you?” he said, through clenched teeth.
“No. Who is he?”
“A former Maori activist,” he replied, “from the Ngati Kahungunu tribe. Just like the hatchet that was stolen from you.”
