Osborne held his breath. A flash went through his head: he saw himself again in the club with Ann, he saw those two tall figures in Highland costume watching as “Donkeyskin” was being mounted. Same height, same build: the O’Brian twins.
It wasn’t the mayor of Auckland or his father who came here, it was the two boys.
* * *
Midnight. Osborne parked the Chevrolet in the alley at right angles to the Hotel Debrett, lost in thought. Things were getting confused again. Ann Brook had been present at Sky City when the mayor had launched his reelection campaign under the banner of zero tolerance. She was a friend of Julian Long, and the mistress of his father Michael, who she would meet at the Phoenix. Ann knew the O’Brian twins, who also went to the most private club in town for a good time. Timu and Gallagher hadn’t questioned anyone in the Phoenix in order to cover Long and the mayor’s sons—the mayor wouldn’t have been able to ride out a scandal like that in the middle of an election. That didn’t explain why Ann had been killed, or why Will Tagaloa, the doorman, had disappeared.
He was walking head down when suddenly he lost his balance. He felt himself lifted off the ground, as a violent blow to his skull sent him rolling on the sidewalk.
The ground was hard and cold. In spite of the searing pain in his scalp, he made an effort to clear his mind before everything went dark. The warm liquid running down his forehead flooded his eyes, and he could barely make out the figures of his attackers over him. There were two of them, both hooded. No, three: from behind, a powerful hand grabbed him by the hair. Under the pressure, the wound in his skull opened a little more. A second later, his face was squashed against the asphalt.
By pressing his forehead down, Osborne narrowly saved his nose. The pain mounted to his brain. Everything was blurry, but he was still clenching his fist.
“Finish him off!” a voice said above him.
Bathing in his own blood, Osborne lifted his head and saw a knuckle duster coming straight for his face, ready to smash his temple. He moved his head, and the weapon grazed his ear before hitting the ground. The hooded man stifled a cry. Osborne was still gripping his car keys. With the steel shaft wedged between his fingers, he hit the man’s eye, with all his strength. The man let out a cry and staggered back, his hand pressed to his eye. His accomplice immediately rushed forward, an iron bar in his hand. Osborne greeted him with a heel kick to the knee, which seemed to yield under the impact. The man went into a tailspin while Osborne got to his feet, supporting himself against the wall, stars in his head. The cocaine rushed back all at once, his throat felt dry and bitter, his legs flaccid, blood was dripping on his white shirt, and the alley was swaying dangerously.
He fixed his eyes on the tallest of the trio, a slender figure who was threatening him with a gun. A Beretta, the kind that fired expanding bullets. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. He was going to shoot him like a dog. At that moment, there was a squeal of tires from the corner of the alley. A head appeared through the open window, a blonde head. From about fifty feet, a voice cried, “Paul!”
Amelia Prescott.
The man with the Beretta hesitated. The girl was getting out of her Honda. If he shot the two of them, which he’d have to do now, the shots might attract people. A couple of night birds had already come to a halt some distance away. The man cursed, did an about-turn, and helped his two associates to their feet. They all disappeared around the corner.
Amelia came running.
“My God,” she said, on seeing the state of him.
Osborne staggered against the wall. All he could see were shadows on the sidewalk and that warm blood dripping from his head.
“Paul! Paul, are you all right?”
Through the murk, he made out the sound of her voice. Amelia wedged her shoulder under his armpit.
“Come on,” she said, “let’s get out of here.”
The world was spinning and the pain was getting worse. Osborne clung to her shoulder. Amelia was so small, she almost collapsed under his weight. But she would make it. Blood dropping like little scarlet stones on the sidewalk, they staggered to the Honda. The two night birds who had stopped asked if anything was wrong but Amelia took it upon herself to get rid of them. Osborne couldn’t hear anything, just the noise of his heartbeat pulsing in his temples. He rolled onto the backseat, his head on fire. Amelia climbed in, switched on the ignition, and turned onto Queen Street.
“Are you going to be OK?” she breathed.
By way of an answer, Osborne emitted only a raucous grunt. His brain was humming, was starting to give way. Little phosphorescent red balls flew in front of the windshield, he was seeing double, or tripple.
In the front seat, Amelia was talking about the hospital, the guys who had beaten him up, the blood pouring from his head. His eyes fluttered, like a butterfly leaving its chrysalis.
“No hospital,” he stammered.
The pain was intense. He wasn’t thinking about the attack he had just suffered, only about surviving it.
8.
It was an October day, and the wind was sweeping the hills. The animals were sheltering under the trees and, in spite of the blue sky, there was nothing to show that it was spring. After a long wait, the karanga24 rang through the marae, calling the Maoris to come and mourn.
Her grandmother’s coffin was there, ridiculously small. Hana hadn’t seen Wira in years. Had she really shrunk so much? People were crowding now into the whare nui,25 the family in the front row, supported by the silent guard of honor provided by the members of the tribe.
Surrounded by her family, Hana listed to the prayers and the sacred chants, the karakia, which she knew without ever having intoned them. She would do so soon, when everyone united around the senior member. Hana didn’t know what to make of Wira’s death, she saw it neither as a sign nor as an escape route.
“A Ngakau . . . A Ngakau . . . ”26
With a lump in her throat, she placed her hand on the coffin. Beside her, her father was clenching his fists to hold back his shaking, without quite realizing that tears were running down his cheeks: Glenn, a Maori of the Tainui tribe, all shriveled with grief in front of his mother’s remains, A Ngakau! A Ngakau . . .
Glenn hadn’t said a word during the journey to the marae on West Coast Road. Neglecting to participate in the haka or to represent the Tainui tribe at the Aoteraoa Maori Performing Arts Festival, the intertribal cultural competition which took place annually at the end of summer every year, Glenn had ended up falling out with his father. Pita was too honorable a man to accept his son’s disaffection without pain, and Glenn was too weak a man to escape the routine of a daily life that over time had led him more frequently to the bar on the corner than to the employment agency.
Only Hana had assumed the inheritance. But although she loved both of them in different ways, she had done nothing to reconcile them: you weren’t a Maori through atavism or habit, you were a Maori in your blood. In losing his mother, Glenn was also losing his last link with the community, the iwi, the tribe, and the hapu, the subtribe, which together formed the unit, the tahi, a part of the Maori soul.
Powerful arms lifted the cherrywood coffin. Pita led the procession toward the small adjoining cemetery. Hana walked behind him, brokenhearted but clinging to her mother’s remains as if otherwise she might fall.
Avoiding his father’s eyes, Glenn followed close on his daughter’s heels.
No cloud on the horizon: just a damp wind ruffling the blue sky, distorted through the prism of tears. Hana walked in silent obeisance to the calamity that had overtaken her.
There was an almost intoxicating smell of jasmine in the little cemetery. As they reached the grave, Hana swayed. A thought had struck her: Why were they burying her here, she wondered, in this patch of earth behind the marae, rather than in the north of the peninsula where the tribe had its lands? So that she could stay close to her husband?
Pita presented her with a pendant, one that was easily recognizable: his wife’s tiki.
Hana emerged from her reflections. All the members of the tribe had turned to look at her. Her grandfather placed the pendant in the palm of her hand.
