I end up sleeping in, which isn’t a good start to the case. When I flip open my cellphone I find that it has given up. The trip into the lake was worse for it than I thought. I shake it a bit and flex the casing, and I slip the battery in and out and try plugging it into the mains, but nothing happens. I have no idea how many calls I’ve missed.
I drive through the city thinking that Christchurch and technology go together like drinking and driving: they don’t mix well, but some still think it’s a good idea. Everything here looks old, and for the most part it is. People living in the past have set historical values on buildings dating back over a hundred years, and have had them protected from the future. Investors can’t come along and replace them with high-rises and apartment complexes. It’s a cold-looking city made to look even colder in the dreary weather. Everything looks so damn archaic. Even the hookers look fifty years old. A glue sniffer on a mountain bike has a cardboard tube running from his mouth down to the plastic bag by the handlebars. He’s multi-tasking. He’s sniffing glue and riding on the footpath, and he can keep doing both without the distraction of lifting the bag to his face.
It’s only eleven in the morning, yet I struggle to find a park at the shopping mall. I squeeze in next to a boy-racer Skyline that looks expensive and suggests the guy driving it has a job, though if he’s here at the same time as me on a weekday then he probably doesn’t, unless he’s a private investigator. I head into a Telecom store and deal with a guy who seems more interested in staring across the mall at the hairdresser’s than he does at the phone I’m showing him. I look over at the hairdresser’s and can’t blame him.
‘It’s cheaper to upgrade,’ he says, ‘than get this thing fixed. Plus it’ll be away for a few weeks. What did you do to it, anyway?’
‘It fell in the bath.’
‘Yeah — that’ll do it. Anyway, this thing is obsolete.’
“I bought it eighteen months ago.’
‘Yeah, like I said, it’s obsolete.’
He shows me a range of cellphones and I pick out one that looks like it shouldn’t confuse me too much. He sets it up so my old number will work on it, and warns me it could take between one and two hours to become active.
‘Where do I recognise you from?’ he asks, handing back my credit card.
I shrug. ‘Beats me.’
He slowly shakes his head. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen you,’ he says.
I’m sure he has too — probably on TV yesterday when I was sitting in the back of an ambulance. We finish up and I let him get back to watching the hairdresser’s.
The police station is ten storeys of concrete block and glass that was out of date around the same time it was built. I park out on the street and feed the meter before walking up the steps to the foyer. There isn’t much going on at ground-floor level, just a few people waiting in a queue to make complaints. I sign in at a desk; the process is simple enough since I’m expected upstairs.
I press the up button and a moment later the elevator arrives. I hit the button for the fourth floor, and the elevator comes to a stop on the first floor and I have company. A guy in overalls, thirtyish, carrying a bucket and mop.
‘I’m the cleaner,’ he says, and he grins at me, showing me all his teeth. I smile back at him, and the elevator hits the fourth floor and the doors open. I step out, and the janitor follows. We walk a few paces before Carl Schroder sees us and comes over.
‘Can I get you a coffee, Detective Schroder?’ the janitor asks him.
‘I’m fine, Joe. Thanks, though.’
The cleaner walks away and I watch him go before turning back to Schroder. I’ve known Carl for many years. In another lifetime we worked the same cases, dealt with the same problems.
We used to be pretty good friends, but it’s obvious he doesn’t really want me here. He leads me over to a table to a bunch of forms and asks me to sign them. He tells me the crime scene has been released, and I ask him how the investigation is going, and he says it’s going okay. He doesn’t elaborate on that. Just says it’s okay and nothing else, which means he either doesn’t want to tell me or things are going badly.
‘Sorry, Tate, I just don’t have the time to give you any information. Finding those bodies, Jesus, you couldn’t have picked a worse time.’
‘Who for? Them or you?’
He exhales heavily. ‘It’s this fucking Carver case. Man, it’s like every step we take this guy is taking two steps. I don’t know what the hell it is, but we’re struggling. Christ, we’re so understaffed, I don’t know, we just need more manpower. It’s that simple.’
‘You offering me a job?’
‘Good one, Tate. You’re even funnier than I remember.
Especially after last night’s performance.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re slipping. It looked bad, man, really bad. Friends in the department? Jesus, why’d you say that?’
‘What are you …’ But then it comes to me. I run my hand over my face and pinch my chin. ‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah. You got that right.’
‘She stitched me up, huh?’