Bound, page 16
‘So how are you really holding up?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure you should be working with your dad so ill? You could take some time, you know. No one would blame you.’
‘I know, but I think I’m better to be working,’ I said, my eyes giving their automatic response to any words or thoughts that involved Dad. ‘I couldn’t bear to just sit there and wait for him to die. God, if he was one of the critters from the farm, we’d just put him out of his misery. The waiting is horrific. And I certainly don’t think it would be a good thing if Mum and I were there doing it together. That would be a recipe for disaster.’ He laughed at the understatement. ‘We’d probably end up killing each other, which is not what the family needs right now.’
‘I thought as much,’ he said, giving me a pained smile. ‘Just make sure you don’t put yourself under too much pressure. You’ve been looking really pale and tired lately.’
‘Gee, thanks a lot,’ I said.
‘But still beautiful, of course,’ he added.
‘Nice save.’
‘Thanks.’
I took a long drink of my hot chocolate, finishing off the last sweet globs of melted marshmallow from the bottom.
‘You know, Paul, there’s something I need to talk to you about, something serious.’
‘How serious?’
‘Seriously serious.’
‘Hold that thought, will you.’ A burst of chatter had started on the police radio, the tone of the voice grabbing both of our attentions – that and the fact they’d called Paul’s name.
‘Frost here,’ he responded.
‘Central. Be advised Jacob Sandhurst has been located at a residence on Riverside Road, Taieri Mouth. He appears to be armed, but is contained in the area by police. Armed Offenders Squad back-up is on the way. Where are you situated?’
‘St Kilda. On my way. Be advised I have Detective Shephard with me too.’
‘Roger that.’
Well that sure killed the moment. All hopes of a deep and meaningful just flew out the window.
51
Taieri Mouth was a small coastal settlement south of Dunedin. It was popular with boaties, and mostly only drew attention to itself when some dumb-nut got their boat stuck on the sand bar and had to be rescued. It happened with monotonous regularity, due to the shifting nature of the bar and that age-old problem of boaties underestimating the power of the sea. On the odd occasion the results had been tragic.
The wind wasn’t any kinder out here, and I could see wisps of sand being thrown up like puffs of smoke. Jacob Sandhurst was holed up in a crib on Riverside Road and he wasn’t about to go anywhere – well, not unless he felt like a swim or a bushwalk up the hill. He was on a dead-end road. We knew he was armed, but so far no shots had been fired. We stopped at the safe forward point set up by the regulars at the foot of the bridge that stretched across the Taieri River. They’d barred civilian traffic from each end as they didn’t want a ducks-in-a-row fairground attraction thing going on. A bit further back a small crowd of locals huddled, bracing themselves against the wind. One or two had their cameras. It always amazed me that people considered a police operation a spectator sport. It made you want to shoo them away: Go home, you nosey buggers, go find something safer and useful to do. The Armed Offenders Squad had arrived before us and they looked set up and like they were close to moving in.
‘You wait back here. I’ll be following them up – I’ve got my vest in the back. There’s none for you, so don’t bother arguing.’
I wasn’t about to argue. If they had a spare vest anywhere it would be way too big anyway. We got out of the car and I watched as he opened the boot and geared up. Paul was something else when he was all business. It sent shivers down my spine.
‘Don’t do anything heroic,’ I said.
‘I’ll be in the back row with the cowards,’ he said. ‘There to do the business once the big boys have got it under control, don’t you worry.’ He checked no one was watching then bent down and gave me a quick kiss, a wink, and ran over to where the squad was being briefed.
I pulled my jacket zip up as high as it would go and went over to where the communications were set up.
It wasn’t an ideal situation they were heading into – not that any situation involving a killer holed up in a house with guns was ideal. I was certain every officer out here would have thoughts of the Aramoana massacre hanging about in the back of their mind. But that was a long time ago, a different beach, and Jacob Sandhurst wasn’t a paranoid loner who had snapped. No, he was a desperate criminal with his back to the wall. Somehow the thought wasn’t all that comforting.
This wasn’t going to be an easy extraction for the AOS. The lay of the land would be difficult. The houses ran along the left-hand side of the road from this vantage point. The right-hand side was completely open, with a narrow grass verge, a sprinkling of trees and then just sand and river. And all of the houses down that end backed up to a bush-clad hill. The only approach for them would be through the bush, or weaving through the neighbours’ properties. We could only hope Sandhurst would realise there was no chance of escape, see sense and give himself up. That would be the intelligent thing to do. That would be the thing anyone with a modicum of self-preservation would do.
The AOS moved out, an exercise in furtiveness and stealth. Paul was at the back, and I noted he was now armed. The rest of us, except for the armed guys on watch and the chap on crowd control, gathered around DI Johns. He was calling the shots. He watched as the technician finished setting up the comms. I’d tried to hover at the back, out of view, but the DI spotted me and frowned. He looked like he was about to protest my presence here, when he was interrupted.
‘Okay, we’re getting him on line.’
I had to concentrate hard to hear the sound of the phone ringing over the top of the wind. After four rings it picked up.
‘What?’ the voice said. Even with the acoustic challenges I could recognise the sound of stress when I heard it.
‘Jacob Sandhurst, this is Detective Inspector Johns of the Dunedin CIB.’
‘Fuck off,’ the voice yelled down the phone.
‘Is there anyone there with you, or are you alone?’
‘Fuck you.’
We knew he was alone. I’d learned from one of the other guys that we’d been tipped off to Sandhurst’s whereabouts by someone at the neighbouring house. He had recognised his photo in the morning newspaper. The Cockroach didn’t own this place, and the neighbour hadn’t seen him here before. He put two and two together and made a telephone call. The house happened to be owned by one James Clarke. Surely that couldn’t be a coincidence? It had to be our Jimmy Clarke, him of the tight shirt and mangy dog. Dunedin was too small for that to be a coincidence, and anyway, I didn’t believe in coincidences. Suddenly some connections were coming clear. Jimmy was a new player in the drug business, Cockroach an old hand, looking for a new business partner perhaps. Knock off the old one? Disappear with some help from a friend?
DI Johns pressed on. ‘You need to know that you are surrounded and cannot escape. We have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of John Henderson, and would like to question you about the murder of Gideon Powell.’
‘I didn’t fucking kill either of them.’ His voice sounded puffed, like he was running. I could hear the sound of curtains being pulled, old ones on metal runners. He was obviously rushing from window to window, seeing who was coming.
‘That is something we can only clear up if you come in. Give yourself up, Jacob, and you can give us your side of the story.’
‘No fucking way. You guys have stitched me up over Henderson, and now you’re going to do the same over Gid. You’re all the bloody same.’
DI Johns kept on in the same calm, even voice. The look on his face didn’t match the tone. ‘No one is stitching you up. We are only interested in establishing the truth. We can’t do that unless you hand yourself in and come and talk about it.’
There was no response, but I could still hear the panting breath, and the sound of scraping furniture. He was barricading himself in.
‘Jacob, you need to know you are surrounded, and our officers are armed. You cannot escape. The best thing you can do right now is lay down your weapons, put your hands above your head and walk out the front door, onto the road and lie face down. I promise you won’t get hurt.’
‘No fucking way. Why should I trust you? You’ve been setting me up all along. You tell your men to get back, you hear? Tell them to back off right fucking now.’
This wasn’t sounding good. Did he honestly think we were about to back down and walk away? I had a sudden thought. I bet he was high – high as a kite. I remembered his twitchiness when he’d first been brought in for questioning, which seemed like an eternity ago, but was in reality only a little over a week since. I wondered what substance was making his decisions for him? If it was P he was probably thinking he was a caped superhero and invincible about now. Bulletproof.
I heard a familiar sound, a shotgun being primed, and then another, and another. Jesus, how many weapons did he have? Behind me I heard the low warning murmur of the AOS communicator.
‘Jacob, it’s not too late to surrender.’
There was a smashing of glass, and then the boom of a shotgun blast from over the phone speaker. A split second later the report echoed in the distance. Then all hell broke loose as return fire came from the AOS and Taieri Mouth started to sound like a battlefield.
‘Fuck,’ DI Johns said as the phone connection terminated.
I felt fingers of ice spread through my veins and blocks crystallise in my belly. There was only one thought going around in my head.
Paul.
52
It felt like an eternity before news started filtering back, an eternity where I could do nothing but sit on the ground and wait. I would have stood, but the strength in my legs had deserted me. The gunfight had been brief, but intense, and then the all-clears and the headcounts came in. I’d never felt such relief in my life as I did when I heard Paul’s name and the word ‘safe’ used in the same sentence.
It felt like another eternity before I saw him trudging back down the road towards me, flanked by two AOS guys. As he approached I threw caution to the wind and ran to throw my arms around his waist. I didn’t give a flying fuck who saw it.
‘Thank God you’re safe.’
‘Well of course I am, you funny little lady. I was hiding in the back, remember?’ He leaned down and gave me a big kiss. Apparently he’d given up caring too.
‘Still, when I heard all the shots.’
‘Yeah, well, I’d have preferred it if that hadn’t happened.’
Him and everyone else. It was amazing how fast the spectators had scuttled away once the guns got blazing, even though we were all well and truly out of harm’s way.
Again, the shadow of Aramoana played its part there, I suspected. It got me back to thinking about the idiot down at the house.
‘The dumb bugger. It would have been much easier to give himself up. Why did he have to open fire?’
‘Good question. Bit late to ask him now, though. Sandhurst’s well and truly dead.’
53
The shit had hit the fan down outside Central Police Station. I’d been dropped off out front by one of the patrol cars, as Paul was still out at Taieri Mouth helping to sort out the mess. There appeared to be media swarming around the station, waiting for information. There were two camera crews, and they seemed to be concentrating on a little group of people standing under the central glass-covered entranceway.
Unfortunately I lacked the height to see who it was they were preying on.
The media and I had a testy relationship, to say the least. They seemed to have a knack of catching me when I wasn’t at my best. A walk along the driveway side of the building and down to the back entrance suddenly seemed like a very good idea, and I felt grateful I was dressed in my civvies and not clearly labelled ‘cop’. I had almost made it to cover when I heard a woman screech out at the top of her lungs, ‘You!’
As I swung my head around to see who the scream had come from and who it was directed at, I realised in horror that all of the cameras and media people were swinging around to look at me. They parted like the Red Sea and there, standing at the apex, pointing at me, like some wild witch ready to unleash a curse, was Sheila Sandhurst.
Oh, bloody hell.
My first instinct was to bolt for cover, but common sense told me that would be a bad move, so I took the ‘stand and look bewildered’ approach. She took the ‘I’m coming to get you’ approach, and before my feet even had a chance to get walking again, Witchy Woman and her entourage were heading my way.
‘You bastards killed my husband,’ she said as she strode over, tears running down her face and hair streaming out behind her. The way the microphone-clutching reporters were scrabbling to keep up, and the camera flashes were going off, the media sharks were loving this. It was going to turn into a feeding frenzy in a second. I looked desperately into the foyer to see if the watchhouse guys were keeping an eye out.
‘You framed him for murder and then you killed him. You are all murderers, you are the murderers,’ she screamed, and before I could react she had swung her arm around and punched me right smack in the face. A flare of white exploded in my eyes, followed by a wave of heat through my nose and I staggered back from the shock of the blow. A metallic tang rushed into my mouth and I could feel the warmth of blood running down my lip. I raised my hand up to wipe at it and it came away smeared in glistening red. I blinked away the sudden influx of water that had flooded my eyes just in time to see her arm swinging around for another shot.
Another wave flooded through me, and this time it was anger. The bitch had hit me. Why the hell had she done that? Jesus Christ. And not some girly slap either, but a full-on, closed-fist punch. And she wasn’t done yet.
Bugger this. She didn’t have the element of surprise this time, and as her fist came at me a second time I ducked under it at the last moment, reached up and, grabbing her by the wrist, let her own momentum carry her forward. I then pulled her arm up and around her back, at the same time stepping behind her. I gave a quick kick to the back of her legs and she fell forward onto her knees. I leaned my weight into her, pinning her down so she was trapped. I might have been smaller than her, but I had a few surprises up my sleeve as well.
‘You fucking bitch,’ she yelled.
The cameramen, photographers and reporters all swarmed around, forming a huddle, so when I looked up all I saw was a sea of lenses and microphones, and eager, expectant faces.
Sheila was still struggling for all she was worth, flailing her left hand around, trying to get at me. I leaned over onto her other shoulder to keep out of range, but she still managed to rake at my ribs with her fingernails. A sharp sting seared my side, to match the throb in my face. All the while the mob stood there and watched, eager for more. I could sense their need for blood, could feel their unspoken chant, egging her on. It was both terrifying and infuriating at the same time. Then one of them shoved a microphone into Sheila’s face.
‘Who is this woman, Sheila? And what has she done to you?’
What had I done to her? To her? It was pretty bloody obvious what she had done to me.
‘Get her off me,’ she yelled. ‘Get her off. They’re murderers, they’re all murderers.’ She was still writhing under me, struggling, and this time she managed to reach over her head and grab me by the hair, yanking for all she was worth.
Bloody hell. Were they all just going to stand there? I realised with a sinking heart that yes, they were, and they would enjoy the show. Where was my back-up? Where was the cavalry? Joe Public certainly hadn’t come to my rescue.
It was time this was over.
‘I’m an officer of the law, who has just been assaulted,’ I yelled to anyone who would listen. ‘And if you’re just going to stand there and watch, you will be charged as accessories. Now is any one of you heartless wankers going to help me?’
54
I was sitting in the interview room, still holding a cold facecloth to my nose. The bleeding had stopped, but the hurting sure as hell hadn’t. Fortunately my nose had taken the brunt of the attack, and even more fortunately I didn’t think it was broken, as it was still pointing in the direction it should. That was lucky, and meant I wasn’t sporting a couple of shiners. Instead there was just a little bruising beneath each eye and a touch of puffiness that could easily have been mistaken as the result of too many late nights. A little bit of concealer and no one would ever know.
The woman at the table opposite me sure as hell knew, though.
Sheila Sandhurst was slumped in the seat, hugging herself, a rocking and blubbering mess. All the impassioned fervour from earlier had gone and the Witchy Woman had been replaced by a hollowed, grief-stricken shell. I had a flashback to not that many days ago when it was Gideon Powell’s wife in here. Although their grace and decorum differed, there was no mistaking the deep-seated and heartfelt pain they both felt. They might have been married to criminal scum, but there was no questioning the love these women had for their men. In fact, seeing Sheila here, broken like this, I could almost forgive her for attacking me. I wouldn’t forget it in a hurry though.
DC Richardson sat beside me, looking uncomfortable. I didn’t know whether it was because she wasn’t sure how to deal with the intense emotion on display, or because she wasn’t relishing her role as my personal bodyguard. Normally the victim of an assault wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the perpetrator, but in this instance I’d asked to be here, and Sheila Sandhurst had insisted she would only talk to me. It was an odd situation all round.
