Crime Story Read online

  Yes, he dreamed. Yes, he had a vision of beauty. Athol did not have one. Gordy had some poor lopped-off thing. And she, Gwen? What she saw would not hold its shape; what she desired was multifarious.

  The university emptied out its children. They hopped and sidestepped, danced and angled on Kelburn Parade and behaved no differently from the boys and girls of her day; then, fresh from Nelson, she had read Livy and Tacitus and Molière and Racine. Now they studied commerce, most of them, didn’t they, and business management and marketing, and probably only two or three were left in French and Latin. She had heard Bob Jones would sooner take them on than new young property lawyers and cost accountants, but who else would? No one she could think of. Not Howie or any of his mates. Not Hopkins of Lupercal, who had liked the sound of it when she had suggested that name for his company. ‘Latin, eh? That’ll do me’, and they drank to it. A grotto sacred to a Roman god? It had some class. He had not asked her which god.

  So she did a nasty secret thing. And now Lupercal was in deep shit, as Howie would say, and in the papers daily, in the courts, and Hopkins and those men who had raised their glasses in her living room, with the city shining at their feet, were waiting judgment, waiting prison almost certainly, and her son Gordon, who had tried so hard to be big with them, was heading that way too and would not escape for all that he remained incurably small. Her clever little jab at them was punished in that way. It was rather Greek (she had done Greek too) and she had no energy to quarrel with it.

  Gwen turned away from the city and watched a police car go by, squealing its tyres on the winding road. Macho men were everywhere, in uniforms, in business suits and black nylon socks as much as in jeans and studs and leather. Those wretched nylon socks, she thought, how nice it was not to have to wash them any more; and a pair for his briefcase so he could change at midday and not run the risk of feet that might compromise a deal.

  ‘Butch, come on.’

  Honeysuckle, dog turds, cool breeze, police car – and what was it doing at Athol’s gate? She walked fast, and ran a step or two, and hurried back and chained the dog and dragged him along. Inside the gate she freed him and threw the chain on the lawn.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she called at the policeman talking into his radio on the porch. He frowned at her and motioned her away.

  ‘My son lives here. Is someone hurt?’

  ‘You’re a relation?’

  ‘Yes. My name’s Mrs Peet. I live next door. What’s wrong, please?’

  He spoke again into his radio and clicked it off. ‘Did you see anything, madam? An intruder?’

  ‘I’ve been out. You passed me in the street. Please, is Ulla … ?’

  She stepped on to the porch and saw Olivia kneeling in the hall in her Marsden blazer, with her tie thrown over her shoulder; and bare feet, yellow soles, Ulla’s long feet, her long-boat feet, with big toes crossed; and Ulla lying there; and blood on the towel in Olivia’s hand.

  ‘Ulla,’ she said, and made the vowels perfectly – perfect at last.

  ‘There’s an ambulance on its way. I wouldn’t go in.’ The policeman put his arm across the door. Olivia looked up and did not see and shifted the towel a little on Ulla’s face, and the other policeman, squatting at her side, said, ‘Not too hard. Easy goes.’

  Butch clicked past Gwen on the porch and climbed the doorstep. He paused to look at Ulla, then waddled out of sight into the lounge. She heard him lapping water from his bowl and heard his basket creak as he climbed in.

  She ran past the constable, dipping under his arm. She knelt by Ulla and looked at her, then looked at Olivia, and knew from each face equally that all their lives were changed. Ulla did not see. She did not hear and did not feel. Ulla was alive but was out of the world. Gwen bent closer and saw her face, her northern face, which had become for ever different. Ulla gone. And Olivia, although she said, ‘Grandma’ – a raw sound from the back of her throat – had shifted away and could no longer be herself.

  ‘Is it her neck?’ she asked the policeman.

  ‘Can’t be sure, lady. Can’t be sure how bad it is.’

  There was another towel, made into a pad, under Ulla’s neck.

  ‘Who put that there?’

  ‘She did. Fixed her mum up. Then phoned the ambulance and us. She’s a good kid. Aren’t you, love?’

  ‘Yes,’ Olivia whispered.

  ‘Stay with it.’

  There was blood on the cuffs of her pale-blue shirt. There was blood on her cheek where she had wiped her hand. Gwen leaned across and touched her on the side of her throat and felt it throb. She wanted to kiss Ulla and hold her hand, but stood up and went out to the porch.

  ‘Have you phoned Athol? My son?’

  ‘That’d be her husband? Mr Peet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Damon won’t be home till after three. Damon’s her son. Get her to the hospital first. Get the ambulance first.’

  ‘That’s it now.’

  She heard a wail, which faded and rose on the hill.

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘Haven’t had time to ask any questions yet.’

  ‘A burglar?’

  ‘Intruder. The girl saw him.’

  Olivia’s bag lay where it had fallen, with a science textbook half slipped out.

  ‘Did she know him?’

  The policeman looked at her sharply, a blue-eyed boy, simple and suspicious and too quick. ‘Should she?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why would he … ?’ She meant attack Ulla, and made a movement of her hand at the tableau in the hall, knowing there was no answer he could give.

  ‘They hit first and run. All they’ve got to do is get away. Ah, here’s our boys.’

  Two men were on the path, one middle-aged, one young. They were detectives, she understood, and was angry to see them here ahead of the ambulance. She went back inside and knelt by Ulla and touched Olivia again, and was aware of one of the new men looking over the top of her head but did not move to make it easy for him. She took Ulla’s hand and almost cried at its conflicting looseness and warmth. The man went into the lounge. Butch yapped at him but then stayed quiet.

  ‘Ulla,’ she said; and now horror and grief began to work, in a lurching way that meant they were too great to be contained.

  ‘She can’t hear,’ Olivia said.

  ‘Has she said anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Her eyes are open.’

  ‘I don’t even know if she’s breathing.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s breathing,’ the policeman said. ‘I’d’ve done mouth to mouth, but I think it’s best …’ He meant that nothing should be done that put a strain on her neck.

  ‘Ulla, can you hear?’ Gwen said.

  ‘She can’t, I told you.’

  ‘Ulla.’

  ‘She’s dying.’

  ‘I don’t think you can say that,’ the policeman said.

  ‘No,’ Gwen said. She was trying to remember the first aid she had known, and where the spinal cord must be cut for a person’s breathing to be stopped. The third or fourth or fifth vertebra, somewhere there. ‘Shouldn’t she have a blanket?’

  ‘Yeah, she should.’

  ‘Hypothermia starts almost straight away.’ Gwen stood up and headed for the stairs.

  The young detective stopped her. ‘Hold on, lady.’

  ‘She’s got to have a blanket. I need a blanket.’

  ‘These boys’ll do it. They’re the experts.’

  Two ambulance men came in: white shirts with shoulder flashes, brightly polished shoes. She put all her hope in them and stood breathless as their eyes moved along Ulla, taking her in. One squatted by Olivia and lifted her hand but kept the towel in place, then had a look at the wound, which was an open cut running from below her eye to the angle of her jaw. It seemed to be full of thick cool blood. He touched her cheekbone and Gwen saw the fracture from the way the ridge was pushed out of line: that ugly/beautiful line that often seemed more Slavic
than Nordic. Depressed fracture, that was the name.

  ‘There’s a lump as big as your fist on the back of her neck,’ the policeman said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He had seen it. He was clearing the smaller injury away. ‘What’s her name, love?’ – to Olivia.

  ‘Mrs Peet. It’s Ulla.’

  ‘Right.’ He gave her the towel and knelt down close. ‘Can you hear me, Ulla?’

  She could not. Gwen remembered another term: spinal shock. She said to herself, She’s in shock.

  ‘Ulla,’ the ambulance man repeated, managing the vowels surprisingly well. He took her hand and pinched her wrist. ‘Can you feel that, Ulla?’

  ‘Shall I bring it all?’ the other man said.

  ‘Yeah, the works. Oxygen too. Can you give him a hand?’ – to the policeman.

  ‘She should be kept warm,’ Gwen said.

  ‘There’s some blankets coming. Do you know which way her head went? Backwards? Forwards?’

  ‘I wasn’t here.’

  ‘Back,’ Olivia said. She stood by Ulla’s feet with the bloody towel in her hand. ‘She came down the stairs and hit the door and her head went back.’

  ‘Yeah, hyperextensive’ – and Gwen thought, You don’t know, you’re only a zambuck. She wanted him to do things, not say: cover Ulla, make her warm, make her talk and breathe again and make her eyes see.

  ‘Can’t you put something on her face?’

  ‘In a minute.’ His eyes went past her to the detective on the stairs. ‘Can I have two of your boys to help with the lifting?’

  ‘Sure. Say when. You’re the one who saw it, eh?’ – to Olivia.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Olivia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You feel up to talking about it, Olivia?’

  A technique, Gwen thought. Say the name as often as you can. She went out to the porch and saw the men on the path, festooned with gear. She did not want to watch Ulla being masked, braced, lifted, in ways meant to preserve the little life that remained in her. How much life? Not enough for consciousness, which, they were agreed, was at the centre of being human, and at the cutting edge as well. So what was Ulla now? Some simple thing, single-celled, hanging on by automatic response? There was all her self at the back of that, waiting for the decision – to come out or quietly go away. Gwen peered back inside. The ambulance man was looking closely into Ulla’s eyes and feeling at her temples as if he too wanted to locate her.

  Gwen went down the steps and round to the back of the house. She sat in a canvas chair by the trampoline, where Ulla would pretend to read as Damon practised his crazy flips. Swedish Ulla. Ulla with no country any more – and now with nothing left except a pulse, with nothing but a movement in her blood, which might be enough to bring her back. I do love you Ulla, I love you more than any of the others.

  Gwen cried, sitting in the chair. Then she wiped her eyes. Be practical, she thought. Get ready for Athol and Damon. Get ready for Olivia; and to find out how bad Ulla is. Broken necks don’t always mean you die. They don’t even mean paralysis, not every time. She wanted to run back inside and watch for signs of feeling. She should have pinched Ulla’s hand herself. Surely then Ulla would have moaned and moved her eyes. That was what you did for your best friend.

  The young detective came out and looked at the back of the house. He looked at the gap in the hedge, then asked Gwen her name and wrote it down.

  ‘You live through there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you were out when it happened?’

  ‘I was out walking. Ulla was at home. When I came back …’

  ‘Did you see anything, Mrs Peet? Any strangers or people who didn’t belong?’

  ‘No one. I go out each day. I walk the dog.’ She heard how pathetic it sounded. ‘It’s Olivia’s dog. It was sick on the carpet.’ She tried a new start. ‘I only saw students. Why don’t they get her to hospital?’

  ‘What students? Were they in this street?’

  ‘Only going up and down the steps. They come up all the time, going to Kelburn. What does the ambulance man say? Isn’t he just for broken legs and things?’

  ‘He’s a paramedic, Mrs Peet. She’s in good hands. Was anyone at the top of Central Terrace when you walked down?’

  ‘One person. I didn’t look very hard.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Ten to two. A quarter to. Why is Olivia home? It’s far too early.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know. A student. Young.’

  ‘Tall or short?’

  ‘Medium. Lightly built.’

  ‘What colour hair?’

  ‘I didn’t take any notice. The dog – it made a mess on the footpath and that embarrassed me so I looked the other way.’

  ‘Dark or fair you’d notice though.’

  ‘Yes. Fair. A Pakeha.’

  ‘Did you see what he was wearing?’

  ‘Jeans, I think. And a sweatshirt. It was black or else navy blue.’

  ‘Anything written on it?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘What sort of shoes?’

  ‘Sneakers probably. They all wear those.’

  ‘Bag?’

  ‘He had one. Slung on his shoulder. That’s just an impression. I can’t say what sort.’

  ‘Had you seen him before? Does he live around here?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him. I don’t take much notice of the students. Shouldn’t they have a doctor before they shift her?’

  ‘One more question, Mrs Peet. Did you see him when you were coming back?’

  ‘All I saw was the police car.’ She did not like his jaw. It was almost deformed. His upper teeth closed inside the lower. Eating must be impossible.

  ‘Is he the man Olivia saw?’

  ‘We can’t say yet, Mrs Peet. It might be best if you phone her husband. Can you do it from your own place?’

  She went through the hedge and into her house and rang Athol’s office. She did not know what she would say but it must be straight because that was Athol’s style and he would not thank her for trying to soften things.

  ‘Jacquie,’ she said to his secretary, ‘it’s Athol’s mother. Can I speak to him please?’

  But Athol was not in his office and the woman would not let her have the number of his car phone. ‘I can ring him for you but it has to be urgent.’

  ‘Oh, it is. Tell him his wife’s been hurt and he should go home.’

  ‘Is it serious? Mr Peet’s very particular – ’

  ‘Just say her neck is broken. They’re taking her to the hospital. Say there was a burglar in the house.’ She hung up. Say, she thought, you might have lost some of your property.

  Gwen sat down. She held her hands between her knees to stop them trembling. Her eyes were dry and hot and felt as if thumbs were pressed in them. She got up in a moment and bathed them at the sink, then went upstairs to the bathroom and ran water in the basin. She washed her hands and face. Athol, you are nothing, she thought. I won’t let you make any difference to me.

  Then she saw that someone had been in the house. There was no shock in it – the knowledge affected her casually. She should call the policeman over and point to the tube and say, ‘It was almost full,’ and let him worry why a burglar would squeeze it. But the man who broke Ulla’s neck would not take shape alongside Ulla there.

  Gwen went into the toilet and found she could not use it, but flushed it and lowered the lid and opened the louvres wide. That got intruders out. Intruder, what a word. It had a legal use, didn’t it, as well as a common, something cut and dried to do with usurpation of rights? But for the police it was a term to blur focus with, for people outside, until they had assembled everything and could be sure. And while that was going on Ulla lay there dying. It was like two radios in the same room, playing different voices. One spoke softly, urgently, while the other kept a patter up. She looked across at Ulla’s house and saw the boss detective at an upstairs window, wat
ching her.

  I won’t explain, I’m in my own house. Get out of Ulla’s bedroom, she thought.

  The man turned away.

  She looked down over the top of the hedge and saw Olivia come on to the porch. She had put the towel down somewhere but still had her tie thrown over her shoulder. Her pale hair, sleek with washing, had worked free at the back and was belled above the ribbon, which any moment would drop off, and then her hair would spread like water over her back. Gwen had seen it happen a dozen times. The girl had trouble keeping herself trimmed up in the Marsden way. She came out sideways, then backed into the potted fern, making way for the stretcher where Ulla lay strapped down with her face framed in a collar like an Elizabethan ruff. Her eyes were open. They had taped a dressing to her cheek. The front man backed with care and felt for the top step with his foot.

  I should go down; but no, she did not want to, she wanted to stay at the window and preserve what she and Ulla had. I’ll send to you, you send to me, through the ether. She smiled at their joke. Stay alive for me, I’m your best friend.

  A car door slammed and the gate crashed open. Athol. He must have been in Kelburn when the call came. Now he stopped the stretcher and wanted everything explained. But the men took no notice and he ran back and forth – Ulla, Olivia, the constable at the door – with his forehead shining and his glasses making little squared-off screens on his eyes. He tried to take Ulla’s hand. ‘I’m coming in the ambulance.’ Then he saw Gwen at the window.

  ‘For God’s sake Mum, come and look after your grand-daughter. Try and get something right.’

  Gwen found it a reasonable request. The girl was standing at the top of the steps. She had nowhere to go and must not be allowed to turn back and commune with her dog. That would be to lose Olivia. Gwen walked through the bathroom and along the hall. She hurried down the stairs and past the open door, which stood as Ulla’s had, immoveable, with its tongue shining like a knife. The burglar should have pushed her, she would not have minded. Her face would have split open and her bones cracked like glass and she would have died instantly, and that would have been all right if Ulla could have been left alive.