Cross Fingers

by Paddy Richardson

Genres: Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Television journalist Rebecca Thorne is working on a documentary project exposing a crooked ex-cop property developer. Much to her chagrin she is removed from the project to work on another documentary about the notorious 1981 South African rugby team?s tour of New Zealand. At the same time, Rebecca breaks up with boyfriend Rolly. Strange things start to happen: is someone stalking her, breaking into her house and moving her things? Or is she just being paranoid? As she learns more about the 81 tour, Rebecca becomes fascinated by the Lambs, two anonymous protesters who mocked the police and entertained the crowds, and by the disappearance of one of them on the night of the Wellington test. As sinister events in Rebecca?s life increase, she gets closer and closer to finding out what happened to the Black Lamb . . .

Release date: June 25, 2013

Publisher: Hodder Moa

Print pages: 295

Sample

Friday night

He is still Eric as he closes the door behind him and slips out into the night, feeling the sting of air on his face. He breathes it in, watches his breath floating beyond him into the dark.

He needs the chill and darkness, the sharpness of the night. Needs the lights and the weight of heat behind him. Stretched as tight as he is, all his nerves are straining like a jittery animal.

But it’s always this way. He’ll be better after tomorrow. Saturday’s the big one. After Saturday it’ll almost be over.

He stops by the letter box, takes the package out and zips it into his duffle bag. He walks along the pavement, softly lit by the street lamps, by the houses close against the fences and the cars swishing past throwing up slicks of light. Into the dark, across the green, then he’s pushing through the swinging double doors into the pub and swathed again in the heaviness of heat radiating from the gas fire, the brightness of the overhead lamps.

‘All right, mate?’ The bartender is standing in front of him.

‘A handle of the dark, thanks.’

‘Big one tomorrow, eh?’

‘Yeah.’

He pays for his beer and takes it to the table he usually sits at, away from the fire and near to the window. He hardly sees the street, though he’s staring out at it while he drinks his beer. He comes in here often, they know who he is, know as well what he is and it doesn’t matter: nobody says anything. Even when he comes in, his eyes still darkened with residues of make-up, his lips lined and slightly discoloured, nobody says a word. They know him here; he thinks they like him well enough.

And he’s still Eric as he goes back out into the night and uses the phone in the box outside, clinking in the coins he picked up at the bank the day before and brought with him. He leans against the wall while he waits for the call to connect and for the phone to be picked up an ocean away. He smiles when it is and he starts to speak, holding one hand over his ear to block out the sounds of the band starting up again in the pub.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be OK. Not long now.’

He shoves his hands into his pockets and, ducking back into the town belt, walks head down, thinking about the phone call, thinking about tomorrow but not so tense. The time away and the beer and the talking has taken off the pressure.

A good feeling walking in the silence. The grass feels sodden underneath his feet. He hears the swish and muffled crunch as he treads over mounds of fallen leaves.

He’s halfway across when he first hears them, the voices, the footsteps, and is gripped by the realisation that they are coming up behind him. There is the astonishing crack and hurt of the first blow, he flails out with his arms but he’s already slipping, falling.

Falling into leaves and mud.

Him. Eric. His face, Eric’s face, in the muck.

He covers his head with his arms against the boots, the boots which come one after another after another, trampling, shattering muscle and tissue and bone.

His mother chose it. Eric. The first had to be James, of course. Jim. James was the family name; the first son must have the family name. After that it was given over to the mother to choose.

Eric.

Eric the red. Because his first baby hair was faint, fuzzy red. Even though it later turned to blond, that distinctive white-blond mop. But during those first months he was her Eric the red, her little ginger-top.

She told him when she was still soft towards him. While he was her favourite.

My Eric. Stooping, smiling, the warm, firm kiss on his cheek, the sharp, dry scent of her perfume.

Her favourite.

Eric the red.

When she watched him. The spinning that was flying. Around and again. Around and one more time.

Boots. Smashing, splintering. There is the hot splash and stink of urine on his skin.

But he is Eric still, in the mud and the night and the leaves.

The dog found him in the morning and he wasn’t Eric any more but the body the man dragged the dog off and vomited beside, the body as he retched over and over into leaves stained red.

The body. Car doors snapping shut, cameras clicking over and over in the still of early morning.

It’s a nasty one.

The body.

Collected, labelled, braced, sliced; focus and click and click and another one here and click.

The body.

Watching Eric dance.

Eric’s body. So beautiful.

The body.





I’m in the editing room. The title flashes up onto the screen: 56 Days. Mike and Tim sit beside me and I watch their faces watch the images I’ve become accustomed to. The grim-faced police, the dogs, the crouched, dazed woman with blood on her face. The protesters trying to climb fences, trying to rip them down. The singing, the chanting, the placards. The sound of helicopters clap-clap-clappering, the plumes of smoke drifting upwards. All those sad, surreal images moving against the backdrop of our familiar Wellington buildings, roads, bridges. Don Taylor is there. ‘We made history, I suppose, but it was a sad way of making it.’

And here are the lambs. Marching at the edge of the police lines, running, zigzagging in and out of the crowds. The white lamb wags a finger at a police officer. They turn around, wiggle their bums at the line of police, wave up at the crowded stands.

And now they’re dancing, turning into spinning tops, leaping together, rocketing through the air.

The bright blue sky enfolding and framing them as they spin, spin, spin.

As they spin.

Back to the beginning.

Touch wood, cross fingers, my granddad used to say. Hold off those hovering gods eager to upturn buckets of cold, green slime on your head. Just when things are getting good.

Because they were good, maybe, looking back, too damn good. In a matter of days I’d be off on a blissful holiday. Rarotonga. Partially subsidised by the network since it was partially — very partially — work. And I had the best of stories to dive back into when I got back. This was going to be a good one.

I knew there was something of the crusader in me and I knew from past, bitter experience I had to curb it but I had a particularly warm glow in the pit of my belly over this one. I was going to expose Denny Graham for the total shit he was.

Denny Graham was an ex-cop from Wellington who’d moved to Auckland in the early eighties, bought motels in Mount Eden and got his start by getting around council by-laws and selling the units off separately as ‘ownership flats’. He now owned and managed an Auckland-based company which dealt in investment properties. YourWay Prime Investments: ‘Your choice, Your properties, Your way.’ His company had spin-offs: short-term loans, nightclubs, massage parlours. All of which were still happily humming away while he was doing time for embezzlement.

Murray Turner, Graham’s long-discarded business partner, was on the phone. Again. He’d got into the habit of phoning me at any old time and venting. Still, even though it took considerable effort, I had to indulge him. I had to be unreservedly tolerant since he was the kind of source journalists usually only dream of. He had clung for years to a virulent resentment of Denny Graham, a resentment which made him itch for Graham to get his comeuppance. He’d worked with him until they’d had the falling out which had left Turner down and broke and Graham blithely moving onwards and upwards.

‘It’s a fucking joke,’ he said, ‘him living in that fucking great castle of his. Get this. He’s allowed out to do his shopping. All he has to do is phone his probation officer and away he goes down to New World to stock up on his bloody wine and pâté.’

At present Graham was on eleven months’ home detention wearing a monitoring electronic bracelet. Turner was right. Denny’s incarceration was far from irksome. For most people, the idea of roaming around the four hundred or so square metres of house, enjoying the pleasant vista from the tower and whiling away time in the gym, the pool, the spa and the entertainment room would be the kind of luxury holiday they could only dream of.

‘It’s a fucking joke,’ Turner repeated, ‘that sentence. Just a tap on the hand. He gets off with a hundred and fifty hours’ community work and he’ll get around that one, you wait and see, and $500,000 reparation. That’s bloody peanuts to Denny.’

Graham, of course, had had a top criminal lawyer acting for him. He would keep his head down, do his time, if you could call it that, and be absolutely OK at the end of it. Unlike the people he’d persuaded to invest their retirement funds into buying chalets in Rarotonga which had failed to materialise.

‘You said you had someone else who might talk to me,’ I said. ‘One of the women who was involved in the seminars.’

‘Dunno about her. Can’t make up her bloody mind.’

‘What if I contacted her?’

‘Not a good idea. If you phoned she’d be scared shitless.’

I laughed. ‘I’m not all that scary, am I?’

‘Not you, darling. It’s Denny she’s frightened of upsetting. Give it a few days, eh? We’ll get him, girl. What Denny’s gone down for’s just the tip of the bloody iceberg. There’s a whole lot more I can tell you. A whole fucking lot more.’

I made grateful noises and hung up. Yep, this was going to be big. And while I didn’t have much sympathy for Turner I was confident he’d give me what I needed.

The couple of times I’d met him I’d come away feeling a bit grubby. His shiny black leather jacket, stringy ponytail, the heavy gold rings on his fingers and the ever-so-chivalrous way he had of addressing my breasts while he talked reminded me of some slimy character straight out of The Sopranos. I was fairly convinced that if Graham hadn’t done the dirty on him, as Turner put it, he’d still be right there alongside him wheeling and dealing and ripping off susceptible people.

But I needed everything I could get on Denny Graham. He still had a few loyal sympathisers about who were vocal in their disagreement with the charges made against him and his conviction. ‘He’s done a lot for Auckland.’ ‘The economic downturn isn’t Denny’s fault.’ I wanted to shut all that fellow feeling right down, show him for what he was.

Because I had the ordinary, everyday, trusting people who’d been badly hurt by Graham queuing up to talk. They’d never get their money back, money which was supposed to be for their security and for their families, money which had taken whole lifetimes of work to save. I wanted to do my bit towards stopping Graham from surfacing out of his ‘prison’ and bulldozing the next batch of ordinary, everyday people with his next big scheme. If that meant playing nice with the Murray Turners of this world for a few months, I could do it.

Denny had originally made his money out of buying low and selling high in Auckland. He was particularly adept at prising valuable properties from elderly people by offering deals where he would generously swap their sprawling villa for one of his ‘brand-spanking-new townhouses’. Graham believed in the personal approach. He’d turn up at some old pensioner’s door and sweep them off their feet with his ultra-white, wide-snapping grin and sharp suits. Denny was a real charmer.

I’d met Denny. It was in the early days of Saturday Night, the first TV series I was involved with. It was right in the middle of those heady years of the rising property market and YourWay had recently expanded into the holiday home market, buying up land and putting up blocks of holiday apartments. I was in Auckland working on a feature about fairly primitive seaside holiday cottages which had turned, almost overnight it seemed, into million-dollar properties. I was invited out for drinks and Denny was there.

We were introduced. He flashed that famous grin at me and that was all there was to it. Except for the feeling which hit me deep down in my belly as he squeezed my hand and his pale, slightly slanted eyes — lizard eyes — scurried up and down my body. My gut instinct was to leap backwards, to thoroughly wash the clammy, cold sensation from my hand. I watched as he moved from person to person, group to group, swooping in on the important people, exhibiting the smile. His hand reached out to pat shoulders. I saw those pitiless eyes flickering, assessing.

There had been whisperings about Denny for years about deals which were questionable if not downright crooked. The retirement apartments that had no soundproofing between the units and, more often than not, had mould growing in the bathrooms and problems with the drains. The holiday cottages that were much smaller than the suggested images in the brochures and had cheap, tacky kitchen and bathroom fittings. And where were the luxurious carpets and tiles? Where were the vast decks? Where was the pool?

‘Artist’s impression only.’ That was the statement on the glossy brochures which covered all the variations, though how Denny Graham got around building specifications was anybody’s guess. Those were the kinds of questions I intended asking. It seemed Denny Graham might have had friends in rather high places.

Of course there were buyers who complained but they hadn’t read the fine print. Denny was particularly skilled at covering his back — ‘It’s all there in black and white.’ He also tended to build his resorts in places a long, long way from anywhere, the kinds of places where people think they might want to be before they actually are. Seclusion. Tranquillity. Paradise.

The Sunshine Coast, for example: ‘fifty k’s from concern, cares and clatter’. Which actually meant fifty k’s away from shops, medical care and, in most cases, beaches. Then there were the Far North Chalets, far being the operative word. For the new owners who might have wanted to protest about substandard building processes, the locations made it difficult to drum up any interest. The media really weren’t keen on trekking off to some remote place in Oz, not just for a few leaks and kitchen cupboards that had fallen off walls, nor did solicitors and building inspectors want to travel miles up the Karikari Peninsula.

It was difficult to work out exactly how he got away with it but buyers generally either sold up at a huge loss or got out their deckchairs and barbies and got on with it. New Zealanders are do-it-yourselfers and there’d always be someone they could count on to give them a hand to fix up the electrics or sort out the plumbing for the exchange of a week or so at the bach. And it was a whole lot easier and cheaper to pick up discounted floor coverings and a Para pool than to try to take it through the courts.

New Zealanders don’t like to be seen as whiners, they don’t like being made fools of and they certainly don’t like anyone else knowing they’ve been taken for fools. Denny Graham knew that. He knew how to exploit it.

Those who did continue to complain eventually fell silent. That was something else Turner had told me.

He likes to get his own way, does Denny. Denny doesn’t like being crossed.

He doesn’t like it at all.

I could tell you stories, my girl. Stories about our Denny that’d make your hair curl.





I checked the time. I’d set up a phone interview for 2.30 with Gill Ross, one of the many Denny Graham victims. She and her husband, John, had lost around $350,000 to their Rarotongan dream. We were already on first-name terms and I knew them well enough to be certain they’d give a clear account of what had happened.

‘Rebecca, how are you?’ Gill was a vibrant and intelligent woman, a well-respected former secondary school teacher. She would interview so well and create exactly the impression I wanted. Graham conned her out of her money? Jesus, what a bastard.

‘Hi, Gill. I just want to run through things we’ve already talked about. OK if I tape it?

‘Absolutely fine.’

‘Can you tell me how you and John initially became involved with YourWay Investments?’

‘Well, first of all we received an invitation through the mail. I’ve got it right here. It’s printed on lovely, thick, cream paper with italic writing and invites John and me, by name, to a function — I’m quoting now — “celebrating YourWay Prime Investments’ good fortune in purchasing a top-quality piece of land in Rarotonga for the purpose of constructing an exclusive community of high-quality villas situated among a paradise of private and abundant gardens”.’

‘So you decided to go along?’

‘Not at first. In fact, I was going to put it into the fire and forget all about it and, my goodness, I wish I had. But enclosed was a brochure and the homes, well, they did look lovely with the decks and the big windows and the pools and palm trees and all that glittering sea. You see, we’d not long been to Rarotonga and we’d loved it, absolutely loved it. We found out later that Graham had targeted couples around our age who’d recently been there.’

‘What happened next?’

‘We had a follow-up phone call. John answered it. He said the woman who spoke to him was very pleasant and friendly and told him that she and her husband had themselves invested in a YourWay community and were more than happy with the outcome. She said the planned function would be fun, there’d be drinks and nibbles and interesting people would be there and there’d be absolutely no pressure or expectations.’

‘That persuaded you to go?’

‘We still um-ed and ah-ed a bit. We had absolutely no intention of buying a second home at that point. But then John said, “There’s free drinks. What have we got to lose?” So we went. “What have we got to lose?” I’m afraid I’ve thought back over those words many, many times.’

‘Tell me about the function.’

‘Looking back, I understand how precisely those things were planned. Just thinking of the people who were there I can see they’d decided to appeal to investors who were moving just beyond middle age and likely to have accrued a reasonable investment portfolio. Well, there we were, all those couples fortunate enough to have been selected to attend as we were told later. This is after quite a prolonged period when we were treated to some lovely wines and exquisite hors d’oeuvres.’

‘Effective marketing strategies,’ I said.

‘Very effective. Well, after getting just a little sozzled we all sat down and this very tanned and fit-looking couple around our age began their talk — oh, and there was a gigantic screen behind them so we had a series of simply gorgeous images to look at as they spoke. Anyway, the woman came first and she rhapsodised about her wonderful home, her amazing kitchen, her fantastic bathrooms and the absolutely oodles of room for the kids and grandkids — that is if you wanted the kids and grandkids to stay. Everyone dutifully giggled and then she went on about the pool and the spa and the benefits of the changes they’d made to their lives. I can almost see her there, taking her so-called husband’s hand and giving us all a little smile and a wink.’ Gill’s voice took on a sing-song, high-pitched bleat. ‘“I’m fitter and slimmer than I was in my thirties and we’ve never been happier and, um, more active”.’

‘Then it was the man’s turn?’

‘It was. The sound and durable construction, the low maintenance. All he ever had to do was change the light bulbs. The boat, the golf course, the freedom. I could feel John begin to quiver with excitement beside me. We had the big old villa then in Parnell. There was always something that had to be done.’

‘Were you starting to feel actual interest in the scheme at that point?’

‘Not entirely. It didn’t seem quite real.’ She laughed a little. ‘And it wasn’t. The only apartments Graham had built in Rarotonga were for the exclusive use of him and his friends and family.’

‘So this couple were just part of the scam?’

‘Of course. Anyway, then the couple drifted off into the background and we were addressed by a financial advisor and he absolutely oozed respectability and, to be quite honest, he really did seem to make good sense and that’s when we started to take notice. What he said was that for an outlay of from as low as $200,000, investors were assured not only of holidays in luxurious accommodation for the remainder of their lives but a guaranteed income as well. For those who may not choose to live there permanently — though, he told us, more and more YourWay clients were finding it almost impossible to leave their tropical paradises at the end of a stay — those people were able to have their home managed by YourWay Prime Investments as a holiday rental property whenever it wasn’t in use by the owners, thus earning excellent returns on their original investment.’

‘You thought that sounded feasible?’

‘It was starting to. He went on to tell us Rarotonga was not only a beautiful place to visit, it made good sense for New Zealand citizens to retire there. For one thing, it was only a hop, step and a jump away from New Zealand for whenever anyone wished to return, faster than a road-trip between, say, Auckland and Taupo. As well as that, any New Zealand citizen living there would be entitled to full New Zealand superannuation. Rarotonga was an economical place in which to live. A huge saving on power bills, for a starter. Again the dutiful giggles, but I could tell everyone had become more intent on listening. Then he put a whole lot of figures up on the screen which demonstrated how retirement in Rarotonga did actually make economic sense.’

‘And then?’

‘And then they handed out more glossy brochures and John and I went home and we talked all night. You see, we’d always hankered after a holiday home but there was no way we could afford something anywhere near-decent in a place where we’d like to holiday, not in New Zealand. We’d both fallen in love with Rarotonga and this seemed like a dream come true. The upshot of all that talking was we decided, if it all panned out, we’d sell the house in Parnell and replace it with a small apartment.’

‘You would have checked out the contract with your solicitor?’

‘Yes, of course we did. What we never considered was the possibility Graham hadn’t begun — or would never begin — construction on the project. The plan was we’d spend our retirement living in both Auckland and Rarotonga. So we sold our lovely old family home with its big garden and now we live in a two-bedroom box in the middle of the city. We have no garden, no view and very little savings left.’

‘Thanks for talking to me, Gill,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry this has happened to you and John. It’s just so unfair.’

‘It’s unfair, all right,’ she said.

I put down the phone. It was unfair. And it had happened to too many people. Far too many.

Denny Graham had been smart. He’d worked out that by the time people are edging just that little closer to old age chances are they want to hang on to, maybe recapture, their youthful energy and good looks and chances are they want to have their dreams now. Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to enjoy your money in the form of a luxurious villa, architecturally designed and finished to the highest standards? Wouldn’t that be so much nicer than having it tucked boringly away in a government-guaranteed investment or some dreary old bank?

Why shouldn’t aging couples enjoy the fruits of their labour? And why wouldn’t they be tempted by those palm trees, that pool glistening in the sunlight with the perhaps older, but still very attractive, couple stretched out on sun loungers (‘outdoor furnishings not supplied’) clinking wine glasses and beaming into the camera.

And those gorgeous villas (‘artist’s impression only’). Investors who had the eyes able to make out the infinitesimal print had been assured that construction on the project had begun. Those who wanted to visit were encouraged to wait until the buildings, pools and landscaping were completed for safety reasons.

The economy fell to pieces and the villas couldn’t be built. There were other far more pressing requirements for the investors’ money. Denny had his yacht and his own holiday villas as well as the classic sports cars, the SUVs, the Porsches and the houses to maintain. His houses and his women. Denny and his wife Helen lived in a mansion set in half an acre or so of waterfront grounds in Milford. But Denny was a busy boy. There was also the woman in the inner-city apartment and the two or three regulars at the massage parlours.

All that came out around the time of the court case. That was the second time I saw Denny, sitting beside his solicitor in court. His thick gold watch shone against his wrist and his suit was impressive. He appeared composed and untroubled.

‘Mrs Brooke, can you tell the court how much money you and your late husband invested in the YourWay Rarotongan scheme?’

‘It was $400,000. All our savings.’

His eyes run over her, indifferent, vaguely curious.

Lizard eyes.





The phone rang almost as soon as I had put it down after talking to Gill Ross. It was Helen Graham. ‘Rebecca? Rebecca, I, I really don’t think I can do this.’

Helen Graham was needy. Now that I’d finally managed to persuade her to stop yelling ‘Bitch!’ at me and thumping down the phone, I’d turned into her new best friend, the only person she ‘could really talk to any more’.

‘Helen, hi. Just tell me what’s going on.’

‘I won’t be able to do it. Not TV. What will people —? I’m too nervous.’

Her voice was shaking. I’d discovered it was best to let her talk. Just make the right kinds of noises and let her go for it. God, if I can only get her to front up on camera.

‘If I talk about Denny the kids will never speak to me again.’

It wouldn’t be tactful to remind her that they didn’t speak to her anyway. Denny’s kids knew very well what side their bread was buttered o. . .