Utu, page 27
Osborne stuffed the camera back in the overnight case. “From her coffin,” he replied.
“Oh. So that’s where you hang out at night, is it?”
“Not for fun,” he said, cutting her short. “I’ll see you later.”
Amelia let him go—yes, of course, later . . .
The spiral staircase led up to an attic room. A bed twice the size of the one in his hotel room sprawled beneath the skylight. On the floor, piles of books—fiction and non-fiction—and technical reviews. Osborne switched on the Mac on the desk, and while it was coming on went and had a look at his shoulder blade in the en-suite bathroom. The blow with the club had left a sizeable hematoma. He took a sachet of white powder from his overnight case, sniffed a long line on the cabinet shelf, and went back into the bedroom, feeling weightless. There, he connected to the internet, glanced feverishly at his watch—two in the morning—and typed in the name Nepia.
There wasn’t much information available, but he eventually found a mention of him on a site devoted to tattoos. An activist at the time of the Bastion Point occupation, Joseph Nepia had since dedicated himself to the art of the moko. No photographs of him, but a few of his work. Once a highly regarded tattooist in South Auckland, Nepia had been retired for years. No available address. He would have to check in the police records, but Joseph Nepia was someone else who seemed to have vanished into thin air.
The moon was visible through the skylight. Tagaloa’s tattoos had to mean something. According to tradition, mokos were an honor reserved for rangatiras, chiefs or aristocrats, as opposed to tutuas, the common people—let alone taurekarekas, slaves. A moko was like a signature, a coat of arms representing the merits of the person who wore them. The depth and thickness of the line was an indication of rank. It sometimes took months, or even years, to “complete” a chief’s tattoo. Osborne examined the digital photographs: to judge by the mokos on Will Tagaloa’s face, the young Maori had reached an elevated rank.
He continued looking at the various available sites devoted to the art of the tattoo, filling the bedroom with smoke. After a slow, laborious search, Osborne at last came across an engraving dating from the nineteenth century, the portrait of a Maori chief sporting the same mokos. Exactly the same. They belonged to the Hauhau movement, started by the fanatical self-styled prophet Te Ua Haumene, whose followers recycled the language of the Biblical Apocalypse to arouse the warlike passions of the Maoris.
These mokos, for all their refinement, were war tattoos.
* * *
Looking sexless in her white coat, Amelia was bustling around the corpse. A strange sight, this little dragonfly flitting about in the pale light of the basement.
“I’ve taken a first set of samples,” she said, seeing Osborne at the foot of the stairs, “concentrating on the tattoos. I’ll try my best to get the first results by tomorrow night. No one takes much notice of me in the lab right now.”
Osborne nodded, staring into the distance. The Maori’s body had swelled, distended by the gases impregnating the tissues. Little bubbles of white foam were oozing from the nose. The top of the skull was open and the sight of all those gelatinous substances was fairly disgusting. Nothing so far explained how the doorman of a swingers’ club had become a follower of Hauhau. That was such an old story, going back to colonial days.
“Did you find anything? Amelia asked.
“The tattoos belong to an old sect,” he replied. “An anti-British cult.”
Amelia stared down at the cranium. “What’s that got to do with this case?”
“I don’t know. But with those tattoos on his face, I doubt that Tagaloa was ever planning to go back to his job as a doorman. Which is strange, because according to the cloakroom girl at the club Tagaloa was supposed to be coming back to work on Monday.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning something’s going to happen between now and Monday.”
“What?”
“No idea.”
Two days. They still had two days. Amelia yawned in spite of herself. Her lack of sleep was catching up with her and, judging by the bags under her eyes, it was clear she could barely stand. It was five in the morning.
“And what do we do with him?” she asked, pointing to the corpse on the stainless-steel table. “If you want a complete postmortem, we’ll have to keep him cool for a while.”
“How long do you need?”
“Six or seven hours, at least. Probably more. It also depends on what I get from the first samples.” She glanced at her tulip-shaped watch. “It’s impossible to finish now. Unless I phone in sick and stick at it all day, but that won’t get us very far. I still have to go to the institute to do the tests.”
Amelia was right. They couldn’t leave the body like that, exposed to the air. The smell would attract flies, or else someone could arrive unexpectedly and find it.
“Don’t you have a cold room?” Osborne asked.
“This isn’t a butcher’s shop,” she retorted, removing her surgical gloves. “Let me remind you I don’t usually dissect human beings here, just owls and field mice.”
Osborne moaned inwardly. Yes, there was the deep freeze, but the body was too large to go in there, not to mention that the muscles would soon stiffen and they would have to wait about twelve hours before they relaxed.
Reading his mind, Amelia came up with the only possible solution. “We have to cut him up.”
Osborne had a taste like ground glass in his mouth. “Cut him up?”
“Yes, saw his legs off and put the trunk in the deep freeze. It ought to fit.”
Amelia’s voice was suddenly as cold as ice. She was undergoing a transformation. A transformation in reverse: the butterfly was returning to its chrysalis, its larval state.
Osborne said nothing but they were now as pale as each other. Saw his legs off . . .
He looked at the deep freeze, the body on the table, the weariness on Amelia’s face—and the underlying fear. He, too, was afraid. He had killed a man, the feeling was still diffuse, but it wasn’t over yet. Saw his legs off . . .
“You just have to wrap him in this,” she said, taking two large black plastic sheets from a sliding drawer. “There are several electric saws on the shelf. Take the strongest. I’ve had my fill for tonight.” She put a white coat down on the steel table. “Here, I advise you to put this on.”
Fleeing his golden eyes beneath the fluorescent light, Amelia went up to bed, leaving him alone in the cellar with the corpse.
A ghost passed by in the silence of the basement. Osborne sniffed the little bit of cocaine that was left in his pocket, swallowed the bitterness, and, avoiding the corpse’s peeled face, set about his ghastly task.
At first it was relatively easy. The saw sliced into the flesh as if into butter, but before very long it became a nightmare, a nightmare that was all too real. The saw buzzed, and particles of bone flew off, falling everywhere, on the steel table, on the tiled floor. When he cut into the femoral artery, blood spurted in his face. He was soon covered in warm blood. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the saw, which just kept right on cutting into the boy, this boy he had shot at point-blank range and was now dismembering, cutting in half, as if he had to pay his debt to the death he had brought with him. He was a bird of ill omen, his arms paralyzed with the effort and disgust of it all.
The first thigh came away at last, relieving for a moment the pressure on the saw, which was really much too small. There was still the other leg to go. Osborne felt like screaming, but it wouldn’t serve any purpose. He turned into a kind of madman. No longer feeling the pain in his skull or even his wounded shoulder, he cut the second thigh, pressing with all his weight on the saw, which soon reached the bone. The blade skidded, and the blood leaped up into his face, like the kiss of death, the serpent’s bite. He had become a wild beast, teeth bared and eyes rolled upwards over the horror he was perpetuating here. The drugs, the scarlet streaks on the white coat, the severed nerves, his own nerves on edge, the tendons: he was living through a succession of dramas with the sense in his mind that it was all happening to someone else.
The second thigh yielded. Osborne let go of it all, in a hallucinatory trance. The harsh fluorescent light burned his eyes, big drops of sweat were pouring from him, Tagaloa didn’t have any legs now, he had been cut in half, there was something obscene about the trunk lying there, and the necrophiliac insects fluttered around him, the amputation angels. He tore off the bloodstained coat as if it was itching him and held his head under the cold water faucet. This case was going to drive him insane. He already felt himself leaving his body, he had gone over to the other side. But he had to act fast. He packed Tagaloa’s trunk in one of the plastic sheets Amelia had given him and stuffed it in the deep freeze. Even reduced by half, it took up almost the whole space. This was like a bad dream. He picked up the severed legs, as if they were umbrellas, yes, that was it, disgusting umbrellas, and put them in the other sheet. Then he cleaned up the basement and, still without thinking, ran to the car.
It was there, under the flowering tree where the moon was growing. Osborne threw the sheet in the trunk, got in behind the wheel and set off, his eyes wide open, hoping the night wind would restore his reason. Some hope.
* * *
An open-air garbage dump.
A sky filled with stars.
Nothing alive by the roadside, only the stars.
Osborne slammed the door of the trunk. The plastic sheet felt light in his arms: such an unpleasant feeling that he started running down the slope at high speed, as if the rest of the corpse was pursuing him in the darkness. The horror and the drugs were sending him off the rails. Unless he had already gone off the rails. In the meantime, his soles slipped on the tin cans, and he almost lost his balance, steadied himself by leaning on a tire, then came to a halt at the foot of the mound, panting.
The dump stretched off into the darkness, heaps of twisted metal in the moonlight. A rat ran between the disemboweled washing machines. Osborne ferreted for a moment among the heaped trash, then stopped. Here would be OK. He grabbed the shovel he had used the night before to get to Ann’s body and started to dig in the bowels of the earth. The shovel hit the tin cans. Ashen-faced, Osborne plunged into other people’s garbage. The smell was disgusting, and his head was burning in spite of the cold sweat pouring from his forehead. He threw anxious glances toward the ridge, which stood out in the night, but no car passed on the road. The fear of being caught chased the pain from his body. He kept digging, buried beneath several layers of horror. At last, his muscles paralyzed, he looked at the hole he had made.
He threw in the plastic sheet and hastily covered it with earth and garbage. The pale moon stared down at him. He wasn’t thinking of anything. The shape of the legs under the sheet was enough.
The burial was done. He thought he heard the sound of a vehicle, but it was only the wind across the dump. He made his way through the trash, staggered back up the slope, and ran to the car. The blood was throbbing in his temples as he switched on the ignition. Death, mutilation, and murder were all present at the party.
* * *
The lights of Auckland were shimmering on the other side of the bay. Osborne parked the Chevrolet under the flowering kamashis.
In the first light of dawn, the ashen seagulls were battling the noise of the waves. He stepped into Amelia’s garden and wandered beside the rocks. After what he had just been through, the muted roar of the surf was strangely soothing. The wind from the sea was stirring the ghosts. You could see them glowing on the surface in the moonlight.
The effect of the cocaine had worn off. Osborne felt suddenly drained, overwhelmed by what he had just done. His shoulder blade hurt a lot, but he somehow managed to undress. Leaving his stinking clothes on the rocks, he slipped into the water. It was cold and black. He was burning with fever, his head was splitting, and dead people were escaping through the cracks. He let go, let the current carry him. His body followed the guide, he would float out to sea where the ghost of Hana was waiting for him . . .
In vain.
Day was breaking by the time Osborne climbed back up to the house, naked. The sea had wiped the traces of blood from his skin, as well as the smell of the corpse he had carried, but not the weariness. The front door was ajar. His heart stiffened: he could remember closing it.
Osborne put his dirty things down in the doorway and grabbed his revolver. He pushed open the door. The bedroom was plunged in darkness, and there was only a faint light on the landing. He listened to the sounds of the night, but could hear nothing but his own breathing. Having grown accustomed to the darkness, he advanced toward the spiral staircase leading to the bedroom. The steps creaked slightly as he went up. He saw the dark room, then the candle weeping hot tears on the desk. His heart beat faster: under the skylight, the bed was empty.
“Amelia?”
He moved forward, his finger on the trigger. Suddenly, betrayed by the flickering of the flame, he sensed a presence behind him. He stopped breathing as a finger touched his cheek.
The fear of finding Amelia dead hadn’t left him, but he said nothing—her fingertips were so smooth . . .
6.
A fine film of dawn came through the skylight. A mosquito was moving around the room. Lying next to an apparently sleeping Amelia, Osborne did not dare touch anything. No, the animal wasn’t fragile, but like all small beasts, it didn’t like shocks . . .
Without any aim in mind, unable to sleep, he was looking at Amelia, lying on the rumpled bed. There she was, beside him, motionless but alive, her belly covered in sperm. You could see it glistening faintly in the dim light, the burial mound of his bad blood that had died on her skin.
Amelia, who didn’t take the pill but smeared herself with his sperm, played with it, let her fingers wade in the translucid pool as previously she had jumped with both feet together into the overflowing gutter! Amelia, who with professional care spread the precious orgasmic milk on her solar skin, adorned herself with it, rubbed it over her body like a cream of him, going into every little corner, as if you had to go that far to even begin to penetrate her, as if you had to go that far to have him in all her pores.
On his knees, his penis groggy, he had watched her, in a daze after all that love spilled on her abdomen. Far from disgusting him, the way she set about coating herself with his fibers had moved him deeply.
There was such emotion in it, commonplace yet supernatural. At the end of this strange ablution, Amelia had told him that now she had him in her skin, that now they were in the same boat. Her eyes gleamed in the fading starlight. What was she talking about? The case? The two of them? After that enigmatic statement, Amelia had turned her head on the pillow and fallen asleep without a word. He hadn’t asked her anything. The moment was unique, it was better to leave it on that disquieting masterpiece.
He watched her sleeping now, one arm bent under the pillow. Her diaphanous belly formed a hollow in the sheets that revealed nothing of her private parts except her brown pubic hair and a particular smell. From time to time she emitted strange little cries, like an animal dreaming. In the grip of incredible feelings, he looked at her small, becalmed breasts, her gentle hips, her thighs, her skin.
He caressed her without touching her and waited for sunrise.
In the pale light of dawn, Amelia’s belly was inventing corpses for itself. Spread on her twenty-five-year-old body, Osborne’s was still a good-looking corpse . . .
7.
Jon Timu walked through the gates of the school, his big fists sunk in his pockets. His son had just left with Josie for a walk by the sea, and once again he had been unable to go with them. The dazed, trusting smile that Mark had given him was still wearing a hole in his belly, and his bladder was screaming. He didn’t know if they would ever see each other again.
One month, maybe two, Dr. Beevan had said. This cruel countdown was making him lose his reason. Of course they would see each other again! He would even organize a big party for Mark at the school. His birthday was in six months, but he would find another excuse. Josie would help him. It would be a kind of farewell to his son. Mark wouldn’t know that, of course. They would simply be happy together. Yes, that was what he would do, next week or the week after. He would arrange it with Josie and the director. They would give him an unforgettable party, him and the other kids too.
The pain, though, wouldn’t go away. Whenever Timu felt too alone, he would drive to Saint Heliers Bay and have a coffee or two at Vincente’s. He might not be able to confide in Vincente, but they could at least have a chat over a croissant. Timu had wagered everything on his career. His reward had been the chromosome 21 that had invaded his son’s brain. Trying to cope with it was what had killed Helena. She had died like someone withdrawing from a game, and although it may have been Beevan who had given him the weapon, he was the one who had murdered her, in cold blood.
For a whole lot of reasons, Mark’s fate had long been his obsession. As an orphan, what was to become of him? It was for his sake that Timu had agreed to mount the operation. If he couldn’t do anything about Mark’s present condition, at least he could ensure his future. The school was the best of its kind in the city, fifteen thousand dollars a year. He had been saving money out of his salary for years, but the “bonus” alone ensured ten years of tranquility. He had already made arrangements. He couldn’t bear the thought of Mark ending his days in a state institution. The boy needed his room, his television, ER, and all the other things he loved, including Josie, the swimming pool, his friends, soon his first girlfriend at the school . . .
