Read Online Surrender by Donna Malane - Free Book Online

me,’ I said.
    Robbie cleared his throat and shuffled again. He didn’t seem the sort of cop who would stonewall me just because I was a civilian, but he was definitely holding something back. I put the folder on the desk.
    ‘If you can’t take me, fine. Just give me directions and tell whoever’s up there keeping an eye on the body that I’ll whistle as I approach. That way I won’t catch them having a pee or whatever.’
    Robbie looked at me silently, then crossed to the back door, pulled back the bolts and indicated that I should follow him.
    The backyard was like any small-town, suburban backyard,complete with rotary clothesline set in a leaning square of concrete, and a garden shed at the end of the recently mown lawn. A neat line of tea towels was pegged alongside a plastic, purse-shaped peg basket. Intrigued though I was by this, I didn’t know Robbie well enough yet to ask him about it. He led the way to the garden shed and opened the padlock.
    ‘You might wanna …’ He indicated his nose as he pushed the door open.
    I took a step into the shed, breathing through my mouth. Draped nonchalantly in a wheelbarrow was what was left of John Doe.
    Robbie shrugged apologetically. ‘The ranger was a long way into the valley laying possum traps when he found him. He went back to the hut, got the wheelbarrow, loaded the body, then went on laying his traps. He didn’t bother to bring him in until the following day. I guess he reckoned that after a couple of decades another day wouldn’t bring him any closer to being alive again.’
    My knee clicked loudly as I bent to get a closer look. It was more a skeleton than a body, though some muscle, a tendon, and dried skin the colour of kauri gum linked the bones together. There was no skull. To me, a body doesn’t look human without a head, but maybe that’s my prejudice.
    I peered at the collarbone and ribcage, noting the patches of adherent filigree that I’d seen in the photos. Robbie bent over beside me. I could feel the heat of his body and we weren’t even touching. He spoke quietly, almost in a whisper.
    ‘I reckon that’s his undershirt or singlet. There might have been some kind of synthetic thread in it and that’s why it lasted. It might help date him, eh?’
    He was right. The lace filament was all that remained of the fabric after exposure to the elements for who knows how long. I stepped around the wheelbarrow, partly to move away fromRobbie’s distracting body heat, but also to see the back of the John Doe’s neck. I was hoping for the remains of a shirt label but no such luck.
    Breathing through my mouth I could almost taste the sickly, sweet odour of decay. I circled the body, ending up at the right foot. Only a few shreds of the sock remained, but the boot itself was in relatively good condition, though it gaped at the toes in a smiling, Chaplinesque way. The bootlace was tied in a perfect double bow. A couple of the fingers that had tied the bow were gone.
    ‘Lots of pigs in the Rimutakas. They go for the stomach first, then they start in on the digits and … things.’
    ‘And no sign of the head, huh?’
    Robbie’s shoulders went up then down again. I was close enough to smell his aftershave: ck one, if I wasn’t mistaken. It was a relief from the smell of the John Doe. I wondered if Robbie was staying close to me for the same reason. Ironically, I was wearing Eternity.
    ‘I went up there yesterday and had a good hunt around, but it could be anywhere. The body was washed downstream — that much we know. But the stream has changed course so many times even over the last ten years, and this guy might have been up there much longer than that.’
    We squatted together in the dark, silent, but companionable as a couple of kids having found an old uncle drunk in charge of a wheelbarrow.
    ‘In the end, we don’t know who he is, where he died, when, or how.’ Robbie summed up for us both.
    ‘So you’ve nearly got the case solved