Milkshake (10 page)

The small shabby–looking internet café was gloomy and smelled
damp. There was a counter which held a large impressive-looking
coffee machine and a dozen computers placed in two rows
back-to-back down the centre of the room. The place barely lived up
to its description. A fat greasy–looking man sat staring intently
at the only flat screen monitor in the shop, the one behind the
counter. Having glanced round, David walked up to the counter and,
for some reason, enquired, “How much for ten minutes?” in a French
accent.

He had decided that if the guy thought he was French, if his
pursuers were clever enough to track him to this location, they
would be truthfully told, “No, no Poms in here today, just some
French fella.” Then he reconsidered.
But
he’s seen me. He just has to describe me.
By then it was too late. He was stuck with a French accent,
at least for the next few minutes.

“Well its three dollars for fifteen minutes. Most people
usually take longer once they get online. People on holiday can’t
resist a quick surf at the news back home.”

“Merci.” David knew he had to be quick but
he was confident he knew exactly where to find what he wanted. He
had looked at his old school reunion website frequently, mainly out
of curiosity as to what people he had last seen twenty years ago
were now doing with their lives. It was surprising how many had
never left the small town where he had grown up, whilst others had
moved away, some overseas. David was counting on a fleeting
recollection of an old friend.

The website prompted him for his user name and password. This
was not his own computer where normally a cookie would have
remembered him. Putting his details into this computer would leave
an easily trackable log of subsequently visited pages. He may as
well go down the street and wave the car down now. David needed to
log on as someone else. He stood up and walked back towards the
door, remembering the phoney accent just in time. “I am sorry, I am
changed my mind.” The accent was so Inspector Clouseau that he
decided a measure of bad grammar would not go amiss. “Is there, ‘ow
you say, a travel agent nearby?” he said, enjoying the softness of
‘agent’ in a French accent.

“Three doors down.”

“Sank you. Au revoir.” Thank God he would never see the man
again. The accent was making him sound distinctly camp.

The door to the small travel shop buzzed as he pushed it.
Three desks were occupied by three middle-aged women in identical
suits, vaguely resembling airline hostesses, as if this would fool
potential customers into thinking that by booking a holiday with
them they were in some way personally responsible for the complete
future holiday experience.

David approached the youngest-looking of the three. He was no
longer French. “Hi, this is going to sound like a really strange
request and, yes, I know there is an internet café just next door,
but I need to borrow a PC to log onto the internet for about ten
minutes, then I want you to book me a flight.”

The young woman looked at the other two for guidance. They
shrugged back. “Sure, why not?”

He checked his watch. He had been gone over five minutes
already. Without further explanation he took the vacated seat,
clicked onto the internet, and typed in the website address he had
tried in the internet café just a few minutes earlier. This time he
clicked on and set up a new account.

Enter Name:
John

Enter email address: ___

“What’s your email address here?

David typed in the address and clicked
Register.

Your activation password has been sent to you. Once activated
you have twelve hours free access to the site. Once that has
expired you must then pay the annual fee of £5.

He turned to the adjacent desk. “Right, now about that flight,
where’s the nearest airport to here?”

“Hamilton will get you anywhere in the country.”

“The furthest south?”

“That’ll be Invercargill, right at the bottom of the South
Island.”

“OK, could you book me two seats tomorrow morning from
Hamilton to Invercargill?”

“Sure, let me check the availability for
you.”

David had no intention of catching the flight; he just wanted
to use the credit card to lay a false trail.

“There are seats on the 10.25 from Hamilton to Invercargill,
that’s flying with Air New Zealand, changing at Wellington.”
Changing? Like changing trains? He was familiar with changing
flights when travelling internationally, but from one end of a
small country to another? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going
anyway.

‘Yes, that’s fine. Book it for me please.”

“Any return or onward destination I can
book for you, sir?”

He thought about how much of a trail of deceit he should lay
at this stage. “No, I’ll probably be touring round for a bit,
probably hire a car and then drive back north.”

She confirmed the flight details once more as David did his
best to sound interested. “How would you like to pay for
that?’

“Credit card.”

Once again, he pulled the lone card from his wallet, and she
swiped it.

“PIN number?”

He entered it without checking the cost. By now, he thought,
the car must be very close, possibly in the main street already.
The card had been swiped, the electronic message was being sent,
and he only had a few more minutes to complete the task. She
confirmed the booking with a click of the mouse. “And you appear to
have an email.”

David nearly pushed the woman from her seat to avoid her
opening his reply which had luckily minimised itself to the bottom
of her screen as she had been booking his flight.

“Do you mind? It’s a bit private.” He read the email before
writing down the activation code on a scrap of paper and deleting
it.

Back at the empty desk where the website sat, still open, he
keyed in the code. Now he could start the search. He knew where to
head for but could not remember the precise name. The mobile phone
in his pocket vibrated. Glancing at the screen as he instinctively
put the phone to his ear, David could see that Katherine had been
meticulous as always and could see her name on the screen. He
answered, in the expectation the phone was being eavesdropped or
the call recorded.

Katherine spoke. “You said you wouldn’t pick up. Where are
you? Are you OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just stay where you are. Don’t say anything
on this line that could give away where you are. I’m just sorting
something out and it's taking a bit longer than I thought. I’ll be
another ten minutes. Keep the windows shut, lock the doors and if
anyone approaches just pull away casually and drive round for a
bit. If you’re not where I left you when I get back, I’ll give you
a call. Love you. Bye.”

David had a vague recollection someone he had been at school
with had moved to New Zealand. He remembered seeing it on the
website but he had not looked at it for at least six months and his
memory was hazy. He clicked into 1980 and began scrolling through
familiar names, trying to recall which one had jumped out at him as
someone else who had decided to make their life on the other side
of the world.

It had to be someone who had been clever at school. The names
of the intellectually gifted in his year ran through his mind as he
scrolled through page after page of people he had spent nearly
every day with for ten years of his life and who were now just
memories. There was a computer engineer who now lived in Seattle,
an architect in Hong Kong.

A mild panic swept over him as he ran out of possible names.
Then, 'Hi everyone – remember me? Left school, went to Bristol Uni
& studied animal pharmacy, then travelled for a bit, ending up
in New Zealand.' This looked like the one. 'Married a Kiwi, now
living on Waiheke Island NZ and a practising vet. Look forward to
hearing from anyone who remembers me.'

This was him! David clicked on.

Send a message to your school mate.

What could he possibly write in an email to someone he had not
seen or spoken to for over twenty years? Would he even begin to
explain the events of the last few days and the fact that actually
he was in trouble and needed somewhere to stay? He decided the best
course, especially in such a publicly accessible place as a travel
agent’s business computer, was to make innocent contact, inviting
him to make the next move, and hope for the best.

He typed, 'Hi Ed – Dave Turner here. Remember me? Married now
and just emigrating to NZ. Already here, in fact. Just remembered
seeing you on this website so thought about meeting up for a few
beers so you can fill me in on how to survive here. Email back if
you’re interested, Cheers.'

It sounded overly-friendly considering there had been no
contact between them for so long, but this was a school reunion
site. If Ed had wanted to remain anonymous, he would not have
signed up to it.

David clicked
send
then spent a few seconds deleting the history,
ensuring no one would be able to uncover his trail. He got up to
leave. “Thanks for all your help.”

“Not a problem, you’re welcome. Enjoy the
rest of your stay.”

Hopefully he had left enough of an impression that they would
be able to give a good description of his intended
movements.

David walked back to where he had left Katherine. He looked
around for their car but in its place there was now a glaring
space. He expected to spot the familiar dark blue of the roof, but
the car park was almost empty.

As he reached for his phone, it made an unfamiliar sound. It
was a text message.

Im on the mn rd cu ther

David ran, retracing his steps back to the main road where,
looking left, he saw Katherine on the opposite side of the road,
driving towards him. He crossed in front and waited for the car to
draw level. It stopped slowly and he got in.

“What happened?”

“A police car came into the car park. I panicked and drove
out, went up the street to the roundabout, pulled over, texted you,
then went round and came back.”

“Did it follow you?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why would it?”

“Well, why panic, then?” There was an uncomfortable few
seconds of silence which David broke. “Anyway, we’re facing the
right direction, so let’s go.”

“North?”

‘Yes, I’ll explain as we go. Just don’t go breaking any speed
limits or anything. We don’t want to risk attracting the police
again.”

They drove out of town, retracing their earlier route. David
explained how he had hopefully made contact with an old school
friend who now lived at a place called Waiheke Island which was
near Auckland. They had to drive back and catch a ferry to the
island, and then ....

“Then what exactly? Let’s just take stock for a moment, shall
we, because this is getting more bizarre by the minute. Here we are
driving around New Zealand because you think we are being followed
by someone who wants that bloody credit card which was supposedly
planted on you to smuggle into the country.”

David put this sudden unexpected outburst down the fact that
Katherine had barely slept in the past forty-eight
hours.

She continued, “So why don’t we just go to the nearest police
station like I already said, walk in, hand over the card, tell them
the story so far which they probably know anyway because they will
have already been emailed a bloody great wanted poster with your
passport photo on, and then ask to see someone from the British
Embassy?”

She had a very good point. All David could see was the tangled
conspiracy and drama of his situation, confused and clouded as his
mind was by having had even less sleep than his wife.

Chapter 7

The town was twenty-five minutes behind them. For much of that
time the highway had cut through a large forest, not natural
forest, a man–made one of tall, identical pine trees. The road
undulated gently, laid in a perfectly straight line as far as they
could see. Trees bordered either side behind a small wire
fence.

In his severely sleep–deprived state, David found it difficult
concentrating on the monotonous, unswerving road. He thought for a
moment before discounting as ridiculous that this particular road
suggested the Romans may have colonised these islands long before
the Maori.

The car swept past countless rows of perfectly planted trees.
Each one had been planted many years before, exactly evenly spaced,
row upon row, hundreds of thousands of identical trees. This was
not a forest; it was a crop, a slow growing one, but clearly a
harvestable resource.

As he drove, Katherine asleep next to him, David reached
across for the glove compartment. Carefully steering one–handed, he
again read from the neatly typed sheet how America was supposedly
covertly investing millions of dollars in alternative energy using
trees and cows. Suddenly he brought the car to a stop. The engine
whined as he reversed a short distance back down the deserted
road.