Interviewer: Leading the inquiry into the disappearance of Ōtūmoetai housewife Tiffany Creighton is Detective Brian Pūriri of the Tauranga police. Good evening, Detective. Thank you for joining us. We understand this afternoon police reluctantly called a halt to the five-day ground search for Mrs Creighton?
Pūriri: Thank you, Paul. Together with New Zealand Land Search and Rescue, police and volunteers have conducted a thorough search of the routes we suspect Mrs Creighton may have walked on the night of her disappearance eight days ago. Making use of sophisticated mapping techniques and our knowledge of Mrs Creighton’s habits, police were also able to pinpoint other areas further afield; around bridges, in parks, and along a number of secluded walkways which exist in this part of the city. All of these have now been examined in some detail. To date, we have found no evidence of Mrs Creighton, and it is with regret that we have decided to conclude the search. We are extremely grateful to Search and Rescue and to members of the public who came forward and gave their time to assist us.
Interviewer: Ōtūmoetai is a suburb that includes a number of small bays, creeks and swamp marsh reserve areas, I believe. Could drowning have been a possibility?
Pūriri: It is something we have considered, although we understand from the family that Mrs Creighton was a competent swimmer. A team of divers have conducted an extensive search of local water channels with no sign of the missing woman.
Interviewer: Do you suspect foul play?
Pūriri: At this point, police are not ruling out the possibility of foul play.
Interviewer: Is there any evidence to suggest this? Traces of a struggle?
Pūriri: No.
Interviewer: Can we therefore assume Mrs Creighton’s assailant was someone known to her?
Pūriri: It’s possible, but as I say, we have no evidence to support that theory.
Interviewer: With so little evidence, is the inquiry over?
Pūriri: Not at all, Paul. Cases like this typically remain open until the missing person is found. While we have ceased the physical ground search, the investigation is still continuing. Currently, Tauranga officers are going door-to-door asking the community for information and requesting that people check their gardens and outbuildings for any sign of Mrs Creighton. We’ve already contacted over one hundred households, and we will continue to do this for some time yet. It’s surprising what an offhand observation or sometimes just a hunch might lead to. Anyone with information who hasn’t already come forward should contact Tauranga police.
Interviewer: And that number appears now at the bottom of your screens. Thank you for joining us, Detective. And in other news...
Dad clicks the remote to mute, then placing it on the table, he picks up his fork and finishes his pork chop. They moved the telly into the dining room a couple of nights ago. Mum would’ve had a conniption. She always insists mealtimes are family times for discussing the events of the day: telling stories, sorting out problems, dreaming up plans. Communing, she calls it. But since her disappearance, the only thing they’ve had to talk about is her disappearance, so rather than stare at each other gloomily, or listen to Aunty Mandy blether on and on about nothing of consequence, they’ve taken to watching the news over dinner.
‘Another chop, Phil? There’s one left in the pan.’
‘No, thanks, Mandy.’ A final blob of gravy plops onto his plate, leaving a prune-coloured smudge on the remains of Dad’s mash potato.
‘It’s no trouble,’ Aunty Mandy offers.
‘No, thank you. Really, I couldn’t eat another bite.’ To prove his point, Dad rubs his hands over his belly.
‘If you’re worried about it being too cold, I could warm it in the microwave...’
‘Mandy!’ Gran cuts in sharply. ‘If Phil says he’s had enough, then he’s had enough.’ Gran is over for dinner. Aunty Mandy had phoned and invited her earlier, and Dad, put on the spot, couldn’t come up with a decent reason to say no. Adam suspects Aunty Mandy’s probably regretting it now, too. She looks crestfallen, and Adam feels a bit sorry for her. She’s been trying hard to be helpful, and all they’ve done this last week is snap at her.
‘Um, I’ll have another chop, Aunty Mandy. If there’s one,’ Adam ventures. He throws in a half-pie hang-dog look. Appeased, Aunty Mandy whisks Adam’s plate off the table and comes back with the last pork chop and another dollop of mashed potato.
‘There you go, sweetheart.’ She sets the plate in front of him, her face flushing with triumph.
‘Thanks.’
Dad lays his cutlery tidily on his plate. Pulling at his ear, he says, ‘Look, I think we all need to start facing facts.’
Aunty Mandy lets out a shriek. ‘No! I won’t! It’s too soon! I won’t believe she’s dead.’ She drops her knife and fork onto the table with a clatter. Startled, Adam almost chokes on his mouthful of chop.
‘Mandy, please!’ Gran says. ‘Being melodramatic doesn’t help matters. We all want to believe Tiffany is still alive.’ Without missing a beat, Gran wallops Adam on the back with the flat of her hand. ‘All right, dear? Have a drink of water.’ She pushes Adam’s glass towards him. He takes a swallow.
‘Thanks.’
Dad breaks in again. ‘Of course, none of us are giving up on Tiff, Mandy. What I mean is, I think we need to face up to the fact that the police investigation is winding down.’
‘But they have to keep on looking! They have to!’ Aunty Mandy wails. In Adam’s stomach, pork chops and potatoes churn. He doesn’t like where this conversation is heading. It feels like someone’s about to force him off a high-diving board; he knows he’ll have to jump sometime, but he isn’t quite ready yet.
But Dad, unaware of the roiling in Adam’s gut, goes on, ‘Pūriri says the police are doing the best they can and I trust him. He’s a good guy. But we have to be realistic; they can’t allocate the kind of manpower we’ve seen indefinitely. Pūriri said it himself: they’ll finish the door-to-door enquiries and follow up any outstanding leads, but unless they see some tangible new development, that’ll be it.’
‘But they haven’t found her yet!’ sobs Aunty Mandy.
‘I know.’
The atmosphere is stretched thin, like a frayed bungee cord. Sighing heavily, Dad puts his elbows on the table and rests his face in his hands. Gran picks up a paper serviette and dabs at the corners of her mouth, waiting for him to go on. After a moment, Dad folds his arms across his chest, and Adam knows from experience that he’s getting to the point of his speech. ‘We just can’t mope around here waiting forever for news of Tiff. It’s not practical, it’s not even healthy, and I don’t think it’s what Tiffany would want us to do.’ Dad’s chest caves inward, shoulders sagging with the weight of his declaration.
‘What she’d want? What she’d want? She’d want us to go on looking. She’d want us to find her!’ Aunty Mandy rails hysterically. ‘For all we know, my sister could be still alive, buried in someone’s basement!’ She wrings her hands, her knuckles white.
‘Mandy, that is quite enough.’ Gran raps the table to make her point. ‘I won’t have you scaring Adam with that kind of talk. There is an official investigation underway, and that investigation is proceeding according to a set course of action. Everything that can be done is being done. Phil is not suggesting we give up. Not at all. None of us want that. We want Tiffany safe home with us. But at this point, sitting around waiting isn’t going to help her or any of us. We need to carry on as normal so there is something here for Tiffany to come home to.’ For a second, Dad sits like a chump, his mouth agape, clearly surprised to have found an ally in Gran.
‘That’s exactly right, Wynn. We need to get on.’
Adam balls his fists. No! It’s too soon. They shouldn’t be giving up yet. How can they turn their backs on Mum? Leave her lost in the forest with no trail of stones to follow?
But Adam has to admit that these have been the longest days of his life. Inside, his emotions have been swooping and diving—one moment frantic with fear, and the next nearly mad with frustration. And all the while, in the background, there’s the interminable tedium of waiting. He’s waited for news while flopped on the sofa, he’s waited while pacing the living room, and with one eye on the telly or the computer. And apart from Aunty Mandy’s continual chatter, his daily activities have been limited to catch-up calls from Wendy Gordon, occasional texts and emails from his mates, and brief episodes of meaningless small talk with the neighbours when delivering back their empty casserole dishes. Let’s face it: his life has been in hiatus. Maybe getting back to normal isn’t an admission that Mum isn’t coming home. Maybe it’s just a change from their current passive waiting to something else, something more positive.
‘I’ve got a business to run. I really should be getting back to the yard.’ Dad does his best to look assertive.
Suddenly, Mum’s voice is in Adam’s ear. Honestly, Adam, this is your last year. You really have to sort out your priorities and knuckle down, love.
‘I should probably get back to school. I’ve got exams.’ It’s a shock to hear himself say it out loud. Gran, not normally the demonstrative type, pats him on the shoulder.
‘Good lad. And I think it’s time for you to go home, Mandy.’ Gran’s voice is pillowy-soft.
‘But...’
‘Phil and Adam need to find their own way,’ Gran insists.
‘And I bet Peri misses you, Mandy,’ Dad adds in a rush. ‘He must want you to come home. Please, don’t think we’re not grateful. I honestly don’t know what we would’ve done without you.’ He forces a little chuckle. ‘Starved, probably. But we’ve tied you up long enough.’
Aunty Mandy’s lips quiver, but she manages not to cry again. ‘Well, Peri did say he’s getting a bit sick of pizza...’
‘There, you see?’
‘You’ll keep me posted though, in case anything happens?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And you’re sure you two boys can manage...?’
‘We’ll be calling you straight back if we can’t. Isn’t that right, Adam?’
Adam hopes his nod has the right mixture of assurance and pathos. Aunty Mandy starts collecting up the dishes, scraping the scraps all onto one plate.
‘I guess if I get a load of towels in the drier tonight, at least that’ll be the washing up-to-date. I’ve already put some dinners in the freezer; proper nutritious meals...’ She stops her scraping and shrugs. ‘Okay then, I’ll head home tomorrow. After I’ve seen Adam off to school.’
‘There’s my good girl,’ Gran says, as if Aunty Mandy were a toddler with a biscuit who, without any prompting, has remembered the magic word. In the background, the television flickers soundlessly.
Aunty Mandy sniffs. ‘Maybe Tiff will be home tomorrow, anyway.’
Gran’s smile is sad. ‘Let’s hope so, dear.’
I lie awake long into the night, thinking.
It’s been only days since Mum vanished. Not even two full weeks. Hardly any time, really. I’ve been away from Mum for longer: on school camps, on holiday with Kieran and his family, once when Mum and Dad went to Australia on a work conference for Dad, and that time Mum went to hospital and then, when she came out, to Aunty Mandy and Uncle Peri’s bach. But those times, I always knew I’d see her again.
This time, I don’t know. I’m hoping... it’s the not knowing that’s hard.
Sometimes I kid myself she’s just stepped out for a bit; that she’s at the shops, or over at Resthaven visiting Grandpa. When I’m up in my room listening to Aunty Mandy fluffing around in the kitchen opening and closing cupboards and clinking cups, it’s easy to pretend that it’s actually Mum downstairs and any moment she’ll call me down for dinner: the first time calling Adam, and when she gets a bit steamed, using my whole name.
Once this week I was scrolling through the channels filling in time, and I ended up watching this doco—it was about useful skills kids learn through computer gaming—and I was like: ‘Yeah! Can’t wait to tell Mum when she gets home.’ Realising I have no idea when that might be was like taking a sucker punch to the gut.
It’s not like I have to have Mum around all the time. We all grow up and move on. I’ll be eighteen in a few months, and I like to think I’m reasonably capable, although I admit in the past I used to make out I couldn’t do stuff. Turns out it’s a good tactic to get out of work. Later, when she cottoned on, Mum referred to this practice as ‘learned incompetence’. That’s when you demonstrate how useless you are at cleaning or ironing or some other chore until, totally exasperated with your crappy efforts, someone else comes along and does the job for you. I had it down to a fine art: I managed to con Mum into cleaning my grotty cross country trainers for a whole season! She used to make my bed for me, too. But my handiwork at the yard grooming cars knocked it on the head. Mum argued that if I could make a vehicle sparkle, then I could do the same with my stinky old trainers! She wasn’t peeved or anything. I think she knew all along that I was playing her. What can I say? Mum liked doing stuff for me. But there comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to take responsibility for themselves, and nowadays I’m independent: I drive myself around, cook basic meals and can load the washing machine if I have to. And uni was always part of the plan, so I would’ve been leaving home to go flatting in a few months anyway. I wouldn’t have seen Mum and Dad for ages, probably the entire first semester. It’s not cool to take your parents to university with you! In some ways, it’s a pity I’m not at uni already. That way I could be getting on with my life while imagining Mum is still here at home, waiting for me to come back.
And she would be the one missing me.