As I fought the pain in my arm, I hurried down the alleyway with the aim of making it to the nearby park where I could hole up and plan my escape across town. One Tree Hill is primarily parkland, and it’s closed to traffic at night making it safe from prying eyes in passing cars. Thank goodness the medication kicked in as I scurried across the busy road, or I don’t think I would have made it. The pain was still there, but it was bearable. I could breathe more easily again.
Bucolic is the word which springs to mind when describing the park on warm summer days. Acres of green grass where sheep graze among demarcated picnic areas for humans, where the citizens of Auckland and tourists enjoy walks and cycle ways. An oasis of nature in the suburban desert on sunny summer days. On a wet cold April evening it was miserable. Muddy and slippery underfoot, it was a place to hide — nothing more. I knew where I had to be and the time I had to be there, but how to get there from here? I hadn’t worked that out. I guess the baseball bat to my legs and the pain caused by the ends of bone grating across each other was affecting my thinking. Discombobulated. That’s the word.
I knew I had to get off the streets as quickly as possible. A tall, heavily built man walking alone on a busy street cradling his left arm in his right, is bound to draw attention. People are curious. They have long memories when properly incentivised. The police may have stopped looking for me, but I was dead certain Murray and the gang hadn’t. There are enough meth users in Auckland who would do anything to get a free spot from their dealers. Dealers who had been alerted to look out for me.
Pearl would have made the call. Any sane person would do the same, if only in the interests of self-protection and hopefully a wad of cash. She’d been in their sights since that night in my flat. She didn’t know how long she could hide behind Margaret McFarlane. She needed insurance — I was it.
In ten minutes, I had reached the park, clambered over a stone wall and crouched down behind it, my back propped against volcanic rock. It was a different world on this side of the wall. For one thing it had sheep. Lots of sheep. Sheep don’t like rain any more than the next mammal. Like me they had found the only shelter available — the lee side of the wall. I wedged myself between two big ones who swung their heads around nervously to inspect me for teeth and weapons. When no threat was detected, they went back to thinking whatever sheep think about, which I suspect is not that much. Me on the other hand. I had a lot to think about. The cold was making the pain worse and scenes of me dying pathetically from hypothermia flashed in front of my eyes. I’d had broken bones before. Rugby. I was younger then and I don’t remember the pain being as bad. I couldn’t believe how much it hurt when I eased my arm out of my makeshift sling, and tried to put it into the sleeve. I leant against the wall when I’d finished and almost cried.
It was then that a Peanuts cartoon came to mind. It always rains on the unloved. That’s me, I thought — unloved — alone — in pain — abandoned. The story of my life. Isn’t that the truth? Okay, I did cry. A tear did dribble down one cheek and plop on to Errol’s coat. One tear — no more. With both my arms in sleeves, I was able to wrap the trench tightly around me and as my body warmed up inside my Burberry cocoon, I tried to think.
Damn it, I should have smashed the fucking laptop. I’d wiped as much as I could, but not enough — not enough. Any techie worth their salt, could, given enough time, recover what I’d done. Acid, a hammer, spilt coffee, all or one of the above, would have worked. Instead, typical me, all I could think about was a blow job. Fucking Meg Ryan. I reckoned I had twelve hours, twenty-four max, before they found me. Focus. All I had to do was get to the ship. Leave the sheep, the park, the city, the country behind. That, I had planned. The ship was waiting for me. Arranged weeks ago, it was due to sail at high tide, eight-forty p.m. tonight. I checked the watch in my pocket — Pearl’s watch, the one her mother gave her for her 21st birthday. The one she left in her bathroom cupboard, with Happy 21st Love Mum engraved on the back. I’d nicked it when I was in the bathroom. Hey, I didn’t have a phone. Six-twenty-six p.m. I had two hours to get from the sheep to the ship. Less than that if you took in getting past security and customs. The port was ten kilometres away. In the good old days when I was younger and fitter, I could have jogged it in under an hour. In the good old days when I was wearing trainers and not office brogues, and a hoodie, not a trench coat. In the good old days when I didn’t have a fucking broken arm. No phone meant no Uber. Not that I’d trust them anyway. Taxi? They still existed, but I had no money. Luckily the bus card was in one of the pockets and it still had money on it.
Climbing over the wall back to the pavement was difficult. There being a longer drop on the street side. I almost broke a tooth I was clenching my jaw so hard. Once I was over I lifted my left arm carefully with my right and tucked my hand into the pocket. Not as secure as the sling, but less obvious, and it would have to do. There was a bus stop at the end of the road. I headed for that, taking care to walk as normally as possible cursing Pearl and her self-defence fucking classes every time my left leg bore my weight and jarred the bone ends. A bus pulled up, but it was too far away. Passengers got off and it swooped into the rain before I could reach it. Just as well. Because that was when I saw the car parked behind where the bus had just been. A sedan, dark with two men sitting inside, smoking — waiting — watching. I carried on walking. The crowd of passengers who’d got off the bus came towards me, encircled me and without missing a step, I turned one-eighty and walked with them, taking comfort in the safety of numbers. The only problem — I was walking away from the port — away from the safety of the departing ship.