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Vaughan spread his hands in a silent indication of his bemusement. Wiri responded with a shrug. Leilah fetched mugs, sugar and milk before settling at the table next to her husband. She produced a tissue from her sleeve and laid it in her lap as though expecting to need it.
Wiri breathed out a long breath and stared at them both. When neither spoke, he glanced at the digital clock on the oven behind Leilah and shook his head. “Okay, so what’s the deal. I’m guessing Hendricks had something on you.” He looked at Vaughan and tipped his head. He thought back to his arrival at the farm and his employer using a shotgun to emphasise his point. Vaughan pursed his lips, but Leilah interrupted. She rested her wrists on the table.
“This is so hard,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’ve lied to everyone.”
Vaughan’s brows shot into his black fringe and he screwed his head round to face his wife. Wiri spotted the bald patch in his hair and a jagged line of stitches, each one knotted individually. “What?” His voice held a hoarse quality, as though he didn’t want to hear her reply.
Leilah knotted her fingers and stared at a crumb next to the teapot. “Mari’s cafe is failing,” she began. “She couldn’t make the rent two months in a row.” She sighed. “None of this would have happened if she’d just borrowed the money from me. I might have helped her turn things around.”
Vaughan snorted, the sound jarring and unexpected. “Her cafe is going under because her coffee has sucked for the last thirty years. Times are hard and the ambiance of Ted’s sweat and burnt milk can’t cut it anymore.” The comment drew a glare from his wife.
“It’s failing because Hendricks was her landlord. He made four rent rises in the last year and she started ploughing her profit into his pockets.”
“Since when?” Vaughan drew backwards and winced. His right arm moved to protect his stomach again. “Dan Clough owns all those buildings in the middle of town.”
Leilah shook her head. “Not anymore. Hendricks bought the lot in a private sale. He didn’t want to earthquake proof the buildings. The regional council gave him permission to raze them to the ground.”
Vaughan gaped at her. “But that’s our town centre.” A reverential whisper displayed his shock at the travesty. “It’s been like that forever.”
Leilah shrugged. “Hendricks wanted Mari to leave, but he didn’t want to give her notice. He’s done the same to the florist and the hairdresser. Like you said, things have been that way for our lifetime and before that. He didn’t want to take responsibility for kicking them out and then building an ugly mall. The development focused on drawing people from Hamilton to shop.”
“The developers are from Hamilton?”
“Yes.” Leilah nodded. “They didn’t want any trouble with local people. Protests and public meetings might damage their brand. Mari overheard Hendricks talking to a surveyor a few weeks ago.”
Wiri waved his hand as though requesting permission to speak. “How does this relate to Hendricks trying to kill me?”
“I don’t know,” Leilah sighed. “But it’s complicated. Mari wouldn’t borrow from me, but she took Ted’s money.”
“Ted doesn’t have any money!” Vaughan snorted. “He lost all the profit from the sale of his business in the last financial crisis. Or was it the one before that?” He frowned as he searched his memory for facts, deciding halfway through that he didn’t care. “Where would he get what she needed?” He blinked at his wife and groaned. “Oh Lei! You gave Ted the money to bail her out, didn’t you?”
“No.” Leilah ran a hand over her face. “Believe me when I say that would have been simpler. Ted went to someone else for a loan. He told Mari he had savings, and she paid her rent.”
“I wonder who Ted borrowed from.” Vaughan leaned closer, his gaze boring into the side of her cheek.
Leilah pursed her lips. “I should have made her take it from me.”
“Does Mari know?” Vaughan reached beneath the table, and Leilah pursed her lips as he took her hand.
“She does now.” Leilah sighed. “I told her when she popped up here to see Seline. She’s devastated he got into debt for her. He just wanted her to like him.”
“How did you find out Ted borrowed it?” Vaughan gripped his stomach, glancing across at his wife to see if she’d noticed.
Leilah sighed. “Mari told me he’d lent it to her. He lives in a house with holes in the roof and survives on what she feeds him in the cafe. It didn’t sit right, so I visited him and asked if he was interested in investing in the farm.”
“My farm?” Vaughan’s irises flashed. “Ted?”
Leilah shook her head. “I wasn’t serious. He got upset and admitted he’d borrowed the money for Mari. At first, he wouldn’t tell me who lent it, but I saw his fear. He wanted me to promise not to tell Mari, but she deserved the truth. She needed to understand what he’d done for her.”
“I think I know where he got the cash.” Wiri sat back in his chair and shook his head. “Hendricks inferred he needed to pay for something. He said he had one more day before he’d tell Ted’s lady-love.”
The heightened colour drained from Leilah’s cheeks. Wiri’s question had the opposite effect on Vaughan, raising a heady flush which bloomed up his neck and consumed his Adam’s apple. “You think Ted borrowed from Hendricks so that Mari could pay Hendricks?”
Wiri nodded, not enjoying the discomfort radiating from Vaughan’s side of the table.
“It gets worse.” Leilah spoke from behind her fingers as though it might take the sting from her words. “Ted told me everything when I pressed him. He’s exhausted with the weight of the debt and feeling blackmailed. So, I offered Hendricks the money to pay the debt, and he refused. He said Ted borrowed it and Ted needed to pay him.” When she dropped her hand, her lips twisted into a grimace.
Vaughan exhaled. He shook his head. “You should have told me,” he growled. “We’re meant to be in this together.”
Wiri stared at him from across the table. When Vaughan caught his eye, he tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Vaughan snapped.
Wiri tutted and turned to Leilah. “The first time I met Hendricks, he piled through your door face first with a shotgun hot on his heels.”
“He what?” Leilah’s expression clouded, morphing from distress to shock. She rounded on Vaughan, causing the teapot to shudder against her jolting of the table. Liquid trickled down the spout and pooled beneath the trim. “What did you do?” Her tone held the hint of a wail. The fingers of her right hand fluttered up to touch her left shoulder, and Wiri frowned. He’d seen the movement before and recognised the remnant of a remembered trauma.
“I didn’t shoot him!” Vaughan glared at Wiri, his tone brimming with indignation. He exhaled, and a weight pressed his body lower as he curled in on himself. “Mari isn’t the only one going under.” His lashes fluttered closed to shutter his eyes and shelter his agony from view. “I’ve maxed out all my credit cards and used everything I had to keep this place afloat. I went to the bank for a loan last year and they turned me down flat. Hendricks worked for the farm management company who underwrites the loans and he saw the paperwork.” Vaughan turned to face Leilah. “It’s the reason I wouldn’t let you invest. I couldn’t take your money knowing it would go into a never-ending pit of credit.”
“Oh, Vaughan.” Leilah groaned and reached out to touch his wrist. “And why you didn’t file the paperwork for our marriage.” She sighed. “You didn’t want anyone coming after my divorce settlement.”
Vaughan started, jerking backwards and then wincing. “You know about that?”
Leilah rolled her eyes. “Yes. I found it last week. You need better hiding places.”
The hardness of Vaughan’s jaw relaxed enough to offer her a hangdog smile. “I wanted to marry you and I intended to post it, but I didn’t want to take you down with me financially. When it came to it, I couldn’t do that to you.” He looked around him at the peeling wallpaper and soot-stained fireplace. “I stopped you renovating this place because I need to sell it. Soon.” He exhaled and resignation caused the black cloud which shrouded him to become more transparent. “Please don’t tell Mari. She doesn’t need any more excuses to heckle me.” He ran his palm across the table, pausing to touch the dents which represented a legacy of age. “Whoever inherits Hendrick’s estate will need to recover my debt. His death doesn’t make it easier. It means they’ll still come, but it’ll be through the courts.”
“You signed an agreement?” Wiri cocked his head. “A legal document?”
“Yep.” Vaughan nodded. He lifted his hand to pre-empt Wiri’s next question. “No, I couldn’t afford a lawyer to look over it. I just had to risk it.”
“Fair enough.” Wiri sighed. “Let me have a copy, anyway. I know someone who can look at it for you. If there’s a loophole, she’ll find it.”
“Who do you know?” The strain played in a shadow across Leilah’s expression. She spoke for speaking sake and to give her husband a moment to collect himself into a semblance of control.
Wiri licked his lips. “Judge Eliza Du Rose is my uncle’s sister.”
He heard himself say Liza’s name and realised he’d misjudged her. In all his ducking and diving from the bad associations with the Du Rose name, he’d rejected the notable connotations. His reluctant spine straightened, and warmth flooded his stomach. He needed his family. “She’s badass,” he said with pride. “I’ll ask her to look at it.”
“Thank you,” Leilah whispered. She glanced at her watch and Wiri saw the hour mirrored by the oven clock. “I wonder where Seline got to,” she murmured. “Mari was desperate to see her. Maybe she went to the cafe and helped her to close for the night.”
Vaughan fixed his glance on the teapot and said nothing. Wiri sensed him tense even before his formidable biceps flexed beneath his tee shirt. He imagined Seline stacking crates of vegetables in the chiller and pursed his lips to avoid commenting. The image jarred with what he already knew about the woman and he deemed it unlikely she’d help anyone without recompense.
Vaughan blinked before turning to his wife. “Why would Hendricks bash me over the head and shut the hatch on Wiremu?” he asked her. “It’s too complicated. I bust my stitches and was already face down in the dirt. If he wanted this place, why wipe me out and force it to go through probate after my death?” He drew his lips into a thin line. “If we tell Tane all this, he’ll arrest us both.”
Leilah tutted. “He won’t.”
Wiri exhaled through his nose. “Is it possible he wanted to sabotage your business?” He directed his question to Vaughan. “Maybe the intention wasn’t to kill you, but to make you unable to work. Wouldn’t that force you to face bankruptcy earlier if you couldn’t limp along like you were?”
Vaughan winced. “Yeah, true. And shutting you in the tank would cause enough disruption for the emergency services to attend.”
“Which automatically flags an incident for the Health and Safety department to get involved.” Leilah shook her head. “It makes sense if Hendricks wanted his pound of flesh.”
“We need to keep this between ourselves.” Wiri raised his hand to quell Leilah’s gasp of protest. “If we tell the cops any of this, you’re both in the frame for killing Hendricks. You each have a powerful motive. It doesn’t matter how much of a friend Tane is, Vaughan’s right, he’ll have to arrest you.”
