it as if she was willing herself to believe it, then shivered, drained by emotion and exertion, and I said, “Well, never mind it for now. They’re not going to find you here. Come on. Let’s head in.”
“My bike,” she said, as we ran to the tunnel again. “My surfboard. I’d like to get them from the flat, but I can’t put them on your car without scratching it, and Dorian’s car isn’t much better. Can I get a lift with you, one day?”
“No worries,” I said. “I’ll get them for you when I fix your window glass. I’ll get that done last thing today, and bring the bike and surfboard back out with me, how’s that? Save the landlord coming by and noticing the window first. Otherwise, you could be out of that place before you’ve properly moved in.”
Which didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. I didn’t say that, though.
Five-thirty that afternoon, the end of another busy day when I’d had too much to do and not enough bodies to do it. Normally, I’d have stayed to do the next day’s planning, but there was that visit from the brother-surrogate.
I didn’t have to go, and I knew it. I’d go anyway. I’d put in some time on the laptop later tonight, but just now, I needed to fix Daisy’s window glass and collect her gear, then go home and be vetted by her friend.
The idea was pretty amusing. When you’re an All Black, let’s say that you don’t get much resistance as a potential mate. People think they know you, that’s why, and if they don’t like what they see? They know where you work, and so does the media. But mostly, it’s that you’re part of New Zealand’s most exclusive fraternity, and once you’ve run out onto the field in the black jersey, you’re an All Black forever. No man ever forgets his All Black number. It may as well be engraved on his heart. The public don’t forget, either, even seven years on.
Tonight, though? I’d go home, eat pizza, and subject myself to whatever this fella—and his wife, and his kids, and his dog—had to ask me. Those girls needed all the help they could get.
I was thinking it, and then I wasn’t, because I hauled my ladder out of the ute and went to set it at the base of the window, and Xena whined from the ute. And then she barked.
Just once, short and sharp. I hadn’t heard her bark yet, so it surprised me. I said, “Nah, girl. They’re not here,” and grabbed my tools and the sheet of glass, grateful that the window was framed in metal and this would be easy.
Xena barked again, the hair rose on my arms, and my skin prickled.
I froze.
What?
I looked up.
The deconstructed brown pasteboard carton I’d taped over the window was gone. The curtains were flapping in the wind, in the remnant of the storm that had passed through today.
I tried to think, Landlord’s been by and seen the broken window. Didn’t make sense, though. You’d never take off the pasteboard unless you were replacing the glass.
Fallen off, then.
I’d taped that pasteboard on there myself, though, and I knew how to make something secure.
I looked around.
There. Under the stairs, bits of duct tape flapping.
I got the ladder set, and I was up it fast. Below me, Xena kept barking through the half-open window, a startling volley of deep-throated, big-chested Labrador sound. I tumbled into the window the same way I had the previous day. Onto my palms, walking them forward, jumping my feet down, rising again. I did it faster this time, though.
I caught it from the corner of my eye as I came up. The door to the flat, standing open. And something else. The slam of a door, the resonance of boots on metal. Feet on the stairs.
I didn’t go down the ladder. Too slow. I went out the door.
The passage first, dimly lit, smelling of curry and onions and mold. The outer door. And at the end of the alley, a man in brown trousers and a white shirt, disappearing around the corner.
I all but slid down those stairs. Xena had her paws on the edge of the window and was barking her head off, and I ran past her, to the end of the alley, onto Princes Street. Looking left and right.
Cars, going too fast. Pedestrians on their way home or their way out. A group of uni students, laughing,