Free The Lost Tohunga by David Hair Page A

didn’t mean nothing! Are you okay?’ He looked sincere, repentant.
    She nodded numbly, unsure now what it was she wanted to say.
    â€˜I still love you, baby,’ he said in that voice he always used to melt her heart. ‘I’ll be out tomorrow and we’ll make it all okay.’
    Suddenly a bizarre noise froze her. The tramp had got up and stalked to the front of his cell. A wave of putrid air washed the room as he began to ululate like an American Indian; slapping his mouth and whooping, his eyes locked on her. ‘It’s you!’ he shouted, his tones incredulous. ‘It’s you!’
    Everyone stared, and then Evan lunged through the bars from his cell, grasped the tramp’s jacket, and wrenched him face first into the bars. ‘Don’t look at her, you stinking ape!’ Evan bawled, his face centimetres from the tramp’s. The officers in the room converged, but the tramp’s face just split into a huge grin.
    â€˜She’s your woman?’ he asked, his eyes bulging. ‘Excellent!’
    Suddenly the room went black, then dazzlingly white, and black again, as though a massive strobe light was flashing on and off. Faces and expressions changed with each flash, but Hine’s gaze was fixed on the tramp and Evan. She saw the tramp exhale, and a cloud of shadows seemed to well like a serpent from his lips, and pour into Evan’s open mouth. Evan’s face went wide in sudden panic, and he tried to tear himself away, but the darkness kept flowing into him, and then he wasreeling away. She screamed and suddenly everything stopped and reverted to normal, the room reverberating to her cry.
    The tramp turned and looked at her, his expression vacant and lost. He fell against the bars, tried to grip, then toppled backwards. She screamed again as the officers leapt towards his cell. ‘It’s just a power fluctuation,’ PC Tamati told her, although his face looked haunted.
    Evan had fallen between Ronnie and Brutal, who peered down at him in bewilderment. Then he sat up, and looked straight at her. She saw darkness gather behind his eyes, felt that serpent baring fangs at her, and found herself trying to push her way backwards through the wall. ‘Nooo! Nooo! It’s in him, it’s in him! Don’t let him out! Evan! Evan! Noooo!’
    The Evan-thing began to laugh, blowing her kisses from where he sat on the floor. In the next cell the tramp convulsed, gurgling. Constable Richards took her in his huge arms and dragged her towards the door. The tramp went rigid with a rattling noise in his throat. Then Evan slowly turned his head, raised his finger and pointed at her. Right at her, right at the spot between her eyes, and he smacked his lips, just like the tramp had earlier.
    She swallowed a sob as PC Richards pulled her away.
    Â 
    When next she was aware, she was in a car outside Evan’s house. Her house. It was twilight. The dark was creeping through the city, street by street. PC Tamati Richards was driving; PC Robyn had her arms around her and was cuddling her like a mother. ‘Shhh, Hine, we’re here now. We’re going to go in and collect your things.’
    She let the cop hold her; she was frightened of being let go. ‘Did you see it?’ Hine whispered. ‘Did you see the snake? It went into his mouth!’
    She saw Tamati and Robyn glance at each other. ‘Easy, lass,’ said Tamati. ‘It’s a shock to see someone die, but you’re okay now.’
    â€˜But the lights flashed … and the snake, the snake …’
    â€˜There was no snake, Hine. There’s no snakes in New Zealand. It’s okay. We’ll get you in and out of here as soon as possible.’
    They had seen nothing. There hadn’t been anything. She was hallucinating. She was mad. And they seemed to be acting like she had said she would go to the refuge after all. I never said that … But the thought of being