The authorities were alerted when another member of the group hiked out of the reserve and flagged down a motorist to raise the alarm.
Police are also investigating the theft of a motorcycle from a neighbouring farm, and it is believed Jackson may have used the vehicle to travel out of the area.
Checkpoints are in place on State Highway 6, and a police helicopter has been deployed as part of the search.
Jackson is 170cm tall, of medium build and has braided hair. Members of the public have been asked not to approach Jackson but to call 111 immediately if they see her.
Police are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident.
Access to Hendrick’s Forest is currently prohibited by the Department of Conservation. Any unauthorised person entering the area could face a penalty of up to $30,000.
Chapter 58
Miles
Miles is travelling backwards at speed, staring at the rapidly changing scenery outside: fields and hedgerows and cattle give way to warehouses and factories and car parks. Polly sits to his right, and George and Reubyn are opposite. They occupy a table on a train to South Wales, all dressed conspicuously in black suits – their funeral attire. Today will be a dreadfully sad occasion, but it promises to bring with it closure. And it’s been a long time coming. It’s taken nearly three months for Elis’s body to be repatriated from New Zealand – time for healing of wounds both mental and physical.
For the physical wounds, the process was relatively straightforward. Miles had some minor surgery before leaving New Zealand and has now regained full mobility in his right shoulder. The medics assessing him informed him that he’d been lucky. The bullet had embedded itself in his pectoralis minor, the muscle where the chest meets the shoulder. Despite the intense pain he felt, there was no damage to arteries or bones.
Three months is also plenty of time, it turns out, for the media to lose interest in his life. After a brief frenzy when they returned home, the reporters stopped caring once it became obvious that he wasn’tgoing to be giving interviews. His lawyers were right: a couple of weeks is a long time in the world of news. There are now plenty of other shiny new scandals to keep journalists occupied. The media has also been put on notice that reporters are not welcome at Elis’s funeral, and their attendance would be an unreasonable intrusion into grief. With the clamour for stories having ebbed away, there’s no reason to think any reporters will turn up and cause any trouble today.
As the media spotlight on him dimmed, Miles found the internet trolls began to leave him alone as well. After a couple of weeks, during which he barely left the house, things rapidly started to improve. Miles started going whole days without receiving abuse or pestering of any kind. He began to venture outside, starting with the odd walk to the shops or a drive across town to visit a friend, and then, before long, he was behaving in a similar way to how he did before his arrest. Life is approaching something close to normal.
It was on one of his small excursions about two weeks ago when he last heard from Lewin. Miles was sitting in a cafe, reading a job advert on his phone, when the screen showed an incoming call. Hearing from the cops didn’t make him flinch like it used to; Lewin had kept in regular contact, continuing to provide updates on what became a complex investigation involving multiple police forces. He accepted the call. ‘Hello.’
‘Hi Miles, is now a good time to talk?’
He looked around to see if anyone was listening. Most of the customers scattered about the place were engrossed in their own conversations, but one or two were not. ‘Can you give me five minutes?’
‘Sure. I’ll call you back in five.’
Miles grabbed his stuff and set off towards a nearby park. On the way, his mind skipped ahead, dreaming up possible reasons for Lewin’s call. Most probably it would be about Faith, who was still missing, presumably somewhere in New Zealand. The police hadkept him fairly well informed on that matter, always notifying him of developments before they released details to the public.
As it turned out, when the police had arrived in the forest on the day Miles was shot, they already had a warrant out for Faith’s arrest. By that point they had noticed that her name, which they recognised as a minor beneficiary in Caira’s will, had been on the passenger manifest for a flight to New Zealand just one day before Miles was due to travel. From there, police soon figured out that it was she who had authored the threatening emails.
The last major update Miles had received on Faith’s movements was when the bike she’d stolen was found abandoned on the outskirts of a village about ten miles away from Hendrick’s Forest. What Faith had done when she got there remained a mystery. New Zealand’s West Coast is so remote, it’s simultaneously one of the easiest and most difficult places to disappear into. There are no crowds to get lost in, but there are hundreds of miles of wild and empty landscapes where you might not encounter another human for weeks at a time. Could Faith still be there? Hiding in the wilderness? Or could she have escaped the region and blended in elsewhere? Maybe she’d escaped the country entirely. Or maybe, just maybe, Lewin was calling to let him know they’d finally found her.
Miles arrived at the park and sat on a bench to wait for Lewin’s call. It was a mild, overcast day, and a father and son, with near-identical floppy blond hair, were playing football about fifty yards away. Jumpers for goalposts. A minute later, Miles’s phone rang.
Miles answered immediately. ‘Hi, again.’
‘Hello. If you’re ready, I’ve got an update for you.’
‘You’ve found her?’
‘No, it’s not about Faith.’
‘So, it’s about Caira? You’ve had a breakthrough?’
‘No, no. It’s nothing major like that.’
‘Right, okay.’ Miles tried to hide the disappointment in his voice. A shriek caused him to turn his head, and he saw the little boy wheeling away in celebration at scoring a goal.
‘Anyway, New Zealand Police have provided us with some answers to a couple of your questions. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. As I’m sure you can appreciate, a lot of resources have been tied up by—’
‘Yeah, I totally understand,’ Miles says. ‘Honestly, it’s fine.’
A pause on the line. ‘Good. Thank you. Now, let’s start with the man you pursued in Queenstown, the chap you sent me the photograph of.’
