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cops and how they only seemed to be looking for
wagons and that maybe Gith was wrong. Was I dumb to
believe her when nobody else seemed to? If I didn't know
Gith at all and I had to choose between her story and Mavis
Blake's, who would I believe? The problem was, I did know
Gith. I knew her better than anyone, and if I couldn't stick up
for her, what the hell was she going to do?
    I started making a mental list of the white vans I knew.
Bill Piata, the local plumber had one, and so did the sparky,
Trevor Bittington. Trevor's was a Mitsubishi, too. Then there
was Julian and Susie Smeele, who ran Bank Antiques. And
the local rugby club, except that one had seats in it — more of
a bus than a van. I could think of one or two farmers as well,
although, as the Old Man had said, it would be a useless type
of vehicle on most farms.
    I parked Faye's Honda in the yard. It had some mud
splashes down the side so I washed it down. Then I went
into the shop to call her and tell it was ready. Gith was still
working on Monty's ute.
    The names of van owners kept going round in my head.
I grabbed a pen and a pad and sat down in the back room
to make a list. There were ten names on it when I finished. I
stared at it for a while. What the hell was I going to do with
it? There was no real reason to think that any of these blokes
had got Anneke. Also, there would be vans in the district that
I didn't know about. Like if you worked in Katawai, the next
town south, you wouldn't bother much with our place either
for your gas or your repairs. And Gith hadn't really known the
driver so maybe he wasn't a local anyway. How many white
vans were there in Katawai or Basingstoke or Tapanahu? I felt
a bit dumb and hopeless. What was I going to do? Start my
own bloody investigation?
    I screwed the paper into a ball and went to throw it into
the rubbish bin. Something stopped me. Instead, I smoothed
it out again and pinned it on the corkboard near the back
room door.
    ***
    I MET TWO important people in my time at polytech. The
first was Steve Winston. The second was Michelle.
    Steve was the son of a local garage owner and car dealer.
He was training himself up to join the family business but
what he really cared about was saloon car racing. We quickly
became good mates. I'm not sure why, except that we were
even madder about cars than most of the other jokers in the
course, and plus — surprise, surprise — I turned out to have
the makings of a good mechanic. I don't know if it was all
that fiddling about I'd done with the Austin but I pretty soon
found I was near the top of the class. For the first time in my
life.
    At the end of the first year Steve and I started working
our apprenticeships for Steve's dad and hatching plans for
our big venture. We got hold of a V8 and tuned it up, took it
out to Manfeild for some practice circuits and then into a few
production model races. Steve turned out to be a bloody good
driver and he won more than he lost, despite the fact that
no way did we have the best car. Next thing was, he tackled
his old man, talked him into being our sponsor, and Team
Winston was born. We had more money now, and more time,
because we were getting paid to work on the racing machine.
Steve's dad hired a top-notch mechanic to work with us and
pretty soon we were winning some of the first-grade races.
Everybody was happy. The company was getting promotion.
Steve and I were doing what we liked best and we were
learning heaps.
    It amazes me now that Michelle and I ever got together.
    Right from the start it was clear that we went about things in
totally different ways. Michelle was into money and success
— wanted to own a business with some style. She was doing
a hairdressing course but the last thing she wanted was to be
a hairdresser for the rest of her life. She was going to own
a salon, a chain of salons. She was going to make a million
dollars. That's what she said anyway.
    I think there were two reasons we went for one another.
The first