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The drawers in Nadine’s desk are locked, and so are all the filing cabinets. I’m not going to find anything else here.
I pick up her rubbish bin and take it over to the cart. As I tip the plastic sandwich container, broken pencil, and other insignificant items into the black plastic bag, I spot an unopened envelope.
I take it out of the bin. It feels as if there’s a card inside. A Christmas card? The front is addressed to Mack Hart, c/o Koru Technology, and it lists the Auckland address. The postmark reveals it was posted in Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s unopened. Presumably Nadine threw this away as it’s in her bin. Why didn’t she give it to Mack?
I hesitate. My stomach twists. I close my eyes for a moment, turning the card over in my hands. She threw this away for a reason. This isn’t just spying—this is snooping and invading his privacy. I’ve never hated myself as much as I do now. But I don’t have any choice.
Opening my eyes, I turn the envelope over, slide a finger beneath the flap, tear it open, and remove the card.
The front says, ‘Happy Birthday’. It has a picture of a dog wearing a tartan scarf. It looks like the kind of card you buy off a rack in a petrol station for someone you don’t really care about.
I open it up. The card bears only two handwritten words: From Iona. There’s no kiss at the bottom.
Iona—I know that’s the name of an island in the Inner Hebrides in Scotland. And I also know the name Mack is of Scottish origin. So is Iona a relative of his?
Sister? Aunt? Mother? Grandmother? Ex-wife?
If so, why didn’t Nadine give him the card?
I feel a stab of guilt, followed swiftly by a wave of nausea. This is awful. I’m intruding into this man’s private life in the worst way possible. This isn’t why I came here.
Furious with myself, I stuff the card and the envelope in the black bag on my cart along with all the other rubbish.
With twenty minutes to go, I finally push open the door at the end, next to the neat nameplate that declares the office belongs to ‘Dr. Mack Hart, Chairman and CEO, Koru Technology.’
Not surprisingly it’s the largest office in this section. As I walk in, I can smell the faint, pleasant scent of his aftershave.
Situated in the corner of the building, the windows on two sides look out onto the lawns. On one side, unusually for an office, is a set of sliding glass doors that lead out onto a fenced deck, nice and private, with a smart outdoor table and chairs where I’m guessing he works on nice days, or maybe takes visitors to chat over coffee. I have the sudden, irrational thought that maybe he sunbathes there nude in the summer. Hurriedly, I turn my attention back to the inside.
The carpets here are light gray, and the walls are eggshell white. Two big paintings hang on one wall—one is a painted portrait of a Maori warrior with ata mokoor traditional full-face tattoo. Another is a contemporary piece signed by someone called Ra Wihongi that blends Maori symbols with what I realize when I move back to look at it from a distance is actually a computer motherboard—that’s clever. I bet he commissioned this and the other paintings in the lobby.
At the end of the room, I nearly miss a door that’s cleverly set into the decor so it looks like part of a bookcase. Tentatively, I try the handle, and I’m surprised to find it open. I go inside cautiously. Wow—it’s a whole separate apartment that’s bigger than the house I live in. It contains a bedroom with a king-size bed, a sofa and a TV, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a gym with a treadmill, an exercise bike, a rowing machine, and weights. Going into the bedroom, I open the wardrobe and find half a dozen suits, neatly folded shirts, a selection of ties, and a few pairs of what look like handmade leather shoes, as well as tees and shorts, and running shoes. The bathroom smells of his body spray. I can’t imagine he lives here all the time, surely? Dodie says he often works very late; maybe then he just crashes here to save going home.
It’s one thing to poke around someone’s office, and another to invade their private living space. Dodie didn’t say anything about cleaning here, so hastily I go out of the room and close the door behind me.
I cross the room to his desk, which is made of a pale wood with a charcoal-colored surface. I pick up a framed photo and study it. A young guy dressed in a vest, shorts, and running shoes beams at the camera, holding up a trophy in his right hand and a medal in his left. He’s a lot younger, maybe mid-teens, but it’s obviously Mack Hart. Next to him, an older Maori guy—his father?—stands with his arm around him, pride written all over his face. So, Mack’s a sprinter? Maybe that explains why he walks so fast.
It’s the only photo in the room. No pictures of a sweetheart or children. And nothing else to tell me anything about the man himself.
Behind the desk is a series of artsy shelves on different levels. They contain a variety of ornaments, including the trophy he’s holding in the photo. I can see the inscription on it now—‘1st place 100m 2010 Under 17 New Zealand Athletics Championships’. It’s quite a feat for a young kid.
How did he end up here?
Conscious that time is running out, I scan the rest of the ornaments. Most of them are pieces of technology, some of which I know—several motherboards, video cards, a RAM stick—other bits I don’t recognize, maybe parts he or his company have invented, displayed on wooden stands, highly polished and gleaming. I pull out my phone and take photos of them, but I presume they must be outdated and defunct, and can’t imagine they’re going to be of any use.
With growing frustration, I try all the drawers in his desk, but I already know they’re going to be locked. There are no filing cabinets in here. The glass table by the window bears only a small vase of fresh flowers. There’s no computer on the table, and I remember that he was carrying a laptop case.
Defeated, I quickly polish the desk and the photo in its frame. Then I pick up the bins tucked next to the desk—one for recycling, one for general rubbish.
Feeling about an inch high, I go through the contents of the general bin. There are two banana skins, an apple core, two KitKat wrappers—the four-fingered ones, not the two-fingered—the packaging from two boxes of sandwiches, and an empty chip packet. And presumably he attended the business lunch as well. Jesus, how much does this guy eat?
The recycling bin contains three empty water bottles and a few pieces of white cardboard without anything written on it. There are a couple of torn sheets of A4 bearing a typical guy’s handwriting—angular, untidy, written fast as if his hand couldn’t keep up with his brain. Most of it looks nonsense—doodles of clouds filled with strange words like ‘petaflops barrier’ and ‘LINPACK benchmark,’ nothing specific enough to be of use, I’m sure, considering they’re in the recycling bin. Still, I fit the pieces together as best I can and take photos of them.
There’s also a piece of card, torn into four pieces and then scrunched up for good measure. I retrieve the pieces, lay them on the table, and push them together. At the top is a logo in the shape of a koru—the spiral shape of the curled-up silver fern that is an important Maori symbol. It’s from the Royal Society Te Aparangi—I think it’s a society that promotes research into science and technology. It states that Dr. Mack Hart has been nominated for the MacDiarmid Award, and it invites him to attend the Research Honours Awards Ceremony on January sixth.
Interesting. Why has he ripped up the invitation and thrown it away?
Unable to solve the puzzle, I take a photograph of it, then put the pieces in the black bag. There’s nothing else of interest here. I pull up the few photos I’ve taken, hesitate for a second, then grit my teeth and send them.
