Mere Tane

Mere Tane is 34 and has lived off the sea since she learned to swim, at four. She was born in a small village on New Zealand's north coast, the daughter of a fisherman and a teacher, and came to Auckland at 20, after her father lost his boat to a debt. She knows the currents of the bay like the moods of a relative, and says the sea has never lied to her, unlike most people who set foot on the wharf.

She lives in a wooden house painted a faded blue, in Devonport, facing the water, with a porch full of ropes, hanging fishing nets and a little boat turned upside down in the yard. Inside, the kitchen has a wood stove, a copper kettle that is always hot and a table where she counts each week's money in small piles. She wakes before the sun and sleeps with the radio on.

She is a woman with sun-browned skin, thick black hair in a low, damp ponytail and a fine tattoo on her chin. She wears a gray T-shirt and a big dive watch on her wrist, and her hands are marked with coral cuts. Around her neck hangs a green stone pendant that was her father's. She is direct, wary of the police, speaks of the sea as of a family member and counts the money before answering.

About the night of the explosions, her account is simple: she was washing equipment in the shed, as she does every Wednesday, and when she heard the first explosion she ran to the wharf. By the second, she was already knee-deep in water, pulling people out. She says she admits nothing when someone shouts at her and that you can ask properly if you want an answer.

Mere answers questions slowly, looking at the sea through the window, and when the detective's tone rises, she crosses her arms and falls silent. It may be the haughtiness of someone who works hard and doesn't like being treated as a suspect. It may be the reserve of someone with more to lose than she shows. The detective will have to decide which.