Cry of the Taniwha
Ohinemutu, 9 June 1886
Jack Boult stood at the back of the group of twenty or so who were gazing so intensely into the night sky. He was more interested in watching people than the astronomical event that played overhead. However, every now and then, he couldn’t help but glance up to check what was happening. The moon along with the planets Mars and Jupiter were clustered together, forming a group of colourful jewels against the backdrop of countless stars. He had to admit that it was quite a sight, and he could understand why everyone wanted to witness it. The remarkable thing was that you could actually see that they were moving. The moon was slowly getting closer to Mars, and already Jack could see that eventually they would meet.
‘Two occultations of planets in the same night is most unusual,’ said Mary Basham, the woman who had convinced them all to come out of the hotel to view the event.
‘Will Mars totally disappear?’ someone asked.
Mary Basham gave a little chuckle. ‘Yes, but not for long. It will seem to turn off its light as it passes behind the dark part of the moon. Then a few minutes later it will reappear on the other side.’
‘What about Jupiter?’ Jack asked. ‘Will it disappear for longer?’
‘Yes,’ Mary replied brightly. ‘However we won’t see it.
The moon will have set before it happens. You’d have to be in South America to see that.’
There was a chorus of disappointed noises, which Jack joined, although he didn’t care whether he saw it or not. He’d asked the question to make sure that the others remembered he was there. The only heavenly activity that interested him was the phase of the moon. In his line of work it was important to know when the moon would be glowing brightly, and when the moon would be absent. Tonight it was a first-quarter moon, which gave enough moonlight for the group to make their way safely up the hill, and yet not enough to see each other clearly—just right for what Jack had in mind.
As Mars and the moon drew together, he slipped away from the group and made his way down to the hotel. The village of Ohinemutu was little more than a collection of black shapes with lamplight shining from a few windows. Behind the buildings, moonlit steam could be seen rising from the hot pools and vents on the shores of Lake Rotorua. To Jack it seemed like there was more activity than before, but that could be due to the coldness of the night, which was already hinting at a frost before morning. Jack smiled at his luck. The cold would have everybody nicely snuggled up in their beds—including, he hoped, those two nosey local policemen.
He chose to enter the hotel through a side entrance, and immediately headed for a lavatory. If anyone had seen him come in, they would assume he had come back to relieve himself. He sat on the pan, listening to the noises of the large wooden building. There was a creak every so often, but that was just the timbers settling into place for the night. There
were no sounds that would indicate anyone in the bedrooms above. The only human activity he could hear was the clanging of pots in the kitchen as the staff cleaned up after dinner.
The stairs groaned as he climbed up to the bedrooms. The long hallway had bedrooms and bathrooms on both sides. Jack knew exactly who slept in each of the rooms. He’d been planning this job for four days now: four days of small talk, sightseeing, and stupid parlour games. But also four days of watching, waiting and scheming, until he knew exactly which of his fellow tourists had anything worth stealing. There were only three possible victims, but he expected they would provide more than enough to make his visit to Rotorua worthwhile.
The first room was opposite his own. He tried the handle just in case someone had forgotten to lock it. They hadn’t, but twenty seconds with his special tools and he was in the room, locking the door behind. As expected, the maid had already been around lighting the lamps, so there was no difficulty in finding the luggage under the bed. The strongbox was tucked away under some dirty clothes. Unlocking it took less time than unlocking the door had. Jack had been hoping to find it crammed full of gold coins and five-pound notes, but there were no notes and only a few gold coins. Nevertheless, he scooped them up and dropped them in his pocket, before relocking the box and replacing it as before. A minute later he was back in the hall.
He repeated the procedure in the second room, this time getting a decent haul of gold coins and notes. However, Jack was hoping for much more than a pocketful of coins: before the night was finished, he expected to leave the hotel a very rich man.
The third room was the Bashams’: Mr Edward Basham, banker of Threadneedle Street, London, and his entertaining and knowledgeable wife, Mary. Mrs Mary Basham liked jewellery and, since meeting her in Auckland a couple of weeks before, Jack had seen her wearing some very expensive pieces. She’d even worn diamonds to Mt Tarawera and the terraces the day before. This jewellery was the reason why Jack had travelled with them to Ohinemutu.
A quick check of the luggage revealed nothing but clothes. Jack hadn’t really expected to find money, as Edward Basham wore a money belt. However, his wife was not so organized, and Jack found a piece of jewellery in the top drawer of the dresser—a lovely gold locket. It quickly joined the coins in his pocket.
There was nothing in any of the other drawers, or in the cupboards, and Jack was becoming concerned that the rest of the jewels might not be in the room. It would be just like Edward Basham to insist that they were stored in the hotel safe, in which case they would have to stay there—Jack was a cat burglar, not a safecracker.
Time was passing quickly. In a last scan of the room, Jack’s eyes went to the top of the wardrobe. There was something up there. After moving a chair alongside, he soon identified it as a large strongbox: one that was more than big enough to contain all of Mary Basham’s jewellery. He reached out to lift it down, and immediately his heart began to beat faster—it was much heavier than he’d expected. To be this heavy it would need to contain huge gemstones and masses of gold and silver, perhaps even bars of the stuff.
By the time he had the box on the bed, Jack was shaking with anticipation. This sort of haul was beyond his wildest
dreams. Then he saw the lock and his heart did a little flutter. He knew this sort of lock, and they always required a lot of time. Unfortunately, that was something he didn’t have: the moon must surely have occulted Mars by now and moved on. How long would it be before the stargazers returned?
The answer came before his tools were even out of his pocket. A key was being pushed into the door. Jack didn’t panic. Within a second he’d weighed up his options. The door to the room was already being opened as he threw himself and the strongbox out of sight under the bed.
‘Thank God, that’s over,’ said Basham, sitting on the bed and causing the springs to sag until they rested on Jack’s belly.
‘You didn’t have to come, Edward,’ replied his wife. ‘Nobody forced you.’
‘I wasn’t planning to until they decided to close the bar, just so everyone could go and look at those damn stars.’
‘Planets, Edward. Stars are altogether different.’
‘Planets, stars, comets, moons. Who cares what the difference is?’
‘I do!’
‘Well, I don’t!’ grunted Basham. ‘And now I’m going down to the lounge for a nightcap. Are you coming?’
‘No. I’m going straight to bed. It’s too late for me.’
‘Please yourself.’ Jack felt the bedsprings lift as the man stood and moved towards the door.
Basham had almost escaped, when Mary called out: ‘Edward!’
‘What is it?’ he asked impatiently.
‘Did you shift the chair?
Jack caught his breath. This could be it.
But, fortunately for Jack, Edward Basham had a great thirst and nothing was going to stop him from having several whiskies before he went to bed. ‘Yes,’ he replied, impatiently. ‘What of it?’
Mary sighed. ‘I just wondered how it got there.’
‘Well, you can stop wondering. Is there any other important thing before I leave?’
Mary made no reply, and a moment later Jack heard the door being closed noisily. He let out his breath in silent relief. Now all he had to do was wait until Mary went to sleep, and hopefully that would happen before her husband returned.
It was soon apparent that it would be longer than expected. Jack could hear the woman moving about the room, but not the rustle of clothes being removed. He lay on his back, staring at the bedsprings.
At one stage she sat on the bed for a while. When she stood up, Jack’s eyes were attracted by something moving near the headboard. Ever so carefully, he slid along the floor until it was directly above him. A leather pouch was tied to the springs—the sort of pouch that might be used to store something valuable. Jack smiled as he stretched out an arm to untie the bow.
The crafty blighter,
he thought, slipping the pouch into his pocket. Who on earth would have thought of looking there?
Mary was still moving around the room, doing whatever women do before going to bed. Then Jack heard the door open and close. The room went quiet. Was this his chance to escape? He slipped out from under the bed, praying that he’d heard things correctly.
He had! The room was empty. He grabbed the box under
one arm and reached for the doorknob with the other.
A lavatory flushed.
Quickly, he slipped from the room, moved along the corridor and disappeared around a bend just as the lavatory door opened. When he was sure that Mary had returned to her room, he moved along the hallway to his own room. His heart thumped noisily as he searched for his key beneath the coins and things in his pocket. In the end, he had to put the strongbox on the floor so that he could use both hands.
Finally, he had the key and was inserting it into the lock when a cheery voice said, ‘Evening, Boult. Did you enjoy the stellar display?’
Jack jumped in alarm. He took a deep breath, before turning around to face the speaker. ‘Oh, it’s you, Worthington,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘Yes, I did. And what about you? Did you enjoy it?’
‘Oh rather,’ replied Thomas Worthington. ‘A very fine evening. Very fine.’
‘Good,’ said Jack. ‘I hope you enjoy your night’s sleep just as well.’
‘Oh, there’s no doubt about that. I sleep like a baby.’
‘Goodnight then.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Worthington. But instead of moving towards his room, he looked down to the strongbox on the floor. ‘What you got in there, Boult? The family jewels?’
‘I wish,’ said Jack, more calmly than he felt. ‘No, they’re just some papers that I wouldn’t want to lose.’
‘Business papers, right?’ said Worthington. ‘Some bedtime reading, no doubt.’
‘Something like that,’ Jack replied, dismissively. ‘Goodnight, Worthington!’
This time Thomas Worthington took the hint and moved off to his bedroom. Jack unlocked his door, moved inside, and immediately locked himself in.
He slumped onto the bed and lay there, breathing heavily. He’d made it back to his room, but that didn’t mean it was over. Thomas Worthington might seem a stupid man, but he was clever enough to be rich; he could just be suspicious enough to check his own strongbox. He would quickly find the contents had gone, and Jack doubted that he would wait until morning to do something about it.
Half an hour passed, and then an hour, and still no alarm had been raised. During that time, Jack had failed to open the strongbox. However, no matter what the box contained, the night had been as successful as he had hoped. The leather pouch from under the bed contained a diamond pendant bigger than anything Jack had seen outside the Tower of London. It was this pendant that had brought him all the way to Rotorua. He’d seen Mary wearing it in Auckland and decided that it just had to become his. And now it was.
Midnight came and the hotel remained silent except for some loud snoring coming from along the corridor. Jack found the sound reassuring—hopefully all the other guests were sleeping just as soundly. At one o’clock, he decided that it was time for him to move.
His only luggage was a carpetbag that now held his few clothes and the strongbox. He looked at the strongbox wondering whether he should leave it behind—the pendant by itself would make him a rich man. But then greed took over: there had to be something very valuable in there, otherwise why would it be so heavy? With one final check that he had everything, Jack hitched the bag onto his back, slipped his arms through the handles, and opened the door.
Only one lamp was still burning in the hallway, yet even that provided too much light for Jack’s liking. The stairs creaked noisily as he made his way to the ground floor. When he reached the bottom, he stepped into a dark shadow and waited to see if there was any response. After a couple
of minutes, he moved to the side door. It was now locked, but that was no problem, and soon he was outside, locking it again, just in case.
While the moon had set more than an hour before, there was still light from the line of lamps along the road. Again there was too much light for Jack, and he quickly darted into the shadows of the hedge that formed the boundary to the hotel grounds. There he waited and watched for any movement. After five minutes, he convinced himself that the way was clear, and started creeping along the hedge towards the road.
He was about to leave the shadows when a flickering flame across the road stopped him dead. Someone had lit a match. A moment later the match went out, to be replaced by the orange glow of a cigarette. Jack relaxed a little—it was only a late-night smoker enjoying a puff in the cold night air. Still, he preferred not to be seen, so he moved back along the hedge to a gap he’d found the day before.
The hole wasn’t very big, but neither was Jack: if he pushed aside a few branches, he’d get through easily. Yet fate had other plans for Jack Boult. Just as he was about to disappear into the space, he felt someone grasp his legs and pull backwards. He flayed his arms until they were wrapped around a branch in the hedge, and that held him for a while. But the person pulling was the stronger, and soon Jack was back on the hotel side sprawled on the ground. A heavy weight pushed down on his legs as something was clamped first to one wrist and then the other. He was then hauled to his feet and pushed towards the front of the hotel.
‘Well done, Alf,’ said the cigarette smoker as he left the shadows, revealing himself to be a policeman.
‘It was easy enough,’ said Alf, whom Jack assumed was
the other local constable. ‘He’s only a little guy.’
The smoker threw the cigarette to the ground and stamped on it before stepping in front of Jack. ‘You must be Jack Boult,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a complaint about you.’
Jack looked at him incredulously. ‘No! I’m not Jack Boult. I’m James Matheson, and I demand to be released this instant.’
The policeman just snorted. ‘If you’re James Matheson, then I’m Dr Jekyll and he’s Mr Hyde.’
‘I am James Matheson,’ Jack said forcefully. He pointed to the hotel. ‘Go in and ask Cyril Hunt, the proprietor.’
‘There’s no need to do that,’ said Alf who was still gripping Jack firmly from behind. ‘We don’t want to disturb the guests. You just tell us why we should believe you’re James Matheson and not Jack Boult the thief.’
‘You can start by telling us why you’re out here at one o’clock in the morning,’ added the other one.
Jack feigned embarrassment. ‘It’s personal,’ he said.
‘That’s all right. We’re all grown men. Give us the gory details.’
‘Well, for a few days I’ve been enjoying the company of a young lady. And tonight, while the others went starwatching, things…ah, um…well, things became more advanced.’ Jack paused, as if unwilling to go on.
‘And?’ asked the policemen together.
‘And…well…the young lady now thinks that we’re engaged to be married. She’s going to tell her parents in the morning. So—’
‘So,’ interrupted Alf, ‘you decided to scarper because your intentions had nothing to do with marriage.’
Jack nodded.
‘Let me guess,’ said the other policeman, ‘you’re already married.’
Again, Jack nodded.
There was silence while the policemen weighed up the story.
Alf broke the silence. ‘All right! If what you say is true, then you won’t mind us taking a look in your bag, will you?’
Jack lifted his head and eyed the policeman in front of him. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘But I can’t take it off with my hands tied up, can I?’
‘Unlock one of the cuffs, Alf, and let’s take a look.’
Jack felt hands fiddling with the metal around his right wrist. A moment later his hands fell apart. There was now nothing to stop the bag being removed from his back.
However, at that instant the ground gave a mighty lurch. It was not enough to unbalance anyone, but it was enough to distract the two policemen, especially when the hotel behind them started creaking as if it was about to break apart. Then the earth below their feet rumbled, suggesting that it might collapse as well. The whole thing can’t have lasted for more than a few seconds, yet in that time Jack had shrugged off his captors and was sprinting down the road.
The pursuit did not last long: Jack’s desire to escape was far stronger than the policemen’s desire to catch him. So when Jack headed off the road into low scrub where steam escaped from the ground, they quickly decided that their services would best be given to the people of the village, some of whom were now pouring out onto the streets in panic. If Jack Boult wanted to kill himself by running
around in a dark thermal area, then let him—they had more important matters to attend to.
Jack sat on the rise overlooking Ohinemutu, thinking about his future. Clearly, he had to get away from Rotorua. The best option was to head south to Taupo. From there, he could get to Napier where there was a port. Then he could go anywhere and, with the money he had, do anything—the whole world was now open to him.
His dreaming was abruptly stopped by another jolt from the earth. This one was stronger and accompanied by louder rumbles. ‘Forget about the whole world, Jack,’ he said to himself. ‘First you’ve got to get out of here.’
Yet he was reluctant to move. It was safer up on the hill than near the thermal areas where mud bubbled and boiling water spouted into the air. He was a superstitious man, and he had been unable to put out of his mind the talk he’d heard during his visit to the Rotomahana terraces. The locals had spoken of a phantom canoe on Lake Tarawera, exploding geysers, and strange waves that suggested some giant within the lake was awakening. A huge lizard-like monster called a taniwha was said to be responsible. Certainly, the rumbling and the shaking of the ground indicated that something was happening below.
A lull in the earthquakes eventually got Jack to his feet, and he headed down the hill towards the new town where he hoped to find a horse. As he approached, the smell of sulphur became more noticeable, and Jack’s fears grew: unpleasant things were happening in Rotorua.
Finding a horse proved to be much easier than expected.
Even though there were lots of citizens out on the streets, they were too worried about themselves to notice him slipping inside the stables behind the local hotel. There, Jack paused and listened. If someone accosted him, then he would simply run out again. But there was no alarm, other than that of the horses frightened by the shaking earth.
Jack went from stall to stall, looking for the horse that was coping best with the distractions coming from the ground. It turned out to be a small, chestnut mare. All the gear he would need to ride her was resting on the wall alongside. To Jack it seemed as if she’d been put there just for him.
Five minutes later, he was leading her out the stable door. It was then that the mare showed the first signs of fear. Smoke hung over the eastern hills, with a hint of red suggesting that there might be a fire of some sort.
‘Easy, girl,’ murmured Jack, trying to show more confidence than he felt. ‘It’s nothing to be afraid of.’
One good thing about the smoke was that everyone was too concerned about it to notice a man leading a horse through the shadows. Only when he was clear of the buildings did he climb into the saddle. He jiggled around until the carpetbag’s weight was resting on the mare’s hindquarters, and then he was ready for the journey to Taupo.
While it was tempting to raise the horse to a gallop, he realized that forcing her would only slow him down later. It was better to set a steady pace and be sure to get there. Similarly, he resisted the temptation to take the main road. There were simply too many people about, and when dawn came he would be exposed to too many prying eyes. The Waipa Track would be the best route, even though it was closer to the events that were lighting the sky.
The first part of the journey around the southern shores of the lake went without mishap. He quickly crossed the Te Puke road and located the start of the track leading south through the scrub.
After crossing a steaming stream, the track followed flat land alongside the slope of a hill. The horse was jittery from the rumbling that now seemed to fill the air; the loose handcuff banging on her shoulder didn’t help either. Jack hooked it under his shirtsleeve, hoping that it would hold for a while until he found a place to stop and remove the thing.
She had just begun to settle a little when a terrible noise came from immediately ahead.
Craarrk! Craarrk!
The mare pulled back, calling out in fear. As Jack struggled to control her, the noise came again, louder and more urgent than before—a raucous croak that seemed like the death rattle of some monstrous creature. Jack thought of the taniwha and shuddered.
Then he saw the creature. It was no monster, just a white bird standing in a clearing alongside the track. It stood absolutely still, with its long neck tucked into an S, its feathers tinged with red from the glowing sky.
‘
Craarrk!
’ it cried again, but this time more softly.
Jack tried to hold the horse in place while he studied the bird. It was a white heron, the same as one he’d seen on the trip to the terraces. On that occasion their guide had pointed it out, saying that they were often a good omen. Jack looked at the bird and wondered if this one was trying to tell him something: maybe that he was in too big a rush to get out of the place. Perhaps now was the time to stop and sort out
that damned handcuff before he met someone who might question why he was wearing it.
Ignoring the skittery protests of the horse, Jack moved into the clearing, dismounted, and sat down on the bare, white ground. Removing the cuff would take only a few minutes, and then he could continue on his journey. By morning, he’d be well away. He should reach Taupo by midday, and then, with a change of name, the person known as Jack Boult would cease to exist.
As he fished around in his pocket for the lock pick, his hand touched the leather pouch containing the pendant. He pulled it out, unable to resist the desire to look at it again. The diamond seemed even more spectacular under the red light from the sky. ‘Look at this,’ he said holding it up to the heron. ‘You’ve already brought me luck tonight.’
In answer, the heron screeched loudly, before spreading its wings and taking to the air. Twice more it called before disappearing: strident, scary sounds that had Jack wondering if he should leave the area as well. Instead, he put the diamond on the ground and began working on the handcuffs. He’d get rid of them first, and then he’d be on his way.
