Cry of the Taniwha (7 page)

‘Leave it!’ ordered Skulla.

Diz’s head snapped around to glare at his leader. Skulla glared back, and eventually Diz had to look away. He turned back to Matt.

‘I’ll be watching you, Bogan. Anything you find, you bring it to us. If you don’t, then…’ He formed a fist and held it close to Matt’s eyes. That’s when Matt saw that Diz did have a tattoo: on each knuckle was a letter, and together they spelled the word ‘BASH’. Despite himself, Matt started shaking.

Diz smiled, and pulled his arm away. ‘I see you got the message. Now, leave!’

Matt knew he should go straight to the police, but he didn’t. There had been a lot of publicity on television about gang violence and how they went about settling their problems. If he went to the police, then his troubles with the gang could increase. Instead, if he went through the motions of looking for things, then sooner or later the gang would probably get bored and forget about him.

It wasn’t until after lunch that he’d recovered enough to study the objects in the strongbox. He’d had a feeling about the rocks and bottles when he’d first seen them, and now he knew he was right. They were valuable, but only to the right person. He needed to get them to a geologist. He recalled that Lew had mentioned one—a Dr Ian somebody who had identified the age of the skeleton. Lew had said he worked for Vulcan something or other.

Five minutes searching through the telephone book gave him everything he wanted. Dr Ian McMillan worked for Vulcan Aotearoa, which was near to the forest research place. Another fifteen minutes and Matt was standing at the reception desk.

‘Yes, Dr McMillan is in,’ said the receptionist. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

Matt gave his name, saying that he was the one who’d found the skeleton in the forest. That was enough for a tall, bearded man to appear and escort Matt through to his workspace.

This was a large room with benches and lots of scientific
machines. Two technicians had the cover off one of them, exposing complicated glass tubing surrounded by lots of wires. Another person was working on one of several computers in the room.

‘Call me Ian,’ said the scientist as he ushered Matt into a side office. ‘So you found the skeleton, eh?’

Matt nodded.

‘That was very interesting. Until I started digging around it, I didn’t realize that the nearby hydrothermal crater had been formed during the Tarawera eruption. Sometime, I’m going back there to have another look around. It could be very helpful with the research I’m doing on magma and groundwater.’

Matt smiled. This was his moment. He opened his bag and pulled out the two leather packages containing the rocks, unwrapping them on the desk. ‘These things here might help.’

The geologist watched in silence. Then he picked up the pink sample, turning it around in his hand. He squinted at the back for a while before reading out:
Pink Terrace, Rotomahana. 8 June 1886.
Then he picked up the other:
White Terrace, Rotomahana. 8 June 1886.
Suddenly he stood, moved to the door, and yelled, ‘Allan, come and have a look at this!’

Allan was the person working on the computer. In a moment, he too was studying the two rocks. ‘This is fantastic,’ he said. ‘We’ll be able to get a whole profile of the changes in the deposits almost up to the day of the eruption. Where did they come from?’

Matt told them the story.

Allan nodded. ‘Great work!’ He turned to Ian. ‘This is
almost as good as having water samples.’

Matt laughed. ‘Oh, I’ve got some of those, too.’

The two scientists watched disbelievingly as he pulled out the bottles of water. Ian picked one up and read the label. ‘Same date,’ he said in wonder. ‘It’s the same date. Two days before the event. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!’ He turned to Matt. ‘Do you have any idea how these things got there?’

‘Not yet, but we’re working on it.’

‘Excellent! That could be helpful.’ He held the bottles out to Allan. ‘Look, can you get onto these right away?’

Allan chuckled. ‘Yes. I suppose you want to use the results in your presentation?’

‘You bet I do. This will make them all sit up and take notice. And get some cross-sections done of the last few millimetres for both terraces. And—’

Matt picked up his bag and left them to it. They’d already switched off to him. Chances were they wouldn’t even notice that he’d left. For the scientists, the only things that existed at that moment were the samples.

Matt spent the rest of the afternoon talking to Eve in the hotel. He’d been too tired to meet with her the night before, which had brought a terse text message asking him what was happening.

She had nothing new to tell, which gave him the feeling that she just wanted some company for a while. He was quite happy to provide it.

After carefully recording Matt’s report in her notepad, Eve changed her theory that the body was one of the Bashams. She was now convinced that it was a burglar, and
all the things found around the scene must’ve been stolen from the Bashams while they were visiting Rotorua. She said she’d follow it up in the library the next day.

Then Matt told her about his problems with the gang. This was the first she’d heard of any gang. She was horrified. Apparently, they didn’t have street gangs in Margaret River. Her only knowledge of them was from television, and she seemed to think that they spent all their time murdering people. Matt found that he had to downplay the gang involvement to calm her down. He was only half successful, and left the hotel annoyed that he’d ever mentioned the word gang to her. It had destroyed the whole afternoon, just when they’d been getting on so well. Skulla and his mob were wrecking everything.

Later, Matt lay on his bed with the strongbox open in front of him. The piece of ponga was alongside. He studied them, wondering how they fitted into the drama. Did they belong to the Bashams? It was surprising that neither the box nor the contents had any identifying feature. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to collect the samples from the terraces; he would have expected some sort of name in case it got lost.

Maybe there was one under the thin layer of rust. However, a few moments with some sandpaper revealed that there wasn’t. Yet he did find the stubs of two rusted screws that had clearly once secured a nameplate. It had either been removed intentionally or rusted off in the many years since it was buried.

While he was thinking about this, he flipped the lid over and looked inside, expecting to see the other end of
the screws. There was no sign of them. Surely they must’ve been screwed all the way through? His heart rate quickened as he realized that what he was seeing was not the other side of the lid, but the underside of a hinged plate that fitted into the lid. There were even some threads suggesting that a ribbon had once given access to the hidden area.

None of his tools were fine enough to fit under the tightfitting edges, so he tried a sharp knife. Even that hardly fitted. However, bit by bit, he levered the thing clear. By then his heart was really going for it—maybe there were ‘jools’ after all.

The hinged plate creaked as he opened it the last few centimetres, exposing a leather book. It had a nameplate in the middle.

Mary Basham New Zealand Natural History Expedition 1886

‘Well done, Eve,’ he said, excitedly. ‘You got it right.’

When he opened the book, he soon recognized that it was an inventory of some sort. Each page had a heading which was the name of some natural history object: kiwi eggshell, tuatara skin, moa bone, and the like. It was a list of things that Mary hoped to collect during her ‘New Zealand Natural History Expedition’. The things already collected had notes about where they were collected and when. The entry for the Pink Terrace rock read:

Edward kicked down on the surface with the heel of his shoe. A large piece broke
free which was then broken into smaller pieces.

A lot of the objects were stuck onto their page: leaves, small feathers, pieces of eggshells, and bits of skin. It seemed that her collection had been well on its way before it was buried by the eruption.

Matt spent some time thumbing through the book looking for clues as to how the box had ended up where it did. Of course there was nothing. Nobody had planned for it to be buried and lost for over a hundred-and-twenty years. But there was something that seemed rather strange. The last entry in the book was labelled
Tree fern trunk, also known as ponga.
The text read:

This, along with the metal box, was a wonderful gift from Edward. 1 May 1886.

Matt picked up the ponga candleholder to study it more closely. The wood had been polished to reveal the lines of brown against a tan background. This contrasted with the wax of the thick candle that fitted down the hole in the middle. While it was an interesting thing, it was also a misfit. None of the other objects had been processed in any way. It didn’t seem right that Mary had considered it part of a ‘Natural History’ collection.

‘Maybe I should keep it away from the other things,’ said Matt, with a smile. ‘Keep it for myself.’ And so the decision was made. He now had a memento: the candleholder would be his reminder of the discoveries made in the forest. The government need never know that the thing existed.

First thing next morning, Matt revisited the forest to check the hole where the box had been found just in case there had been other stuff in it. There wasn’t. So he then began a systematic search of the whole area, hoping to find something that would satisfy the gang: some gold might be possible, but diamonds were unlikely. They could never be detected unless they were mounted in metal.

There was nothing. However, he did find something of interest: past the stream and the heron’s tree, he found another clearing, closer to the main thermal area. Despite being surrounded by thick scrub, the middle was totally bare. Something was stopping the plants from growing, but what that might be was not at all obvious.

As Matt looked around the place, Old Tani let out a cry. Matt looked up expecting to see the heron staring at him as usual. However, this time it was looking towards a nearby hill.

‘Craarrk,’
it said again.

Matt followed the line of sight and saw that there was a lookout with a view down into the clearing and surrounding scrub. A person was leaning against the railings with binoculars aimed directly at Matt. While he was too far away to identify, the clothing suggested that he was probably a Dubexkay member. A shiver of fear ran down Matt’s body; it was a chilling reminder that he was now a slave to the gang.

Immediately, Matt packed up the detector and left the area. There was probably nothing in the clearing anyway. He went
back to the mud pool and stared at it for a while. If there ever was a great horde of jewels, then that’s probably where it was: sitting under the bubbling mud, in a place where it’d never be found.

His thoughts were disturbed by a friendly voice calling out from the other side of the crater. ‘Hello, there!’

He looked up and saw a woman. Alongside her was a man with a camera.

‘Are you Matt Logan?’ asked the woman.

Matt nodded, unsure whether he should admit the fact.

‘Excellent!’ she replied, walking around the pool towards him. ‘Your grandmother said we’d find you here. We’re from the
Rotorua Lakeland Times.
We’d like to talk about the skeleton and all that gold you found.’

Over the next half hour, Matt was quizzed about the discovery and how excited he must’ve been. He bumbled his way through, hoping he wasn’t making too big a fool of himself. Except for making no mention of Jackson, he tried to be honest with his answers. Yet the woman seemed to twist his words to get the story she wanted. When he told them that he hadn’t actually found the gold, she insisted that the gold would not’ve been found unless he’d used his metal detector, so he was really the discoverer, wasn’t he?

After the interview, they re-enacted the event so that photos could be taken. It was all a bit artificial, but it seemed to be what they wanted. Matt was pleased when it was finally over and he could head back home.

Jackson was sitting on the doorstep, waiting for him. The door was locked, indicating that Nan had gone out somewhere. Matt ignored the boy, unlocked the door, walked inside and started getting something to eat. Jackson
soon followed. He sat at the table with his head in his hands, staring at nothing and looking thoroughly miserable.

Matt almost smiled at the boy’s discomfit: served him right if things were going wrong with his life. Matt was still annoyed about how the Dubexkay had got involved. ‘Why’d you do it?’ he asked.

‘Do what?’ mumbled Jackson.

‘Involve Skulla and the rest of the gang.’

‘You wanted that box opened, didn’t you?’

‘Not by those gorillas.’

Jackson looked up at Matt. ‘What are
you
moaning about? You’re not in as much trouble as I am.’

Matt studied him, and realized that he’d been crying. ‘Did they beat you up again?’ Matt asked, gently.

Jackson gave a little nod. ‘Diz,’ he said.

‘Why do you hang around with them if they’re going to beat you all the time?’

Jackson’s chin came out. ‘If you wanna be a member, you gotta take the bash. Show them you’re tough.’

Matt shook his head in disbelief. ‘Jackson, they don’t want you as a member of their gang. You’re too young for them. They just enjoy beating you up. They’re using you.’

The chin came out further. ‘No, they’re not!’

Matt kept quiet, sensing that there was little he could say that would change the boy’s mind.

Jackson continued, ‘They’re gunna make me a member soon.’ Then he added, ‘I hope.’

There was something about the way he said it that made Matt realize that this was what was upsetting Jackson. ‘What do you have to do?’ he asked, quietly.

‘Nuttin much. Just a job.’

‘Shoplifting?’

‘Nah,’ replied Jackson, as if shoplifting was kids’ stuff. ‘More than that.’

‘A robbery?’

Jackson nodded. Then he looked up quickly. ‘But don’t you tell anyone or they’ll kill me.’

‘What do you have to do?’

‘Nuttin much. Just climb through a window.’

Matt nodded: the gang was using Jackson because he was small. ‘When?’ he asked.

‘I dunno. Soon.’

Matt shook his head. ‘Jackson, don’t do it. You’ll get into serious trouble.’

‘Nah. The feds can’t do anything to me. I’m too young.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Skulla.’

‘They’re just using you!’ shouted Matt. ‘Can’t you see that?’

Jackson got to his feet and faced up to Matt. ‘No, they’re not. They’re
not.
You don’t understand.’ Tears started to form in his eyes. Then he ran. ‘You don’t understand,’ he repeated as he flew out the door. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘No,’ whispered Matt. ‘I don’t. And I doubt I ever will.’

Matt returned to the forest in the afternoon, this time without the metal detector. He wanted to visit the redwood trees that had been planted sometime after the eruption. Hone said there were some great walks in amongst the huge trees.

The redwoods were in a public park where people walked, jogged and mountain-biked. Matt found a track that had fewer people, and began photographing the trees and the
grassy glades between them.

As he worked, he couldn’t help but think about Jackson. Despite what the boy had done, Matt found that he liked him. He was a crazy mix of toughness and fragility: one minute bragging, the next crying. Hone’s plan to keep Jackson away from the gang clearly wasn’t working. Yet, while Matt hadn’t liked being given the job, he now wanted to help. He wanted to stop Jackson getting involved in the burglary. But what could he do? If only he knew the date of the job, then he would know how much time he had to sort things out. Jackson had said ‘soon’, but how long was that? A day, a week, two weeks, a month…what?

His thoughts continued along this line as he walked between the giant trees. Every now and again a jogger would run past, or he would see some sunbathers in a sunny glade, but mostly he was by himself. After a while, he turned off onto a smaller track that was deeply rutted with bicycle tracks. The trees changed from redwoods to pines, and he wondered whether this might be the Taniwha Track that Hone had mentioned. He heard song-birds calling from high in the trees, and saw fantails flitting around in the undergrowth, but no signs of anything that might have been some form of the taniwha.

Then the track dipped down towards a secluded pond surrounded by long grass. Partly hidden amongst the grass were a couple of lovers, so absorbed in each other that they didn’t notice that they were being spied upon. The spy was a man hiding behind a tree less than five metres from their nest. Matt smiled: maybe this guy was a form of the taniwha. He certainly looked weird enough. While Matt couldn’t see his face, the shape of his body indicated a youth rather than
a man. His legs were long and skinny beneath a pair of really tight, short shorts. He wore a brightly coloured shirt covered in tropical island scenes. Above this was a full head of ginger hair, combed in a style that Matt had seen only in old movies. A taniwha from the nineteen-sixties, perhaps?

Matt’s interest in the lovers increased as he got closer and realized that there was more flesh visible than there ought to be. So interested, that he stopped looking where he was going and tripped over an exposed root. He crashed to the ground with a loud cry of surprise. It took only a moment for him to sit up and discover that there were no injuries. By then, the lovers were scrambling to cover all their exposed parts, and the spy was running towards him, his eyes slitted and lips tight in anger.

When he got close, he stood over Matt with fists clenched. ‘Moron!’ he shouted, his pimply face turning red. ‘It was just getting interesting. Why did you have to come along?’

Matt got to his feet. He wasn’t scared of this gawky creep. ‘It’s a public park—I can be here! Anyway, you shouldn’t spy on other people.’

The Gawk stared at him for a moment, before moving off the path to pull a bike from the undergrowth. The lovers were now fully clothed and preparing to leave. The male glared at The Gawk riding past. Then he helped his girlfriend up onto the path and started walking back the way Matt had come.

‘Thanks, mate,’ said the male as he went by. ‘There’s some sick types in this world, aren’t there?’ The girl kept her eyes firmly fixed on the ground.

After a while, Matt turned and followed them. The Gawk could have the rest of the track to himself. With any luck Matt’d never meet him again.