by Nick Spill
The three men stared at her. Her eyes opened, red and out of focus. She started to talk in a language they could not understand.
When Moana had finished she stood still. She closed her mouth. She had nothing left in her. She gazed into the distance. She wiped her wet face with both hands and let out a series of fast deep breaths, to try and gain back her sanity. “Sorry. I, I, don’t know. Oh, Ricky. Please forgive me Ricky, I love you, I’m sorry. You went through so much more. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tears rolled down her checks. Moana collapsed.
“Think I better take her upstairs.”
“Yeah, mate. Need a hand?” Wiremu offered.
“No, I can manage.” Ricky bent his knees and placed his right hand under her knees and his left around her back. He slowly rose and pulled her closer to his chest. Her arms flopped down, and he balanced her head against his chest. Her hair spread over his face and he blew away a few strands so he could see. He went through the kitchen door sideways, careful not to hit her head or her arms.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“You found Mark Rose’s personal stash? A couple of plastic bags of what you hope is marijuana, and you let him go? Let me get this straight. Two highly organized and coordinated police raids at dawn, involving reams of paperwork and signatures for two search warrants from two different magistrates, who you contacted last night, who both called me in the morning, rather displeased, and you created two different search warrants because you didn’t think one magistrate would sign both, because you were searching for the same painting in two different places. You requisitioned dozens of officers, all of whom are pulling overtime, because it was night or rather early Tuesday morning. And you find out it was in neither place? And you let Mark Rose go? And you haven’t found Captain Cook?”
Grimble had held his breath throughout the commissioner’s tirade. He now let out all his tension and frustration with one sentence. “We thought we had reliable information from two different sources.” He took a deep breath. “We were obviously too late.”
“And all we have is a couple of bags of weed. Really, Grimble? Under-Secretary Catelin is on his way to your headquarters now. Give him a full report and I will communicate with him. I must report to the minister. And why didn’t Superintendent Jarvis brief me? We’ll talk later, in person. Stand by for my call.”
“I’m just following orders, commissioner,” Grimble shot out as he heard the click again. He hated being made to look a fool. “At least no one died,” he wanted to say.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Ricky came downstairs an hour later. Wiremu and Rawiri were still at the kitchen table, the Herald spread out in front of them. “How is she?” Rawiri asked.
“Asleep. Never seen her like that before.”
“Well, she’s a strong girl. But no one should have to go through what she went through. Pretty radical.” Wiremu said.
“She’s Ngapuhi. Built strong and tough.”
Ricky wasn’t going to argue with two of the hardest Maori he had ever seen.
“Tell me, Ricky, do you know the Russian in the papers, Nikolai Raganovich?”
“Oh, him,” Ricky grinned. “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Wiremu asked.
“Yeah. If he’s Russian, he’s bought every martial arts weapon we have here. You’ve seen our store room in the front, right? Let me check our records.”
Ricky came back with a card. “Here he is. Raganovich care of Natasha Windsor, 11 Castle Drive, Epsom. It’s an apartment house, sort of. They call it the Castle, right? Pretty cool building. Top apartment, in the rear. Can’t miss it.”
Rawiri turned to Wiremu. “The joker they let in the gallery?”
“The same. He was a regular, I hear, and he can talk his way into anything.”
“By the way, Ricky, did you bring any weed? You’re still growing it? The super-genetic stuff?”
“Funny you should ask.” Ricky pulled out a large plastic bag from his inside jacket pocket. “I think we all need therapy. I saw a whole stack of these at uni. I was just checking on the lab. Here, big protest tomorrow at noon. You might want to check it out.”
Wiremu and Rawiri grabbed a poster each and whistled. Wiremu tapped the poster on the table. “We should go. See what’s going on. Moana needs to go too. Meanwhile, you mentioned something about therapy?”
Ricky pushed his long hair from his eyes and opened the plastic bag full of buds as he watched the two Maori and their intense reaction before he produced Zig-Zag papers.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Alexander did not know how Tsara would react when he arrived early in the morning with the newspaper, a bottle of milk and pastries he had bought in Grafton. He wasn’t her boyfriend, but he felt he was abusing his guest privileges.
She opened the front door, grabbed the milk and walked to the kitchen without looking at him, which to Alexander was a good sign. He used the bathroom first, washed as much as he could and joined Tsara at her kitchen table.
“What happened to you last night?”
“You haven’t read the paper? We raided, I mean the cops raided the Soviet diplomat and Mark Rose’s place as well. It was a big deal.”
“Shit. Mark? Our Mark?”
“Yes, the same. Apparently, they think they are linked. I was there, I saw it all. But guess what?
“What?”
“They didn’t find anything. No painting, nothing.”
“All this for Captain Cook?”
“Yes. Some people seem to think he’s important.”
“Doesn’t a Maori group claim they have Cook?”
“Well, it gets complicated. We don’t know who has him. But I think the Russian or the Soviet, whatever you want to call him, does. And here it gets sticky.”
“Sticky?”
“Yes. It’s a technical spy term.” Alexander kept a straight face.
“Oh, you. I can never tell when you’re joking.”
“I’m perfectly serious. If we don’t get the painting back, my job is toast.”
“Whatever happened to the shy old Alexander? The long-haired hippie with a beard and sandals? Save the whales, stop the war, up the government. You remember those sandals you wore all year, made of tires?”
“Oh yes. I do love shoes. Ruined a new pair of Italian loafers the other day but that’s another story. And you are correct. Now I work for the government.”
“So, what happened to you, Alexander?”
“I don’t know.” He lowered his head and looked at his old friend. “I grew up and wanted more. But I didn’t know the price.”
Chapter Forty
“You came home late last night.” Henry was about to plunge the French press for his morning coffee when he saw Mel come out of the shower. She had a towel wrapped around her hair and another around her body.
“Are you going to do anything about your notebooks?” she replied.
“And have the police tell me I should have given them to the Americans for safe keeping? No. I am not saying a word to anyone. Besides, if word leaks out about my notebooks, there go my job prospects anywhere.”
“What are you going to do?” Mel stood still, dripping wet.
“I might be the jilted Kiwi, not the jaded Kiwi, but I made copies after my last interview with the FBI. Couldn’t trust them.”
“My god! You went all drama queen on me, and you had a backup copy?”
“Well, I’m supposed to be smart. Rejected in more ways than one, but still smarter than the average bear, or scientist.”
Mel tightened the towel around her body. “What are your plans?”
“Go to Dunedin for a few days. See an old buddy. Work out what to do next. What about you?”
“Off to work. The same old thing.” Mel sighed as she thought about her escapade in the small white government van. It was such a contrast to the time she had been with Henry at the top of Mount Eden.
“I’m flying out today,” said Henry. “In the afternoon.
”
Mel went to the bedroom to dress. She could not reconcile how she felt, both excited and empty.
Chapter Forty-one
“Thank you for meeting me here.”
“Not at all commissioner. It’s a little tense upstairs.”
“Thought you wouldn’t want another round of golf.”
“Thank you.” Grimble could never find the right words to say to the commissioner.
“And I’m not sure who’s bugging who now. Your car is as good as it gets.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, it’s all gone to shit. The Prime Minister is furious. The minister is angry. I’m supposed to be mad, but I’m retiring at the end of the year, so bugger it. And the Security Services? I wouldn’t put it past them to try to blame me to cover their asses. They’re useless. Couldn’t follow a bitch in heat. I hope you’re treating our young man from Wellington well. He’s been helpful. Catelin just briefed me on what he’s doing.”
“You mean Alexander Newton?”
“Yes. Don’t sound surprised. He’s got quite a future.”
“Yes, he captured some good photographs otherwise we’d be nowhere.”
The commissioner laughed. “You are somewhere?”
“What about those Maori and the demands we just received? Clever of them to contact a journalist at the Auckland Star and use a code phrase for future communications. Means no one else can get in on their, what? Act? Extortion? Plans? It’s what the IRA do all the time in England. Not original, but shows they are looking overseas for models, how to act. So they might be professional and well organized. What if they have the painting and not the Russian?”
“Oh, we’ll placate them, patronize them, give them a little and they’ll think they’re winning. Then we’ll ignore them, again. We’ve been doing it for years. We’re pretty good at it.”
“You’re not going to give them any land?” Grimble asked.
“Truthfully? What they really want is for us to go away. Get on a boat and never come back. And you know what would happen? They’d start killing each other and wiping out whole tribes. Just like in the Musket Wars before we began to civilize them and teach them not to eat each other. So, you see, it’s cyclical. We can’t win, but we can’t lose either. But they can lose. They can lose big time.”
Grimble had never heard the commissioner talk in such a manner before. He swallowed. “What are we going to do about the Soviet? We can’t touch him. Diplomatic immunity.”
“You just raided where he was staying. It’s not his safe house. It’s not a consulate. I’m sure we’re going to hear complaints from the Kremlin soon enough.”
“But we have an in.”
“An in?”
“Yes. Alexander Newton.”
Chapter Forty-two
With no wind and a blue sky, Albert Park was a perfect setting for a picnic lunch or a spontaneous demonstration in the middle of a mild winter. Students and office workers ate lunch on the grass and ignored the crowd gathering at the band rotunda. Students armed with identical posters stapled on long wooden sticks chanted in unison; “What do we want? We want our land back!” The black-and-white posters of Captain Cook had orange vertical stripes to make him look captive. Pamphlets being handed out and littering the park showed the same portrait and the name of the organizers, the Free Maori Land Movement.
Policemen in uniform had been hastily assembled for the illegal protest near the Wellesley Street entrance to the park, but were far outnumbered by the growing and noisy crowd. Mark Rose planted himself on a tea chest and held a megaphone to address the students who became more agitated and energetic with their placards.
Wiremu and Rawiri stood at the edge of the crowd near a clump of trees on the path to the fountain. Wiremu thought the statue of Queen Victoria would have been more historically appropriate. The sound from the megaphone was too distorted to hear distinctly but they heard the words “Maori” and “land” and “march”. A group of young Maori next to Mark did not look happy.
“I like the placards with Cook on them,” Rawiri shouted to Wiremu. The noise was getting louder.
“Isn’t that a copy of the three-quarter portrait?” Wiremu asked.
“I don’t know. We never got to steal it.”
Wiremu nodded and saw a few officers further away near the path to the Auckland City Art Gallery. “Look at the higher ups. Doesn’t look good.”
“Yeah. Shouldn’t Moana be here by now?”
“Let’s wait here. Look.” At the opposite end of the park there were two lines of uniformed police marching towards the crowd from the other direction. Mark was still speaking, punching out his fist and holding the megaphone high. A few photographers were now in the crowd. “Do you think those Maori want to punch the joker with the megaphone?”
Rawiri nodded. “I would.”
One of the police officers held up a larger megaphone and started to give orders to the crowd.
“Shit. Have you seen these?” Moana appeared holding a larger poster of the Captain Cook portrait with GIVE MAORI LANDS BACK NOW stenciled across it. “They’re all over the uni and the city.” She looked over at the demonstration. “Doesn’t look good, does it?”
“Nah. We’re staying here. They look like they’re getting ready to break it up.”
“Don’t think they have a permit, so they can. Oh, I made the call down by the wharf. Went well, I think. Stuck to the script.”
Wiremu nodded and continued observing.
“Aren’t you going to speak or do something?” Moana asked.
“Nah. We have plans.” Wiremu looked at Rawiri who kept a straight face.
“And we don’t want to be linked with these guys, whoever they are. Or that Pakeha clown. Do you know them?” Rawiri asked.
“Students. A group I never heard of, like in the pamphlet. Neat though, right?”
“Yeah, Moana. You caused this. Without the publicity they would never have protested. Good job.”
Wiremu scanned the faces of the protesters. “Mostly Pakehas here.”
“Maori, Pacific Islanders—doesn’t matter,” said Moana. “As long as they’re on our side.”
“Look.” Wiremu nodded to another group of policemen in formation nearby. “Going to be the Battle of Waterloo before they finish. Let’s head over there.” He pointed towards the floral clock. “They’re going to charge and force them into the university quad.”
An officer stepped forward and grabbed a Captain Cook placard from the nearest student, who appeared to be the leader of the demonstration. The student, who was bigger than the officer, turned and hit the officer’s helmet with his stick. It scraped the officer’s face who sprang forward with a punch, knocking the student to the ground. Several other students with placards began to hit officers with their placards and sticks. The police near Wellesley Street drew their batons and formed a line to advance into the crowd. The officer with the megaphone yelled at the crowd to leave immediately, but his voice was lost in the uproar as the young men fought back. The officers surrounded them and dragged away the first attacker, who screamed and struggled. Other students, seeing one of their own being arrested, aggressively used their wooden sticks like swords to strike policemen on the arms and legs.
Mark lowered his megaphone when he saw the first attacker dragged away. He got off his box and walked into the crowd, raising his fist and egging on the students, chanting, “What do we want? We want our land back!” Heading towards the fountain he saw a larger column of policemen marching up from the Kitchener Street path, so he cut across the lawn, ducked between trees and headed to Princes Street. Before he got there two officers sprinted after him and managed to tackle him on the grass.
Just then the officer with the bleeding face pulled out his baton, turned to his uniformed men and ordered a charge into the angry protesters who were at the band rotunda. From the other side of the park the column of policemen advanced, batons drawn.
“Time to leave,” said Wir
emu. “We’ve seen enough.” By the floral clock they saw a photographer being chased by two policemen. He fell over and one of the uniforms started to beat him with his baton. “I’m a journalist!” he pleaded. “I work for the Star.”
The policeman stopped, turned to his partner and saw Wiremu and Rawiri looking at them.
“What are you looking at, boy?” He pointed his baton at Wiremu. “Get going.” The other policeman strode up to Wiremu with his baton drawn as if to hit him.
Wiremu stared at him but remained, his feet spread. Moana grabbed his arm and pulled him away before he could do anything. Rawiri held his other arm and they turned their backs on the policemen. Two more uniforms came running up and one shouted, “Get them!”
Moana turned to see four policemen charging them and, out of the corner of her eye, the journalist kneeling on the pavement adjusting his camera.
“Fuck this!” Wiremu broke free of Rawiri’s and Moana’s grip and sidestepped the first uniform swinging his baton at his head. He grabbed the policeman’s arm and twisted it around his back before propelling him into the uniform behind him. Rawiri had already started to charge the other two policemen who, seeing their fellow officers sprawl onto the ground helpless, hesitated then retreated as fast as they could. Moana ran into Princes Street waving her arms, and cars braked and honked their horns at her. Rawiri and Wiremu walked to where they could see Moana on Alfred Street. She was holding up a poster and chanting, “What do we want? We want our land back!”
Wiremu and Rawiri kept walking. They had a rendezvous to plan.
• • •
Grimble heard about the demonstration from Police Superintendent Thomas Jarvis’s secretary when he returned to his office after his confidential talk with Commissioner Thompson. Jarvis had rushed to the park to take control. Grimble was concerned as he remembered Jarvis’s lack of tact in the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations he broke up. Grimble grabbed Sergeant Cadd and they drove to Wellesley Street in his Honda. Two black police vans pulled up next to Grimble and more police jumped out. Several ambulances were parked nearby.