puff 260 Isis: waiting for the voles

Isis: waiting for the voles

They say that if you sit by the river long enough you will see the bodies of your enemies float by. Is that an old Chinese saying? Or was it meant to apply to the Isis? In flood with the punts awash and drifting. Flat with the sculls hissing along. Down at the Joiner's Arms feeling the first cool of night as the sun set on it or just waiting quietly, hoping for a glimpse of a vole, the Isis was that: a river to sit by.

Our man was doing exactly that, staring at the river as though it had something to tell him.Oxford does that to you. North Oxford is otherworldly. The dreaming spires have nothing on what the landscape especially the riverbanks do to you. Lewis Carrol drew on picnics by the river for Alice in Wonderland but our man was thinking about a crime. Something that bit rather more than a childrens fantasy, something that was clearly for adults, certainly something without the veil of childhood although children were involved. People were missing.

Back in the other world, the real other world so called a man was being chased.
He ran and ran.
And then he died ,shot by the two chasing him.
It was 2am in Chicago.
The chasers vanished, fading into the night like cats.
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Isis Investigations is situated in Summertown, North Oxford.There is no business reason for this. In North Oxford most people solve their own problems and then some belonging to other people. But our man liked it. A nice place to think he said. And a nice place to live he supposed.

Our man's name is Simon Lodge. He'd beeen glad to take the case because his girlfriend Sam was driving him mad. Sam was small, Jamaican and a chatterbox. Simon was a born listener really. Lazy people usually are and Simon is nothing if not indolent.

The two of them were in Simon's loft in the boatshed. More of a half landing actually but Sam had started calling it a loft and Simon had been too tired to steer her in any other direction. They loved it there. Handy to things but out of the way. People liked calling on them there.



The chasers faded back into view in a club later that night. They were loooking for work, the next job.
Turned out to be in England.

Samantha went on about the last case, the case of the murdered Pole: gastonbeiters, people on the run, undercover intelligence people, CNN spies- this last a reference of some kind to deep cover journalism Simon reckoned- drugrunners, romance,death.

Samantha was actually responsible for the present case. She'd gone outside the boatshed and found an old Roma woman crying by the Isis. And that's where it started. Two Roma people were missing. A man and and woman in their mid twenties. Acrobats. Police not trusted. Gypsies in North Oxford. Enough said.

But Sam had annoyed Simon about it so that, taking the line of least resistance he'd gone out to the layby where the housetrucks and caravans were parked. He knew them and they him. They all went back a fair way together because as Simon always told Sam they knew things that other people do not know. And they never forgot.

The chasers were hunters now. Looking for gypsies. Finding the terrible tearaways was easy though. The layby out from North Oxford. Catching them was another story. They were fit. Was there bait?

Long and short of it was that Simon had some rare coins up front and an equally rare collection of jewelry at job's end as a fee. His to dispose of, of course, and that presented problems for him but there were rewards such as what these things were worth.

Simon had made money on the murdered Pole. That didn't sound very nice bt that is the way it was. In fact he and Sam had spent the best part of two months doing not a lot . Watching the Isis, going to the Oxford pubs, visiting friends at the colleges. Laying about and making the best of their luck.

He ventured as much to Sam. This bought forth a stream: the English upper class, North Oxford, people who Hunt, Marx and class. The oh so priveliged two-of-them. Luck?

Sorting out what the bait might be was easy. The bait was life in the fast lane, drugs, America, anything to be out of Oxford and The South. The problem was how to present the bait.

Samantha does not cook Simon made them both lunch. On the other hand Sam knows lots about food and kept up a commmentary on salads. What frauds restaurant salads were and on.


Then it was the Job Sheet.Half the job really Simon always told himself. He'd invented a way of doing this which was a to suspent a sheet, as in a bed sheet, linen from the half landing and then to stick bits of paper on to it with pins. Sam grizzled about how tedious and time consuming this all was but it got Simon's juices going and nothing suited him more that a sheeet covered in notes receipts, bus tickets or whatever he could find to pin on it.

This time he had questions on yellow paper asking:
Who approached the twins in Oxford?
Or was it their idea to go?
Why America?
How will they be found? Clothes? Hair? Behaviour? What sticks out?
And so on.

Making friends with twins is usually a stretch. If they are sort of pretending to be twins its harder. If you are as foreign as an American in Oxford then its even harder still. The hunters settled for approaching the twins who weren't in a club.

Samantha loved to watch him do it. It gave the essential facts on which she might embroider. And she did just that. An incandescent spray of words. Simon heard bits of it, used it, fed off it even.

So the afternoon went. Summer afternoons in North Oxford are delicious things. And they last until the late early evening by which time Simon's brain was racing and Sam was getting hoarse.

By five in fact, with the Job Sheet well and truly started they were both more than ready for a pint. One last look at the Sheet from about ten feet away to get the big picture a bit of a tidy up and out the door.

Almost out the door in fact.Simon was stepping out and about to close the door when he went back and wrote question on a yellow slip: how far back does this story go? Pinning this on the Job Sheet he joined Sam outside and they walked to the pub.

It had started in a club. Late. The Trapeze Twins were doing what they mostly did when not working. Partying.The club was in Jericho.
This guy kept finding a way to sit next to them. The couldn't figure which way he swung. Ken or Barbie. On the trapeze or one out. Finally Benjamin had said 'Look man, do you want to dance with Iris?'

At that the guy laughed and said yes who wouldn't but let me introduce myself and have I got a deal for the both of you.

Or that's how it seemed to the Trapeze Twins to have happpened when they thought about it later. Benjamin and Iris were their English names.They had both been out of it. I fact their first thought had been that Ken, as he inroduced himself to be, was trying to sell them drugs.


As pretty well always the first person they saw at the Joiner's Arms was the Don. Portrait of a pickle muttered Samantha. Certainly he liked his wee dram without being the slightest bit scottish. Gay as a bee he pretended Samantha was not really in the room.

This made for conversations which ran into the corners and up the walls, The Gunvor as they called the publican raising his eyebrows, shaking his head and miming away in the background. For some reason The Don really pulled the Guvnor's chain, rang his bell.

Sam would quietly mutter and text away to one side while our Don made grand conversational sweeps. Sometimes Sam sent texts to people farthest way at times like this. People like Paullie, Simon's dad who lived in Los Angeles. This meant that people who were never likely to see the Don had a fairly jaundiced idea of him.

Simon found all this madness diverting and useful. People humouring one another all over the shop. Nothing he could do. Pleasant pint he found it actually.

Samantha and Simon did pay attention to one another on the walk home. They walked past the Tramp who, as usual was at the deginnning of the walway near the pub waiting for something to happen. They both liked walking beside the Isis which had a certain black allure to it at that time of the night. There was usualy a bit of quiet action: punters drifting out of the dark and the splash of the odd vole or whatever.

And then they were home making love. And after that Sam was quiet and Simon ready for some new stuff to do in the morning. First things being at the beginnning Simon went to the covered market to buy food. Sam did not shop but knew about shopping and where to go. Simon was a study in appplied helplessness when it came to shopping but he liked to get out on his bike and ride around Oxford, scarf flying.

The second chaser had the task of runnning the phone. He called a man in a country at the edge of the Caucasus. Get that insurance package ready he said.

The thing was that North Oxford was a safe place. Tramps and academics felt safe in North Oxford. Lots of money and lots of eccentrics. The gypsy children were routinely sent up to the Summmerhilll shops, a mile or so up the road to buy things. Got them out of the layby. Young teenagers liked to roam. It was summer.

The two missing people, the Trapeze Twins as they were billed, were not children or even teenagers but from what Simon could make out they were what he called specials. They were so focussed on trapeze work and the like that they evidently lived in a world of their own. They were like cultural treasures to the Roma so good were they as acrobats.

The Twins were not biologically related except in the most distant of ways.

And yet they had a wild streak according to those who knew them. Anything was possible with them.

But they had got lost on the local Roma leader's patch and he wanted to find them The acrobats were wanted for performance throughout the world of gypsies, all the way back to whence they'd come, from Romany.

Simon had a job figuring it out. Another thing was that you did not, by and large, mess with the gypsies. Who would want to risk their wrath? Stealing gypsy acrobats? Not a smart move thought Simon. They connnected throughout Europe and the world. They knew things.

The bait was presented as a contract, a deal. To work in America. In Vegas. Big money, lots of frills in the contract. Winks. Nods.The twins bought it. Even the catches which involved a quick and quiet disappearance from North Oxford and no publicity, no waves, the hunter said, in the States.

In fact Simon was not the one to figure it out. Another Roma person saw them at Heathrow. He had been working the crowd, looking for loose bags, anything to turn a quid whe he saw his relations in the distance acccompanied by two men and about to board a plane.

Not wanting to be compromised, the pickpocket kept quiet at the time but let people know later and within two days the Roma of North Oxford were building a picture which had the teenagers in another country.


But Simon did find out that they might have gone to America. He went to Heathrow and met the pickpocket. Simon established that the acrobats had been walking to a stand where America bound tickets were dealt with.

And the racing and the chasing went on.It was 3am in Los Angeles.Outsde a church in the barrio a man went to ground and died. Knifed.




Simon called his Dad, the retired rock star, in Los Angeles. Paullie Lodge was, of course, on the freeway. He took the call on his mobile without pulling over which would have been impossible anyway. Not that Paullie liked to take precautions. He'd joined up. Paullie was American now and by that he meant that aggresssion beat discretion hands down.

So Paullie sat back in the Stutz, moved from the outside into the middle lane and told Simon to go ahead. He might have even said, 'Shoot'.

Simon described the Trapeze Twins and their disappearance. The idea that they might be in America. At this stage it was a mattter that Simon had to deal with in England. The thing now was the next step, Simon didn't have the faintest...

Paullie always treated America as a village, as a place he understoood. This was partly an effort to stay sane in a very strange place but given the people he knew and the years he'd spent on the road in the states there was something in it.

Paullie resorted to shrinkspeak which he sometimes did when he, also, did not have a clue. Look at those close to the Trapezoids he said. As with broke marriages and domestic murders those closest usually had the answers. CAF, Condider All Factors, Establish Priorities for which he'd forgotten the acronym if there was one but of course there was one. This was problem solving on the freeway in Los Angeles. There had to be an acronym, a code to unlock and then solve any given problem.

In the country at te edge of the Caucasus a woman in her late forties was crossing a street. A car screeched to a halt beside her. Two men jumped out and grabbed her forcing her into the back seat between them.

Simon figured that Paullie might have something about the closest person always having some kind of answer. He went back to the Roma leader. He went back to the Job Sheet. More yellow slips. He went back to Sam. There had to be soneone in North Oxford who knew something. Did the Trapezoids, as Paullie so cunningly called them, like American junk food? Was the solution a simple one? Had North Oxford been a tad too stable for them? Were they threatened by some Central European custom like arranged mariage thought Simon knowing nothing at all about the subject at hand.

Sam thought she could talk this through.Simon walked with her to the Broad and left her to it.

The helicopter rose from the pad on top of the hotel. Vegas was red and without dust in the early morning.It was reconnaisance.


Acrobats? Why would someone want acrobats in America? To entertain of course. Why from North Oxford? It meant or it probably meant they spoke English. Where to in the Americas? To a place where people were entertained. Las Vegas. Paullie was certain. Had to be Vegas.

The men in the country at the edge of the Caucsus toook the woman they had kidnapped to a cottage in the country. One called America and said that the insurance package was being held.




Back in Oxford Simon messsed about in the boatshed and went for walks trying to come to terms with all this, in a desultory mannner. He saw the usual people. He tried to stay close to his pattern of indolence just, eally for something to do. Flirted with elevenses even but then he had problems with the afternoons. Several sherries before lunch just seemed to call forth his old enemy: work. In this case the efffort in staying awake, making sense or even driving.

All a bit much really.

At one stage, late at night, Simon passed the Tramp who, once again, was kicking up dirt on the path from the Boathouse to the Joiner's Arms. To keep himself warm through activity Simon supposed. Tricky, staying warm in that line of work Simon thought.

He often saw the Tramp sitting outside the pub on summmer's nights and waiting for something to happen. Simon could relate to that.

Anything that flies I can handle.The Lear jet left Medelin.


'Voles for tea?' Asked the Aussie. His name was David Walker.

Simon started. He'd drifted off into the sleepy almost narcoleptic High Summmer dusk of North Oxford.

'Sling 'em on the barbie dya reckon Sport?' Responded Simon glad to snap out of The Case.

It was to do with oil. And gas. One group against another on the other side of the Caucasus and then all the way down to Iraq and Iran. Control of pipelines, really, was what it was all about.Control of the information about the pipelines actually. More a matter of disguising information so that it never seemed to be about the pipelines. This meant murdering journalists.



The Don wondered what Simon had got himself into this time. Then he noticed an interesting looking chap on the far side of the bar. Eventually though he had a short sharp talk to Simon over a guiness making it clear that problems do not solve themselves, waiting for solutions to pop into your mind was not really how to do things, if you eally wanted to put the polish on the boot then you had to set to, turn to, whatever the expression and look like you were working at least.

So they did , Simon and Sam what they always did. Simon hung the Job Sheet up and sat directly in front of it a low table beside him with pins, small squares of yellow paper and the like on it while Sam went about things behind him.

Other things looming large in Sam's life were thing like salts and oils. If she had time she would write a book about one or the other. That would get her off the benefit too. The world had been wrecked by canola oil, salts were being corrupted en route to the shops. What kind of diet would the acrobats be forced to eat in America?


In Los Angeles Paullie made inquiries about acrobats.

What agencies were they employed through?

Where was the money for old style acrobats? Freak shows? Geeks? Frankenstein movies?

Did acrobats work on television? Was their's an extinct art?

Another way into it was to move the focus from the acrobats to the trapeze. Where could trapezes be found and what was their purpose? Who needs a trapeze? How do you go about buying a trapeze in America?

He'd had enough of the Zoids. He'd had enough of Vegas.Enough of people on the edge.

Simon set some objectives.


Isis Investigations had, of course several detectives. That is if you count, Paullie, the Don, the Aussie, Sam and sundry characters. Simon was not alone although he was officiallly the only staff member.
A lot was happpening in Vegas. The AcroX affair, the opening of the hospital, a showbiz weddding of some kind. It was all on in Vegas.

The Trapeze Twins
the rowers
the punters
parsons pleasure

The Tramp nodded to the Don who really was quite deeeply into his cups tonight. Hope he doesn't trip and fall into the Isis thought the Tramp. The Don was thinking about acrobats in America, he mutttered about things you might see from the heights an acrobat reached, he stumbled but did not fall. The Isis, black itself and reflecting the night sky as well, ran on.





Next day though the river was bright and clear. Everything seemed cleaner and easier, except, that is, for Simon's case.

Apart from tidying up his bibs and bobs and restating the case in pins, paper and string and Sam suggesting something interesting which Simon was struggling to recall the Job Sheet exercise had yielded little. Simon walked along the Isis. Why would someone steal two acrobats from North Oxford? Where to look for clues? Why were they needed in America? Turn it around: what would they need in America?



Lunch with your Mum declared Sam. Simon blanched. His mother was, of all things, an Oxford philosopher turned novelist. Lunch with Sam and his mother was a mind on mind time which sometimes took days to get over. He began to remonstrate but decided against the effort.

Sam told him it was the next day. At his mother's college and not at her house which suited Simon. There might be some light relief, porters with whom one could chat mindlessly, so forth.

Not feeling up to thinking about lunch with his mother Simon turned back to the case. He thought about what Paullie had said about starting close to where the Twins had left off. It figured that the acrobats knew and trusted the person or persons who took them. Simon asked the Roma family if they knew anyone who went to or lived in America. In an entertainment place. In Vegas perhaps.

Of course they knew people in America. And in Vegas. But there was no background to sugggest a connection to the Twins just up and disappearing. No connnection that they knew of anyway.

Simon began to apppreciate alll over again that he was up against a kind of group mind. Sometimes that worked for you as an outsider and sometimes, well, you just had to wait and see.

Or, it figured that some temptation proved too strong. They were acrobats who functioned, by and large, without props. They liked Xtreme sports but motorcycles were outside of their experience. What did they want but could never have? Motorcycles, big ramps, everything in Xtreme sports. And that was about it. Simon could not think of anything else that might tempt them.

Of course they did know people in America. But it was preposterous to suggest that the teenagers would go willlingly with someone they knew without telling them and they did not know anyone in America that well. Roma know Roma but part of this is to do with survival in a world where people generally did not respond well to gypsies. Knowing people did not mean trusting your children with them.





Simon did what he always did when left without answers. He repaired to the pub. He and Sam walked up the path by the Isis to the Joiner's Arms and as usual there was the Don. They outlined the case to him.

The Don loved to ask for the logic in things. Where, he asked was the logic in taking acrobats to America? To do things that Americans were not likely to do he surmised otherwise an American acrobats would have been used instead. This made sense, Simon suppposed.




The acrobats themselves were at that moment in a plane from New York to Los Angeles. They were talking their own private language. It wasn't exactly a language alhough they both spoke several: it was a mix of what people call body language, expressions which they understood between themselves and he odd word or phrase from this language or that. What made it quite unusual was that they spoke in lines from pop songs in any of the languages that they knew but mostly in English.

The shared a lot. Only they really knew why they had left North Oxford and England. Why they were in America. Why they were going to Vegas. And why they were not telling anyone else.


The organisers of the Xtreme convention in Las Vegas were leaving no stone unturned to make this the biggest thing this year. It was to be held at the new Xtreme Sports Centre to be built next to Nevada Memorial Hospital.

Sam fiddled with her hair, paced about and kept on about the Royals: Charles. Then it was time for lunch with Simon's mother. They decided to walk. Passed the Tramp who was loitering outside another college. Sam went on about his eczema. Simon admitted to himself that he was sec retly pleased to be seeing his mother again. Hoped she didn't wander. Or squabble with other Fellows.

Lunch was, well, out of the ordinary. Simon's mother had had a major hair apointment in the morning and the results were sufficient to put Sam off her stride and send Simon back to his worst nursery days. He completely regressed and sat there giggling for the most part.


Sam and Simon had to repair to the Joiners. The Don asked Simon whether his mother had asked him not to play with the Gypsies in the wood. Sam went quiet at that. Simon put on a wry expression which was not so far from what he actually felt.

The Don was fairly advanced on his way into his cups. After repeateadly interrupting other peoples' conversations the Guvnor lost patience an asked him to stop. Threatened not to serve him. Unheard of behaviour from the help in an Oxford Pub. Noticed by one of the new customers. Hard not to. Had Simon been there he might have taken the Don home. The Tramp heard the Don muttering about the Guvnor on his way home. It was a changing rant actuallly, now mutttering and the rising to a shout, then fading away. The Tramp had not seen liquor do this to anyone before. The Don kept asking the night whether he should change pubs?



At last The Case was up and running. The drag of the initial period was over. There were of couse other cases but Simon could never concentrate on them until he had a handle on the major ones.
The hunt for the Trapeze Twins continued acrosss America. At least that was how it was in Paullies mind. He thought and he thought. Went for drives in the freeway to clear his head so he could think straight.

Then, as many acts do, it came Las Vegas. How it was noticed was that it was on television. Paullie saw it in his den. A story about the combination of Xtreme sports and trapeze artists. An ancient craft and a new science, a new alchemy more like thought Paullie. But why not? A bit like pop music in the sixties only silly stunts instead of silly little love songs.

Snap. How lucky. Paulllie prepared the Stutz Bearcat for the trip from L A to Vegas. Called Simon. Missed him, got Sam and listened to a convoluted story about Onassis being behind the Bobbby Kennnedy assassination. Sam put the phone down in the end, went over to the little table by the Jo Sheeet, wrote a note on a yellow slip saying that the Trapeze Twins had been found in America, would Simon calll his father and pinned it on the sheet next to the slip about Heathrow.


Simon dithered and procrastinated. What to do next?




Being a retired rock star in California had its moments. Paullie had developed a personality which made it diffficult to recognise him as the operson who left the UK. Paullie was rich. Paullie was usually bored. He liked America and it put up with him. His band had done well and then broken up but not before some of their music had become the theme tune in a daily soap. Paul did nothing but live off royalties really. Two of the band had died fron drug overdoses and a manager had gone through natural causes but Paullie and two others remained to pick up the cheques and spend them.

Out of necessity, in the bands early years in Reading Paullie had got used to living frugally. He kept records of all his spending in a small notebook where he once also kept records of sexual encounters. Long story short Paullie had invested and then retired in America.

Paullie knew people, knew who they were. He had what people call a photographic memory. He remembered faces from television, what people were wearing. That type of thing. After his fling with Simon's mum who was doing Tripos at the time Paullie never partnered seriously: he was a serious serial dater for a while and then got bored. Paulllie seemed to have alll the luck and then none. He and Simon got along automatically. Simon's mum had forgotten about him. The Don hated him on sight as did a lot of people their age. Why hadn't he put up with it all in England like everyone else?



The Trapeze Twins were, of course and by necessity almost, adrenalin junkies. They lived for thrills.

In Vegas,Paullie reckoned, it was bettter to do breakfast than to do lunch.

Paulllie had breakfast with one or two people that he knew.

The Tramp
Sam and Paullie had a text relationship, a txt thing. Sam could text as ahe was talking. A multitasker so long as one task was verbal free association. Paulllie liked texting people because you didn't have to look at them while you were tellling them things. Or hear them as you did on the phone.





Las Vegas was upgrading. No longer a gangster hangout, no longer even a crass boom town Vegas was starting to become a serious centre. The President was due to open a wing at Nevada Memorial Hospital at the beginnning of the summmer, philharmonic orchestras were now playing where gaudy popstars once struttted, Vegas was nearly a credible place.

The most extreme thing in Xtreme sports involved teenagers doing flips over motorbikes. The acrobats were right into that. One took his trapeze skills so far that he could move from the back of the bike to a trapeze hanging off a helicopter and remain poised.

This took six weeks of preparation. It was planned so that as the jump from bike to trapeze occcured a shot was to be fired from the helicopter and the senator opening the adjacent new hospital was to be killed.


Who was in the helicopter?
Was it a male or a female?
Age?
Studio head?
Casino head?
Mob?
Politician?
Robbberof some kind?
Tori Spelling type child star making a show to beat other shows-eclipsing a wedding
Know that she/he is either a traveller or someone with connnections in England as with the person or people who approached and organised the eparture of the Twins.
Probably an interest in entertainment or gambling?


Simon recognised the Trapeze Twins from the television. He called his Dad.


Paullie travelled from Los Angeles to Vegas. By Stutz.


Simon flew to Los Angeles from London and then on to Vegas.



The FBI step in along with local law enforcement.



Sam ran things at Isis investigations. This was a bit of a stretch for all involved. People with things to solve were engaged in talk of a kind they'd not met before. Mind you, Sam got to meet new people. Thin on the ground though, thought Simon. Desperate measures and all.



The Don took Simon to his London Club. Simon wished he'd brought his mother.



Paullie tried punting. North Oxford was a kind of homecoming for him but of course it was something that he could never do: home was in the transatlantic ether. Up there with other popstars that he knew. Where he belonged.

The Don regarded Paullie as an unexplained phenomenon.Paullie, of course, classified the Don in entertainment terms: he was like a character off the set of a Noel Coward thing.




The Trapeze Twins went out for burgers. And shakes.



The Tramp lurked about the covered market. He saw the Aussie. David Walker was in fact, getting off his bike after a long ride in the country.






Shoot out.

Then it came back to North Oxford. How it was noticed was that the Guvnor saw someone that he could not place. Unusual at the Joiners Arms. Especiallly since the Guvnor not only did not know the face, he did not know what the new chap was doing in his pub. Not meeting anyone, not doing anything ecccentric like jotting down notes for a novel on a napkin, just sittting alone drinking whiskey and water and only talking when he ordered more in an irritatingly indeterminate accent. Had to be sorted reckoned the Guvnor.

And sorted it was. But not the way the Guvnor wanted. Sudddenly there were lots of strange faces, a medley of acccents but some from th home counties. A fair bit if heavy loooking if not outright staring and the first new face was gone, replaced by more new faces. Downright spoooky as far as the Guvnor was concerned. The feel of the new people was distincly that they wanted to be left alone, unchalllenged and unknown. And as long as they conformed to the basic rules of the pub who could complain?

Was North Oxford really a safe place? Was anywhere? For someone like Paullie it was not as safe as a freeway in Los Angeles. For someone like the Don it was the safest place on earth. For the Tramp it was as safe as houses. For Sam it was like a fairy kingdom . North Oxford seemed to float in space:being forced away from North Oxford would fing a person unsafe simply because minding the world and minding your business was different.

In any event the phone rang downstairs and Simon, glad of a respite from Sam's incessant chatter slid off the bed and went down.

Shoot out.

Simon left his Dad, Paullie and his partner Sam together in the Boatshed for a week. This truly was an unguarded moment on Simon's part. But he had things to do.

One of the Trapeze Twins arched an eyebrow at the other. They were at Heathrow. The other smiled, stoood up and lead the way to the Budapest bound counter.

Simon had sat by the river long enough. When he thought about it maybe the odd corpse had floated by unnoticed wxcept for the occcasional involuntary shudder that came over him as he sat.

What to do next then?

When in doubt, repair to thye pub.

Warsaw?
Voles disease,
Parsons Pleasure
traits- likes Isis, likes Oxford, is indolent. Simon Lodge lives in a Boatshed. Upstairs on a half landing above the boats. Simon is the Isis and the Isis is Simon.
Smuggling people is hardly new.
Romantic interest
Sam talked about Vietnam.
Sam was talking about the Royals.
covered market, cellphones, text messages
profiles- victim, hero, romantic interest
parsons pleasure
david walker
jamaican lady, off beat, colourful, small, very talkative
Novel?
detective/reunion

The estate owner smuggles people.The police can't make progress on the murder Simonn Lodge goes to Poland Traces Kowalski's movements. Polish or Rumanian?
Tramps
The Don
The Tramp
Finds coincidences.Not appreciated by police.
Simon is from an regular background but does irregular things.
Plot outline
1 Roma acrobats kidnapped
2 Taken to America
3 Made to do tricks on a trapezedangling beneath a helcopter while an assasssination takes place, to create a diversion in other words.
Simon foils the plot
An illegal Polish worker had been found with his throat cut on an estate in Banbury. The Constabulary were working on the murder. Our man's job was more mundane. To find the man's relations in Poland and to run down the details. An interesting phrase that tripped off the tongue of the estate manager and part of the task now was to sort out what 'run down the details' meant. To inform the relations of the man's death. To see what matters were left over so to speak. Inheritance? From an itinerant worker? Unlikely. To arrange for shipment of the body back home. Again unlikely. To seal doors that might be embarrassing to the estate on which the man whose name was, of courrse, Kowalski? Most likely.
How bizarre.
PLot Outline
1 body discovered
2 Isis Investigation engaged and characters introduced
3 Simon wakes up and goes to Poland
4 Fight at Kowalkski's
5 Pursuit of attacker by Road- ring around Eastern Germany finishing in Berlin interaction by txt with sam who txtslike she talks
6 action goes from Berli to Paris to London-Oxford-London
7 syakeout of a London Club
8 confronting the culprit
9 Chasing culprit back to Oxford
10 Police back in picture for arrest

As he was leaving he saw the estate manager.
 


The hunt for the Trapeze Twins continued acrosss America. At least that was how it was in Paullies mind. He thought and he thought. Went for drives in the freeway to clear his head so he could think straight.

Then, as many acts do, it came Las Vegas. How it was noticed was that it was on television. Paullie saw it in his den. A story about the combination of Xtreme sports and trapeze artists. An ancient craft and a new science, a new alchemy more like thought Paullie. But why not? A bit like pop music in the sixties only silly stunts instead of silly little love songs.

Snap. How lucky. Paullie prepared the Stutz Bearcat for the trip from L A to Vegas. Called Simon. Missed him, got Sam and listened to a convoluted story about Onassis being behind the Bobbby Kennnedy assassination. Sam put the phone down in the end, went over to the little table by the Job Sheet, wrote a note on a yellow slip saying that the Trapeze Twins had been found in America, would Simon call his father and pinned it on the sheet next to the slip about Heathrow.