by
Benjamin Drum
ISBN
978-0-9582939-0-7
puff books
26 Sycamore Crescent,
Palmerston North
Thanks to the team
at Warehouse Stationery,
Palmerston North
Bound by New Life Bookbindings
28 Avenue Rd,
Greenmeadows, Napier
Contents
1 Summertown
2 Along the river
3 Vegas
4 Clubs and cutouts
5 Nets
6 No nets
Summertown
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 always a river to sit by.
Our man Simon Lodge 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 all sorts of pictures on picnics by the river 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.
People were missing. There was a ripple of hurt from this that got to a lot of other people. Simon, sat, figuring and wondering as the early evening came slowly to the Isis.
The panther snatched the morsel of meat and gulped it down. It prowled from side to side in its cage.The panther always seemed to be too big for its cage.
In this small private zoo the panther always seemed big anyway.
The man who had thrown the meat, the owner of the zoo, walked up a path and sat by a fountain. His name was Julio. His heart settled down and he began to plan his day. Small birds hopped around on the ground. They were the only free creatures in the area.
He picked up the phone.
It was quiet except for a contented, low purring sound from the panther.
At thirty nine Julio looked a little older, maybe in his early forties.
Julio had no family, no partners either. They slowed him down. They were, for Julio, redundant.
Julio's favourite sport was cockfighting. He went down to the village on a Friday night and sat with the smell of cheap wine and cigarillos and the noise of peasants barracking and watched the fights. It gave him a contrast to the almost complete control he exercised at home.
Julio liked the art of Salvador Dali. He liked the paintings of desert scenes with surprising things in them. He had one above his chair near the fountain in his private zoo. An original.
The kinds of car he liked most was a Porsche. He liked its being low slung with lots of power beneath the hood.
Julio's favorite clothes were shades and black silk shirts. He liked polished black leather shoes with elevated heels. And silver chains, not gold.
Regarding colours, Julio saw things in black, and white but he also liked kaleidoscopes of colour and he liked his peacocks flashing their tails.
His favorite animal was the panther but he had a great regard for all animals. Astoundingly for someone so cruel to humans he hated animals being maltreated.
Julio's favorite programme was the Sopranos but he thought that Tony was weak to see a shrink.
To say that Julio could be moody would be to understate things. His rages were legendary. But he could be cool as well.
At school he was good at biology.
He was feared by his schoolmates.
Esme rode her bicyle along the river path. The bells were already ringing at her school. Too much time texting her chum, Bella. She stood on the pedals as she went past the Boathouse.
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 Simon liked it. A nice place to think he said. And a nice place to live he supposed.
Simon Lodge had been glad to take the case because his girlfriend Sam was driving him mad. Sam was small, Jamaican and a chatterbox. Actually she was part Dalmation as well, on her mother's side.
Simon was a born listener really. Lazy people usually are and Simon is nothing if not indolent. Simon looked about his age which was twentynine, He was thinning a little on top and had just started to lose his youthful slimness. He wanted to be older, more assured, no question.
Simon's father was Paullie as far as he knew. He had no brothers or sisters. He had been bought up, so to speak, in College.
At Winchester Simon had played rugby. It had not been that much fun. But such as it was it was his sport and he could tell you things about rugger at he strangest times.
Simon's favourite artist was Picasso. He liked the blue period, especially paintings like the one of he woman ironing. The one where her body seemed to be stretched sdo that her arms were impossibly long. It was what life did to you thought Simon.
He liked jazzy little sports cars. Nothing better than zipping around the South in a jaunty little red number in High Summer. Nothing wrong with some solid sounds either.
Simon dressed like an undergraduate. Sloppy. But with his own sense of style, Nostalgic about ties he still wore his school tie at twenty nine and looked to be still doing so at fifty nine.
Grey and blue were his favorite colours. As long as the grey was not too dark and the blue of the Oxford kind.
Simon liked dogs. Especially dogs that could run. The loyalty of dogs was a big thing too, for Simon.
The best shows on television for Simon were mysteries like Bergerac. They snapped him out of his own issues and helped him to relax. He enjoyed trying to work out the perpetrators.
Simon was a dreamer but he could, if he occasion demanded be steady. He could be quite self absorbed but he could swing into action when required. And people trusted him and felt they could depend on him.
At school he was good at history. He liked trying to explain why things happen. He was alright at maths but did not stick at it.
His workmates loved him and hated his lack of organisation. He had a reasonable sense of humour without always trying to be the class wag. He had a way of fitting in, of making or allowing others around him to feel comfortable.
Sam ran things at Isis Investigations when Simon was not around. 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 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.
A man was being chased in an American city.
He ran and ran.
And then he died, shot by the two chasing him.
The chasers vanished, fading into the night like cats.
The chasers faded back into view in a club later that night.
They were looking 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.
Sam looked like a teenager. It was the big eyes and the slight build perhaps. For twenty nine she was doing alright or at least that's what Simon thought. Herself she thought she could lose more weight but she knew that's what the television and media wanted her to think.
Coming from Peckham was a bit of a stumbling block in North Oxford. At least it might have been for most people. Not Sam. She could have been from Black Stump in the farther outback and Sam would have made it interesting.
Netball was her sport. She played centre. Even though Sam was very short she could jump. She seemed to levitate on court. And she was a good team player, certainly a good communicator.
Sam liked the French impressionists. She liked the way things were in soft focus. And she could put herself into the paintings and feel at home. She had hung some prints in the boatshed and Simon did not seem to mind.
Her favourite car was a mini. She liked the way they could zip in and out of traffic. The closeness to the ground was something else that she liked. You were not removed or detached from the speed at which you were going. You were in touch and that's how Sam liked things.
Sam dressed like a trainwreck. Everything was out of Oxfam. Big earrings, bright scarves, black leggings, never skirts. And dreads. And never, never any lipstick.
Her best colours were black, red and gold. She liked the bright markets of the Caribbean. And the music, especially the old stuff from the likes of Peter Tosh.
Sam liked cats, even big ones like lions. The smooth, slinkiness of the felines got to her. She also liked their speed and intensity.
Her favorite television shows were late night music ones. She was ready to slow down at that time. A glass of red wine, a desultory read and that was her for the day.
Sam had two moods, manic and more manic. Sam was an energy bunny, an output of force that never needed to be renewed. Simon was a good foil for her. Apart from being a good listener he was patient and he quite enjoyed the things she said.
At school she was good at English. She could write and she could listen or read and comprehend. And, of course, she could talk. But her teachers also said that she had a first rate analytical mind whatever that was.
Her schoolmates thought she was something of a nerd but they liked her style. Sam would take on any topic and they liked that But she could go on...
Samantha was actually responsible for the present case, at least for starting things off for Isis Investigations. She'd gone outside the boatshed and found an old woman crying by the river. It was just another day by the Isis. Those schoolgirls were both hanging about as usual. The one called Esme had given her a hairy look. The Tramp was around somewhere.
But once started the old lady would not stop. And so the case began. Two people were missing from the camp in the layby on the Banbury Road. A man and and woman in their mid twenties. Acrobats. Police not trusted. Gypsies in North Oxford. Enough said.
But Sam had kept asking 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.
And it was a good distance to ride and a good break from some of the occupational hazards for Simon in North Oxford. A bike ride in the fresh air beat being baled up by the Don and being regaled with stories of outrages in the annual common room meeting at college.
The chasers were out in the world now. Off the blocks. In the hunt. With instructions.
Looking for gypsies.
Finding the terrible tearaways was easy though. The layby out from North Oxford. Catching them was another story. The twins were fit.
Was there bait?
As Sam started work on The New Case he thought about the previous one. Long and short of the Case of the Murdered Pole 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 when shifted.
So Simon had made money on the murdered Pole. That didn't sound very nice but 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 had been easy. The bait was life in the fast lane, drugs, America, anything to be out of Oxford and The South.
The bait was Vegas.
The hard bit had been how to present the bait..
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