Isis: the days of the voles, Part Two

Along the river



Back on the path by the river Esme and Bella waited for a boy who knew about stencils. They were not far from the boathouse. Sam came out and did Tai Chi to some Rasta music. Esme and Bella rolled their eyes at one another. Esme got out her camera as if to take a photo of Sam but Bella shook her head and the camera went back into Esme's pocket as fast as it had come out.

At fourteen Bella loked older. Sixteen at least. Sometimes she made out she was older for effect but mostly Bella was dead natural. Bela was a class leader wherever she found herself in a class.

Bella was close to her mother. And to her little brother and her chums who included Esme. Bella was loyal and people liked this about her. Bella was around five foot six ahile Esme was a little taller. They were taller than Sam by a long way and were pipping some of the men like the Don.

Bella liked equestrian sports including dressage activities. Her mother had encouraged this. Bella had taken things further by becoming a leader of a group of young people involved with horses.

She liked the sculptor, Henry Moore. Bella liked the comfort of the big, solid shapes. One day she wouldn't mind having a go at sculpture.

Bella liked Vauxhalls. She was a bit of an expert on English cars especially those coming out of Cowley. But there was something solid about Vauxhalls and besides she liked the name itself.

She liked to dress in slacks and scarves. Skirts were not really her thing.
Orange and yellow were Bella's colours. Yellow slacks, black top and an orange scarf, that was Bella.

Of course Bella liked horses but she had become something of an expert on voles. The latter was by way of becoming an expert on anything to do with the river Isis and the life on it. If there was a project to do at school on the river then Bella was for it.

The kinds of television programmes Bella liked were ones like Heartbeat and Emmerdale Farm. Dependable communities with plots she could, at least most of the time, understand and predict.

Bella's moods were always bright. At the same time she could assess the down side of things. Bella knew that the world was not always positive. But her attitude meant that she could face anything.

At school she was good at science. She liked the arts but did not do all that well at them. She like listening to people who knew things about literature and paintings.

Her schoolmates found her an asset in class where she would stand up to the teachers. Bella did not know why she argued with people in authority and her tone was always reasonable but she would have a go.

Esme was fourteen as well and looked about that. She liked people her own age and did not like people who were snobbish about their age like a older brother she could mention.

Esme was close to father and her Mum. Adults lived in a very funny world though. Who would want to grow up?

Hockey was Esme's sport although she thought she might have a go at soccer next year. Right Back was her position. Some of her best mates played hockey though.

In art classes Esme liked design. She could make all sorts of interesting amulets and necklaces which she gave to her chums. She liked architecture, not as something she wanted to do but as something she respected and thought she might understand someday.

Esme liked BMWs. She did not like Japanese cars or, for that matter American cars much. She liked the upholstered feel of a a Beemer. She was taking driving lessons but had not yet got to using the clutch in a manual.


Esme dressed like a bit of an EMO. Black T shirt and black slacks but sometimes with red shoes. When she was not in uniform. Esme hated her uniform but wore it in such a way as to make it her own. The collar just upturned, the shoes just buffed...

Her best colours were green and red.

Esme liked horses and had one for a bit. Its name was Xavier. It had a white splash on a dark coat across the face.

On television Esme liked the OC. She liked the good looks of the Californians and the intrigues on the show. And the houses.

While she was reflective she was outgoing when she thought it was necessary.

At school she was good at driving. And English and Civics.

Her schoolmates thought she could be fun. And they respected her.

The cockatoos ran loose in the private zoo in Bogata. The owner strolled aimlessly making sounds to the cockatoos and throwing a litle corn around. The waiting was not getting to him. There were plenty of distractions in his surroundings.

Coming back to work on The Present Case Simon and Samantha decided to have lunch.

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 hung from the half landing with bits of paper stuck 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?
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. People watch you.

The hunters had decided to aproach the twins in a club.

The path was wet and greasy. Esme and Bella took photos with Esme's new camera. As they came out of the river walk and onto the Abingdon road they saw two men wearing sunglasses and black tee shirts. Passing them they caught an American accent. 'Get Shorty!', said Bella and Esme, ducking behind her so that she could not be seen took two instant polaroids of the men.

Samantha loved to watch Simon list things about the Case. It gave the essential facts on which she might embroider. And she did just that. A spray of words. She was the Plotmaster, she figured out the big pictures while Simon grappled with the detail. 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.

In a club in Jericho. 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. In fact their first thought had been that Ken, as he inroduced himself to be, was trying to sell them drugs.

Esme practised taking pictures on the Tramp as he lay sleeping. Edmond, for that was his name, looked at least ten years older than his four score years and eight. His face was lined and gaunt and he had a slight stoop. Too many hedges had been slept under for there not to be an effect.

He had, ostensibly, no family, his wife and children a distant memory after an equally distant trauma which he could now only half remember. He'd spent time in institutions, He'd had shock treatment, he'd had medication for a long time. At night he liked to move his tongue around in his mouth. This was freedom. He could remember the effects of medication and treatment that made his tongue thick.

In sports he liked the Hunt but that too was more of a memory like a dream of a faraway time.

In the arts he liked Mondrian. It was the sense of order that he liked. Everything in its own partition. You could see what colours were where.

Edmond's car of choice was an Aston Martin. It went with his drink of choice which was Moet. And a long time between or since drinks it had been.

If he had a choice he would dress a bit like Prince Charles. As he did not have a choice he dressed like other tramps. Used and more used clothing, anything that would hold the warmth and yet not be too heavy to carry.

Edmond's favorite colour was blue. He did not know why. He could remember times after shock treatment when all he could see seemed tinged with blue. Even now, in his freedom, he could close his eyes and make the world go like that.

He liked horses but also, for some reason which he'd forgotten, ferrets. He must have had a good time at some stage and ferrets must have been around. Edmond could not summon up what or when that might have been.

Sunday Theatre was his favourite television show but it had been years since he'd watched it. He had his special places by the river where he liked to sit of an evening now. Quiet, peaceful places. Better than being medicated for bed and sitting in a dorm with people shouting and carrying on and trying to watch Sunday Bloody Theatre.

He was withdrawn in his moods and sometimes now he would not answer when people spoke to him. People on the riverbank knew him and would tolerate this kind of thing but over in Summertown it was different. He was actually more withdrawn there and more than a little frightened. In Summertown he was anxious, in Oxford itself Edmond was terrified.

Ar school he'd been good at his subjects, good across the board and very good at physics. Sometimes he'd find himself arguing away to himself and being quite impressed. It took him back to school.

He was popular amongst his schoolmates. People had liked and respected him in that faraway world before the trauma. Now he could only think of that as though it was another person. Now he lived for the riverbank. It was him and he was it.

Esme and Bella planned to use the polaroids of Edmond as he lay sleeping as a basis for their friend Rob to make stencils and these were ready for Rob who came by a few minutes later. Bella had spent a long time working on her art. She showed her work to Esme on the path. Leo and Simon Two, the undergraduates, came along. Simon Two was called that to distinguish him from Simon the Private Detective who was a subjest of the deepest mystery for Esme and her chums.

Bella was Esme's best mate and they were a very tight unit. Like Bella she was antagonistic towards the Tramp but she was fascinated in Edmond's origins. Esme thought here had to be reason for Edmond setting up residence on the riverbank. Esme thought there had to be some deeply hidden relationship with on or some of he other figures on the bank. Perhaps with Simon or his mother.

Like Bella Esme thought he Don was strange and that he drank too much. She thought Sam talked too much. But she was deeply taken with the idea of being a private detective and watched Simon attentively.

The man with the private zoo decided he needed sharks.It meant a great deal of expense with salt water and son. Perhaps he'd find an island or an isolated bit of coast and set up a shark pen.

As pretty well always, the first person Simon and Sam saw at the Joiner's Arms was the Don. 'Portrait of a Pickle,' muttered Samantha. Certainly he liked his wee dram without being anywhere near the border and certainly not north of it. 'Gay as a bee,' muttered back Simon as the Don pretended Samantha was not really in the room.

At forty seven Selwyn the Don was overweight and very unfit. Out of shape was too kind a phrase for the state of his body. He was not a tall man. It was basically a matter of too much to eat and drink, a lot of time spent indoors and next to no exercise.

He had no family save for an aunt in Chelsea who he visited sometimes. His parents had never known what to make of him and they both passed away early. He and his aunt had a tolerable relationship. They were both lonely and needed at least one friend.

He hated sports and even disliked games except for chess and even then that was an occasional preference. Conversation was his sport and he was good at it. Conversation always required, of course, someone to do it with and that meant the company at the Joiner's Arms.

Sometimes the company at the Joiner's Arms did not want to play his talk games though and this left him sitting on his own and drinking too much. And this meant that he could get all morbid and nasty to people like those on the other side of the bar. This had of course affected his popularity rating and made for a vicious circle in that people simply did not want to talk to him.

Van Gogh was his artist of choice.

He did not think of cars much but had fond memories of an Austen Seven.

Selwyn conformed to the obligatory dress of the Don. Shabby uit, loose tie, off white shirt and, of course, the scarf.

Grey and fawn were his colours of choice.

The raccoon was his favorite animal.

Selwyn liked quiz shows on television.

He was a depressive alcoholic and that explained his moods.

At school he was excellent in class except for Public Health.

His schoolmates gave him hell. He was not a rugger man.


The Guvnor as they called the publican raised his eyebrows in the background. The Don really pulled the Guvnor's chain, rang his bell. This made for conversations which ran into the corners and up the walls, The Gunvor, usualy standing behind the Don and out of his view would raise his eyebrows, shake his head and mimic the Don's effeminate mannerisms and generally, as he himself would say, create.

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. The slant on the Don that Sam took meant that people he was never likely to see 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. He could get on with being amiably vacant. Pleasant pint he found it actually.

Parakeets were shreiking. The man by the fountain drank a lime and water.It was hot in Bogota. He called one of his cutouts. This man in turn had the task of running the phone to certain people. He was in Venice.

He called a man in a country at the edge of the Caucasus.

Get that insurance package ready he said.

Going from the photograph of the two American men Esme and Bella did a stencil on a bit of wood and showed it to the Tramp. He wondered what hey had been doing on his patch, on his stretch of the river which was, of course, his home and advised them to show it to Simon.

Esme and Bella decided to do just that but in their own sweet time.

Samantha and Simon did pay attention to one another on the walk home. They walked past the Tramp who, as usual was at the beginning 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 usually 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 beginning 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.

In Bogota a man sat looking at the fountain playing in his yard. Some of the early moves, the preliminaries were coming into place.

Birds danced on the edge of the fountain.

Underneath a cat stretched.

A parrot went on and on in the background.

On the river path beside the Isis Esme showed the stencil to Leo and Simon Two, the undergraduates.Leo studied science and Simon Two the theatre. They all pondered the meaning of the stencil. Why were two strangers poking about where they did not belong on the banks of the Isis?

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 Summerhill 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 on Simon's Job Sheet, 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 modern Roma, the layby people, whoever they were, 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, the wide world as well as in the camps of gypsies. They were in demand and money was involved.

Simon had a job figuring it out. One 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. A set up within a convoluted set up no doubt but it had to be sorted just the same.

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, the possible fish hooks which involved a quick and quiet disappearance from North Oxford and no publicity, no waves, the hunter said, in the States.

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