puff 525 Tues 21st

Tuesday 21st
Kaupapa korero mo te ra nei
Nga hikoitanga i nga pae maunga o Tararua

Rangahau
He aha ngaa hiikoitanga tino pai rawa o nga pae maunga o Tararua? He aha ai? He aha ngaa waa o te tau tino pai rawa moo te hiikoi?

Subject of the day
Walks in the Tararua ranges

Analysis
What are the best walks in the Tararua ranges? Why? What are the best times of the year for a hiikoi?

www.doc.govt.nz › ... › Wairarapa
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tararua_Range -

Isis: the days of the voles- continued
5
All around the world
There were stirrings in the country near the Caucasus about the mother of the twin being held. Vera was a known person, her family had connections and were kown to use them.

Time was passing, people were getting nervous.

This was a country effectively without law except for those who chose to make it.

The word went out that his was going to be a long haul and that tVera would be well treated. Because of the espect in which her captors were held this was accepted.

Paullie always treated America as a village, as a place he understood. 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.

There was someone he could call on in most cities. Calling in was easy for Paullie, leaving not so smooth. People liked him and he liked to party, not so much these days but his reputation went before him and was apt to hold him up. Now he continued to party long but the party hard bit had been reduced to no drugs but some and sometimes some considerable alcohol. Once on the road he never varied from water.

And because he liked to drive rather than fly part of leaving was sobering up. This meant that the exit strategy took time before its execution. He had built some kind of a plan around that. Long breakfasts, then a last nap, then coffee and a walk.

And there was something he knew about most cities. The airport, the CBD, how to get on the freeway. But he knew the clubs as well, where to party al night long after a gig. And the netwoks that went with those clubs, the bouncers, the club managers, the performers and some of the regulars.

Enough, he reckoned, to get by on.

Julio, the man by the fountain in Bogota got up and walked about. The zoo was around five square kilometres. But there were groves and cul de sacs and funny little maze like paths that made it time consuming to walk around and hard to find your way around, at least at first.

He had constructed a small zoo beginning with a collection of birds and adding more creaturs over a period of about five years.He had plans for expansion into aquariums and he was working on these plans when he was not involved in the present project.

His chair by the fountain was more or less in the middle of all this.

Julio tried not to be in the middle of things.He specialised in cutouts, ways in which links between people could not be traced. He had direct relationships with few people. With Juan he insisted on changes in cellphones, different places for Juan to stay in Colombia and around the world. With the people in the Caucasus there were similar arrangements.

The Tramp started to collect the stencils. Where he put them Esme and Bella did not know. It annoyed them. There was all the work involved and then there were the messages left up and down the Isis. These messsages were being rephrased and changed by the Tramp, of all people.

And then there was the question as to why the Tramp might want to steal their stencils and wreck their messages. Bella thought there was a additional question as to who the Tramp really was.

From Edmond, the Tramp's point of view Esme and Bela were nuisances. They were on the riverbank more than other people and so it seemed like they were in his face all the time. He did his best some days to queer their pitch, taking their silly stencils which annoyed him and putting them in a place that they would never find.

The riverbank was a kind of asylum for him. There was his past which he tried not to think about, there was the riverbank and there was no future or at least none that he wanted to think about.

He had thoughts about Simon and his mother that referred back to his past and he tried not to think about that. Same with Paullie. The Don he wondered about. There was something curious there...

Giselle, like Agnes was remarkably attractive in her late forties. She had a way with fashion and style which drew people to her.She had a smile and a walk which made for an effect.

Jake was her partner but it was a complex situation. Giselle did the thinking. Jake acted out on the political stage. A to where he went, what he did and what he stood for Giselle had as good or better idea than anyone else including and especially Jake.

Giselle liked fashion shows and Openings. Any Opening would do but film premieres were her specialty. Giselle liked it when people were at their best and there were people watching and attendants like waiters and valets.

Giselle liked a Colombian artist who painted larger people. She thought he captured America or at least something of it that she could recognise. Giselle spoke Spanish and thought that to survive in the States politically this was important.

Giselle liked cars of state, limousines. American limousines. She liked Lear jets and used them when she could. Giselle liked to stay in five star hotels, places where she could meet people who mattered.

Brand names featured high on Giselle's dress lists. She was a walking designer label. This was especially important when she appeared beside Jake on podiums and platforms around the country but it was also part of her own radar for survival, to dress, to win, to kill.

Giselle's favorite colours were blue, black and white. Her political interests were extremely right wing and she knew people who were much more extreme. Giselle classed herself as a republican moderate.

Giselle liked cheetahs. All forms of big cats. Especially fast cats. Giselle had been photographed with some when she went with Jake to some of the big game parks in Africa.

Giselle watched reruns of soaps like Dallas on her televisions. That made her a bit of a throwback but she was unapologetic. This was the way Giselle saw life- families and power, power and families.

At school Giselle had made a study of the prom. And cheerleading. In a sense she had graduated in the latter. Giselle could encourage but she could lead as well.

Knowing an opponent's weakness was the stuff of politics and being able to deal to that weakness with himour was one of Giselle's strengths. She would sit with Jake's speechwriters and help with oneliners and gags.

Paullie travelled from Los Angeles to Vegas. By Stutz.

Simon figured that Paullie might have something about the closest person always having some kind of answer. There had to be an explanation for why the twins had gone to America.

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 but feeling wise with all his figuring.

Thinking about his world Simon reflected on being caught between his mother and Sam. All in all he thought it worked out well. They were such different people and he got different things out of each of them. Paullie was a great help to Simon but he found the Don a real pain sometimes. The Tramp was an odd bod and Simon often thought he was a sad, tragic figure. And every time he turned around these days he came across those schoolgirls...

Sam thought she could talk this through. Simon walked with her to the Broad and left her to it, the task of gossipping to the passing Dons, the best minds in the world were there and if they thought she was too cute for words then so much the better for a good chat.

The helicopter rose from the pad on top of the hotel. Vegas was red and without dust in the early morning. As far as could be seen there was a fine, clear air, a magic to look at.

It was reconnaisance ordered by the man by the fountain getting ready for the arrival ofJuan, the man on the ground. Juan was not to be interfered with when he arrived. The instructions were explicit and made sure that no-one got a look at him.

The report back to Bogota said Go.

Back on the banks of the Isis Esme and Bella continued their search for the identity of the Tramp. It seemed he was from a good family. And he seemed intelligent. So why was he without means in North Oxford?

Why was he a tramp and what was his name? And why did he do those silly physical jerks, kicking up dirt and jumping around?

And what had drawn him back to the banks of the Isis? Had he returned to halcyon days of his youth at college?

Back in America Paullie tried to sort things out. Acrobats? Why would someone want acrobats in America? To entertain of course. To tumble from point to point.

To distract. If so to distract from what? Or from whom?

To do things on high. To defy gravity for a moment and make the hearts of the watchers skip a beat.

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 Caucasus took the woman they had kidnapped to a cottage in the country. Vera made herself at home, something she could do in most environments.

One called Bogota and said that the insurance package was now safe and secure. He stood in a cold hallway with his coat past his collar as he talked to the man in the tropical rainforest.

The call was taken at a booth near the eel weir. Julio took sips from a fruit drink while he carried on feeding with his other hand. He liked the way the eels thrashed and fought over the food he threw to them.

Esme and Bella found a way into the Boathouse. Really it was just a matter of getting into one of the boats and listening to what was happening above. The hardest thing was not to fall asleep.

It was restful, time off the bikes and out of the wind.

Theirs was a professional interest. They just wanted to know about the Private Detective Business- they always spoke of it as though each word in the phrase was capitalised.

It was a long summer break and Esme and Bella had all the time in the world to plan and think. They had their own missions; to find the identity of the Tramp, to find out what Sam and Simon were up to...

In Bogota there was a meeting between the two men, the one who owned the zoo and the one that would be going into the field. Julio and Juan had coffee by the fountain and then walked, taking their time, through the zoo.

As they walked past the cages they went over and over the possibilities. The animals made sounds at the stranger. Juan took no notice he was listening intently to Julio.

The were very different people. Julio was at home in command. Juan was at home executing a plan, preferably on his own but with reference back to a leader who understood. They had complete confidence in one another.

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.

Simon did try to stay close to his pattern of indolence just really 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 effort involved in working to stay awake, in trying to make sense with a foggy mind...

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 operations 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. He wondered when the case would gain some momentum.

Anything that flies I can handle said Juan. The Lear jet was in the skies over Colombia.

Practice.

The Day was in his mind now. He was engaged. All he could think about were the hows, how to get from A to B, how to fly without drawing attention.

There was light drizzle so far as he could see across the Columbian land.It suited him as he needed that kind of challenge, flying half blind.

He measured distances in his mind.

'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. He needed waking though. All he could do lately was to sleep and drift away.

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

David Walker started on and on in what Simon found to be a tedious Australian whine about The Case of the Exploding Vole and Simon had to admit that he had something. Other than the fact that he had once competed for the attention of Sam.

His nickname was GT also known as the Geelong Transformer. He came from Geelong and could play any sport ant talk to anyone. Selwyn the Don had given him this name but the Guv had taken it up- he thought that GT was a neat sounding name- and people had forgotten its original meaning.

David Walker was thirty. He wished he was still twenty five but there it was. Thirty tears old. Still playing rugby and cricket and anything else, pretty well, that anyone challenged him to play,

He liked going to pubs, punting on the Isis, in fact he was the king of the punters on the Isis. Dave Walker loved the river and people on it. He was one of the few people who could talk to the Tramp.

He loved Rugby and Rugby League and played them both hard. And partied hard afterwards. He was also a fly fisherman. If there were Blues awarded for fishing in the Isis and punting then David Walker would have won them all.

Dave loved record covers and had a collection. CDs, LPs and all sorts of covers. He even had covers of Paullie's band and that had won him a few brownie points at the Joiner's Arms.

David Walker liked casual sports dress. Golfing shirts, slacks. Basketball singlets, rugby jerseys, even vests with lots of little pockets like fly fishermen used.

Dave's colours were silver and green. This had been the strip for a club he once played for in Geelong. Dave had been known to play Australian Rules and had even fooled around in South Parks with a few blokes of a Sunday.

Holdens should have been the name of the game as far as cars went but Dave liked Fords. Dave had a few mechanical clues as well. He could fix most things that could go wrong with a car and people on the river would go to him for advice.

He liked emus and koalas but his creatures of choice were marsupials. He liked rivers and riverbeds. Back in Australia he was a camper, a bush guy. Brush shelters in billabongs.

He watched reruns of Neighbours. It took him back home for a while. Not that he was that homesick. But sometimes he'd bring mates from Australia or New Zealand to the Joiner's Arms and do some serious damage to his tab. Tim the Guv liked Dave and let him get away with more than he allowed others.

At school he'd been very popular, always captain of a sports team. Dave had a generous disposition and was not prone to sledging. On the Isis he was a fixture and people liked him.

There had to be a way to fool the Tramp reckoned Esme. He was a right pain actually, always messing around with the signs of her group. For no apparent reason...

Who was he?

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 really 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.

The Don held Simon in some regard. Sam liked Simon and it was mutual so the Don put up with her. He found Paullie to be insufferably lightweight. His college and his club were the main things in his life and he liked the world of gossip and intrigue that he found there. Some of this riverbank business was silly- the Tramp and the schoolgirls. But the Isis was where he found himself and that was that.

So they did, Simon and Sam, what they always did. They went home and started work. 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?

Sam lived in the middle of many different people. There was Simon and here was his mother. Simon listened to her and his mother, quite simply, did not. The Don put up with her and then there were the cast of characters on the riverbank. The Tramp, the schoolgirls. All occupational hazards she supposed. At least the Isis was a good place to think.