Cry of the Taniwha (15 page)

The diamonds had been stored overnight in the bank where the inspection and valuation report was due to be delivered at two p.m.

Security was intense. Hone, Eve and Matt had to provide ID, and were then swept with metal detectors before being allowed anywhere near the conference room.

Billy from the museum greeted the party with enthusiasm. He and the curator were the only two people whom Matt recognized. The rest seemed to be important town people, bankers, and a sprinkling of reporters. A TV camera had been set up to record the proceedings.

At exactly two p.m. the manager of the bank went to the microphone and asked for everyone to be seated. A moment later, he was introducing the diamond expert—Mr Jacob Weiss—who had flown down from Auckland earlier in the day to conduct his inspection. He was now, apparently, ready to give his report.

‘My first task this morning,’ began Mr Weiss, ‘was to inspect the stones to establish their quality and weight. I started with the weight, as it is the easiest quantity to measure. I found that the collection contained thirty-six stones with a total weight of one-hundred-and-eight carats ranging from—’ He then went on for some fifteen boring minutes to give an analysis of the weights, sizes and shapes of the stones in the collection. This was not what people came to hear: they wanted to know how much the diamonds were
worth.

‘I then moved onto the matter of the quality.’ This was followed by another lecture on how the quality of diamonds could be established. Matt felt like screaming out, ‘Skip to the bottom line! How many megabucks are they worth?’

‘Before I give you my report on the quality of the stones, I think we should have a look at them.’ Suddenly everyone perked up—something was actually going to happen.

An assistant came forward and turned on an overhead projector. Jacob Weiss approached the projector with a small leather bag and a transparent tray. With incredible slowness, he put the tray onto the glass plate and then carefully sprinkled the stones over the surface. Instantly, the screen showed a wonderful display of light. The individual stones were visible, each surrounded by dots of refracted light, sometimes broken into the brilliant colours of the spectrum.

A buzz of noise filled the room; there was even a smattering of applause. These were the Clancy diamonds and everyone could see they were worth a fortune. Matt glanced at his companions and saw that they, too, were caught up in the magic of the things. Especially Hone, who was wearing a smile of joyful anticipation.

Jacob Weiss waited patiently for the room to settle before continuing. ‘The quality of these items is outstanding. In fact, they are the best I have seen from the late eighteen hundreds.’ Another buzz went around the room, and again the expert waited. Even when the room was quiet, he was silent for a little longer, looking at the audience with a smug, knowing smile. Then he dropped the bombshell. ‘They are some of the best fakes you will ever see from that period.’

There was silence for some seconds before the room
erupted with noise. People were checking that they’d heard right. Others were mumbling in disbelief. The word ‘fakes’ echoed around the room.

‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen,’ Weiss shouted over the noise, ‘unfortunately these are all fakes.’ The room quietened and so, too, did the speaker. ‘They are lead crystal of a very high quality, but they are still fakes. As to their value?’ He shrugged. ‘Who’s to say? To a collector of historical items, they might be worth a lot of money. However, as precious stones they are worthless.’ This was followed by another burst of noise. Matt looked over at Hone and saw that he was shattered by the news.

‘When I discovered this,’ shouted Weiss above the noise, ‘I contacted a friend of mine in London to see if he knew anything of the Clancy diamonds. He told me quite a story.’ Now the room was quiet again. ‘All of you will have read about how these pieces got to New Zealand. Well, my friend had some more information on that saga. Some three years after the insurance company paid out the three hundred thousand pounds for the lost items, Lord Clancy suffered another robbery. This one was at his stately mansion in Surrey. Fortunately, the police on this occasion quickly captured the culprit along with all the loot. To their surprise, they found it contained a lot of diamonds. In fact, it contained most of the diamonds that Lord Clancy had claimed had been stolen from the bank. At the time it was thought that Clancy may have played a part in that robbery, but nothing was proved. Instead, he was convicted of fraud and sent to prison, where he died four years later.’ Weiss stopped and pointed to the screen. ‘Of course, now we know that the diamonds were never in the bank. It was these, and—’

Matt felt Eve nudging him. ‘What?’ he said, annoyed at the interruption.

‘Look at the screen, Matt,’ she whispered. ‘How many crystals can you count?’ Matt started counting. It was difficult with all the bursts of light, and with some of them touching each other. He held up his finger to try and point to each one so that he could get it right. But he never got to the end without messing up and having to start again.

Jacob Weiss saw what he was doing and stopped talking mid-sentence to stare at him. A smile spread over the expert’s face. ‘Has our young discoverer noticed something?’ he asked. ‘It’s Matt, isn’t it?’

Matt nodded, now embarrassed by all the people who had turned to stare at him. He turned to Eve. ‘How many are there?’

‘Thirty-one.’

‘Tell him then.’

Eve looked up at Jacob Weiss. ‘Sir,’ she said loudly, so that all could hear, ‘there are only thirty-one stones shown there.’

‘Well spotted,’ cried Weiss. ‘Eve, is it?’

Eve agreed that it was.

‘Well, Eve, you are absolutely right. I said that these are all fakes, but there are five stones that aren’t.’ He took the original tray off the projector and replaced it with another. ‘These ones.’

A cry of ‘Oh!’ went around the room. While there were only five of them, the display was much more spectacular than with the many pieces of glass: the bright spots were bigger and the colours were more intense.

‘These diamonds are of excellent quality. Each one is
over seven carats, making them major pieces. I have valued them at a total of three-point-seven million US dollars. How these—’

He didn’t get a chance to continue, as now the audience had the news they wanted. The diamonds
were
worth a fortune. Perhaps not as much as they had dreamed, but enough for plenty of excitement.

Matt looked over to Hone, who was leaning back in his chair with his head tilted to the ceiling and his eyes closed. He was giving thanks to someone or something. Whoever or whatever that might be, Matt could only guess, but he wondered if somewhere in the man’s thoughts a certain taniwha might be involved.

Over the next few days much was written and said about the Clancy diamonds, particularly about the Rothery Stone: the question most frequently asked was whether it, too, had been a fake. Many suggested draining the hot spring to find out. When that was said to be impossible without draining all of Whakarewarewa, one idiot came up with the idea of sending a diver down in a heat-insulated diving suit—a proposal that caused everyone much amusement.

There were also suggestions that the stone was cursed. Research indicated that this was not a new idea. When it had been first dug out of the ground in India, there had been a mine collapse that killed a hundred-and-twenty workers. Almost everyone who had touched the diamond since had suffered in some way, right through to Skulla and Diz. The general consensus was that the bottom of a boiling spring was probably the best place for the devilish thing.

Of equal interest to Matt and the others was the ownership of the five diamonds. While they were covered by the Protected Objects Act, there were clauses about stolen objects being returned to their rightful owner. The question was: who was that owner now? If Lord Clancy had any living ancestors, then none had come forward to be identified. Increasingly, it looked as though the diamonds would become the property of the government. Nobody was complaining about that, because the Minister for Internal Affairs had already stated that the money would be fed back into the Rotorua district. Hone was very hopeful that his
group would get their half-million dollars and maybe even a fair bit more.

At the end of the week Matt flew back to Dunedin, and Eve went off to Auckland, each promising to stay in touch. It had been a wonderful week for the pair. They started by doing the tourist bit, which developed into little more than hanging out together and appreciating each other’s company. Then later in the week, as friendship turned into romance, they searched for secluded spots within Redwoods Park where they could enjoy greater intimacy, but always, of course, keeping a good lookout for the spying eyes of Cecil ‘The Gawk’ Hilton.

No matter what their plans, each day they always found time to visit Jackson in hospital. He was in good spirits. Never before had he been the subject of so much care and attention. His mother visited each day, and so too did many other members of the whanau. Some of these were gang members, and on occasions their visits coincided with Matt and Eve’s. It was then that Matt noticed the biggest changes in the boy. Instead of him treating the gang members as heroes, it was they who now showed him respect. Everyone could see that there was an air of confidence about him that had not existed before.

He was released from hospital on Eve and Matt’s last day. The first thing he wanted to do was visit the forest to see the explosion site. The netting and warning signs had now been removed, as Ian McMillan had decided that the area was no longer any more dangerous than the
rest of Whakarewarewa. It had let off steam and would probably remain quiet for another hundred years or so.

Matt led the way through to the explosion zone. The moment they stepped out onto the dried mud, Old Tani let out a cry of welcome.

‘Hi, Tani,’ said Eve. ‘I hope you don’t mind us looking around your place?’

‘Craarrk!’
replied Old Tani, which everyone assumed was equivalent to ‘That’s OK!’

For several minutes they walked around the site in silence, reliving the event that had destroyed one life and so easily could have taken five more.

Eventually, they each finished their thoughts and ended up alongside the crater, staring down at the boiling water.

‘You think the diamond’s in there?’ asked Matt.

‘Yeah,’ replied Jackson. ‘That’s why the explosion occurred. Old Kataore came out and grabbed it.’

‘If it is in there,’ said Eve, ‘then it could have gone anywhere around here.’ She waved her arms to include the whole thermal area. ‘Ian McMillan says all these springs are connected in some way.’

‘Maybe it’ll be thrown out somewhere else,’ suggested Matt.

‘Yeah!’ said Jackson. ‘Maybe when Kataore’s finished with it, he’ll spit it out. Some tourist’s gunna be watching a geyser and a billion-dollar diamond will smash down on his head.’

‘I wish,’ said Eve. ‘The Rothery Stone can land on my head any time it wants.’

‘You like diamonds?’ asked Jackson.

‘Yeah, all girls do.’

Jackson fished into his pocket. ‘Then here! Have one of these.’

Eve and Matt stared at the four crystals lying in the boy’s hand. They were identical to the five diamonds that Jacob Weiss had identified.

‘How’d you get them?’ asked Matt.

‘Out of the candle.’

‘When?’ demanded Matt.

‘Night I stayed at Hone’s. When you were asleep.’

Eve was becoming agitated. ‘You knew there were diamonds in there all the time?’

‘Yeah,’ replied Jackson. ‘Only place they could be. These were in a separate bag.’

For a while Eve and Matt stared at them, trying to take it in.

‘You want one or not?’ asked Jackson. ‘Skulla’ll take them if you don’t.’

‘You can’t keep them!’ shouted Eve.

Matt was still staring at the stones, thinking. ‘Yeah,’ he eventually said, ‘I’ll take one.’

‘Matt!’ screamed Eve. ‘Don’t!’

He simply smiled at her, before reaching forward and selecting one. ‘You should have one, too, Eve,’ he said. ‘We did all the hard work; we deserve it.’

Eve was shaking her head from side to side in disbelief. She was about to protest more, when she noticed that Jackson was smiling, too. ‘They’re not real, are they?’

‘Can’t be,’ replied Matt.

‘How’d ya know?’ asked Jackson.

The smile went from Matt’s face, as he lowered his head in embarrassment. ‘That night you stayed, I locked my door. I didn’t want you stealing my stuff.’

Jackson slowly nodded his head in understanding. ‘I wouldn’ve.’

Matt looked up. ‘I know that now,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

Jackson accepted that with a tilt of his head.

Eve pointed to the crystals. ‘Then where’d you get those from?’

‘Golden Coin shop,’ replied Jackson. ‘It’s run by my cuzzie. She said we could have one each. Help us remember the proper ones.’

‘Who’s the fourth one for?’

‘Kataore,’ replied Jackson. Then he swung his arm and lobbed one of the crystals into the pool.

Instantly, a great fountain of water jetted up from the crater. The youngsters jumped back in alarm just in time to avoid being burnt as the steaming water fell back down.

‘Whoa!’ said Matt. ‘That got a reaction.’

‘Look!’ cried Eve, pointing to the ground where the water had landed. ‘He spat it out.’

Sure enough, there on the bank was the crystal, sparkling much brighter now that it was wet.

Jackson laughed. ‘You can’t fool Old Kataore,’ he said. ‘That taniwha sure knows a fake when he sees one.’

Later in that day, when Matt and Eve were on their way back to their homes, Cecil Hilton entered the clearing. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the diamond, just lying there where it had been thrown out by the boiling spring. For a while he simply looked at it, wondering whether it was some sort of trap. He even scanned around the place to see if someone was watching.

They weren’t, so he leaned over and picked it up. At exactly that moment, Old Tani let out his loudest cry ever.

CRA-AAR-AAR-RKK
echoed the sound around the clearing.

Cecil did more than jump—he exploded. His body left the ground, and his long arms and legs flailed the air as he tried to get traction. A moment later he was crashing through the bushes, scrambling to get away before whatever it was caught up and grabbed him. Yet despite his fears, he still held tightly onto the diamond: no taniwha was going to force him to give that back.

As the crashing got more distant, Old Tani let out a long, slow sigh. He’d been watching that crystal sparkling in the afternoon sun, wondering whether he should go down and get it. Now he didn’t have to bother. He looked at the sun low in the sky and decided that it was time to relieve his partner on the nest so that she could have her evening feed. He hopped along the branch until he was next to her. After the usual beak rubbing, she carefully lifted herself up, and a moment later was gliding down to the stream for her dinner.

Tani studied the contents of the nest, checking that all was well. But it was not the three blue eggs that drew his attention most, it was the other object in the nest—the magnificent, sparkling thing that was almost as large as the eggs themselves. In the evening light it looked even more wonderful than usual. He sighed with the beauty of it, before easing himself into position on the nest.

It was almost dark when his mate returned to continue the incubation. He stood and admired the stone for a while,
before moving back to his usual perch, where he took one final look around to confirm that all was well. Then he took a deep breath, exhaled, and tucked his head under his wing. Soon afterwards, Old Tani the heron was asleep.