Read Online Cry of the Taniwha by Des Hunt - Free Book Online Page B

look, the area was closed off with police tape.
    Jackson didn’t turn up, which suited Matt just fine. However, as the morning dragged on, he realized that his intense boredom was partly because the day before had been so full of action. Jackson might be trouble, but life around him was certainly not dull.
    Relief arrived as Matt was finishing lunch. It came in the form of a return visit by the two police officers, Burty and Lew. They’d come to give feedback, but for a while it looked like Burty had come to feed his face again—this time it was Nan’s cake tins that suffered while Lew gave his report.
    ‘The deceased was male, Caucasian, aged thirty-five or thirty-six,’ he read from his notebook. ‘The time of death was on, or about, four-thirty a.m. on the morning of the tenth of June 1886. The cause of death was a broken neck.’
    Nan laughed. ‘Oh yes? And what colour underpants was he wearing?’
    Lew continued in the same serious tone. ‘At the time of discovery, the deceased was not fully clothed. But we have ruled out the possibility of any sexual attack.’
    Matt sniggered. ‘Not fully clothed! He didn’t even have any flesh.’
    ‘That’s true,’ Lew continued. ‘The absence of soft tissue and organs presented some problems to the investigatingteam. However, we were able to ascertain some information from the position of the body.’
    Burty swallowed before adding, ‘Forensics reckon he was thrown into the air by a hydrothermal explosion, and broke his neck when he landed.’
    ‘ What sort of explosion?’ asked Nan.
    ‘Hydrothermal. Steam builds up pressure under the ground and then blasts out a big hole. Whoosh! ’ Burty acted out the event with his hands. Some food dribbled out of his mouth, which he wiped away before adding, ‘That’s how the mud pool was formed.’
    ‘There was Tarawera ash under the body,’ explained Lew. ‘Immediately above it was about half a metre of stuff blown out of the hole and then some more ash. The hydrothermal eruption must have occurred while ash was still falling. Perhaps earthquakes weakened the ground or there was a burst of intense activity. The ash from Tarawera fell between three and seven in the morning. Hence we know he died at about four-thirty a.m.’
    Nan chuckled. ‘You boys have been very clever.’
    Burty gave a little bow. Lew said, ‘Not us. You can thank Dr Ian McMillan of Vulcan Aotearoa for all that. He’s an expert on the geology of the area.’
    ‘What about the metal that was down there?’ asked Matt.
    ‘Oh, that stuff,’ said Burty taking another mouthful of food. ‘That was just gold.’
    ‘Gold!’ shouted Nan and Matt together.
    For the first time, Lew smiled. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. ‘Gold coins to be precise. Sovereigns and half-sovereigns. This one’s a sovereign.’ He handed the bag to Nan.
    As she examined it, Burty continued: ‘We figure he must’ve been a thief and these things were either in a bag or in his pockets. They must’ve fallen out when he got blasted into the air. They were all over the place. The only mystery is how he came to be wearing cuffs. I doubt that we’ll ever solve that one.’
    Nan passed the bag to Matt. He saw that the sovereign was about the same size as a twenty-cent coin, yet it felt a whole lot heavier. It had a shield on one side and the head of a woman on the other.
    ‘How much is it worth?’ asked Matt.
    ‘The gold’s worth about two-fifty dollars each.’
    ‘How many were there?’ asked Nan.
    ‘Forty-one.’
    ‘That’s ten thousand dollars!’
    ‘Yeah,’ replied Burty. ‘Give or take a few bucks.’
    Nan turned to Matt. ‘You’re going to be rich.’
    ‘Ah, not exactly,’ said Lew. ‘The discovery has been deemed an archaeological find and the coins are now owned by the government. The Protected Objects Act of 1975 states that if the items are more than fifty years old they become the property of the Crown.’
    ‘Doesn’t