Cry of the Taniwha by Des Hunt

had said ‘soon’, but how long was that? A day, a week, two weeks, a month…what?
    His thoughts continued along this line as he walked between the giant trees. Every now and again a jogger would run past, or he would see some sunbathers in a sunny glade, but mostly he was by himself. After a while, he turned off onto a smaller track that was deeply rutted with bicycle tracks. The trees changed from redwoods to pines, and he wondered whether this might be the Taniwha Track that Hone had mentioned. He heard song-birds calling from high in the trees, and saw fantails flitting around in the undergrowth, but no signs of anything that might have been some form of the taniwha.
    Then the track dipped down towards a secluded pond surrounded by long grass. Partly hidden amongst the grass were a couple of lovers, so absorbed in each other that they didn’t notice that they were being spied upon. The spy was a man hiding behind a tree less than five metres from their nest. Matt smiled: maybe this guy was a form of the taniwha. He certainly looked weird enough. While Matt couldn’t see his face, the shape of his body indicated a youth rather thana man. His legs were long and skinny beneath a pair of really tight, short shorts. He wore a brightly coloured shirt covered in tropical island scenes. Above this was a full head of ginger hair, combed in a style that Matt had seen only in old movies. A taniwha from the nineteen-sixties, perhaps?
    Matt’s interest in the lovers increased as he got closer and realized that there was more flesh visible than there ought to be. So interested, that he stopped looking where he was going and tripped over an exposed root. He crashed to the ground with a loud cry of surprise. It took only a moment for him to sit up and discover that there were no injuries. By then, the lovers were scrambling to cover all their exposed parts, and the spy was running towards him, his eyes slitted and lips tight in anger.
    When he got close, he stood over Matt with fists clenched. ‘Moron!’ he shouted, his pimply face turning red. ‘It was just getting interesting. Why did you have to come along?’
    Matt got to his feet. He wasn’t scared of this gawky creep. ‘It’s a public park—I can be here! Anyway, you shouldn’t spy on other people.’
    The Gawk stared at him for a moment, before moving off the path to pull a bike from the undergrowth. The lovers were now fully clothed and preparing to leave. The male glared at The Gawk riding past. Then he helped his girlfriend up onto the path and started walking back the way Matt had come.
    ‘Thanks, mate,’ said the male as he went by. ‘There’s some sick types in this world, aren’t there?’ The girl kept her eyes firmly fixed on the ground.
    After a while, Matt turned and followed them. The Gawk could have the rest of the track to himself. With any luck Matt’d never meet him again.

Chapter 14
    It was mid-morning when Matt climbed out of bed the next day. He’d had trouble getting to sleep because of worrying; not so much about what had already happened, but about what might happen in the future, especially with Jackson and the burglary.
    Hone had left for work, leaving Nan baking in the kitchen. She gave Matt a big smile as he walked in. ‘Good morning, Matt. Have a look at the paper. You’re famous.’
    Matt looked at the newspaper on the table, expecting to see a small article on an inside page. Instead, he saw that most of the front page was devoted to the skeleton found in the forest. Right in the centre was a large photo of him scanning the ground with his metal detector. The article alongside made a big feature of the handcuffs and the gold coins, suggesting that it was a robbery gone wrong. The reporter had quotes from Dr Ian McMillan saying that the person had died during the eruption. From that, she proposed that the robber had been caught, but in the chaos of the eruption had somehow managed to escape. Then, when he was picking the locks of