Aunt Dimity Down Under by Nancy Atherton

Author:Nancy Atherton [Atherton, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Detective, General, Fiction, Women detectives, Women Sleuths, Dimity; Aunt (Fictitious Character), Brothers and Sisters, Mystery Fiction, Women detectives - England, New Zealand
ISBN: 067002144X
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Eleven

We pulled in to the Dargaville Aerodrome at half past two. While Cameron made a few phone calls, I chatted with Toko Baker, who’d come to collect his car and who cheerfully accepted a handful of Anzac biscuits from Donna’s tin. When I offered to pay for any damage the dirt road might have done to his vehicle, Toko responded with a hearty laugh and a carefree wave of his hand.

“It’s my boy’s car,” he said. “It’ll do him good to repair it. How else will he learn? ”

After tossing our bags into the plane’s cargo compartment, Cameron conducted a thorough flight inspection, boosted me into the cockpit, climbed into the pilot’s seat, and waved good-bye to his friend. Toko stuck around long enough to watch us take off, then puttered slowly away in his son’s underpowered and much abused car.

Thanks to calmer weather, my second flight in New Zealand was less lively than the first and I was able to appreciate the beauty of the landscape unfolding beneath me. The small villages, the farmsteads, and the intensely green, sheep-dotted fields surrounding them reminded me forcibly of the Irish countryside, which came as a bit of a surprise, as I’d spent the morning in a subtropical rain forest.

When a small cluster of snowcapped peaks came into view, I began to understand what Cameron had meant when he’d said that his country was “many things.” New Zealand, it seemed, packed a lot of variety into a relatively small number of square kilometers.

The only spine-tingling moment occurred when we swooped in to land on a runway that appeared to end mere inches from the edge of an enormous lake. I held my breath until a few hard bumps on the tarmac assured me that we’d made a touchdown instead of a splashdown.

“Lake Taupo,” Cameron informed me, as we taxied to the airport’s modest terminal. “The largest lake in New Zealand. Its waters conceal the crater of a volcano that erupted twenty- seven thousand years ago.”

“Must have been a big bang,” I commented, squinting to make out the lake’s distant shores.

“Compared to it, the Mount Saint Helens eruption was a kitten’s hiccough,” said Cameron.

“How far are we from Ohakune?” I asked.

“About a hundred and twenty kilometers,” he replied. “An old friend of mine lives near Taupo.”

I cocked my head to one side. “Does your old friend happen to have a car we can borrow? ”

“You’re catching on,” he said, grinning.

Cameron’s friend, Aidan Dun, was a professional trout fisherman who made a living by teaching his craft, participating in fly-fishing competitions, and guiding enthusiasts to well-stocked local streams around Lake Taupo. Aidan’s car, a hunter green Jeep Cherokee, was in much better shape than the one we’d borrowed from Toko, but its interior had a distinctly fishy aroma.

“I’ve always wanted to smell like a dead trout,” I said, opening my window.

“The angler’s perfume,” crooned my irrepressible companion.

As we drove south along Lake Taupo’s eastern shore, I fixed my gaze on the three snowcapped mountains I’d seen from the plane.

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