by Nick Spill
Hikoi: The Maori Land March that started in the Far North and finished in Wellington, 600 miles later on October 13, 1975 at the steps of Parliament with 5000 people, led by Whina Cooper.
The Order of Lenin was the highest award given to civilians. It was a running joke in some western spy agencies that just one special medal of the Order of Lenin was kept in the Kremlin. It was pinned on the lucky recipient, a photo was taken of him or her (for possible future blackmail purposes), and then it was returned to a nameless draw until the next lucky recipient was flown in.
Network of helpers: any good spy in a foreign country will recruit volunteers to assist in a number of benign tasks such as lending a brand-new Datsun, keeping watch on the neighborhood or looking for specific people and cars. The Soviet had sympathizers and members of the local Communist Party to thank for such an enthusiastic cadre of watchers and volunteers unknown to the local police and intelligence service.
Toi te kapa, toi te mana, toi te whenua: a Maori proverb which loosely translates as “Without language, without mana, without land, the Maori way of life would not exist.” The proverb was the title of a work by Ralph Hotere, ink on watercolor on paper, 1972.
Author’s Note
The Jaded Spy is a work of fiction. Events, locations, people, places, times and dates have been imagined. Elements of the story might appear familiar, or bear a passing resemblance to a distant memory, a faded recollection, incidents that might have happened, but not as depicted here. Dates have been changed, locations of trees and shrubs have been manipulated and there was never a metal table and chair in that interrogation room in the Auckland Central police headquarters, nor the voluminous office space of the mythical Permanent Under-Secretary. Much as there were glorious pipi and mussel beds in Hokianga harbor, the Wilsons’ house, marijuana plantations and other details are the product of the author’s imagination. The castle on Castle Street is real but never, as far as I know, contained a Soviet safe apartment. The author, in a cameo appearance at the art gallery opening, never studied for a Ph.D. on Tristram Shandy.
Other parts of the story that appear implausible or outrageous are true. Captain Cook did sit in seat 1A. He was a wonderful traveling companion, even if he didn’t use his seat belt. The Captain did have a full police and army escort to the gallery. “The Two Worlds of Omai” exhibition at the Auckland City Art Gallery went without a hitch. No persons as depicted in the gallery actually worked there. Their characters, like all the people in the Jaded series, are fiction.
And this echoes the fact that the novel is but a cock-and-bull story.
Bibliography
KGB, the inside story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev. Christopher Andrew & Oleg Gordievsky. Sceptre, 1991.
The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century. Phillip Knightley. Norton, 1980.
The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: the remarkable story of Captain Cook’s encounters in the South Seas. Anne Salmond. Yale University Press, 2003. (John Maynard was my counterpart at the Auckland City Art Gallery. As Exhibitions Curator during “The Two Worlds of Omai” exhibition he received the Captain Cook painting I escorted to Auckland with police and army protection. He recommended Salmond’s book as valuable background and it is an outstanding story of Cook in the Pacific. John is nowhere to be seen in any shape or form in the novel, but he did provide valuable recollections.)
The New Zealand Wars, and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. James Belich. Auckland University Press, 1986.
Two Worlds: first meetings between Maori and Europeans 1642-1772. Anne Salmond. Viking, 1991.
The Two Worlds of Omai. Auckland City Art Gallery, 1977. Catalog notes: John Tarlton, Eric Young, E.H. McCormack, David Simmons.
The Globalization of Supermax Prisons. Rutgers University Press. 2013. Edited by Jeffrey Ian Ross. Chapter 9 The Emergence of the Supermax in New Zealand by Greg Newbold. Greg provided valuable insights, descriptions and history to Rawiri’s time in Paremoremo otherwise known as ‘Parry’. Any mistakes are mine, not Greg’s.
Many websites were used to research events and locations for this novel, but mention should be made of https://timespanner.blogspot.com, and also how helpful Lisa Truttman has been in providing background information, including use of the historic aerial photograph site: http://retrolens.nz.
Playlist
Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
Maggie’s Farm, Bob Dylan
Who’ll Be The Next In Line, The Kinks
A Time For Everything, Jethro Tull
Fat Bottomed Girls, Queen
Gnossiennes No. 5, Erik Satie
The Sweeney Main Theme
The Stranger Song, Leonard Cohen
Master Song, Leonard Cohen
Too Much Between Us, Procol Harum
The Train Kept A Rollin’, The Yardbirds
Shapes of Things, The Yardbirds
2120 South Michigan Avenue, The Rolling Stones
As I Went Out One Morning, Bob Dylan
Gymnopedies No. 1, Erik Satie
If You See Her, Say Hello, Bob Dylan
Eight Miles High, The Byrds
Pictures At An Exhibition, Promenade, Modest Mussorgsky
Mental Notes, Split Enz
Time For A Change, Split Enz
School, Supertramp
Crime Of The Century, Supertramp
A Case Of You, Joni Mitchell
Melody, The Rolling Stones
I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair, The Sound of Music
Love Is A Drug, Roxy Music
Can’t We Be Friends? Frank Sinatra
I’m Not Like Everyone Else, The Kinks
I Tried to Leave, Leonard Cohen
Land, Patti Smith
Call it Something Nice, The Small Faces
About the Author
Nick Spill attended the University of Auckland. He was exhibitions curator at the National Art Gallery in New Zealand. He came to the US in 1980 on an Arts Council grant. Spill formed a Private Investigation Agency in Miami and later become Chief Investigator for a State Agency. He authored The Way of the Bodyguard about his years as a bodyguard and investigator, and The Jaded Kiwi and The Jaded Spy, dark crime novels set in New Zealand. Spill co-wrote his father’s Burma war memoir Reluctant Q. Returning from a lecture he delivered at the Auckland Art Gallery, he wrote the illustrated essay Reflections on the TranzAlpine: Kiwis, Art, Death, Coffee, Sex.
Other books by Nick Spill available as Amazon e-books and paperbacks
The Jaded Kiwi
Part One of the Jaded Trilogy
Reluctant Q – with George Spill
The Way of the Bodyguard
The Palace in TriBeCa
Dolphin Kicks Cactus Pricks and K-129
Reflections on the Tranzalpine
