KEY POINTS:
David Bain and best mate Joe Karam leap out of the four-wheel drive and head inside the Te Kauwhata house that's been home to the country's most feted ex-con for the past 11 days.
The leafy driveway to Karam's modest, sparsely furnished house is autumn-coloured and damp. Daffodils burst through the rich loam and a peacock, inherited from the last owner, parades around the front lawn.
The air smells clean. A flash set of golf clubs sits outside the back door.
I rap on the glass and spot Bain, bailed just over a week ago, before he sees me. I knock again.
"Sorry," he says apologetically. "I didn't know anyone was there."
Karam pokes his head around the corner. He sighs. Bloody media. He's told us there'll be no face-to-face interviews. There's only so much they'll say.
They had our photographer on them yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, when Karam agreed "just to keep you lot happy".
The photographer hurt her knee trying to snap Bain without him knowing. He saw her and offered to show her some exercises that might help. Pilates, apparently.
Karam neatly sidesteps a small pile of pooh on the patio. The peacock, he explains, as he plonks himself down in a wicker chair that looks out across rolling hills to the northwest, and lights a cigarette.
He's tired of talking. Bain's tired of giving the same answers. He's a sidestepping expert himself.
The two men, one tall and pale, the other dark and stocky, are the oddest of couples, but you expect they've probably sat together on this verandah quite a bit during the past 11 days, saying lots but also not much.
Bain looks across the horizon. He's not keen to talk about the 4000-plus days, the 100,000 or more hours, he spent in jail. Doesn't want to reveal how he coped, what he did. As for the future? Well it's a bit like the fog that's been hanging around Hamilton today.
I suggest a book, memoirs perhaps? He looks to his best friend and minder. Karam sidesteps again. "We can really only talk about now. Whatever will happen will happen."
Bain hasn't had a chance really to think about all the things he could, would, or really wants to do, Karam says. At the moment it's about getting through the now, and it's all been a bit surreal, he says.
The present is a different story. Bain seems relaxed, less drawn in the flesh than he seems in photographs. He's got the fizziness of someone who's just had laser surgery and can see, really see, again.
You almost expect him to pinch himself. Maybe he has, and does.
Today, he repeats, is what matters. He doesn't want to hope too much.
"I mean look," he says, throwing his arms out towards the wide, open space. "Look at this place, look at the climate. Here I am wearing a T-shirt and it's supposed to be winter."
He's been shopping with Karam's daughter, gawping at the supermarket creaking with everything he knew and a lot more he's never seen. He's been playing golf, thinking, walking.
And then there's the food. You could say, Karam chips in, he's become a bit of a gourmand.
"I've got a good appetite," nods Bain. "I always have had a big appetite but now I'm exploring this whole cooking thing..."
Karam finishes the sentence: "He made his first salad last night - rocket, cucumber, carrot, egg, parsley - and vinaigrette with balsamic vinegar and mustard."
The television in his bedroom is tuned to Sky's classical musical channel and Karam lets on that they breakfasted to Bread the other day and listened to "old fogie music" - a bit of Van Morrison, some Dean Martin.
To some extent Bain still feels a little institutionalised - not having to be in or out of bed at a certain time takes some getting used to. But he feels secure in his new environment.
The locals in these parts - population 1100, the town clock permanently set at 6.05 - are fiercely protective of their new resident. Bain was in the local florist-cum-nail bar and beauty parlour for almost an hour the other day. Today, however, the young assistant's lips are sealed.
"We don't give away confidences."
Defence to hinge on case against father
David Bain's defence at a retrial will be the conviction that his dead father Robin was the murderer who killed five members of their family, says campaigner Joe Karam.
The former All Black told the Herald on Sunday the strength of evidence against Robin Bain would be such that David Bain would walk free and proved innocent.
A decision has yet to be made on whether a fresh trial will be held, following a ruling from the Privy Council that a miscarriage of justice took place. Today, on p25, the Herald on Sunday examines the likely main points of the Crown case - points which are argued by David Bain's defence team.
"We are going to run, as part of the defence, the prosecution against Robin. The first half is going to be their case against David and the second half would be our case against Robin. And we are going to call more witnesses than they are going to call," said Karam.
"We will present a bigger case against Robin than the Crown is going to present against David. One is left with a position, by British law, where one must acquit. When there are only two possible suspects and you can't eliminate one, you must acquit both."
- David Fisher
