Mike had gone quiet and Gordon wondered why.
“What?”
“I fly down from Alice to investigate a snake death,” Mike said, trying to keep his temper under control, “a highly suspicious snake death with no suspects, and you don’t bother telling me that there’s a local guy who handles snakes. Snakes for fuck’s sake, Gordo!”
The sergeant still didn’t get it.
“Yeah, well mate,” he said, “whywouldya? The snake was gorn by then. Why call a snake catcher if there’s no flamin’ snake to catch?”
Mike took a couple of deep breaths. McPhee did have a point. To him Stomann was just a one-off. How was he – how was anyone – to know at the time that this was to be just the first of many snake fatalities. Plus Mike himself had to share the blame. After all, he’d omitted to ask the question: “Is there anyone around here who’s good with snakes?”
“Ah, OK. Fair enough. But is there anything else I should know about this Billy guy?” he asked, regaining his composure.
“No Mike, nothin’ at all,” Gordon answered, “oh, apart from the fact that his name’s not really Billy. That’s just ’is Aussie handle. Real name’s Lirru… that’s L…I…R…R…U, for what it’s worth…”
Down the line Mike could hear a group of men start yelling and screaming.
“…sorry mate, gotta go. The two best men are getting’ stuck inta each other again.… HEY, I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU CLOWNS NOT TA MAKE ME COME BACK THERE…”
***
Mike had got off the phone and gone straight to his laptop. The search results were in. He stared long and hard at the Google page, at the English-Western Desert dictionary displayed in front of his flabbergasted face.
lirru, noun (see also nyinngi)snake, venomous type.
Chapter 29
A clean slate.
By the time the rest of the White Snake team filed into the room, Ronda and Mike were already there and had been for quite some time, judging by the whiteboard. It had all but been wiped clean, its original content screen-shotted electronically, in case they needed to refer back to something.
All that remained was the ‘sonofabitch’ headline, the words ‘The Benefactor?’ and several photographs. These included head shots of the survivors of what was the ‘gang of 10’ – Eddy Van Heerden and Colin Caldwell – a photo of the young girl’s skull, collarbone, femur and part of a hip bone lying in situ in a shallow desert grave (Mike had gotten Gordon to email it) and shots of the one-legged aborigine and his grandson, lifted from the presentation.
“Good morning, team,” Mike said, as they took their seats, facing the back of the war room for a change. “Knowing what we know now, and what I’m about to tell you, I thought it was time to start afresh, with a clean slate… almost. The last whiteboard was too cluttered, it’s time to re-focus.”
He proceeded to bring them up to speed with what he’d just found out from Gordon about Billy ‘Lirru’ Guttuk, the snake catcher. And that ‘lirru’ meant venomous snake in the local vernacular.
“Ok let’s look at some possible scenarios based on what we know and can guess at,” he said as Brian sat back and sipped his coffee. The Superintendent didn’t seem to mind taking a back seat for a while.
“Feel free to jump in at any time,” Mike told them. “Right. We know that our 10 friends hopped in a people mover on January 10 at six-thirty pm and were out in the desert for 3-and-a-half hours…”
“In the dark,” added Eric.
“Yes, in the dark,” Mike agreed, “drinking, stargazing and doing god-knows-what-else until allegedly encountering fuel problems.”
“Allegedly is right,” Toby pointed out, “we only have their word for that.”
“For sure,” Mike said, nodding his head. “In fact, everything they say should be taken with a very large grain of salt until it’s substantiated.”
“Including O’Connor scratching his face on a tree,” Brian added.
“Especially that!” said Mike, “which brings me to four more things we know. One, that Cassie Guttuk disappeared that same day, and was reported missing by her distraught brother the following day...”
Everyone was nodding their heads sagely.
“Two, that these remains,” he said tapping the photo, “date back to that time, give or take a week or two. Three, that Cassie and her grandfather were last seen in the afternoon within a 10km radius of where this victim was found. And four, that no other females of this age or ethnicity were reported as missing within the relevant timeframe.”
“Then bingo! It’s her then,” said Toby.
Mike hated to burst his bubble, but…
“Well, maybe not quite bingo just yet, Toby. We’re still waiting on a few more numbers to fall. The trouble is that Cassie’s whole family swear that she’s alive and well and visiting a cousin in Coober Pedy…”
“Oh, crap.”
“…along with her grandfather and brother. However if these guys,” Mike tapped the photo of the pair at Tullamarine, “turn out to be ‘Billy’ and Joe Guttuk, that proves that they’re all lying.”
He paused to let that sink in.
Eric was the first to break the silence and ask the obvious question.
“But why would they lie about something like that?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically.
“Well, it’s dangerous to make assumptions,” Mike replied, “but here’s what I reckon. Our ten charming gentlemen mates killed Cassie. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say accidentally – for example they may have run her over in the van. They panicked and decided to hide her body out in the desert. Meanwhile Billy, no let’s call him by his real name, Lirru swears to avenge his granddaughter’s death. And him and Joe – with the knowledge and consent of the entire Mutitjulu community – come after the culprits, one by one, siccing venomous snakes on to them. Yes, Brian? Although I know what you’re going to say.”
Brian audibly sucked his breath in through his teeth before speaking. “Mate that sounds as good as anything I’ve come up with,” he said, “but as a theory it’s got more holes than an Echidna’s waterbed. There are some things I still can’t get my head around, things we’ve covered before. Like how do they know where these neo Nazi arseholes live? More importantly, how do they know where they will be, like in an airport or a church, or which hotel room they’re in…without showing up on CCTV? Lirru’s only got one leg for crissakes, he’d stick out like a sore thumb! We were lucky to get the shots we did. And full credit to you for spotting them. Plus how do they get around the country – Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, etcetera carrying big deadly snakes…Tiger Snakes, Taipans, Brown Snakes and more. In their hand luggage?”
Mike shrugged, somewhat defeated.
“I really haven’t got a clue.”
“Apart from that,” Brian continued, “I think your assumption’s spot on. I reckon one or all of the ten did kill Cassie – and by that I mean murdered her, based on that claw mark on O’Connor’s ugly face and their violent racist attitude. Plus I reckon that Lirru and Joe are seeking revenge, knocking them off one by one by one. We just have to work out the logistics.”
The team looked around at one another, their faces blank. Suddenly Eric gave a little snigger.
“Sorry, it’s just what you said, Brian, about revenge and people being killed one by one by one. Reminds me of an Agatha Christie whodunnit I read years ago called ‘Ten Little Indians’. These ten people, all with dark pasts and guilty consciences, are mysteriously invited by someone called U. N. Owen – unknown, get it – to a guesthouse on a small island. Then one, by one, by one they all start getting murdered. It’s a great book.”
“Bullshit,” exclaimed Toby.
“Well, I think it is anyway,” Eric replied, going on the defensive. “To each his own, we can’t all like the same…”
“What? No, I didn’t mean…It’s just that while you were talking, I Googled ‘Ten Little Indians’. Amazing. You know what it was originally called? Ironic really seeing a
s how we’re dealing with white supremacists here…”
He paused for effect.
“…‘Ten Little Niggers’.
And ha! Guess what else? They made a movie based on the book and you know what it was called?”
He looked around the room.
‘And Then There Were None’”.
Chapter 30
Paying the price.
Van Heerden opened his bleary eyes and glanced out the window. He did a double take and his well-thumbed book – “The Venomous Snakes of Australia” – fell off his lap. He spoke out loud to no one in particular.
“Fuck me! We’re here already?”
The man in the seat across the aisle, a birdwatcher type, overheard him and smiled.
“No friend. That’s not Uluru. That’s Mt O’Connor. Note the distinctive flat top? Uluru’s an hour and fifty minutes further south. But everyone makes the same mistake...that’s why they call Uluru’s twin sister over there ‘Fool-uru’”.
Van Heerden glared at him.
“You calling me a fool, boy?”
The man’s smile disappeared. He put his hands up and backed out of it.
“No. Not at all. Never. No way...”
Van Heerden stared at him for a moment longer, then closed his eyes and slowly drifted back off to sleep. The Greyhound bus from Alice Springs was crowded and cramped, but the seat beside him vacant. Who in their right mind would dare sit next to the scary big guy? So there was plenty of room for him to stretch out for the next hour and 49 minutes.
***
He checked into the Desert Gardens Hotel at bang on 3pm, snarling and flipping the bird up at the CCTV above reception. No need to skulk around, the more people who knew he was in town the better. The Desert Gardens had over 200 rooms, yet incredibly he was given Room 1009 on the first floor, right next door to where his mate Theo Stomann had carked it. As he tossed his carry bag onto the king size bed, he wondered if the noisy young couple screwing their arses off next door realised that their suite might be haunted by the ghost of his fat friend. Ha! They better put a lock on their mini bar he thought, smiling to himself.
For the rest of the afternoon, and well into the evening, he strode around the local vicinity. All around the Desert Gardens, in and out of bars at nearby resorts, through Uluru Town Square, up to Imalung, Pioneer and Ewing Lookouts, out to the Camping Ground and especially to all the aboriginal art galleries. Everywhere he went he spoke to everyone he met, even the blacks – particularly the blacks – saying basically the same thing.
“Hi. My name’s Eddy Van Heerden. I was out here about nine months ago, with nine mates. 10th of January it would have been. With a bit of luck, I might see you tomorrow night out at Ayer’s Rock.”
There, that should get them monkeys banging on them jungle drums he thought.
***
He awoke at the crack of midday – well, he had partied till dawn – and told the two hookers he’d hired for the weekend to fuck off. They had been very accomplished and accommodating, they’d had a lot of fun, but he wouldn’t be requiring their services any further. He’d be on his way back to Sydney by this time tomorrow. And then out to the farm outside sleepy Orange to do a little target practice with his brand-new AR-500. He was excited to put what Big Horny Armory were calling “the most powerful rifle on the planet” through its paces. Apparently, its modified Smith & Wesson .500 Auto Max bullets could “disable any vehicle”. It’d have no problem sorting out a few coons.
***
He was doing lengths of the 30-metre hotel pool around three pm, had just come up from his thirty-eighth tumble turn, was feeling good, feeling strong, when out of the corner of his eye, he saw that blonde bitch. She came running over to the edge of the pool straight towards him! And in her hand was a long, thin blue and red coloured snake! She was going to throw it at him!
He gasped, swallowed a mouthful of water and came up spluttering. Then realised it wasn’t her. Just a young mum rushing over to the pool to stop her two young sons from drowning each other. The ‘snake’ was the towelling belt on the sundress she was doing up as she ran. He had a better look at her as he was getting out of the pool.
Shorter. Plumper. Not even close.
And as for the ‘snake’. What was he thinking? Blue and bloody red? There were no blue and red snakes, not venomous ones at least and certainly not in Oz. He’d spent the past two weeks studying “The Venomous Snakes of Australia” till he could instantly ID them all, and their variants. No sense having antivenins that could save you from every poisonous snake – what a windfall that was – if you didn’t know which snake had bit you.
He told himself he was just getting a bit jumpy as the time drew near. Relax, mate, just a few more hours and it’ll all be over.
***
It was now 7.30 pm. The sun had set over an hour ago, so by rights all the tourists should have skolled their sunset champers and pissed off.
Flogging the early model Ford Fiesta had been way too easy. He hadn’t even needed to pop the hood, just jam a flathead screwdriver into the ignition and force turn it clockwise, like the actual key. Took all of five seconds. It would’ve fucked the ignition cylinder up, but that would teach the stupid pricks – probably abos judging from how messy the interior was – to leave their ride unlocked. Not that that would have stopped him; breaking in was just as easy.
He approached the park’s floodlit checkpoint and cursed himself for not pre-purchasing a ticket so he could have driven straight through. Instead he pulled into the right hand stopping lane, where one of the blackest men he’d ever seen – as black as Satan’s arsehole – was standing, collecting the $25 entry fee. He brought the banger to a stop in a cloud of dust and wound down his window.
“Hi. Name’s Ed Van Heerden. I was out here about nine months ago, with nine mates. 10th of January…”
The old guy stared at him for a moment and Van Heerden wasn’t sure that he’d even heard him, but a few seconds later he broke into a huge smile and flashed his pearly whites.
“Ah, Ed Van Heerden. No charge for you, my friend. Drive straight through.” Good. They’re expecting me. This’ll be fun.
“What time does the Park close?” he asked the gatekeeper. Not that he cared. Fuck them, I’ll stay as long as I like.
“Usually 8.30pm this time of year. But you, Ed Van Heerden, you can stay as long as you like.”
Van Heerden didn’t even bother to thank the man. Just dropped the clutch and sprayed him in loose gravel.
When he was gone, the gatekeeper dragged out the signs that had been on display all day:
PARK CLOSED FOR IMPROVEMENTS
Sorry for any inconvenience.
***
Ten minutes later, he cruised into The Rock’s carpark. Last time they were here, in the van, they were lucky to find a space. This time it was eerily empty. And deathly quiet. He killed the engine, turned off the lights and got out. He clipped his new tool-bag around his waist and looked up at the Rock. On their previous outing, the moon wasn’t quite full. This time, as luck would have it, it was as full as, rising up and flooding the giant monolith in a ghostly blue-tinged light. He might not need his headband torch, but he donned it anyway. Just in case. The band barely fitted around his large head.
He followed a well beaten track to the base of the Rock, to the start of what used to be the climb. There was only one person around, another darkie sitting on his haunches next to a sign:
NO WALKERS/CLIMBERS
Permanent Closure
26 October 2019
Please be respectful or incur a $630 fine.
The Anangu man with his long white beard stood up and sauntered over to a padlocked chain blocking the track as Matthew approached. The big man scoffed as he eyed the sign.
“So, you man enough to try to fine me 600 bucks for climbing this fucker?” he sneered.
The keeper of the rock nodded his head. “You climb the rock, you pay the price. It’s very dangerous. 37 people have
died up there. Their spirits…”
“Their spirits can suck my fat one,” Van Heerden scoffed. He looked around. “So where is he?”
The man simply looked up towards the top of the rock.
“Then get the fuck out of my way,” he commanded as he brought his right boot down on the thick chain, snapping it in half as if it were tinfoil. “Send me the bill for that along with the fine.”
Almost as an afterthought, he kicked off his Doc Martens. It’d be better to be barefoot up there, better traction. He gave them to the Rock’s custodian, daring him to stop him.
“Here,” he said, “clean these for me, boy. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
Overkill : Pure Venom Page 17