He showed Alan the letters he had collected. There were two letters addressed to Mark Bennet, one looked like an electricity bill and the other looked like a promotional letter from the Desert Sails Resort at Yulara. Alan thought this second letter was probably just junk mail, a bulk mail-out from one of those resold mail lists, but he decided he would reserve judgement until it was opened.
The third letter was addressed to the man who sat in front of him, with his name, care of this address, printed on a sticky label, stuck on the front of the envelope along with a standard postage stamp. There was no other clue, no other writing, on the outside of the envelope.
Alan handled all the mail with care, touching only the very corners. He realised now he would have to have to bring this man down to the police station to make a statement, and take the envelope and money for analysis, along with the other letters.
So he turned to the man and said. “Listen, I am very sorry but we think something bad may have happened to Mark, and we are trying to trace him. So, despite what I said, I have to ask you to come to the police station now and we will also have to analyse those letters. But don’t worry; I will give you the eighty dollars you are expecting, along with an extra twenty for your trouble and it will only take half an hour before you are on your way again.”
He thought the man would grumble but was surprised when he flashed him a toothy smile. “Well I have to admit, sounds fair, just so long as I get my money. I promised me mates that I would buy the drinks this week, it’s my turn, so I need the cash.” He continued, “While I only met that Mark bloke the once, he seemed very fair and it was more than reasonable to raise me each year. So now, if he needs a bit of help in return from me, tis the least I can do. Do you need the key or shall I keep up doing what I have been doing?”
Alan looked at him and grinned back. “If you reckon the money will keep coming you should keep the key, at least for now. Just drop in any other mail that comes to the local police station each week, even the junk mail, pick it out carefully and put it in a clean plastic bag without touching the sides of each letter.”
The man grinned back, liking this idea. “Right you are.”
Alan walked over and collected the junk mail from the bin, where the man had dropped it. I need to check this too, just in case there is anything that helps us find him” he said, then. “Just one thing more, in return for the extra twenty I promised, how about you give me a drive back to the station, I will call it a taxi fare, it is too bloody hot and too bloody far to walk and it will save me having to call a patrol car or taxi to come and get us.”
The man nodded and grunted. “Mores than fair, I reckons.”
Richard looked up with surprise when Alan returned with his hobo friend. Alan quickly told Richard the story and asked Richard to witness his payment of a hundred dollars to the man, to allow him make an expense claim.
Then Alan took one hundred dollars from his wallet and passed it to the man, wrote a short statement for the man, read it back to him and, when he nodded in agreement, asked him to sign it. Then both he and Richard countersigned. The man was free to go and left with a cheery wave.
Alan called out, “No driving that car until tomorrow if you have a skin full. The man nodded and doffed his hat.
As he disappeared Richard turned to Alan and said. “Seems like you have a different way of doing things than how I am allowed to. I would have to take the money as evidence, even though I know it really belongs to the man and he would have been seriously annoyed not to have his drinking money.”
Alan nodded back, “Much better this way, he is happy, we got what we needed along with some goodwill and the worst that can happen is I will be down a hundred if they don’t refund my claim. But at the end of the day, I am sure there will be the eighty in the envelope, and a taxi would have cost another twenty, so I am sure my boss will approve it.
“Still I asked you to sign it just so no one can say I am putting my hand in the honey pot. Now, how about some gloves so we can open those letters and see if there is anything useful in them?”
The first letter was the money as expected, with absolutely nothing else but four new looking twenty dollar notes inside the envelope. “Off for some fingerprinting, I reckon,” said Richard “though I doubt we will find anything.”
The second was an electricity account, also as expected, and the usage was miniscule, suggesting Mark Bennet had barely been at home in the last quarter. “Something to follow up re the account information, though again I doubt it will take us anywhere,” said Alan.”
The third letter however was much more interesting. It was a customer follow up inquiry, along with a bonus voucher, from the Desert Sails Resort in Yulara. Alan knew the place well; he had stayed there more than once. The letter advised that, following Mr Bennet’s recent stay in their facility, they were seeking feedback on his experience and satisfaction. In return for him taking the time to complete the survey and send it back, or alternatively fill it out online, a bonus discount voucher for 30% of his next stay was enclosed.
The letter did not give a date of stay but it had a reference number. By the time Richard had finished reading Alan was on the phone to Desert Sails. In a few minutes he had confirmed that a Mark Bennet had stayed there in a luxury double room for a night in early August and had a date. The lady who took his call also told him she understood from their records that Mr Bennet had a companion; at least a room service order suggested this, with two serves of an entrée and main course for a late dinner, along with a payment for two buffet breakfasts next morning.
Alan’s next question was the clincher, “Do you have any CCTV footage of either the reception or the breakfast buffet area?”
The lady answered, “Certainly sir, we have it for both areas, at least for the buffet entrance. The footage is kept for 3 months. So footage for this date should still be available. I will of course need to sight your actual police authority before I am able to allow you to view it. But, in the meantime, I will ensure it is held securely.”
So now Alan had to decide, which one first, Yulara or the search of the flat. He wanted to be there for both. He asked Richard what he thought. “Definitely Yulara, I know they have promised to keep the footage, but you know how it is with these things; Murphy’s law being alive and well with the potential for stuff ups.
That flat is not going anywhere and we can easily put it back a day. I know that makes it the weekend but it does not really matter. Perhaps we can get the locksmith to try and get the door open tomorrow without smashing the lock. If that does not work we will go in with the heavy gear the next day.
So it was agreed, they would make the run down to Yulara tonight, and seek to view the footage first thing in the morning. Alan raised his eyebrows at Richard’s enthusiasm to include himself in the trip. “Don’t you have family commitments tonight?”
Richard grimaced a bit. “I know I do and I should go home and let someone else go with you. But I would not miss this for quids, a real live murder investigation when we may get to see our victim’s head in the flesh, I wouldn’t miss this for quids. I will just have to treat the family to a special dinner tomorrow or Saturday night to make up. Cathy will be sweet once I explain. She is a nurse and has the night off and tomorrow the kids will be at school.
It was ten pm when they arrived, a bit bleary eyed from the driving. The duty manager met them, as they were expected around now. Alan gave him a brief explanation, “We are trying to trace the movements of a man who appears to have gone missing. His stay here appears to be his last known location.”
The duty manager passed over room key cards and told them he had organised for the resort manager to meet them about 9 am tomorrow and go through the footage with them. Alan asked if one of the staff could spend a few minutes showing him the layout of the buildings, including where their former guest’s room was, the route from the reception area to it and the location of any cameras which may have picked up their images.
Af
ter ten minutes they had it mapped out and were hopeful that there would be images from three or four cameras. It should be fairly straightforward as they had an exact time of check in.
Next morning Alan found himself twitching with impatience as he ate a leisurely breakfast after an early morning walk. But he could not complain; the resort was being very helpful, obviously keen to handle a sensitive inquiry in a low key way. He knew the resort needed to deal with the early morning checkout rush, getting people onto tour coaches, before it was reasonable to have the manager’s time.
After breakfast, around a quarter to nine, he advised reception that he was ready and waiting. Five minutes later he and Richard were introduced to the Resort Manager and a technician, who took them to a viewing room with several monitors. The technician quickly scrolled through the footage until they came to the booking date.
They had a check-in time of 8.54 pm, so they fast forwarded again until around 8 pm, then slowed to rapid view. There were three camera feeds running concurrently on adjacent screens, all showing concurrent feeds. One showed the driveway and resort entrance in wide view, one showed the reception area and one showed the final passage way heading towards their room. The time was displayed on all feeds.
At 8.50 a white four wheel drive tray back flashed past along the driveway, passing beyond view. Alan felt his heart skip a beat, he was sure this was the vehicle they had found. Even in the dim light the cooler box was clearly visible.
He put up his hand and the technician stopped and backed up the feed. The technician started a copying machine and the images now played at normal speed. Now they saw it all in full detail. It was definitely the same Toyota found in Darwin. They watched as it passed from view, the brake lights coming on as it turned sideways into the car park entrance and vanished.
A couple minutes later this same camera picked up a man who looked like the photo of Mark Bennet. He walked towards and through the entrance, holding hands with a medium sized girl with dark hair. Their manner was affectionate. The light and detail was not very good but it clearly was Mark and an unknown lady. A few seconds later Mark came clearly into view in the next camera. He was approaching reception, holding a booking slip. The girl could be seen at the edge of the monitor, well back, and not clearly. It looked like she was waiting behind as he did the formalities. The third camera picked them up another minute later, walking down the passage way towards the room, arms around each other in an intimate manner. This time it showed a full face picture of the girl, up close, and as sharp as day when the technician zoomed in,
Richard whistled, “She’s a sweet looking thing, wonder what they will be doing for the night. With that dark hair she could be Spanish or Italian.” Then they disappeared from view as they passed the camera.
A few minutes later Mark reappeared by himself. They tracked him back outside, then back in again with an overnight bag and a backpack.
Alan asked to pause and zoom in on the backpack. It looked like luggage which belonged to the girl. Maybe she was a backpacker Mark Bennet had picked up for a night of fun, perhaps the detail of the pack could help work out where she came from.
But this image was not sharp enough for that. Maybe the police technicians could work it up more, back in Darwin. They rolled the tape again as Mark continued on. There was a period of a couple minutes when he vanished. Then he came past reception, now also carrying a bottle of champagne, a strap from the backpack over his shoulder. Once he passed the third camera neither Mark nor the woman was seen again for the night, just one shot of a waiter carrying the room service they had ordered a couple hours later.
So now they started with the morning footage of the passage near their room, skipping through quickly except when people appeared and they would slow it down to work out their identities.
About 8 am Mark and the girl reappeared, again very love-dovey. She looked radiant and fresh, half skipping as she walked beside him, chatting excitedly, much different from her relatively subdued manner of last night. The cameras followed them going in and out of the breakfast cafe, then half an hour later they were checking out.
Everyone leaned back and relaxed for a minute. Mark and Richard felt a bit stunned; the footage was brilliant, parts were sharp enough for a TV broadcast. While they did not know if the girl had stayed with Mark beyond this day, she was clearly more than a casual acquaintance; at least in the morning it looked like they knew each other well and were travelling together.
Alan felt that he would not be surprised if she turned up again later in the story, perhaps even as the source of the footprint at the billabong. There was something in her manner which seemed to fit with the person in Sandy’s dream. He would love to show Sandy the footage and see what she thought. Perhaps if he got home to Darwin tonight he would, even though he knew this speculation was way in front of the evidence that they had seen.
The real questions were who was she and how did she know Mark? Had he just picked her up on her travels and in a day or two would she be gone on her own way again?
Suddenly Alan realised that the resort manager was talking to him. He switched his attention back. The resort manager said. “I trust that this is useful to you. We will be able to give you a copy in about five minutes, once we burn it to a DVD. It is just copied to computer memory for now. I only ask that you are discreet at this stage in your usage of it. I would prefer not to have an impression given that we spy on our guests.
Alan replied “For police eyes only at this stage, though we need to try and identify the girl. It is possible that we will use a couple close up stills of her face in the media for that. I need you to hold the original footage in a secure place until we determine if we need it further.”
The manager nodded,” Yes we can do that, the original section for those two days can go in the resort safe, until we hear further from you.”
Alan agreed they had what they needed from the footage. Now they would just like a copy of all the booking details including how it was paid for, including any credit card number and email address used in the transaction.
Within a few minutes they had all they needed and were on their way back to Alice. As Alan drove Richard lined up the search of the flat for three pm this afternoon.
After the excitement of the CCTV footage this search was a disappointing affair, the flat was effectively empty, not a single personal item to be found, no toiletries, not even a cake of soap in the bathroom. There was no food other that a few unopened tins in a cupboard, no papers other than one old newspaper. Nothing but a stripped bed with clean folded sheets and a towel sitting on top of it, a table and two chairs, and a small number of plates, saucepans and cutlery in the cupboards, all shining clean.
Within fifteen minutes Alan had lost interest. As his work in Alice Springs was done he booked a seat on the next plane to Darwin leaving in just over an hour. He asked Richard to follow up the loose ends in Alice Springs, thanking him greatly for his help.
He suspected he would return next week and spend more days on the road, trying to track their movements after Yulara. Right now he wanted to get home to Sandy and he particularly wanted to show her the image of the girl.
Chapter 11 – The Mystery Lady
Alan got back to Darwin about 7 pm on the Friday night after his visit to Alice Springs. He had told Sandy at lunch time he was unsure if he could get home tonight but would try. She promised to be waiting when he did.
Alan remembered a saying that one of his copper mates had told him, when he first started in the police. They had been out bush for a week and this man was really looking forward to returning to his wife. He had said, “The second bang will be when the screen door slams.”
Alan felt like that now. He had been thinking about Sandy in an intimate way the whole flight home and even more as he willed the taxi to get him quickly to her. As he was closing the door they were already tearing at each others’ clothes and they barely made it to the bed. Now they lay entwined together. He looked at the tangl
e of clothes, sheets and limbs that represented their desire for each other.
He laughed, “Ever since I met you I have been in a hurry to get into bed with you, but it has never happened that fast.”
Sandy had a smug self satisfied look on her face, “Well in the whole month and a bit we have been together you have never been away for a night, let alone two. So I think this was making up for lost time. I loved how desperate you were for me and hope for some more of it later.
Now the rush had passed Alan suddenly remembered the DVD. He went and turned on the TV on the bedroom wall. He slotted in the DVD, saying nothing as he did. Sandy watched with disinterested puzzlement. For the first minute it showed just the empty lobby of a hotel. A white Toyota came past. Sandy was still not really paying attention.
A couple came walking up to the lobby holding hands. Now Sandy sat up in bed with a look of fixed concentration on her face. She watched with full attention as the man checked in, saying a couple of times, “I wish I could see her properly.”
Then, as the couple walked directly towards the camera in the passage and their faces came into sharp focus, Sandy let out a little scream. “It’s her; I just know it is her, the woman in my dream at the billabong. The man looks familiar, like the guy she was with and frightened of. But her mind picture of him is different, like looking at him from the inside not the outside.
“But it is her face; I absolutely know it is her. It is strange; I have never seen her face from the outside. I only know what her face feels like, looking through her mind, from the inside. But yet her face is clear to me, it is a self-awareness thing. She has this razor sharp image of herself, which is how this man sees her. It is her image of the image which he sees when he looks at her. I sense she has been using her body and face to seduce him and because of that, now, she can see, so very clearly, how he sees her, a sort of thought transference. It is like her image reflected through two mirrors, the first one in his mind and the second one in her mind. But the image is not distorted by these reflections, it is totally clear. And it is the face of the girl in this video.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 35