Harris’ anger momentarily gave way for a boyish sadness, in the scale of all things, he felt small and helpless. “There’s not one continent on earth that humankind hasn’t fucked up, is there?”
“And when you say they go missing… You mean you’ve taken them?” Lescott was playing with the facts in his head and trying to connect dots.
“Yes and no. The numbers don’t always add up. This year maybe eight or nine have been reported missing from Aranda settlements around here. A couple more from the Anangu camp.Of those eight or nine Aranda, there’s a paper trail leading to the re-education camps to the north for four or five. I’d need to check. Two others we’ve found in the desert.
“Dead?” Lescott asked.
Hawke nodded. “One was a snake bite, the other was dehydration. Then there might be one or two others who are just plain missing. I don’t know if they’ve been taken to the camps and the paperwork got lost along the way, or if they’re still in the desert somewhere.”
“Have you looked for them?” Harris’ asked.
“Sure, we have but my department is under-manned and over-stretched. There’s 2000 miles between Adelaide and Darwin. We’re slap bang in the middle. That’s a big fucking area to get lost in. Who’s to say they’re even out there? This surplus, this number of unaccounted-for children stretches back decades. You’d start noticing if there were dozens of bodies out there. Someone would stumble past something. How far can kids get by themselves?” Hawke was standing his ground and he was right. There was only so much he could do. He wasn’t the decision maker in this instance. The trouble was, what he could do, he wasn’t doing. He was part of the process that perpetuated apathy.
“You’re suggesting someone has taken them?” Lescott wanted transparency on the matter.
“I’d never do that.” Hawke was clearly scared of rocking the boat.
“What is it you actually do around here?” Harris was furious.
“I hit targets and meet budgets. So, you’ll forgive me if I don’t waste time and money looking for kids, I’d have possibly just had to spend time and money disappearing myself.” Hawke had clearly justified his actions in his own mind.
“Fuck off and leave us to do your work, you fat cunt,” Lescott had lost his patience.
“I won’t be spoken to like that in my own station.” Hawke stood and puffed out his chest. “You’re losing your mind over a few savages.”
“What if they were white children, Lester?” Harris asked.
“They’re not.” Hawke shrugged as he walked out the room.
“I think this might have been a waste of time,” Lescott cursed over the lip of his hip flask. “We’re finding nothing here.”
“Darwin?” Harris was grasping at straws.
“Who’s to say it’s any better up there? This thing was deliberately covered up by the police in Sydney. Now it, or something like it, seems like it’s being accidentally covered up by the police in the Territory. We need a new direction. It’s safe to say the police aren’t our way forward.” Lescott dismissed the idea.
Charlie, the janitor walked back into the room, he looked like he wanted to speak, but was too nervous to do so. Lescott nodded towards him to encourage him. “Need anything in here, bruzzas?” the man asked.
Harris and Lescott looked at each other knowingly. “Would you mind answering some questions?” Lescott asked.
“I’m not meant to bother you fellas. The boss says I’m here to work, not chatter.” The janitor resisted.
“He’s a prick. When he starts paying you for your time, he can tell you what to do with your time.” Harris suggested.
“At the end of the day he gives me a few beers, a sarnie, and some cigs. Charlie looked around. “You saying you’ve got a better offer for me?”
“Hand him your flask.” Harris said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a few notes and handed them to the young man. “That should buy us an hour or two…”
“You’re right. He is a prick.” Charlie shut the door behind him and sat down on the floor.
“What do we call you?” Lescott asked, as he offered Charlie a cigarette.
“Charlie.” Charlie answered.
“No surname?” Lescott asked.
“I’ve got one. I don’t use it. Some white fella gave it to me. It’s not my name. It’s his.” Charlie looked through the blinds to check the coast was clear before lighting his cigarette. “Hawke and the gunjies call me Tiddalik.”
“Why’s that?” Harris asked.
“It’s from Tjukurpa. Tiddalik was a greedy frog…” Charlie began talking.
“Is this like a dreamtime thing?” Harris interrupted. He wasn’t trying to be rude. He was excited. Mythology was an interest of his and he couldn’t stop himself.
“No. It’s Tjukurpa. Dreamtime makes it sound made-up. And it’s not. Anyway, Tiddalik used to steal all the water from the billabongs. Still does. He drinks the rain falling from the sky. He drinks it when it’s sitting in the clouds. He’s the reason we have dry spells.”
“So, you like a drink?” Lescott asked.
“Thought you’d never fucking ask, bruz,” Charlie answered, holding his hand out to take Lescott’s hip flask.
Lescott handed his prized possession over with a smile, “I’m Fred Lescott. This is James Harris.”
“Palya.” Charlie looked at the flask and gave it a sniff, “What is this?”
“It’s whisky.” Lescott avoided Harris’ judgemental gaze as he spoke, it was too early in the day to be drinking heavily. “And gin.”
“No. I mean the cup. What do you call it?”
Lescott was somewhat confused by the question, “It’s a hip flask.”
Charlie noticed the bemusement on Lescott’s face. “Listen mate. English is my seventh language. You’re going to have to bear with me.”
“Seventh?” Lescott asked.
“Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Aranda, and a couple of dialects of each. I didn’t speak a word of White Australian until I was 12.” Charlie answered as he took a sip of Lescott’s grim concoction. He looked over to Harris and then back to Lescott, “Why’s the big man so angry, Frescott?”
“He’s a bit prickly at the best of times, and he’s having a shitty day,” Lescott answered. Harris didn’t argue, the conversation with Hawke had tired him. When you’ve entered a place like Belsen in a time like 1945, it’s hard to look upon apathy with anything other than life-questioning contempt.
“You wanna be careful, big fella. That’s how the echidna grew his spikes?” Harris and Lescott looked at each other in confusion, then back at Charlie. “Back in the day, the echidna got chased up a tree by the crocodile man. The crocodile waited for him there. Knew he’d have to come down before long. Didn’t like heights. Got dizzy, fell out of a tree into the spinifex grass. When he stood up, he was wearing the thorns on his back, never having to climb a tree again. No one would come close in fear of the spikes”
“That’s a good story.” Lescott smiled.
“Echidna’s prickly to protect himself. But his spikes protect him from everything. From good. From bad. He never found a mate. Never had a family.”
Lescott smiled at the fable. In their time together, he’d often tried to get Harris to act more like what you would call normal. He’d had little impact. Maybe this was a better way of reaching him.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Harris answered. “Echidnas do mate. I think you’ve got your morals mixed up.”
“Listen…” Charlie took another sip and ran the story around in his head. “These stories aren’t always literal. Maybe the moral is. Don’t be spikey, or the only thing that will fuck you is an echidna. You don’t want to fuck an echidna do you, Jarris?”
“I guess not.” Harris couldn’t argue with the logic. He did not want to have relations with an echidna.
“What are you two doing out here?” Charlie asked.
“Police work…” Lescott answered as expansively as he felt co
mfortable doing. “We’re looking for a man. We think maybe he kidnapped two children from out here. Have you heard anything about that?”
“Knew you’d come.” Harris and Lescott both looked up as Charlie said the words.
“What?” Lescott asked.
“Kids have been going missing around here for a long time. Some come back. Some don’t. My sister’s kid, Jarrah, was taken by the Yara-ma-yha-who.”
“Who?” Lescott asked.
“The Yara-ma-yha-who. He’s like a blood red… Frog… Vampire.”
“Excuse me?” Lescott raised his eyebrows. “Is this from Tjuk…?
“Tjukurpa.” Charlie helped out with the word. “From the east. He used to live in the rainforests. But the piranpa, that’s white fellas, scared him away from his home. Now he could be anywhere, everywhere. He sits on the low branches of trees, blending into the red dirt. Staying completely still so you can’t see him. Then when the weary traveller rests in the shade of the tree, he drops. He’s got this huge mouth that makes out a curdling scream. But it’s got no teeth or tongue. Because he feeds with these vicious tentacles on his limbs.”
Harris and Lescott remained silent. Charlie believed what he was saying. This case was becoming a little stranger with every word the young man spoke.
“Not been seen round here for centuries. He’s back now, though. I know it.” Something in the way Charlie spoke betrayed him. These words were not for the benefit of the outsiders. They were his way of making sense of his missing loved one.
Lescott reached into the filing box he’d brought from Sydney. “Can I show you a couple of pictures?”
Charlie nodded.
Lescott pulled out pictures of the children on the back seat of the Rolls Royce. “We found a couple of children back in Sydney. As of yet, we’ve been unable to identify them. Maybe you recognise them?”
Charlie took the pictures and studied them for a moment before his face contorted in disappointment. “Are they dead?”
Lescott nodded slowly.
“Fuck’s sake man.” Charlie handed the pictures back. “I can’t look at that shit.”
“I know it’s hard, but if you can just take a look and…” Harris spoke sympathetically.
“No. You don’t get it. I can’t look at that shit. I’m not allowed. It’s as disrespectful to the dead as it gets. Don’t show me anything like that again. Don’t show it to any Anangu around here.”
“Charlie, can you tell us anything about this Jeremy yahoo?” Harris asked.
“Yara-ma-yha-who.” Charlie corrected with a solemn shake of his head. White fellas were never great at picking up the local nomenclature. “I didn’t see him. Jarrah’s sister did.”
“Could we talk to her?” Harris asked.
“Not unless you learn Pitjantjatjara. She doesn’t speak Australian.”
“Could you bring her here and translate for us.”
“Mowan won’t allow that. Not after Jarrah. There’s not too much trust amongst the Anangu toward the piranpa.” Charlie polished off the hipflask and stubbed his cigarette out on the floor. He wasn’t excited about what he was about to say, his thoughts were marked on his face by hesitant resignation. “You’ll have to come to the community.”
Harris wasn’t happy, but he’d somehow been demoted to the backseat of the car. Lescott wouldn’t hand over the keys. Charlie had been insistent on sitting in the passenger seat. So, Harris watched helplessly as Charlie fiddled with the dials on the radio. “Sound quality is good. Shame it’s in mono, stereo’s going to change the way we listen to the Beatles.”
Harris and Lescott looked at each other in surprise. It seemed that of the three men, the most modern was the young Indigenous lad who looked like he had wandered over from the background of an Albert Namatjira landscape. Harris scratched his head in puzzlement, “Why is everyone going crazy for the Beatles?”
“I can’t speak for everyone,” Charlie shrugged. “The music just talks to me. You know.”
“Listen Charlie,” Lescott hesitated before putting his foot on the accelerator. “I know you’ve mentioned this Yara… This devil frog…”
“Vampire frog man… The Yara-ma-yha-who,” Charlie corrected.
“It’s more likely the work of a man. You need to know that.”
“You sound just like Mowan. He says it’s the work of the piranpa, he says the boy is gone. That he isn’t coming back. To stop saying his name. I know different. I feel it. Jarrah is in some cave somewhere. Waiting for his uncle Charlie to come save him from that devil.”
Chapter 40
It didn’t take long for the news of Ronnie Prince’s death to spread through Darlinghurst. Even in the face of death, life goes on. Not that day. The grinding gears of criminality and lawfulness alike, they came to a complete stop. Over a gunshot in the dark.
Pubs cleared, shops emptied, brothels vacated, and everyone came onto the street to mourn. A primary school abandoned their classrooms to create a mural tribute to Ronnie. Prince had put most of what he’d had back into Darlinghurst. He’d built schools, hospitals, affordable housing. That condemned corner of Sydney had been dragged off its impoverished knees by a bastard son born of nothing but poverty.
I remember when our paths first crossed. I was but a young man starting out on a life of crime. He’d have been in his forties at the time, and the city was already his. My first foray into crime looked like it would be short lived and the last. I’d stormed headfirst into a jeweller’s shop, pulled out a razor, grabbed a handful of diamonds, and barrelled onto the street outside.
Who did I run into? None other than Ronnie Prince. I bounced straight off the big bastard, and fell onto the pavement in a heap. As I was trying to get to my feet, the shop owner cleared the doorway and called out for help. A bobby doing his well-practised beat of that Darlinghurst street descended upon me bearing his truncheon. I closed my eyes and waited for the sickening blow to rattle my skull. It never came. Instead, I heard a dull thud, a desperate gasping, and the sound of a grown man crumpling to the floor. Prince had punched the approaching policeman straight in the throat. He turned to me, winked a friendly wink, and walked off as calm as could be. He’d tan my hide the following week for not paying him his due, but I won’t hold that against him.
While Darlinghurst took to the street to mourn his death, meetings were taking place in back rooms all over the country to carve up his empire. It made no sense that it lay there dormant. The money his organisation put back into the economy was huge. It was jobs, houses, infrastructure, and some people even paid their taxes. This was a time during which Robert Menzies’ government had committed to undertaking war in a foreign land. Vietnam would cost money. Stability was needed at home.
Many names were thrown around. George Watson was a favourite. James Harris had long been the heir apparent but it seemed, to many, that he had lost his nerve. They were two candidates to move up from within Sydney’s existing administration but there were others from further afield. Paulie Zambrotta of Melbourne’s name came up due to his sparklingly filthy record of leading the post-war criminal landscape of Victoria. The River Rat biker gang of East Gippsland had been making steps towards taking control of the Australian Capital Territory. Mick Calyute , Darwin’s Aboriginal kingpin was ruthlessly ambitious and would welcome the opportunity for expansion. Sydney aside, who would inherit Adelaide, Prince’s second city? Lips were moving, tongues were wagging, and decisions were being made over strong whisky and stale pipe smoke.
In one such backroom, a conversation was being held by two women with more than a passing interest in the matter. Matilda Devine, one part of the unholy trifecta of women who had run the underworld during the 1920’s, had begun her criminal career in her native England as a child prostitute upon the cobbles of the Strand in Central London. She’d come to Sydney on one of the bride ships after World War I and had taken to pimping. Under her control, the city’s prohibition era prostitution industry had flourished. She took women off the st
reets, away from the docks, and placed them inside lavish establishments. She had charged an arm and a leg for an hour of their time. Customers were happy, prostitutes were happy and most of all, Tilly Devine was happy. For years she had been the most powerful figure in the Sydney underworld, but an ill-timed tax bill had left her weak and vulnerable to attack from both sides of the law. She’d lost everything.
Ever since Ronnie Prince had assumed control, Tilly Devine had plotted and schemed to rise back to her former glory. Within hours of Prince dying, she sat down with an unlikely ally and schemed. It wasn’t a meeting with Tilly unless you were choking on her damn pipe smoke. She let it cascade from her nose and lips as she watched Elsa Markle closely. Neither woman wanted to reveal the cards in their hand, figuratively or literally. They were playing a civilised game of German whist and probing each other with carefully-chosen small talk.
“It’s going to be interesting to see what happens next.”
“Indeed.” Tilly smiled.
“It would be nice to see a shift in power, back towards strong women,” Markle added.
“You ought to be careful speaking like that, Miss Markle, if it gets back to the likes of George Watson… He’ll make your life miserable. He’s next up.” Devine wanted Elsa to come out and make her position clear.
“George Watson’s position isn’t as concrete as you might think.” Elsa smiled mischievously. Devine said nothing in response, she was too wily to jump in when unsure of what lay ahead. “You know how these boys are. They’re petty. It’s all about reputation and ego.”
“He’s developed quite the reputation.”
“One that I propose we ruin.”
“And how would we do that?” Tilly smiled a cheeky smile.
“I know George Watson well. I know what makes him tick. More importantly, I know how he gets his kicks.”
THE DEVIL IN THE RED DIRT: DIVIDED IN LIFE. UNIFIED IN MURDER Page 34