Cockatoo

by Christopher Cummings

  The policeman shook his head but with admiration. He then said, “Yes, well, very well done. But please don’t place yourself at risk like that again. Now, let’s see if we can catch these characters.” He took out a mobile phone and moved off along the footpath to talk on it. From time to time he looked towards Tina and her group.

  Tina now had a real breakdown, sobbing and shaking as the reaction hit her. Her family and friends crowded round to comfort her and the other people went back into the bar. A vehicle turned into the street from the main street and pulled up and a ‘bushie’ dressed in baggy shorts, a blue singlet and battered hat got out. He gave them a curious look as he went towards the bar where a real buzz of conversation had broken out.

  The policeman called to the man, “Hey Bill! Wait.”

  Bill did, obviously full of curiosity. The policeman walked over and asked him which road he had come in along. On learning that it was from the direction of the hospital he was asked if he had seen the vehicle. Bill shook his head and went on into the bar to ask his friends what the story was.

  The policeman said, “I have called HQ and they are putting out an all points call. There is a good chance we will catch these characters. Now, I will do a drive around town and ask at the service station on the other side of town if they saw which way they went. I would like you people to stay at the hotel, and stay together and keep your doors locked.”

  Tina’s father frowned. “You think there might be some danger?” he asked.

  The policeman nodded. “I heard the man threaten young Tina. You had better be careful. Tina, stay with the group. Do not wander off on your own.”

  Tina felt a stab of terror deep down inside and she shivered again. The hate-filled image of Danny’s face floated to the top of her mind and knew she was really scared.

  Tina’s father said, “It should be fairly easy to apprehend that vehicle shouldn’t it? I mean there is only the one bitumen road and it is hundreds of kilometres back to Georgetown.”

  The policeman shook his head. “You would think so. There are really only three roads out of here: west to Normanton, east to Georgetown and the dirt road south to Julia Creek. But there are a few bush tracks going off to the north and south. Anyway, we will have road blocks on all three main roads within the hour. I had better go. I will see you in an hour or so to take a full statement.”

  With that the policeman walked off to his vehicle. As he went he pocketed his notebook and then held his side, which was obviously still sore. As he reversed out another vehicle arrived, this time from the direction of Normanton. It parked as the police 4WD drove off in the direction the smugglers had taken. A man climbed out of the vehicle that had just arrived and walked into the light of the hotel. As he did Tina opened her mouth in surprise. It was their back neighbour, Neville.

  As he reached them Neville’s face also registered surprise. Tina’s father said, “Why Nev, fancy meeting you here! What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

  “I was going to ask you the same question,” Neville replied. “Hello Mrs Babcock. Hello young Garth. Hello Tina. Are you alright Tina? What’s happened?”

  Tina looked at Neville with her mind swirling with suspicion. Her parents described to Neville what had just happened. As they did Neville looked concerned and several times asked Tina if she was alright. But she felt he was not being sincere. She felt herself to be in a state of heightened consciousness and that sharpened her perceptions. ‘Neville has all those caged birds; and he goes away for weeks at a time. Or at least we don’t see him so I presume he has gone away. Is he the man I saw driving to the dam?’ she wondered.

  But she could not voice her suspicions and could only nod and hang her head as she hugged her mother. That allowed her to keep her face and eyes from betraying what she was really thinking and fearing. Neville then moved on into the bar and Tina’s parents insisted that they go back to their room to clean up before they go to the dining room. The hotel management agreed to keep the dining room open as none of them had eaten.

  Two hours went by before the policeman returned. During that time Tina had a shower and changed into clean clothes and her mother washed the dirty ones, muttering about the grease stains from the boat trailer. They all went to the dining room and had dinner. Tina found that she was too upset and anxious to eat much but she tried. Sarah was all admiration and sympathy and so was young Michael. Garth just played up, obviously jealous of not being the centre of attention.

  While they sat in the dining room after eating Tina made a note of the fact that Neville was still there, drinking and chatting to some other men. Once or twice he glanced at her but she made sure their eyes did not meet. ‘Is he one of the gang?’ she wondered, remembering his evasive answer about why he was in the area.

  Then the policeman arrived and began taking statements from people in the bar who had witnessed the incident. While he was doing this another vehicle drove into town along the Normanton Road. It was a police 4WD. Two more policemen came in, one a sergeant. He at once took over and Tina felt safer. ‘Now they will surely catch the crooks,’ she thought.

  The police reinforcements had driven from Normanton, 150km to the west. They said that a roadblock was in place there and that police in other districts had been alerted. Tina’s father and Mr Creswell opened a map on the dining table and considered the roads the crooks might use. That lowered Tina’s hopes considerably when she saw how many there were. At least three dirt roads led off to join roads leading to Cloncurry and Mount Isa. ‘The police will have trouble watching all of them,’ she thought.

  Both families were then asked to come to the police station and Tina was interviewed at length. Statements were also taken from the adults about the assault on Constable Weatherly. They were then allowed to go. “But keep together,” Constable Weatherly reminded them, again raising Tina’s anxiety.

  “Where are you planning to go next?” the sergeant asked.

  Mr Creswell named some lagoon but the sergeant pursed his lips. He shook his head and said, “Might be better if you stay away from isolated fishing spots until we have these characters in the bag. I advise you to stay in public places until then.”

  Hearing that chilled Tina. ‘Oh no! What have I done to myself?’ she thought as fear flooded in to almost reduce her to a trembling wreck. ‘Will that horrible Danny come back to get me?’ she wondered.

  That was the terrifying thought that stayed with her all night. Back in the rooms she was moved in with her mother and her father moved in with Garth and Michael. Reaction set in with more tears and shivering and she had trouble getting to sleep. For hours she tossed and turned and started up at very little noise. ‘Danny is a killer,’ she told herself, imagining him creeping back in the night to strangle her. ‘Or will he smother me with my pillow? Or will he use a knife?’

  The awful possibilities filled her with dread and left her trembling and exhausted. Only after midnight did she at last drift off into a fitful slumber. But even that gave little rest as she had a nightmare, the classic bad dream where she was being chased. It was dark and something- someone- was after her, a horrible, black, shadowy shape that got closer and closer- and she couldn’t run! Then she had the most vivid dream of being out on a lake in a small boat in the moonlight. Her boat somehow vanished and she was in the water. It was cold and she bumped something under the water. Then from underwater came this clutching hand, all silhouetted in the moonlight.

  “It’s alright little baby!” her mother said soothingly, gently wiping her face. “You are just having a bad dream.”

  “I was too!” Tina agreed. She sat up and found she was soaked with sweat despite the air conditioning. “I dreamt that man was coming to get me.”

  Her mother looked very anxious but then said, “He won’t. You are safe.” But she did not sound too sure. Tina’s rational mind told her that two crooks on the run from the police had better things to do than come back to try to get vengeance on her but that was cold comfort when t
he lights were out and her imagination was again filled with awful possibilities.

  It was a very tired and sick girl who went to the bathroom at 6 o’clock next morning. Her mother looked at her anxiously and said, “You look very pale dearie. Would you like to go home?”

  Tina did want to go home, but equally she did not want to spoil the holiday and said so. “I will be alright Mum. We want the others to enjoy themselves.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Yes Mum.”

  So they agreed to go on with the holiday trip. A revised itinerary was organized over the breakfast table and Tina felt better after that. She even managed to eat a full breakfast and that picked her up even more. She found that the story was headlines on the local radio news and was thankful that her name was not mentioned. But she was also concerned that there was no mention of the smugglers being arrested.

  While they were finishing their breakfast Constable Weatherly arrived. After a cheery ‘good morning’ he shook his head. “Haven’t caught them yet,” he said.

  Mr Creswell was quite grumpy about this as it meant they would not be visiting his favourite fishing spots. He said, “Can we go then?”

  “I’d like you to come to the station to look at some photos if you could,” he said.

  Tina’s dad answered. “Sure. When? Now?”

  “In half an hour or so. I am going to the railway station to watch the railmotor leave,” Constable Weatherly replied.

  On hearing that Garth cried, “Oh Dad! The Gulflander. Can we go and watch, please?”

  When young Michael added his plea this was agreed to so the families walked back to their rooms to get hats and cameras and then piled into the vehicles and drove to the railway station. Tina was not really interested but she did marvel at the stamina of the early pioneers who built a railway by hand in such an isolated place and under such harsh conditions.

  There were only six passengers, all tourists, on the railmotor. For twenty minutes nothing much seemed to happen with the policeman and driver standing talking in the shade and the tourists, Tina’s group included, walking around taking photos. Michael, Aiden and Garth walked off along the railway and Tina’s mother tried to call them back. Then she warned them about snakes. Tina watched and said, “I’ll go with them Mum.”

  “Don’t you go far. Remember what the policeman said,” her mother reminded her.

  “I won’t Mum. We will only go to that old crane thing,” Tina replied, pointing to where a piece of rusty machinery showed among the long grass on the edge of the bush a couple of hundred metres away. But even so she felt a chill despite the bright sun. So she strolled along the old railway line behind the boys.

  By the time she caught them up at the old crane she was feeling the heat. She stood and looked back along the curving line to the station and suddenly felt quite isolated. Anxiously she looked around, but all she could see was bush with a few dirt vehicle tracks winding through it, and the railway vanishing around a curved to the west. ‘Now I’m being silly,’ she told herself. ‘Those men will be far way by now.’

  Then the rail motor tooted and soon after that it came clanking and rattling past. Tina and the boys waved and the tourists waved back and then Tina called the boys and walked back to the station. Her father said, “Don’t wander off so far next time please Bub.”

  “No Dad.”

  The policeman reminded them to come to the station and then drove off. They climbed into their vehicle and returned to the cabins to load their belongings. As the families carried their luggage out to load into the vehicles Tina met Neville again. He was loading his brown Toyota 4WD which was parked up at the back of the yard. “Hello,” she said, not really wanting to speak to him.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Yes thanks,” Tina replied.

  Neville smiled and nodded. “That’s good. What are youse doing now? Are you heading home?”

  “No. We are going to Normanton and Karumba,” Tina answered. She kept on walking, noting that his vehicle had the same sort of square framework over the tray and that this was covered by canvas sides which were locked down. To her it looked very suspicious but she also knew it was a fairly common arrangement so she could only shrug and continue on.

  An interesting hour followed at the police station. Tina sat and studied hundreds of photos on a computer but she was unable to find any of Danny or Marco. The sergeant said, “That’s a worry. It means they have been clever enough to avoid any sort of police attention.”

  Mr Creswell, who had also been watching, said, “These birds they are smuggling, are they worth much?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Oh my word yes! A pair of sulphur crested cockatoos can fetch up to $10,000 on the black market in America.”

  Mr Creswell was amazed. “As much as that! Holy mackerel! I am in the wrong business. But how do they get them there? It’s some sort of smuggling operation right?”

  “Yes it is. But we don’t know the links in the chain or we could shut it down,” the sergeant replied.

  Tina looked up from the monitor and said, “Well we can guess one link. They use a floatplane so my guess is they fly to a rendezvous at sea where they land and transfer the birds or animals to a ship. The ship would then take them to wherever the market is.”

  The sergeant nodded. “Probably. But we don’t know the range of the plane or whether it lands on water or on land.”

  “It is possibly an amphibian,” Tina said.

  Michael looked puzzled. “Aren’t amphibians things like frogs, creatures that live on land or in the water?”

  “Yes they are,” Mr Creswell replied. “But we also call vehicles and aircraft that can operate on land or water amphibians.”

  “You mean the plane has wheels as well as floats?” Michael asked.

  “That’s right. It might have. There are several types that do,” Mr Creswell replied.

  Sarah, who had been standing next to Tina, said, “I read about these smugglers who had all these baby snakes hidden in their pants but they got caught by the customs people at the airport.”

  Both Michael and Garth thought the idea of snakes in their pants was very funny and both grabbed themselves and giggled until Mr Creswell gave Michael a biff under the ear and Tina’s mother frowned at Garth. Tina had to smile at the boy’s silliness but she agreed.

  The sergeant nodded. “That’s right. Lots of smugglers try to sneak in at airports with a few reptiles or small animals. The trouble is the creatures often die in transit.”

  “Snakes!” Tina’s mother cried. “Surely people don’t smuggle snakes?”

  “They do. Reptiles like amethyst pythons or green tree snakes can be worth thousands of dollars,” the sergeant explained.

  There was a general discussion about the types of living things that wildlife smugglers sold and Tina was amazed and appalled at the sheer number and the prices. “That really could place some endangered species at risk,” she thought, baffled that anyone could pay thousands of dollars for blue tongue lizards or frill neck lizards.

  The sergeant then said, “Anyway, can I now ask Tina to show us exactly where she saw these men? We have a team of detectives and wildlife specialists on their way from Cairns but they won’t get here until about eleven. They want us to have the scene ready.”

  So Tina was driven out to the dam by the police. The two families followed in their cars. But well before they reached the area where the boat had been launched they came to a barrier of police tape across the road. This was guarded by the other policeman who had arrived the previous night. The sergeant stopped the vehicles and told the others they would not be driving any further.

  “We will go forward on foot,” he explained. “But only Miss Tina is to come with us. You others wait here please.”

  Tina’s parents weren’t happy but she felt fine about it. ‘I have three armed policemen to protect me,’ she thought. So she walked on along the road with them. As they went they photographed wheel marks and kept
very much to one side of the road. Tina was able to point out her boot prints and these were photographed as well.

  As they got closer to the boat ramp she became a bit anxious but it was all so different in daylight- bright, clear, good visibility, that she soon relaxed and concentrated on showing the policemen exactly where the vehicle had been and where she had hidden. After more photos she was left standing to one side while the police scouted the edge of the lake. As they searched for clues she stared at the rippling water and felt a sense of unreality.

  ‘Did I really see a plane?’ she wondered. But she knew it was no dream. ‘That is twice now I have seen this gang and their floatplane.’ That thought caused her to idly wonder if she would ever see it a third time. ‘I hope so. I want them caught,’ she told herself.

  She noted buildings on the far side of the lake and realized they were at the picnic area that the family had been to the previous day. She also noted how open the bush was, and how small the bushes. In the dark it had all looked very dense.

  Four more men arrived, all plain clothes detectives and officials. They took more photos and the Detective Inspector in charge asked her several questions and then told Constable Weatherly she could go. Tina did not really want to, preferring to watch the investigation, but she had no choice but to walk back with him to rejoin her family.

  Back at the vehicles she thanked the constable and he smiled and said, “No. Let me thank you. This has solved something that has been a bit of a local puzzle for a long time, locals reporting strange humming noises at night. It must have been that plane’s engine. We just thought they had had too much to drink!”

  “Do you think you will catch them?” Tina asked.

  Constable Weatherly shrugged. “Probably. Now that we know they exist we can at least keep our eyes open.”

  “Can we go now?” Mr Creswell asked.

  “The Inspector asked that you hang around for another hour or so in case he needs to talk to you,” Constable Weatherly replied.

  “Then we will look around the sights,” Tina’s mother said firmly.