Chapter 7 - Fragments of Investigation
Alan found it hard to return to work in Darwin in mid-January after his holidays with Sandy since Christmas. She was staying on in Sydney until the end of the month to start to get the ball rolling on wedding plans for the end of the year and to have a bit more time with her family.
They had flown together to Sydney, her home town, on Christmas Eve and had a great couple of days with her extended family in and around the city, before going to visit his family in country NSW, up past Scone in the Upper Hunter Valley. They both got on well with the other’s families, and had done lots of holiday things together; country driving, beach swimming, meals in pubs. They returned to Sydney for New Year’s Eve. Over dinner in a restaurant looking out toward the bridge he had proposed to her. He had been really nervous despite thinking he was in control of this emotional stuff.
He felt great elation when she said, “About Bloody Time, and before you change your mind the answer is YES.” He loved her directness and that night together was special. Now he had left the arrangements to her and was glad of it, this complicated family stuff was not his thing and it was good they lived in the NT and escaped most of it.
It had been a wrench to say goodbye when his holidays were up, he would have loved to stay with her until the end of January and to travel back together. Since returning he had missed her presence in his life each day, mainly the little things like a mussy good morning smile, the way she arched her eyebrows or kicked him under the table when he talked crap, and most of all the feel of her body next to his in bed.
But he had a stack of work to do; he had neglected other things while he was working on the Crocodile Man case before Christmas. No one had done his other work while he was away and now it was piled up waiting for him. His career was on the rise after the work he had done in tracing the leads in that case, his name was becoming well known as the man who had cracked this case, and nobody seemed to have any doubt he had got it right. Susan was definitely in the frame, she more or less admitted that hers was the hand that struck the fatal blow.
The problem was not with what she had done but why. He knew there was a whole other story that needed to be brought to light before this made sense, loving girlfriends do not bash in the skulls of their lovers and feed them to crocodiles without a reason.
But he seemed to be the only one who wanted to get to the bottom of this ‘WHY?’; the prosecution lawyers seemed to only care that the case against Susan was watertight, and it clearly was that. And, when he had explained his concerns to his superiors, they had said that, from the police point of view, they had the evidence needed for the conviction and the rest was window dressing, so now he needed to get on with other work. His immediate boss told him that he did not mind him spending a couple hours a week chasing up the loose ends on ‘Croc Man’ but that was the limit, other work must come first.
Now they had just assigned him to a major role in the investigation of a criminal syndicate with suspicion of both murder and drug smuggling around the NT’s 6000 kilometre coastline. That was taking sixteen hours a day, leaving little time for anything else.
But he sensed a great injustice was rolling forward while he let this ‘Croc Man’ case slide. A week after he came back he went in to work on the Saturday, an unpaid day, to get his old paperwork done, all the stuff that was in the less urgent piles. He beavered away all day and by the end of the afternoon he had shrunk the pile from a foot high to two inches.
As he sorted through things he came across a scribbled note that he had left aside. It had got mixed up with this other stuff. It was the name ‘Vic’ and a mobile number; he dug in his memory for a ‘Vic’.
It came to him, that helicopter pilot he had met in Katherine with Sandy that afternoon. It was the trace from the mobile phone record that had found him Vic and this link also showed that Mark used the assumed name Butler as well as the name Bennet from his driver’s license.
He remembered that day clearly now; at first the link they had made to this pilot seemed to hold such promise. They rushed off to Katherine to meet him. After all, this pilot had known their murder victim for ten years. They had been sure he would lead them back to something that started to make sense. There was no doubt he, Vic, knew their man, Mark, knew him better than almost anyone else in the NT. But, as to getting beyond that association and digging deeper, they had again drawn a blank about who Mark really was.
The ephemeral Mark seemed to drift in and out of people’s lives like a smoke ring, seen, gone, seen again. While at first this guy, Vic, was open and told what he knew, as the afternoon wore on he seemed to harden inside, they could sense his tolerance for their questions was slipping, not evasion but something held back. Whatever he was hiding was a thing to think on for another day but maybe he should arrange another chat. Then it would be time leave this pile of paper.
Alan had in mind to have a beer with Charlie, the catfish fisherman, before going back to the flat for a night on his own. Before he did he rang the pilot, Vic’s, mobile number. It rang out then he got one of those “sorry-leave a message” recordings. He decided not to leave a message, less notice was better if he wanted to get useful ideas from this bloke, the element of surprise was more likely to dig out that hidden ten per cent.
So he drove to Charlie’s place. As half expected Charlie was on the verandah by himself, no sign of anyone else in the house. Charlie told him that Rosie was visiting relatives for a few days out in Kakadu country.
So they got to chatting, first about Sandy. Charlie grinned broadly when Alan announced the wedding, and winked, “Maybe catfish curry I give her when you meet her make her like you. So now you must marry her. That last time I get it for the marriage party of my Becky, now maybe I get for another big catfish for another marriage. We have big celebration party when Sandy comes back.”
Alan nodded, liking the idea.
The conversation moved on to the murder investigation. Alan trusted Charlie’s judgement about people so he asked him. “What do you reckon, did she kill him?”
Charlie nodded and there was silence for a few seconds. Then he said, “Bad crocodile spirit, it make her kill man; Mark fellow, him dangerous man, him like crocodile. I think it’s like he bite her, then she hit him.”
It was cryptic but made a sort of sense, attack and strike back. But if so why was she hiding it?
Alan kept digging, “But why Charlie, why? This man seemed to like her, all the witnesses who saw them say they were like love birds, like you and Rosie, like me and Sandy. So why would he attack her and why would she hit back?”
Charlie gave one of his expansive shrugs. “Her I know, I visit her in prison just before Christmas. That day I give her crocodile stone to keep crocodile spirit away. She not bad person, just frightened, so much frightened. But this man, Mark, I do not know, you must find someone who know this man, really know, not pretend know. Man is answer to why not woman.”
Alan nodded in return. “Yes I know that too, just before Christmas I found a man, a helicopter pilot, Vic Campbell. He said he had known this man, Mark, for ten years, and even after all that time he still did not know why. But he was hiding something from me. Perhaps he only half knows something, something he guessed or glimpsed, but he does not want to say it. So now I must find him and get him to tell the truth, for her sake.
“I tried to ring him before I came, but he did not answer his phone, tomorrow I will try again.”
Charlie looked at him intensely. “What you say that helicopter pilot name is?”
“Vic Campbell,” Alan replied.
Charlie shuffled off and returned with a pile of newspapers. He laid the papers on the table between them. “What Mr Policeman, you not read newspapers?”
Charlie shuffled through the papers and pulled one to the top.
The headline read – “Hope fades for the survival of missing helicopter pilot, Vikram Campbell.” It was dated January 7th, two weeks ago. It describe
d how more than four days of searching had found no trace of Vic or his helicopter, missing since December 30. It also said how a severe tropical cyclone, a Category Four system, had passed through the area where the helicopter had been recorded as flying, the day after it was last seen, causing the search to be suspended. Then the search had resumed on January 3rd and had continued for four more days. It said that the search had now been ended, as no trace of pilot or helicopter was found and the hopes of his survival were considered very low.
Alan looked at the paper in shock, in part for the loss of this bright young pilot, in part for his most promising lead just snuffed out.
Without a trace back to the real Mark and without someone who knew him it all seemed futile, he did not have the time in the next month to keep following the other fragments of threads. But he must not let it beat him; too much was at stake for that. He wracked his brain trying to think of some other way forward.
Charlie seemed to sense his consternation. He laid his hand on Alan’s arm and said, “If you find one person who knew him then you find more. Still this Vic will help you.
“You find the people who he worked with this Vic, the people who knew him. Some of them will know Mark too, it is always the way. Even if he hides his secrets well, someone will know something. Tomorrow I start to find out about this missing helicopter pilot, and when I find someone who knows this Mark I give you a name.”
Alan spent the next day working again through all the clues he had about Mark, but nothing stood out. Then he remembered the barmaid from Timber Creek who had given the evidence that Susan and Mark had left there together, despite Susan’s claim they had separated there and gone different ways. The barmaid had only known him as Mark B, without a second name, just an initial, but still she seemed to know him well by sight, well enough to watch what he did and where he went. He still had her statement somewhere, though he had not read it in more than a month. Perhaps they had a fling at some stage; he sensed that something had motivated her to come forward and give evidence about this event, more than just being a responsible citizen. Perhaps she could give him some leads. Then he thought he remembered hearing in December, when he had met her at the committal hearing, that she was on her way home to Perth. Perhaps it was just for a Christmas break.
Alan rang the Timber Creek Hotel and talked to the publican, Jack. Unfortunately Tanya had left in December and was not returning. His only forwarding address was her mother’s place in Perth, just an address not a phone number. Alan knew he could run her to ground but it might take a few days to get on to her.
While Alan had the publican on the phone he thought he should ask him about Vic, the paper said his intended destination on the night he disappeared was Timber Creek. Now he had something. The publican knew him well enough; he said Vic had stopped there several nights in the last year since he had bought the hotel. Jack told how he had rung the manager of Victoria Downs Station, Buck Owens, on that evening when Vic failed to arrive, as he knew Vic did a lot of work in the VRD and he also knew that Buck was a good friend of Vic’s.
Alan felt elation, friends of friends, Charlie was right. He rang the VRD station number and got the station manager’s wife, Beverly Owens. She was sorry that Buck was out and not expected back until about dark, but she would ask him to ring tomorrow, as he was doing a day of paperwork in the office. That is unless it was really urgent and she could call him on the two-way radio now.
Alan assured her that tomorrow was fine, even though he could feel his impatience.
About 9:30 in the morning the call came through, a booming outback accent, sounding like someone used to yelling out across a set of cattle yards. Alan was conscious of needing to handle this carefully after Vic had become defensive. So he started by explaining that he was trying to find out about a good friend of Vic’s and that he understood that Vic did work and was well known at VRD.
As he spoke the names of Vic and Mark he could almost feel a reserve come down the line.
Buck said “Yes, I did know them both quite well.” Then he asked if it had something to do with Mark’s murder.
Alan hesitated, he did not want to give too much away, but he needed this man’s help and sensed that bullshit would not wash. So he said, “Yes that’s right, I am trying to find out who this man Mark was that nobody seems to know.”
Another long silent pause ensued. Alan started to wonder if Buck was still there. Then his voice came back, asking what Alan’s movements were on Wednesday, as he would be coming to Darwin.
Alan knew they were doing a night surveillance operation that night, which would begin with coming into the office about 3 pm. That morning he was to be off duty. He replied, “Officially off duty until 3 pm, but happy to see you if up this way before then.
Buck replied “If it’s OK I would prefer to talk to you somewhere other than the police station. I am driving up from Katherine so could we make it for about ten o’clock, say for morning tea.
They agreed to meet in the café at the local shopping centre which they both knew. Alan felt intrigued by Buck’s wariness; it seemed there must be something here to know.
Over the next two days he barely had time to think of it; full time planning for the surveillance operation was all consuming.
But it was top of his list on Wednesday morning and he arrived early, treating himself to a big cooked breakfast. Buck was early too, Alan was just starting into his meal when a burly bloke came walking in and instantly spotted him, striding over and holding out his hand.
He looked with admiration as Alan’s plate of food and ordered the same for himself. Alan put the money down before Buck could pay, and was rewarded by a grin, “Anyone who buys me that sort of breakfast is worth talking too!”
Somehow they each trusted the other from then, they both had a no nonsense desire to make sense of this situation. So, rather than a round-about explanation, Alan just launched into his story, the discovery of the body, the cover up at the billabong, the trail of Mark and Susan’s movements to Timber Creek and then how they vanished until she flew out of Darwin, alone, two days later.
He told Buck of Susan’s total unwillingness to answer any questions about what happened after Timber Creek, the way she turned on them when they had extracted the confession that she had been frightened. He even told Buck the story of the trip on the plane with this lovely girl and of her almost willing him to discover the truth, which she could not say.
He ended by saying. “I know there is more to this story, all the evidence points to her killing Mark, she does not deny it. But it does not make sense. I must find out why or she will end up spending twenty or more years in jail. The only other clue I have is that she is expecting Mark’s baby, she told me that on the flight, and she seems to feel loyalty to him as well as guilt for making a mistake.
Buck then told him of his long friendship with both Mark and Vic, of that strange request to witness Mark’s will, of his attempt to locate Mark after this, his ignorance of his death until just before Christmas when he met Vic and now of Vic’s disappearance. It was a back and forwards story, jumping all over the place, as he remembered and sorted out the facts and memories as he spoke.
Of the real Mark Buck said he knew almost nothing, just that he was already working in the Territory when he had taken this job up at VRD after managing a station in Queensland. He told of Mark’s lack of any family or personal history and the way he drifted in and out of work but always seemed to have money, how he would occasionally disappear, at least once to the Middle East.
He described Marks work skill and ability in so many things and his fearlessness, but with a rough, slightly dangerous edge, how it was not uncommon to meet different girls travelling with him, clearly intimate, but then a month later there would be a different one and all Mark would say was “Easy come, easy go.”
Then how Susan seemed special, that when they left VRD after that day of cattle droving, that all he knew was that they were doing a job
that night on the Victoria River up near its mouth, measuring the flow; that was all Mark would say, except the money was good. It was obvious they had returned from the job OK next morning.
Buck had made his own inquiries and found out that their last known sighting was breakfast the next morning at the Timber Creek Hotel, and that Susan had stumbled out and climbed into the Toyota to sleep, looking exhausted, before Mark followed her out and drove away, with her still apparently asleep about an hour later. Mark had said in passing to the barman that they were both off to have a sleep under a shady tree as they had barely slept the night before with their work on the river.
Buck told how Tanya a barmaid at the hotel had a bit of a crush on Mark, and had watched and reported on all this when Mark’s identity was discovered, but that he had not known this for months and had only found this out over Christmas, not from Tanya, but from others she had told who had then told him.
He said Mark had mentioned an intention of a trip to Kakadu to him and then spending a final night with Susan in Darwin before she caught her plane home. So it made sense for them to be heading that way. Buck thought it was not surprising that no one had seen them on that trip as Mark had a vast knowledge of, and often used back-roads, plus if they slept a few hours it may have been late in the day when they travelled.
But Buck knew something strange must have happened because, from what Vic and Alan had told him, the evidence indicated that by the time Susan flew out, Mark was dead and she was trying to hide his existence. It really was peculiar, as if she had discovered something awful that she wanted to hide. It was beyond him to explain, try as he might.
He told about the day they both spent at VRD, told of the helicopter mustering and the horse riding, how much they had both loved it, how affectionate they were together. In a way he had not really been surprised how hooked Mark was by this girl. In his heart of hearts it did not fit for her to kill him in a cold blooded way, she seemed to like him equally.
Then Buck told of how Mark asked him to witness the will naming Susan as the beneficiary.
As the story was concluding he said to Alan. “The only thing I can think of that may help you is that I may know his real name was. It was not Mark Bennet or Mark Butler, I am 99 per cent sure it was Vincent Mark Bassingham, that was the name on the will. Mark told me it was his legal name.”
“That same night Mark told me he had a lot of money, he did not say how much but it was clearly plenty, so somewhere there must be a trail to that money. His will named me as an executor of his estate, but I have never seen his will since and I have no clue as to where his money is.
“One thing I am concerned about is that his money could be used by other people to make a motive for his death. I don’t believe for a minute that Susan killed him for his money. In fact Mark said he would not tell her about the money or the will, the will was made just in case something happened. He had some premonition and talked about it like he was the cat with nine lives which were all gone. He said the will was a precaution as he did not want the state or his father to have his money.
“But if this comes out some people may say it was the reason, Susan discovered the money, took it and killed him, thinking no one would ever know. They will say she has it yet, but has hidden it away somewhere. But if that is the case why does she not say he attacked her, she could plead self-defence. The money will be of no use to her locked up in prison.”
Buck then said he was going to talk to Susan in prison, he was going to visit her this afternoon, and would ring Alan and tell him if she gave any more clues.
He finished by saying. “When Mark made me his executor and gave the money to Susan I felt he was saying to me that he trusted me to look after her, no matter what.
“So I don’t know what she has done or why she has done it. But, now that Mark is clearly dead, I have this obligation, given as a promise to a mate. I must honour it. So I will see what I can do to help her.
“That is why I have told you all I know. I trust you not to use what I have said in a way that would cause Susan further harm. You must judge what to say about the will. No such document may exist anymore and, unless it is found, I am concerned that telling of it will only cause harmful speculation by those who seek to find a motive for what has happened.
“If Vic was here I would ask him. But he is now vanished too and I fear he will never be found. So it rests with you and me to try and find the truth for Mark’s sake, for Vic’s sake and particularly for Susan and for Mark’s child’s sake.”