Chapter 12 - The New Billabong Search
Alan was sound asleep when he felt Sandy shaking him. He did not know what time it was but it seemed like the middle of the night.
Sandy said, “Someone has been ringing our bell and banging on the door in the street. I don’t know who or what it is but they are very determined. So you had better come down with me to see who it is.”
Alan pulled on a pair of shorts and T shirt and Sandy wrapped a dressing gown around her body. They were both half asleep as they stumbled down the stairs to the building lobby. Through the glass panel they could see a dark skinned man standing outside in the light and trying to peer in. Suddenly Alan realised who it was; “It’s Charlie!” he said and went to open the door.
“Charlie, what is it?”
Charlie surveyed them both with searching eyes, noting their sleep befuddled look. “More better I come inside to tell you it. I have found another thing at the Crocodile Man Billabong.”
They ushered him up the stairs and Sandy put the kettle on, while Alan sat Charlie down at the table.
“How about you start at the beginning,” Alan said. “But first let’s all have a cup of tea to wake us up.”
Charlie nodded, “More better that way.”
Soon they were each holding a steaming mug of tea and eating a Tim Tam biscuit.
Charlie began his story. “That waterhole, that one where I found that head. Well I not go back because of bad crocodile spirit, not since before when I found it. But now Rosie wants another catfish, big like last time. I know another place, maybe one mile, maybe two mile, further along same billabong. My father showed me this place, long time ago, when I was boy, same as other place, big catfish live there too. I think, Different crocodile’s home, no bad crocodile spirit live there.
“So tonight, after Rosie and I have early dinner, she go to play cards with her friends. Me, I drive out there to camp, new place longa same billabong. Think safe place. Want to try and catch another big catfish in the morning. When I get there I take big torch and walk around to look, make sure no bad spirit hiding.
“In middle of car park place, back from water, I see plastic shopping bag on ground. I think, Is rubbish which lazy person left. Plastic rubbish it real bad, it poison turtle and dugong.
“So I pick it up; heavy bag; something inside. I shine torch in and I see ladies sandal, and I see underneath something else, dark and stripes. I put in my hand to take out and it feel like bite me, bad pain in hand. Think, Maybe bad snake is inside bag, it bite me. But no mark is on my hand.
“I get long stick and take out sandals, then look inside bag again. Now I see that crocodile totem, that Baru. It same one you show me, one you find along side of billabong where I find man head and you find footprint. That place right there, same one, same Baru you show me before.
“I know, when you show me last time, it bad one. That time I tell you, ‘Baru spirit not my totem, it dangerous to me’. Today when I try touch it in bag it bite me hand. I already know not touch, now it bite to say the second time. ‘I bad spirit, you not touch.’
“You tell me one time already you think Baru missing when that Susan lady go missing. Now I find it back near billabong. Me, I think it say, Maybe she come back to billabong.
“So I need to come and tell you straight way. This time I not bring anything away. Just leave Baru and shoes on ground where I take out of bag until you come and look.”
Alan and Sandy questioned back and forwards until it was clear they had the story straight – that he had found the same carved crocodile that Alan had shown him before and also a pair of pink woman’s sandals.
Then Alan rang police HQ to organise a team to come out in the morning, first thing. He tossed up ringing their other friends but decided he needed to do an initial investigation before he told them and then they could go from there. He was not sure it would lead to anything, he was not even sure it would be the same crocodile totem; similar things were for sale in tourist shops across the Top End. But Charlie was convinced it was the same, said he could feel the same spirit inside it, the exact same one as the other time.
Alan thought he had to trust Charlie on that for now. He remembered the day he had shown it to Charlie. It was a Friday, just after the trial and before sentencing, the day he had gone back to the billabong, to search the site a second time, looking for what Susan had hidden, the box with the passports that they had now found.
As he came back to town that day he had called to Charlie’s place with a six pack, wanting to get his wisdom on anywhere else to look. He had shown Charlie this discovery and Charlie had refused to touch it, saying it was a crocodile totem called a Baru from the Gove country. He had told Alan that, as an initiated elder of another totem, he must not touch it; it would bite or hurt him or his family if he did.
That day, after they had finished a beer each, Alan had taken it home. As best he could remember he had just dropped it on the computer desk at home, never officially logging it though he had noted its discovery in his notebook. It had then been forgotten when he had travelled out to Gove the next day and again on his return. It was because of his rush to get to Katherine and try and trace the phone calls which led to the discovery of the texts, the thing that had finally cracked the case.
By then it seemed unimportant, and slid out of his memory. When Susan disappeared from the flat he had vaguely wondered what had happened to it and mentioned to Charlie it was gone. He was fairly certain he knew where he had left it and it was not there. So he had asked Sandy but she had no knowledge of it. So it got forgotten again, not deliberate but seeming unimportant.
Now suddenly it had come back into the centre. If Charlie was right someone had taken it back there and the only someone who could have done that was Susan. So, if it was confirmed as the same object, it must mean that she had gone back to the billabong. That was good news for nobody. Hence best to be sure before he let this cat out of its bag.
Now Charlie was saying he would go home to bed but if Alan called for him in the morning he would come out with him and show him the way to the place where the bag was. Alan arranged to pick him up at six am, it would mean up at five o’clock here but it was too important to let sit. Sandy would not be able to come and examine it on site as she was due in court tomorrow morning. But he soon had a second car organised to follow out with two more of his team. They could secure the site while he came back to town and made arrangements for whatever needed to happen from there.
The sun was still low in the eastern sky and a steamy mist was rising from the water surface into the cool air as they pulled up alongside the billabong, keeping well back from where the plastic shopping bag lay visible on the ground. It was a Target shopping bag, with the logo still clearly visible on the side. They walked across to it, Alan getting Charlie to follow in his footsteps, staying behind him.
He tried to remember when it had last rained. It came to him, two days of rainy weather in the middle of April about three weeks ago and that was the last of it. He could see Charlie’s tyre and footmarks from last night. It did not look like anyone else had been to this place since before it last rained. It looked like it must have been a heavy shower as he could see the outlines of some dried puddles, their smooth dried mud surface still evident, with only a few leaves fallen on top since then.
They came over to where the bag had originally rested and Charlie pointed out the outline of where it had sat, clearly it had been there since before the last rain as its outline in the dried dirt was clear.
Charlie had dropped the bag again about a metre from that site, where it now rested alongside two pink strappy sandals. As Alan looked at them they definitely looked familiar. He had a feeling he had seen Anne wearing them, maybe they were hers. He had an idea that when they compiled an inventory of everything anyone could remember that Susan had in the flat, Anne had listed them and they were not there. So it had been presumed that Susan was wearing them when she disappeared as no
ne of her other shoes seemed to be missing.
He carefully picked the sandals up and placed them in one specimen bag, then he picked up the shopping bag, peeked inside to glimpse the Baru totem, it certainly looked the same. He placed that in a separate bag. He would bring these to town, there was a good chance they would find fingerprints or even some DNA on these.
He organised for his other two men to do a careful search of the rest of the site with minimal disturbance, to see if it warranted a full scale search. He was not hopeful, the rain seemed to have washed away any sign of visitors from before, but once they had checked more carefully he would see what they came up with and decide.
In the meantime he and Charlie were on their way back to town.