Laughs, Corpses... and a Little Romance Page 13

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  A bit later Jack and Tim came into the office to see what needed doing next. I told them about the new developments. “I wonder what's happened to the man from the yacht, and now Neville Sneider?” I said. Jack suddenly looked thoughtful, and rubbed his forehead. “What Jack?” “Well, dad, maybe it's nothing, dunno, perhaps I should have mentioned it before. You know the first time we went over to Whitebait Bay and I was hanging about on the beach? Well I noticed a mob of ravens fighting over something about half way up the cliff behind Sneider's house. I wondered at the time what they'd found up there.” Tim and I looked at him. Ravens are scavenger birds, quite fond of a feed of dead meat. I started out to go after Greg, then I changed my mind. “Nah, it was probably just a dead possum or something. Maybe we'd better take a look before we tell the police, we don't want to look stupid.” I checked my watch. “If we’re quick we can just about get over there and back before the next ferry run.”

  We hurried along the wharf and piled into Lizzie. This time without Greg aboard Jack could go flat out, and he went all the way with the throttle wide open and joy in his heart as Lizzie leapt from wave top to wave top. I glanced over my shoulder. Huge ominous thunderheads were rising high up into the sky. We came into Whitebait Bay once more and as we slowed I told Jack to steer in to Neville's place. Neville's runabout was still missing but the yacht was still moored there. “OK,” I said, “it looks as if Neville Sneider still isn't home. We'll tie up to his jetty.” We jumped ashore, and Jack paused and scanned across the cliff up behind the house, looking for the place he had seen the ravens. Just then a couple of them flew up from the rocks. “There, that's the place.”

  I took a bearing from the house to the spot, then we hurried round the house and started to climb up the steep slope, scrambling over boulders and through bushes. We weren't the first to go that way. There were footprints and other marks in the dirt, and I noticed a couple of bloodstains on the rocks. I told the boys not to rub out anything. We knew we were close to something when we heard a massive buzzing of flies. There was the body of a man lying face down, a man in his mid twenties, medium height, slender build, dark hair. Parts of him had been pecked away by the birds. It was also apparent that his skull had been smashed in from behind. “Looks like we've found the man from the yacht.” said Jack. Tim was stood well away with his hand over his nose. I said “Come on lads, we can't do anything here, we'll just go back and tell the cops and let them deal with it.” We scrambled back down to the beach, then I remembered about Neville Sneider’s phone. Sure enough there was the phone cable looped across the backs of the houses, but then I saw that it stopped short of Neville Sneider’s house. I went and had a closer look. The cable had been cut with something sharp.

  As we hurried along the jetty I noticed that the sky had gone pitch black. The thunderstorm I had been expecting all day was racing towards us, and halfway home it broke. Violent claps of thunder made Lizzie tremble, and streaks of lightning zapped across the sky. The wind started to swirl from all directions, sucking the water up into choppy waves that made Lizzie leap about. Then the rain started to pour down, and it felt as if we were sitting under a waterfall. Jack stood tall at the helm, fighting the elements like the old man of the sea, and loving every minute of it. Tim and I put on our lifejackets and started to bail. It was all over in ten minutes, and we were all soaked to the skin.

  Back in town I hurried round to the pub. Greg was still sitting on a bar stool, with a glass of ale on the bar and a cigarette between his fingers. “Hi Ted, hey, you look bloody wet mate D'you get caught out in the storm then?” “Yeh, and doing your bloody work for you!” I told him what we’d discovered. “Half way up the cliff did you say? I'd better get the rescue chopper to go and get the body out. That way I won't have to go over there by boat.” He seemed very cool and unexcited by the new developments. “How many murders have you investigated lately, Greg?” “Oh, in the last two years I'd say a couple of dozen. Most times it's a woman's been done in, and you check out the husband or boyfriend first. Usually you need look no further.” No wonder he was so unexcited, it was just another day at the office for him.

  I gathered up the lads and we nipped home to put on dry clothes. When we got back to the office, Greg had maneuvered himself behind the counter, and was sitting in my chair. “Oh Ted”, he said, cool as a cucumber, “I’ve organized the chopper to come in and collect the body. It’ll be here in about an hour. I’ll need someone to come over with us and show us where the corpse is exactly.” Jack and Tim both froze, and stood like two puppies waiting for the ball to be thrown. “We’ll do the next run first next. We’ll be back in forty minutes. One of us’ll come with you then.”

  All through the next trip each lad had a far-away look in his eye, each dreaming of a trip in the rescue helicopter. I was trying to decide which one to give the nod to. Then I wondered, why should young guys have all the fun, how about us wrinklies? They would probably have lots of opportunities to ride in a helicopter in the future, whereas I’d never ridden in one, and I might never have another chance. Anyway that’s how I justified my decision. When we got back from the trip we were tidying up Annabelle when Greg’s car came along the wharf. “Chopper’ll be here in a few minutes. It’s going to land round on the sports field. Who’s coming? There’s only room for one.” “I think I’d better come” I said, “I know the bearing from the shack to where the body is.” I didn’t look at the lads, but I knew they would both look like our old dog when he thought he was going for a walk then gets left behind. “Oh lads, I might not get back in time for the next run, so you two will have to manage between you. Jack take the wheel and Tim in charge of everything else.” Legally they shouldn’t operate Annabelle without me as they don’t have the necessary licenses, but they’d done it a few times before when I’d been off sick, and they were both pretty competent. It would make up a little bit for missing out on the helicopter ride.

  I jumped into Greg’s car for the drive round to the sports field. The car stank of stale cigarette smoke, the ashtrays were overflowing, and empty take-away cartons covered the floor. I had to shove some aside to put my feet down. “Sorry about the mess Ted, I spend a lot of time in this car, it’s my second home.” “If this is your second home I hate to think what your first home looks like.”Soon after we got to the field we heard the pulsing roar of the chopper as it approached, and then dust was flying everywhere as it landed. Greg and I scurried out to the machine. Greg pushed my head down and we ducked in under the spinning rotors. The pilot asked where exactly we had to go. I pointed out Whitebait Bay on his chart, and I asked if I could sit up front with him. He gave me a smile of indulgence.

  I looked in awe at his array of dials and controls. I guess to him a river postman must have looked as ancient as a dinosaur. No wonder yachties chuckle at the antique magnetic compass on Annabelle. Jack often nags me about it, saying we should get radar and an echo sounder and so on, but when I’ve managed perfectly well all my life without them why waste the money? We do sometimes get morning fog on the river, but when we do, a quick glance at the compass is all I need. The pilot opened the throttle, the engines roared, and we rocked a bit as we took off and climbed straight up. It was a most strange sensation, seeing the place you’ve lived in all your life from a bird’s eye view. There was the town dropping away and getting smaller and smaller. Cars and trucks looked like little toys. I could see my own house at the other end of the town, on the edge of the mangrove swamp. The pilot tilted the nose down and we started to fly east. I could see the pub, our wharf and Annabelle. Then I saw Jack and Tim, two tiny figures, waving. We flew down the harbour, past the marina with all its pennants flying in the wind, past the car park and the swimming pool and out across the river.

  In no time at all we were coming in to Whitebait Bay. I pointed out where we needed to land. The pilot threw the chopper into a steep bank and circled around the bay, looking for a good spot to touch down on. “This is going t
o be a bit tricky” he yelled above the noise, ”there’s not much flat space to land on. Hold tight” He dropped the chopper down very carefully on a small patch of rough grass between Neville Schneider’s shack and the Williams’ house. Barbara Williams came out of her house, then Lewis and Damian came hurrying along the beach. “What on earth's going on?” Barbara yelled over the noise of the chopper. Greg yelled back “Sorry to disturb you all like this, but the body of a man has been discovered up in the rocks behind Mr. Sneider’s house, and we have to go and recover it. ”Damian was very brave, he just leaned rather heavily against Lewis. “Is it Neville Sneider’s body?” yelled Barbara. “No we think it’s most probably the body of the man who came in on that yacht.” yelled Greg, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the yawl still tied up to Sneider’s jetty. “Oh my God” yelled Barbara, even louder, “first a girl murdered here in the bay, then the police coming round asking questions, then the police launch coming here and the place swarming with people searching, and now a body in the rocks! I’m going to put this house on the market straight away.” She went inside her house and slammed the door, as if it was all the fault of the police.

  By now the crew had pulled out a stretcher and I lead the way around the shack. We started scrambling up the cliff and forcing our way through the bushes once more. When we got close to the corpse I chickened out and stood back. First Greg took a good look at the body, and then he searched around while one of the chopper crew took photos of the crime scene. I pointed out the footprints and the blood stains on the rocks. “Yeh, I noticed those.” Greg took photos of the clearest footprints and measured them for size. The crew rolled up the corpse in a black plastic bag and zipped it up with a big zip fastener, then they lifted the bag onto the stretcher and strapped it on so it couldn’t roll off during the scramble down the cliff. Greg looked at the ground that had been under the body. “See” he said to me “there’s hardly any blood under the body. That means the victim was already dead when he was dumped here. I expect this bloke was murdered down on the yacht or the jetty. I must get the forensic team in again. They can pick up the tiniest traces of blood, even after a place has been cleaned.”

  Off we went, slipping, sliding, and scrambling back down to the beach. I offered to help with the stretcher, but the two crew guys were carrying it with shoulder straps and they seemed to know what they were doing. “It’s all right” one of them said, “This one’s not as heavy as some of the bastards we’ve had to carry.” We all piled into the chopper, roared back up into the sky, and headed west towards the setting sun. In the pub that night I achieved ‘Superstar’ status.