Laughs, Corpses... and a Little Romance Page 18
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The following Saturday we were once again cruising up the river with a coach load of tourists. I had the wheel in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. Suddenly Tim shot into the wheelhouse. “Dad, I saw a tinny in the mangroves up that side creek we just passed. I think it might be Neville Sneider’s boat.” I pulled out the river chart and had a quick think. “Why would he have left it there? There’s nothing up that creek, and he couldn’t have walked away, there’s no road for miles.” “Maybe he hasn’t just left it there. Maybe he’s camping out ‘til the search for him dies down. Don’t forget he left the loot buried over at Whitebait Bay, That means he’s probably planning to go back there some time and pick it up.” “Well we’d better not turn back, that’ll raise his suspicions. We’ll come back this way later and take a good look as we go past.”
An hour later we passed the side creek again going the other way, and Tim had the binoculars out. “That’s it dad, that’s his tinny all right. I can see the blue paint on the side.” The boat was pulled well in among the mangrove trees. Even if you knew where to look it was hard to see. I switched on the CB radio. “Hey, Nickie, you there?” “Yes Ted?” “See if you can get hold of Greg Bennett and tell him we think we’ve seen Neville Sneider’s boat.” “Will do.”
Soon after we arrived back at the wharf Greg Bennett’s car came tearing along and pulled up sharply. Behind him came a police patrol car with a couple of uniformed constables inside. Greg came into the office, and his previous weary manner had vanished. “Where did you see the boat?” I pulled out a chart from the counter and pointed with a pencil. “Tim is pretty sure it’s Sneider’s boat, but we didn’t actually see Sneider himself. The boat’s hidden in the mangrove swamp just here. It’s a very remote spot, no way of getting there except by boat. We think he might be camping out, waiting for the dust to settle so to speak.” “Hm, what worries me is, if he’s hiding out there he might have a gun. Is there any way we can sneak up on him?” I pondered that for a bit, but the chart didn’t give much detail about the riverbank, and there’s no way you can ‘sneak’ through a mangrove swamp. The ground under mangrove trees is full of twisting roots in ankle deep mud, and it’s underwater at high tide. “Don’t know. You might just have to front up to him, and hope he comes quietly.” “Fat chance with his record. Well at least I’ve brought some help with me. We’ll just have to try it and see what happens. Come on constables, let’s get round to the boat shed.”
“Hold on” I said, “I hate to have to say this, but if you go roaring over there in the police launch he’ll hear you coming long before you get there, and he’ll just vanish. Why don’t we go over there gently in Annabelle? That way at least you can get close before he realizes what’s happening.” “Good plan” said Greg, “all aboard for a jolly cruise constables.” We all boarded Annabelle, Tim started the engine, and I backed her out from the wharf. Just before we arrived at the hiding place, Greg said “You constables keep out of sight so he doesn’t see your uniforms.” They ducked down behind the wheelhouse, and one pulled out his Glock automatic and started to check it out. “Keep your guns holstered unless he starts to fire first.” said Greg, “I’ll tell you when to draw. We don’t want bullets whizzing all over the place unnecessarily. That way people can get hurt.” The two constables looked nervous and a bit excited. They both seemed very young. I wondered if they were straight out of police academy. Probably their first bit of action where guns were involved.
As we drew closer I pointed out the side creek where we’d seen the boat hidden. The creek runs into the main river at an angle, and I noticed there was a small headland on the upstream side of the junction. As I scanned it through the binoculars I could see mangrove swamp along the shore with a small patch of grass behind and the steep rise of the cliff behind that again. “There’s a patch of grass behind the mangrove, Greg” I said, “I’ll bet that’s where he’s camping.” I passed the glasses to Greg for a look. “Ah yes, there he is” he said. “He’s up in the rocks behind the grass. I can see the smoke from his campfire. If we land quietly on this side of the headland maybe we can catch him unawares. How do we get ashore?” “Well I can’t get right in with Annabelle, the water will be too shallow. We’ll go in as close as we can, then you’ll have to go ashore in the life raft. Tim and Jack can paddle you in.” “Ok” said Greg, “but your lads must stay well back out of trouble.” “Inflate the raft Tim and drop it in on the river side so he can’t see it if he’s watching.” We went just past the end of the creek and I eased off the engine.
Tim and Jack slid the life raft into the water, then climbed into it and held it against the side of Annabelle. “Quietly, lads” said Greg in a low voice.The three policemen climbed over the rail into the raft, then Jack and Tim pushed off and silently paddled the short trip into the shore. They managed to go part way into the mangrove, and then the police had to step over into ankle deep mud and wade ashore to the edge of the grassy area. The constables had boots on but Greg only had shoes.
Alas Greg hadn’t managed to outsmart Neville Sneider. He stepped out from behind a rock at the back of the grass, with a shotgun pointing at the police. “Well, well, what ‘ave we got ‘ere then? Detective Constable Bennett if I remembers correct. Brought two big strong lads along to ‘elp you ‘ave you? Well you’ll need a small army to get me out of this little spot. You’d better go away and call up reinforcements.” He swung the gun towards one of the constables who had taken a small step forward. “Take another step sonny and I’ll blow you to Kingdom Come.” “Hold it constable” said Greg, “don’t let’s have any heroics. Mr. Stanley Croaker, alias Neville Sneider, I have here a warrant for your arrest. I suggest you put down your gun and come quietly with us. That way no-one gets hurt.” “Wot, and spend the rest of me life rottin’ in jail? No way! I’d sooner die first, but I’ll take some of you wiv me if I have to.”
Greg must have been on a negotiation-training course. He sat down on a rock. “Don’t mind if I have a fag do you?” he said. He carefully pulled out a pack and lit one. The other constables kept their hands in view and away from their holsters. Then Greg started to try and calm Neville down, and to wear down his opposition into giving himself up. It struck me that with an ex-con like Neville what we had here was a stalemate.
I was watching all this from Annabelle, and I realized we might be here for some time, so I let go the anchor, and Annabelle swung quietly round on the chain, facing her bow into the current. It was after about thirty minutes, when little progress had been made that I noticed that the life raft with Jack and Tim had moved along the shore a bit. I wondered what those two were up to, nothing stupid I hoped! Ten minutes later I noticed a slight movement in the rocks above and behind the point where Neville was standing. Jack appeared, holding something large above his head. He must have landed further along the shore and circled back, part way up the slope. I didn’t dare look through the glasses in case Neville saw me looking and turned round. Jack took aim and threw. Suddenly Neville was sprawling face down on the ground, his arms stretched out in front still holding the shotgun. The two constables suddenly gathered their wits and jumped forward. One kicked away the shotgun while the other put a knee firmly in the small of Neville’s back, twisted his arms round and snapped on the handcuffs. As they pulled him to his feet Greg stubbed out his cigarette, walked calmly forward, and started his set speech, “Stanley Croaker, alias Neville Sneider, I am arresting you….”
As he finished, Jack came scrambling down through the rocks, grinning all over his face. Greg looked at what Jack had thrown. It was a large tangled clump of grass, roots and dirt, heavy enough to knock a man over when thrown from above, but soft enough not to seriously hurt him. “That wasn’t too clever. What the hell were you playing at?” said Greg, a little sourly. “Oh it’s an old trick we used to play as kids on the way home from school.” “And what if you’d missed?” “Oh I never miss, I was champion of year twelve.” Far from being
grateful, Greg seemed quite angry. “You stupid bastards, you could have got somebody killed. You were told to stay out of it. Come on constables, let’s get this villain back to the station.” One of the constables picked up Neville’s gun and emptied out the shells. Tim and Jack fetched the life raft, everybody was loaded in, and the boys paddled out to Annabelle. “Hold on” said Jack, “We’d better salvage his runabout too.” The two boys paddled over to Neville’s boat, and Jack stepped in over the transom and fired up the outboard engine. “You go ahead dad” he called across, “I’ll run this boat back to the harbour.” He backed out from the mangrove and headed off. Tim and the constables pulled the life raft back on board and raised the anchor and we got underway back to town.
I handed the wheel over to Tim, as I was feeling a bit weak at the knees. Neville was sitting handcuffed between the two constables, looking very withdrawn. Greg pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. I noticed his hands were shaking a bit. Perhaps he wasn’t as calm and collected as he had pretended. “That was a bit ungrateful of you Greg,” I said. “Ungrateful! If Jack had missed we could have had guns going off and bits of body flying all over the place, including bits of me. This is a one-off excitement for you lot, but I have to keep doing it week after week! I can’t afford to take risks like that, I want to retire of old age, The last thing I want is to end up with a posthumous medal for bravery and a bloody State Funeral. Jack had no idea what he was doing. That’s why I hate working with civilians, they charge around like bulls at a rodeo. Another hour or two and I would have talked him into giving himself up without a fight.” I looked him straight in the eye. “Oh yeh?”
Halfway home we saw Jack heading back our way in Neville’s tinny. “Hello” I said, “I wonder what he wants?” As we met he circled around and came alongside and we both slowed down. “I thought I should tell you, Greg” he shouted across, “there’s a blood stain under the forward thwart.” Greg pricked up his ears at that one. “Well, well Mr Croaker, alias Mr Sneider, it’ll be interesting to check that blood against the girl’s blood won’t it?” “I don’t know wot you’re talkin’ about, and I ain’t sayin’ nufin' till I get a lawyer. You got nufin' on me an’ you know it.” “Ah, of course, you don’t know that since you went into hiding we’ve found the body of Tony from the yacht dumped up behind your house, and we’ve found your stash of banknotes too! Pull up his right foot please constable.” One of the constables pulled up Sneider’s leg. Greg took a drawing of a footprint out of his pocket and held against Sneider’s shoe. “Gotcha,” said Greg “it’s a perfect fit. I’ve got you for the murder of Tony Esposito from your footprints when you carried his body up the cliff. I expect when our divers take a good look under your jetty they’ll find what ever it was you whacked him with. All I have to do now is to pin the murder of the girl on you and all the loose ends will be tied up, and I can take a day off.”
Neville Sneider said nothing, but he seemed to have shrunk into himself. He knew he was finished. Greg stood up and went over to the rail to throw his cigarette butt over the side. While he was away I said quietly to Neville Sneider “What I can’t understand is why you dumped the girl in the river right outside your house. You must have known she’d drift up river past Mulloway Island. That wasn’t very bright, it lead the police almost straight to you. Why didn’t you wait ‘til the tide had turned so she went out to sea? It was an very stupid thing to do!” It must have been the word ‘stupid’ that got under Sneider’s skin and made him loose his temper. “I didn’t dump ‘er on purpose you stupid git", he said angrily, "I was trying to lift ‘er into me bloody boat and the bitch slipped over the side under the bloody jetty and I nearly fell in meself. It was pitch dark an’ I couldn’t find ‘er. Next day she was bloody-well gone and then you buggers had to fish ‘er out.” The final piece of the puzzle had clicked into place. Unfortunately Greg had overheard. “Well, bad luck mister river expert,” he said sarcastically, “it seems that I was right and you were wrong all along.”
When we got back to the wharf they loaded Neville Sneider into the police car. Greg seemed to have got over his temper a bit. “See you Ted”. I didn’t think it was the right moment to remind him that the Police Department now owed me three hundred and twenty-four dollars. One of the constables gave me a sort of nervous half smile, and they took off. Jack, Tim and I looked at each other. “Come on lads” I said quietly, “we’ve got a ferry run in fifteen minutes,”
The last passenger aboard was Walter Trevelyan-Smythe, the imperturbable Englishman in his tweed jacket. “Good afternoon Ted.” he said politely, “Have you had a pleasant day?” “Oh pretty quiet you know Walter.” I said, in my most imperturbable voice, “mind you, we did help the police arrest a violent murderer armed with a loaded shotgun, but apart from that, nothing much.”
Part Two, JACK