Icefall

by Hallowes, Guy

  'We still have quite a lot of fuel, but it's not being replenished so we urgently need another source,' Roger said to Tanya one day.

  'I think I've found a place on the outskirts of Newcastle that ran a few helicopters for the coal mining industry. We need to check it out.'

  'Well away from the flood-ravaged areas presumably,' answered Roger.

  'I'm hoping to find fuel as well as a spare helicopter,' said Tanya.

  Days later, Tanya and Kim, with Roger piloting, flew the machine to the designated place. They hovered overhead and carefully flew around the area for fifteen minutes.

  'I can't see anything living,' Tanya announced. 'We should go in. Roger, be ready to take off in a hurry and, Kim, please follow me and watch my back.'

  Roger carefully landed the machine two hundred metres from a large, unmarked building. Tanya raced off, carrying her rifle, with Kim following, keeping a careful watch for any trouble. Tanya fiddled with the lock for a few seconds and it opened easily. With help from Kim she managed to prise open a small gap in the wide, heavy warehouse door, squeezing through. Pulling a torch from her backpack, she was delighted to see three large helicopters squatting in the gloom.

  'Kim,' she shouted, 'everything okay? If it is, why don't you come in here? Look, this is unbelievable, they won't have been touched for years and will need a lot of attention, but that's okay. I want to get an idea whether they have any fuel here. Let's open the door for more light.'

  They managed between them to open it about a metre, allowing a thorough search of the premises.

  'Look over here!' said Kim excitedly, from the far side of the warehouse. 'Someone's living here,' she said to Tanya when she had found her way through the still-gloomy cavern.

  Tanya shone the torch around. 'A bed, recently slept in, some food, wallaby skins, pots and pans. Here, this looks like a dog dish. This place is certainly occupied.'

  'There is a door to the outside, here,' said Kim as a shaft of light from the now open door lit up the little space.

  Tanya ran out of the building making for a small weed-infested copse at the rear of the property. She returned a minute later. 'There is most definitely someone here,' she told Kim, 'but he doesn't seem to want to be found. I caught a glimpse of a dog obviously following someone into the bush. There's no value in trying to find him. I'm assuming it's a him. I will leave a note for when we return.'

  They spent another twenty minutes looking around, 'Here, Kim, look. There's a sodding great fuel tank. Must be for the choppers. No idea how full it is.'

  They closed the warehouse up and locked it, leaving it much as they had found it.

  'When we get back, I want you, Kim, to select fifty of our best people. You are to occupy that warehouse and the surrounds. The fifty will have to include Joe and some of his technical people. We must find a way of getting at least one of those machines operational. Roger and I will fly over and coordinate activities about two weeks after you have set off. We'll bring tools for Joe as well,' Tanya continued excitedly.

  On the flight home, they silently observed the cluttered main roads filled with rusting old cars.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Murder

  'Look! What's going on?' said Kim, pointing as they circled to land, 'People all over the place; they seem to be looking for something.'

  As the rotors came to a final halt, Mark came dashing out to greet them with a grim expression on his face. 'It's little Barry. He's been missing since early this morning as far as we can tell. I'm organising search parties. Some have already gone out and there are more to go. The best thing you can do is refuel and take the helicopter out for the hour or so while it's still light.'

  'Where would you like us to concentrate?' asked Tanya, as Kim and Roger refuelled the machine.

  'North, the bush up there. Some people have already gone there, but you could give it a good going over before dark.'

  'What are we really looking for?' asked Kim.

  'Primarily a child, but also if we see any suspicious movements, especially from an isolated individual,' was Mark's answer.

  With Tanya at the controls they raced up to the northern end of the property and systematically, at a low level, skimmed the treetops, surveying the dense bush which had altogether recovered from the planned burn now many years back.

  Tanya was using all her considerable skills as a pilot to keep the machine as low as possible. On their second slow traverse, just as Roger was saying, 'It's too dark to see, we should go back … '

  Kim yelled, 'Look, over there, there's a figure running … just dived into the bush.' Tanya turned the machine around as quickly as she was able. 'If you can hover just above the ground in the vegetable patch, I can jump out. It's only a few hundred metres from where I saw the person,' said Kim. Tanya did as she was asked and both Roger and Kim clambered onto the runners and dropped onto soft ground.

  Tanya landed the machine back at base, just as it was almost too dark to see. She refuelled again ready for first light. Finding Mark, she told him what they'd seen and that Roger and Kim were out in the bush looking.

  'It will be easy to hide up there now in the dark,' he said, 'if indeed someone was trying to hide. But now we have a focus. There's no sign of the boy and search parties are returning because of the fading light. We'll start again before dawn.'

  Tanya quickly dashed to Chloe's house where she found her very distraught mother-in-law. 'We were both here and Barry was playing outside,' she said tearfully, 'as he has done forever now. He's never wandered off before.' She wept. 'I just couldn't bear it if something has happened to him.' Tanya hugged her and tried unsuccessfully to give comfort.

  Susan came in and clung to Chloe. 'Nothing, there is no sign of him and it's dark. He'll be scared. I don't know what to do.'

  Tanya glanced at them. She'd known of their close relationship, but she could see Susan was like an only child for Chloe, making up for her loneliness since isolation. Tanya said, 'Susan, come with me in the helicopter in the morning. We can cover more ground that way.'

  As she went home Mark found her. 'There's a rumour flying around that one of the Muslim men was seen hovering near Chloe's place earlier today. I personally don't believe that for a minute, maybe it's someone trying to misdirect the search. But with all the heightened emotions, there's a danger someone might try to take the law into their own hands. I've called a meeting at the hall right now. We need to nip this thing in the bud.'

  Fifteen minutes later Tanya and Mark stood up on the stage in a packed community hall.

  'You speak,' Mark said to Tanya.

  She stood up, asking for silence. Right now, she really missed David's calm demeanour. 'We all know little Barry is missing. We don't know yet what has happened to him, but as sure as I'm standing here we'll find out. There are some ugly unfounded rumours circulating. Those rumours do this community no credit at all and whoever started them should be ashamed of themselves. If, as we suspect, those rumours were started maliciously, when we have found Barry, and that is a priority, we will also be looking for the people who started this nonsense and will take action against them. In the past, we have dealt successfully with crises when we have concentrated on the facts and that is what we need now. The search parties will start again at first light, so please be ready. Mark will direct the search, but we now have a focus northward, in the bushland. Thank you.'

  Mark spoke individually to the leaders of the search parties and gave them clear directions. 'Please be on the parade ground at five am. We need to be in place at first light.'

  At the conclusion of the meeting Kim and Roger appeared, looking tired and bedraggled. 'We've identified the area where we should concentrate the search, but it became too dark to see much beyond that. I'm quite sure I saw a man, but that is all we have to go on,' said Kim.

  Tanya returned to Chloe's. She and Susan were still sitting there holding hands and looking helpless. She cooked them a meal and then encouraged them to go to bed. 'I will p
ick you up at five am,' she told Susan.

  'I will be on horseback,' said Chloe, 'with a few others.'

  'Take dogs,' said Tanya, 'one never knows what they might turn up.'

  Groups started to gather before five am and were directed by Mark to various parts of the property. He was able to provide transport for a few people. Two groups of twenty cantered off north, one under Chloe and one led by Roger.

  As soon as it was light enough to see, Tanya, with Susan and Kim aboard, flew the helicopter to the area where Kim and Roger were dropped off the previous evening. With hand signals Kim was able to direct two groups of twenty to the area where she had seen the apparent fugitive.

  'There are enough people involved in that,' said Tanya. 'We should continue to do as we did yesterday and fly backwards and forwards over the area at low altitude to see if we are able to flush anyone out.'

  'If there was someone here, maybe they managed to get back to the village under cover of darkness,' said Susan.

  'Mark and some of his Academy people visited every house in the village to check. If anyone was missing, we'll soon know.'

  By midday there was no progress. On one of her refuelling stops, Tanya asked Mark, 'Did you manage to account for all the residents last night?'

  'More or less. However, there were a couple of people we didn't actually see as we were told they were in the bath or something. I'm trying to follow up.'

  As people were becoming despondent, Roger, searching near the site where they saw the fleeing man, came across a dog barking frantically at a pile of recently-disturbed leaves. 'Keep right away,' he told his group. He took a spade and carefully scraped the leaves aside, soon uncovering a small leg and then the rest of a small boy; it was Barry. He appeared to be asleep despite the leaves, but his little body was cold. 'Get Tanya, quickly please, and all of you stay away, we don't want to contaminate the area.'

  Within thirty minutes, Tanya had landed the helicopter, with difficulty, in the nearby vegetable patch and, holding Susan by the hand, she walked through the bush to where Roger was standing, 'I don't know what they've found,' Tanya said to Susan gently, 'but you may need to prepare yourself for the worst.'

  Susan just held Tanya's hand tightly.

  As they came into the clearing, Susan ran over to where Roger was standing and with an animal-like wail of anguish fell on top of her little boy. It took Tanya five minutes to prise Susan away from the body, which was placed on a stretcher and taken to the machine. Roger almost carried Susan to the helicopter and she clung to him as they took off and then landed minutes later on the parade ground.

  The body was rushed to the hospital.

  'We have DNA samples from every member of the community here, including all our visitors. If there is any evidence of abuse it will only take a day or two to find a match. It is not possible that anyone outside the community could be responsible for this,' said the doctor on duty.

  'DNA?' questioned Tanya. 'I thought that was high tech science. Do we really have the capacity to analyse and match everyone's DNA?'

  'Oh yes, we were originally given some testing kits from one of the Sydney hospitals and Roger has been able to provide more of them in his re-supply expeditions. The original science was a real breakthrough, but now the analytical process is quite simple.'

  'You have done these tests here?'

  'Yes, a few people were concerned about the paternity of a baby. We just dealt with it here in confidence.'

  The search parties returned over the next two hours and, as with the previous night, everyone was asked to attend a meeting in the community centre.

  There was an immediate hush as Tanya walked onto the stage. 'I'm sure you've all heard the news that we found Barry's body in a shallow grave earlier this afternoon. There's nothing I can say that sufficiently expresses all our feelings, but I'm sure I can pass on the deepest condolences from all of us to Susan and Chloe. As you all know, we have DNA samples from everyone in the community resident here today, so we will find the person who did this and whoever it is will face justice here in this very place. Again I urge you not to listen to rumours and let the justice system we've set up take its course.'

  'How long will this process take?'

  'Full analysis and matching will take about a week, I'm told. Then it will depend on what we find as to how long the rest of the process takes.'

  'So you mean there is a child molester and murderer among us, without anything being done,' said an anxious voice.

  Tanya looked grim, 'We're working as fast as we possibly can to identify the perpetrator. But we do need to clearly identify the person concerned, I'm sure you understand that. If you're concerned about safety, lock your doors. It won't be for long.'

  Kim ran up on stage and whispered to Tanya, 'Donald Weatherspoon has left the village and, according to his wife, had plans to visit St. Andrews. She also said she hadn't seen him for several days. She's very upset.'

  'Oh, shit,' mouthed Tanya. Quietly she said, 'I'll call David, but we need to try to intercept him as soon as possible in the morning. Does she think he was responsible?'

  'I didn't ask.'

  The crowd in the hall watched with interest.

  'Any developments?' asked a voice.

  'We asked everyone in the village to remain here until our investigations were complete,' she said reluctantly. 'I've now been told one person left on horseback this afternoon. As soon as I have confirmed the person's identity, I'll let you all know. Now please try to get on with your own responsibilities, we'll inform you of any developments. I realise this is important to the community as a whole, but I don't want to go off half cock on this issue.'

  As the hall emptied, one person sidled up to Tanya and asked, 'Was it one of our Muslim brethren who left this afternoon?'

  'No, it wasn't,' she said evenly. 'I will let you know who it is as soon as I'm certain.' Stupid fucker, she thought angrily. Stupid blind prejudice.

  She walked over to see Chloe and Susan, and found Patricia there. 'The doctor gave them both a sedative and they're now asleep. I'll stay here the night and look after them for as long as needs be. I hear that someone left the property today.'

  Anticipating the question, Tanya shook her head saying, 'I can't tell you who yet. I'm sure you understand the reason.'

  Tanya phoned David to keep him up-to-date with developments.

  'Donald?' said David. 'He's pretty harmless. Maybe I should try to find him and talk to him.'

  'David,' Tanya almost shouted down the phone, 'don't go anywhere near him. He may be unbalanced and very dangerous. Please just leave it to us.'

  Tanya then visited the team working on the DNA identification.

  'The child will have Susan and Chloe's DNA all over him, so I must eliminate that,' said the doctor in charge. 'I can tell you he was strangled, so we have some fingerprints, and also sexually abused, poor little mite.'

  Tanya took a deep breath before she said, 'Donald Weatherspoon was the person who left this afternoon. Maybe you should focus on him to start with, even if it's only to eliminate him as a suspect. Please don't reveal that information. One way or another we're going to have to make an announcement tomorrow or, at the very latest, the next day. I don't want people coming to their own conclusions and then acting on them.'

  'We'll do our best. What you've told us is helpful.' Tanya didn't notice the sharp look the doctor gave her as she left.

  At first light, Tanya, Kim, Jason, and Roger set out in the helicopter to find Donald. Jason and Roger had been equipped with harnesses so they were able to abseil down to the ground if needed. They traversed the known route from the eastern gate, but there was no visible sign of Donald or anyone else. Tanya flew north and then south of the regulation path to The Bandstand. They saw nothing in the acres of bushland and were just wondering what they should try next, when Roger pointed.

  'There, under that tree, a man and a horse standing perfectly still, in the shade.' It took the others a few minutes to see wh
at Roger was looking at.

  'I'm going in,' said Tanya. 'You will have to be ready to abseil and quickly. Kim, be ready with that 30.06, I want the bastard alive, but not at the expense of one of ours.'

  As Tanya hovered fifty feet above the tree, Roger and Jason abseiled down to the ground in a flash. Donald was quite unprepared, having thought he was safe with the helicopter hovering above. He didn't realise the crew had a method of reaching him in dense bushland. He made a grab for a pistol in his waistband, but too late, as he was suddenly dragged off the horse, his arms pinned behind him.

  'Hey!' he yelled.

  Jason ignored him, tying his hands and feet together and strapping him into a harness. Within twenty minutes of sighting him he was being trussed like a chicken into one of the seats in the helicopter.

  'See that he has no other weapons,' Tanya yelled at Kim over the noise of the engine and the rattle of the rotors.

  'I'm innocent, I didn't kill him,' yelled Donald.

  'How did you know he was dead?' yelled Tanya. 'Gag him. I've heard about as much as I can stomach.'

  Roger was then winched into the machine. 'Jason drew the short straw. He'll ride home.'

  'I'm not sure who got the best bargain,' said Kim, hopping into the seat next to Tanya. 'Sitting next to that piece of dingo turd, even for only twenty minutes, doesn't sound like much fun to me.'

  Tanya rapidly gained height and they landed just before noon.

  'Remember this man is innocent until proven guilty,' said Tanya as they untied Donald and placed him in Mark's custody. 'He will obviously remain locked up until we have a case and then a trial. Nothing is to be said until this evening,' she added to anyone within earshot.

  Another meeting was called for that evening. There was an air of anticipation in the audience and Tanya had to hold up a hand for silence. 'I promised I would tell you of any developments relating to the murder of Susan's child, Barry. Today, we apprehended Donald Weatherspoon and he is in custody.' There was an immediate hum of chatter, which subsided as Tanya held up her hand again. 'He left here yesterday afternoon and was found on a path south of the regular path to The Bandstand. When we have proper evidence, he will be brought to trial. We must all remember that he is innocent until proven guilty. So again I entreat you, do not take the law into your own hands as it will greatly damage this community should you do so.'