The Delta Chain

by Ian Edward

  ‘Many of your clients take photos from the air?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I know it’s unlikely these days, but do you get many who still use the old pre-digital cameras?’

  ‘Not many now. Why?’

  ‘Who would they use locally to develop film?’

  ‘There’s still a few places left in the city. Carroll and McMasters are good.’

  A late thought occurred to Hank. ‘Did Kevin ask you who was good for enlargements, cropping, that kind of thing?’ Hank hadn’t seen anything in the police reports about investigating local photographic services firms.

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘But it could have come up?’

  ‘I guess it could’ve. You thinking the boy sent his photo somewhere local?’

  ‘Just a thought,’ said Hank.

  Jensen shrugged. ‘Why would he do that? He had his own photo mob back at his paper to handle enlargements and all that crap.’

  ‘Because people don’t always do what we expect them to do.’ Hank thanked Jensen a second time and they shook hands firmly.

  Hank had phoned and introduced himself to Bob Sheckley, editor of the Everglades City Herald-Tribune, and Sheckley agreed to loan him a desk and a PC for a day. Sheckley was a workaholic who spent fourteen hours a day at the office, six days a week, smoked three packets of cigarettes a day and had a voice like gravel to prove it. ‘Just don’t go telling any other retired newsies about this,’ he’d said to Hank over the phone, ‘don’t want this place turning into a blasted nursing home for old codgers with ink in their veins.’

  Another man might have been offended but Hank laughed. With his gravely tones, Sheckley hadn’t sounded all that much younger than Hank – and now, as Hank entered the newspaper offices and met the editor, he saw that Sheckley was late fifties and looked every day of it. 'Oh yeah,’ Sheckley said, ‘Mendelsohn – like the classical muso, right?’

  Hank smiled. ‘Yes, but still alive.’

  Sheckley roared with laughter, then got straight down to business. ‘Good. A sense of humour. My secretary will show you the spare desk, that is if she can find it amongst all that shit out there.’

  Once he’d settled and switched on the computer, Hank entered the access number for AT&T and then the code for entering GNNS, the Global News Network Service. GNNS was a database created by a consortium of the international news agencies. It was subscribed to by news organisations all over the world. It contained hundreds of thousands of articles from newspapers and magazines and industry journals, all grouped under specific headings. Most importantly, the database had its own search engine, operating on the use of key words or terms.

  Hank entered the terms ALLIGATOR HUNTING and ILLEGAL REPTILE HUNTING and set a time frame parameter of the past five years. To his surprise, a list of hundreds of article headings, their source and the date of their publication, appeared on the screen. At a glance he could see a large number were from South Africa and India. It was quite possible his search would need to include those countries, but for the purpose of getting started he wanted to simplify the parameters further. He typed in the instruction LIST ALL WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SOUTH AFRICA AND INDIA. Within seconds the list on the screen altered accordingly.

  He thought of Chuck Jensen’s words ‘…I figure if they’re still in business they moved somewhere more remote.’ Hank clicked on to one of the articles, two years earlier, from the Everglades City Herald-Tribune. He read through this and several follow up pieces, acquainting himself with aspects of the sightings: ‘…a sleek river cruiser with an on-deck alligator holding pen, a boat that seemed able to appear and disappear with ease…’

  Next, he read through selected articles from Baja and South America, the nearest and most logical places, in his opinion, to attract a gang of alligator hunters. There were reports of isolated incidents but nothing suggesting any link with the Everglades gang. He decided the best approach was to start at the head of the list, countries starting with A. He noted there were several entries from Australia, from the State of Queensland and the region called the Northern Territory, all from between six to eighteen months previous.

  Hank clicked on to the first of these, an article in the Northern Territory News. He felt a flicker of excitement that began building steadily as he read. The article told of two unconfirmed sightings, one by an Aboriginal tribesman, the other sighting by a local ranger, of a sleek craft hoisting a crocodile on board with the use of a mechanised winch. Subsequent investigation teams despatched to the area could find no sign of the boat.

  Australian crocodiles. They were a different species to the North American alligator, but part of the same reptilian family. They were of similar value to a professional hunter, dealing skins on the international black market.

  He scrolled through the article again, re-reading key passages, then clicked on the next article, and the next. He had no doubt he’d discovered the place to which the phantom hunters had moved. He picked up the phone and dialled Jean’s number. She answered on the third ring.

  ‘Jean, it’s Hank. You’re not going to believe this.’

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘I believe I may have found where those hunters went,’ he said.

  Hank’s next call was to the international telephone exchange, for information on phone numbers in Australia. He wanted to talk to the relevant authorities in the Northern Territory. It was the middle of the night in Australia so he’d have to wait until much later to place his calls. For the moment, he’d track down and make sure he had the right numbers.

  Once he had those, Hank turned his attention to the issue of Kevin Farrow’s missing photograph. Flipping through the local directory, he saw there were only a few specialist photographic services firms. It was a dying trade. Carroll and McMasters, the company Jensen had mentioned, had a large ad in the directory.

  He decided it was as good a place as any to start and placed the call.

  ‘I’m trying to track down a photo that may have been left for enlargement two years ago.’

  The female voice on the other end of the line was crisp, professional and, Hank detected, a tad disinterested. ‘Your name?’ she asked.

  ‘I wasn’t the one who left the photo. The person’s name was Farrow. Kevin Farrow.’

  ‘Could you spell that, please?’

  Hank held back his sigh of frustration. ‘F-A-R-R-O-W.’

  ‘Let me check on the computer for undelivered jobs.’

  Hank tapped his fingers on the desk as he waited. It seemed a long wait- and then: ‘I don’t have anything listed under the name Farrow, sir. And for anything that far back we would’ve tracked down the customer anyway. Would you like me to check our archives?’

  ‘Archives?’

  ‘Photos for which we don’t appear to have a name or a forwarding address. I could have someone check the period you stated.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘What is this a photograph of?’

  ‘An aerial shot of a boat.’

  ‘Okay, I’ve made a note of that. I could give you a call back in an hour or two, as soon as a lab assistant is free to make a search.’

  Hank thanked her and then phoned the other photo service firms in the directory. In each case he left his name and number, asking the firms to check for an unclaimed enlargement of a boat on a river.

  Hank knew it was a hell of a long shot. But there was logic at the core of his search: if Kevin had left the picture with a firm before heading off to the Everglades, then the enlargement could still be sitting somewhere, in a file. Even if it had been discarded after being unclaimed, the negative could have been stored. What didn’t make sense was that Kevin hadn’t, perhaps, left his name and contact details.

  When the answer came it was perhaps so incredibly simple as to be obvious.

  After making the calls, Hank took a break and poured himself a coffee in the newsroom kitchen. The return call from a guy named Gary at Carroll and McMasters came th
rough as he seated himself back at his desk. ‘Have a photo enlargement here, sir, that you enquired about. Aerial shot of a very nice river cruiser.’

  ‘Any idea who it belongs to?’ Hank asked.

  ‘No, sir. There does appear to have been one of our usual labels attached to the file, that would’ve had that information, but it must’ve been faulty and slipped off. And clearly the customer hasn’t been back to collect.’

  It has to be the one, Hank thought. ‘I’d like to come across and take a look.’

  ‘Sir, there is an outstanding bill associated with this order.’

  ‘I’ll fix that up. ‘

  ‘Very well, sir. I’ll have it waiting for you at the front desk.’

  Hank hurried out of the newsroom. A moment later, cursing his own stupidity, he returned to the desk, jotted down Carroll and McMasters address on a post-it note, then hurried from the newsroom once more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Kate found her mother in the room that once belonged to Greg and which was now a guest room. Roslyn Kovacs stood at the built-in alcove bench that served as part desk, part mantelpiece. Family photos of Greg adorned a portion of the bench. In her hands Roslyn held an illustrated plate that had long been a fixture in the small room, a picture of Jesus assisting the weak and oppressed.

  Kate’s hand came to rest on her mother’s shoulder and her mother’s fingers reached back and interlocked with those of her daughter. ‘I believe that in the end, the Lord was with Greg’s spirit to help him through those final moments,’ Roslyn said. With her other hand she brushed away a tear. She turned and looked into Kate’s eyes. ‘You’ve drifted from the church, haven’t you?’

  ‘It’s just that I‘ve been so busy, Mum.’

  ‘That seems to be the modern man and woman’s answer to everything in life nowadays. Everyone is so busy all the time.’ She took both of Kate’s hands in hers. ‘Your father and I tried to instil a sense of faith and what is right in all of you children.’

  ‘I know that, Mum.’

  ‘Don’t drift too far, Kate. In the end our souls travel to a good place or a bad place and we need guidance. Deep down you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Deep down I know it, Mum.’

  Adam felt a lump in his throat and a deep, restless sorrow for what he knew Kate was now feeling. He knew, because he’d experienced exactly this with Alana’s death. He recalled words he’d encountered recently: ‘Sometimes coincidence plays cruel tricks on our lives.’ Where had he read that? Probably one of those pop psychology articles in the Sunday papers. And yet there was an uncanny, bitter truth to those words. Long ago his sister had drowned and now the most baffling case he’d encountered as a detective involved three drownings – reminding him every minute he worked on it of Alana’s death. And having lost his sister he could empathise with Kate’s loss of her brother. Coincidence playing cruel tricks?

  Adam was staying in one of the guest rooms at Kate’s parents’ home in the beachside suburb of Cronulla, south of Sydney. He wanted to stay on, remaining close to Kate through this difficult time, but she insisted he return to his work in Northern Rocks after the funeral. The funeral was scheduled for the day after tomorrow.

  On the flight to Sydney he’d sat with Kate and she’d avoided the subject of her brother’s murder. She’d told him more about her readings of Rhonda Lagan’s diary, and the council plans she’d obtained. She explained about the discrepancy, with the council approved plans including a rear docking area and a private road leading to the dock. There was an unused, dirt road running through the forest from a point further along on the main road. But the rear dock was unused and there was no lower level. And yet Rhonda’s suspicions seemed to infer secretive, after hours activity in that area.

  Adam listed attentively, his own curiosity in this matter aroused, but then Kate’s focus on the subject wound down suddenly. She became sullen and listless. Later, at her parents’ home, she‘d broken down and cried in Adam’s arms.

  Dead of night. Adam wondered whether he would sleep at all. His mind kept digging up random images: the body of the girl on the beach; the expression on Kate’s face as she received the dreadful news; Greg Kovacs’ body in the swamp; and a ghostly vision of the night his sister had vanished.

  He tossed and turned and the night seemed to last forever.

  Some memories dim with time, but Adam’s mental images of that tragic day in his childhood were painfully clear.

  Thick, dark clouds rolled across the sky with animal speed, blanketing the wooded landscape. The wind a harsh, cold breath that stung his skin. His mother called from the kitchen at the back of the large, ranch-style house. ‘You’ll have to come in now, kids. The storm’s almost here.’

  ‘Five more minutes, Mummy. Five more minutes.’ Had it been Adam’s own plaintive request? Or Alana’s? That was the one thing Adam couldn’t recall for certain. Perhaps he didn’t want to remember.

  ‘No longer, then. And stay near the house.’

  But they hadn’t.

  The property backed onto a wooded strip that sloped down to the sandy shores of the Pacific. Alana went charging into the forest. ‘Hide ‘an seek, Adam. Hide ‘an seek!’

  ‘Okay, you hide. But don’t go far.’ He covered his eyes, counted out loud to twenty, then shouted: ‘Coming, coming, ready or not, coming to get you with all that I’ve got!’ It was a rhyme the brother and sister always used. Adam, a bright, mischievous boy, had made it up. The rhyme had haunted his dreams for a long time after.

  He went searching, looking behind tree trunks and bushes. As he pressed deeper in to the forest he began to worry. Alana shouldn’t have gone this far.

  ‘Okay, Ally, I give up. Come on out.’

  And then the deafening crack of thunder that signalled the change in his life, the point from which there was no turning back. The thunderous boom followed by his mother’s cry: ‘Adam, Alana! Where are you?’

  Adam looked back. He’d moved far enough away from the house that it was out of sight, blocked by the lush, green undergrowth. ‘Alana,’ he called hoarsely, ‘stop playing. We have to get back now.’

  Still no reply. The rain came suddenly, heavy sheets that fanned the woods in diagonal strokes. Adam felt sick to his stomach, and afraid. ‘Alana! Come out. Now!’

  By the time his mother reached him he was hysterical, eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Oh dear God, Adam. What’s wrong? Where’s Alana?’

  ‘I can’t find her.’

  Joyce Bennett, a pretty, slightly built woman, began calling out her daughter’s name. As she did, lightning ripped across the evening sky.

  Adam’s memory of the hours that followed were much less clear, just fragments really. Some of it made sense, some didn’t. He often wondered, years later, how much of the reality was replaced by the fantasy of his nightmares, blending fact and fiction until he couldn’t be certain which was which.

  His father’s return. The frantic phone calls from the kitchen. Adam’s mother screaming at him for his disobedience. His father’s harsh words to his mother. Alana’s anguished face, which he imagined bobbing up and down at the window.

  When the searchers came there were dozens of them, men and women with determined faces, dressed in storm weather gear, a community bolstered into action.

  Adam’s strongest recollection of the search was of the flashlights. Dozens of wide, high intensity beams cutting a swathe through the darkness, illuminating patches of the rain swept woods. He stood on the back porch, with one of the searchers wives, watching the arcs of light. Above the sound of the downpour he thought he heard Alana’s voice on several occasions. ‘Coming, coming, ready or not, coming to get you with all that I’ve got.’ Was Alana still playing the game and searching for him now?

  Why couldn’t they find her?

  Adam woke with a start and wiped a layer of sweat from his forehead. He could hardly believe it. Over seventeen years had passed since he’d had the nightmare with such force, such
clarity.

  The searchers had found Alana’s shoes and bracelet on the wet sand just a few metres from where the old jetty jutted out from the secluded beach. The Bennett family knew Alana loved to spend time on that old jetty. Sometimes she hid – she was small enough – behind one of the fat timber poles that held the structure in place.

  It was clear the girl had run to the jetty and scrambled into her favourite hiding place. She must have been buffeted by the strong winds, lost her footing, been swept out to sea. That night the ocean had been plagued by hundreds of powerful rips.

  As he rolled over and tried to sleep, attempting to force the images from his head, Adam recalled once more how Brian Markham had sat with him on the steps of the back porch, gently breaking the news.

  Despite an exhaustive search over the days that followed, Alana Bennett’s tiny body had never been found.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  There were many things at which Melanie Cail was very good. One of them was covering her tracks. She did not want the faxes she was about to send to be traced back to Northern Rocks. She drove all the way in to the city of Brisbane, knowing there were still a few libraries and shops that had a fax machine on their premises for use by the general public.

  Melanie sent the first half dozen faxes from a library in the city region known as Fortitude Valley, the next half dozen from a store several suburbs away, then another 10 from two instant print shops to the south of the city.

  The one page fax – her copy of the single document she’d taken from Stephen Hunter’s study, was sent to the biology professors at five universities, the CEO’s of several Government and private research establishments, including the CSIRO, and to the science editors on a number of daily newspapers.

  She knew that the sequence of letters on the page were DNA codes relating to the blood work Stephen was doing. She knew it wasn’t for consumption by the scientific community, as yet, or by the media. This would cause serious ripples – tremors actually – indicating there was an industrial traitor within the Westmeyer Centre. The Institute had a high profile and news of trouble inside would draw huge media interest. As a reporter on the local newspaper, Melanie was in the box seat to file reports for her potential future employers in Brisbane.