Her report indicated that from the puncture wounds, she estimated the snake to be an extremely large male, approximately 2.8 metres long. Sizewise, this would place it in the top 5% of all Fierce Snakes ever captured and tagged since 1975. In all her travels, she herself had never encountered one as big. And she was one of the few who would ever want to encounter one at all. The Fierce Snake, a cousin of the Inland Taipan, was arguably the most venomous snake on the planet. Sure, Cobras had killed more people, but only because they encountered more people. The venom from just one fair dinkum strike from a Fierce Snake was enough to paralyse and kill a busload of people. And it knew it! Good thing one had never been found on a bus.
Ronda’s report also noted that it had been a “ferocious attack”, with the bite marks unusually deep, and copious amounts of poison in each envenoming.
One of the strikes had even pierced a vein. She estimated that, despite his bulk, Stomann would have been dead within a quarter of an hour.
Marr was about to re-read the rest of the reports - statements from the hotel management and staff, and Stomann’s friends, a very odd collection of blokes all in their mid-to-late thirties - when the phone rang; his direct line.
“Hi Senior Detective Marr. It’s me,” said the familiar voice, with the tell-tale tinny sound of a satellite phone.
Marr smiled. After a shaky start, he and Ronda had finally come to terms with each other in Uluru. Although it had gotten worse before it got better…
***
Sergeant McPhee and Marr accompanied Ronda back to the morgue where she pulled out a mobile lab and expertly carried out all manner of tests on the body and the bites.
As she worked, and talked, it became clear that as well as being something of a feminist, ‘Ms Hartley’ was a real liberal leftie, a greenie, a vegan, a staunch socialist, pacifist, animal protectionist and outspoken human rights proponent. And that was all in the first five minutes.
When she eventually got onto one of her favourite subjects, police brutality, the uneasy truce was broken.
“Give some men a uniform, handcuffs and a gun,” she said, “and the power goes right to their thick heads.”
“Hold on, I think you’re generalising a bit there, Ronda,” Mike replied.
“Am I? You see it all the damn time on TV. Peaceful protestors being hit by batons and tasers, having their arms forced behind their backs to breaking point…”
“Whoa, they’re not all peaceful protes…”
“Seriously, most coppers think they’re a law unto themselves.”
“No, we don…”
She was now twiddling with the red, black and yellow band on her right wrist. On it were the words: Respect Culture.
“Plus cops are THE biggest racists, especially here in the Northern Territory. They hate aboriginals. Don’t look at me like that Detective, it’s true. Even though only 3% of the population is indigenous, more than 80% of our prison population is black. That is a concrete fact.”
“Well, if they break the law, what else can…”
Ronda ploughed on as if she hadn’t heard him.
“As for juveniles, it’s even worse. Over 90% of all juvenile detainees are indigenous. Nine out of ten! Something’s seriously wrong there, don’t you think? And don’t get me started on all those black deaths in custody. Since the Royal Commission in 1991, over 470 indigenous people have died after being arrested by police. What? They all fell down the watchhouse steps and bumped their heads, did they? To make things worse, only three coppers have ever faced trial in relation to their deaths. Frigging pigs.”
Mike stared at her furiously for a moment, before storming out of the makeshift morgue, slamming the door behind him as he left.
Ronda turned to Gordon McPhee. “The truth hurts, I suppose.”
“The truth?” the sergeant replied angrily and for a brief moment, she thought he was going to do Jack Nicholson’s old ‘you can’t handle the truth’ routine.
“The truth is ’e prob’ly thought ’e better leave before ’e said something he might regret. That bloke there’s one o’ the fairest, honest-est cops you’ll ever meet.”
“Oh, really?” she said, dripping sarcasm.
“Yair, really,” McPhee came back with. “And there’s no way ya could ever put ’im in the same flamin’ basket as them pigs ya mentioned.”
“And of course you’re not saying that because he’s a mate of yours and a fellow cop by any chance?”
“Nah, I’m sayin’ that ’cuz – straight up – ’e’s one of the good guys, a dead set straight shooter.”
He paused for a moment, contemplating his next sentence.
“Look, Mike’ll prob’ly kill me for tellin’ ya this – ’e says ’e only did what ’ad to be done – but ya know those 3 coppers ya spoke about before, the ones on trial for the black deaths in custody? Well, ’e was responsible for getting’ two o’ them bastards kicked orf the force. Lost heapsa friends over that, let me tell ya. Maybe stuffed up any chance of ’im ever makin’ Inspector inta the bargain.”
“What? For doing the right thing and dobbing in two brother officers?” Ronda said indignantly.
“Nah,” the sarge replied, staring at her hard to help make his point. “Only one was ’is brother. The other was ’is uncle.”
***
By the time Mike had calmed down and returned fifteen minutes later, Gordo and Ronda were chatting like old friends. The three of them were headed out for coffee to discuss the snake bite test results when the sergeant got a call-out to a bingle just outside town, leaving them to it.
Mike was just about to apologise for storming off, but Ronda beat him to it.
“Look, you were 100% right before,” she began, “when you said I was generalising. I hate prejudice of any kind, and yet here I was pre-judging you just because you’re a cop. I’m really sorry. Please let me buy you dinner tonight to make it up to you.”
“You don’t have to do that. I pre-judged you too. I assumed you’d be some drab, nerdy scientist, instead of…” Oops.
“Instead of what, Senior Detective?” she asked mischievously.
Instead of being so drop-dead gorgeous he thought.
“Instead of waiting to meet you, and judging you on your merits,” he said.
“So, you don’t want to have dinner with me?” Ronda said with a pout.
“Shit yeah,” he said, way too enthusiastically. “I mean, er…it’d give us the opportunity to discuss this mysterious snake fatality further.”
“OK then, how about 7 at the White Gums Bistro?”
“Back at the Desert Gardens Hotel? Well, that’s convenient. Gordo has booked me a room there for tonight.”
“What a coincidence,” Ronda said with a sexy smile, “I’m staying there too.”
So they’d gone to the White Gums and had such a great time, neither wanted the night to end. So it hadn’t, and dinner eventually morphed into bed and breakfast. He had particularly enjoyed the bed part. And the after-breakfast part too. Ronda was up for morning tea too, but he had to call it quits. A man’s not a rabbit.
***
“Hello you,” he replied, reminiscing about their raunchy one night stand. “How are things up in the Top End?”
“Yeah, good. Better than they are in Adelaide.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well you know how I told you that on average there’s usually only one fatality from snakebite a year in Australia? Sometimes we can go a whole decade without a death.”
“Yes.”
“Well here it is just gone February, and we’ve already doubled the average. I just had a call from Stan, a colleague of mine from the Adelaide Uni and...”
Marr closed the file and sat bolt upright.
“There’s been another hit?”
“Yeah. This time in a church of all places,” Ronda said, pleased to have a legitimate reason to call. She didn’t want to appear too needy; treat them mean and keep them keen and all that. Even though she
was very keen.
“Last Saturday around four pm, in the middle of an afternoon thunderstorm. A guy in his mid-late 30’s. The priest found him stone cold dead in the confessional after he got back from being called out, on a wild goose chase as it turned out. Anyway, he saw the puncture marks on the bloke’s face, made sure the snake was gone, gave the guy the last rites, then called your lot and they called Stan.”
The detective had a hundred questions, but started with the obvious.
“And did Stan say what type of snake it was?”
“He did, but it’s not what you think,” Ronda replied. “This time it was a pseudechis porphyriacus – a Red Bellied Black. One of my favourites, the black, although they’re more of a lovely deep purple usually.”
Ugh! How anyone could use the words “favourites” and “lovely” in the same breath as “snake” was beyond Marr and it threw him off guard for a second.
“Yeah…great…but did he give you any more info?”
The line crackled for an instant, then Ronda was back loud and clear.
“…most certainly did. The snake was another whopper – a male around two-and-a-half metres long judging from the size of the bite. I’d love to see it. Anyway, there were three deep puncture wounds, one on the bloke’s left wrist, right on the artery; another on his right cheek just below a big scratch; and the final one of his upper chest, but I reckon the second and third bites were just overkill.”
Overkill? There’s that word again thought the detective.
“And I suppose Red Bellied Blacks aren’t found in Adelaide,” he said, thinking about the Fierce Snake being so far out of its usual habitat.
Another loud crackle interfered with her answer, but Marr got the gist of it: the Adelaide Hills definitely, and the farmland on the way south to Victor Harbour, but rarely in the suburbs. And if they were, they were usually quick to flee. She started to talk about how harmless they actually were – really? the harmless thing had just killed a guy – but he cut her off.
“Did your mate say anything about the crime scene,” he asked. “You know...
how the snake got in and out, witnesses, prints, that type of thing.”
The line was really bad now, dropping in and out severely.
“Sorry. What was that?” he asked. “What will I find interesting?”
More crackling. Holding the receiver hard up against his ear and walking around the room to try to get better reception, Marr thought he heard her say ‘hitting the town’ and was nearly sure he caught the word ‘cock’. My God, she really is insatiable.
“What!? Look you’re breaking up badly, Ronnie. I can hardly make out what you’re saying.”
Then miraculously the line cleared just long enough for Ronda to say:
“I said I hope you’re sitting down. The guy was wearing a brand new tee shirt from Ayers Rock.”
Chapter 6
Mown down.
Brent Dickinson had attended Theo Stomann’s funeral in Warrnambool, but he had given Chris O’Connor’s a wide berth. It wasn’t that he hadn’t liked Chris. On the contrary, the two had become great mates in the three years they’d been members of the same posse. Blood brothers in fact. No, the reason why he hadn’t flown across to Adelaide to pay his respects was that he was scared. Dead scared. In fact, for the past week, he’d been too frightened to even leave his own home in Henley Brook, just north of Perth, virtually living on crap home-delivered pizza and unappetising Uber Eats takeaways. Dickinson was living his worst nightmare; the snakes were after him. He could easily be next. And he was taking no chances.
Dickinson, a heavily-tattooed 38-year old confirmed bachelor with sticky-out ears and a bulbous nose, had emigrated out from Leeds 15 years ago. He’d come to Australia to escape the hordes of blacks and curry-munchers. Well, he’d escaped alright… out of one damn frying pan straight into another. Now he had to put up with bloody blacks and reffos. Every night the news was full of boatloads of either slanty-eyed, Arab or black pricks trying to jump the fucking queue and help themselves to the government handouts. Eddy Van Heerden had told him that each reffo was given close to $100,000 and an interest-free mortgage once they had settled. One hundred fucking grand! How stupid was that? It’s a wonder the goddam government had any taxpayers’ money left to hand out to those whinging fucking abos.
Anyway, just before he jumped on the ship to Oz, his cronies at his local pub, The Box of Nails, knowing his phobia, had filled his head with poison.
“Nineteen of the Top Twenty world’s most deadly snakes are in Australia, mate… and the 20th is thinking of migrating!”
“They’re 30 feet long and bleedin’ well everywhere, Dicko. They’re in plague proportions. Check under your pillow every night. And in the morning too, just in case they snuck in overnight!”
“Most Aussie snakes actually hunt people, boyo…get a taste for human flesh, they do.”
“You won’t know what hit you! You’ll be dead in just 2 minutes, Brent, and mark my words, it’ll be the most excruciatingly painful death imaginable. Apart from that, you’ll have a grouse time in Aussie. You’ll love every minute of it. Well, apart from the last two of course!”
And so on, all pouring fuel onto the fire of his existing fear. Even though Dickinson had never actually seen a live one, he had a severe fear of snakes. Couldn’t even look at a photo of one, without getting the shakes. Even that snakeskin he’d seen in the outback had made him shudder. And now his pommy mates’ predictions were coming true – they actually hunt people, boyo – two of his cohorts had been killed by the slimy creatures in the past 7 weeks.
That’s why he was staying put at 23 Park Street. He wasn’t going anywhere, not even over to the peaceful park that backed on to his property. Hell, he wasn’t even going to leave the house! Not unless it was in a cab on his way to the damn airport to jump on the first available plane back to Yorkshire.
Still, the recent rains had turned his normally immaculate lawn, his pride and joy, into what he called ‘a flippin’ jungle’. And it was such a bright sunny day. Besides he would be wearing his thick boots, gloves, safety glasses and thick, protective gardening clothes, plus be armed with a lawnmower and whipper snipper. Nothing to worry about.
So without any further ado, he changed into his ‘suit of armour’, donned his Manchester United bucket hat and headed out to his garden shed to get his Victa 4-stroke. Not as good as the trusty old Heywood Harrier he’d had back in the old country – nothing was nearly as good as a British mower or any British-made product for that matter – but its four finely honed blades did an OK job.
A couple of shy skinks scattered when he unlocked and unbolted the metal door, and had scurried away by the time Dickinson had opened up. He peered cautiously into the neat shed – a place for everything and everything in its place – and waited while his eyes adjusted to the shadowy light. After he’d scanned the entire shed for a moment, from top to bottom, he grabbed his mower, line trimmer and petrol can and backed quickly out again into the mid-morning, early Autumn sunshine. Too easy.
But damn! He’d forgotten the funnel. He could do without it, of course, pour the fuel straight into the tanks, but that could make a mess of his pristine machine, and besides he always used a funnel. He opened the shed door again and saw his bright red funnel hanging on a hook to the left of the door, tantalisingly close to grabbing distance. He reached in and stretched out to grab it, at the same time noticing the small oil stain on the concrete floor where the mower had sat. Bugger! I’ll have to get the degreaser onto th…
Something crawled over his hand!
AGGGGHHHHH!
He dropped the funnel in a flash and flicked his hand back and forth in a furious frenzy. His eyes saw it straight away, but it took a moment before his brain registered what it was: a big daddy long legs spider. He laughed as he picked the funnel up off the floor.
Piss orf, hairy legs. It’s snakes I’m shit scared of, not sodding spiders. Although I will be getting the Mortei
n onto you later, matey trousers! Nearly gave me a heart attack, you did.
Dickinson was still chuckling to himself a few minutes later after he’d filled and primed both machines. He set off first with the whipper snipper draped over his wide shoulders, walking right around the perimeter of his 40 perch yard, which a real estate agent would have called “as neat as a pin.” He had just finished doing around the flowerbeds at the back of the rendered brick home when he got another big fright. This time he wet his pants.
Overkill : Pure Venom Page 5
