Les Norton and the Case of the Talking Pie Crust

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘I think I can handle that,’ said Les.

  ‘I want to get out there ASAP, because the National Parks and Wildlife are about to block off the access road. And you’ll only be able to get in there by foot or mountain bike. And it’s five kilometres.’

  ‘Okay. So what’s in this cave?’ asked Les. ‘Lost treasures? Are we going to play Raiders of the Lost Ark? I bags being Indiana Jones.’

  Marla shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. But have you got a camera?’

  ‘I sure have.’

  ‘Well, bring it, and you’ll get some good photos. But just promise me you won’t tell too many people about what you’ve seen. It would be awful if someone got in there and vandalised it.’

  ‘No. You can trust me,’ Les assured her.

  ‘Good.’ Marla got up from her stool. ‘Okay, handsome. Let’s go.’

  ‘All right. Just give my hair time to dry while I finish watching Days of Our Lives.’

  Les went to his room and threw a couple of things in his bag. He got a bottle of water from the kitchen, then he and Marla took the lift down to the lobby. Parked out front was a maroon Ford Laser in good condition with a backpack on the rear seat. Les sat in the front and placed his bag on the floor, Marla got behind the wheel and with the car stereo quietly playing local FM they proceeded out the gate and turned right up Scenic Highway. Les and Marla didn’t say a lot as they drove along. Marla appeared to be concentrating on something and Les was thinking about his situation between the local wallopers and the local hoons. They passed Erina Plaza, then Bluetongue Stadium further along, and were heading towards West Gosford when Marla turned to Les.

  ‘Have you thought over what you’re going to do about the police and Milton and his mates?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yes I have,’ answered Les.

  ‘And…?’

  ‘I’m going to get stuck into the bastards again,’ he declared. ‘The cops too.’

  ‘You’re what?’ said Marla.

  Les reached into his bag and took out the Elvis sunglasses. He put them on and grinned at Marla. ‘Somebody—stop me.’

  ‘Jesus, Les,’ said Marla. ‘Take them off. If the police see you…’

  ‘Smmmokkkinnnn.’

  Marla shook her head. ‘You are mad. Totally.’

  ‘You’re right, Marla,’ said Les, removing the sunglasses and placing them back in his bag. ‘I could feel their evil powers as soon as I put them on. It’s wrong. I want to use my secret powers for good, Marla.’

  ‘Yes. You do that, Les,’ she answered.

  They passed the turn-off to Woy Woy and started up a steep, curving road into the mountains. Les wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but he knew they were heading out of Gosford towards the F3 and Sydney. His window was down and outside he could hear the ringing of bellbirds echoing through the trees and gullies.

  ‘Hey, listen to those bellbirds, Marla,’ said Les. ‘Don’t they sound fabulous.’

  ‘Yes. You’re in Henry Kendall country now, Les,’ she replied.

  Marla followed the traffic to the top of the mountain before taking a turn-off. Houses went by and soon it was nothing but trees and scrub on either side of the road. Marla appeared to be looking for something before she slowed down at a barely perceptible opening amongst the trees.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said.

  Marla swung the Laser off the road and they began following a rough, narrow trail surrounded by boulders, rugged bush and overhanging trees. The further they went, the worse the trail got, until it was nothing more than two wheel marks worn into the mud and rocks. Just past a huge grey log they came to a fork. Marla went left and they continued to bump along till she came to another fork and veered left again. After another kilometre of bone-rattling trail, they entered a sloping clearing that finished at a line of scrubby trees and bush. Behind the clearing was a long granite cliff, high enough to cast a shadow over the clearing. Its rugged face was dotted with spinifex and cycads, while red gums and eucalyptus trees grew in wild profusion along the top. Marla drove to the edge of the clearing and switched off the engine.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘The cave’s up in that ridge.’

  ‘Up there?’ said Les, peering out the windscreen. ‘Shit!’

  Norton peered out the windscreen a moment or two longer, then picked up his bag and got out of the car. Marla was standing by the door, climbing into her backpack.

  ‘Which way now?’ Les asked her, putting his backpack on.

  Marla adjusted her cap and gave her shoulders a shrug. ‘Follow me.’

  ‘You’re the boss.’

  There was no path. Marla knew where she was going and Les fell in behind. The bush rose up, then they came to the cliff face. Marla found a narrow trail going left along a ridge and Les followed her as the trail doubled back on itself and went right. As they climbed along the ridge, Les could see the distant ocean through the valleys. But no sign of civilisation; apart from the birds and a light westerly eerily flicking through the trees, it was almost silent. Les followed Marla along the second trail before she stopped at a narrow opening in the granite on their left. It was barely head high and the way the trail angled on, if you didn’t know the opening was there you would quite easily miss it.

  ‘Righto, Les,’ smiled Marla. ‘See if you’re ready for this.’

  Les followed Marla through the opening and stopped dead in his tracks. It wasn’t really a cave, but two granite walls, fifteen metres long and ten metres high, leaning slightly towards each other. They were open at the top and separated by a floor of rock and soil two metres wide, with another opening at the opposite end. The walls were spread with lichen and beneath the lichen, countless Egyptian hieroglyphs had been carved into the flinty granite.

  ‘Holy bloody shit!’ said Les. ‘Who did all this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ smiled Marla. ‘You tell me.’

  There were scarab beetles, mummies, five pointed stars, radiating suns and birds. Sphinxes, water signs, drinking vessels, hands, eyes, snakes, curved rods, boats, angled lines and circles. Anything you would find painted inside an ancient Egyptian temple was carved into the two facing walls of the cave. Some carvings were inside cartouches. They went as high as ten metres and as low as a metre from the floor. There wasn’t a chip on the wall or a mistake, every carving had been executed in perfect detail. The wall on the right split into a fissure and the hieroglyphs continued on the other side, where carved down on the left was Thoth, the scribe of the Gods. There was no mistaking the figure of a man with the head of an ibis, dressed in priestly robes, holding a lamp, ready to convey souls to a place of higher learning.

  Les turned to Marla, gobsmacked. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Especially not out in the middle of the Australian bush.’

  ‘Now you know why I got a bit excited in the pool last night,’ said Marla.

  ‘But who did it?’ asked Les, staring around the cave.

  ‘I don’t know. I rang two professors of Egyptology in Sydney. And they got all uptight and tried to tell me some diggers did it when they came back from the First World War.’

  ‘What?’ said Les. ‘The average digger in the First World War was a country boy about seventeen years old. Half of them couldn’t read or write properly, let alone have the skill to carve something like this.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ smiled Marla. ‘And why would they do it anyway? And why out here?’

  ‘Yeah. There’d be bugger all round here just after the First World War,’ agreed Les.

  ‘Now take a look at this.’ Marla pointed out a carving level with her face, a little away from the others. It was an oblong, half a metre in length with little circles along the side, standing on four legs. ‘What’s that look like, Les?’ she asked.

  Les stared at the carving. ‘Well, it ain’t a beetle, that’s for sure.’ He turned to Marla. ‘A spaceship?’

  ‘That’s what I reckon,’ answered Marla. ‘And did the diggers, or anybody else f
or that matter, know anything about UFOs back in nineteen eighteen?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Les.

  ‘Now come and have a look at this.’

  Marla led Les to the other end of the cave and they climbed over a pile of rocks at the opening. Just to the right, three thick boards, a metre or so long, were sitting on the ground with a large rock on top of them.

  ‘Give me a hand to move these boards, Les,’ said Marla. ‘The National Parks put them there so people wouldn’t fall down.’ ‘Righto,’ said Les.

  Les moved the rock first, then they both moved the boards to reveal a two-metre deep pit, edged with jutting boulders. At the bottom was a perfectly straight, stone ledge with a narrow gap beneath it.

  ‘What’s that down there?’ asked Les. ‘It looks like a ledge.’

  ‘It is,’ said Marla. ‘I haven’t been under it, because the gap’s too narrow. But I’m told it’s a big square room carved out of solid rock.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Les stared down into the pit in disbelief, then turned to Marla. ‘So how did you get onto all this?’ he asked her.

  ‘I’ve got a girlfriend works for Gosford Council,’ replied Marla. ‘She brought me out here. And I came out a couple of times on my own. Then I decided to video it and offer the story to one of the TV networks. I got a few contacts between Newcastle and Sydney.’

  ‘Won’t all that publicity expose everything?’ said Les.

  Marla shook her head. ‘There’s already been photos and a story about the cave published in a New Age magazine. And I’ll keep the location secret. No one will know where it is.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ nodded Les. ‘If you didn’t know the exact spot, you wouldn’t find it in a hundred years.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Marla. ‘So let’s put these boards back and you can start filming.’

  They replaced the boards and the rock, then dropped their backpacks on the floor of the cave. While Marla was sorting out her video camera, Les got his camera and started taking photos. He got Marla to take some of him with the hieroglyphics in the background and he took some of Marla. Finally, Marla had everything together and Les had her camcorder in his hands, ready to go.

  ‘Start with me standing in the middle of the cave,’ said Marla. ‘Then follow me around while I point things out.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Les. ‘If there’s any hiccups, we can just rewind and shoot again.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Marla stepped into the the middle of the cave. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Les squared her up in the side viewer and pressed record. ‘Righto,’ he said quietly. ‘Roll film. Roll sound. ‘Annnnddd—action.’

  ‘Hello,’ smiled Marla. ‘I’m Marla Ritchie. And I’m standing in a cave near the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales, where I’m about to show you something you may not believe. But trust me. It’s all true.’

  Les followed Marla around with the camcorder like a pro, zeroing in on the particular carvings she’d point out, taking close-ups of her and panning round the walls while she spoke. At the same time, Marla was a natural. She spoke slowly and clearly, moved well and rarely fluffed a line. They checked the film every now and again and both agreed, you couldn’t tell the difference between their efforts and what you saw on Sixty Minutes. They took a shot of the boards but didn’t bother to move them, got a shot of the open ceiling and one of a lizard hiding in the fissure. At the end, Marla stood next to the carving of the spaceship and smiled enigmatically into the camera.

  ‘This is Marla Ritchie, somewhere near the Hawkesbury River. Thank you for your time.’

  Annnnd—cut,’ said Les. ‘Okay. That’s a wrap. Check the gate and let’s have lunch. Principals first. Extras can wait.’

  ‘You’ve done this before, Les,’ smiled Marla.

  ‘I did a TV commercial once,’ said Les. ‘A beer one.’

  ‘Yeah? What was that like?’

  ‘It ended up in a gigantic brawl.’

  Marla looked at her watch. ‘Shit! I’m going to have to make a move. Dad’s away. And I promised Mum I’d run her down to the dentist.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Les.

  Marla stepped over and put her arms around Les. ‘Hey, thanks for doing this, Les. I really appreciate it.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me, Marla,’ replied Les. ‘Thank you for bringing me out here. It’s one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ smiled Marla. She gave Les a quick kiss then let him go. ‘But before we leave, Les. About the diggers coming back from the war and carving all this.’ Marla pointed to the walls. ‘You see all the lichen growing everywhere. You know how old that gets, don’t you?’

  Les ran his fingers across a patch of lichen growing over an ibis carved into the wall. ‘Yeah. Real old,’ he answered.

  ‘Well, my friend at Gosford Council said a piece of lichen from here had been carbon dated. It was two hundred years old. And it was growing over one of the carvings. So I’d say that shoots the diggers theory down in flames.’

  ‘Shit! Does it what,’ replied Les.

  Marla had a drink of water then placed her camcorder in her backpack. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get going.’

  ‘Righto.’ Les threw his bag over his shoulder and followed Marla out of the cave.

  Not a lot was said on the journey back to Terrigal. Apart from being blown out by what he’d seen in the cave, Les was running a number of things over in his head. Marla was no doubt concentrating on how she was going to frame what they’d just filmed before she offered it to the TV networks. Before Les knew it they’d passed the hotel coming into Terrigal and were slowing down for the speed humps in front of the shops along the beachfront.

  ‘Bad luck we haven’t got time for a bit of lunch,’ said Les, as they drove past Serene’s.

  ‘Yes. All that exploring and filming’s made me rather peckish,’ smiled Marla.

  Les returned her smile. ‘Maybe some other time, Marla?’

  ‘I’ll keep you to that, Les.’

  They approached Ocean Star Apartments and Marla was about to cross the double lines and swing into the driveway when a white Holden driven by a bull-necked man in a grey suit with another bull-necked man in a suit, sitting alongside him, swung out of the driveway and continued on up the Scenic Highway.

  ‘Shit!’ said Marla jumping on the brakes. ‘You know who that was, don’t you?’

  ‘No,’ replied Les. ‘But allowing for my timing, and going by their big boofheads, I’ve got a pretty good idea.’

  Marla checked for other cars then swung the maroon Laser up into the driveway. She cut the engine and turned to Les with a concerned look on her face.

  ‘Seriously, Les,’ asked Marla, ‘what are you going to do about last night?’

  ‘What am I doing?’ answered Les. ‘I’m going back to Sydney.’

  Marla placed her hand on Norton’s leg. ‘Les,’ she said. ‘I think that’s the best thing to do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ sniffed Les. ‘You’re only saying that because you want to get rid of me.’

  ‘No. No way.’ Marla was adamant. ‘I like you, Les. A lot. Your washing machine’s definitely not going the full cycle. But no man’s ever made me laugh as much as you have.’ Marla lowered her eyes. ‘Or seduced me so sweetly. I want to see you again.’

  Norton couldn’t help but feel warm inside. ‘And I want to see you again too, Marla,’ he said. ‘Come here.’ Les placed his hand on Marla’s cheek, tenderly drew her face towards him and kissed her long and soft. He let Marla go then smiled into her eyes. ‘Go on. You better go and get your mum.’

  ‘Make sure you ring me,’ said Marla.

  ‘I will,’ replied Les. He picked up his bag, opened the car door and got out.

  ‘Goodbye, Les. Be careful driving home,’ said Marla.

  ‘No worries.’ Les closed the door, Marla backed out of the driveway and bipped the horn then drove off towards the beachfront. Les smiled and waved goodbye before
his expression abruptly changed. ‘Fuck it!’ he cursed, and walked into the resort.

  Glen was behind the desk when Les entered the reception area and by the look on his face, Les could clearly see there was something on the manager’s mind. Before he could say anything, Les decided to get in first.

  ‘Hey Glen,’ smiled Les. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m good, Les,’ hesitated the manager. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Up to shit,’ replied Les.

  ‘Oh. Why’s that?’

  ‘I just got a call from Eddie. There’s been a bit of trouble at the club and I have to get back to Sydney. Pronto.’

  The manager rolled his eyes as a look of pure relief swept over his dapper face. Les had no doubt he’d been trying to do the right thing by Eddie and keep the local police on side at the same time.

  ‘Gee, that’s no good, Les,’ said Glen.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ grunted Les. ‘Anyway. I’ll go up and get my gear. I’ll be back very shortly.’

  ‘Okay, Les.’

  Norton walked down the hall and caught the lift to his apartment. He dropped his backpack in the bedroom then went to the kitchen, got the last of the mineral water from the fridge and took it onto the sundeck to check out the view for the last time. With the sun sparkling on the ocean, it looked more beautiful than ever.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ said Les, looking up at the sky. ‘You couldn’t help yourself. Could you?’

  Les finished the mineral water, went inside and packed his gear. It didn’t take long. When he was satisfied he had everything, Les locked the apartment and caught the lift down to the lobby.

  ‘Shit. That was quick,’ said Glen, as Les approached the desk.

  ‘Mate,’ replied Les, ‘when Price says get your finger out, he means get your finger out.’

  ‘Nothing too serious, I hope,’ said Glen.

  ‘Well, between you and me,’ said Les, sliding the keys across the desk. ‘There was a double murder in the club. Two members of an Asian Triad.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ exclaimed Glen.

  ‘But don’t worry, Glen,’ winked Les. ‘You won’t read anything about it in the papers.’

  ‘Yes,’ Glen nodded. ‘I know how you boys operate.’