Watson looked over at Devine and Markle who shook their heads, in turn he shook his. As the women left, that shake of the head became a resounding nod.
Chapter 43
There was no cause for celebration that day at the Stuart Arms Hotel, Alice Springs. There were no pretty girls with big hands, and certainly no photographers hidden behind a two-way glass mirror. It was a sombre affair. The interaction with the Anangu tribe had left the men deflated. Harris, who had been snorting heroin compulsively for the past half an hour went straight to the bar and ordered whiskies. When Lescott traipsed up the stairs towards his room, Harris downed both drinks and ordered two more. As the beleaguered barman fixed another pair of drinks, he watched Harris sprinkle a generous helping of golden brown onto his bar, bend down, and vacuum it up. What was left in the wrap, he sprinkled into one of the whiskies before downing it.
He could see the barman looking over at the phone behind the bar, no doubt he was considering calling the police. There was a murderous rage in James Harris, for the good of the town he ought to have been locked up. This was the beginning of the end for the Englishman. He’d fought so hard, for so long, to keep a handle on his addiction. Only in the comfort of his home, and never before sunset, would he seek out its repose. That was done now. He was truly free of that which had ailed him for decades.
In his room, Lescott sought relief from the heat and dust of the desert. Under that tepid water that dribbled out weakly, there was no relief to be found. Only a bitter frustration that brought him to tears. He knew the damage a missing child could wreak upon a man. That tiny being can make sense of a senseless world. It can bring purpose to the purposeless. It can fill even the most broken of bodies with a hope, so chaste and so pure, that it is all too uncommon in this strange world of ours.
Should you remove that perfect little soul, that burst of golden light breaking through the storm clouds, all that’s left is a darkness that seeps into every inch of a man’s being.
When he was all done with crying in the shower, Lescott stepped out and over to the window. The heat radiating from the glass hit him and in an instant the shower water was replaced with sweat. Standing there, quite naked, he looked out the window of his room and onto the dusty street outside. He was a long way from home, and from the tormenting memories and guilt that pecked at his broken heart, breaking it all over again, each day like a modern Prometheus. It doesn’t matter how far you travel. You can never run so far as to get away from despair.
On the street, across the road. Two hellish figures stared at him. A woman and her infant child. Ravaged by the effects of death, they looked more like demons than cherished memories. Lescott could do nothing but let out an involuntary burst of tears. Just as the siren song of an unopened bottle of gin began calling out to him.
Chapter 44
The following day, the mood in Hawke’s file room was different. Something had changed. The enormity of the situation had become apparent. Harris and Lescott had become desperate. The beginning had ended. The end had begun. It was time to put drink, drugs, and mental afflictions to one side, it was time to get serious about their work.
Days passed. The local police all but ignored their presence. Other than Hawke of course. If ever they left the room unattended, for a short break, the Senior Sergeant would rummage through the files that they’d been inspecting. They’d asked Hawke about Jarrah; he said he knew nothing of the matter. From his shaky demeanour each time they approached him, it was clear he was hiding something in his insistence that Alice Springs was a decent town, filled with decent people.
There had been no sign of Charlie since that day, it felt like that lead had died the day they were chased from the Anangu community. They had ventured briefly into the Old Eastside, given Hawke had been so quick to blame the area for the town’s problems. But it was fruitless. Few spoke English. Those that did, weren’t interested in speaking it to the police. The men saw a good deal of evidence to suggest prostitution was rife in the area. They saw several of Hawke’s subordinates walking into run-down houses, in plain clothes, only to reappear half an hour later. To a man, they came out looking flushed and sweaty.
Their time in the file room was more productive. Lescott’s dogged approach to the filing, and Harris’ contribution of moral support meant they’d reached a point where the room made sense. Unfortunately, all that meant was that it told a clearer story of how neglectful Hawke and his team had been where paperwork was concerned. They’d tried to reach out to the parents of local missing children. They’d called the Commonwealth Missing Persons team. They’d had no luck. It was clear whoever it was they were looking for was either covering his tracks or hadn’t operated in the area. Given the labels on the boy’s clothes pointed to activity in the area, they believed it was the former. Without evidence they were working a dead case.
All that was left to do was throw around theories, some wilder than others. While Lescott pondered Durkheim’s work on deviancy in society and its inevitability in an oppressive state, Harris kept coming back to the church. His relationship with religion was so broken, that he went as far as to suggest this was the work of a cult, a clandestine network of the rich and the powerful who had turned to devilish practices, simply because they could. “The thing with priests and priesthood…”
“Bruzzas.” A voice interrupted from the doorway. “It’s time.” The men looked up to see Charlie standing in the doorway, there was a steely determination about him.
“Time for what?” Lescott asked.
“The community wants to speak to you. They think you can help. I convinced them you could.”
“Listen Charlie,” Lescott paused, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s too much pain.”
Charlie shook his head, “Uncle Mowan sent me to bring you back. What Mowan says, I do. You have to come back with me. You can help me find Jarrah.”
A well-worn ritual by now, the moment they stepped foot out of the car, Harris and Lescott took off their jackets and rolled up their sleeves. The desert heat was blistering. The sunlight was piercing that day, it left a smear of pure white glare across the sands. Everywhere they looked, they saw heat hazes obscuring the vast red sea.
The camp looked different that day. Its numbers had dropped considerably. There were fewer people and fewer shelters. But the trepidation remained. Harris and Lescott, nervously smoking cigarettes, looked around for Jarrah’s father in the hope that they could avoid further conflict, but he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, the men who had argued with Charlie the last time they had visited were nowhere to be seen. What remained was a cohort made up of women, children and the elderly.
It was clear that this was why Harris and Lescott had been invited back. This did little to allay their nervousness. If anything, it felt wrong that they were covertly going against the wishes of a large section of the tribe. Charlie saw the worry on their faces and smiled. “It’s fine. You’re invited.”
“What about the others?” Lescott asked. “The ones who weren’t happy to see us.”
“Gone. Not coming back.”
“Where?” Harris asked as he watched a group of children playing in the red dirt. They were staggeringly beautiful little beings. With smiles on their faces and sun-bleached blonde running through their long hair, they played with what nature offered them. And that was all they needed.
“Back to Anangu land. To the South West. It’s better land. We’ve got more connection to the country there. It’s where our stories are.” Charlie waved up ahead to a group of elders sitting on fallen trees around the large communal fire pit in the middle of the camp.
“I can’t get my head around life here. Can you imagine it?” Lescott muttered quietly as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“No. But I can’t imagine living in fucking France either, doesn’t stop the French.”
“Do you ever give a straight answer?” It was too hot for Harris’ riddles. Lescott reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a
cigarette and placed it between his lips. They felt dry and cracked. He was beginning to miss the city. As he lit the cigarette, the smoke felt hot as it reached his lungs. He tossed the cigarette aside in a fit of coughing.
“Pick that up.”
“Excuse me.” Lescott looked over at Harris in surprise.
“Think about where you are. Not only has there been no rain since we got here, the ground’s thick with tree litter. There’s a fire coming.” Harris looked around. “Besides, this is their fucking house, man.”
Lescott felt humbled as he picked up the cigarette and placed it back into the packet. Littering wasn’t the dirty word it would become in later years, but now it had been drawn to his attention, it felt wrong to soil such a beautiful place.
“Look at these people…” Harris said as they approached the fire. “They’re calm. They’re happy. We should all be so lucky.”
Lescott hung back for a moment. “How? Look around. They’ve got nothing. They’ve got no one.”
Harris smiled. “Abraham Maslow.”
Lescott thought back to a textbook he once read. “Hierarchy of human needs?”
“Indeed. While war was raging around the globe, and young men were concerned about dodging bullets and shrapnel, good old Abraham was stitching elbow patches on his tweed jacket and theorising. He said a human’s needs are tiered. On a base level, we worry about our immediate safety. You know, are we in danger? Is my house on fire around me? If the answer’s no… You concern yourself with different needs… Are you getting what you need to physically sustain your body in both the short and the long term? Food, water, shelter? Got it? Start thinking about community, spirituality, and enlightenment. These guys are ticking all those boxes. They’re dedicating themselves to the pursuit of those things. You say they have nothing, I say they have everything they need. What they don’t have is “want” and “self”. The tip of the pyramid, where we are in modern society, is where it all fucking falls over.”
“You’ve got something to say about everything, haven’t you?” Lescott was frustrated. Sometimes he just wanted to speak without Harris bringing the conversation back to their broken society.
“Everything I’ve thought about.”
“Are you fellas quite done?” Harris and Lescott turned to see the elder who had met them at the car as they were leaving camp on their last visit smiling at them. “I’m Mowan. Welcome to Arrernte country.”
“Big one’s Jarris, small one’s Frescott.” Charlie informed Mowan who gestured for the men to take a spot around the dormant fire.
“I have to apologise for your last visit. I’m sure you can imagine there’s some ill-feeling towards the piranpa at this time,” Mowan asked.
“The last thing you need to do is apologise.” Lescott smiled sympathetically.
“Would you care for a drink?”
“I’d love a coff…” Harris went to speak before realising where he was. “Water?”
Mowan wore a broad smile while several of his companions laughed. “We can go one better than that. Have you tried arnguli?”
“I can’t say I have.”
“It’s very good.” Mowan said as he picked wooden cups from the floor and handed them to the men. It smelled sweet and fruity. It tasted crisp and refreshing. It wasn’t bloody bad. In fact, it was just what the heat of the day called for. It was instantly hydrating.
“Bush plums. It’s no glass of cold beer. But it’s not bloody bad, eh?” Mowan smiled as he reached down onto the ground and picked up a fruit that looked something like a sun-dried tomato. “Are you hungry? Quandongs are a great source of protein.”
“Protein? In a fruit? Ok.” Harris was intrigued, he took the vibrant red globe and looked at it. “How do I?”
“The piranpa around here call them desert peaches.” Mowan gestured to put it in his mouth all at once. “All you need to know is that it’s best to chew fast.”
Harris placed the fruit in his mouth. Again, it was sweet on his tongue. As he bit into it, he couldn’t get past a strange sensation, it was slippery. Like the fruit had a mind of its own, and it was trying to escape his mouth. A strange, unnerving texture, to be sure.
“The key is to never pluck a quandong from the branch. That way, the desert sun concentrated the juice. Also… It gives the larvae time to develop.”
“The what?” Harris said through a mouthful of quandong. As he opened his mouth, blood red juice dribbled down his chin.
“That’s where the protein comes from. A small wasp, no bigger than a pinhead burrows into the fruit and lays its eggs in there. Like I said. Chew fast.”
Lescott grimaced as he watched Harris make quick work of the fruity, egg laded mess inside his mouth. “So… We were hoping you could give us some information about…” Lescott while he tried to figure out the culturally sensitive method of broaching the topic, “…The boy. We’re not sure. But any disappearances out here might have something to do with a series of crimes we’re investigating back in Sydney. You see I work for the New South Wales Police, in the Missing Persons department. This is my life. This is what I do.”
“And him?” Mowan looked at Harris who went to answer, only to keep chewing.
“He’s what we call a Private Investigator. He’s a bit different. He… Investigates privately. But he’s a good man. And he’s helping me with my inquiry.”
“I don’t want to be rude, but could I have some more of that Julie juice?” Harris had finished his “Peach” and had begun poking his tongue out of his mouth, scraping it on his teeth to rid himself of the sensation of larvae crawling around in there.
Lescott handed his companion his drink and pushed on. “There’s a worrying pattern of Aboriginals going missing and no one doing anything about it. At first it looked like perhaps it was just children, we think now it may be adults too.”
Mowan looked amongst the bushfire-damaged trees as though some threat lay there in the dirt, something only he could see. “Two hundred years. There has been a devil playing in the blood red dirt. An entire system has been built to leave us behind. Who are you to stop it? Angels sent by your God?”
“No. Just two men who don’t fit in the system.”
Mowan cleared his throat as he continued to look out amongst the trees. This was clearly an emotional matter, and Mowan evidently hadn’t yet made his mind up on allowing the men to poke around. He looked at the two men. The stressed, sunburned and sweat-drenched men; they couldn’t have been further from home. Yet here they were. Trying.
“Charlie. Take Kala and Mandu… Show this nice young man…” Mowan pointed at Lescott. “Show him the taking tree.” Harris and Lescott went to stand, but Mowan placed his hand on Harris’ arm to stop him. “You stay.”
Lescott and Harris looked at each other. Separating in that place felt risky. If the men returned to the camp, Harris would never be able to fend them off single-handed. But then, Lescott wasn’t much of a fighter as it was, he wouldn’t be much help. They shrugged and agreed silently to comply. Perhaps the separation was the only thing that made their presence palatable for the Anangu.
Lescott looked down at Kala and Mandu. They were a girl and a boy respectively, aged around ten years old. “Kala. Mandu. Lead on.” They looked back at Lescott blankly. “They don’t speak English, do they?”
“Not a word.” Charlie laughed as he led the group away from the fire.
They tugged at his sleeve. When he began to follow, they ran ahead leading him out of the camp. Charlie followed.
“So… The man who took Jarrah…” Harris began to speak but was silenced by Mowan placing his index finger to his pursed lips. Mowan watched Lescott, Charlie and the two children walk from the encampment and into the surrounding bushland.
Lescott could have laughed at the irony of the situation. Every time he’d noticed Charlie in and around Alice Springs, the young man had looked out of place. It wasn’t the old clothes he wore, the way he spoke, or the way he walked. It was something else, somet
hing intangible. He just didn’t quite fit in with life in Alice Springs. But now that they were out here in the desert, it was Lescott who looked out of place. His shoes, and the bottom of his suit trousers, were being dyed by the red of the dirt upon the desert floor. His shirt was ringing with sweat. His arms were reddening under the blistering sun. He wasn’t made for this environment. The measure of the creature is in how it interacts with its environment. Not within others’ environments.
“How long’s the boy been gone?” Lescott asked.
“Disappeared a month ago. At least.” Lescott subtly raised his eyebrows at this remark, a month into a missing persons case was a hell of a bad time to start the search.
“I keep asking Ngintaka to bring him back, but I don’t hear him talk back. The others, they stopped asking.”
“Ngintaka?”
“One of the creators who walked the red dirt before us.”
Lescott looked around the arid landscape and found himself preoccupied by how ancient it was. There wasn’t a sign of human disruption between them and the horizon. It was wild. There were no footprints on the ground. There wasn’t even a breeze upon the air. The rock he accidentally moved with his foot. It could have been sitting there for thousands of years. He’d never seen anything quite like it.
Charlie and Lescott watched as the children, who’d ran ahead in youthful exuberance, ran straight back. They’d got close to a tree in the distance but they hadn’t wanted to stay there long. Lescott reasoned that this must be the taking tree.
They reached the tree and Lescott immediately identified it as a Desert Bloodwood. Why? It looked much like any other hardy tree that survived in that parched environment. Thick green leaves. Rough pale bark. The only thing that sets this tree apart, is the peculiar fact that it bleeds.
Lescott could understand where this idea that the Yara-ma-yha-who had taken the child originated. This place, this scene wasn’t real. It was the cover page of a horror novel set in blood red sands under cobalt blue skies. Maybe he’d spent too much time with Harris, but it seemed to Lescott that the symbolism of the place was positively pagan. The ocean of red muck that lay from the waist down as far as the eye could see, well that was the hardship of life and the hellishness that humanity faced. Then up above, pure blue skies in the heavens which offered something to strive for, god-like perfection. And that damned tree sitting there bleeding beside the lush vegetation and cool waters of the billabong, like Yggdrasil it connected all worlds. Its roots sprawling deep into the debased earth and its branches stretching high into the divine air.
THE DEVIL IN THE RED DIRT: DIVIDED IN LIFE. UNIFIED IN MURDER Page 36
