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With his six-foot-two-inch frame crammed into a seat Dan figured was meant for a small child, and buffeted by what the pilot announced were turbulent air pockets, the half-hour flight from Darwin to Bathurst Island was a nightmare. To try to keep his mind occupied, he focused on the information Markleson had sent to his phone. There certainly could be a link, although just what it was he had no idea. The girl who had flown the helicopter they had seen in Rupert had been black, not albino, and any girl with either black or white skin and hair would have been very noticeable in any of the villages. It was also unlikely any girl could have thrown a body as big as Jimmie’s into that salal. Finally, most if not all the villages were beyond the range of that helicopter so making any connection was almost impossible.
His mind drifted to the logo he had seen in Harbinson’s office and he brought up the photo of the Vèvè of Ayizan. Could that possibly have been what he saw? It was hard to believe. As far as he knew Voudou wasn’t popular in Australia, and even if it was, Harbinson, with his crisply pressed clothing and his dismissive sneers, would be the last man he would associate with it.
He put the phone back in his pocket and switched his attention to the medical report he had picked up at the hospital. The victim, one Ngarra Nungurra, an elderly aboriginal male, remained in a coma with severe head injuries likely caused by a heavy, blunt object. He was not expected to recover.
By corkscrewing his body in the seat and dropping his chin to his chest, Dan managed to peer out through the window at the Timor Sea sparkling below and, just coming into view, a tree-covered island fringed with white sand. It looked idyllic and much more like his vision of what northern Australia would look like than Darwin had done, but he didn’t have time to enjoy his reverie. The plane lurched as they hit an air pocket and Dan’s stomach lurched with it.
***
BY THE TIME THE CESSNA landed on the Bathurst Island airstrip, Dan’s hands ached from gripping the armrest so tightly he was sure his fingers had left permanent indentations. He was also sweating profusely. He struggled out of his seat, almost fell down the steps onto the runway, and looked around. As far as he could see the land was flat, the ocean beyond shimmering under the yellow glare of the sun, the earth on either side of the smooth tarmac a rich red edged with what he thought were eucalyptus trees. A cluster of small white buildings with corrugated tin roofs glinted in the sun.
“Officer Connor?”
A man with the blackest skin Dan had ever seen, dressed in the uniform of the Aboriginal Community Police, stood by his side.
“That would be me,” Dan answered, reaching out to shake hands. “But please call me Dan.”
“Dan,” the man acknowledged with a relieved smile. “I’m Wally. Welcome to Wurrumiyanga. The Elders are waiting to meet you at Patakajiyali.”
He saw Dan’s frown and laughed. “I think you will find our language hard to understand. Patakajiyali is our museum. It’s where we try to preserve our history and culture. Where we teach our children their traditions and their language.”
His smile faded. “It is also where the thefts occurred and where Ngarra was beaten.”
***
DRIVING THROUGH THE streets of the town, Dan couldn’t help thinking that except for the red earth visible on the roadside and the different vegetation, it reminded him of some of the communities he had visited back in Canada. All the faces he saw were indigenous, and most of the houses sat close to the street with no fences to keep out their neighbours and few cultivated gardens. There were also very few stores or businesses. These were a people who still lived largely by their traditional ways.
Five pairs of ebony eyes stared at him as Wally led him into a large meeting room. There was a brief round of chatter, none of which he could understand, and then a tall man with a full head of hair, shockingly white against the darkness of his skin, stood up and introduced himself.
“I am Sam Munkiri. Akurupa—welcome. We are grateful to you for coming.” He gestured to the other four people sitting at the table. “These are representatives from our other skin groups—do you know about our culture Mr. Dan? Do you understand our skin groups?”
Dan shook his head. “I’m sorry but I do not, although I have a friend in Canada who has taught me about the moieties and clans there. Perhaps they’re similar?”
“Moieties, yes. We have two moieties, but we also have eight skin groups or yiminga.” He gestured to the others at the table. “Four of them are represented here, and then we also have country or clan groups.” He waved his hand dismissively. “But that is not important now.”
He took his seat and pointed to the folder Dan had brought with him. “You have been told what has been stolen?”
“Yes, but there’s much more I need to know if I’m going to be able to help you. I have only been given a brief description, and there are no photos. I need to know what I am looking for.”
He saw the looks of consternation on their faces, the evasion in their eyes.
“Is that a problem?” he asked. “I assumed that because the items were stolen from a museum they would have been catalogued.”
Again, it was Sam who spoke. “Only the throwing stick was taken from the museum. Ngarra—he is the man who was beaten—had the tjuringa, and the Pukamani pole was taken from the cemetery. We can show you a Pukamani pole. They’re part of our burial rituals, and there are many in our cemetery, but we also create similar poles to sell.” He smiled. “They are very popular with the tourists. You saw one on your way in.”
Dan glanced out the window at the oddly shaped pole that stood at the entrance. It was decorated with brightly coloured dots of white, yellow and red paint and flanked on either side by a wooden carving of a child. The designs were unlike anything he had seen before, yet at the same time there was something familiar about them.
“Have you ever seen a totem pole?” he asked. “I think these may serve a similar purpose. Do they . . .” He searched for a description. “Do they tell a story?”
There were smiles and nods around the table and one of the women answered. “Yes, they tell everything. That is our way. Our stories, our history, who we are, where we came from. It is all held in our art, and in our songs and our dances. The Pukamani pole we place at the burial site speaks of that person’s life—their abilities. Their strengths. Their spiritual journey.”
“And the ones that are for sale? What do they express?” Dan asked.
She shrugged. “They are just a pattern. They do not have meaning.”
“And which kind was stolen, a burial pole or a pole that was made for sale?” Dan was pretty sure he already knew the answer, but he had to ask.
The atmosphere in the room changed completely, and for a moment he wondered if his question had been in any way offensive.
“It was a burial pole.” It was Sam who finally answered. “A very old one. It had stood for many years.”
“Was it for someone important? Did he perhaps have enemies who might have stolen it?”
“He was important, yes. A very powerful man. A kurdaitcha—what you would perhaps call a shaman. But any enemy would be long gone by now. That pole has been helping that man find his way back to the ancestors for many years.”
Dan was writing everything down as fast as he could, so he didn’t see the response his next question provoked, but he did feel the tension.
“What was his name?”
When no one answered, he looked up and saw all five faces staring woodenly back at him, their silence so complete it filled the room with a weight Dan did not, could not understand, and had no way of lifting.
It was another woman who finally spoke. “We do not ever again say the name of a person who has died.”
***
A FLOCK OF PARROTS flew past the window, their red and green feathers flashing bright in the sun, their shadows patterning the floor with movement. Dan let his eyes follow them, and wished his life could be as simple, as elemental as theirs. He had flown an agonizing distance only to find a repeat of what had happened back in Canada: the theft of traditional, sacred objects that could not be described and therefore could not be identified. He was getting nowhere.
“Are there other poles similar to the one that was stolen that I could see?” he asked, turning back to the group at the table. “And what about the other items—the throwing stick and the stone. Are there any photos of them?”
It took several minutes of consultation between the members of the group before he received a response, and again it came from Sam.
“The throwing stick was very old. We no longer use them but they are part of our history and it was on display. I believe there might be a photo of it. I will ask. The tjuringa . . .” His eyes scanned each member of the group as if seeking permission to continue. “The tjuringa is a stone with a totem inscribed on it. The totem is a representation of the alcheringa, the spirit, who lives in the place where a man was conceived, and it is sacred.” He paused and looked again at the other members of the group. “Tjuringas come from the ancestors themselves, from the Creation time, and they have many powerful properties. Only the people to whom they are given are ever allowed to see them. It would be sacrilegious to ever take a photo of them.”
“But I thought this one was in the museum, on display.” Dan said.
“No.” Sam’s shock of white hair danced as he shook his head. “When they are found, they are kept hidden in a special place. When a man is initiated, he is shown his tjuringa for the first time, and then he will learn the travels of the ancestral being who bought him into existence. Those travels are represented by the designs on the sacred tjuringa. We call them a dreaming or a songline.” His eyes drifted to the window. “Ngarra, the man who was beaten, is the custodian of all the tjuringas belonging to this spirit. He was bringing it here to Wurrumiyanga for an initiation when he was attacked.”
***
THEY SHOWED HIM THE place where Ngarra had been found, then took him to the cemetery to see the Pukamani poles standing like solemn guardians, some new with bright dots of colour, others old and weathered, a few broken and leaning or lying on the ground.
“You said the pole that was stolen was old?” Dan gestured to one that was shorter than the rest, its top section fallen long ago, the remainder graying with age. “Would it have looked like that or was it intact?”
“Like that,” they all agreed and Dan nodded. It would have been very difficult to steal a full-sized Pukamani pole. Most stood well over two meters tall, and the ironwood they were made from was heavy. Even an old pole would need a strong man to carry it, and something large to take it away.
“So the thefts all happened during the night and no one saw or heard anything strange?” He had read the same line in all the reports, and had asked the same question at every site, but this time the response was different.
“The two young men who found Ngarra said they heard a cry or a yell,” Sam answered. “But when they got to where they found him, they saw no one else there.”
“Suzie Lowitja said she saw Burga.” The whispered words were full of apprehension and Dan stared at the woman who had spoken. There had been nothing in the report about a witness.
“Burga?” Dan repeated. “Who’s Burga? Is he local?”
The woman shook her head and wouldn’t say anything more. Sam put his arm around her trembling shoulders. “Burga is a ghost spirit,” he said, looking over her head at Dan. “He is only out at night. He has strange, pale skin and he will kill anyone he meets.”
A ghost? First Bak’wus and now Burga? Nothing made sense. Dan felt as if he was walking on quicksand with no solid ground to give him a footing.
“But Burga didn’t kill Suzie,” he pointed out, hoping to reassure the obviously frightened woman. “So perhaps it was someone else she saw?”
“She was in her house so Burga didn’t see her.” Sam pointed across the road. “Her baby woke up and she went to calm her. She saw him through the window. She says it was Burga.”
***
THAT AFTERNOON DAN spent a couple of hours with Wally, wandering the town trying to figure out how a thief could have broken into the museum, attacked Ngarra, gone several blocks to the cemetery, and then left the island without being noticed. There were no security cameras, and the hard-packed red earth where the attack took place had long since been trampled by feet and driven over by vehicles. But ghost or no ghost, the stolen items had been real and even though it was old and broken, the ironwood pole would have been heavy and awkward to carry. There had to have been a vehicle involved, even if it was just a hand-cart.
Or a boat, he reminded himself when he looked at the dense mangroves lining the river bank. He had been warned to stay well away from the many rivers and creeks that crisscrossed the island because of salt-water crocodiles, but a boat might be able to navigate them safely. Even an inflatable kayak perhaps, like the one Walker had mentioned as a possibility, although that wasn’t something Dan would personally want to risk and it certainly couldn’t cross the ninety or so kilometers of ocean separating the island from the mainland.
“What do you think, Wally?” he asked. “This is your town and your people. Do you have any ideas on how it happened? Or on who’s responsible?”
“I been asking myself that ever since it happened. Don’t seem possible. All the people here? We be family. Only other people are government people—maybe a policeman come sometimes. Don’t even have tourists no more. Not since the virus came.”
Dan thought he had heard a note of disdain when Wally mentioned the police.
“You getting help from Darwin? Did they send anyone over to check things out?”
There was silence as Wally looked out over the ocean. When he turned back his broad face wore no expression. “Yes, they send someone. He very young, a constable. It be two days after we reported the theft that he come. He tell us the site had seen too much use to give him any leads to follow, and he say the items would be impossible to trace.”
“Did he get a description of them?”
“We give him a list. He didn’t have no time to talk to the Elders. Said he had to get back.”
It was no longer disdain Dan was hearing. It was outright dislike.
“I’m sorry, Wally. I’ll try and find out what they’re doing when I get back there.”
“Not your fault.” Wally’s grin flashed brightly. “I think you be different. You ask good questions. You show respect. The Elders like you.”
“Thank you. I like them too. But may I ask you one more question?”
Wally stared at him. “Of course.”
“This thing with Burga, the ghost spirit Suzie . . .” Dan checked his notebook. “Suzie Lowitja, says she saw?”
Wally nodded. “Yes.”
“Do you believe her? Do you think she saw a spirit?”
Wally breathed in, his nostrils flaring, and glanced around. “Be careful when you speak that name. There be many spirits, and you must take care not to offend them.”
He glanced around again, then looked directly at Dan. “All of my people know of the spirits, the alcheringa, but few have seen them. I do not know if Suzie saw the spirit she named, but I know she believes she did.”
They walked back to the museum together and spent an hour looking at artifacts and photos and listening to the history behind them. It was all interesting, but it wasn’t going to help find what had been stolen. What might help would be to talk to Walker. Walker, who was familiar with the ghosts and spirits interwoven into the lives of his people, and who would probably have some ideas about the ones who appeared here. But Walker hadn’t called, and if he had shown up for his surgery, he wasn’t going to be calling any time soon. Or answering his phone for that matter.
Even if he did, it would be useless, because solving this crime was not what Dan had been sent to do. He understood that now, and it made him feel like a fraud. His job here was political. He had been given neither the time nor the resources to do anything meaningful in a country where he was a complete stranger.
Towards evening he wandered down to the beach and sat on the white sand. The language and culture of the people here might be different from those he was used to, the trees unfamiliar, the sounds of the birds and their brilliant plumage all new, but the ocean was the same. He sat there watching it breathe: the long, slow inhale as the swells rose, the soft exhale as they slid up onto the shore and fell back into the depth. It was hypnotic and soothing, and it grounded him. He might have been sent here as window-dressing, but he would figure this out. Markleson was right. Whatever or whoever was doing this was also behind the thefts in Canada and somehow he would find them.