Chapter Forty One
‘You got a bible?’ asked Darryl.
‘No,’ Ben replied. ‘Why?’
They walked together from the small jet toward the Cooktown airport terminal shed. Inspector Peter Martin stood behind a low wire fence at the edge of the apron. Assistant Commissioner Wayne Armstrong stood beside him. ‘His suicide note ended with two quotes from the bible, or at least I think they are. It’s just two references, not the actual words.’
‘There’s a bible at the police station,’ said Binda.
‘Wayne’s not looking good,’ Darryl said. ‘Word of our activities on Misima Island has preceded us.’
‘I wonder what happened to the Commissioner and the Premier?’ said Ben.
‘Probably rushed back to Brisbane to handle the political flack. Wayne would only be in Cooktown if shit had hit the fan big time.’
‘You worried?’ asked Binda.
‘Na. We’ve got what we want.’ Darryl patted the journal. ‘This is all the evidence we need. The sergeant tried to physically attack Binda and Ben protected her. That’s the story.’
Darryl approached the two senior police officers at the gate. ‘Peter. Wayne. How’s things?’
‘Not good Darryl,’ said Assistant Commissioner Armstrong. ‘Bloody dreadful if you want the truth.’
‘They want Ben charged with a serious assault on a PNG Government official. What in God’s name happened out there?’
‘The PNG Government official basically intimidated Binda and then took a dislike to something she said and charged at her like a wounded bull. Ben stopped him with a punch to the side of the head,’ Darryl replied.
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘You got witnesses to this?’
‘Only Ben, Binda and me. I’m not sure if the pilot saw anything. As far as I’m aware, there was no-one else in the immediate vicinity, although a couple of the local boys walked up after it was all over. What story is Sergeant Azimulla spreading?’
‘He’s still unconscious. He may die.’
‘Good,’ said Binda. He threatened Jerome’s wife and child, stood over them for money and attempted to do the same with us. He’s nothing but a standover hoodlum shithead.’
‘I’ve been ordered by the commissioner to take action over this matter.’
‘I don’t care what you’ve been told to do,’ Darryl snapped back. ‘We found Jacob Jerome. We’ve got documentary evidence to lock up Graham Lupton and throw away the key. Why the hell isn’t that of some concern to you Wayne? Why do you think we went to Misima Island?’
Wayne Armstrong said nothing.
‘What about you Pete?’ said Darryl, his face flushed with anger. ‘You want to lock Ben up for simply protecting one of your constables from a serious attack?’
‘It’s all very confusing,’ said Peter Martin.
‘Did you have to hit him so hard?’ asked Wayne Armstrong, staring at Ben.
‘He was three times Binda’s size,’ said Ben, ‘and almost twice my size. Do you hunt elephants with a sling shot?’
Assistant Commissioner Armstrong looked helplessly at Peter Martin. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Darryl took a step towards him. Wayne Armstrong took a step back. ‘You get the hell back to your padded chair in your plush Brisbane office and leave us to hunt down a mass murderer. Tell Commissioner Staden there is not a shred of evidence to prove Ben assaulted Sergeant Azimulla.’
‘I’m going to talk with the pilot,’ said Armstrong. He pushed the gate open and walked briskly towards the small jet parked on the apron. The pilot was doing a visual inspection of the wings.
Binda looked up at Ben. He didn’t flinch. Neither did Darryl. They couldn’t hear what Wayne Armstrong said to the pilot, or what was said in reply. A full two minutes later, Armstrong walked back to the terminal gate. He stopped in front of Darryl and glared at him. ‘I don’t appreciate being spoken to in that manner,’ he said. ‘I out rank you quite a bit Inspector Keller.’
‘Detective Inspector if you don’t mind,’ replied Darryl firmly. ‘I did the hard yards to earn that designation. I don’t think you were ever Detective material sir.’
Wayne Andrews looked at Ben, then back to Darryl. The muscles in his jaw were tight. ‘The pilot saw Ben Hood protecting Constable Spencer from an unwarranted assault upon her by the PNG police official. He claims the PNG official behaved in a sexually inappropriate way to Constable Spencer and also touched her inappropriately and dragged her close to him. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ replied Binda. ‘What else did the pilot see?’
‘He didn’t see anything else.’
‘Then I suggest you tell that to the Commissioner and the officials in PNG and let us get on with our job,’ said Darryl, his voice hard.
Wayne Armstrong glanced at Peter Martin, turned and walked towards a nearby police vehicle. Peter gave Ben a quick glance. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through this,’ he said, and followed Armstrong to the vehicle.
‘I’m having a quick word to David,’ Binda said, walking back towards the jet.
‘I think we owe him a beer,’ said Ben.
‘He’s no dope,’ said Darryl. ‘He knows what to say and what not to say.’
‘The gun thing could have been sticky,’ said Ben.
‘It got us Jerome and this journal,’ said Darryl. ‘Without the gun incident, we’d have still been on that island with zip.’
‘The two island boys may have seen something.’
‘I doubt it,’ Darryl replied. ‘I don’t think they even came out of the shed until you decked the bastard.’
Binda joined them. ‘What a cool man. He almost had me believing he didn’t see everything.’
‘We’ll head back to the police station,’ said Darryl. ‘We need to get a plan up and running. Things are going to get very busy.’
Binda arranged for Merinda and Susan to drop Sharon at the Cooktown Resort on their way to the police station. She took them to a small interview room at the rear of the building and brought coffee. Ben and Darryl joined them a few minutes later.
Darryl sat next to Merinda. ‘It’s not good news I’m afraid, but then you’ve been through this before. Problem is that he wasn’t dead before. Your husband faked his death.’
Merinda nodded. ‘I guess I knew that when Ben showed me some of the entries in my financial statements.’
‘He is dead now however,’ Darryl continued. ‘He took his own life in the early hours of this morning. He could never have faced coming back to Australia and ultimately, prison. Ben and Binda found him and laid him to rest in a shallow grave.’
Merinda looked at Ben. ‘Did you meet the woman?’
‘Yes. She was distraught. They have a mentally retarded child.’
‘Will they be alright?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ replied Ben. ‘She has family there.’
‘Do you think he left me for her?’ she asked, still looking at Ben.
Darryl cleared his throat. ‘He murdered Les Watson out on Shiptons Flat Road. Deliberately ran him down to stop him revealing some extremely embarrassing and damaging information about his and Graham Lupton’s secret lives.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said very softly.
‘He ran from shame and a possible charge of murder. Lupton had also made threats against him,’ said Darryl.
‘You mention he lived a secret life. What was that?’
‘I’ll speak with you about that later,’ Ben interjected. ‘It’s rather complicated. Even I don’t have all the facts but when I do, we’ll spend time together. Here and now is not good.’
Merinda looked at Binda. ‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘For the moment you and Susan go home. Ben will be there later.’
Merinda rose. She turned to Darryl. ‘You and Sharon need to talk.’
‘I know,’ replied Darryl. ‘We did a bit of talking last night at your home but then other things sort of happened.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘So am I,’ Darryl said. He coloured slightly. ‘Thank you for taking such good care of her.’
‘Sue and I enjoyed her company.’
Darryl stood as well. ‘I’ll walk you to your car.’
‘Thank you.’ She turned to Ben. ‘Don’t be late.’
‘Yes Ma’am.’
‘The others will be here at 6pm,’ said Binda. She strode to the front of the squad room and removed a book from a small bookcase. ‘So what’s the bible references in Jerome’s journal?’
Ben sat in a folding chair. Darryl and Peter sat together at a desk in the front of the room. Darryl opened the journal to a page about half way in. ‘He stops writing here and its dated today. The first reference is Isaiah 57:20.’
Binda opened the bible up well over half way through and quickly found the writings of Isaiah.
‘How did you know to start looking in the back of the book?’ asked Ben, a brief smile on his face.
‘Isaiah is in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the first half of the bible. Don’t you know anything?’
Ben smiled but didn’t reply.
“But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.”
‘That’s probably what he thought about himself and Lupton,’ said Darryl. Some of the stuff recorded in here is pretty rough. The last reference is Jude 1:13.’
Binda turned more pages.
‘It’s the same,’ said Ben.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Darryl.
‘Says the same thing basically.’
‘How do you know?’
Ben was silent for a while. Binda’s eyes never left him. ‘I just know.’
Binda read aloud:-
“The wicked are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.”
Ben looked uncomfortable. Darryl closed the journal and sat back. Binda replaced the bible in the small bookcase. She walked to where Ben was sitting and dropped into a chair beside him. He turned towards her and found her staring at him. It was an intense, searching look.
‘What?’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ replied Binda. ‘I’m hanging out for a bath.’
‘Me too,’ said Darryl. ‘I’m covered in leech bites. Can those things get infected?’
‘Splash of Tea tree oil should fix them,’ said Ben.
‘That stuff stings like hell,’ was Darryl’s comment.
‘So does skin infection,’ said Binda.
‘Can we get on with it?’ said Peter Martin, drumming his fingers on the table.
‘The troops will be here in a few minutes. I’ve ordered sandwiches and dips. Wal’s mate owns the deli in town,’ Darryl said. ‘We’re starving. Biscuits on the plane for lunch coming back just didn’t do it for me.’
‘Wayne’s not happy you know,’ said Peter. ‘He’s catching this evening’s flight back to Cairns, but what happened on Misima Island won’t settle down easily.’
‘You have no idea what happened on Misima Island,’ said Darryl. ‘I’ll give you details later. We located Jerome. Too late unfortunately but he wrote down every detail of what he and Lupton were doing, in this book. We’ll need every person you’ve got for early morning raids.’
‘How many locations this time?’
‘Two. I’d move tonight but I want everyone fresh. The three of us are stuffed.’
‘What time?
‘Dawn. I want some daylight for these two hits.’
‘How many do you need?’ asked Peter.
‘Twelve total including us.’ He looked over at Binda. Did you contact my two detectives?’
‘Yep, and the analyst,’ she replied. They’ll be here any time now.’
‘You got stun grenades anywhere Pete?’ Darryl asked.
‘Bloody hell… What do you want with those?’
‘Might need them for a tricky penetration at one site.’
‘You can’t use them inside Black Mountain. You’ll bring the whole place crashing down.’
‘It’s not Black Mountain. It’s an underground bunker out near Rossville. It’s in the hanger at a disused air field off Shiptons Flat Road. The Lupton family have owned that land for ages.’
‘Right under our noses,’ said Peter.
Darryl produced the key Ben had given him. ‘This unlocks the bunker door. Its likely Lupton has been hiding in there but the journal is not clear in this regard. The bunker was used for other fairly nasty activities which I’ll run past you later.’
The squad room door opened and several uniformed police entered together with police in casual clothing. Constable Karen Bell, who had previously disclosed her boyfriend’s propensity to dress up in medieval armour, carried a huge platter of sandwiches. Another constable followed her with a similar platter. These were placed on a table in the centre of the room.
‘Who’s paying for this?’ asked Peter.
Darryl and Ben headed for the food. ‘You are,’ they both said in unison.
Others arrived. Soft drink cans from the fridge in the mess, were brought out in a large plastic bucket. There was a jumble of talk and laughter. Ben plugged his mobile phone USB cable into the data projector and sat down to finish a sandwich. Binda brought him a can of Pepsi and sat beside him.
‘Thanks for the drink,’ he said. ‘You can go back to your friends now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they are your age, or thereabouts.’
‘I like your age, or thereabouts,’
‘You’ve got rocks in your head lady,’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘Take off or I’ll tell your Inspector.’
Binda laughed loudly. Some heads turned to look. ‘You’ll tell him what?’
‘You’re making improper suggestions to a civilian.’
‘I haven’t even started suggesting what I want to do to you Ben Hood,’
Ben put a finger to his lips. ‘OK. Shut up or you’ll get us both in a great deal of trouble. We’ve got a killer to catch. That’s the priority.’
‘Not for me at this moment.’
‘Then go and have a cold shower or something. I’ve got some photographs to show and Darryl is about to give a briefing.’
‘Is it because I’m Aboriginal?’
Ben looked into her large brown eyes. He put his phone down on the table. He was tempted to take hold of her hands, but that would have been inappropriate. ‘You are beautiful Binda. You are very desirable. I wouldn’t care if you were Chinese. I see you.’
Binda sat back slowly in the collapsible chair. Tears welled in her eyes. She twisted a few strands of her long black hair in the fingers of her right hand. ‘I don’t think another person has ever said something as magic as that to me before… Are you real?’
Ben picked up his phone and selected pre-view mode. ‘I’m here to do a job. Then I’m gone. Is that real enough for you?’
Binda brushed tears away with the back of her hand. She stood up slowly. ‘I guess so.’
“****”