Death on Dangar Island

Sunday Morning

They were beautiful; the flamboyant lorikeets, the raucous cockatoos,the sea eagle as it soared above.

In a small clearing on Dangar Island, Professor Israel Wren smiled up at the impossibly colourful lorikeets as they flitted about, high up in an old gum tree. Their bright orange chests and beaks contrasted with the vivid indigo blue of their heads and the bright green of their wings and necks. He squatted, motionless, on a sun-warmed rock in a grassy patch, hemmed in on all sides by thick eucalypt forest. He closed his eyes for a moment and the sounds of the birds filled the shadows and spilled out into the sunshine. On the forest floor near the rock, four fat, white cockatoos waddled across the grass. Every now and then the largest one would crane its neck, arch its sulphur-yellow crest and caw crankily at the others. The eagle circled the sky above, an effortless silhouette suspended on a thermal current as it watched and waited.

For a moment the glade quietened, leaving only the faint chirrup of cicadas.

Then, a shock. The harsh mating call of a lilac-breasted roller belonged in Africa, not Australia.

He reached for his top pocket.

It was Gary.

‘What can I do for you, my friend?’

‘Iz, get down here quick as you can. You’ll want to see this before the cavalry arrive.’

‘What is it?’

‘A girl … a dead girl …’

Israel straightened his slight frame and scampered back down the dirt track, his mind in overdrive. ‘Where is she?’

‘Nearby – come back to the house and you’ll see us.’

‘Yes, I am coming now.’

There was nothing else to say. Gary Warburton was an ex-lifeguard and ambulance officer with years of experience. Israel knew at least two things already: the girl was definitely dead, and the authorities were already alerted and on their way.

The professor did not question his friend’s impulse to phone him: he had a history with police investigations and, while his formal qualifications were academic, he’d something of a knack when it came to people – dead people in particular.

Gary fretted in the middle of the track in front of their rented house on Bradley’s Beach. The usual slump in his shoulders was gone and his tall frame jerked from side to side like there was a current running through him. ‘She’s here.’

Without waiting for the professor to reach him, he spun on his heel and stepped over a low clump of spinifex near the edge of the beach. Israel followed, and found him standing protectively over the figure of a young woman curled up on the sand.

Clad in a red miniskirt and a black tank top, she lay on her side, halfway to the foetal position.

‘Hmm,’ Israel’s voice was deep with regret, the sound vibrating out from the very back of his throat. He stepped closer and looked her over with something approaching reverence.

She had raven black hair, and her face was covered with thick makeup. She stared back at him blankly, through heavy mascara, her marble-glazed eyes oblivious of his presence.

Gary edged closer and knelt down near her legs. ‘Looks like a snakebite.’ He pointed to a pair of puncture marks in the fleshy part of her calf.

Without a word, Israel retrieved the phone from his pocket, knelt down and held it sideways to the puncture marks, using a ruler marked on the case to judge the distance between them. His eyes drifted up her calf muscle to the tattoo. Two snakes entwined in a double helix circled her lower leg, their mouths meeting in lust or violence.

‘The poor thing. The poor thing,’ he muttered, as he moved around the body, taking a series of photos; his gestures careful and respectful, his tongue making a sucking noise against his teeth.

Finally, he put the phone down and rested the back of his hand against her forehead. 

Gary shook his head. ‘She’s cold. Been dead for a while, I reckon.’

‘In your career did you attend to many snakebites?’

‘Snakebites? Well, nah, not really. I was trained to treat them, though.’

The professor looked up at his friend. ‘Are you sure this girl died from a snakebite?’

Gary shifted his powerful frame, scratched at his thatch of silver-blond hair and narrowed his eyes. ‘Yeah. Looks like it, mate.’

Israel had always been uncomfortable with the Australian term ‘mate’. It brought to mind the act of procreation. He bent closer and took another photo of an unusual piercing running through the dead girl’s lower lip.

‘I am not sure this unfortunate young woman did die from snakebite, my friend.’

‘The cops won’t like that, Iz –’

‘Oi! Don’t touch that. Move away from the body.’

The voice came from a few metres away. Gary and Israel both looked up sharply as a uniformed police constable strode across the sand towards them.