My name is Daisy Watson. I’m a Yolngu Man. I’m also a private investigator. I got a call this morning from old Thommo. His son is missing. It hasn’t made the papers, yet. The bloody NT News.
“Johnny’s missing,” Thommo says.
“Missing? On the piss missing or gone, lost,” I say.
“He went into Darwin, flew in from Gove with his family. He doesn’t drink like that anymore. Changed for his wife and kids. Stayed in Mitchell St. Motel. The Croc. Kids in one room. Johnny and his missus in the other. She got up in the morning, he was gone. Seven days now. No-one’s seen him.”
My instinct is to say, yakka, no, but I like Johnny. Nobody doesn’t like Johnny. Big, bright, happy man, never stops talking. Next in line to the throne, too.
“You haven’t told the cops yet?” I say.
“What for?” Thommo says.
“I’ll start making enquiries today,” I say. “Three hundred a day, any expenses too. Alright, old man?”
“Old man, you cheeky shit,” he says.
And then.
“This is serious, brother. Johnny’s an elder now, people look up to him. He’s got a family who love him. The whole community misses him. Remember who you are and where you came from, Daisy.”
“I don’t forget. Family back over Gove or still in Darwin?”
“Darwin. Not at the hotel. With some other family in Nightcliff.”
I live in Stuart Park. Five-minute drive to The Croc.
A phone call, first.
“The Croc Hotel, good morning this is Annie.”
“Speak to the Manager, please. Daisy Watson speaking.”
“One minute.”
“This is Tom Norton. I’m the manager. How can I help you?”
“You know who I am?”
“Daisy Watson, one-time Darwin Buffalo’s centre-half-back. Now, gun for hire.”
“We can meet at what time?” I say.
“Straight away works for me. And Mr. Watson,”
“Yeah.”
“What’s this about?”
“Johnny Thompson.”
“See you soon, then.”
I’m staring at an empty chair behind a desk that contains no signs of life. On the wall is a painting of some Brolgas prancing about on a wetlands lake, probably Yellow Waters. This print is in at least one office of every building in Darwin. Mr Norton walks in from behind me and says,
“Gotta be quick, Mr Watson, huge day. We have a function on. Warren Snowden is the guest speaker.”
He sits behind the desk without offering to shake my hand.
“Now.” He says.
“Today’s Friday, right?” I say.
“Yes, Mr Watson. The significance?”
“The significance is that Johnny Thompson and family checked in here last Friday night at 10pm and now he’s missing. His wife and two children are safe. So, my first three questions are: Who checked him in? Who was the night porter on duty? And can I speak to them?”
“Missing, as in presumed dead or just missing?” he says.
“Can I speak to them?’ I say again.
“Yeah, alright. I’ll call you.”
“Two hours, Mr. Norton,” I say as I stand up. “I got a busy day.”
He doesn’t smile.
From my car, I call the phone number that old Thommo gave me for his people in Nightcliff. I want to speak to Johnny’s wife.
“Hello,” a young girl says.
“Can I speak to Nellie Thompson, please?”
I hear the girl call out.
“Daisy’s on the phone for you.”
I thought I was undercover.
“Daisy,” Nellie says, “Old Thommo said you’d help.”
“I’ll try. Now, were you and Johnny fighting?”
“No.”
“Had he been drinking?”
“No. We flew into town from Gove then drove out to South Alligator. Spent three days there. Drove back in and arrived around ten. Put the kids to bed and we both just crashed, exhausted.”
“You can’t tell me anything else? Nothing unusual? Did he gamble? Take drugs? Enemies? Anyone hate him? C’mon, now, Jessie. Johnny’s next in line. Thommo’s like a king.
“You know my Johnny. He’s a beautiful soul, people…I don’t know. I don’t know, Daisy.”
“Powerful man, Old Thommo, I’ll be asking him too. Think hard if you want him back. Anything. I’ll call you back in two hours.”
South Alligator River is about two-hundred-and-fifty clicks east of Darwin. You pass the Bark Hutt Inn you know you’re on the right track.
I call Norton, no time to waste.
“Got those names for me, Norton?”
“Staff will be available tonight at 7pm.”
“Don’t have time to wait. Names and numbers, please, Tom.”
He gives me nothing.
“I can come and make a scene in your lobby if you like. Nice and loud about you being a racist.”
Norton gives me: Elissa Raymond on evening shift last Friday; Ronald Simpson, night porter, who started work at 10pm. Both not working today.
I call Elissa.
Ten minutes later, I’m driving out to Casuarina—a big, flat, expanse of suburbia that could be part of any city in Australia except for the heat and humidity. Dark purple clouds build. The sky rumbles. The promise of rain begins anew. I call Ronald Simpson while driving. I’m moving quickly with this thing. He doesn’t answer. I’ll call him back. I park outside the rented home of Elissa Raymond.
She answers the door wearing old jeans that she took a pair of scissors to, a white singlet, and no bra. Inside, she offers me a cool drink and I accept.
She brings ice water.
“You checked in on Johnny and his family? How were they?”
“Funny, I mean he kept joking with me. Stuff about what a nice hotel it was and what a lovely girl I was. He was nice.”
“No arguments between Johnny and his wife? Kids not getting out of control?” I say. (is he looking around? What’s the place like?
“Nothing. No problems. His wife was smiling. Seemed happy. One of the kids asleep on her shoulder.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“OK. Call me if anything at all comes to mind?”
Elissa looks a little nervous. “One thing, maybe,” she says.
“What’s that?” I say.
“Ronald, when he arrived for work, gave Mr. Thompson, Johnny, a nasty look. But Johnny just smiled back at him. Isn’t so weird though. Ronald’s a pig. Can I get into trouble for…”
“Speak your mind,” I say.
“He’s a racist fuck. Was like Johnny sensed it. But, still, nothing happened after that. They just went to the room, Johnny and the family. I finished work at ten. Went home after.”
“Thanks. Like I said, anything. You call me.”
I get straight into the car and start her up. The aircon cranks out hot air. I’m boiling as I pull out onto Casuarina Drive. A few drops of rain send dirt streaks down the windscreen—but it’s a trick. Too early for the rains. I take all four windows down and head for Parap to see what Ronald can give me. What I need is a last sighting of Johnny. Someone maybe saw him leave at 5 am, or he was sitting outside his room, smoking. One positive ID that I can work from.
Ronald lives five houses down from a milk bar in an old, single storey, weatherboard house. I knock on the door and a dog starts barking its head off, growling like it’ll attack me the second the door opens. A guy in footy shorts and no shirt answers. Opens the door wide enough for the snout of a Rottweiler to push out, teeth fanged, and ready to bite.
“Ronald in there?” I ask.
The guy in the footy shorts says,
“That’s me. You’re Daisy Watson?”
“Yeah. Can I come in?”
“Sure, hang on. I’ll take the dog out the back.”
Inside, I take a seat on an old armchair and sink in further than what’s comfortable. There’s a bong on a small round wooden table. A mull bowl with weed and tobacco mixed together. An old TV and video. Ashtrays overflowing everywhere. It stinks like dog food, stale beer, dope, and deodorant. Add some shit cooking smells to that, too. This dipshit in the footy shorts says to me,
“Dog doesn’t like black people. Haven’t trained it, just the way it is,” he says. (what does he look like, in the face maybe, when he says this?)
“You think that’s a wise thing to say to me?” I ask.
He says,
“You want to ask me about last Friday? The family that checked in just before Elissa knocked off?”
“That’s right. Did you see the man at all during the night? Having a smoke or talking to someone, anything like that?” Ronald stands up and scratches his balls. I shift off the collapsing armchair to sit on a wooden chair next to it.
“Yeah. It surprised me at the time,” he says.
“What did?” I say.
“He was picked up out the front of the hotel, on Mitchell St. Some guy in a muscle car. Big, red, hotted-up car. With the big wheels and all purring loud. There was some huge engine under that hood. I’m not into cars, but this thing was amazing.”
“Did he come back?”
“Didn’t see him if he did.”
“That’s it?”
He doesn’t say anything, so I ask him,
“I heard you gave Johnny a dirty look. Didn’t like him, like you don’t like me.”
“I, uh, I might have,” he says.
“So, you know Johnny Thompson, from where?”
“I have to get some shut-eye. I sleep during the day.”
“You don’t know Johnny Thompson?”
“No, never seen him until the other night,” he says.
He opens the front door with his head bent down like he doesn’t want anything more to do with me.
***
In the car, I take an emergency cigarette out of the glove box. Yeah, you don’t know him. That prick telling me like it’s nothing that his dog hates black people. I slam my hand down on the dry, cracked, dashboard. I call the one connection I have within NT Police.
“Sheila, what can you tell me about Ronald Simpson? I know he’s a bong head but has he been charged with anything?”
“And hello to you too, Daisy,” she says in a sing-song voice
“This is important.”
“I can tell you right now that his old man is Lincoln Anderson.”
“What the fuck? The guy they locked up last year? The one who started the…”
“His own wonderful, homegrown, one-man version of the clan. Stuck a tyre over the head of a fifteen-year-old Aboriginal boy and lit it. Kid survived, if you remember. Ronald thought he might never work in this town again so he changed his name.”
“I guessed it was ingrained in the prick. Listen, I think he may be connected to getting rid of or hiding, Johnny Thompson. I’m gonna stick around here, see what he does.”
“Get some evidence and call it in as fast as you can.”
“I don’t have too many friends in there with you. Make sure they understand this isn’t about me and thanks. I owe you.”
I drive fifty metres up the road from Ronald’s house and do a U-turn. Park the car on the opposite side of the road. I wait and wonder. Is Ronald as stupid as he makes out? To say what he did about that dog to me? Stupid or insane?
One hour goes by. This waiting around isn’t my thing. I see Ronald’s electric back gate open. He pulls out onto Parap Rd. in an old Ford Falcon. Thing still has venetian blinds in the back window, but it’s in shit condition. I follow maybe fifty metres back, three cars behind him. Call old Thommo.
“Thommo, your son have any enemies? I mean serious people. Need the truth, Thommo.”
“You know, Johnny,” Old Thommo says with a croak in his voice, “Loved by one and all and I am serious. He can do no wrong until last Friday.”
“Alright, now listen to this. You remember, Lincoln Anderson?”
“Very well.”
“The boy he did it to. Any connection to Johnny?”
“Anderson’s in jail.”
“I know, again now, any connection to Johnny? Work with me, Thommo. Humour me. Come on, this is for Johnny. Think!”
“Not really, other than the obvious. We’re all family.”
“I’m following his son at the moment. I’ll get back to you.”
My mobile rings.
“Daisy, it’s Jessie Johnson. I thought about what you said. There was this one man back when Johnny lived in Darwin for that dry season to play football for Waratahs. This man, he thought Johnny was keeping him out of the first team. His name was Ron something,” he says.
“Anderson?” I say.
“Yeah. That’s it. Johnny said the guy hated him for it.”
“Thanks, Jessie, that could help. I’m chasing up a lead now. Try and have him home soon.”
I’m following Ronald through Winnellie, along the Stuart Highway. This road, it takes you all the way to Adelaide. They call it ‘The Track.’ There are no speed limits. I follow him past the Howard Springs turnoff and it starts to rain—a steady, heavy rain. Steam rises off the road. There’s a rainbow in every oil spill.
We pass Palmerston. He picks up speed. I hang back, but I’m on him. Might be I spooked him into doing something because I’m doing 110 clicks just to keep him in range. That old Ford Falcon can move.
He slows, takes the Arnhem Highway turnoff. I drive past. Double back fast as I can.
I catch him driving past the Humpy Doo pub. The rain gets heavier and my shirt is plastered to my back with sweat. I back off because there aren’t too many other cars on the road. He turns off just past Produce Rd. A small track.
I wait five minutes, which seems like an eternity, then go down this little track. Ten minutes on, I see the car sticking out from behind a shed. I drive another hundred metres on. Park behind a big old Banyan tree. I open the boot. Take out my wheel brace kit. Take out my Glock .40 pistol. I will blow his fucking head off if I have to.
I walk straight towards the shed. Rain getting heavier. They won’t hear me coming. No way in. One small window. I look in. Johnny’s tied up. Naked. Legs harnessed to the chair. Red ball-gag in his mouth.
A man with curly red hair throws a pale of water over Johnny. Ronald holds a cattle prod. I throw a rock through the window. Run behind the old Ford Falcon. The redhead comes out first. Stands at the entrance to the shed, puffs himself up to full height like a sentinel. I go back to the window. Ronald stands by Johnny. Shotgun tucked under his arm.
I run back to the car, blow out the back windows of the old Ford with a round from the Glock and kneel down behind the car. The redhead moves back inside fast. I hot-wire the Ford—easy as (local cliche) on an old beater like this.
Ready or not, you pricks: I drive straight at the redhead standing in the open door of the shed. His mouth gapes, and he dives out of the way. I plough into the iron shed, taking half the gate with me, Ronald backs away from Johnny. I blow the front window out and take aim at Ronald. The rain pummels down on the steel roof. He looks at me. Thinks about it. Drops the shotgun.
“Put it away, dickhead,” the redhead says from behind.
I figure he’s chicken shit, so I turn and fire off five rounds at his gut and legs. He crumples like a sack of shit.
I call the cops on 000.
“Bring an ambulance,” I say.
Ronald’s hands are behind his back. He whimpers some kind of bullshit to me. I push him to the floor. Take the gag out of Johnny’s mouth.
He kills me when he smiles and says,
“Thanks, brother.”
My gut wrenches at the cigarette burns on his body. Places that should never be burnt. I gather his clothes together, hand them to him while looking away.
I drag Ronald to the chair and strap him in.
I call Thommo,
“Got him, he’ll be home for dinner.”
I pick up the cattle prod.
Ronald begs.
by 
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