Death on Dangar Island

Snake!

‘No, my friend,’ smiled the professor. ‘Understandably, she has left her photo out of her profile. There have been no obvious indications of her sex, but I am almost certain Publicgood is a woman. Just the way she phrases things sometimes makes me think of her as female.’

‘Right,’ said Gary, sounding unconvinced. ‘How do you even know Publicgood is just one person? It could be two or more people using the same Twitter account.’

‘Her voice is very consistent. I’m sure it’s just a single person I’m communicating with, but she may be receiving help getting the information, of course.’

‘She must be pretty high up in the chain.’

‘Yes. She has access to information I find very useful. She’s obviously in a position to pass on counsel from the very core of the New South Wales police organisation. As for her name, I do not know, and I do not wish to know. This way I will never betray her confidence. I trust what she says because it is inevitably proven correct by my own investigations. If she provided me with misleading or false data, then I would no longer place any value on her information.

‘This morning, when we were sitting around waiting to be interviewed by members of the very same police force, it occurred to me that Publicgood may well have information about this incident. Then, after our interview, as we were walking home I received three messages from my “deep throat” with the school photograph of the unfortunate Roxanne attached to the last of them. Does this answer your question?’

‘So you type a question into your phone and this “follower” miraculously comes back with an answer?’

‘She doesn’t always have the information I need, and sometimes it takes days before anything comes back, but that is how I do it, yes.’

‘Well, I’ll be buggered. That is bloody amazing, Iz.’

The professor rolled his eyes. ‘Well, at least now you won’t “go mental”.’

‘Yeah, right.’ The big man stood and yawned. ‘That’s me done. I’m off to bed.’

Less than ten minutes later, Israel could hear snoring buzzing down the corridor. He felt a pang of envy at the ease with which his friend could fall into a deep sleep. The cry of a great spotted cuckoo radiated from Israel’s phone and he glanced down at the screen and sighed. It was a coincidence, but not a particularly welcome one.

The message was from Ashok, a leader of the Sudanese community Israel helped on the Jenkins case. 

After being resettled in Australia, Ashok found work in the 4U chain of convenience stores. He’d proved his worth to his employers and found that he was surprisingly adept at retail work. In three years he’d risen from shelf stacker to store manager.

The store Ashok managed was a highly profitable one with a very large annual turnover. Both turnover and profitability had increased since he’d taken charge, but one particular store in the chain always managed to outperform his own. While Israel didn’t see this as an issue, Ashok most definitely did.

Ashok felt the other store manager must have been doing something to continually outperform him, he just couldn’t figure out what it was. His deepest desire was to receive the award for the best store in the chain. He desperately wanted to walk on stage at the glitzy hotel on the Gold Coast when the end-of-year conference came around. As a result, he consulted the most intelligent man he knew – Professor Israel Wren.

Two weeks previously Israel had reluctantly agreed to consider the problem for him. Looking back down at the screen, he sighed and tapped out a reply promising he would look into it soon.