True to his word, as soon as they got home Gary made Israel sit down at the kitchen table and started to grill him. If he was going to get dragged into one of Israel’s crusades again, then he felt it was only fair that he should have all the facts. ‘Look, mate, we’ve known each other a fair while and you know you can trust me, so why not just tell me who’s feeding you this information?’
‘I am doing this for your own good, Gary. The less you know about it the better. If there is trouble from it then I don’t want you to be included.’
‘Spare me the mollycoddling, Israel. Stop holding out on me, and just tell me before I start going mental!’
‘All right, all right. Once you invoke the perilous state of your mental health, you make me choose the lesser of two evils. As it seems that you must know in order to avoid a nervous breakdown, I will tell you. Come here for a moment.’
They sat side by side and the professor held his phone out in the space between them. His finger hovered over a small blue square with the image of a white bird on it. ‘I know you feel that Twitter is a method of communication used exclusively by egotistical people to broadcast every small detail of their lives. I will now show you why you are wrong. I use Twitter primarily to monitor subjects that interest me and I very rarely say anything at all. There was an occasion recently, however, in which I found that I did want to say something, and it worked out remarkably well. I was interested in finding out more about our friend Mr Jenkins.’
The image of a heavy, dark man with reptilian eyes came to Gary and he shivered with revulsion. He’d only seen the man on television, but what he knew disgusted him. The previous year, while Wendy was sick, Israel had been involved in investigating a series of untimely and violent deaths in Sydney’s Sudanese community. Over a period of two months, three young Sudanese men were found murdered on the streets of western Sydney. Eventually, the police arrested another young Sudanese – a refugee Israel had been mentoring. Thanks to one of Israel’s little crusades they ended up arresting a different person altogether. That person was the corrupt Mr Jenkins, a now former member of the New South Wales police force.
‘As you remember, I was suspicious of Mr Jenkins’s activities in relation to my refugee friends, and I wanted to garner as much information as I could about him. I needed particular intelligence to help me corner this man but I did not know where to acquire the relevant facts. Out of frustration, I turned to Twitter. I tweeted a delicately worded question with no expectation I would receive a response, as I have very few followers. Luckily for me, one of them re-tweeted my query to their thousands of followers.
‘I received a response two days later from someone whose handle is @thepublicgoodNSW. This response turned out to be very helpful. The phrasing I used to couch the question could only have been understood by someone else with an intricate knowledge of the case. From there I had the starting point I needed, and a week later the information provided by the person calling herself @thepublicgoodNSW proved the case against Mr Jenkins. He was arrested that day.’
Gary’s face soured a little. ‘So who exactly is this person, and how does she get this info? And for that matter, why would you trust her?’
‘That is an interesting series of questions you raise, my friend. Publicgood’s Twitter biography is A servant of the public, acting in the interests of the people of NSW. More cryptically, however, the next line is the old quotation from Lord Acton, Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think this gives the strongest clue to her motivations. She’s intent on “keeping the bastards honest”, as I have heard some Australians say.’
Gary couldn’t help grinning at the way Israel’s plummy, formal speech contrasted with the old Aussie political slogan. ‘You keep referring to Publicgood as “her”. How do you know Publicgood is a woman? Don’t tell me she’s got a profile picture up there?’
‘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.
Gary’s buzz-saw snores reminded him that it was time to get some rest himself. He checked the doors, turned out the lights and headed to his room. Just as he was preparing to curl up with a good book, a piercing shriek penetrated the night.
‘What the bloody hell was that?’ Gary roared from the room next door.
Israel hopped out of bed, pulled on some shorts and danced out of the room. The time on his phone read 23.24.
Quick to rest and quick to rise, Gary was already out the front door and heading towards the gate. Israel called out to him but his voice was drowned by another ear-splitting scream.
As he rushed out into the dark, he saw the outline of a person on the track. Gary reached the shaking form and immediately put his arm around it. When Israel arrived, he found Dorothy had been the source of the disturbance.
‘Snake,’ was all she could manage to say, over and over again. ‘Snake, snake, snake!’
She was still shaking in Gary’s arms and pointing back in the direction of her front door, which was hanging ajar.
‘You’re safe with us now, love. You’re safe with us,’ soothed Gary.
Israel was already on the phone. He always kept the number of the animal rescue service WIRES in his contacts. As he was waiting to be put through to someone who dealt with reptiles, he made the mistake of taking a couple of steps towards the open door.
‘No – don’t!’ screeched Dorothy. ‘It’s still in there!’
Israel stepped back from the open door, more for fear Dot would scream again than from any threat a snake might pose. Snakes held no fear for Israel. He knew what to do if he saw one – run! A minute or two later he was transferred to a representative of the Hawkesbury Herps, a local organisation dedicated to caring for reptiles. After a brief conversation, the man on the other end of the line gave instructions to close Dot’s front door and leave the snake alone. He said he would come out on the first ferry in the morning and relocate the creature.
After telling the others the plan, Israel helped Gary guide Dot through the dark to their house. Once inside, he secured the door and Gary put the kettle on so they could all have a nice, calming cup of tea.
‘So, what happened in there, Dot?’
For a moment she looked as if a new bout of hysteria was about to descend, but the safe surroundings and the sound of a kettle being boiled calmed her enough to summon a complete sentence. ‘Well, I was just checking all the doors were locked when I saw it come out from behind the table in the hall. It was huge, probably the biggest snake I’ve ever seen.’
‘What colour was it?’
‘I don’t know – I didn’t hang around to find out. You probably heard me scream when I saw it for the first time.’
Gary grinned as he poured the tea out into mugs. ‘Probably? I reckon people in New Zealand heard you when you saw it for the first time, Dot.’
‘Do you think it was the same one? You know, the one that got that young girl?’
Israel shook his head gently and smiled. ‘I would be very, very surprised if it was the same snake, Dorothy.’
Dot’s shoulders gave another little shiver as she accepted the tea gratefully. ‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Well, let’s just wait and see what the animal rescue officer says when he gets here,’ he responded evasively.
Dot seemed upset by the idea that the snake needed ‘rescuing’. ‘Shouldn’t we be getting in someone who’ll get rid of this thing for good?’
‘Oh no. I don’t believe it is the fault of the snake that he happened to find his way into your house. He just needs some assistance so he can find his way home. Do not worry yourself, Dorothy. What does it matter as long as the animal is removed and does not return?’
‘Yeah, it’s the “does not return” bit that worries me. What if it comes back and I end up as another victim?’ A quaver returned to her voice.
Gary stepped in to reassure her. ‘Not a worry, Dot. I reckon that snake bloke’ll take the thing clean off the island. There’s no chance it’ll come back.’
When Dot wasn’t watching, Israel frowned and nodded his head towards the kitchen. Once they got there, he stood close to Gary and spoke quietly. ‘It’s not whether it comes back but how it got there in the first place that concerns me.’
‘What? You reckon someone slung a snake into Dot’s house? What on earth for?’
Israel looked back across the kitchen to the lounge where Dot sat quietly sipping her tea. ‘That is a very good question, my friend. A very, very good question.’