South Pacific Affair Read online

  South Pacific Affair

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 17

  By Drew Lindsay

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © Drew Lindsay 2014

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be produced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the author of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various places/products referenced in this work of fiction which have been used without permission and is by no way sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to the wonderful people living in the Kingdom of Tonga.

  Thank you to Narelle for all the hard work in proof reading and formatting this book for publication.

  Thank you Barbara for running a watchful eye over the manuscript and picking up the mistakes we missed.

  Thank you Anthi from Brandaid for the cover design.

  http://www.brandaidstore.com/en/home

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  Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

  This eBook is licenced for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  “****”

  ALSO BY DREW LINDSAY

  All books are available from eRetailers worldwide

  Coral Sea Affair

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 1

  Black Mountain Affair

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 2

  Flesh Traders

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 3

  The Dead Woman’s House

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 4

  The Men’s Club

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 5

  The Dark Affair

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 6

  An Explosive Affair

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 7

  A Lost Lady

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 8

  Treasure

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 9

  Charlotte’s Fear

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 10

  Dying in Paradise

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 11

  Disorganised Crime

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 12

  Atomic Blonde

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 13

  Gone

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 14

  Subterranean

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 15

  Island Magic

  Ben Hood Thriller Number 16

  To learn more about Drew Lindsay, visit him online at

  http://www.drew-lindsay.com/

  Or at his Facebook page

  http://www.facebook.com/drew-lindsay-author

  “****”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Clyde Engineering Company had occupied a huge tract of land bordering on Duck Creek and Parramatta Road just west of Sydney for many years following World War Two. Initially the company designed and hand built locomotive engines which pulled anything from sugarcane in Queensland to train travellers throughout Australia who could not afford to fly in the days before cheap air fare wars began.

  The Fitting and Machining workshop within the premises of the Clyde Engineering Company employed Design Engineers, Fitters and Turners, Welders, Toolmakers, Electrical Engineers and a variety of men who simply knew how to build powerful diesel electric engines and other components including bogies and steel train wheels. These were incorporated into the locomotives being assembled in another part of the factory. These locomotives were capable of dragging enormous weights along the tens of thousands of kilometres of train tracks throughout Australia.

  The Clyde Engineering Company eventually sold off most of its operation to overseas investors. Australia Post now occupies the site. Huge trucks stacked with mail and parcels come and go. All of them, in the main, reach their intended destination on time with their loads intact.

  Simon Dimple wasn’t the ideal employee of Australia Post. He reluctantly worked at the Clyde depot. He was a bit cranky from the day he started with the Clyde branch of Australia Post because he should have been a supervisor, however the powers that be had placed him beneath a woman of remarkably shapely and ample proportions named Janice King. Janice knew someone in a very senior position within Australia Post and had in fact shared her bed with this “someone” and it wasn’t for the purpose of sleeping. Now she was the supervisor and Simon wasn’t.

  Two teenage girls from the nearby suburb of Granville, wandered along a track which ran past the rear boundary of the Australia Post depot and down to a heavily timbered area on the banks of Duck Creek. Both girls had been drinking and their laughter was somewhat loud. Simon had been sitting alone behind one of the huge red trucks parked at the rear of the main building and he saw the girls walk past. He knew how to get through the rear wire fence as he had sneaked away from work through that fence many times and gone down to sit by the creek. Impulse made him follow the girls. The vague thought of “getting lucky” ran through his mind but was quickly put aside. Even just to chat with them and find out why they were laughing might be a nice distraction.

  Frogs croaked in the deep green water. The croaking ceased as the girls approached. The tallest of the pair picked up a discarded beer bottle and threw it into the water. It bobbed around and floated away with the gentle current. The creek was almost choked in places with bulrushes and weed. Rubbish of every imaginable kind was also choking the creek. It wasn’t a pretty sight. A decent deluge of rain and subsequent flooding was desperately needed to clear out some of this crap but it hadn’t rained heavily in months.

  The shorter girl with long blond hair was about to sit on a fallen log when she heard Simon approaching. She touched her partner on the arm and they both turned.

  ‘I work at the postal depot,’ said Simon. ‘I often come down here in my lunch break.’

  ‘The tall girl faced him defiantly. She had short red hair and several silver rings in her nose and ears. ‘We didn’t invite you so piss off.’

  ‘You don’t own the creek,’ said Simon, smarting from the immediate display of aggression. ‘I just heard you laughing.’

  The tall girl picked up another discarded beer bottle. ‘My friend and I are having a day off school and a bit of a party. You’re not invited.’

  The girl with the long blond hair had taken a seat on the log and was looking into the water. Her head was spinning and she knew her friend could handle the creep. She saw a pure white hand…wrinkled and white. The hand was just beneath the surface of the water but it seemed to be reaching up towards her. The girl rose from the fallen tree trunk and walked to the edge of the creek. She could now see running shoes and two legs and another hand and arm slightly lower in the water. This hand was clenched into a fist.

  ‘Lois.’

  ‘The creep won’t go away,’ said Lois.

  ‘There’s someone in the water.’

  Lois turned. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘There’s a body in the creek and it’s pointing at me.’

  ‘Sit down Poppy. You’ve had too much to drink.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You better come and have a look.’

  ‘I’m not turning my back on the creep.’

  ‘Perhaps he shou
ld take a look,’ said Poppy.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Simon, taking a step forward.

  Lois held up the bottle in her right hand. ‘You come anywhere near us and I’ll smash your head mate.’

  Simon stood still. Lois took careful steps backwards until she was level with her friend. She turned and glanced into the water. Simon didn’t move. ‘Oh shit!’ said Lois.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Simon.

  ‘A dead body,’ said Poppy.

  ‘I should take a look,’ said Simon.

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Lois, walking away from the creek bank. She kept the bottle firmly in her hand.

  Simon walked past the fallen log to the creek bank. He had assumed the girls were playing a trick on him but it was no trick. The right hand of the body was pointing directly at him, white and wrinkled. He could now see the outline of the body and realised that a green plastic bag was tied over its head. Simon had never seen a dead body before. He began to feel quite ill and a few seconds later he stepped back from the edge of the creek, dropped to his knees in the mud and vomited.

  ‘We’re going to call the cops,’ said Lois. ‘Come on Poppy.’

  Poppy stumbled along the track after her companion as they hurried back to the main road. Simon got unsteadily to his feet. He didn’t want to look at the body again but something forced him to do it. The pointing hand moved in the passing current. Simon speculated that the person in the water was still alive but there was no way he was going into that creek. He turned and fled back to the postal depot.

  Many of the well heeled residents of Potts Point, an inner suburb of Sydney, would prefer that they weren’t located geographically adjacent to the suburb of Kings Cross. Kings Cross had become the seedy red light area of Sydney, the home of organised crime, prostitution and drug dealing on a major scale. It had once been a place of culture with theatres and grand dining establishments. The influx of troops from the nearby Garden Island Naval base following World War Two opened up cheap nightclubs and booze halls mixed with the usual associated criminal element. Thus the downward spiral began.

  All of this was a world away from a woman who many thousands claimed was one of the most beautiful women in the world. Her name is Sophia Hunter and she lives with her relatively older but extremely wealthy husband in an opulent Billyard Avenue mansion overlooking Elizabeth Bay, Sydney Harbour. Her home is only a 10 minute walk from the centre of Kings Cross but she had never ventured into that den of iniquity. If she wanted iniquity, she could afford to pay for it in her own home in a style which had long left Kings Cross.

  Sophia was 32 years old, born and raised for all her teenage life in Israel by a Jewish father and an English mother. Her father was involved in “government things” and her mother was a very successful clothing designer. Her father died in a car bomb incident when she was 19. She was never told why someone had felt it necessary to blow up her father. She suspected it had something to do with “government things”. Following the death of her father, she and her mother had suddenly relocated to the mansion in Potts Point, Sydney. Her mother continued to design exclusive and expensive clothing which successfully sold worldwide. Sophia was head hunted by a Lebanese photographer who was introduced to her by her mother. This rather odd and very private man took photographs of Sophia and sold them to magazines and product clients which made them both extremely wealthy. They weren’t pornographic photos although many women over the age of 50 felt they were disgusting. She also competed with her mother in the clothing industry as she was a skilful designer. Actually it wasn’t really a competition as her creations were nothing at all like her mother’s fashion line.

  Sophia was five feet ten inches tall with a body that never failed to attract any man who was not homosexual, and even then, the borderlines would glance at her and admire. She had never dyed her brunette hair and it was always styled a variety of ways from ringlets which cascaded over her shoulders, to a single pony tail at the back, to an elegant swept up style which highlighted her long slender neck. She had soft white skin with a tiny sprinkling of light freckles over her nose. Her eyes were a mixture of hazel and deep grey and anyone looking at her face was immediately drawn to her amazing eyes.

  The detective sitting opposite her was also mesmerised by her eyes. He clasped his hands together and sat back in the thick leather chair. ‘We need you to accompany us to the Glebe morgue for identification,’ he said.

  ‘An identification of what?’ said Sophia in her usual deep sultry voice.

  ‘A body.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to bring this news Mrs. Hunter, but we believe your husband is now deceased.’

  ‘My husband is in Tonga on business,’ said Sophia.’

  ‘When did you last hear from him?’ the detective asked.

  ‘Two days ago.’

  ‘By phone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it an international call Mrs. Hunter?’

  ‘I don’t know. How do you tell these days?’

  ‘Did he sound…anxious?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why was he in Tonga?’

  ‘He imports and exports things,’ said Sophia. ‘He was there on business. I don’t know details.’

  The detective glanced at his female partner and then back to Sophia. ‘Would you mind phoning your husband now?’

  ‘Of course, said Sophia, rising from her lounge chair and walking to a sideboard. She picked up a mobile phone and hit a speed dial number. She was diverted to her husband’s voice mail. Sophia didn’t leave a message. She put the phone in her clutch purse and turned to face the detectives. ‘Why do you think this body you have is my husband?’

  ‘Fingerprint match,’ said the senior male detective.

  ‘My husband has never been arrested and charged with anything in his life,’ said Sophia.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s not told you everything,’ said the male detective.

  ‘You’re making a big mistake,’ said Sophia. She had held her usual calm and casual composure until now but things inside her head were starting to unravel.

  ‘Would you like to call a companion to accompany you?’ asked the male detective.

  ‘No. I’ll go with you. I’m sure this is all a bit of silly nonsense.’

  “****”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Glebe morgue has never been an attractive building. The morgue and associated Coroners Court was not designed to be an outstanding architectural success. The rear section of the huge building handled dead bodies…thousands each year. They were racked up on stainless steel shelves often three high in the ice cold open storage facility. Those destined for a longer stay because of more intensive forensic investigations, were placed in much colder accommodation. The records and processing offices and courts were designed for judicial purposes. It was never intended to be a happy place and it wasn’t. Some of the more flirtatious or adventurous staff working at the morgue were occasionally caught with smiles on their faces. Those smiles had nothing whatsoever to do with their job or the building in which they worked.

  Detective Sergeant Fred Hannam led Sophia into a small viewing area and invited her to sit on a green vinyl bench. The room was softly lit. The main action was to happen outside the viewing window which was now curtained. ‘This is not going to be easy,’ said Hannam.

  ‘Do you think for a minute that I felt it would be easy?’ asked Sophia.

  ‘No. I was just…’

  ‘Let’s get it over with,’ said Sophia.

  ‘The body has been in the water for some days. There are parts of the face missing.’

  ‘Is he naked?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want to see him naked. If it’s my husband, I’ll know immediately.’

  Detective Hannam left the room. There were sounds of movement on the other side of the viewing window. Detective Hannam walked back into the room accompanied with a young female detective. ‘You must be posi
tive Mrs. Hunter.’

  ‘For God’s sake…get him out here.’

  The curtain was opened and bright light illuminated the body. Sophia sucked in a deep breath and put her hands to her face. She stared at the body for a long time. ‘You arsehole,’ she said softly. ‘Got yourself in well over your head this time eh?’

  ‘Is that your husband?’ asked Hannam.

  ‘What’s left of him,’ said Sophia. ‘The tattoo on his left shoulder is unique. The scar over his left breast is unique. Even with bits of his face rotted away, I can still recognise him.’ She turned to face the detective. ‘Someone burnt parts of his penis and testicles.’

  ‘So it would appear,’ said Hannam.

  ‘Torture?’

  ‘I assume so. The autopsy will be done tomorrow. The burns probably didn’t kill him and there are no other signs of recent physical injury. His lungs are full of water. He may have just drowned.’

  ‘Where was he found?’ asked Sophia.

  ‘In a muddy creek behind a postal depot at Clyde.’

  ‘Are you kidding? What would my husband be doing there when he was supposed to be in Nuku’Alofa?’