At the end of the day, I had all the things to go to the Salvation Army in one shed, the things to keep in another, and the contents of Lew’s room and Ned’s personal things on the back of the Land Rover. I also had two large bags of stuff to be thrown away.
I drove home via the shire tip and dumped the bags. Then it was all speed to the Heart of Oak, the pub a few hundred metres from the smithy. I was parked outside, taking out the key, taste of beer in my mouth, when the question came to me.
Why would Ned keep three copies of a newspaper in his drawer? All the other papers were in the shed, tied in neat bundles for the recyclers.
Forgot to throw them out.
No. Everything else in that drawer had a purpose.
I turned the key. Back to the tip. The man was closing the gate as I arrived.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘You want it back.’
The bags were where I’d left them, and the papers were on top of the one I opened.
I took them into the Heart of Oak with me. It was just me and Vinnie the publican and a retired potato farmer called George Beale. Vinnie and George were playing draughts, a 364-day-a-year event contested in a highly vocal manner.
‘Now that’s what I call a dickhead move,’ George was saying as I came in. ‘Told you once, told you a thousand times.’
‘Funny how I keep winnin,’ Vinnie said.
‘Sometimes,’ said George, ‘the Lord loves a dickhead.’
They said Gidday and Vinnie drew a beer without being asked.
The papers were about six weeks old, the issues of a Monday and Tuesday in April and a Thursday in June. The front-page lead in Monday’s paper was headlined: Body in OLD MINE.
I VAGUELY REMEMBERED READING THIS, PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT IT IN THE PUB. THE STORY READ:
Police are investigating the discovery of a skeleton at the bottom of an old mine shaft at Cousin Jack Lead in the State forest near Rippon.
The macabre find was made by Dean Meerdink of Carlisle, whose dog uncovered the shaft entrance and fell about ten metres, landing on a ledge.
‘We were out with the metal detector,’ Mr Meerdink said. ‘Deke was off looking for rabbits and he just vanished. I was calling his name and I heard a faint bark. Then I saw this hole and I thought: he’s a goner. I didn’t want to get too close in case there was a cave-in, so I went back and rang the shire.’
Three CFA firemen with a ladder went to the scene and shone a spotlight down the shaft.
‘The shaft goes almost straight down and then branches off parallel to the surface,’ said CFA fireman Derek Scholte. ‘The dog was fine and I was about to go down when I saw the skull. We called in the police.’
A police spokesman said the remains were human and had been taken to Melbourne for forensic examination.
I turned to Tuesday’s paper. The follow-up story was also on the front page, under the headline: Mine Body Is Young Woman.
It began:
The remains of a body found in an old mine shaft near Rippon yesterday have been identified as those of a young woman.
Melbourne forensic scientist James LaPalma said yesterday the skeleton was that of a woman, probably under twenty. It was at least ten years old. The cause of death had not been positively ascertained but an initial examination suggested that her neck had been broken.
A spokesman for the Victoria Police said the discovery was being treated as a murder. An inquiry was underway.
The third paper, published on a Thursday in June, didn’t have a front-page story on the skeleton in the mine. The story was on page three, under a photograph of a chain with a broken catch. On the chain was a small silver star.
Man’s Chain Find Near Deat h Mine A man fossicking for gold with a metal detector near the mine shaft where the remains of a young woman’s body were discovered last month yesterday found a silver ankle chain police say may belong to the woman.
The man, who does not wish to be identified, found the broken chain about one hundred metres from the entrance to the mine shaft and two hundred metres from the track through the State forest near Rippon.
The story went on to repeat the information in the two previous ones. The police asked anyone who recognised the chain to come forward. I read all three stories again, finished my beer and went home.
I rang the newspaper and asked for Kate Fegan, the name on the stories about the skeleton.
‘Kate, my name’s Milton, Geoff Milton. Canberra Times. I wonder if you can get me up to date on a story you handled about six weeks ago?’
Lying comes easily when you’ve lived my kind of life.
‘Well, sure. If I can.’ She was young, probably just out of her cadetship.
‘The body in the mine shaft. Has that been identified?’
‘No. The teeth are really all they’ve got to go on and they’re no help. She had all her teeth, no fillings. She probably never saw a dentist, so there wouldn’t be any dental records. They’re pretty sure it isn’t someone local. That’s about all.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘There’s no-one missing from around that time. No-one that age.’
‘They’ve put a time on it?’
‘Within a year, they reckon. Around 1985.’
‘How’d they do that?
‘The shire put a track in there in late 1984. Before that you had to walk about five kilometres through dense bush to reach the mine. Then there’s the decomposition. There’s a scientist in Sydney who specialises in that. Reckons no later than 1985 to ’86. Firm on that.’
‘And her age?’
‘Around sixteen. They can tell from the wrist bones.’
I said, ‘So there’s nothing with the remains? Clothes, stuff like that?’
‘Nothing. No trace of clothes or shoes, no jewellery. She was probably naked when she was thrown down.’
‘And the cause of death?’
‘Difficult to say. Her neck was broken. But that might have happened after death. That was in another story I wrote. Are you doing a story?’
‘Just a general piece on missing girls,’ I said. ‘So they don’t hold out much hope of identifying her?’