Vanishing Point

A
lan Moore is the younger son of a Methodist minister who started his working life as a missionary in southern Africa. Alan owes much of his interest in fictional writing to his mother who encouraged imaginative writing early in his life. He completed his early education in South Africa before marrying Rosemary in 1965 and within a month the couple migrated to Australia.

He completed a PhD in geology while teaching at Adelaide University. He worked as a geologist, both at universities and in industry. He has published widely in international scientific journals but this is his first published work of fiction. For eight years he worked as a resource analyst for an investment bank prior to retiring to write. He and his wife are immensely proud of their two surviving daughters and four grandchildren.

Published in Australia by Sid Harta Publishers Pty Ltd, 
ABN: 46 119 415 842

23 Stirling Crescent, Glen Waverley, Victoria 3150, Australia

Telephone: +61 3 9560 9920, Facsimile: +61 3 9545 1742

E-mail:
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First published in Australia April 2009

This edition published May 2011

Copyright © Alan C. Moore 2009

Cover design, typesetting: Chameleon Print Design

The right of Alan C. Moore to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to that of people living or dead are purely coincidental.

The information in this book is based on the author's personal experiences and opinions. The publisher specifically disclaims responsibility for any adverse consequences which may result from use of the information contained herein.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Moore, Alan C.

Vanishing Point
ISBN: 978-1-921362-40-8

Digital Edition pubished by

Port Campbell Press

www.portcampbellpress.com.au

ISBN: 9781742980652 (Epub)

Conversion by Winking Billy

To the late Martin Heemskirk whose inspiration and imagination persuaded me to put my ideas into writing. I also thank my wife, Rosemary, for her great patience and Amy, my editor, for her many suggestions to improve the story.

B
arry Raymond von Wildemann took another swig of his beer. He perched on the edge of the bar stool at Fitzroy Crossing Hotel staring at the counter on which lay a small piece of newsprint. He looked at the fragment, torn from a page of the Courier Mail he'd picked up before hitching a lift with a friendly truckie at Tennant Creek. He smiled to himself as he pondered whether or not to keep it. Probably not. There was a small chance that it could fall into the wrong hands. Better that it disappear like Barry himself. He wanted new associates to know him only as Karl, Karl Brudos. It was a name stolen from a driller he had met once and he had used previously. It was clean, so it would do very nicely, especially since the real Karl was dead. He looked again at the headline, ‘Court bungle as evil rapist escapes'. He smiled to himself. Thank goodness for bungles and the stupidity of the court system. It was not the first time he had been involved with the Queensland legal system. After forcing his way into a woman's home and viciously assaulting her, he had been caught and found guilty of aggravated rape.

Thinking back he scowled. It was a joke, a sick joke and that bloody bitch had lied. Yes, he had assaulted her but there certainly was no rape. Not that he hadn't tried. Just that the excitement of having her at his mercy was too much and he came in his pants. In embarrassment he took it out on her. She lied, the bitch lied and said he'd raped her and his shame prevented him admitting his failures in open court. That meant two years in gaol. Two tough years. Now, as 1962 drew to a close, he had no desire to return to Boggo Road. Mind you, it could have been worse. Much of the charge had been thrown out because his clever lawyer had argued entry through an open window did not constitute ‘break and enter.' Clever bastard he was, some law back in eighteen hundred and something. The court decided a crowbar was not an ‘offensive weapon' so in the end it was just assault. And rape. Only it wasn't that. Never should've gone anywhere near the prison but for the rape charge.

Within three months of his release he breached the conditions of his parole and, armed with a knife, he bound and gagged a young married woman who was at home with two babies. And raped her. No mistakes this time. Served the time, may as well do the crime. According to the newspaper article, the sentencing judge said, ‘… you have exuded a sense of latent and only barely concealed violence that does not bode well for your future, nor that of the community when released.'

In spite of his offences, the judge's comments and his refusal to attend a sex offenders program while in prison the court saw fit to release him pending an appeal. Released under an extended supervision order Barry fled the city and the state. Despite widespread newspaper and radio notices he managed to travel west to Roma and traversed the Queensland outback without being recognised. Hitched rides with truckies through the Northern Territory brought him unnoticed to and across the border into Western Australia.

Reluctantly he scrunched up the newspaper cutting and threw it into the nearby bin overflowing with cigarette butts, bottles and trash. ‘Time to start over and find a place to disappear. Where I can be anyone I like. From now on I'll be Karl and Karl will be me.'

* * *

Barry grew up in country Queensland, the youngest of ten children. His home of five rooms made of corrugated iron had a floor of crushed termite mounds. Well acquainted with poverty he saw how his mother led her hard life, cooking on an old wood stove and washing for the family in a large copper out of doors with the help only of his older sisters. Water supply depended on the rain and, while his mother had been a caring woman, the tough life and many children took their toll. She died before he was six. His father, rarely home, was a bullying alcoholic who both beat and abused his children, especially when money was tight and that was much of the time. At twelve Barry ran away and started earning a living by sewing jute bags and filling them with charcoal. It was used during the war in gas-driven vehicles when petrol was rationed.

Later he worked as a fencer on cattle properties near Cloncurry in far north Queensland. A large number of dingoes and wild dogs, offspring of feral domestic farm dogs and dingoes, plagued one of the properties where he was involved in fencing. The owner asked if he could set traps and shoot the dogs killing his cattle. It was the start of his existence as a dogger. Now, in his mid thirties, it seemed it was the only life he had ever known. It was a lonely life, far from the social activities of town and city, but at the time he was happy enough with his own company; he found relating to people in general very difficult and with women he remained particularly awkward.

Once or twice when he'd been in town he'd tried to be friendly towards a couple of the women in the hotel lounge. He'd stood at the adjoining bar, from which women were banned, and watched through the glass doors as other men approached them. To him they were pretty, although most knew them as the local prostitutes. With heavy make-up, scarlet lips and enough baubles to make a Christmas tree jealous they laughed coarsely with the men before linking arms and walking out together. Summoning up as much courage as he could Barry cautiously approached the women on different occasions and, on each, had been so briskly and embarrassingly rebuffed that he developed a real angry antagonism towards all women. He never forgot the laughter of the men at the bar when the story was circulated within his earshot.

After that he took to drinking alone in a park, resenting both his loneliness and his lack of success with women. Whisky eased the pain. He started smoking marijuana, readily available even though illegal. It was after an evening of whisky and drug induced self-loathing that he had passed the house with crates near the garage. A crowbar together with the open window seemed to be an opportunity. Inside a woman was on her own, unpacking paper-wrapped crockery. She'd started it all and once more he found himself in serious trouble with the law.

* * *

Barry von Wildemann had walked into the Fitzroy Crossing Hotel bar and now Karl Brudos walked out. He picked up his bag containing his few possessions and headed off to the truck stop, certain he would soon be travelling south where he could resume his career as fencer, dogger, jackaroo or whatever was needed of him. He just had to remain anonymous.

A
lec and Katherine's second-hand VW Kombi bounced along the dog fence track heading west. Its current indeterminate colour hid the tan brown colour and reflected an uneven coating of fine dust from the reddish sands that spread along the track and out to the horizon. As the sun sank lower into the sky, Alec found it increasingly difficult to squint through the dirty windshield. The corrugated track, two uneven paths made by the wheels of traffic and separated by a small sand ridge, did not make driving any easier.