The Spindle

By Drew Lindsay

18 year old Simon Chapman and his motorcycle mysteriously vanished from a NSW Country town. Previously, a severe storm had caused considerable damage in the town. There were vague reports of a meteorite hitting a property near the town. An elderly woman claimed it was a flying saucer. She was later admitted to an institution for those who require mental care. So, what happened to Simon Chapman and his motorcycle?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Drew Lindsay
• Release date: Sep 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215229828

Drew Lindsay

Drew Lindsay is a dynamic Australian Novelist and Writer. He has travelled extensively throughout Australia and the world. His background includes working as a Policeman and detective, then managing his own private investigation business as well as working in Fraud Investigation Management positions within the insurance industry.Drew is a PADI Divemaster and holds a private pilot's license. He has a great love of entertaining others with his vivid imagination. His novels allow the reader to escape into worlds of romance, excitement, humour and fast paced adventure. Drew lives in northern New South Wales with his wife.

Book preview

I know you’re not going to believe what I’ve written, but I swear, it’s true. At least I think it’s true because it was told to me by a reasonably reliable person. Having said that, this person was in her late 70’s and declared somewhat crazy by a psychiatrist of reasonably high standing in the north-west of New South Wales, Australia. That is where this all happened.

The old lady who told me about this, wasn’t declared crazy at the time we spoke. That came later when she started to forget things and had to go into an institution. They kept her locked in her room because she became violent and started throwing things at the other patients. It started with pillows and plastic flowers. Later she resorted to bed pans and food trays. That’s when they locked her away and kept a watchful eye on her. Her name was Jill Monk. I always thought that was an odd name for a woman. Jill Monk. When I knew her, she called herself Jillian. That was probably her full name but when she went into the institution, she insisted she be called Jill. If anyone called her Jillian, she would tell them that they were obviously referring to someone else.

She might be dead now. I’ll have to check. She doesn’t have a phone and last time I tried to visit her at the institution, she refused to see me.

About ten years ago, a local resident of Billabong, the name of the Australian country town where Jill Monk lived, vanished. He was 17, going on 18. His name was Simon Chapman. He was there one day and gone the next, along with his motorcycle. According to Jill Monk, only one person actually knew what happened to Simon. The local policeman, but he never acknowledged that. His report was vague and contained, in the main, efforts by the police to locate Simon Chapman, all to no avail. A farmer by the name of Brian Kennedy was supposed to have some idea what happened to Simon, but he refused to be formally interviewed and has remained silent concerning the matter.

Jill Monk painted a picture in my head surrounding the events leading up to the disappearance of Simon Chapman. How she got this information, in such vivid detail, remains a mystery. I’ll attempt to relay what she described concerning unusual events that happened in a New South Wales country town called Billabong. You can then make up your own mind if any of this might be true.

****

Chapter One

To start with, let me describe Billabong. I won’t drag this out. I hate padding in novels, don’t you? I’ve picked up thick paperback novels that my fingers could hardly hold. Lots of characters and lots of plots and semi-plots and this and that. Many of the authors of these massive works of literary verbology (I made that word up) are well known and seem to have little else to do in their lives but pound out an endless string of words on their computer. Mind you, some get paid reasonably well for their efforts, and their agents and editors probably get a lot more.

Some well-known writers even have the gall to put their name all over a new release, and in fine print at the bottom of the cover, reveal who actually wrote the damn thing, while they sit back and count the royalties.

Shame on them.

Now where was I?

Oh yes. Billabong. About 85 kilometers south of the Queensland border and about 160 kilometers west of the Pacific Ocean. Rural land in the main but semi-tropical. A huge mountain range swept up from the east, towards the coast and turned north-east before it dwindled away to rolling hills. The town of Billabong is fairly close to the foothills in the mountains, but the majority of it is closer to the fertile farming plains further east. The town is sort of spread out, with shops and even a small supermarket in what the locals called the CBD. That was a bit of a local joke because the CBD in the big towns and cities was the Commercial Business District.

Three pubs in Billabong, all in the main street which was Wattle Street. The pubs were actually hotels and had rooms for rent above the bars and restaurants and gaming rooms on the ground floors.

One pub was notorious for regular fights between the men who worked on outlying sheep properties and others who worked the cattle. One may ask why these men from totally different commercially structured farming environments, would regularly choose to encounter each other at one particular pub in Billabong, when they had two others to choose from. That is another story, and won’t be told in this one.

Tourists came and went to Billabong. There are two motels. Neither are worth writing home to mum about. The walls were paper thin. Bed mattresses sagged where numerous bodies had laid…some larger than others. The air conditioners rattled and snarled in competition with tiny bar fridges. There was always complimentary mold in the tiny bathrooms, especially the showers. The carpets were stained with a variety of…fluids.

There is a bakery and café combined, situated in the main street. Mr. Jarman owns and runs that establishment with his Indonesian wife, Made Mary by name. Made indicating that she is the second born in her Indonesian family and Mary, because that is what Luke Jarman called her. Made Mary does most of the cooking, especially baking the bread. Mr. Jarman did a bit of drinking. Quite a lot of drinking actually, but Made Mary kept the business running.

There is a sports store. The nearby lake attracts fishermen and women. The sport store sells bait and fishing gear. The owner, an ex-Vietnam veteran rejoicing in the name of Stephen Mould, also does tattoos of reasonable appearance depending on how much alcohol he had consumed. His best work was done when he was as drunk as a skunk.

A garage and mechanical workshop are located at the far end of the town. It is owned and operated by Bill Taylor. I could write a book about Bill Taylor and his rather dubious exploits, but I won’t. Suffice to say, he had served time in prison for offences involving young boys. In prison, he had been beaten rather severely. Part of his left ear had been bitten off and his nose had been broken. Contrite and without his former youthful looks, he left prison and returned to Billabong where he attempted to restore what was left of his father’s petrol station and workshop. His father died around the same time. Word was that Bill buried his father on the property at the back of the house and garage. Funerals were expensive. Mervin worked hard to build up the business. He also sold and hired boats. Not big boats, just little fishing boats he picked up from here and there and restored. He had three rental cars in reasonable condition.

He bought some equipment to use in the mechanical workshop. A bench mounted electrical drill and a small lathe. Sometimes it was easier to make a broken mechanical part than to try and have it replaced, especially in old vehicles and in particular, farm equipment. Mervin had no real aptitude for working with machines that made things from metal. That is where Simon Chapman comes into the picture, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Just hold that thought.

Four churches. Roman Catholic, Uniting, Baptist, and Anglican. The Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses and Muslims had been strictly denied access to build anything by the local council, and were doing their thing in a few private homes, but hatching their own plans for expansion, in private.

The Baptist church had seen better days and most of its usual congregation of 12, were on their last legs. It had been suggested that they amalgamate with the Uniting Church and pull down the old Baptist church to make way for a multi-denominational, Pentecostal style church. That proposal on its own, caused one of the 12 Baptists to have a heart attack and die on the footpath outside the ANZ bank. Not that anyone in the bank could have assisted the poor man. The bank had ceased business and closed its doors almost a year before.

The hairdresser did men’s and ladies’ haircuts, colouring and styles with varying degree of success. She also did nail painting and unqualified podiatry. Her shop was two doors down from the café and bakery. Her name was Gail Savage. Her shop was prominently displayed by signage as Savage Hairdressing and Nail work. Gail had been approached on numerous occasions to re-consider her business signage. Gail was 35, tall and extremely well built for a female. Her physical attributes were as strong as her mental ones. She was divorced, had no children, and was considered by the more conservative and elderly members of the community, to be a little mad.

Now to the butcher. (I’ll get to the candlestick maker in a moment).

Jack Norman. 58 and strong as a horse. A triple heart bypass operation in Sydney three years ago, hadn’t slowed him down. Claimed when he suffered a massive heart attack and died (according to him) that he saw angels, coming to take him home. The fact that he suffered this heart attack in the Coffs Harbour hospital while undergoing minor hemorrhoid surgery and was immediately air lifted to the Cardiac Unit of the Royal North Hospital, where he made a full recovery, has seemed to have escaped his mind.

But he is a good butcher. He knows how to source the best meat and chicken in the district. Kangaroo and rabbit are always available. He once advertised Koala meat. The local council shut him down for three weeks until he made a public retraction of that ad.

Jack had a wife in the early days. Her name was Roslin. She was a nervous kind of woman. Born and bred in Mosman, Sydney. Some say she was an athlete. A strong swimmer.

Jack found her hanging by an old rope, around her neck, in their garage. It was after her 30th birthday. She stood on a chair with the rope around her neck…and jumped off.

It was rumored that she had engaged in an affair with Bill Taylor. That was never admitted or proven.

Anyway, let’s get off the township of Billabong. There isn’t much more to describe…other than the palm reader, fortune teller and dealer in magic crystals. That caught you by surprise, didn’t it? She rented a rather dilapidated shed at the side of Mervin Fay’s garage. It was a skinny shed, perhaps less than 8 feet wide and 15 feet deep. Old timber floorboards and timber lined walls and ceiling. She had built display shelves from old packing cases and pallets. There was no electricity. Her displays were illuminated by kerosene lamps. Lots of old books and little plastic figurines of goblins and fairies. Candles and incense sticks were piled on top of timber shelves. Wind chimes hung in profusion. She had old tea pots and cups which were chipped. Worth nothing, unless something made you buy what she had. Her name is Vera. 71 years old. A German/Jew, as I recall. Very attractive woman. Married once. Now single with an extremely private life but an uncanny ability to predict the future of anyone silly enough to believe her.

Sixty-three domestic houses in and around the town at last count in 2023. Eighteen vacant.

There is a police station at the end of the main street if you could call it that. Two cells. One reception area which is hardly occupied. The police residence is part of the police station. Senior Constable Paul Higgins and his wife Maureen, live there with their 18 old month baby, darling Willow Higgins, who seems on occasion to scream louder than the siren on Senior Constable Higgin’s four wheel drive police vehicle.

Paul Higgins is reasonably pro-active as a country policeman, but he doesn’t go out of his way to wave the blue and white flag. He’s in his mid-30’s. Missed out on a posting to Lord Howe Island, which didn’t sit well, but he does his job, and he keeps the peace. He’s a big man. 6’3 in the old measurement. That’s 191 centimetres. Thick set and most of that muscle. You wouldn’t want to physically tangle with this guy. The fact that the rather petite Maureen only has to look at him with that look" to reduce him to an extremely vulnerable individual, is not something generally known in Billabong.

I need to tell you about Simon Chapman. I need to tell you where he lives and about his family, and what he does and eventually, what happens to him, although you’ll