Nimbin Rocks

Nimbin Rocks

A Poppa Roy Mystery

Copyright 2017 R. Addams

Published by R D & C Sporne/R Addams

First edition: July 2017

ISBN 978-0-6480095-5-9

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Table of contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

About the author

Also by R Addams

Acknowledgements

Disclaimer

Prologue

The town of Nimbin lies in the north of New South Wales, in Australia, just south of the border with Queensland. As such it has a semi-tropical climate and the surrounding areas are green and lush.

Traditionally it was a milk producing area and most of the farms were small dairies, but this all changed in 1973.

The Australian Union of Students organised annual festivals, starting in Sydney in 1970, then Melbourne and Canberra. In 1972 a group of the student organisers set out to find a location for the fourth festival, somewhere which would foster free thinking and an alternative lifestyle. They chose Nimbin and in 1973 between 5,000 and 10,000 people descended on the town for the Aquarius Festival.

Following the festival, many of the visitors stayed and established homes in the Nimbin and the immediate area and in other small towns nearby. In many cases these were hippy communes, involving group living, giving Nimbin a reputation for supporting counter-cultures of any type.

People looking to escape the more formal lifestyle of cities like Sydney and Melbourne flocked to Nimbin and within 10 years the original Aquarians were far outnumbered by the continuing influx of disaffected urbanites and tree-changers, drawn to the area by the life-style, climate and the general ambience.

As a consequence Nimbin has a reputation for being free-thinking and different, and thousands of visitors visit the town each year to soak up some of this.

But, is there a more sinister side to Nimbin, a dark side?

Poppa Roy lives in the city of Lismore, about 40 kilometres from Nimbin and one day he was asked to assist in the locating a missing teenager, a young girl from Adelaide who was last known to be heading to Byron Bay and Nimbin. It was not known if she was a runaway or if she was being held somewhere against her will, or even if she had ever arrived in either town.

Using his unorthodox methods and with the help of journalist Sue Weissman, Poppa Roy was able to determine the whereabouts of this girl and another girl who was also missing, and under similar circumstances.

Poppa Roy’s enquiries lead him to a counter-culture cult, one of a few established in the area, and this novel reveals the nature of the cult and describes the process of the investigation and the attemped rescue.

Chapter 1

The telephone is ringing.

Hello, Roy Addams speaking, how can I help?

Mr Addams, Roy. Ray Phipps here. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m with the Police Department in Lismore.

Yes, I remember Ray Phipps. I first met him a few years ago, then again last year when I was involved in the Skye Burrows case.

Yes, Detective Phipps. I remember you. We worked together on the Skye Burrows case last year. How can I help?

Ray Phipps was quiet for almost a minute, and then said quietly, "Mr Addams, we are investigating the disappearance of another girl, a young woman actually. She is eighteen. As far as we can establish, she disappeared in Nimbin. Do you know the town?

Well yes, I know Nimbin. Probably not as well as I know many other towns but I’ve been there a few times, and I think I may still have one or two contacts there. But I haven’t seen anything on the internet about a missing girl locally. How long has she been gone?

I have been going to Nimbin for years, usually showing visitors from interstate around the area. But I can see no value in telling Phipps this.

That’s part of the problem actually Mr Addams. We don’t really know. Caroline Simpson is from Adelaide and her parents knew she was on a break, back-packing down the east coast. Apparently, Caroline called home regularly, so they know when she arrived in, and left Cairns, Airlie Beach and a few other places. The last call they received was three weeks ago, saying she was heading down to Byron Bay, then on to Nimbin. Then nothing. So, effectively she could have been missing for up to three weeks, and anywhere from Byron Bay to Nimbin. Because it’s all a bit vague we’ve kept it low key as far as public announcements are concerned, but we’re about to issue a press release and a picture soon, hoping to jog someone’s memory.

Okay Detective Phipps, so, an eighteen-year-old young woman is apparently missing and may have been so for a few weeks, in Byron or Nimbin, or somewhere else in the general area. Now, where do I come in?

Well Mr Addams, you are possibly the only person I can think of who may be able to use whatever powers you have to find out if she is in fact there, in Byron or Nimbin, and if she is in any sort of trouble. Short of doing a door to door on each and every house in the total area, I don’t know how else we could determine that information.

And how does your boss feel about you talking to me and my possibly being involved?

There was some concern with Ken Woods, Phipps’s boss when I became involved in the Skye Burrows case.

In all honesty, Mr Addams, I haven’t discussed it with him yet, or anyone else for that matter. Although I would need to let the parents know something to explain how we may end up knowing where she is and if she is okay but no more. But, after our success in the Skye Burrows case, I’m sure Ken Woods would come around.

I have my doubts but I keep them to myself.

Okay Detective Phipps, over to you. Where do we go from here?

I assume you might want a picture of Caroline and whatever details we have of her movements. If you’re home this afternoon, I can drop them off. And I assume you still live in the same place in East Lismore.

Yes, yes I suppose I will, and yes, I’m still in the same house.

We finish the call, agreeing that he will bring whatever he has to my house at two pm, which is in about four hours’ time.

After I return the telephone hand-set to its cradle, I head into my study and my trusty computer. Firing it up, I open Google and type in the name Caroline Simpson.

My search engine tells me there are 610 entries for someone named Caroline Simpson in Facebook, plus others on LinkedIn and other similar sites. I need to refine my search, so I type in Caroline Simpson, Australia. This time there are only eleven entries in Facebook so I log into Facebook and begin sorting through them. The third page I open is for a young lady named Caroline, or Carrie, Simpson, from Adelaide, in South Australia. The notes tell me that she is eighteen and entries on her timeline are about travel and confirm to me that I am looking at the right person’s records.

I study the photos on her page, there are not many. A few show her with a young guy, the same one in each picture, and I assume he may be a boyfriend. She is young, attractive and appears to be a very tall girl with long brown hair, worn in pig-tails or a pony-tail in most pictures.

The images which include the guy indicate his name is Ronald Jeffries so I look for his Facebook page and open it. His page tells me he is nineteen and that he is enrolled at a University in Adelaide, studying Engineering. Considering this commitment in Adelaide, I doubt he could have anything to do with Caroline’s disappearance. I could be wrong of course, but that’s my initial impression.

I print off a couple of pictures of Caroline, and one of Jeffries, thinking it won’t hurt for me to show Ray Phipps that I’m capable of researching information.

At two precisely, Ray Phipps parks his car in the street in front of my house and walks to the front door, where I’m waiting. The weather is bright and sunny and the day is warm; a typical Lismore spring day.

Hi Mr Addams, he says, holding out his hand for me to shake. Thanks for offering to help us with this case.

I usher him into my living room and gesture that he should sit at the dining table. He does, and I sit opposite him.

Detective Phipps, I’ve been doing some digging and I have come up with some pictures of Caroline Simpson and some details about her. What do you have for me?

He opens the thin file which he had carried in.

Probably similar pictures, he says, handing some sheets of paper to me. And a copy of her itinerary as far as we can confirm it and a copy of the messages received from her since she’s been away from home. Unfortunately, we don’t really have much more information.

I leaf through the sheets of paper and read the messages. And have you decided just what you would like me to ask?

Phipps looks at me rather strangely, almost as if he was going to ask a very important question, but he doesn’t.

Not really, is probably the most honest answer. Is she alive? Is she safe? And I guess just, where is she? That would be about all the information I would expect, and probably all her parents want to hear.

Pinning down exactly where she is could be the hard one because my system works best with yes, or no, answers, but I can try. Now, just a thought, you said you were going to issue a press release; have you considered getting something more detailed in the local paper? I’m sure Sue Weissman would be willing to help.

Yes, I recall that you and Miss Weissman worked together last time. Ken Woods wants to use the papers and television as much as possible for a general announcement, plus our police internet site, the modern techniques as he calls them, but we realise they rely firstly on someone seeing the item and secondly on someone else’s memory or opinion. I could be totally wrong but to my mind, your method is more direct, more proactive, more targeted, or at least that’s how I see the situation.

And have you managed to convince Inspector Wood?

No, not really Mr Addams. He has someone else contacting the various media, but he has agreed in principal that I can pursue the case using you and your methods as well. So, as far as the press, I guess if Miss Weissman isn’t already involved, she soon will be.

Ray Phipps leaves and I promise to call him the next day.

o0o

My telephone is ringing again

Hello, Roy Addams here. How can I help you?

This has become my standard greeting.

"Roy. Poppa Roy, it’s Susie here. Have you heard about the