High Beam

by SJ Brown

  He then turned his attention to the Hobart waterfront. Although Salamanca Market had partly rejuvenated the area since it started in the late ’70s, no one had clearly seen the potential of the area for development. Behind the fine stone buildings fronting Salamanca Place was a slightly decrepit area. Demand for inner city living was growing so Fotheringham’s project development of eighty townhouses with accompanying car park and retail space was in the black even before planning approval had been granted. It was 2002 and easy finance was bringing investors out in droves.

  Rory was persuasive. He had cultivated people in all the right places. Lunches at the Colonial Club, afternoons in his corporate tent at race meetings, afternoon cruises on his yacht, all helped decision makers to believe that Rory Fotheringham was a safe pair of hands. And so it had proved. He was thought to be, by those who knew about such things, one of the most influential men in the state.

  From his offices atop one of the original warehouses on Salamanca Place, he looked straight across to Parliament House. Not only was he far, far wealthier than any of the incumbents in the political chambers, he quietly knew that he held greater sway than those who had to endure the vagaries of public office. At the age of forty-five he had fingers in all the best pies in town. Not that it was all plain sailing. Others in his sphere of influence regularly needed his capable assistance. By sorting out their difficulties he incrementally solidified their loyalty to him and ensured he could call favors in when he needed to. Now was such a case in point. Another poor sap who couldn’t keep his nose clean.

  He turned away from the expansive view of the waterfront precinct and sat down to his teak desk to read the offending article on his laptop. James Cartwright had been careless, very careless. He was facing public opprobrium and potentially a career-damaging inquiry. But it was not a situation that couldn’t be fixed. The trick was to assess the problem quickly and move straight onto a pragmatic search for a solution. Just as he was doodling a few points on his writing pad, his secretary rang through to announce the victim’s arrival. Cartwright was sent through to the sparsely furnished inner sanctum.

  “Rory, thanks for seeing me.”

  “Jim, no problem. Pity about the circumstances.”

  He looked terrible. Bags under bloodshot eyes, like he’d been on a bender. “Yes. It’s bad news. In fact, it’s about the worst news I can imagine at the moment.”

  Worse than cancer, thought Rory. He stood to shake hands with the academic and guided him to the leather chairs next to the window. As they sat he noticed Cartwright had taken to wearing, like himself, R.M. Williams leather boots. Smart, comfortable and suggestive of a no-frills approach, unlike those poncey brogues most suits got about in.

  “So, the story is under wraps for a while. Can’t help the rumors but you’re going to have to wear that. Damaging but not fatal if handled right.”

  Cartwright bridled at the assessment. “Great. So I get smeared and at my expense she gets to laugh along with the half of Hobart that hears the gossip. I’m meant to sit quietly and wear it. Is that it? And as for that bloody paper, you’d think they’d at least get my version. Pricks.”

  The fixer crossed his legs and spoke calmly and directly. “Settle down. If you want my help, and I’m quite sure you really do, then you need to breathe and listen. First, I need a few details. Did you say anything remotely like what was written?”

  “Yes, no, sort of. I was semi-inebriated on Saturday evening and a couple of injudicious comments slipped out. But the context wasn’t given. It was a private conversation, for Christ’s sake.” Exasperation raised the decibels.

  Injudicious! Private! Rory wondered how anybody could be so naive and arrogant at once. He held a flat palm to Cartwright. “Again. Stop, breathe. Getting angry won’t help you. Getting even might but you’ve got to get some equilibrium and help the man trying to help you. Now, as I see it, you did say something like it and it was obviously recorded by this girl. What’s her name?”

  “Amanda Pattison, little vixen.”

  “Right. This Amanda records it and relays some gold plated material to a journalist. The journalist wants to spice up a quiet news day with some muck. From their point of view all good.”

  “But not for me, obviously.”

  “Obviously. So you’re up a very smelly creek and I’m your paddle. But that’s not going to bother the journo, or the other girl for that matter. We can exert a bit of downward pressure. Already have in getting it temporarily pulled. Further to that, a defamation threat to the individual journalist to open negotiations. I’ll chat to the commercial manager about my advertising budget and how money could be drawn from print into radio. Then a quick talk to the editor and we’ll have got the damage limitation up and rolling. This story is never going to see the light of day. Trust me.”

  “And what do I say? The local radio wants me on at 11.15 this morning.”

  “Nothing. Don’t go on today. Claim a prior commitment or something. Give this time to fade away. There’ll be some other election issue emerge. Trust me.”

  “That’s it? Nothing? Oh right, that’ll work! It’s not your academic reputation on the line here.”

  “That’s right. Zip. And before you let rip with anymore sarcastic incredulity here’s why. You can’t go with an ‘out of context’ defense. You must know from politicians’ efforts it makes you sound smarmy and deceptive. You don’t deny it…they’ll dig deeper. You simply shut up and let me make the whole thing disappear.”

  “What, gone… altogether? How?”

  “Well, simple really. It’s only her word that it’s you on the recording. But by the very clandestine nature of the act, it’s only her who can confirm it’s your voice saying those unfortunate things. Once I’ve talked to O’Brien he’ll see it could be pretty much anybody and that is no basis to defend a colossal defamation writ. I can trust him to take care of the recording and then in all the brouhaha of the election the story will slide away into oblivion.”

  Cartwright was somewhat relieved. “But what about Miss Pattison? What about her?”

  “Oh that’s easy. We gut the bitch.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Tuesday 9th March 11am

  Amanda felt seriously pissed off. She had gone through the paper from cover to cover. Nothing. Nyet. Not a smidgeon about Cartwright. She had been certain of a damning article. It would be a slow news day after the long weekend she had been told. Well, that was certainly right if the offerings in that day’s Mercury were anything to go by. But no sign of any newsbreak about a racist hypocrite who lectured at the local university.

  Her subterfuge had gone so smoothly: the gadfly lured into the Venus flytrap. Her contact at the paper, a journalism student on work placement, had assured her it would make it to press. After all, it was a big break for Grace so obviously she would do her absolute best to push the scoop. But someone must have nobbled her article.

  So she called Grace who turned out to be equally aggrieved by the omission. “I’m so sorry Amanda but one of the higher-ups canned it. Oh, they’ve said it’s just a temporary postponement but I detect a distinct whiff of ‘rattus rattus’. They advertised it and then in the wee hours it transpires there’s no room for it today. Can you believe that? No room in a Tuesday edition?”

  “You’re right, it beggars belief. I’ve read it and that’s just nonsense. So when’s it going ahead?”

  “Well, that’s where it really starts to wreak. I’m onto the duty editor first thing to ask what’s going on. Get some gobbledygook about legal obligations. Reckons it’s too much of a risk to print a potentially defamatory article by someone who is technically a freelancer. They’d called Cartwright who denied everything.”

  “What a crock. Filthy liar. I was there, Grace. He said it, all of it.”

  “I know. I believe you. But I don’t print the paper. So it’s your word against his and they won’t publish
on that basis. It reeks of the boys’ club.”

  “Sure does.” Amanda looked out of the kitchen window over the parched lawn. Where to now? “We could release it online. You know, YouTube it or something.”

  There was an overdue by several days pregnant pause. “Well, if we still had the recording we could.” Grace’s voice no longer contained the same zeal.

  “Are you telling me you didn’t download a version on your laptop or a USB? And that the editor has the only recording? Please, Grace, don’t tell me that.”

  A forlorn voice confirmed the worst. “Then I’ve nothing to tell you. I am so very sorry, Amanda.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I was so keen to get the story in I overlooked doing any back-up. I left your phone with the subeditor so he could liaise with his boss and when I got it back it was wiped clean. There’s no trace of my original story in the system either. Some elephant has squashed it.”

  There was very little else to say on the subject so Amanda did not bother. Having thanked Grace, she hung up. Where to now? Disconsolate was not the word. She mooched over to the kitchen table and sat down heavily. The man was going to get off scot-free. Her scheme had seemed foolproof.

  Cartwright was not unintelligent – his academic record was genuinely strong – but he definitely had the fatal flaw generic to so many males. Insecurity. Insecurity that could manifest itself as vanity. What spurned that lack of real confidence could be down to any number of things. He was not a sportsman and that was an issue for many men in a society that continually lauded the bravado and skill that was exhibited on the playing arena. Being a player in the professional football codes lent charisma to non-entities who would otherwise be buffoons in the everyday world. It also gave some of them unimaginable financial rewards out of all proportion to their contribution to society. So what if the odd few squandered this windfall on stupid investments or gambled it away? They were all good blokes who were pandered to by the media and celebrated by the man in the street. What full-time carers or teachers’ aides made of this topsy-turvy system of remuneration was anybody’s guess.

  Amanda thought it bizarre. A lecturer such as Cartwright with years of experience probably earned one-tenth of the more famous footballers. No wonder he was so keen to work in the media. Not only did it provide helpful income, it gave him a public profile. He may not be sporty, nor a man who could do useful work with his hands, but he was an identifiable face in the community. It may only be Hobart but it was fame, of sorts. She had discerned in him a desire to be respected and an even stronger yearning to be liked.

  Sipping a strong coffee, she wryly reflected that their evening had been quite enjoyable. He was still a presumptuous fool for assuming she might genuinely be interested in him. He was the instigator of the bullying spat with Brad. And he did indulge in that thoughtless diatribe. But he was intriguing company; self-deprecating to a degree and rather witty. As she stared through the window at an ocean-going liner proceeding down the Derwent River to Storm Bay, she wondered if it was worth pursuing the matter. At what stage did something like this become a vendetta?

  What irked her more at the moment was the fact that strings had been pulled. Someone, the academic or one of his contacts, had gotten to the press. Amanda could live with Cartwright sailing on through life without come-uppance for the lecture hall but she was beginning to feel a strange sense of being hamstrung by the faceless men: the people who really exerted power in this state. They were not the politicians. They were not the reporters. They were certainly not the voters. They were the wealthy and well-connected.

  There were no gated estates in this town but there did not need to be. People knew their place, their station. Certain suburbs were kept cleaner. Certain suburbs were better protected. The richer residents south of the GPO may sneer at the police, particularly if they had been picked up for traffic offences, but what a song and dance if immediate action was not forthcoming to a call for assistance.

  In that very day’s paper, a disgruntled resident of Gagebrook had rather pithily nailed the situation. Another hooning incident in his suburban street had resulted in a verbal altercation and a man was shot by one of the passengers. Neighbors lamented that the reckless speeding was regularly reported to police but the complaints went unheeded. One railed, “You can bet if this sort of stuff went on in Churchill Avenue the law would be there in five minutes pronto.” He was dead right, mulled Amanda. A drunken student party in that salubrious stretch of real estate had the week before made the front page of the papers. The subtext was that the unwashed rabble with their rowdy habits had no place in the nice suburbs.

  And it was here that the powerbrokers resided … and ruled. They did it not by virtue of a legislature but by influence. It was not feudal but it was symptomatic of a traditional exercise of power by a group of privileged citizens.

  Amanda was sure it must be some of these people who were manipulating affairs: incidents such as this with the pulled press article. But what could she do?

  CHAPTER 10

  Tuesday 9th March 4pm

  Dr. James Cartwright could not help but check his profile in the lounge room mirror. Presentation was always crucial whatever the circumstances. Of recent months the question of hair color had begun to perturb the sleekly groomed academic. It was not that his dark thick head of hair was overly grey; tinting and comb-overs were for sad fools in denial of the inevitable path to decay. No, a silver lining of time suited his view of himself as a mature thinker, deserving of the same professional status as his university contemporaries who had gone on to become partners in accounting firms or take silk in courts of law. It was more that the grey hairs, somehow being lighter, showed above the mostly darker thatch and were a bit too obvious just at this stage of his life.

  The mirror was a welcome addition to his sister’s house. Perched above the sandstone fireplace before had been a ghastly painting of a white horse galloping through what looked like a blue forest. Unsure whether it was the product of some Adult Education class or some bizarre throwback to Mary’s teenage obsession with Hobbytex. Cartwright always tried to studiously ignore it when visiting but his eyes were routinely drawn to it in the same way that one cannot help but stare at a phosphorescent pimple on another’s forehead.

  At least now the rampaging steed had been replaced by a reasonably proportioned mirror encased in a pine frame in sympathy with the recently sanded and polished floorboards. Perhaps the prosperity being generated by Larry’s booming construction business might generate some more tasteful changes in the décor of the house. It would be a long road, thought the post-modernist, as his eyes caught sight of the mauve beanbags.

  “Here you are then. It’s pretty hot but I didn’t want to over milk it.” Larry had shuffled back in with two steaming mugs of tea.

  “Thank you, Larry. Now I needed to meet with you because I believe you can assist me with the rather delicate situation I find myself in.”

  “Yeah, you are in a bit of hot water, Jimmy boy, a real dilemma.” Owen had always barely tolerated his brother-in-law and was secretly enjoying the present discomfort of the arrogant academic. The big mouth deserved his come-uppance.

  “Actually, Larry, there is no need to be alarmist. I know exactly what has to happen if my good name is to be restored. I am not on the horns of any dilemma. There is a very simple solution to this whole messy business and you are going to help provide it.” Cartwright was standing before the fireplace and looking pretty damned confident.

  Larry began to wonder why he looked so cocksure. “And how am I going to help you exactly? Assuming I want to which I don’t really. You’re the one who opened his bloody big mouth. Just cop the flack.” The harsh edge to his voice was becoming more obvious.

  Cartwright barely missed a beat. “I was stitched up. Anything I said to that cunning little bitch was off the record and she knew it. And as for sneakily recording a private
conversation…well, you would appreciate the illegality of that.” Even when calling in a favor, he was unable to refrain from patronizing someone. “My reputation, whatever you think of it, deserves to be maintained. I’m damned if she’s going to bugger up my sideline as a pundit. The money is always welcome and I’m good at it. With the election on, I need to be seen as an expert without stain. I can muddy the waters with the local media and the disciplinary review will be more bark than bite. But this little slut needs to be taught a lesson. That’s where you come in.”

  Owen could barely believe what he was hearing. He had half expected the shifting of blame and protest of innocence but the complete lack of regret was pretty stunning, even going by previous performances. And this stuff was way beyond the pale. “Bullshit. You’re a dead duck and there’s no way I’m getting involved in one of your devious schemes. Keep me and your sister out of it. I don’t want to know.”

  Cartwright stepped forward. “Larry, hear me out. I don’t need much from you. Just a short loan of one of your building sites. And just a little part at that. One of her friends is going to be part of the lesson. All you need to do is play dumb. Simple really. Your hands remain clean and this whole fuss will quickly fade away.”

  Owen was stunned. He had cut corners before and had to deal with some tough nuts but surely this was some sort of sick joke. “Absolutely not. No way. You dig yourself out of this hole. Keep me right out of it.”