by Tim Ayliffe
The phone was the thing worrying Bailey the most. The conversation that he’d had with Harriet Walker on Signal. He’d been racking his brain, trying to remember it word for word, wondering whether or not there was anything incriminating in their exchanges. He knew there wasn’t a smoking gun that would prove that Walker was the person who had handed him a classified ADF report in Kabul back in 2011. He hadn’t even mentioned it. But it didn’t stop Bailey’s mind from racing. Wondering whether he had missed something. Something that might explain why Walker had disappeared hours after she had scheduled a meeting with him.
A key rattled in the lock. The door to his cell opened.
‘Up you get.’ A policeman that Bailey didn’t recognise was standing in the doorway. ‘You’re out.’
‘What?’
A woman was standing behind the policeman and Bailey could see enough of her bedraggled hair to know who it was.
‘Marj?’
Marjorie Atkins. The Journal’s legal associate for three decades, who had helped Bailey with some of his more controversial investigations.
‘Hi, Bailey,’ she said, frowning. ‘Sorry it took us so bloody long to get this sorted.’
He slid off the mattress and onto the floor. ‘All good. Thanks for coming. Where’s old mate?’
‘Gerald? In the waiting area, where he’s been all day. Miranda’s there too.’
Bailey felt sick at the thought of his daughter coming to the police station to help bail him out. ‘Who the bloody hell told Miranda?’
‘Take it easy, Bailey.’ Marjorie grabbed his arm. ‘We didn’t tell her. There’s been some media coverage.’
‘What?’
‘Excuse me,’ the policeman interjected. ‘If you don’t mind finishing this conversation somewhere else?’
Bailey ignored him. ‘What do you mean by “media coverage”?’
‘Come on.’
Marjorie turned away from Bailey and followed the policeman down the hall and into another part of the station where there was some paperwork waiting for them, along with a plastic bag with Bailey’s belongings inside. Wallet. Keys. Watch. Shoelaces. Belt. The simple things you’re permitted to own when you’re a person, not a prisoner.
‘Marj?’ Bailey kept at her while he ripped open the bag, checking that everything was there. ‘The media. What’s out there?’
‘Just give me a minute.’
Marjorie scribbled her signature on several pieces of paper and had Bailey do the same.
‘Mr Bailey’s free to go.’
‘What happens next?’ Bailey said, directing his question to the policeman.
‘That’s up to the Australian Federal Police.’
‘I’ll explain later,’ Marjorie said. ‘Let’s get you home.’
Home.
Bailey was hoping that Harding and those other heavy-handed pricks from the AFP had left. The thought of them ripping through his house into the night was too much to contemplate.
‘It’s okay, Bailey. They’re gone.’
She must have read the worried expression on his face.
‘Dad!’
Miranda spotted Bailey the second he was let through the door to the waiting area. She hurried over and he put his arms around her, closing his eyes, letting himself forget – for just a moment – about the hell of a day he’d had.
‘You really shouldn’t have come, sweetheart,’ he said, pulling back so that he could see her eyes. ‘Just the bloody cops overplaying their hand. I’ve done nothing wrong. Journalism’s not a crime.’
‘You’re right about that, mate.’ Gerald was standing behind Miranda and he reached around and put a hand on Bailey’s shoulder. ‘It’s outrageous overreach. I’ve already registered a complaint to home affairs. Others have too. Newspaper editors, current and retired. The ABC. SBS. All the heads have come out swinging. We’ll fight this every inch of the way.’
We.
Suddenly, Bailey didn’t feel so alone. The raid may have been happening at his home but the way Gerald was talking, other media outlets must already be viewing today’s raid as the assault on press freedoms that Bailey had called out the second he met Dominic Harding outside his front door.
‘Thanks, mate. And thanks for calling Marj.’
‘Of course,’ Gerald said. ‘I’m just sorry we didn’t arrive earlier. We saw you being driven away in a police van and we’ve spent the last eight hours in here and on the phone trying to get you out.’
‘So, how much coverage is this getting?’ Bailey directed his question at Marjorie. ‘Please tell me that I’m not the headline.’
‘Dad, let’s get out of here,’ Miranda said, tugging on his arm.
‘She’s right,’ Marjorie said, looking around. ‘Let’s talk outside.’
The Paddington police station and court house was sandwiched in between residential houses on Jersey Road. Both sides of the street were lined with police cars. Red, blue and white ones with the same chequered stripes. Grey unmarked Fords that you could tell were cop cars by their standard rims. Almost every car spot in the street was taken up by a police vehicle of some description. Hell knows where the locals parked their cars.
Stepping out into the afternoon light, Bailey looked up the road towards Oxford Street, where he could see the corner of the White Lion Hotel. The scene of the attack on Matthew Lam. Those racist bastards had brazenly bashed a Black man less than a hundred metres from a police station.
‘You were the nation’s top story until about an hour ago,’ Gerald said, pulling his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket, lighting up the screen and holding it out to Bailey. ‘Then this story broke.’
AFP OFFICER FOUND DEAD ON MAROUBRA BEACH
‘What the…’
‘It’s Harriet Walker. Someone killed her,’ Gerald said, softly.
Bailey snatched the phone from Gerald’s hand, clicking on the story, scrolling down the page, speed-reading words, searching for any mention of Hat’s name. Details about how she died.
‘Name’s not here.’ Bailey handed the phone back to Gerald. ‘How do you know?’
‘Contact in the AFP told me. It’ll be out there soon. They’re waiting on the family.’
Knowing Gerald, his contact in the AFP was probably the bloody commissioner. He literally had every powerful person in the country on speed dial.
‘Any suspects?’
‘Too early. Happened before sunrise. She was walking on the beach. Someone attacked her.’
‘They’re trying to pass this off as a random assault?’ Bailey ran his fingers though his hair, looking at the ground, shaking his head. ‘Fuck, Gerald. What the hell’s going on?’
‘Let’s talk back at the house.’
Bailey got distracted by a cop in uniform walking up the steps of the big yellow building.
Gerald was right, they needed to go somewhere where they could talk privately. But Bailey had one more question. ‘What did your contact have to say about the shit show at my house?’
‘Wouldn’t go there.’
‘I bet they wouldn’t,’ Bailey said, gruffly.
‘Hey, Dad?’ Miranda had hooked her arm around her father’s elbow. ‘How about we get you home? I’ll order us some takeaway.’
A feed, along with a shower, was a good idea. ‘Yeah, okay.’
‘My car’s up the street. Ride with me,’ Miranda said, nodding at Gerald and Marjorie. ‘See you back at Dad’s place.’
Bailey’s townhouse was just around the corner. Because of all the one-way streets and traffic lights, it would have been faster to walk. But Bailey never complained about spending time with his daughter, even though the seats in her MG Roadster were brutally uncomfortable.
‘Everything okay with you, sweetheart?’
Miranda gave him a squinty smile. Sarcastic. ‘I’m fine, Dad. Let’s not worry about me today, okay?’
Bailey ignored her. ‘What about that husband of yours? How’s the doc?’
Miranda had married Doctor Pet
er Andrews in a small ceremony just before the bushfire season. The wedding was the main reason that Bailey had returned to Australia. He wasn’t going to miss walking his daughter down the aisle. Not for anything.
‘Peter’s good. He’s great, actually. We think we’ve found a house we like in –’
‘Hold that thought. Stop the car.’
Miranda had just turned into Bailey’s street and they both noticed two vans with satellite dishes parked outside his house.
‘Damn it!’ Bailey bashed the ball of his fist on the dashboard. ‘The circus has arrived.’
‘What do you want me to do, Dad?’
Miranda pulled over to the side of the road.
‘Turn around. Drive away. I think you should go home.’ Bailey was talking without taking his eyes off the other end of the street. Eventually, he looked at Miranda. ‘Seriously, I don’t want you being chased with a camera. Being on the news. Best I run the gauntlet on my own.’
‘Why don’t you just come with me?’ Miranda didn’t need much convincing. She was a corporate lawyer who enjoyed her privacy. The last thing she needed was a prime time appearance in the six o’clock news. ‘You can stay at our flat tonight.’
‘Kind of you, sweetheart. But I need to get inside, see what those pricks did to my house.’
‘Okay. Call me if you change your mind.’
Bailey climbed out, tapping the retractable roof of his daughter’s sports car, watching as she did a U-turn and disappeared around the corner. Safe.
‘That’s him!’
A reporter spotted Bailey when he was three doors away from his house. By the time he was outside three reporters were on him, pushing microphones into his face, cameras lingering behind them like nosy giraffes.
‘John Bailey, how do you feel about the way the AFP treated you today?’
‘I’m deeply disturbed by what’s happened, quite frankly.’ Bailey hadn’t prepared any words but he felt the need to say something. ‘Everyone should be worried. It’s a clear assault on the freedom of the press. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been locked in a prison cell all day. I could do with a shower.’
‘Mr Bailey! Mr Bailey!’
A reporter was trying to get him to turn back around as he walked through his front gate, where Gerald and Marjorie were already standing on his porch.
‘Do you think there’s a link between the raid on your house and the murder of an AFP officer on Maroubra Beach this morning?’
Bailey turned around, glaring at the cameras. ‘That’s a question you’ll need to ask the Australian Federal Police.’
‘What do you mean by that? Mr Bailey? Mr Bailey!’
Bailey unlocked the front door and he, Marjorie and Gerald filed inside.
‘Not sure that was such a good idea, Bailey,’ Marjorie said.
‘Yeah, well. Hat was an old mate of mine. Murdered on the same day that the AFP decided to raid my house. She’s named in the warrant. Can’t be a coincidence. Not in my book.’
CHAPTER 15
ANNIE
‘You at home?’
It was Bill. Again.
‘Yeah. Why?’
He’d been calling her all day, trying to find a way to cover the story about the dead AFP officer on Maroubra Beach. The six o’clock news would report the death. He needed something else for Inside Story, an angle that didn’t require Annie burning her police source and naming Harriet Walker as the victim. Not that this was even being considered.
‘The AFP’s naming Harriet Walker as the victim in a statement at eight o’clock tonight. They’ve given us the jump on it.’
Annie walked into the kitchen, turning off the stove. The pasta could wait.
‘You’ve got the statement?’
‘Yeah. And more. I’ve got a copy of the AFP warrant for the raid on John Bailey’s house. It’s linked.’
‘What?’
‘Harriet Walker’s name is all over the warrant. From my reading, it looks like the AFP are accusing her of leaking a defence document to Bailey back in 2011. He broke a story about Australian soldiers killing civilians in Uruzgan.’
‘I remember. He won a Walkley for that yarn.’
‘And pissed off a lot of people.’
Bailey was good at that, Annie thought to herself. A half-smile crept onto her face before it turned into a frown.
‘Annie?’ Bill interrupted the silence.
‘Yeah?’
‘You and John Bailey have a history, right?’
‘We’re old friends, if that’s what you mean.’ Annie didn’t like the way Bill had framed the question. ‘We were in Beirut together… at the same time, I mean.’
Annie and Bailey were more than just old friends, although Annie wouldn’t have called it a relationship. They’d had a special arrangement. Casual sex. Bed pals. It was a time when they were both living in Beirut and hopping between warzones, Bailey for The Journal and Annie for her job in television news. The intimate moments they’d had together were more about keeping each other connected to ordinary life, away from the violence and sadness they were chronicling for readers and viewers back home.
Annie and Bailey also had one other thing in common – booze. For Bailey, that meant whisky. For Annie, vodka. Just over a year ago, they’d reconnected after bumping into each other at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Sydney. They went on walks together. Talking. Listening. Helping each other to keep their demons at bay. Friends.
Then Bailey disappeared to the other side of the world and proceeded to ignore every message that Annie sent him after she discovered that the Australian police detective who had been murdered by a terrorist in London was his girlfriend.
Annie had been imagining Bailey perched on a stool in some dingy bar somewhere, drinking his sadness away. She had no idea that he was back in Sydney, and she couldn’t help being more than a little upset that he hadn’t let her know.
‘Reckon he’ll speak to you?’ Bill said.
‘Don’t know. Maybe.’
Annie felt sick at the thought of doing a story on Bailey.
‘I’m going to need more than a maybe on this one, Annie,’ Bill said, coolly. ‘This is a big fucking story.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that.’
‘Good. Because you’re doing a live hit outside Bailey’s house in an hour. Fletch’s already on the way. I’ve emailed you the AFP statement and the warrant. Keep it tight. We break it at seven.’
Annie sighed into the phone. ‘Okay.’
‘And Annie?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I want the Bailey interview. It’s not going to be tonight, but I want it.’
‘That’s not going to be easy.’
‘I’ll text you the address.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Annie said, ‘he’s two streets away.’
Bill laughed. ‘Right.’
Arsehole.
Annie quickly got changed, doing her makeup in the bathroom and pulling her hair into a tight ponytail. The safest option for a television appearance at short notice. She’d stopped caring so much about people judging her looks now that she was back on the road as a reporter. The most important thing was the story, and she needed to give herself some time to read through the warrant and the AFP statement that Bill had sent her.
‘Louis!’
Annie called through the closed door of her son’s bedroom.
No answer.
She knocked on the door.
‘Louis!’
Still no answer.
Using the ball of her fist, she knocked louder, resisting the temptation to barge into a seventeen-year-old boy’s bedroom uninvited.
‘Louis! I’m coming in!’
‘What!’
Finally, a response.
She opened the door wide enough so that her voice could carry through the crack. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure.’
Louis was sitting on his bed with a gaming headset around his neck.
‘I need to go ou
t for work for a couple of hours. Home around eight. There’s a bolognese on the stove. You’ll need to cook your own pasta.’
‘Fine.’
Sure. Fine. Whatever.
Louis’s three favourite words. So far, he’d only used two of them.
‘I love you.’
‘Whatevs.’
She sighed.
CHAPTER 16
A box of pepperoni pizza was sitting in the middle of Bailey’s kitchen bench surrounded by the scattered pages of the AFP warrant, some of the pieces of paper stained with oil, tomato and round circles made by steaming mugs of coffee and tea.
‘Just don’t plan an overseas trip anytime soon.’
Marjorie was sitting on a stool, giving him the lowdown about his bail conditions.
‘I won’t. I haven’t.’
‘Good.’
‘How will they keep tabs on me?’ Bailey said, tossing a tired crust into the lid of the pizza box. ‘Do I need to report in at a police station or something?’
‘Yeah, Bailey. You do.’ Marjorie took a sip from the cup of tea that Gerald had made her. ‘But it’s only weekly.’
‘Oh, fucking great. Lucky me,’ Bailey huffed, rolling his eyes. ‘First, they make you feel like a criminal. Then they treat you like one.’
‘We’ll fight it, Bailey. We’ll win. There’s no way you’ll get a custodial sentence.’ Gerald was sitting across the other side of the counter, pointing his finger into the stone benchtop. ‘What happened here today was a bloody disgrace. The court of public opinion already knows it. The other court’s just playing catch-up.’
The wise man with the wise words.
‘I hope you’re right.’
Bailey grabbed another slice of pizza, taking a bite. He hadn’t eaten all day and the pizza tasted good, despite the fact that it was cold by the time the poor delivery kid riding one of those stupid electric pushbikes knocked on his front door.
‘Just do your best not to antagonise the feds,’ Marjorie said. ‘Comments like the ones you made outside don’t help.’
‘I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the feds.’
‘Settle down, mate,’ Gerald said, flapping his hand. ‘Marj’s just making the point that we don’t want to inflame the situation any further.’