by Tim Ayliffe
Bailey looked at his watch. It was almost ten. He had avoided reading or watching the news since he’d been back, tired of seeing images of his face and house everywhere.
‘What’s Strong said now?’
‘Augustus Strong is dead.’
‘What?’
‘He was attacked early this morning outside a bloody 7-Eleven on George Street. They’re calling it a hate crime.’
Bailey grabbed the remote in the kitchen, switching on the television. A picture of Augustus Strong was plastered across the screen. The prick looking as smug as ever in a publicity photograph of some sort. Now dead. Neena wasn’t lying and she appeared to have more information than the newsreader did.
‘Hate crime?’ Bailey said. ‘Where’d you get that?’
‘It’s just broken online. One of your old colleagues at The Journal. Police say they’ve got a witness.’
Bailey took a breath, wondering how the police had arrived at hate crime.
‘Who do they think did it?’
Bailey could hear Neena drinking something on the other end of the phone. Water. Coffee. It was too early for anything else, not that it had stopped Bailey, back in the day.
‘A group of guys of African appearance attacked him, apparently.’
Bailey dropped his phone on the kitchen bench, the noise startling Campo, who was curled up on a blanket in the corner, her head shooting up like a meerkat.
‘Sorry, Neena. I’ve got to go.’
He needed to get a handle on what she had just told him, do some digging of his own. It would be a good distraction from the shit show that had rained down on him twenty-four hours earlier.
‘Order me a new eardrum while you’re at it,’ Neena said. ‘And Bailey?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You okay?’
Bailey and Neena had spoken on the telephone late the night before, going over everything that had happened. The boss checking in on the guy who was writing the cover story for the first edition of her new magazine. Wondering whether he should change tack and write something about media freedoms in the wake of the AFP raid instead. Bailey had hated the idea, shooting it down before Neena had a chance to argue her case. He was out on bail. Part of an active investigation. The AFP officer named in the warrant – Bailey’s friend, Harriet Walker – was dead. Antagonising the feds with a story about press freedoms was a terrible idea. Even more so because Bailey would end up being the headline. He had been annoyed that Neena had even suggested it.
‘I’m fine, Neena. Fine.’
‘This story you’re writing about Strong.’
Here we go.
‘I know. I know.’ Bailey knew what Neena was about to say but now wasn’t the time to get into it. ‘The story just got better. It also just got more complicated.’
‘Three weeks,’ Neena said. ‘You’ve got three weeks.’
Bailey hung up the phone, grabbing his laptop to read the story in The Journal that Neena had been referring to. Checking facts. Reading the police statement that had just dropped on the New South Wales Police media site.
Augustus Strong had been out walking at around 5 am. Alone.
Bloody early, thought Bailey, but he remembered Strong complaining about jet lag playing havoc with his body clock.
He kept reading.
Strong was apparently assaulted by a group of men after grabbing a coffee from a 7-Eleven on George Street. A witness described four men, possibly in their late teens or early twenties, of African appearance. One of them had apparently king-hit Strong from behind, knocking him to the ground. Kicking him. By the time the ambulance had arrived Strong was dead. Wallet in his pocket, full of cash. Expensive watch still on his wrist. Enough to make police rule out a robbery. Enough for them to go straight to a violent, hate-driven murder.
How?
Bailey turned up the volume on the television. The ABC had a reporter down on George Street with footage from the scene. The 7-Eleven. An ambulance. A cop car parked alongside. A crowd of gawkers standing around behind a reporter who was reciting almost word for word the police statement that Bailey had just read.
He switched off the television.
The reporter hadn’t told Bailey anything he didn’t already know. The poor girl was now chained to the spot, spouting lines from the police media release, while the world was getting on around her. The pitfalls of the 24-hour news circus. Little time to interview bystanders, to find anyone who had been out on the street before sunrise. Bailey needed to get down there to see what else he could find. Ask a few questions of his own.
Bailey’s face had been everywhere and if he was going to blend into the crowd in the city, he needed to do something about his appearance. He walked into his bedroom and started rummaging through his wardrobe, looking for the New York Yankees baseball cap that Miranda had given him for Christmas and he had never worn. He found it, tearing off the tag, adjusting the size so that it could fit over his mop of hair, then grabbed a red windcheater off a coathanger to complete his disguise. American tourist. Close enough.
He pulled back the curtain, peering out onto his front porch, searching for the satellite masts that had recently been planted in his street. Gone. And so was the herd of camera operators and reporters. They had probably all been diverted to the breaking news story down on George Street, which was only a few kilometres away. The murder of a controversial international visitor like Augustus Strong was much more interesting than John Bailey.
Bailey pulled down the brim of his cap, zipping the windcheater to his neck, before hitting the footpath out front of his house. He had already decided to leave his car at home and catch a taxi. Driving in Sydney’s CBD was a bloody nightmare and the carparks were so expensive that the return taxi fare would probably be cheaper too.
He made it halfway up the street when he saw something that made him stop. Bryce Ratcliffe untying surfboards from the roof of his Range Rover. His neighbour. Someone who undoubtedly would have had thoughts and questions about the raid that had taken place on a house in his street the day before.
Taking a punt that Bryce hadn’t seen him, Bailey stepped off the footpath between two parked cars, making to cross to the other side of the street.
‘Bailey?’ Bryce called out from where he was standing on the four-wheel drive’s running boards, his head visible above the roof. ‘Bailey, is that you?’
Bailey was standing in the middle of the street and he looked up at Bryce, lifting the brim of his cap. ‘How are you, Bryce?’
‘Good, Bailey. And you?’
How the hell could Bailey answer a simple question like that after what he’d just been through? Yeah, I’m great, Bryce. Spent almost eight hours in a jail cell yesterday while police raided my house. An old mate of mine was murdered on Maroubra Beach. And the bloke I recently interviewed for a story just got bashed to death down on George Street this morning. I’m great, Bryce. Tip top. Thanks for asking.
‘Had better days, Bryce.’
‘I saw the –’
‘You’re back from up north, already?’ Bailey cut him off. ‘Wasn’t expecting to see you for at least a week, or two.’
Bryce shrugged. ‘Something came up and we had to leave early. But we had a lovely time. Although, it’s pretty bleak up past Forster. Burnt trees everywhere. People lost a lot up there. Very sad. We’re lucky the fires didn’t keep charging south.’
‘Lucky.’
‘How are things with you?’ Bryce said. ‘I read about what happened. Bloody ridiculous, by the sounds.’
Here we go.
‘Unfortunately, it isn’t over yet.’ Bailey wasn’t about to get into it. ‘I’ve got to be somewhere, mate. Better keep moving.’
‘Sure. Sure.’ Bryce waved at Bailey with one hand, while holding onto a roof rack with the other. ‘Take care of yourself. Anything I can do, just say the word.’
‘Thanks.’
Bailey lowered the brim of his cap as far as it would go. The conversation with Bryce Ratcliff
e had just made him painfully aware of his mood. Grumpy. Irritable. Angry. All justifiable feelings but things he needed to keep in check if he was going to be able to do his job. His hunch that Harriet Walker may have been running an investigation into the same groups that he was interested in had only hardened his resolve to keep chasing. Dig deeper.
After making it to the western side of Oxford Street, Bailey held his thumb out when he saw a cab motoring towards him. Miranda had been urging him to download the Uber app for years, but Bailey couldn’t be bothered. He was a man of routine. And there was something about the automated world that didn’t sit right with him.
‘Get me as close to the QVB as you can,’ Bailey instructed the driver as he hopped into the passenger seat beside him. ‘Don’t mind walking a bit. Keen to stay this side of George.’
The inside of the taxi smelled like someone had been using lemon skins as an ashtray and the driver’s weathered, wrinkly skin led Bailey to believe that he was a pack-a-day man.
‘Easy done. Will shoot down Park.’ The driver was speaking without looking at Bailey. ‘Gets busy, I can always drop you on the corner of Castlereagh, or Pitt.’
Drivers like this old guy didn’t need maps. He knew the city’s streets like the hallways in his house.
‘Thanks.’
Taxi drivers were also avid consumers of news and Bailey had spied a rolled-up newspaper in the door. He wound down his window, turning his head towards the footpath, so that the driver couldn’t get a good look at his face as they zipped along Oxford Street.
‘Crossing over George is a nightmare these days. Thanks to that bloody light rail. Morons. Cost three billion, they reckon.’ The driver scoffed, changing lanes. ‘Three billion!’
Bailey had a feeling the driver had expressed his views on Sydney’s light rail before, and like most cabbies, he was keen to offer them again.
‘Yeah. Pretty outrageous. Double the budget, right?’
Bailey kept his eyes on the street, the smoky air not as strong as the previous day, but the scent enough to remind him about the fires burning north, west and south of the city. He’d heard a report that rain could be on the way soon. A lot of rain. Enough to douse the entire state. Maybe even put out the fires for good. Bailey would believe it when he saw it. When he felt the specks of water on his cheeks. It had been a while.
‘Double? And the rest! Was supposed to be one point three billion. Ended up at almost three. Couldn’t organise a chook raffle, that lot on Macquarie Street.’ The driver was shaking his head. ‘And the track’s only twelve kilometres long. Do the maths on that, my friend.’
Bailey stayed silent, knowing that this guy had already done the maths.
‘Two hundred and fifty million dollars per kilometre. Half the bloody carriages are empty, mind you. Businesses on George Street had to shut down for years while they built the bloody thing. Won’t make it back, some of them. Money well spent, eh?’
‘Doesn’t sound like it,’ Bailey said.
‘Got that right.’
Bailey continued to listen to the driver’s analysis about all that was right and wrong with Sydney until the traffic ground to a halt on Park Street, as he’d predicted.
‘Might jump out here. Thanks.’
Bailey handed him fifteen dollars and told him to keep the change.
After waiting for the little red man at the traffic light to turn green, Bailey crossed over and started down Pitt Street, keeping his face hidden as he passed the back entrance of the Hilton Hotel, where he had been two nights earlier for his interview with Strong. Several police vehicles and an ambulance were parked in the drop-off bay and, through the glass, Bailey glimpsed a bunch of officers in uniform huddled in the foyer.
Bailey needed to keep his distance from the main entrance to the hotel and also the 7-Eleven near where Strong had been attacked. Both would be crawling with police and media. He continued all the way down Pitt and onto Market Street, which would deliver him to George Street well away from the action.
It was late morning and the doors to the old State Theatre were closed, a homeless woman curled up in a blue sleeping bag outside the box office, her trolley filled with all the things she had left. Bailey stopped walking, rummaging through his pocket for a note, bending down and stuffing it inside the McDonald’s cup that had the word ‘help’ handwritten on the side. Bailey had few rules in life, one of them was to never ignore the homeless. Never judge them, either. Cash for people sleeping rough was the only charity that he routinely supported. The only one he trusted. No skimming from back office staff. No ridiculous pay cheques for the celebrities paid to front them.
‘Thank you.’
He heard a soft, croaky voice emanate from the blue lump on the concrete.
‘Take care, love.’
Bailey put his hands back in his pockets, keeping his head down as he hit the corner of the George Street boulevard. He waited for a tram to pass by – his taxi driver had been right, its carriages were mostly empty – before crossing the tracks towards the Queen Victoria Building, the 130-year-old, green-domed marketplace that took up an entire city block. Sidling alongside the QVB, Bailey stared into the shop windows, reflecting the crowd of media, cops and busybodies that had swarmed the 7-Eleven and the Hilton on the other side of the tram tracks, wondering how close he could get.
This wasn’t the first time that violence had shaken this part of the city. Back in 1978, when Bailey was still a schoolkid, a couple of unwitting garbage collectors were killed when a bomb hidden inside a rubbish bin exploded just as they were emptying it into their truck. The explosion also killed a police officer who had been standing on the footpath out front of the Hilton, guarding the dozen or so world leaders who were in Australia for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
The bomb attack had received so much media coverage at the time that Bailey still had black and white imprints of the aftermath in the archives of his brain. The mangled rear of the garbage truck. Stretchers ferrying the injured and the dead into ambulances. The chipped and blackened arches outside the Hilton. The force of the blast had been so strong that it had shattered the windows of the QVB across the other side of the road.
The Hilton bombing inspired almost as many conspiracy theories as the murder of John F. Kennedy. One of the most popular stories doing the rounds was the one about Australia’s intelligence services placing the bomb in the bin as part of a training exercise and forgetting to remove it. But that theory had lost support when a member of a bizarre cult called Ananda Marga confessed to having planted the bomb in an attempt to kill India’s prime minister.
Other cult members were later convicted for trying to kill the branch secretary of a Neo-Nazi group called the National Front of Australia. The irony wasn’t lost on Bailey. Augustus Strong – the pin-up boy for modern-day far right nationalism – had just been murdered at almost the same spot where a member of the Nazi-hating Ananda Marga group had planted a bomb decades earlier.
There were at least six cameras perched on tripods with reporters standing in front of them, either talking to a presenter in a faraway studio, or practising their lines. Bailey guessed that some of them were from overseas networks like the BBC and CNN. Augustus Strong was a household name. His death would be generating headlines all around the world. Although Bailey couldn’t imagine many people missing him.
The 7-Eleven appeared to be open and, with journalists and cops big consumers of both coffee and takeaway food, the little shop was probably doing a roaring trade. Bailey wasn’t sure that murder was as good for business for the Downtown Souvenirs and Lowes Menswear shops next door.
Bailey noticed a woman in a suit doing the rounds of the TV crews, pointing her finger at a lone microphone stand that had been set up on the footpath, signalling that a media conference wasn’t far away. Minutes later, another half-dozen microphones were crowding the area, with camera operators scurrying to reposition themselves to get the head-on shot that their studio masters would need.
The woman doing all the instructing was now holding up a finger. ‘One minute!’
Head down, Bailey started moving towards the crowd that had formed an arc around the makeshift stage on the footpath, waiting for whichever senior police officer was going to walk down from the Hilton foyer a few doors up to brief the media. He wasn’t too concerned about being seen because the reporters were all facing the opposite direction. He edged closer so that he could hear what the police were about to say.
Because of the crowd, Bailey couldn’t see much on either side of the microphones, but the flashes and pivoting cameras gave him enough warning that the media conference was about to begin. What he wasn’t prepared for was the identity of one of the people standing beside the cop with the stars on his shoulders stepping up to the microphone.
‘Good morning, everyone, I’m Assistant Commissioner Rick Boulder from the Australian Federal Police and with me today is Detective Chief Inspector Mary Appleby and Detective Greg Palmer from the New South Wales Police, along with Commander Dominic Harding from the AFP…’
Harding. What the hell was Harding doing here?
A day after leading the raid on his house, Bailey expected Harding to be sitting around with a table full of geeks and cops trying to make sense of the files and documents that they’d copied. The video they’d deleted from Bailey’s phone. He was flabbergasted to see Harding at a media conference about the death of Augustus Strong. What the hell did it mean?
‘…we’ll be providing you with information about the investigation into the death of Augustus Strong, but we’re also today announcing the establishment of a joint taskforce to look not only into Mr Strong’s death but also the rise in hate crimes we’ve seen in recent days, weeks and months. As many of you may have read earlier this week, ASIO’s annual threat assessment has identified the threat of white supremacist and far right nationalist groups as a major concern for law enforcement agencies.’
‘Sir!’ an eager reporter called out. ‘Are you saying that white supremacists are somehow connected to the murder of Augustus Strong?’
‘I’m going to politely ask you to hold your questions until later.’ Boulder did well to keep his cool. ‘Taskforce Juniper will be headed by Commander Harding, who’ll say a few words shortly, with the AFP drawing together some of the best investigators from both state and federal law enforcement, along with our intelligence services. Before we hear from Commander Harding, I’m going to hand over to Detective Chief Inspector Appleby to talk specifically about what happened here this morning.’