Deep Water ch-34

by Peter Corris

  Stefan Gunnarson had been a senior officer in the Missing Persons Division for a good part of my career as a PEA. We’d got on well in a rough and ready way, and I was glad when he’d got the top job. We hadn’t had any dealings after that but when I learned that his son, Martin, was now in the spot with the rank of inspector, I was encouraged to ring Gunnarson senior, who’d retired, and ask him to put in a word for me with the head man. Stefan Gunnarson was one of those cops who’d still have a drink with me after my licence was cancelled. He said he’d talk to his son and that was how I came to be sitting in Martin Gunnarson’s office in the Surry Hills Police Centre securing a small slice of his time. I’d emailed him a rundown on the case.

  He was a duplicate of his dad-short, heavy set, dark, nothing like your stereotypical Scandinavian.

  ‘This is all highly irregular, Mr Hardy,’ he said, fingering a slim file in front of him.

  ‘It’s not only regularity that gets results. Ask any proctologist.’

  He winced. ‘Dad warned me about your jokes.’

  ‘That’s the only one, I promise. You’ll admit it looks very dodgy-no sign of him or his car, house broken into, strange goings on about his drawings. .’

  ‘Agreed, but the trail’s very cold.’

  ‘The daughter posted him missing weeks back and Hank Bachelor followed up a while later.’

  ‘We’re understaffed and stressed.’

  ‘So you outsourced it to the private sector?’

  Gunnarson didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The defiant set of his heavy features said it all.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to get on the wrong side of you. I’d like you to do the usual thing-print some flyers, talk to the media.’

  ‘Why do I have the feeling there’s something more?’

  ‘And bring some pressure to bear on Tarelton Explorations. They’re. . involved.’

  ‘They’re also influential.’

  ‘That right? All the more reason. I’m just suggesting you have someone senior pay a call, ask a few questions.’

  ‘And you’ll do what?’

  ‘See if feathers fly.’

  ‘We can’t act as your. . what d’you call those servants that go out to scare up the pheasants for the nobs to shoot at?’

  ‘Beaters.’

  ‘Right, beaters.’

  ‘Your dad did just that, a couple of times, and he didn’t regret it.’

  ‘Are you saying he owes you and so I owe you?’

  ‘No. I messed things up once big-time and we’re square.’

  Gunnarson laughed. ‘How have you stayed alive so long?’

  ‘I sometimes ask myself that.’

  ‘I bet you do. I’ll send someone and you’ll get an edited report.’

  ‘Edited?’

  ‘I’ve bent over, but I’m not going to let you fuck me.’

  Megan had been very busy. She was compiling a list of quarries in an area stretching from Nowra in the south to Newcastle in the north and west to the Blue Mountains. She refused to tell me how many she had so far and I didn’t press her. I was more interested in what she’d turned up about Hugh Richards.

  ‘He’s a nasty bit of work,’ she said. ‘A God-botherer, as you’d expect given the party he belongs to. Very narrowly escaped prosecution for tax evasion and fraud back before he got into parliament. He’s rich, with interests in a string of companies, all that at arm’s length now, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The word is that he’s still actively involved in some of those companies and that he’s a busy share trader.’

  ‘How does he get away with that?’

  ‘There’s a theory, and I got this from your mate Harry Tickener, that he’s got something on the bosses in his party and maybe on one or two in the government.’

  ‘Great. Just what we need, a political angle.’

  Nothing happened for almost a week as Megan kept googling. I went to the gym, took my meds, checked that a flyer about McKinley was posted on the web and in the usual places, and that reports about his disappearance appeared in the press. Nothing on TV. Then Hank got a call.

  ‘From Chief Superintendent Ian Dickersen of Serious Crimes,’ Hank said. ‘He wants me and you and any materials we have on McKinley to come in to Surry Hills this afternoon. I guess I’m free. You?’

  ‘Yes. Any more information?’

  ‘About zip, except that I think he mentioned the word conference, and I gather your pal Gunnarson’s going to be there.’

  ‘I wonder if we should take a lawyer with us?’

  Hank tapped his mobile. ‘I’ve got my guy briefed and ready to spring into action.’

  We rolled up at the appropriate time and were escorted to a conference room with a large table and comfortable chairs-for a police station, that is.

  Dickersen was forty-plus, polished, part of the new breed. Not scruffy, not flash, not fat, not thin-a man for all occasions. He introduced himself, introduced Gunnarson to Hank and introduced the woman present, Detective Sergeant Angela Roberts, to both of us. She was black, part of an even newer breed.

  When we were seated Dickersen said, ‘DS Roberts interviewed a person named Guy at Tarelton Explorations. I thought it might be useful for you to compare notes with her.’

  Hank and I nodded in her direction. They’d have to be mental notes-neither of us had brought a single sheet of paper. If Dickersen noticed he didn’t comment.

  ‘Well, to business,’ he said. ‘We’ve found Henry McKinley. I’m sorry to have to tell you that he’s dead. He appears to have died violently.’

  It wasn’t unexpected, but you always hold out hope. It’d hit Margaret hard.

  ‘That’s not all,’ Dickersen said. ‘I understand you and McKinley’s daughter are close, Mr Hardy.’

  ‘In a way,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll leave it up to you then whether to tell her the rest or not.’

  ‘That is?’

  ‘Seems he was held for some time-ligature marks.’

  ‘Tortured?’

  ‘Possibly, hard to say.’

  8

  Henry McKinley’s body had been found near a fire trail in the Royal National Park. An attempt had been made to torch his car but it had been only partly successful, and the condition of the body allowed the pathologist to make several conclusions. McKinley had died of cardiac arrest. There were ligature marks on his wrists and ankles and bruises to his chest and legs.

  ‘The. . injuries were extensive,’ Dickersen said, ‘but the pathologist said his heart was dodgy-a couple of blockages. It’s possible the beating, or a number of beatings, could have triggered the heart attack. Or just stress from the. . circumstances he was in. He’d been gagged. I’d be stressed, from the sound of it.’

  There was an eerie quiet in the room as Dickersen went into the details. When you hear of a thing like that you can’t help mentally putting yourself in the victim’s place and feeling the chill of fear-me particularly, after my recent experience. You don’t say anything; you just wait for the feeling to pass.

  Gunnarson broke the silence. ‘Some firemen found the car and got straight onto the police. Luckily, no media came to hear of it and we kept it that way.’

  I said, ‘You’re sure it was McKinley?’

  ‘Everything the pathologist documented about the body fitted the description the daughter gave us and the more detailed one that Mr Bachelor provided.’

  Hank said, ‘I didn’t tell you, Cliff. Our client said that her father had broken his right arm and his left shoulder in different falls from his bike.’

  ‘That checked out,’ Gunnarson said. ‘We found that McKinley was a blood donor. His DNA’s on record and that’s being matched, but I don’t think there’s any doubt.’

  Hank took a notebook from his pocket. ‘When was the body found?’

  Gunnarson looked at his watch. ‘Close to seventy-two hours ago.’

  ‘And how long since he was killed?’

/>   ‘Not long. That rainstorm we had last Friday probably contributed to dousing the fire.’

  I felt the weight of that. McKinley was alive when our investigation began. Another thing that’d be hard to convey to Margaret, but that wasn’t my only problem.

  ‘I have to ask,’ I said, ‘why are you giving us all this protected information? And, with respect, why is DS Roberts here?’

  Dickersen tapped the file in front of him. ‘Mr Bachelor and you have the inside track on this matter. As an apparent case of murder this is particularly serious in its. . execution. We’ve decided that we have an advantage in keeping it under wraps. We assume the perpetrators expect us to find the body and for the media to go to town on it. When that doesn’t happen they may become anxious.’

  Hank said, ‘You’re going to keep an eye on the spot in case someone comes to check?’

  ‘That, too, but we want your cooperation in giving us every scrap of information you have and maintaining the security blanket.’

  Hank glanced at me. ‘I’d say we could guarantee that, Chief Super, but, again with respect, as you say, how good is your security?’

  ‘Very good,’ Dickersen said.

  Hank nodded. ‘But not absolute.’

  Dickersen shrugged. ‘What is?’

  This was new territory for Hank and me-total cooperation with the police. The same question occurred to us both-was this sharing of information mutual? Hank asked for a few minutes for us to confer and we went into a huddle at the far end of the table while the police did the same at their end. We mapped out a strategy.

  When we reassembled, I said, ‘You spoke of us informing our client of her father’s death. That’d be a breach of this security, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘We’d ask you to withhold the information for a time while the investigation proceeds.’

  ‘That’d be deception on our part and would cost her money,’ Hank said.

  ‘Some measure of compensation might be possible.’

  ‘That’s very vague,’ I said. ‘Tell you what, we do have some additional information that could be relevant, and we’ll share it with you.’

  ‘Good,’ Dickersen said.

  ‘On the condition that a question we have is answered. That is, that DS Roberts tells us where she fits in and we decide we’re happy with her explanation.’

  At a nod from Dickersen, she took a notebook from her pocket and cleared her throat. I gave her an encouraging smile, which she ignored. ‘At Inspector Gunnarson’s direction, I interviewed the assistant to the CEO at Tarelton Explorations-a Ms Barbara Guy. The CEO, Edward Tarelton, AO, is out of the country on business, allegedly. Ms Guy gave me copies of a whole bunch of documents relating to Henry McKinley’s employment, but refused to tell me anything about his area of research or what field investigations he might have done.

  ‘I asked if Dr McKinley had had a secretary or an assistant I could interview and she said he hadn’t. I asked who was closest to him in the firm and she said he was a very private person who had no close in-house relationships, as far as she knew. I asked to see his office and was told it had been reassigned and that all his files were covered by commercial confidentiality.’

  ‘A fun interview,’ Hank said.

  She relaxed a little-Hank can have that effect. ‘At first, it was like hitting a ball against a brick wall. Then she tried to pump me about what we knew about Dr McKinley’s. .’ she consulted her notes, ‘. . absence, she called it. My turn to play a dead bat.’

  Hank said, ‘A dead bat?’

  ‘Cricket term,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain later.’

  ‘My report to the inspector suggests that Tarelton Explorations is sensitive and evasive about Henry McKinley. Outwardly cooperative, but actually very obstructionist. I believe they have something to hide and should be regarded as of interest in the investigation of Dr McKinley’s murder.’

  Paul Keating said something like, ‘We’ll never get this place set up properly until we find a way to get everything settled with the Aborigines.’ He was right on the grand scale and on the personal level as well. DS Roberts’s statement was a model of clarity and judgement and I wanted to say so and would have normally, but how patronising would that look? We haven’t found that way yet. Everyone around the table nodded.

  Gunnarson said, ‘Thank you, Angela. I hope that satisfies you, Hardy.’

  ‘It does,’ I said. I risked the patronisation trap by adding, ‘And for my money, I hope DS Roberts can stay on the investigation team.’

  ‘So?’ Dickersen said.

  After getting the nod from Hank I told them about Terry Dart’s death and the theft of his briefcase. I had the copy of Henry McKinley’s drawing in my pocket. I unfolded it and filled them in on the attempt to suppress the set.

  ‘Three thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money,’ I said, ‘but it isn’t chicken feed either. I got the impression from the gallery owner that the buyer would have paid, whatever the asking price.’

  ‘Find that buyer and you’ve got a fair way into this thing,’ Hank said.

  All three had been making notes. Gunnarson looked up. ‘Is there a good description of the buyer?’

  I shook my head. ‘Worse than useless.’

  ‘We’re not in good shape,’ Dickersen said. ‘We can keep the surveillance on the car for a few days but we can’t keep the whole thing under wraps for much longer. McKinley’s daughter has to be told and we’ll have to appeal for witnesses who might have seen activity in the park. The media’ll take a pretty keen interest, at least for a while. As I see it, we don’t have leads, just a suspicion about the Tarelton company. DS Roberts is going to interview the CEO when he gets back and see how he reacts to this news about

  one of his employees. Something might come of that.’

  ‘Like what?’ Hank said.

  Dickersen shrugged. ‘Maybe McKinley was caught up in something that went wrong. Who knows? Could be industrial espionage. Maybe Tarelton has a rival, an enemy of some kind. Might give us another line of enquiry. But that’s about it at this stage. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  Hank and I exchanged looks and we both nodded.

  Dickersen said, ‘I propose that we liaise through DS Roberts. Share whatever information comes our way.’

  ‘That was weird,’ Hank said on our way back to Newtown. ‘Never said a word about you being on board, unlicensed and all.’

  ‘It was odd all right,’ I said. ‘They’re playing a very cagey game. I don’t imagine for one minute that they told us everything, do you?’

  Hank shook his head.

  ‘Which was why we didn’t tell them Margaret’s guess about the drawing.’

  ‘Yeah, but Dickersen’s right-no real leads to follow.’

  ‘We’ve got the quarries and they’re bound to have something. It’s interesting.’

  We were in the train we’d caught at Museum-the best way to get around the city and our part of the inner west. There were only three other people in the compartment, all Asian and, as it turned out, all bound for Central and then Newtown. Two looked like students and the other, middle-aged, groomed, in a thousand-dollar suit, looked as if he might own a sizeable chunk of King Street. He spoke in a low voice on his mobile the whole time, switching easily from an Asian language to English and French.

  We were walking south along King Street when my mobile rang. I listened and broke into a run.

  ‘What?’ Hank said as he loped along beside me.

  I stumbled, fought for balance. ‘Megan. She’s been attacked.’

  9

  It was the first time I’d broken into a full run since the heart business. Hank, with youth and a longer stride on his side, passed me easily but I more or less kept up with him except on the stairs, which he took three at a time. We found Megan sitting on a chair in her office with her feet on a stool being fussed over by Grant, the gay podiatrist who occupies rooms on the same level. Simultaneously, I saw the blood on the towel she was holding to her head and smel
t the powerful fumes of petrol.

  Hank rushed up to her, almost pushing Grant aside. She let him take the towel away to reveal a long cut on her forehead that had obviously gushed blood and was now still flowing. Hank put the towel back. Megan’s expression was alert. She showed no signs of shock, plenty of anger. She didn’t exactly shoo Hank away but she clearly didn’t want to be comforted. I stood where I was.

  ‘What happened?’ I said. ‘Megan. .’ Grant began, but she waved at him to be quiet. ‘I got back from buying coffee to find this fucker backing out of our space, sloshing petrol around. I threw the coffees at him and tried to kick him in the balls. He hit me with the petrol can. I got in one kick before I dropped. He fell down the stairs. I hope he broke his bloody neck.’ ‘He didn’t, love,’ I said, ‘but you did pretty good.’

  Grant said, ‘You macho types. Time to call the police.’

  Hank had picked up on Megan’s attitude and abandoned the solicitude. He eased Grant towards the passage.

  ‘We’ll take it from here,’ he said. ‘Might need a statement. Did you see this guy?’

  Grant shook his head. ‘What’re you going to do about the petrol?’

  ‘Be careful with matches,’ Hank said.

  ‘Petrol and blood,’ Megan said, ‘an exciting combination.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Grant said, ‘quotations.’

  I took a closer look at Megan’s wound. ‘It needs stitches. Better get you up to RPA. I’ll do it, Hank, and then take her home.’

  Hank hesitated, but Megan reached for his hand, gave it a squeeze, and nodded.

  I heard Grant say, ‘Someone has to get on to cleaners, carpet people and the insurance company.’

  I helped Megan down the stairs and we got a taxi to the hospital. An open, bleeding wound gets quick treatment and she was cleaned up and stitched and given a tetanus shot and some painkillers all inside an hour. She insisted she could walk back to her flat.

  ‘You helped me buy it,’ she said. ‘Time you took a look at it.’

  The flat was in a narrow street two blocks south and one or two west from King Street, part of an old warehouse that had been gutted and done over. It was on the second level, had two bedrooms and a balcony looking out onto Camperdown Memorial Rest Park. The decor, furniture and everything else displayed Megan’s taste-plain, functional, unfussy.