‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘This place is run in accordance with the government conditions imposed on it. That’s always been my experience with this client.’
‘Do the villagers have to sign a confidentiality deed too?’
Cheung laughed, shook his head. ‘No one will be silenced, Anne.’
‘Apart from us, you mean.’
‘That’s a temporary precaution. There’s a report to prepare.’
‘A temporary precaution?’
‘Very normal in the circumstances.’
‘This is normal? A cyanide spill?’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Cheung said. ‘The way this event is being handled is normal.’
Warren laughed. ‘This event?’ she said. ‘Are you a lawyer, or a PR consultant?’
He smiled. ‘When your main clients are mining companies, you get to be a little of both.’
‘Do the villagers have a lawyer?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Anne,’ O’Brien said. Cheung said nothing.
‘Have you been elsewhere for Citadel, Joe?’ she asked. ‘I mean, when there’ve been other “events”?’ She made quote marks in the air.
Cheung picked up his glass and examined the precipitation on its surface. ‘This is my first one,’ he said.
• • •
In the report she drafted after she was flown back to Australia, she documented where each sample of river water and sediment had been taken. She prepared a chart outlining the heavy metal readings, comparing them to WHO guidelines. Cyanide readings were recorded separately. She’d been able to estimate where the plume had been most concentrated, mainly washing down the river’s right bank, where the current appeared strongest.
She made recommendations for ongoing testing. Human testing was also required – blood tests for all, but especially for children, given what lead can do to development. Audits ought to be made of the gold extraction processes, and of the dam repairs under the Cyanide Management Code.
She emailed the draft report to O’Brien, to pass on to Citadel.
It was nearly eleven when her phone rang.
‘I’m sorry to call late,’ Joe Cheung said after giving his name.
‘You’ve got my report already?’
‘My client’s confused,’ he said. ‘No one asked GreenDay for a written report.’
‘It’s what scientists do when we’ve been in the field.’
‘It wasn’t part of your brief.’
‘How else – I don’t understand. Unless there’s a report – it’s prepared to help them. So they know –’
‘I’m not an expert on scientific protocols, Anne. I’ve been asked to remind you of your legal obligations.’
‘I’m aware of them.’
‘Have you discussed it with anyone beyond Martin?’
She hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Not even someone at GreenDay?’
‘No.’
‘Who typed it?’
She laughed. ‘I did, Joe. We’re not a big law firm. I don’t have an assistant. When’s this going to be made public, anyway?’
‘I’ve only been asked to make sure you’re abiding by your agreement.’
‘I did some online searches about the mine,’ she said. ‘When Citadel bought it, the PNG government approved an expansion. They promised to build a new tailings dam and to stop using cyanide to extract the gold. That was five years ago.’
Cheung paused. ‘You’re mistaken. There’s nothing in the conditions of mine approval that legally required that.’
Warren laughed sarcastically. ‘Seriously? These things are optional?’
‘I doubt Citadel see it as any of your concern.’
‘Citadel has some applications for mine approvals here,’ she said. ‘We’re doing some work on them. This delay with the report about what happened on –’
‘Anne? Those aren’t things I can discuss with you.’ His tone was colder, final.
‘Can I ask something else, then?’ He didn’t respond. ‘You invited me to contact you,’ she said. ‘About my thesis. Do you remember?’
‘Yes,’ he said flatly.
She hesitated for a moment. She’d rehearsed raising this with him, but now struggled for the right form of words. ‘When Citadel makes all this public, I’d like to include the work I’ve just done. Would you talk to them about that? I want to discuss the kind of readings you get in a watercourse from a spill like this. You know, the levels of heavy metals, how far they travel, how far the cyanide plume travelled. All in the context of a dam of that size.’ She knew she’d started to talk too quickly, and paused to slow down. ‘I’d like to do more testing later, to check the recovery rate of the river, and the effect of the rehab measures. I know I’ve got to wait until Citadel announces whatever it is –’
‘Anne,’ Cheung said, stopping her again, ‘Citadel hasn’t finalised the announcement it’s going to make. It would be counter-productive for me to speak to anyone yet. It’s not the right time for me to speak to anyone at Citadel for you. I’m making myself clear, aren’t I?’
‘Any idea when – ?’
‘No, Anne, I don’t,’ he said. He sighed. ‘I’m sure it won’t be long.’
• • •
Anne Warren’s second flight to Tovosevu, a week after Joe Cheung had called her, was not by Citadel jet – she was booked onto a commercial airline from Sydney to Port Moresby. From there, she flew by light aircraft to the island.
Dredging was under way near where the contamination had first flowed into the river. Engineers were working on a rebuild of the dam wall. The river no longer smelt like it had four weeks before.
‘Well,’ Ivan said, as she silently looked at a plastic vial full of water.
‘Negative,’ she said. It was what she’d expected. Natural degradation and evaporation had rid the waters of cyanides. The heavy metals would be another matter.
When her second round of tests were complete, she was flown back to Port Moresby late in the afternoon. It was dusk when the plane landed. She wasn’t flying back to Sydney until the following day, and Citadel had reserved her a room at the Grand Papua Hotel for the night.
A driver was waiting for her in the baggage hall of the terminal. He held a sign against his chest, a whiteboard with her name in black. He was shorter than her, a local man, with a black beard. He wore a baseball cap, faded red with old sweat stains at the front.
As she approached him, she said hello, and introduced herself. ‘You’re taking me to my hotel?’
He nodded, and walked off, leading her out of the terminal building. It was almost dark, and the car park was sparsely lit. It was half full, and under a small tree a group of women had set up some tables where they were selling trinkets – wooden bowls, scarves and other touristy offerings. Two of the women called out to her as they walked past. She waved shyly, said, ‘No, thanks.’
Her driver had an ancient Honda, that had once been royal blue. The car smelt clean. There were hints of bleach. The man started the car, and music came on immediately, too loud until he turned it down. He revved the car, looking over his left shoulder and behind her to reverse. His eyes were black, the whites bloodshot. A stuffed toy caught her eye – a small yellow dog, wearing a red vest, hanging from the rear-vision mirror.
‘Grand Papua,’ the man said softly.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
They drove past a hotel two minutes from the car park. She wondered why Citadel hadn’t booked her a room there.
The streetlights were on down the highway, some white, some smoky yellow. There were people walking along either side of the road, and a few children on bikes. She had a headache, and her left forearm itched. She’d scratched it on the fronds of a plant walking to the river the morning before. She put her fingers and thumbs in the sockets of her eyes and rubbed, trying to push the headache away.
They turned off the highway and drove down a road that was less well lit, and turned off that onto another road, which had no str
eetlights or buildings. Soon after they made another turn, and the road was no longer sealed and there was dense greenery on either side. She’d never been to Port Moresby, and had no idea where the city was from the airport, and at first she thought he must have known some quicker route.
The taxi started to slow. ‘I don’t have any kina,’ she said, for a reason she didn’t fully understand. ‘Just Aussie dollars.’
The driver didn’t respond, but looked briefly in the rear-vision mirror. The headlights of the taxi flashed once. Up ahead, the headlights of another car, parked by the side of the road, flashed twice.
‘Is this near the hotel?’ she said. She knew it was not, but made herself ask. Her heart was beating hard, her stomach hollow, like it had vanished, leaving a void. She thought she would be sick.
The driver said nothing. He pulled the taxi over to the side of the road, in front of the other car. He turned the motor off, opened his door, got out and walked away. In the gloom she saw four figures approaching her.
They did not speak to her either.
PART ONE
1
Alejandro Alvares was standing outside courtroom 13A when Peter Tanner walked out of the lift. Alvares acknowledged Tanner with no more than the slightest raise of an eyebrow. He gave a flick of his dark brown hair, then sauntered to the far end of the corridor while talking softly into his mobile phone.
Tanner was appearing in the matter of Director of Public Prosecutions (Commonwealth) v Tomas Alvares, the Federal Prosecutor’s appeal against a sentence that was said to be inadequate. Tomas Alvares was Alejandro’s nephew. Eight months before, Tomas had copped a plea to a charge of possessing a large commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported controlled drug: he’d been apprehended with forty kilos of cocaine, which had a purity approaching seventy per cent, and a wholesale value of about eight million. On the streets, it could fetch over thirty million.
Tanner had appeared for the accused in the District Court, and had made submissions on sentence. He had taken the unusual step of calling Tomas to give evidence at his sentencing. He’d done this after the prosecutor had refused to agree to stipulate to facts that Tanner said his client should be judged on. Tomas’s version of events was that finding forty kilos of coke was a complete surprise. Yes, he was a drug addict. And on the night of his arrest he was in need of a hit, which was what he thought he’d be getting. He told the judge that he had no idea who his dealer was. They met in public places, and the guy went by the name of Barry. Barry told him to go to the depot that night, bring a package of drugs to him, and he’d deal some out. It was just a favour. Tomas was expecting to collect a few hundred grams from the dude who worked at the depot, nothing like the amount they found.
Calling Tomas was high risk, high reward. The kid, though, was rat cunning. The police had no phone taps or evidence to prove him a liar. The sentencing judge gave him the benefit of the doubt on the underlying facts. He accepted Tomas wasn’t a willing courier; he’d gone to collect more than a fix, but not forty kilos more. He gave Tomas a six year and six month sentence, with four years, four months non-parole. That was five years less than the prosecutor was willing to stomach.
For the sentencing hearing, Tanner had charged fifteen grand. When he still hadn’t been paid two months later, he cancelled his invoice, and issued a new one for thirty. Two days later he got a cheque for the original fifteen.
When the appeal brief came and he sent it back, he got a phone call from Alejandro Alvares’s personal assistant, asking why he was refusing to appear.
‘Because you owe me fifteen thousand,’ Tanner said.
‘But the invoice for thirty was just a tactic, wasn’t it?’
‘Tactics are for the courtroom. Tell your boss he’s fifteen short.’
‘But you originally charged fifteen?’
‘Then I didn’t get paid for two months. And then I was driving in Maroubra, and I saw one of the monstrosities Alejandro has just built. There are probably a dozen young people living in that block of flats who are doing drugs he’s imported into the country. And I decided then that my fee was thirty grand, not fifteen.’
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. ‘Do you expect me to tell him that?’
For the appeal, Tanner said he wanted cash, paid up front.
When Alvares finished his phone call, he walked back from the far end of the corridor and handed Tanner a thick envelope.
‘Is that all of it?’ Tanner asked.
‘Hello, Peter,’ Alvares said. ‘Nice to see you.’
‘Is it?’ Tanner had quoted twenty grand to do the appeal. It wasn’t about the money. It was about Alvares not ripping him off.
‘There’s ten there. The balance is for after.’
Tanner threw the envelope in his barrister’s bag, and looked at Alvares. ‘Do I look like a banker to you?’
‘Is this a trick question?’
‘I don’t look like your banker, Alejandro, because I’m not your fucking banker.’
‘I’m aware of that, Peter.’
‘I’m not in the business of lending money. Not to people as wealthy as you.’
‘I just handed you ten thousand –’
‘I’m not going to wait two months for the rest.’
‘Peter, you seem to regard everything about my nephew’s situation as coming down to money.’ Alvares had a rich voice, his place of birth lurking at the back of it, along with a hint of menace when required.
Tanner nearly laughed. ‘Alejandro,’ he said, ‘when I act for people like your nephew, trust me, it’s only about the money.’
• • •
After the prosecutor finished his submissions, Tanner focused his on what the police didn’t have.
‘There’s no evidence that Tomas Alvares contacted anyone about bringing the drugs into the country. The Commonwealth has nothing but unsubstantiated suspicion to suggest it wasn’t as the judge below found it to be. That is, Mr Alvares had no idea on the night he was apprehended that he was potentially about to facilitate the distribution of a large quantity of cocaine.’
‘I can’t help but feel that’s unlikely, Mr Tanner,’ one of the judges said. ‘As you say though, that mightn’t be enough?’
‘Your Honour’s right – it’s not enough. If this court has no more than doubts, then that doesn’t entitle it to interfere with the sentencing judge’s findings. The prosecutor complains about them but hasn’t once made out anything that amounts to legal error.’
‘It’s a very lenient sentence, though, Mr Tanner, given the maximum is life imprisonment?’
‘I wasn’t aiming for the maximum, your Honour. And I don’t accept “very”. The sentencing judge took account both of the maximum penalty, and the street value of the drug. A lenient sentence shouldn’t be increased on appeal unless some legal error is identified. The Commonwealth has to demonstrate the sentence is manifestly inadequate, not that another judge – or even your Honours – would have given a longer sentence.’
It took the court only twenty minutes’ deliberation to dismiss the appeal. The sentence was light, but appealable error hadn’t been made out. If he made parole, Tomas Alvares would be out in three and a half years.
• • •
When it was over, Alvares invited Tanner to join the family for a drink at his home. Making sure the devil got due process was the job; dancing afterwards wasn’t. He said no, but Alvares insisted he at least give him a lift home.
Alvares had parked his Series 7 BMW illegally in Phillip Street outside the court complex. As they reached the car, he plucked off a parking ticket that had been attached to a wiper, then screwed it up and threw it in the gutter.
When Tanner sank into the passenger’s seat of the BMW, he felt something hard jab into the base of his spine. He retrieved the largest hairbrush he’d ever seen. Thick black bristles amid white polymer pins on a mahogany frame embedded with jewels of some kind.
‘Do you own a dressage horse, Alejandro?
’ Tanner asked.
Alvares looked at the brush, then pointed to the glove box. ‘Put that in there,’ he said. ‘You were wrong, Peter,’ he continued as the car pulled away from the kerb.
‘Wrong about what?’
‘You said they’d increase Tomas’s sentence.’
‘I said they could, not that they would.’
‘You agree with the prosecutor? The sentence wasn’t long enough?’
Tanner looked at Alvares. ‘He got less than a year for every ten kilos. That’s light.’
Alvares nodded. ‘People are sick of lenient judges.’
‘Really?’ Tanner said flatly. ‘Which people?’
‘Everyone.’
‘“Everyone” could be stretching the truth.’
‘Decent people,’ Alvares said. ‘Civilised people.’
Tanner laughed. Tomas was the third drug case he’d been involved in that had a link to Alejandro Alvares. If even drug barons believed judges were too lenient, the shock jocks were doing a better job on ‘law and order’ than Tanner thought.
‘Who are the civilised people losing sleep about lenient judges?’
‘Most judges know nothing about the real world,’ Alvares said. ‘That’s why they fall for sob stories.’
‘You mean like Tomas’s story?’
Alvares let out a long breath, then smiled. ‘You think he was collecting those drugs for me, don’t you?’
Tanner shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
‘I can assure you he was not.’
‘That’s very reassuring.’
‘He’s learnt a big lesson.’
‘Four years in jail should teach you something.’
Alvares shook his head, and turned to look at Tanner as they stopped at a traffic light. ‘He will never go behind my back again.’
‘Behind your back?’
‘That deceitful shit borrowed money from his father. My idiot brother dotes on the boy. Treated him like a prince from the day he was born.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You don’t really think Tomas thought he was collecting a couple of hits that night, do you? This was a play into the game.’ Alvares shook his head. ‘He didn’t get anywhere near long enough.’
Cyanide Games: A Peter Tanner Thriller Page 2