‘In my head. In my dreams sometimes,’ Tanner said. ‘Karen’s still – she’s still there.’ And she was. Her possessions and clothes were long gone, but he still sometimes dreamed she was alive.
‘Dreams aren’t real,’ Karl said. He leant across the table. ‘Enough time, Peter. Get a girlfriend.’ There was authority in his voice. A paternal order.
Tanner smiled tightly. ‘Just like that?’
‘Go online if you have to.’
‘What?’
His father shrugged. ‘Why not? I have.’
Tanner put his glass down, and shook his head. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Nothing permanent has come of it yet.’
Tanner stifled a laugh. ‘Why not?’
‘My seven years in government housing isn’t universally respected.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s turned on by that,’ Tanner said.
Karl pointed to the wall of the adjoining room where Dan was watching TV. ‘You’re not alone, Peter,’ he said. ‘Get a girlfriend.’
Tanner laughed, almost to himself, and stood and picked up the dishes, as a means of closing the subject.
His father got the message. ‘What’s happening with that Chinese lawyer?’
‘He’s an Australian, Karl.’
‘Who is?’
‘The Chinese lawyer. He was born here. We’ve been friends since law school. You know that.’
‘My apologies. Have you been able to help him?’
‘Not from here.’
‘He has a lawyer there?’
Tanner nodded.
‘What will happen, do you think?’
‘He’s pleading guilty.’
His father frowned. ‘How long will he get?’
Tanner shrugged. ‘At least as long as you. You want another beer?’
Karl Tanner said nothing for a few moments. ‘And the other one – Matheson, is it? What’s he doing?’
‘He’s pleaded not guilty.’
‘Is he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you care?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I’ve always found that –’ he paused, searching for the right word, ‘– remarkable.’
‘Me caring won’t bring the girl back to life.’
‘There should still be justice for her,’ Karl said, ‘and for the living who did this to her.’
‘There wasn’t much justice for you, Karl,’ Tanner said, almost under his breath.
Karl Tanner glared at him for a long moment. ‘You at least care about justice, then?’
Tanner looked at his father and nearly smiled. ‘I do.’
• • •
Karl Tanner had received justice.
He’d been an insurance broker for the first half of his working life. He and a partner then set up a boutique financial planning business. Within a few years, the partner was not only selling financial products, he was giving investment advice. Clients’ money was littered around the stock market, often without express instructions. Then the market suddenly ‘corrected’, and the money disappeared.
Karl tried to clean up the mess, though. Doing nothing meant exposure; financial ruin. He made some bad decisions gambling with other clients’ money to try and get it all back.
When the securities commission people came knocking, Karl’s partner had the better lawyer. He squealed first and loudest. He did four years. Karl Tanner did seven.
• • •
When the plates were packed away, Tanner’s father said it was time for him to go. They walked quietly into the next room. Dan had fallen asleep on the couch. The room was lit only by the glow of the TV, and the lights of the Christmas tree.
‘You were right,’ Tanner said softly.
‘What about?’
‘The tree. It does look better now.’
When his father had left, and Dan had gone to bed, Tanner poured another glass of wine and sat at the kitchen table. At the top of the page on a yellow legal pad he wrote Joe Cheung.
He made a summary of all he knew. In the end the whole prosecution – the entirety of Cheung’s alleged corruption – depended on one man’s word. Tanner had no way of even finding out who this man was.
Next he wrote Bageeyn River & Tovosevu. Cheung would have advised Citadel on its application for the gold mine out west. A water report had been buried, and its author had gone missing. Cheung had been sent to the island. Another woman who’d gone there had been killed.
He finished with several short sentences that he wrote in capitals.
WHAT DID JC KNOW ABOUT BAGEEYN RIVER?
WHERE IS THE HYDROGEOLOGIST?
WHO IS NORTH SHANXI?
WHO IS THE MAN FROM XINCOAL?
WHY DID JC GO TO TOVOSEVU?
He pushed the pad away, picked up his glass, and turned his thoughts to Justin Matheson. What about him? Cheung said he was guilty. Tanner knew he was not. Matheson said he was innocent. The DNA didn’t lie – his client’s was under the dead girl’s nails. For his client to be innocent, it wasn’t only John Richter who was lying: so was Klaudia Dabrowska. Richter had a reason to lie. What reason would Dabrowska have? He wrote those words on another page of his pad.
The ultimate truth – what had happened to Elena Mancini the night she died – didn’t matter. An acquittal was what mattered.
He sat for a moment longer to think about that. The truth did not matter for Justin Matheson. It was different for Joe Cheung.
22
Nadine Bellouard agreed to have dinner with Tanner a few days after he arrived home from summer holidays with Dan. It was early in the new year, and he was about to return to work.
It was a warm and still evening, and Woolloomooloo Wharf was busy with people by the time she arrived at the restaurant. She’d added some auburn highlights to her hair since he last saw her and her arms and shoulders had a deep tan.
‘Been away?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘By a beach?’
‘Maui,’ she said. ‘A new resort there.’
‘Sounds expensive.’
‘I think it is.’
‘How long were you there?’
‘Just over a week.’
Two glasses of champagne arrived, along with the menus.
‘Known him long?’
She shrugged. ‘Long enough to let him take me.’
Tanner nodded. ‘Good for you,’ he said. ‘You like this guy?’
She smiled, faintly. ‘He’s nice with the kids.’
He looked at the condensation around his glass, then picked it up. ‘My father told me to get a girlfriend when we had dinner at Christmas.’
She picked up her glass and clinked his. ‘You should listen.’
He nodded, and studied the menu for a few moments. A waitress came to take their order, but Tanner asked for a few more minutes.
‘We’re here to talk about Joe?’ Nadine said.
‘Have you spoken to Melissa lately?’
She nodded slowly.
‘Has she told you Joe’s plans? What do you think?’
‘I don’t know, Pete. We all – we all think there’s been some misunderstanding with something Joe said . . . I just don’t know.’
‘A fifteen-million-dollar misunderstanding?’
‘No one can work it out.’
Tanner nodded slowly. ‘What’s being said around the firm? Do people know he’s going to plead guilty?’
‘No one is saying anything. Maybe the partners know, but none of the staff have officially been told anything.’
‘Who do you work for now?’
‘Simon Gault,’ she said. ‘He’s an M&A partner.’
‘Have you spoken to him about Joe?’
She nearly laughed. ‘He would never talk to me about anything like that.’
‘Does Joe seem to you like the kind of guy who would sell a client’s secret?’
‘Of course not,’ she said.
‘Do you think he’d
ask for a bribe?’
‘Pete, why are you asking me this?’
‘I need to know what work he was doing before he was arrested.’
‘He was there to meet Citadel’s Chinese partners, wasn’t he? That’s what –’
Tanner shook his head. ‘No. I mean the precise details of what he was doing.’
‘He was doing the kind of work he always does. He was working for Citadel on its acquisitions and mine applications . . . the one he’s been arrested about was part of that. His AA doesn’t know anything . . .’
‘I want to know the details of all of that.’
‘Can’t you ask – ?’
‘I don’t want anyone at BBK to know I’m interested,’ he said.
She looked at him for a long moment. ‘Except me?’
‘I need to know more than what he was working on. I want to know who he was dealing with, what documents he read, all that kind of thing.’
Nadine narrowed her eyes. ‘You want me to help with this?’
‘It’s why I asked you to dinner.’
‘Pete, it sounds like – I can’t take files from the office for you.’
‘I’m not going to ask you to do anything high risk,’ he said.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
‘Joe’s files – our computer system for files requires a passcode to get into. I won’t have that. Even if I got it, there’d be a record of me accessing the file. Other partners have taken over Joe’s work. Even getting to look at hardcopy documents would be –’
‘I don’t want you to do any of that,’ he said. ‘You’ve known Joe since he started as a junior lawyer. We both know he’s an honest man.’
The waitress came back and asked if they were now ready to order. Tanner asked for another five minutes, but told her to decant a bottle of Barolo from the wine list.
‘You’re trying to bribe me to do what you want with an expensive wine?’ Nadine said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I want the wine anyway. For you, I only need to use guilt – Joe’s not just your old boss, Nadine. He’s an old friend. He has three young children. His eight-year-old will be a man by the time he gets home.’
She stared at him for a few moments. ‘I don’t know what you’re looking for,’ she finally said, ‘but how’s it going to help Joe, anyway? What’s your plan?’
‘My plan is a work in progess,’ he said. ‘It’s unlikely I can help him. I’d like to try, though. To do that I need more answers than I have.’
She picked up her glass, and drained the last of her champagne. ‘I can’t lose my job,’ she said. ‘Even for – with my separation, I need my –’
‘You won’t lose your job, Nadine,’ he said. ‘This won’t leave a trail. There will be minimal risk.’
She sighed. ‘It won’t be legal, though, will it?’
He shrugged. ‘There won’t be any innocent victims.’
The waitress returned with the bottle of Barolo to check that it was the one Tanner wanted. He nodded. ‘Nadine will taste it.’
The waitress took the cork out of the bottle, and poured a small amount into Nadine Bellouard’s wine glass. She took a sip.
‘Is it okay?’
‘It’s lovely,’ Nadine said, ‘but not good enough to commit a crime over.’
The waitress gave them a confused smile, then filled their glasses.
‘And if I do get into trouble?’ Nadine said when the waitress left. ‘What then?’
‘I’ll defend you at your trial,’ he said. ‘And for a greatly reduced fee.’
23
They’d left from the city at nine. By eleven, the temperature was in the mid-thirties. The road ahead shimmered in the distance with the heat. In the background, the eucalypt-covered hills looked smoky blue, while the valley itself was lush with greenery, the rows of vines dense with grapes.
He’d spoken to Lisa Ilves three times on the phone since they’d met for a drink. In his call a week before, he’d told her he was sure he could help her clients. She said he’d have to meet them first; he had to prove a commitment beyond that he had for Joe Cheung.
‘Nearly harvest time,’ Tanner said as they drove between the fields of grape vines. Lisa nodded, said nothing.
She drove on, climbing up into the hills forested with gums, before the car turned around a steep curve near the top, where she pulled over to the side of the road.
She opened her door. ‘C’mon.’
He walked around the back of the car and stood next to her. Below them was a bleak, uneven crater, gouged out of the earth. It ran for kilometres in either direction, an enormous ashen scab that was itself scarred with grey arteries upon which the coal trucks rumbled in the distance. It could have been the surface of the moon.
‘That’s what an open-cut mine looks like,’ she said.
‘It’s huge.’
‘It’s eight kilometres long. They’re digging more than ten million tonnes of coal out a year. And it’s far from being the only big mine here. Now Citadel wants approval to dig a hole that will eventually be bigger than this.’
‘I get it. Enough’s enough.’
‘The people who live here are under assault. The air they breathe is overloaded with coal dust. They run their coal trains all night. Their draglines run twenty-four-seven.’
‘Why the speech?’
She looked towards the vast grey scar below them. ‘Should anyone have the right to do that? Just for money?’
Tanner looked at the mine for a moment longer, then back to Lisa. ‘We’re talking a lot of money, right?’
‘What happens when the coal runs out, or no one will buy it anymore?’ she said. ‘What do you do with a place like this? What will the mine workers do? What will their kids do?’
‘I don’t know.’
She shook her head. ‘Thanks for coming to meet June, but to be involved I need to know that you’re committed.’
‘Committed to what?’
‘To my clients’ causes. To help us do everything we can to stop the mines being approved.’
‘The best trial lawyers are detached from their client’s causes and prejudices.’
‘Concern for the environment isn’t a prejudice, Pete, it’s a necessity.’ She was wearing a black singlet, and her CO2 tattoo was fully visible on her shoulder.
He nodded, then smiled. ‘My level of commitment. It doesn’t extend to having to get one of those, does it?’
She shook her head. ‘Get in the car,’ she said. ‘We’re late.’
• • •
They arrived at the home of a woman called June Martin, who lived a few kilometres north of Singleton in the Hunter Valley. She owned a cottage on a couple of hectares of land, with an immaculately maintained rose garden out the front that was in late summer bloom. Martin was the president of the Save the Upper Hunter Action Group. Save the Hunter had three main objects in its constitution: to lodge court challenges to any government approval of new mines, to seek to have most of the existing mines in the valley closed, and to educate people about the environmental and health risks of coal mining.
When the front door opened, Tanner saw a small, thin woman in denim jeans and a white T-shirt, wearing a pair of shoes made for comfort, not elegance. She was perhaps mid-sixties, with shoulder-length salt and pepper hair, held up by a clip at the back.
June Martin kissed Lisa hello, then looked Tanner up and down. ‘You’re here to see if I like you?’
‘How am I doing so far?’
She shrugged. ‘Good enough to come in and take a seat.’
They went to the kitchen and she put a kettle on. The kitchen smelt of something that had been freshly baked. Cake, or scones. ‘Lisa’s passed on good things about you to our group,’ Martin said as she sat down.
‘I haven’t done anything yet,’ Tanner said.
‘You must have a good reputation, then.’
‘Among the nefarious, I do.’
‘Isn’t that a good thing, in your game?’
‘Not every member of the community shares that view.’
‘Somebody has to defend the sinners, don’t they?’
‘That’s a mature and responsible view, June.’
‘I’m a mature woman,’ she said. ‘But not very responsible.’ She smiled, demonstrating every crease in her sun-touched face. She had generous teeth, which looked like they’d sampled more than a few vintages of Hunter Shiraz.
‘How did you end up president of your action group?’ Tanner asked.
‘I’ve lived here a while.’
‘How long is that?’
‘Is sixty-three years long enough?’
‘I don’t believe it. Do you work?’
‘High-school teacher. Closing in on retirement.’
He nodded. ‘The action group, then. What drove you to join it?’
‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘I started it.’
‘Why?’
The kettle whistled, and she got up to pour tea. ‘We live in a rural community, Peter. We don’t want our land or wildlife destroyed by more mining. We pay taxes. We ought to be able to breathe the air and not worry about it.’
‘Life-long passion?’
‘I’ll throw myself under a bulldozer to stop this mine.’
‘I’d do my best to make sure you don’t have to.’
Martin nodded. ‘Your best’s all we ask for. We don’t expect miracles.’
‘What a strange client you’d make.’
She smiled. ‘You’ll help us with Rob?’
‘Who’s Rob?’
‘I haven’t told Peter about Rob yet,’ Lisa said. ‘You told me not to.’
Martin looked at Lisa and raised her eyebrows.
‘What am I missing?’ Tanner asked.
Lisa poured milk in her tea from a small jug Martin had put on the table. ‘Rob’s how you prove your commitment to June’s group, Peter,’ she said.
‘And how do I do that?’
‘You’d better tell him quick,’ Martin said, ‘he’ll be here in a minute.’
‘Rob’s a member of our group. He’s in trouble with the police.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘An assault charge.’
‘We’re wondering if you’ll act for him,’ Lisa said.
Tanner looked at her for a long moment. ‘Apart from you springing this on me, is there some reason why I wouldn’t?’
Cyanide Games: A Peter Tanner Thriller Page 16