No Witness, No Case

by Bill Robertson

  ‘Is that it?’ Meadows asked, his voice tinged with faint surprise.

  ‘Yes, nothing else,’ was the flat response. Aldrittson had never intended using Baker’s paedophilia publicly, that was his private leverage. Public knowledge of that vice was a surefire guarantee for an election loss and he didn’t want that. Obviously, he was Baker’s persecutor. Well, tough shit. Anyone who messed with kids that way deserved to die. Aldrittson had nothing but contempt for Baker. Still, he had paid the price.

  ‘Alright, listen up everyone,’ Meadows continued, ‘this morning I’m contacting the PR firm, Centaur and Chimera – they’ll put the best spin on this situation. We need to be ready for the midday news and thoroughly prepared for the evening news and 7:30 Report. So far, the newshounds haven’t caught the scent but it won’t be long. I’ll take the running on this: pay my respects to Marnie Baker and organise flowers. Has anyone got a press conference today?’

  Paul Newbegin, Minister for Transport raised his hand. ‘Yes Premier. I’m cutting ribbons on our new trams to celebrate completion of the super stops on Route 109. It’s scheduled for 3:00 p.m.’

  ‘Okay Paul, see me before you go. The spin doctors will have an angle by then. Remember, play up his hard work, emphasise his achievements in Environment and Education and endorse his loyalty to the party. Don’t go near his family life except to say he was devoted, we don’t know what the police will find. And, finally, heed John’s advice: Chatham House Rules. Okay, thanks everyone.’

  As a body, they rose and filed across the office.

  ‘Oh, one more thing,’ called Meadows, ‘it’s possible – although I don’t expect it – that Opposition members could play hard ball on this. I’ll speak to Clive Crystal at the first opportunity. I don’t want a shit fight with the Opposition about Baker. Remember, if you demean someone, you diminish yourself. If they want to play that game, they will suffer. Don’t get snared in that trap. Thanks.’

  Muttering and murmuring, singly and in pairs, they left Meadow’s office. It had been a long time since a Member of Parliament committed suicide. No one liked it.

  Aldrittson returned to his office. Helen Jones, his secretary, handed him four phone messages and a sealed envelope.

  ‘Thanks Helen. Any chance of a coffee? It’s going to be a long day. Baker’s death has already soured things and the bloody agenda is jammed with new and amending legislation. I’d kill for a coffee.’ He looked pleadingly at her.

  She smiled. Ben Aldrittson was a good boss: little gifts from overseas trips, post cards, trinkets for her kids when they were younger. Coffee was no problem.

  Aldrittson scanned the phone messages and smiled to see one from Teresa. His father had called and the others were from business associations. He looked at the sealed envelope. Plain white, posted, typed address and marked: Absolutely Personal. He slit it open and withdrew another envelope – it was parliamentary stationery and the handwriting was unfamiliar. He opened it as Helen returned with fresh coffee.

  ‘Here,’ she said, ‘stoke the inner man for battle.’ She set it down on his desk, made a couple of rapier thrusts through the air, laughed and walked out. I’m lucky, he thought, Helen’s a bloody good workhorse and she keeps secrets. He sipped his coffee and withdrew the note, also on parliamentary stationery. He glanced at the signature, Lance – bloody – Baker!

  *

  Wednesday

  June 2, 2005.

  Aldrittson,

  You always were, and will remain forever, a piece of shit. I meant what I said – you’ll get nothing from me. Nothing! Feel free to blow the whistle on whomever you like, including me. Just know that you won’t be hurting me – only Marnie and the girls. If you can do that, you are an even bigger turd than I thought you were.

  Although, I’d expect you to hurt Marnie, just to get even.

  But your day is coming Sunshine. I found out quite a few things about your family company and believe me, that investigation will not stop.

  I will pay for my sins and I’ll meet you in hell arsehole because you sure won’t be going elsewhere!

  Lance Baker

  *

  Aldrittson drank his coffee distractedly tapping Baker’s envelope on the desk. At their last meeting Baker hinted at a shadowy pattern of illegal dumping in Victoria. He had also mentioned a partnership with New South Wales to find the culprits. His father’s sites were up and down the eastern seaboard and he wondered if some of their drivers had been seen discharging waste. He hoped stuff couldn’t be traced back to the firm but one could never be sure. Maybe a truck had been noticed looking out of place. He could kill off enquiries by the Victorian Department of Environment – that’s why you needed leverage – but his influence didn’t extend to New South Wales. He would have to see what he could flush out. Options? Apart from opposition to the federal government’s desire to build a radioactive waste site in their state, nothing about toxic dumping had been heard from South Australia. Perhaps Jack could increase volume there and decrease dumps in Victoria? In any event, he had better let Jack know about the New South Wales problem which would also rule out Queensland. Far too risky to travel through New South under these circumstances. Better to just keep out.

  Threats? Not dumping in other states raised exposure risk in Victoria – more trucks, more dumps, greater visibility. Apart from that, Danny Browne’s replacement remained an issue. More journeys by fewer drivers heightened the possibility of mistakes. The Old Man was also under increasing pressure because of Santini’s death. Perhaps he had been too hasty there? No. Santini had pushed his luck and deserved what he got.

  Time was getting on. He buzzed the intercom. ‘Helen, the calls this morning from the Sporting Footwear Association and Association of Drillers, Hydrologists and Petroleum Explorers, would you ring them and find out what they want? If it’s a dinner speech, slot them in to my schedule. Tell them I apologise for not calling personally, pressure of work and all that. Hold all calls for now, I’ve got three to make and then have to dash.’

  ‘Yes Boss. I’ll let the Associations know you can’t do anything in the month before to the election. Anything else?’

  ‘No … Yes. When did that letter arrive? The one marked personal.’

  ‘This morning. It came in the mail with others for the office. I didn’t open it because it was confidential.’

  ‘Good morning Teresa, Ben here. What a pleasant surprise to receive your message. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Hello Ben. I thought I’d ring to say how positive our discussion was the other night. I was tempted to ring Friday but I didn’t want you getting big headed.’ She chuckled softly.

  ‘Teresa, that certainly would have been a possibility,” he laughed, picking up on the innuendo. ‘But yes, I enjoyed our meeting too. How about dinner tomorrow night? I know a really good, discreet place at Port Melbourne.’

  ‘Thanks Ben.’ Teresa laughed down the phone. ‘I’m really tempted but I have a heavy week and, much as I’d like to, I can’t. I’ll look forward to Friday. Maybe we could go to the Port Melbourne place on Friday instead of Ruffles?’

  ‘Sounds good. It’s called The Squid’s Legs. Why don’t I pick you up at your place around 7:00 p.m. I’ll book dinner for seven forty-five.’

  ‘The meal time is good but I’m sorry, I’ll be working until seven. I’ll just meet you there at seven forty-five. Okay?’

  Aldrittson was disappointed. He wanted to see her home, inspect her private domain, learn more about her. He said instead, ‘Well that’s probably better for me too. I’m pretty busy myself. There’s a heavy legislative agenda on in the House right now, you know, election and all that. If things get bogged down Friday afternoon I could well be in trouble myself. However, I’ve enjoyed talking with you and I’m looking forward to Friday night.’

  ‘Thanks for calling back,’ she added before hanging up.

  Aldrittson got off the phone feeling upbeat and spent a few moments recalling the sensual vision he had met last
Friday. He rang Spencer Johnson.

  ‘Yo, Benny. How are you my boy?’ said Johnson.

  ‘Good Spence. I need a work-out and some alterations to my program. Can you fit me in at say, seven tonight?’

  ‘Sure thing, I’ll see you then.’

  Finally, he rang his father. They exchanged pleasantries before Ben asked, ‘What’s on your mind Dad? You don’t ring here very often.’

  ‘Well, I’m a bit pushed Son and it’s becoming a real bloody headache for me. Do you remember Martin Judd? The driver who lost his leg?’

  ‘Yes, you put him in the office didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. He was Santini’s understudy – a bloody good one too. But there was one aspect he didn’t get to work on. I’m thinking of putting him to work on all of Santini’s responsibilities, but I need to make sure he’s good for it. Could your helpers check him out for me?’

  ‘Sure. I’m glad you called about it. I’ll stop by tonight’

  Chapter

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Hi Mary, how are you doing?’

  ‘Fine thanks Andy.’ She smiled into the telephone. ‘Tony’s outside planting those roses you gave me. Want me to get him?’

  ‘No Mary, I’m in a bit of a hurry actually. I rang to let you know I’m back in Melbourne. The Foundation has a few things they want me to take care of. If Tony or his crew are out my way, would you ask them to check on the house for me? ‘

  ‘Sure Andy, I’ll tell his Lordship. How long will you be away?’

  ‘Not certain, a week, maybe two. But I’ll call later. See you Mary.’

  Drummond didn’t like lying, but sometimes it was necessary. His partnership with the Royal Women’s Hospital had started when Sue contracted ovarian cancer. After her death, he had donated $500,000 to their Foundation to help exploration of the causes and treatment of ovarian cancer. He and Sue had discussed the idea before her death and agreed it was a practical way of helping women in the future. As a result, he had won a minor role with the Foundation and attended meetings several times a year. He liked the contact because it maintained connection with Sue. In this case, he was simply using the Foundation as his foil for being in Melbourne.

  Drummond had transferred Aldrittson’s material from the memory stick to his computer and spent Sunday organising and examining the stolen records. He now had a fair understanding of who worked at AWD, employee numbers, where they lived, pay ranges, job functions and the overall scope of the firm’s activities. He knew who worked at Brooklyn and who worked at Bayswater. He had boned up on Bayswater for the interview with Santini. It was a substantial and highly mechanised plant boasting a powerful computer-controlled destructor and several recycling functions. Even though large, comparatively few people worked there – a salute to modern technology.

  In sorting people by job function he had discovered three broad employee categories: clerical and administrative, maintenance and engineering, and transport. Each of these groups contained sub-groups, the smallest of which was drivers: trucks, cranes and forklifts. With few exceptions, most drivers were qualified in all three fields.

  The generosity of the AWD pay system caused him to whistle aloud. Two things stood out: waste was a big money maker and Aldrittson believed in sharing that money around. Driver pay, by anybody’s measure, was generous and overtime allowances liberal. It would indeed be a rare employee who complained of being underpaid.

  He wondered about pay for non-drivers. Again, he was surprised. Not only did clerical and maintenance receive good money, but they regularly received bonuses. The arrangement kept them in touch with the more highly paid drivers. Even more surprising was that these pay arrangements seemed to have no adverse effect upon profit margins. He was beginning to understand why The Financial Review had written so positively about this firm.

  When he opened his file from Santini’s computer he experienced intense dismay. It was completely different from everything he had been working on – all of it was coded. The upside was it had to be significant.

  According to the personnel files, Santini was foreman and office administrator. Probably that meant he was responsible for pickups and driver scheduling. He re-examined the codes in Santini’s system. A typical entry read:

  D.000123.32.0600.010305.4.C.1800

  He checked the personnel records again. There were several possibilities: D could be a simple indicator for driver while the number following might be a personnel or payroll number. He scrolled through a series of numbers and found a name against each one. He then searched for the dead driver, Danny Browne, and found him recorded as 000123. From experience he suspected that 010305 was a date. That seemed right, the truck fire in which Browne died was May 20, 2005. The date he was now checking implied Browne had worked on March 1, 2005. Time in the army suggested to him the numbers 0600 and 1800 could be start and finish times – 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. What about the other numbers? No idea, but if Santini was in charge of rostering and scheduling, they could relate to clients and waste. A lot of “coulds” and “maybes” …

  He looked for patterns. Eventually, he saw two strings, or sets of numbers. The first set typically contained between twenty-three to twenty-eight digits while the second had twenty-nine to thirty-six digits. The second set was also recorded differently. He wrote down two of Browne’s number sets:

  D.000123.32.0600.010305.4.C.1800

  D.000123.169.3.37.B.d.0600.070305.6.2100.H

  There were similarities: employee code, start/ finish times and date, but apart from that, he was stumped. He scrolled endlessly and eventually saw another pattern: the longer number was limited to the same twelve employees.

  Personnel records showed forty drivers, yet only twelve undertook whatever the longer number stood for. After examining the short set again he saw that all forty drivers were engaged equally across this activity. Nothing obvious differentiated the special twelve from the other twenty-eight drivers.

  His broad understanding now was that all drivers shared the same kind of work but twelve were singled out for something different. He puzzled over how he might learn what that “something” was. Danny Browne was one of the special twelve. His journey for the day of the fire was listed in a short number set. That should be right, it accorded with what Maud had been told: Browne, supposedly, was on a rostered trip to Mildura.

  It was all too hard. Drummond rose and walked onto the balcony to clear his head. It was cool and sunny and a light breeze was blowing through almost bare trees. Clouds were banking in the west and the sun would soon be gone. He looked at his watch: Good God, 4:15 p.m. He had been so deeply engrossed in his puzzle he hadn’t noticed the day slip away.

  Back inside he made fresh coffee. If he could think of some personal event that coincided with a journey by one of the unknown Schoolhouse Lane trucks, he might find a starting point for unravelling this mystery. He wracked his memory and recalled a Foundation meeting in Melbourne on February 18, 2005. He had come home late and was restless because of the endless bloody heat. Around 1:30 a.m. he got up for a drink, heard a truck and watched the headlights pass along the lane.

  He trawled the February records and found a long number set for Browne on that date. There were no entries for other drivers so he felt comfortable assuming it was Browne in Schoolhouse Lane. According to his interpretation of the numbers, Browne left the depot at eight o’clock Thursday evening, February 18, 2005 and returned at 7:30 the following morning. Allowing for say, two hours to get from the depot to Schoolhouse Lane, there was a gap of three and a half hours. Similarly, if he allowed another two hours for Browne to return to the Depot from the time he heard the truck at 1:30 a.m., there was a gap of four hours. What had Browne been doing during this seven and a half hour period? Where had he been? Drummond drew two conclusions: first, there was at least one previous occasion when Browne appeared to have been in Schoolhouse Lane, and second, as Browne was one of the special twelve, the long number set suggested he was, at that time, undertaking s
ome different form of work. Continuing to explore the limited database for Browne, Drummond found three more journeys on Schoolhouse Lane. He now seriously questioned AWD’s contention that Browne was moonlighting at the time of his death.

  At 7:00 p.m. Ben Aldrittson rapped on Spencer Johnson’s office door.

  ‘Benny. Come in, take a seat. Shut the door.’ Johnson waited expectantly.

  ‘You heard Lance Baker died?’

  ‘I did,’ Johnson replied, ‘it was on the six o’clock news. What happened?’

  ‘Silly bugger topped himself.’

  ‘How come?’ Johnson’s eyes bored into him.

  ‘Who knows! But I wanted to check with you on that information you got about him. Do you have copies?’

  Johnson’s response was acid-like. ‘You know I don’t. That’s the deal. You pay well and you pay fast. You look after me so I’m bloody straight with you Benny. You have the only copy. Why are you asking?’

  Aldrittson paused before answering. ‘I’ll come to that in a minute. How many sources did you use to put the package together?’

  ‘Several.’

  ‘Are they friends? Are they in contact with one another?’

  ‘As far as I’m aware they don’t know each other. Does the credibility of the information concern you?’

  ‘Hell no. I have no doubt about its accuracy. I’m asking for two reasons. It goes without saying that Baker’s death will inspire a scrupulous police investigation. That could turn up anything. Additionally, the Premier made it very bloody clear today this suicide is bad news for us. Baker left a note which hinted at problems. Meadows sees Baker’s death as an election millstone. I need to be sure your dossier doesn’t become another one.’

  ‘Well, so much for love and charity among our splendid politicians.’ Johnson laughed harshly. ‘The poor bastard is still warm and all you can think of is covering your arse. Charming. You’ve got the only copy. It will never be connected to you from my enquiries so relax.’