Flood country

by Robert Maddison

  The others moved to the door. Mike said, ‘You three stay here and keep your bloody heads down.’ He ventured out cautiously. They heard Sandie, behind the tractor shed, say, ‘Kids, get down, and crawl over here. Someone is shooting close by.’

  Next they heard Mike in urgent tone, ‘Charlie, you stay with Sandie and the kids. I’ll jump in the ute and go see what I can find. Come on boys,’ they heard him beckon the dogs to get on the back. As the ute started a car drove off at high speed on the main road accompanied by the sound of gravel being kicked up by the spinning wheels. Pip, Jack and Sharon ventured out, assuming it was now safe. They saw Charlie and Sandie doing the same from behind the tractor shed, Kate and Ben clutching tightly to them. ‘Where’s Dad?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘I don’t know. We heard him fire up the ute and then nothing,’ said Pip.

  Together they moved toward where the ute was parked down near the chook run. Mike was there, cradling old Max in his arms. There was blood all over Mike’s shirt. As he heard their approach Mike turned to face them. He had tears trickling down his face. ‘They shot old Max, the bastards. I’ve had this dog through thick and thin. He was Marg’s best mate. He never left her side in those last few weeks.’

  Pip, Jack and Sharon backed away; figuring this was a family moment and they shouldn’t intrude. They went back inside, where Sharon said it for them all. ‘Holy shit. I don’t know about you guys, but when people start doing this sort of crap in broad daylight it’s time to get some serious help. This is too big for us.’

  Mike appeared at the door, now cradling the lifeless form of Max in an old wheat bag. ‘I’m going to put him to rest. We’ve got a special place for these faithful old buggers down near the creek. I’ll be back in a while—I need some time to think and say thanks to an old mate. Make yourselves at home.’

  Charlie followed his father to the door. ‘I think I’ll take Sandie and the kids home, if that’s alright. They’re pretty shaken up.’ Knowing his father well, Charlie clutched his arm firmly, staring him in the face. ‘Promise me you’ll do nothing about this today, dad. Please.’

  Mike nodded quietly. ‘You’re right. There’s nothing to be gained by lashing out. We have to out-think these bastards now.’

  As Charlie and Sandie gathered their things, Mike said, ‘You got the shotty in the car, and loaded?’

  ‘It’s not loaded, yet,’ Charlie replied, with emphasis. He turned to Sandie, ‘Maybe you should take the kids and go stay with your sister in Albury. Not sure this is a good place for you guys to be right now.’

  ‘We can discuss that on the way home. Goodbye everyone.’ Sandie turned and lead the way to the car, with purpose.

  In Mike’s absence, Sharon and Pip started to explore the kitchen to put some food on the table. After a few minutes they decided it would be best to wait for Mike so made a coffee and sat.

  About 30 minutes later Mike strode back in the door. His eyes were still teary and Max’s dried blood was obvious on his sleeves. ‘Excuse my language, ladies, but now I’m fucking angry,’ he announced. ‘How dare they shoot at my family and kill my old mate. This won’t stop me. With what they did to you Jack, they’ve gone too far this time. Of course, I will understand if you guys want out.’

  ‘We’re with you on this, Mike, although we reckon the stakes just got higher and we need help,’ said Sharon.

  ‘Have to agree with you there,’ said Mike.

  ‘Anyone hungry?’ asked Pip, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Sharon and I thought we’d whip something up for lunch so we can chat about all this over some sustenance.’

  ‘That’s my domain in there; so don’t teach it any bad habits, you two,’ said Mike grinning. ‘You won’t find any of that bloody tofu shit and I’m a proud carnivore, so none of that fancy vegetarian crap, you hear me.’

  Mike settled back in his favourite chair on the veranda and gazed out toward the road from where the shot had come. ‘You know that’s a mighty fine shot; even in broad daylight, Jack, assuming it was one of the dogs they were after.’

  Pip, just emerging from the kitchen with a cuppa for Mike said, ‘You’re not wrong. Can’t be too many people around here that could pull that off with one shot. I might ask Jimmy my pig shooter mate who else in this area could do it. That’s a shithot shot.’

  The cooks produced sausages and chips which Mike and Jack approved of most heartily. They kept the conversation away from serious topics while they were eating, but eventually Sharon again posed the question from earlier. ‘So come on, Mike, spill the beans. What have you got that caused Mr Wellsmore to suddenly take ill?’

  Mike hesitated. ‘I told Jack a bit about this without giving too much away. Given what we’ve all been through I suppose I owe you all a bit more information.’ He took a deep breath before continuing.

  ‘There’s someone that works in Wellsmore’s building. One night a few months ago she was working back late and heard noises from the other end of the building. Seems Wellsmore didn’t know she was there. Her husband was picking her up after footy training—he’s the coach—so there was no vehicle in the car park. Anyway, she had to go and do some photocopying and wandered down to near Wellsmore’s office. He was on the phone and it was clear that he wasn’t a happy camper by the tone of his conversation. Lots of apologies and back peddling and then he started screaming down the phone saying things like, ‘Don’t you threaten me,’ and, ‘Of course I know we could all go to prison.’ She crept back to her workstation and shortly after heard Wellsmore leave the building.’

  Mike looked out the window before continuing. ‘As you all know there has been gossip going around about illegal stuff in the water industry for years, so much so that locals now switch off when you raise it. They know it’s true and that nothing will be done about it. My contact comes from an old farming family in this valley. She knows all the stories about corruption. Her curiosity had been tweaked by what she’d overheard so she started to sniff around in Wellsmore’s office. Seems he must have been so annoyed by his phone call that he’d left the building without removing his USB thingy from his computer. She took it back to her office and opened it up; and bingo, there it all was. All the correspondence over several years relating to reported water thefts, many with photos and written details. She then got into the office network to see where these reports were archived. I’m no computer type, but as I understand it she searched the whole system and none of the reports came up. So she duplicated the USB onto a CD and then put it back in Wellsmore’s computer.’

  With obvious excitement Sharon said, ‘So where is it now? That’s just what we need to take to ICAC. It’s the smoking gun.’

  ‘My informant tells me she has it in a secure place. I don’t know where that is though. She’s still not sure she wants to blow the whistle. She’s seen how such people get hung out to dry by governments, work mates, even their communities sometimes.’

  ‘We need to talk to her, and check out this information; otherwise we’ve got nothing that will stick. We need to nail Wellsmore and get him to roll over on the others involved. That’s our only chance,’ said Jack.

  ‘I’ll talk to her again tonight but I can’t force her to hand it over,’ Mike said with resignation in his voice.

  Pip stood and asked Mike, ‘Is it alright if I use your phone to call Jimmy now? Mobile reception out here is a bit patchy.’

  ‘Sure, go for it.’

  Pip checked the electronic phone book on her mobile and called Jimmy on the landline. ‘G’day, Jimmy. How you doin’, mate? Yeah, that’s good. Listen, I’m out at Mike Thompson’s and some bugger just bowled over one of his dogs from long range, about 300 metres we reckon. Who around these parts could do that with one shot?’

  Pip listened intently, before saying, ‘Hmm, so you reckon it would have to be one of those two unless they hired in a pro? Yeah, ok, thanks mate. See you on Thursday for the shoot out at Bundalong Station eh?’

  She hung up the phone and turned to face them. ‘
Jimmy says there’s only two around here who are that good a shot; Wayne Butcher or Billy Casperson. Both have had some military background. He reckons Wayne might be away at the moment. Interestingly though, Billy does casual work for a few properties; including GrowOz, he reckons. The only other option is that they hired a pro, which I suppose is possible. If they were going to do that you’d reckon they’d have knocked off more than poor old Max.’

  After lunch Pip, Jack and Sharon flew back to Dawson. As they parted company at the airport, Sharon said, ‘I’ll call Luke, my detective mate in Sydney, later; and see what reaction he got from his ICAC contact. I’ll let you know what I hear.’

  Chapter 31

  Luke’s mobile rang as he was approaching the coffee shop to meet with Mark Samuels from ICAC. It was Benny. ‘Luke, holy shit mate, where are these photos from? I took a closer look and managed to get a match on that excavator. It’s registered to GrowOz, one of our biggest fresh food producers. In fact they’re the major supplier to Goodacres. What’s this all about?’

  ‘Might be best I not tell you at this stage, Benny,’ he replied. ‘Can you sit tight on this, as in don’t log it into the system just yet? I’m not sure where this all might lead just yet.’

  ‘Ok, can do, for now. Keep me posted though—I’m intrigued. I saw something on telly the other night about our farmers getting screwed over by big, cashed-up, multinationals buying up all the land and water. If you need any more help with this one just let me know. I’m from the bush originally, you know,’ said Benny.

  ‘Thanks for the speedy turn-around, mate, and I suspect I might take you up on that offer. Talk soon,’ said Luke as he pushed open the door to the coffee shop.

  Mark Samuels was there already, seated in a corner booth. ‘G’day Luke, good to see you again,’ he said, shaking Luke’s hand as he slid into the seat. ‘We ordering?’ he asked as a waiter arrived.

  ‘Sure, I’ll have a long black thanks,’ said Mark. Luke looked across at Mark; mid-30s, fair complexion, short-cropped blond hair and fit body cloaked with a well-fitted grey suit and smart fashionable tie. He reeked of lawyer; which of course most ICAC investigators were.

  Luke ordered and after exchanging some pleasantries, Mark said, ‘What’s on your mind, Luke?’

  ‘A few days, ok, I got a phone call out of the blue from an old friend. She’s now a journo for a small country paper out in the sticks. Seems she may have stumbled onto a situation involving corruption in the water industry.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be hard to find,’ said Mark with sarcasm. ‘We get a steady stream of letters and phone calls about the subject. It’s rare we have enough evidence to pursue them, sadly.’

  ‘Well, my friend tells me that a local farmer recently—and publicly—accused the regional head of the Department of Water Resources of being involved in corrupt activities, and that he had proof. Then another journo, who she knows from years ago, showed up to do a follow-up on the story. That’s when it got interesting. This city journo had a mysterious accident, just after seeing my old friend, for one thing. His camera and laptop disappeared from the crash site and these just happened to have some photos on them of an alleged water theft incident. The local copper was happy to treat it as misadventure.’

  Mark was immediately more interested. He sat forward. ‘Keep going. I read about this farmer and we have a “to be followed up” tag on it for now.’

  Their coffees arrived and both sat back until the waiter had gone, then resumed.

  ‘The photos weren’t lost after all. Copies were saved and I have them,’ continued Luke. ‘I ran the plates and while one of the vehicles is not very helpful; the heavy machinery in the shot comes up as registered to GrowOz, which—as you may know—is part of Goodacres.’

  Mark interrupted. ‘Are you for real? This could be the break we’ve been waiting for. Many of the reports we’ve had about ‘issues’ in this industry have pointed in their direction but we’ve never had anything concrete to go after.’

  Luke sat back and smiled. ‘Maybe we need to get these guys to come down here to fill us in?’

  ‘Sounds like the way to go. We’re better off letting this play out for a bit longer before we fly the ICAC flag. That’s if you think your guys can handle what’s being thrown at them, of course?’

  ‘I’ll speak to Sharon and see what she says. Last time we spoke I sensed they were getting a bit spooked.’

  Chapter 32

  Todd leaned out of his car window and pushed the buzzer on the security gate of the mansion overlooking Sydney Harbour. A faceless voice asked who it was and after he identified himself the black wrought-iron gates separated in the centre and eased back. He drove up the curving circular drive toward the two storey house, catching glimpses of the spectacular view through the promenade of elms. The purple flowers of the jacarandas also caught his eye. There were two gleaming black BMWs sitting in the garage with personalised plates ‘GR8’ and ‘GR8R’—funny, he thought—must be nice to be rich.

  As he walked up the wide marble stairs toward the massive double front doors, they opened. There to greet him was The Man, otherwise known as Paul Stannard. He was cradling what looked like a gin and tonic in his large pudgy hand. He’d obviously just come from the pool—his grey hair was still damp, clinging to his scalp, and he was trying to wear a bath robe that was too small for his ample proportions. It was failing to cover much of his hairy chest, and Todd caught a glimpse of his super brief ‘budgie smuggler’ swimmers.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Todd. I thought it was time we discussed this little problem up at Dawson face to face,’ he said.

  They shook hands and The Man ushered him inside, asking, ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I’ll be good with just a mineral water thanks Paul. I have to get back to the House for some media briefings we’re preparing for the minister—he’s got a big day tomorrow.’

  They proceeded out to the poolside, Todd feeling distinctly overdressed. There were seagulls perched on the railing of the pool fence; and the Harbour Bridge and Opera House could be seen in the distance through the typical heat haze and smog of Sydney.

  ‘So, what are we going to do about this problem? What’s the latest?’ asked Stannard.

  Todd hesitated, wondering where best to start. He’d seen The Man get very angry in the past and it wasn’t something he wanted to provoke. ‘Well, the Sydney journo, Jack Miller, is out of hospital and being cared for by the local chopper pilot. They seem to have teamed up with the local journo now, Sharon Davis. We found out these two were cadets together at the Herald years ago. I think you heard that Vinnie got his boys to try to find whatever it is Thompson might have on Wellsmore. They got nothing and tried to torch his place but he came back in time to save it. For good measure they went back and shot one of his dogs from long distance—just to give him a further scare. Thompson’s son, daughter-in-law and grandkids were there at the time. Looks like they were having a powwow with the journos and the chopper chick.’

  ‘Hmmm, so we’ve disposed of the photos this Jack fella got of the excavator. We’ve put Wellsmore on ice—where is he by the way?’

  ‘That’s a bit of a problem; the silly bastard has disappeared, and even we don’t know where he is. That’s a loose end,’ said Todd.

  ‘Yes indeed, better find him fast and make sure he’s not about to do something noble,’ said The Man, smiling. ‘Do you think Thompson actually has any proof, or is he bluffing?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. Don’t suppose we can afford to take the risk, can we?’

  ‘No. Ok, let’s analyse this situation,’ said Stannard, taking another sip of his G and T. ‘Assuming Thompson has something, how did he get it? Maybe there’s a mole in Wellsmore’s office? Do we have anyone on the inside there?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. Drummond may be able to help, although I have the feeling he’s getting cold feet; what with his retirement looming on the horizon,’ replied Todd.

  ‘So that’s a dead end,
it seems. What about Robertson at GrowOz? Has he gone weak at the knees too?’ asked The Man.

  ‘He’s keeping a pretty low profile, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Christ, don’t these people know what’s at stake here?’ said Stannard, showing signs of anger. He took a deep breath and sat back before resuming in a calmer tone. ‘Alright then, what’s Vinnie found out about Thompson and this Jack Miller bloke?’ Todd’s dark, wavy hair glistened with perspiration—it was hot sitting by the pool, in more ways than one—and did the familiar stroking of his long nose before answering. ‘Thompson’s weak spots are obviously his children, two of whom live here in Sydney now. One’s lecturing at Sydney Uni and the other’s a partner in some high-flying PR firm. The lecturer’s single and the other’s going through a divorce at present. Not much to go after there. Best option may be the other son, Charlie, who lives on the property next to Thompson’s. Wife and two young kids,’ said Todd, leaving it hanging.

  ‘Hmm, ok. What about Jack,’ inquired The Man.

  ‘He’s divorced, wife lives in Melbourne now. They’ve got an eight-year-old they had together. Lives with her mother,’ Todd hesitated. ‘Then there’s his growing friendship with the chopper pilot. She might encounter a mechanical failure, I guess?’

  The Man sat back, sipped on his drink again. The ice cubes tinkled. ‘Until we can find out precisely what Thompson’s got, all we can do is keep trying to scare them off. We can’t get too serious, as in take anyone out, ’cause that will bring the serious cops to town. But we can frighten the living shit out of them. If Jack backs away I suspect the rest might lose their appetite for this. Why don’t we see how much he loves his daughter,’ said Stannard as he stared out across the harbour.