Flood country

by Robert Maddison

  ‘Well, as I have no doubt you’re aware; a couple of weeks ago there was an incident at a public meeting in Dawson, which Mr Wellsmore was chairing. It got headlines here in Sydney with a farmer claiming he had proof that Mr Wellsmore was, to quote the farmer, “turning a blind eye” in relation to certain water users taking more than their entitlement.’

  ‘That was just a disgruntled old farmer on some personal vendetta. We looked into it and found no grounds to take the matter further,’ said Drummond, just as Mark expected he would.

  ‘Certain other information has come to light that has lead us to want to take a closer look—you know the old saying, where there’s smoke there’s fire,’ he smiled.

  ‘What information would that be? I’m certainly not privy to any such information and I would have thought you people would come to see me before initiating anything,’ said Drummond, becoming defensive.

  ‘The ICAC is not obliged to do that, Mr Drummond. We assume in our investigations that anyone could be complicit in the crime of corruption so we rarely take anyone from the bureaucracy into our trust,’ said Mark.

  Drummond stared down at one of the high speed Harbour Jet cats arriving at Circular Quay 14 floors below, deep in thought. ‘In that case, what more can I tell you? Wellsmore’s been with this Department for nearly 20 years. He’s one of our most experienced tap turners, the nickname regional managers get because they have a primary role in regulating water being released from our dams.’

  ‘I’m curious to know if you had any prior warning of his very sudden turn of bad health. What exactly is he suffering from?’ Mark was enjoying himself now.

  ‘No, we had no prior warning. One often doesn’t with these cancer things, does one?’ said Drummond, his face beginning to glow with sweat.

  ‘Indeed. We will need to speak to him, of course. Do you know where he might be?’ asked Mark.

  ‘Well, not right at this instant of course. I can certainly try to find out for you. When I spoke to him on the day he took sick leave he said he was going away somewhere for a while,’ said Drummond.

  ‘That seems odd, don’t you think. Man diagnosed with what we presume is some serious form of cancer and then doesn’t hang around for tests, chemotherapy or whatever,’ said Mark.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, now you say it like that,’ Drummond was becoming increasingly nervous.

  ‘And you say your Department looked into the accusation directed at Wellsmore and found no basis for the claims. Would I be able to see that report, or perhaps speak to the officers who reviewed the case?’ Mark went in for the kill.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s necessary, and I would need to run that by my minister before I could agree to that request,’ responded Drummond.

  ‘Technically you don’t. We can compel you to provide the paperwork and require the officers in question to attend for an interview. The minister’s view is immaterial,’ said Mark.

  To really rattle his cage, Mark continued with, ‘and you can tell the minister we’ll be coming to see him. I guess you provided briefing to him; Gary Townsend, isn’t it? We’ll be requesting that advice also.’

  Drummond sat stunned, now looking down at his feet. Mark sensed he was about to crack and tried to push him further.

  ‘And, I must ask that this conversation—as part of our assessment enquiry—remains between us for now, except for the minister of course. Please don’t discuss it with any of your staff. That way, if there is nothing inappropriate going on, your good reputation won’t be tainted. Don’t you agree?’

  Mark waited, thinking, come on Drummond, now’s the time to spill it all.

  Drummond was silent, then stood and said. ‘I’ll be hearing from you, no doubt.’

  ‘Rest assured, Mr Drummond.’

  Mark walked out past the ever curious PA. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said with a charming smile. Operation Volturnus was underway, he thought, liking the name they’d given this case—after the Roman god of water.

  As the elevator delivered him to the ground floor, Mark was planning his next move; the minister. He and Luke had mapped out a likely ‘web of conspiracy’ and the minister was given a very big asterisk as a ‘probable’ based on what they had been able to conclude thus far. But before he went to see him, Mark would wait; to give Wellsmore time to panic and the minister time to send some ripples out through the big pond in which the big fish swam. In the interim they had a plan for chasing the evidence they needed in order to escalate this from an ‘assessment enquiry’ to a ‘compulsory examination’ in the language of the ICAC legislation. This would allow them to exercise powers such as search and seizure warrants, which Mark was certain would be needed if they were to move up the food chain and catch the serious players in this game.

  By the time Mark found a taxi to take him back to his office, Drummond was on the phone to the minister.

  ‘I need to speak to the minister, urgently,’ he stressed to the receptionist.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Drummond. The minister is at a Cabinet meeting and can’t be disturbed. I can leave a message for him to call you, if you wish,’ she replied in an overly nice voice.

  ‘Yes, yes, please do that; and make it clear this is urgent and can’t wait until tomorrow. Tell him it doesn’t matter how late he calls,’ said Drummond. He stood and slowly paced back and forth in front of his floor to ceiling windows.

  Chapter 56

  In Melbourne; Ange, Richard and Jen were packing to leave, and Jack took a few moments sitting out under their big shady apricot tree in the backyard to think about his next move. He knew it wouldn’t be smart to simply lob back into Dawson—that would tell the enemy it was ‘game on’ again. No, he thought, I need to arrive discreetly and stay out of sight until Sharon’s detective and ICAC contacts have come good.

  His shoulder and arm were still hurting like hell. Despite this he figured he could drive a couple of hundred kilometres if he had to—lots of strong coffee or Red Bull may be required. He reached for his laptop and Googled flights to Waymouth, the large regional city about 200 kilometres from Dawson. He knew that Mike’s place was a few kilometres off the highway linking Waymouth and Dawson so at best it was a two hour drive. There was a flight going at 4.00 pm. He quickly booked a seat and then used a link through the airline’s web site to hire a car—a Prius ‘battery bus’. He smiled to himself while doing this.

  Jack went back inside, where the loading of food provisions was just concluding with ice cubes being cracked into the top of the huge esky.

  ‘Ok, we’re ready to go,’ said Ange. ‘Are you sure this is wise?’

  ‘It will be ok. I’m hoping that by now we’ll have the Sydney police and ICAC involved so they can take charge. I’ll call you in a few days to say come home. Thanks again for being so understanding. How do you think Jen’s faring?’

  ‘She seems remarkably unaware of what happened. I suspect she might start to remember the abduction more as we unwind up on the river. I’ll keep a close eye on her,’ said Ange.

  Richard and Ange offered to drop Jack at Tullamarine airport on their way northwest to the Murray River.

  As they dropped him off Jack took them aside and spoke very seriously. ‘I think it might be wise that you not use your mobile phones, credit cards or ATMs while you’re away. If you need cash, get it here. I don’t know how far the tentacles of these people extend.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ responded Ange, amazed.

  Before he could answer, Richard said, ‘Yes, he is, dear. Don’t worry, Jack, I’ve watched enough NCIS and CSI to know how to lie low. Trust me. We will. The only calls we’ll answer will be from you. Otherwise we’re a newlywed second marriage couple on our honeymoon.’

  ‘Thank you, Richard. It’ll make what I have to do a lot easier if I know you’re safe. You call me if anything strange happens,’ said Jack, heading for the Departures gate.

  Chapter 57

  Mark called Luke after his visit to see Drummond. ‘Hey, Luke, you arrive safe and w
ell?’

  ‘Sure did. We had a bit of excitement straight away—saw the ute Jack had photographed at the water diversion site with Pip. We followed it to guess where—GrowOz.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised,’ replied Mark. ‘I had a bit of fun too. I went to see Drummond. With a little more pressure he’ll roll over for us, I reckon.’

  ‘That’s great. Time to really put the cat among the pigeons, I think—I’m about to go drop in on the local member of Parliament, the Honourable John Burton,’ said Luke chuckling.

  ‘Go for it. I’m waiting until tomorrow before going to see the minister. Want to give them time to worry,’ said Mark.

  Drummond had continued pacing in front of his stunning window views, deferring all pressing phone calls and cancelling two meetings he had in his diary for that afternoon.

  As the clock approached 4.30 pm the minister called. ‘Thank God,’ Drummond blurted out. ‘We have a serious problem, Gary. I had a surprise visit from some ICAC investigator today. He asked all these tricky questions about the Wellsmore case. He said he was coming to see you next.’

  The minister was shaken by this news and there followed a long silence before he replied, ‘Tell me precisely what he said. Did he say it was a full investigation?’

  ‘No, no, he called it an “assessment enquiry”,’ said Drummond.

  ‘That’s good. That means they’re just sniffing around to see if the allegations have any basis. We just need to cooperate with them—not give them any reason to dig deeper,’ the minister replied in an attempt to calm Drummond.

  ‘They’re requesting copies of all our documentation relating to this, including our briefings to you. He said they could compel us to provide them. He also asked a lot of questions about Wellsmore’s sudden sick leave—I told Todd that was unwise,’ Drummond rushed on.

  ‘Des, Des, listen to me. It’s very important that you review the documentation now; tonight. If necessary, sanitise it and have it ready for them tomorrow. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes, I do. You’re saying I should falsify official documents,’ said Drummond.

  ‘Call it what you will, but unless we work together to kill this enquiry it will be the end of both our careers,’ said the minister.

  Drummond, with his panic levels rising again, said, ‘If they question others here, my altering of these documents will be detected.’

  ‘That’s a risk you have to take if you want this to go away now and not escalate into a full investigation. If that happens they can check phone records and all that,’ said Townsend.

  ‘He also asked to speak to those who did the checking on Wellsmore. That was just me. How do I get around that?’

  ‘Try to win them over with your cooperation by furnishing the documents they’ve asked for and hope that keeps them satisfied. Create names if you have to to make them think the checking on Wellsmore was legit,’ the minister instructed.

  Drummond groaned. ‘This is crazy. One crime’s compounding another. I knew I should’ve taken early retirement. I could be fishing at Noosa now instead of dealing with all this shit.’

  Chapter 58

  Luke borrowed Pip’s other car; a beat-up old baby-poo coloured Toyota fast approaching 300,000 kilometres on the speedometer. ‘It goes,’ was all Pip offered.

  And indeed it did. The radio and speaker system were probably worth more than the car and Luke had to search for anything other than AM radio, ABC rural or the ubiquitous Triple JJJ ‘trying too hard to be funky’ music channel. By the time he found a station playing his type of music—a bit of Cold Chisel—he was in the main street and saw the office of the Member for the Electorate of Johnson, The Honourable John Burton MP.

  Luke and Mark weren’t sure about how involved Burton might be—he was a question mark on their ‘web of conspiracy’. This required a different approach, they’d agreed.

  Luke pushed the shopfront door open; and like Jack a few days earlier was confronted by a seemingly empty office. Then he tuned into voices coming from the back, and walked in their direction.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the same pimply-faced assistant asked, covering the mouthpiece on her phone headset.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see Mr Burton, please.’

  ‘He’s just stepped out for a coffee, would you like to wait?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure, happy to,’ said Luke.

  A few minutes later John Burton returned carrying a takeaway coffee container. Luke leapt to his feet to introduce himself. ‘Mr Burton I assume, I’m a friend of Peter Wellsmore. I was wondering if you knew where I might find him?’

  Burton was at first taken aback and then recovered quickly—a good politician, Luke thought. ‘Well to be honest Mr…’

  ‘Matthews,’ said Luke.

  ‘Yes, ok then, let’s sit down,’ Burton was clearly giving himself thinking time, trying to work out why this person would come to him seeking this information.

  ‘How do you know Peter?’ asked Burton.

  ‘I used to work for Water Resources,’ Luke lied. He wanted Burton to relax and maybe reveal something to help build the case. ‘We worked together on a few cases and would then play a bit of golf together.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, as you probably know he’s gone on extended sick leave and seems to have gone off to give himself some space. Apparently not even his stepdaughter, the new constable in town, knows where he is.’

  Bingo, Luke thought, that’s the sort of gold I was after. ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘I’m wondering why you came to see me to ask about Peter?’ Burton inquired.

  This was where Luke had hoped the conversation would lead. ‘Last time I spoke to him he said there was some nasty stuff happening and that he hoped you and the others—whoever they are—would look after him.’

  This was the bait he and Mark had decided they needed to lay out in front of Burton, to make him think Wellsmore had been confiding in others and was therefore not worth making disappear permanently. They felt that even if they were able to regain the incriminating evidence, the bad guys would still see Wellsmore as a liability they could do without. Luke knew he had to speak to Constable Lisa as soon as possible.

  Burton was again quick to recover after this remark from Luke. ‘I’m not sure what “stuff” he was referring to and who he was hoping might be of assistance. This is most curious to me in fact. You should know that his behaviour had become a little erratic of late—I imagine due to this cancer thing he’s dealing with now,’ said Burton.

  Luke thanked Burton for his time and stood to leave. ‘If you hear from Pete could you tell him I asked after him? He knows where to contact me.’ With that he turned and walked out.

  Chapter 59

  Jack’s flight into Waymouth was only a few minutes late and his hire car was waiting for him. The perky young girl at the hire company reminded him that the Prius wasn’t suited to off-road use. He smiled and thanked her, thinking, you should see my last Prius, my dear.

  He headed for Mike’s place—daylight saving meaning he still had plenty of sunlight hours—his shoulder beginning to hurt a few kilometres down the highway. After stopping every 30 minutes or so to massage his shoulder and ease the pain he saw the highway turnoff for the road running past Mike’s place. Déjà vu, he thought as the road turned to gravel with bone-jarring corrugations that made his aching shoulder even worse.

  As Jack rounded a corner another 30 kilometres further on he saw Mike by his front gate standing back admiring a new mailbox. Jack slowed the car and lowered the window, as Mike turned around slowly and at his laconic best said, ‘You took your bloody time getting back here—and you didn’t learn from your experience with, what is it Pip calls them, a ‘battery bus’.’ Jack clambered out of the car. ‘Nice to see you too, Mike,’ he said. ‘I’m not game to ask if that thing has your spare explosives in it,’ gesturing towards the new mailbox.

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see, Jack my boy. I wouldn’t want to spoil the sur
prise for you,’ Mike said with that mischievous glint in those blue eyes.

  ‘So, you were expecting me then?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Yes, even though Pip said you wouldn’t be back, I figured I knew you well enough already to know you wouldn’t run from a fight, even after what those bastards did to your little girl. I also figured you wouldn’t walk away from our little chopper pilot, now would you?’

  Jack blushed mildly and then changed the subject. ‘I’ve got the ex-wife and daughter hidden away now so they should be safe. I couldn’t walk away from this. I don’t like people who try to bully others and threaten their loved ones, so I’m here to fight; fight nasty if we have to.’

  ‘Steady on, soldier,’ said Mike, ‘we’ve got help now. Sharon’s copper is here, staying with Pip, and ICAC are also now investigating—although we’re not advertising that at present. We’re still trying to understand who really has their dirty little fingers in this pie.’

  Jack reacted to Mike’s news. ‘Who’s staying with Pip?’ he asked.

  ‘This Luke fella. The detective. Sharon says he looks a bit like that good lookin’ Aussie actor; what’s his name, Hugh Jackson or something,’ he teased.

  ‘It’s Jackman, and I know what you’re doing you cunning old bugger,’ said Jack laughing.

  They drove up to the homestead for a cuppa so Mike could fill Jack in on all the details about his trip to Sydney with Sharon and what had happened since.

  Chapter 60

  Luke returned to Pip’s house and there waiting for him was Sharon, with Pip. ‘G’day, lover,’ Sharon greeted him. ‘How’d you go with our friendly local Member of Parliament?’