‘I can get all that.’ Jack was still holding the book in both hands. He put it on the desk. ‘But will you help me?’
The hand that reached forward seemed larger than the book.
‘You realise the point of To Kill a Mockingbird is that sometimes it can be right to remain silent?’ Jack said nothing. ‘But not this time, I hear you say?’
The book was placed carefully on the desk and the old lawyer sat, just as carefully, as he always did when advice was about to be despatched.
‘Very well. We won’t meet here again. I’ll write an opinion confirming my initial advice to you not to proceed. Somehow these matters seep through the walls and become known. You will appear to follow my advice. We don’t want our opponents marshalling their resources until we’re ready to fire the first shot. You’ll get your team together and report to me using only this phone number.’ He took a card from the holder on the desk and wrote on the back of it. ‘You’re not to communicate with Mr Kemp again except to inform him that you have decided not to proceed with the matter. I trust Kemp more than anyone I know, other than my wife, but his walls are also porous. When we meet we’ll meet only at my residence, and in the manner I instruct. Is this clear? Do you begin to understand the nature of your folly?’
Jack spoke immediately. ‘Yes. I’ll call within the week.’ Hedley Stimson walked with him to the door, opened it and said in a slightly raised voice, ‘Goodbye, Mr Beaumont. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more encouraging advice-but best wishes in any event.’
There had never been a meeting of the group before for any reason other than for lunch. They were a club with no name, no rules, no aims, and their only premises were the wooden-floored rooms in the restaurant at Bondi. This was Monday and the restaurant was closed, yet they sat at the long table looking down on the distant surfers sliding and dipping and cutting back across the face of the breaking waves. Today there were no rich smells of garlic and grilling meat or pungent aromas of chilli and shellfish drifting from the kitchen. The room smelled musty and dead. All the other tables had chairs standing on them. The vases were upside down on the old carved sideboard and somehow the atmosphere was equally inverted.
The Pope sat at the end of the table and spoke in a clear, calm voice. ‘Forgive me, friends, for asking you to come. I realise it’s entirely against what we stand for-namely nothing. We’ve been the club without a cause. We meet just to meet, nothing more. But now we have a friend in great need. My question is simply this, is it appropriate for us to unite, to use our strange and disparate resources to help in these circumstances?’
The members looked around the table, unsure who would respond first. Finally Murray Ingham spoke. ‘I assume you mean Jack Beaumont since he’s the only one not here?’
‘That means nothing, he’s probably on the nest again,’ Maroubra called from the end of the table, but the resultant laughter was uncertain and muted.
The Pope smiled. ‘He may well be, Maroubra, but this time it seems to be a nest of crocodiles our friend has stumbled into. But I stress that he hasn’t asked for our help.’
Murray Ingham peered out from beneath his bushy brows.
‘Why don’t you tell us the story and we’ll see if we like the plot?’
‘I’d like to be able to do that in detail, but part of the deal would have to be that we each agree to do our part without seeing the whole picture. I’d deal with Jack and coordinate things. It’s a big ask, I know, and the prudent response would be for everyone to say no.’
Maroubra’s voice boomed out again. ‘Prudent? Now you’re challenging us, you cunning bastard. Since when has anyone in this group been prudent? There was nothing prudent about that swim a few of us did at Coogee with cartons of beer on our backs-in a ten-foot surf. Remember that? And they had the helicopters out looking for us. Thought we were goners. Remember how I came out of the water and asked some bloke in a uniform what was going on and he said, Some mad buggers have tried to swim out to the rocks with beer on their backs. I just said, You’re joking, and left him to it. Poor bastard’s probably still there looking out to sea.’ Now the laughter was genuine, almost relieved. ‘So don’t give us prudence. Tell us what you can and we’ll make the call.’
‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ The Pope took out a small notebook. ‘These are the facts I’m able to give you at this time.’
He began to read slowly and clearly. When he was finished there was a long silence. Again it was Murray Ingham who responded. ‘It’s an interesting tale, although not one I’d write. It’s got everything but sex, which is extraordinary considering the hero.’
The Judge cut in. ‘There’s considerable potential for serious legal consequences to flow from even the little that’s been said. I, for one, am ready to help-with a proviso that if proceedings are commenced in any way, I may have to withdraw for obvious reasons. I imagine one or two others would have similar potential conflicts.’
Maroubra chipped in, parodying the Judge’s slightly pompous tones. ‘I could state that while my salvage business doesn’t appear to bear directly on the issues at hand, should ethical or legal questions relating to the recovery of sunken boats or used bricks arise unexpectedly, I also may have to pull out. Otherwise I pledge my troth.’
The Pope grinned at him. ‘Thank you, as always. You might be surprised, Maroubra, but there are many reasons we could call on you. Quite a few of the contacts you have in sections of the police force and insurance investigators and so on could be very handy.’ Eyebrows were raised around the table. ‘Yes, it could get very nasty, comrades. We’d be proceeding on the basis that if anyone has a problem at any time, they just let me know. Since we don’t exist, except as individuals, there’s nothing to bind us together.’
‘Except one thing.’ It was the courtroom voice of Tom Smiley that interrupted.
‘Yes. Except one.’ The Pope looked around the table, holding the eyes of each person for a moment. ‘So. We go forward together?’ He opened the notebook again. ‘Here’s how you can help.’
chapter seven
Red dust disturbed by the helicopter blades drifted over the emerald Bellaranga lawn and the passengers waited for it to settle before disembarking. There were only four, and Mac stepped out from the homestead to greet them as the last figure emerged.
‘G’day, g’day. Great to see you, Max. Henry, how are you? You look ready for anything. Jason, how’s the golf? That’s the one thing we can’t do for you in the Kimberley, but a little barramundi fishing, some great tucker, some amazing rock art, a bit of rough riding-it might do the trick, eh? Ah, and here’s the boss.’
The last greeting was directed at Jack in the slightly broader Australian accent that seemed to overwhelm any veneer of polish once Mac was in the bush. He was herding them about like a kelpie, pressing them to take a cold beer from the silver tray that the housekeeper had placed on the wicker table under the poinciana trees, telling them to forget their bags, that sunset would be upon them in an hour, that they could catch it by the billabong where he, Mac, on his own, no servants, would cook dinner over an open fire and they could sit together in the blackness and hear the thump of kangaroo tails on the hard ground. He appeared almost excited and nervous to have guests in this remote place, the opposite of the calm commander of the Honey Bear. It was always like this with visitors to Bellaranga, but now there were other reasons for his edginess. They were the black thoughts that woke him in the night when the homestead was empty and the only sounds were the rustles in the dry bush from nocturnal animals and his own feet on the old, wide floorboards as he paced about from room to room. The staff slept in another building a couple of miles away on the property. He’d always liked being completely alone at night up here, ‘sleeping like a baby’-but not anymore. The black dog was upon him, with sharp teeth. He’d always sneered at people who suffered from depression for no apparent reason, who couldn’t pull themselves together and just get on with life without running off to shrinks or counsellors or social w
orkers or other charlatans. Just get on with it. He wasn’t one of those. He just got on with it. The problem at the moment was how to get on with it. What to get on with.
There was a tangle of strings knotted up in a ball inside his head and he couldn’t see which one to pull. You had to keep them loose. That was the secret of untying knots. His father had taught him that when they went fishing together. ‘You don’t pull, son. Never tighten. Loosen, loosen. Just tweak a little here, thread a little there. But always loosen, and the knots disappear.’
The biggest knot, the one that was causing him pain in the stomach or the chest so close to the heart he wondered in the night if he was having some sort of attack, if the indestructible, invincible Big Mac was somehow vulnerable like ordinary beings, this dark cloud was the tumbling share price of HOA. When people asked him about it he just shrugged and tossed off his standard line: ‘It’s only paper money. Markets go up, markets go down. We just get on and run the company for the shareholders.’
But what the market didn’t know, what no one knew except his bankers, was that he was a mortal being, that he was vulnerable, that his entire shareholding in HOA was subject to margin calls and all his other assets, at least according to his accountant who spoke an infuriating language Mac struggled to understand half the time, that these assets were so locked up in trusts and nominee companies and other complex corporate structures that they were difficult to access quickly. And it looked increasingly as if speed might be vital. He’d always relied in previous situations like this, and there had been some, close to the wire, kneeling over the edge, you had to look over the edge sometimes or you weren’t a real man, in those times he’d always just brought funds from Switzerland and held the dogs at bay. But now the authorities were all over that, too. Sniffer dogs they were, scenting every last dollar a man might have worked hard for, trying to grab it just because a bit of tax hadn’t been paid or some currency regulation hadn’t been complied with. And the problem now wasn’t just potential fines; there were criminal sanctions in place. Why they weren’t out catching the hooligans who broke into people’s houses or stole cars or dealt drugs instead of hounding honest citizens was beyond him. Not that they were hounding Mac, or even had a whiff of anything, but they would if he started shifting big lumps of cash around, his cash, the cash he needed to get the bank off his back. He either needed the cash or he needed the share price to rise, it was as simple as that.
And that’s why he woke in the night. And why sitting beside him on a dusty car seat was Maxwell Newsome, CEO of the biggest stockbroker trading in HOA shares, and sitting either side of Jack in the rear were Jason Little of Bankers Trust, who held virtually no shares, and Henry Hurst of UBS Warburg, who earned enormous fees from HOA for handling all its market placements.
A barbecue by the billabong. A Kimberley sunset. Steaks from his own beasts, killed on the old place, cooked by his own hand. The best wine. A gentle word here, a little excitement there. It wouldn’t be enough on its own, but it kept the knots loose. It helped you to discover which string to pull. It’d never failed him in the past.
And then there was Jack. God, he’d held such high hopes for that boy, built him up to the market as if he was a messiah. And they’d bought it for a while; everything was looking great. But now he always sounded like a bloody preacher. It seemed as if Renton Healey had successfully thrown him off the track he’d been on, but even so Mac was uneasy. Suddenly there were these strange items in the paper about Jack. Weird rumours about something to do with the Colonial Club were floating around the business world, suggestions he’d acted unethically in some property deal. It sounded like bullshit to Mac, but it was odd. Mac was the one who might have the real reason to shut him up, but he didn’t poison water. If you wanted to knife someone, you stabbed them in the stomach.
‘You see, just a few stones for the fireplace, a few sticks for the fire and away we go. Did you ever see a sunset like this? Now here’s the wine, but where’s the opener? Still in the truck, I’m afraid.’
Jack stepped forward. ‘I need the exercise after the flight.’ ‘Thanks, Jack. I don’t want to leave the fire at the critical moment. Much appreciated. It’s in the glove box.’
Jack wandered off with a torch, relieved to be walking the half-mile back to the vehicle alone. He always felt better when he saw Mac face to face. It reminded him why he’d taken this job in the first place, apart from the mental challenge. Mac might be a buccaneer, he might be larger than any life most people would want to live, maybe he did cut a few corners here and there, but Jack couldn’t believe he was fundamentally devious or dishonest.
He didn’t make your skin crawl like Laurence Treadmore or Renton Healey. Even if some of Jack’s concerns were proven, maybe Mac didn’t know about those practices. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to detail. Maybe the Pope was wrong and he should just sit down with Mac and ask him about all this.
When he reached the truck it was still light enough to see the eerie silhouettes of the rocky outcrops looming out of the dusk as scarlet splashes turned to magenta then grey then black in the night sky. The stars were suddenly bright in the clear air but there was no moon. He rummaged around in a glove box full of rags, repair bills, vehicle registration papers, rings full of keys. There was no bottle opener, but eventually he found a Swiss Army knife with a small corkscrew in its innards, and he stuffed the other contents back into the compartment. As he did so, the torch shone on the registration paper and a familiar name caught his eye. The truck was registered to a company: Beira Pty Ltd.
Mac and Maxwell Newsome stood by the fire away from the other two, beers in hand, gazing convivially into the flames, as men do and have done since fires were first lit. Things could be said by fires that might not be said elsewhere.
‘So, I know you love fishing, Max. Are you up for an early start?’
‘Absolutely, Mac. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I love it up here, you know that.’
Mac did know that. Maxwell Newsome saw himself as the financial market’s Ernest Hemingway, without the writing. He’d never read the stories, but he’d read everything there was to read about the man’s life and loved it all-the hunting, the African adventures, the drinking, the women-maybe not the end. Maxwell had a wardrobe full of khaki clothes with strange patches and pockets and zippers which detached parts of them. He could never look at these garments without wanting to fill them with bullets or compasses or folding knives, since he also had a drawer full of these. But he could never figure out which pocket was for what. And besides, he feared he might look faintly ridiculous. Indeed he was concerned there could be a touch of the ridiculous about him now as he stood, legs apart, in a pair of brand-new safari pants and a shirt with a leopard embroidered in green silk on the pocket. He’d shot a leopard. It wasn’t something he was proud of, not something he’d tell Mac, not even by the fire. Especially since he hadn’t killed it. The white hunter had told him, ‘Don’t shoot unless you’re sure you can kill. A wounded leopard is the most dangerous animal in Africa and I’ll have to hunt it.’ But his hands had been shaking more than he thought, even though they were in a hide with a kill placed in the fork of a nearby tree. The hunter had given him the option of ‘a real hunt’ or ‘the tourist method’, obviously trying to shame him into a hunt in the open on foot, but he’d come to kill an animal, not be killed, paid a great deal of money to kill a leopard, so he could say he’d killed a leopard. But he’d never been able to say that, not even that he’d shot at one, because of the shame, not of the poor shot, but of the fact that when the hunter had asked him to come with him to track and kill the wounded animal-the animal he’d wounded so he could tell people in the living rooms of the Darling Point harbourside mansions how he’d killed the leopard and hear their gasps at meeting not just a corporate killer, which he was, but a real killer, which he wanted to be-he’d told the hunter he’d stay in the hide. He’d never forget the look of distaste on the man’s face as he walked off into the shadowy l
ight with a torch strapped to the barrel of his rifle.
In order to regain his sense of control, away from these demeaning thoughts, he turned to Mac. ‘So, my friend, the market’s been a little unkind to you lately.’
Mac, who with a couple of beers under his belt and the thought of rare steak and Grange Hermitage in close proximity was just drifting into a state of semi-euphoria, jerked up as if slapped in the face. ‘Yeah, well, you know better than anyone, Max-markets come and go, we just run the company as best we can.’
‘Yes.’ Max Newsome swallowed a long draught of beer. ‘Still, I think there’s some work to be done, Mac. You don’t want things to drift too far off course, do you?’
Mac was locked in now, antennae picking up static all around. ‘No way, Max. But the business is in great shape, that’s what I don’t understand. What’s happening out there? Why aren’t people buying the stock? We’re doing as well as we ever were.’
He felt Max’s hand on his arm and was suddenly even more concerned. ‘You shouldn’t worry too much, Mac, there’s just a lot of confusion around. Some of it to do with your new CEO.’
Mac tried to read his expression in the flickering light but the long face was turned away from him. ‘Worried? I’m not worried by a few analysts who haven’t bought their first pair of long trousers yet. But what’s this about Jack? You don’t mean all that gossipy stuff in the press, surely?’
Max laughed. ‘No, the market doesn’t care who he sleeps with.
They’re probably all jealous, truth be told. Although that rumour about the club’s a bit odd, isn’t it? But no, it’s more that people don’t understand the HOA strategy anymore. You’re a growth stock, Mac, that’s always been your story. Not a defensive play like the banks. Growth. You’ve sold that very successfully and, for the most part, delivered. Now Jack’s sending out different signals.’
The Butcherbird Page 9