Good Money

by J. M. Green

  He fished in his coat. ‘Vince McKechnie.’ He flipped out a card, same as the one he had given to Tania.

  I peered at it, stalling for time, trying to think. ‘Ummm.’

  ‘You’re the one who contacted me, Miss Hardy. Remember? Dear Mr McKechnie, I have information regarding CC Prospecting. Please reply to arrange a meeting at your earliest convenience. So, now would be convenient.’

  ‘I said reply, didn’t I? By email? How did you find out where I lived?’

  ‘You’re in the book.’

  That I was — I’d checked the book myself. ‘Vince, it’s Saturday afternoon. There isn’t a person alive for whom this could possibly be considered a convenient time.’

  ‘It is for me,’ he said, panting like an over-heated dog.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Stairs. Crook lungs. Me own fault.’

  ‘Smoking?’

  He ignored the question.

  ‘Bloke downstairs tells me you’re friendly with the young woman who disappeared.’

  Curse you, Brown Cardigan.

  ‘The media are not supposed to be involved.’

  He sniffed. ‘She calls herself Tania.’ He checked a notebook. ‘Tania Bradman.’

  ‘Bradshaw, she’s Tania Bradshaw now.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s her. Not seen since Thursday night.’

  ‘Come in and sit, before you drop dead.’

  McKechnie sat at my table. ‘So,’ he said. ‘CC Prospecting. What have you got?’

  ‘The question is, Mr McKechnie, what have you got?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Don’t act dumb with me. Tania had been in contact with you. Hadn’t she?’

  His face puckered like a slapdash Year-Eight sewing sample. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What did she tell you?’

  McKechnie looked puzzled for just a second and then folded his arms. ‘Nothing. We never met. She said she had something of interest, and I wanted to meet up but I never heard back.’

  Damn. A dead end. Surely, though, the ‘something of interest’ was the DVD, the mining report.

  ‘So, Miss Hardy, what is this information you have for me?’

  I stood up and paced. ‘The Shine Point refinery Brodtmann is bidding for? He has real competition now; foreign companies are allowed to bid for the project.’

  His nose wrinkled contemptuously. ‘Matter of public record.’

  ‘Yes. Okay. Fine. Well, now tell me this, why would Brodtmann fail to report his earnings to the ATO?’

  He sat back and popped out his lower lip like a disappointed child. ‘You don’t have shit, do you?’

  Oh, I had shit. I had some proper shit. But I had to protect it, for Tania’s sake. ‘Only what I’ve read in the paper,’ I lied.

  He sniffed again. ‘I’ve come all the way from Perth. Got on the first plane.’

  I was stunned. ‘But why? Why not email, or ring me first?’

  He coughed, turning a shade of beetroot, and then recovered. ‘I’m researching a book on their whole shady empire — an unauthorised biography. The Brodtmann family are very private. Wall of silence among their friends and business associates. I tried to contact Nina, Tania, whatever. I thought she might be more cooperative, seeing as she was estranged from Clayton and she’s dirty on the step-mother. But she was hard to find. There were rumours she’d moved to Melbourne and changed her name. Then, out of the blue, she called.’

  ‘She called?’

  ‘Rang the paper, yes. But she wouldn’t say anything on the phone. So I posted her a good old-fashioned letter, a list of questions with me card. But she’s a skittish little thing, didn’t want to go that way. So we arranged to meet. I came to Melbourne about a week ago, but she didn’t show. I got suss and spoke to a mate in the force; he told me she’s a missing person.’

  The police, I was coming to understand, could be very indiscreet. ‘I see.’

  McKechnie stood up. ‘Anywho, you don’t know shit. Another wasted trip.’ He started to walk away.

  ‘What’s so shady about the Brodtmanns?’ I said, before he made it to the door.

  ‘Brutal lot, the Brodtmanns — hardcore political clout. Litigious. But they always settle out of court, everything confidential.’

  ‘What kind of cases?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘I think maybe you do have something for me. Did she tell you something? Confide in you?’

  I shook my head so vigorously I got a little off-balance. ‘Tania knows about good skin hydration, pigmentation. Microdermabrasion. I doubt she knows anything about corporate malfeasance.’

  ‘If you say so.’ He looked at me expectantly, as though we were already conspirators.

  I smiled coolly, like we were already adversaries.

  Then McKechnie cleared this throat. ‘She ever mention a company called Blue Lagoon?’

  My heartbeat jazzed. The report. ‘No. Why?’

  McKechnie moved his head, popping a bone in his neck. ‘Do me a favour?’ He put his card on the table, a gesture laden with negative expectations. ‘Get in touch if she turns up.’

  ‘Will do, Vince,’ I said, and walked him to the door. As I watched him go, listening to his footsteps echo down the stairs, I realised that I was shivering. My fever was back, my nose blocked, my head heavy. I was not better afterall — I was worse, much worse.

  A moment later, Ben came through the door carrying his customary quantity of grocery bags, looking like a man who’d spent the best part of the day taming recalcitrant shopping trolleys. We nodded to each other for greeting. After dropping the bags on the kitchen counter, he went to the stove and put his head in the oven.

  I took the laptop to the sofa and started frantically googling ‘Nina Brodtmann’ and ‘mining company’ — and got a gazillion stupid and irrelevant hits.

  ‘When was the last time you cleaned your oven?’

  ‘My what? No idea.’ I looked up and saw Ben was wearing rubber gloves, spraying a toxic substance into the oven. Fumes reached my nose and my lungs spasmed. I opened the window and stuck my head outside for some fresh air. Ben unrolled some paper towel, which I did not know I possessed, and wiped out the oven. Then he pulled the gloves from each hand with a thwack and opened the fridge, taking out vegetables and something wrapped in white paper.

  The problem, apart from my near asphyxiation, was that I didn’t know how significant this mining report was. What did it mean that there was little gold to be found on Mount Percy? And what kind of companies were Blue Lagoon Corp and Bailey Ranges Limited?

  I needed to talk to an expert on mining, someone who could untangle the various threads of businesses, companies and ownership. I knew Brodtmann now, but I felt certain that Tania had not wanted her father to know about the existence of the DVD. So who else? There was one other person in the industry that I knew of — and I was wary of him. But Merritt Van Zyl was an experienced mining magnate, and so he knew his onions. And tonight his wife was hosting a cocktail party to announce an art prize.

  Ben was putting a chicken in a roasting pan. ‘You eat chicken?’

  I leapt up and grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘Put it back; put it all back in the fridge. Dinner tonight is my shout.’

  ‘What? Aren’t you sick?’

  ‘I was — I feel much better now.’ This was a lie, but I figured a couple of hours of schmoozing, and the odd cocktail, wouldn’t kill me.

  17

  THE TOP floors of the Tallis Tower, an office block in the heart of the legal district, were reserved for a couple of high-end restaurants, a reception room, and a fashionable cocktail lounge called the Dragon Bar. Ben and I drove to the station and took the train to Southern Cross Station, then walked for about ten minutes. Once inside the building, we had to wait around in the foyer
before a woman, seated at a desk, allowed us into the lift. The bar was on a ‘hidden floor’ and the lift buttons stopped at the fifty-fourth floor. ‘It’s a hidden Dragon,’ I said to Ben.

  My reward for this droll observation was a look loaded with accusation. ‘You sure there’s food at this thing?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ I lied. ‘Lots of food.’

  The interior was in shadow, save for the economical glow of little candles dotted around here and there. The crowd was large; I could sense bodies everywhere — extravagant-looking silhouettes seated in cliques or standing in clusters. When my eyes adjusted, I searched the room for Brophy. But I found only shiny people who smelled good and purred with chitchat, issuing the occasional high laugh. The waiters in long, white aprons transported trays of flutes, and I took two. A small stage with a lectern had been set up in the corner of the room, behind it the dizzying city lights. I ventured over for a look. At this height, the city was almost unrecognisable.

  The noise level dropped suddenly and I turned to see Mathilde Van Zyl bustling through the crush. Shorter than I imagined, her face was smooth, and the dark hair twisted in long tresses over her bare shoulders. The dress was a Crunchie-bar wrapper that finished well above the knee, and she wore four-inch stilettos. The crowd closed in, and she was forced to stop when shanghaied by a determined art lover. She graciously air-kissed and smooched her way out of their grasp, and continued.

  Ben had gone to the bar, where wooden trays of sushi and canapés were lined up. I sat beside him and offered him a champagne. ‘This isn’t going to fill me up,’ he whinged.

  ‘I’ll buy you a hamburger on the way home.’

  He sneered at that, and shoved in his third sushi piece, covered in bright orange fish eggs.

  Mathilde tapped the microphone — time for me to get some fresh air on the balcony. The shock of cold and the rush of wind caught my breath and set my hair whooshing around my face. Set up a couple of turbines in this gale and you could power a small city. A few brave smokers passed me, heading inside to listen to the announcement. ‘Bit fresh,’ said a voice. On a bench seat, back to the wind, sat Merritt Van Zyl, smoking a cigar and holding a glass of whisky that looked like a triple.

  ‘Exhilarating.’ I pulled my coat around me.

  ‘Have we met?’ Van Zyl turned to inspect me.

  I wasn’t going to fall for that old put-down. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Yes.’ He peered at me and nodded. ‘Crystal’s friend. From the elevator.’

  ‘We say “lift” in this country,’ I said.

  Van Zyl baulked slightly.

  ‘And yes, that was me you insulted.’

  His smile was almost apologetic. ‘I assure you it’s nothing personal. It’s … that woman, she gets under my skin.’

  ‘She does seem —’

  ‘Nasty is the word. I’ve been friends with Clay for years. He and Finch and I go back years. “Bow-Tie Club” we called ourselves, out on the tear — Perth nightlife, which isn’t much but we made the best of it.’ His words ran together, and even sitting down he seemed unsteady.

  ‘Finch — do you mean Finchley Price?’

  ‘Top bloke, Finch. Put me onto the bliss of the Islay whiskies.’ He held the glass to his nose. ‘And Clay, he was a joker. But then his wife died and he married that harlot. Sorry, but that’s what she is. A harpy.’

  ‘Actually, I’m no friend of Crystal, I’m Nina’s friend.’

  That shut him up for a couple of seconds. ‘You do get around. Rub shoulders with money. What was that phrase that so upset you … the well-heeled?’

  From inside, Mathilde’s amplified South African accent was exulting her audience to realise more ambitious projects. ‘The goal of the prize is to enrich the Australian cultural landscape by supporting ingenuity in the arts.’

  ‘I didn’t know Nina had money,’ I said.

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said, all seriousness. ‘So how do you know Nina?’

  ‘I live right next door,’ I said, now shivering violently.

  After a pensive puff of smoke, he said, ‘You feel you know her without the barrier of money.’

  At last he was making sense. ‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘I think there’s more that connects us than divides us.’

  He nodded. ‘Our common humanity.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said, and sat beside him.

  He puffed on the cigar and allowed the wind to steal the smoke from his open mouth. ‘And what is your interest in art prizes? An artist, are you? A woman of many sides?’

  ‘My boyfriend is a painter,’ I said. The concept of ‘boyfriend’ was a malleable one and open to interpretation.

  He put his head on the side and studied me from behind his whisky glass. ‘Any good, is he?’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Like me to put in a good word with the wife?’

  I inhaled sharply and a speck of something caught in my throat. ‘Peter Brophy,’ I coughed. ‘The Narcissistic Slacker Gallery, Footscray.’ A second later, I regretted it.

  ‘There, now.’ He turned calm eyes on me. ‘I think you’re learning.’

  As easy as that, I’d succumbed to corruption.

  ‘I see you’re still here, so tell me, you’re not freezing your tits off out here for the pleasure of my company — what do you want?’

  ‘Advice. Help. I have a technical document, mining industry-related, and I don’t know who else to ask.’

  ‘What kind of document?’

  ‘It relates to soil samples, that kind of thing. Nina gave it to me for safekeeping.’

  ‘Safekeeping? Why would she do that?’ His voice was even, his face emersed in shadow.

  ‘That’s what I need to understand. I assume it’s significant. It concerns gold deposits at Mount Percy Sutton.’

  He sipped his drink. ‘I’m not familiar with that location.’

  ‘What about the companies then: Blue Lagoon Corp or Bailey Range Metals?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Never heard of them.’ Then he sat up and seemed rather more sober. ‘They might be one of those flight-by-night ventures, set up to close down the next year. There’s a plethora of small-time operators. You might want to check the business register or the Minerals Council list of member companies, just to see if they still exist.’

  I leaned back and bit my lip.

  ‘Probably just paperwork from an abandoned project.’ He dropped the stub of cigar in his drink. What a waste. That inch of whisky was what I needed right now.

  ‘I’m not sure what to do,’ I said, more to myself.

  He smiled at me. ‘Want my advice? Toss it. The mining caper is drowning in reports of one kind or another. I doubt this one is relevant to anything.’ He made an apologetic bow. ‘Would you excuse me? I have a phone call to make.’

  A shudder shook my entire body. I’d get pneumonia at this rate. It was time I started taking better care of myself. And definitely time I gave up on this foolish business. I needed to be home in bed, not fifty floors up in the freezing wind.

  I found Ben still at the bar. His shirt was covered in fish eggs, and he had consumed a great deal of champagne. ‘But I’m enjoying myself,’ he slurred. I had to physically drag him off the stool and out to the lift. The lift doors opened and Brophy stepped out. ‘Hardy, you feeling better?’

  ‘No. Big mistake — dying. Sorry. See you.’

  As the doors closed, the sight of a bewildered and slightly hurt Brophy bore into my retina, leaving a permanent impression. And all the way home on the train, I was thinking that I should have stayed, if only for long enough to explain myself. I imagined Brophy now thought I was a capricious liar.

  18

  BEN’S MAZDA was still parked in the train station’s carpark, so there was that to be thankful for.
He drove us down Roxburgh Street and parked near the pine tree.

  ‘Look,’ he said, with sudden alarm.

  I followed his pointed finger to the top floor of my building, where a light flickered in my lounge room window. The light swept the windows and moved to my bedroom; I had left the curtains open and I could see shadows creeping up the walls.

  I was out of the car, and sprinting across the road into my building. Ben was shouting at me to stop. I ignored him and took the stairs two at a time. I reached the top landing before I realised that my front door was shut and my key was in my bag, which was still in the car with Ben. Adrenalin had hiked up my heart rate. I was shaking with rage and pounded on the door, screaming words that made no sense. Brown Cardigan’s front door opened. ‘Call the police,’ I shouted. His door slammed shut. I turned back. My door had opened, but I couldn’t see anyone.

  I stepped in to hit the light switch — and my head snapped back, white hot pain searing the side of my face. I staggered, and a dark figure came forward and shoved me backwards; I landed hard on my arse and both elbows. Shockwaves reverberated to my shoulders. At least my head didn’t hit the deck. The figure leapt over my writhing body, and I heard feet galloping down the stairs.

  Brown Cardigan opened his door. ‘I called them. They said they’d be a while.’

  For an answer, I held my face and rolled around in pain.

  ‘I’ll get you a bag of peas,’ he said, and left me again.

  There were more footsteps on the stairs. Ben crouched down beside me. ‘Bloody hell, Stella. You okay?’

  He tried to lift my arm but I flinched and shrugged him off. ‘Never better.’ I rolled onto my knees and sat on my haunches. ‘Did you see who it was?’

  ‘No,’ Ben said. ‘I tried to take a photo with your phone but —’

  ‘But what?’

  Brown came back and thwacked an icy plastic bag on my face. ‘Hold that there.’

  I did as ordered, and realised I was still shaking.

  ‘The fucker saw me. He reached right in the window and pulled the phone out of my hand.’

  ‘Ben,’ I said, ‘where’s my phone?’