by Peter Corris
It was a six-fight card—four three-rounders, a six-round preliminary and a ten-round main event. Most of the fighters were black and they’d had extensive amateur careers so that they knew what they were doing in the ring. Two of the early fights ended in draws and two were stopped at the first sign of a man in trouble. The crowd grew a bit restless at what it saw as tame stuff but the two preliminary fighters, welterweight, one white one black, gave them all the action they could have asked for. The heavy-hitting white man wore his opponent down after four rounds of fierce fighting and the bout was stopped in the fifth after the black man had been downed twice.
The grog was flowing and I noticed a couple of very big men, bouncers, issuing warnings to some tables that threatened to reproduce the ring action out among the bottles and glasses.
‘That job pays well,’ Dave said, ‘but there are certain requirements of height, weight and willing.’
We were pacing ourselves with the wine. I took a modest sip. ‘Have you done it?’
‘Once only.’
Two heavyweights in the main event, a tall light-skinned Aboriginal with tattoos that darkened his arms, and a stocky Torres Strait Islander. Both had their supporters and the noise level rose as they went to work. They felt each other out for the first few rounds, to the crowd’s disapproval, and then fell into their natural fighting patterns—the taller man jabbing, retreating, the bulkier Islander bustling, trying to get in close. Not too much damage was done until the seventh round when the Aboriginal reeled away from a clinch with a cut above his eye streaming blood. The referee deemed it the result of a head clash and the bout was declared a draw. No one was happy in or out of the ring and the bouncers were busy breaking up altercations among the spectators.
We sat until the crowd began to thin and as I got up I looked across to where people were filing out through the gate. A man felt for something in the pocket of his light jacket. His face was caught in the light. He had a trimmed dark beard and his hair was thin in front. He blinked, shaded his eyes, then moved forward. He limped slightly and I recognised Rory O’Hara.
11
There was no chance of getting closer to O’Hara. He was through the gate before I could move and there were clutches of people in my way, including a bunch being calmed down by one of the bouncers. Dave noticed my reaction.
‘What?’ he said.
‘I saw O’Hara.’
‘Are you sure?’
I thought about it as we moved towards the gate. It was only a flash but I felt certain. I remembered how he’d arranged his hair to conceal the incipient widow’s peak that was now evident. Same height, same build; the short beard didn’t alter the cast of his features and the slight limp to adjust his balance was exactly the way O’Hara had moved when he was on the stage in Wollongong and had taken, dramatically, some steps without his stick.
‘It was him.’
‘Who was who?’ Tania said.
We went through the gate and out to the car park. I invited them back to the Capricornia for a drink.
‘You know I said I had a contact in the tourist office,’ Dave said. ‘This is it, or her, or she, or whatever.’
I said, ‘Tania, I’m up here looking for someone.’
‘Dave told me that much.’
‘You might be able to help,’ I said. ‘Let’s have a drink and talk about it.’
The car park at the Capricornia was almost full but Dave found a space for his Holden ute. We went to the bar; Dave and I opted for light beers, Tania had a bitter lemon.
‘Designated driver,’ she said.
‘Are they tough on DUI up here?’ I said.
They exchanged glances and laughed. ‘They are for certain categories of person,’ Tania said.
I gave Tania the essentials, stressing that I only wanted to talk to the people I was looking for and that there was nothing heavy involved.
Dave said, ‘Did he see you?’
‘No. He was caught in the light. I was well back, in the dark.’
‘What if they don’t want to talk to you?’ Tania said.
‘I can be persuasive.’
‘I bet you can. Well, if it was the right guy you saw that helps a lot.’
‘How’s that?’ I said.
Tania touched Dave’s arm. ‘How far would you travel to get to a fight night like that one?’
Dave shrugged. ‘No top-liners, pretty ordinary stuff. Fifty klicks? Not much more.’
‘There you are,’ Tania said. She put one index finger on the table and drew a semicircle around it with the other. ‘There’s your target area. You say these people have money?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘That narrows it. I can give you a list of the likely places within the zone.’
I looked at Dave. ‘I should’ve gone straight to her,’ I said.
Dave smiled. ‘I facilitated.’
By noon the following day Tania had come good with a list of eight ‘homestay’ places within a hundred kilometres of the city that had been rented inside the past two months. The tourist office had been advised that the places had been taken off the market until further notice but had not been given any details about the bookings.
Dave and I took four each. The idea was that Dave would think up some excuse to call at the property, meet the lessees and report to me if he hit paydirt. If I found the right place, I’d let him know to stop looking and I’d talk to O’Hara and Penelope and try to find out what was going on, why they were hiding and what that implied about the killing of Melanie Kim.
Dave covered two places the first day with no hits. I only made it to one—a five-acre tract that had been part of a banana plantation—an hour’s drive to the west on a hard surface and as much again on an unmade road. Nice house, up on stilts Queenslander-style, with a pool and a tennis court and all the privacy you could wish for. A lesbian couple were in residence; that is to say, they were in the pool and they didn’t invite me to join them.
On my way to the next stop the Pajero broke down. I had a long, hot wait until the hire firm sent a tow truck with a mechanic who failed to solve the problem. I had a short-tempered, jolting ride back to the Darwin depot.
‘Told you,’ Dave said when I phoned him mid-afternoon to let him know what had happened.
‘Yeah, well, they’re giving me another one tomorrow. I’m too buggered to do any more today.’
‘Getting old, Cliff.’
‘But getting meaner, that’s what gives me my edge. Talk to you tomorrow. How’s Tania?’
‘Eager for results.’
‘Aren’t we all?’
In the morning the car-hire firm told me they now wouldn’t have a suitable vehicle for another day, so we decided to team up until then. Dave’s ute was a 4WD and it handled the off-road well. We called in at two homestays without success—a grey-nomad foursome taking a break and a honeymoon couple who couldn’t wait for us to leave.
A bit after 1 pm we pulled into a service station in a one-horse town right at the limit of our search area. There was a place to check nearby and another we could visit on the way back. I paid to fill the Holden’s tank and for sandwiches and coffee. We sat at a table under a big tree, batting away flies.
Dave walked off into the scrub and came back with a handful of green berries. He demonstrated how to crush them and rub the juice over the face and arms. The flies stayed away.
‘Natural Aerogard,’ Dave said.
‘You should patent it.’
‘Thing is, it doesn’t last long and people with sensitive skin break out in blisters.’
‘Now you tell me.’
‘You? Sensitive skin? Looked at yourself in the mirror lately?’
‘I try not to.’
Dave studied the brochure for the next place on our list—Happy Springs. ‘Says it’s got a natural spring, rainforest in a sort of valley, wildlife. Sounds all right.’
I slapped at a fly. ‘Buggers are back. How far is it?’
‘Not far. Two wa
ys to get there—scenic route through some sandhill country or direct.’
‘I’ve seen sandhills, let’s go direct.’
We tidied up and drove for ten minutes before leaving the tarmac and running along a graded dirt road with spinifex scrub on either side.
‘This’d be a bog in the Wet,’ Dave said. ‘Cattle’d do all right here for a while.’
‘What about camels?’
He laughed. ‘They do all right anywhere.’
After twenty minutes or so we entered a bowl-shaped landscape that seemed to have trapped some of the moisture of the wet season. The scrub was greener and dotted with a few sizeable trees. We went over a long, gently sloping rise and down into a narrow valley with still taller trees. The mid-afternoon sun glanced off a set of iron roofs. Getting closer we could see several buildings and cleared areas with clusters of palm trees.
‘Shangri-la,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t this all be Aboriginal land?’
‘There’s excised bits that don’t get talked about much.’
We drove down a well-maintained gravel road to a gate standing open in a high cyclone fence that ran away in both directions into lush bush. Past the gate the gravel gave way to a cement drive that swept around a corner and led to two buildings connected by a covered breezeway. The blue shimmer of a swimming pool was visible away to the right. The buildings, fringed by palm trees, were long and low with wide verandas in front.
‘My kind of place,’ Dave said.
He ran the ute into a three-station carport where a near new Nissan Patrol stood, or rather slumped. Its tyres had been slashed back and front.
‘It’s too quiet,’ I said.
Dave turned the engine back on and blew the horn three times. There was no response apart from some birds taking off from the trees.
‘What now?’ Dave said.
‘Proceed with caution.’
We approached the larger of the buildings, used the door knocker and heard the dead sound that comes from an empty house. I took off the cap I was wearing and used it to turn the door knob.
We went into a large open space, lit by wide windows and seeming to be a sitting room, kitchen, dining and games area all in one. There were modern conveniences in the kitchen, comfortable-looking cane chairs with cushions, a well-stocked bar and a darts board and pool table. CD set-up, wide-screen TV with a DVD player and a shelf packed with discs for both machines. A fan set to medium speed whirred softly overhead in the main room.
Three doors led off the room. I opened them the way I had the front door: bathroom and two bedrooms, not tidy, not untidy, just like the main room and just as empty.
We went out the way we’d come in and down some steps at the end of the veranda to the breezeway. Halfway along, Dave grabbed my arm and pointed towards the swimming pool.
‘What?’ I said.
‘You blind bloody whitefellas.’ He was off, running towards the pool fence, and I followed. The gate was open. When I got closer I could see Dave bending over a figure stretched out on a banana lounge.
‘This is your guy,’ Dave said as I joined him.
‘Is he dead?’
Dave laughed. ‘In a way. He’s dead drunk.’
Rory O’Hara was naked, deeply tanned all over and snoring. An area around his left temple was bruised and an abrasion on his face had begun to scab over. A walking stick lay beside the banana lounge with a glass tumbler and an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
12
‘Chuck him in the pool?’ Dave said.
‘Probably not cool enough to do any good.’
A towel lay under the lounge. I got it thoroughly wet in the pool and spread it over O’Hara’s face and chest. After a few seconds he spluttered. Then he lapsed back into snoring. I lifted the towel, held it over his head and wrung it out so that the water fell on his face and open mouth. He spluttered again but this time his eyes opened and he spat, struggling to get rid of the taste of warm chlorinated water.
I draped the towel over him and ratcheted up the back of the lounge so that he was forced into a sitting position.
‘Hello, Rory,’ I said. ‘Did you enjoy the fights?’
He groaned. ‘Jesus, she was right.’
He clutched at the towel and reached for the bottle.
‘Empty, mate,’ Dave said.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ O’Hara snarled.
‘He’s with me,’ I said, ‘and we’ve got some questions for you and Penelope.’
O’Hara’s chapped lips formed a kind of smile. He plucked self-consciously at his retreating hairline. ‘Good luck with half of that,’ he said.
We hauled him to his feet and walked him around the pool for a few minutes. Then he slid in at the shallow end and splashed about, spluttering and coughing. He got out, wrapped the towel around himself and looked at me.
‘Questions, you said.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Better come inside. I need coffee.’
‘Got a beer?’ Dave said.
‘I’ve got everything, Mr . . . ?’
‘Burns, Dave Burns.’
‘I’ve got everything, Mr Burns . . . and nothing.’
O’Hara showered and dressed in stylish cargo shorts and a T-shirt while Dave and I drank Crown lager. O’Hara brewed up a pot of coffee, poured himself a full mug and didn’t offer us any. He was rapidly recovering some of his silver spoon superiority, but only some.
‘What are you doing here, Hardy?’
Fair question. I told him. He sipped his coffee and gave what I’d said some thought. He’d slicked his hair back and looked older and more vulnerable with the widow’s peak revealed. There were jowls developing and the beginnings of slack skin under his eyes.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ he said. ‘The poor little nursie had clout. I guess that could’ve been their first mistake.’
‘You’re going to have to explain that, Rory.’
‘They weren’t to know that killing her would put a bloodhound on their trail. So you’re going after them?’
‘Not them, just Bright.’
‘It’s bigger than him but you’re a bit late. He was here.’
‘When was this? How long was he here and how did he find you?’
‘How did you?’
‘I spotted you at the boxing.’
‘So did he and he followed me back. He was only here about, oh, the rest of that night and most of yesterday. It was enough.’
‘Where’s Pen?’
‘He took her.’
His attitude angered me. He seemed passive, resigned, and his eyes kept straying to the bar. Was this the same man as the one who’d blown the whistle on a multi-million dollar scam and captivated a big audience in Wollongong? I shot him a barrage of questions.
‘Have another beer,’ he said. ‘Have a few, it’s going to take a while to make you understand what’s been going on.’
O’Hara said that one member of the Greens, two ALP members and three in the Coalition had given him assurances of support if he formed a political party.
‘What’s important is the people behind them. Two of the conservatives and one of the ALP men are completely beholden to certain business interests. They are their creatures, as they’d have been called in the old days.’
‘I’m guessing mining companies,’ Dave said.
‘That’s right, you’re guessing.’
What I most wanted to hear about was what had happened to Pen but it was important to keep him talking. I judged that he didn’t care about her, probably didn’t care much about anything. Pen had asked me if I thought he was a cipher: he was now. ‘What about the Green and the other ALP guy—or is it a woman?’
O’Hara smiled. ‘Good try. Idealists, genuine idealists.’
‘So Bright was acting for one of these interests,’ I said. ‘Protecting their investment. Keeping an eye out and grabbing Kelly to get some leverage when you went public?’
‘That’s right.’
O’Hara sud
denly looked even more diminished, maybe close to contrite.
‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘How would the people pulling the politicians’ strings know they’d been privately in discussion with you?’
O’Hara sighed. ‘That’s where I played the wrong card. I . . . contacted certain people and asked them for money. I was a bit desperate but I didn’t let it show. I pulled out all the stops, gave them my A game. This was before Jack came up with the idea of the tour and the film and everything. I mentioned certain names.’
Dave shook his head and O’Hara made a move as if to hit him but quickly thought better of it.
‘Okay, I was stupid then and stupid again. I jumped the gun. Stupid. I thought I needed to do something to attract attention to the tour. I needed the publicity and the money. Pen advised me against it, just like she . . .’
‘What?’ I said.
‘Told me not to go to the boxing. We had a row. I was getting cabin fever.’
‘Nice cabin,’ Dave said.
O’Hara sneered. ‘I’ve had nicer.’
‘Go on,’ I said.
O’Hara drew in a deep breath and drained his coffee mug. He glanced around and I knew what he was looking for.
‘No more grog, Rory,’ I said. ‘Not just now. Let’s hear the rest.’
‘I’m only guessing, but I reckon Bright recruited the Korean girl to play the nurse, and they had a falling out when they’d got Kelly away.’
‘I think that’s right,’ I said. ‘As you say it’s guesswork, but the signs are that Melanie Kim wanted to pressure Kelly for the names, go public and be a media sensation.’
O’Hara nodded. ‘That sounds right. Wouldn’t have fitted Bright’s brief at all and, anyway, Kelly didn’t know the names.’
‘Who does, apart from you?’
‘The point is, who’s got the evidence—the dates, the places, the times, the voice messages, the emails . . . ?’
‘The people you had undertakings from can’t be that dumb,’ Dave said.