Deep Water

by Corris, Peter

  ‘I’ve thought of approaching the police, but one of the threats I mentioned actually came from a police officer and I know that at least two of the involved companies have corrupt senior government ministers working in their interest. I’m considering going higher, but water is now such a political, moral and environmental touchstone that I don’t know who to trust …’

  Margaret covered her eyes with one hand and gestured for me to stop the recording.

  ‘Poor, poor Dad,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t he hop on a plane and …’

  I shook my head. ‘I suspect he was aware of being watched, and the last thing he would have wanted would be to draw you and Lucinda into the mess.’

  She nodded and flapped her hand. ‘Go on, please.’

  ‘The data is not electronically recorded,’ McKinley continued. He gestured at the notes on his desk. ‘And I propose to burn these documents. I want to find a way to communicate my findings personally to a trustworthy person or organisation but I’m not hopeful. This records my sincere desire to do the right thing. I hope my beloved daughter and grand-daughter will become aware of that and think well of me.’

  The screen went blank. Margaret sobbed uncontrollably.

  In the past, people paid a lot of attention to fireplaces. Now, we regard them as ornamental, and I hadn’t even noticed that the living room had one. As Margaret regained self-control, I went over to the fireplace: the grate was full of ashes, clearly the remnants of many sheets of paper. Henry McKinley had done what he said he would do and his multimillion dollar information had been locked up inside his head. The question was—had anyone forced the information from him and, if so, who?

  Margaret took a strong pull on her drink and watched me as I poked at the ashes in the vain hope that the destruction hadn’t been complete.

  ‘He was a brave man,’ I said.

  ‘He was a bloody fool. The corruption here can’t be that bad. Why didn’t he go to the media?’

  ‘Look, as he says, he was bound by a legal agreement. If he went to the media they’d be wary about that and take some time over it, then stuff could leak out and he could be in all sorts of trouble. His credibility could be shot. He shouldn’t have destroyed the notes, though. That put the entire burden on him and he didn’t look well enough to handle it.’

  Margaret finished her scotch and went out to the kitchen for the bottle. She freshened both drinks. ‘Do you think we’ll ever find out what happened?’

  ‘We can try. This Dr O’Neil is someone we have to talk to, and I’ve got an idea who the policeman he mentioned might be.’

  She didn’t pursue that and for a minute I thought she might have resigned herself to no result and be looking for a way to tell me so. But I was wrong.

  ‘I still think that drawing is a quarry,’ she said, ‘and now that we’ve heard what Dad said it makes more sense, doesn’t it? A quarry’s a big, deep hole, right? That would make a good start at getting down to the water, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘I want to see the quarry around here. I want to see all the fucking quarries. If we find one that fits the drawing, that’s a start on what he was on about. Grab the disc and let’s go, Cliff. I want to get out of this place.’

  ‘Is there anything of your dad’s here—books or CDs—that you might want to keep, d’you think?’

  She shook her head and held up the scotch bottle. ‘Just this.’

  Margaret used the toilet. I went outside and scouted around the house. The grass was getting out of control, leaves were building up here and there and some rubbish—plastic bottles and fast food containers—had been trapped in the bushes. Bending to examine a yellowed copy of the local newspaper, I found a pair of spectacles in the grass. Expensive, and exactly like those worn by Henry McKinley. I wrapped them in a tissue and shoved them into my jacket pocket.

  * * *

  Being thorough, Megan had ranged far and wide in her researches. Larson’s quarry was about sixty kilometres south-west of Myall and the drive took us along the river for a stretch, crossing it and heading into the drier country away from the coast. The road got rougher as we entered the stony uplands around Barkley’s Ridge. The air got cooler and the Falcon coughed a bit on the climb. We passed through the town of Barkley that had once had a rail link to the coast, long since closed. We threaded through some hills on a road that had in the past been wide and well maintained but had degenerated to little more than a track.

  ‘I hope your tyres are good,’ Margaret said. It was almost the first time she’d spoken since leaving Myall.

  ‘Brand new,’ I said.

  The land flattened out into sparse grazing country and we crossed a couple of streams on bridges originally built to handle much greater water volumes and now looking too large for the sluggish, weed-choked creeks. We passed through a township only a little bigger than Myall named Howard’s Bend. Further on the road sloped down suddenly and stopped beside a body of water about the size of ten Olympic swimming pools. The water shimmered a deep cobalt blue under the clear sky.

  ‘Larson’s quarry,’ I said.

  ‘It’s nothing like Dad’s drawing,’ she said, ‘but it’s pretty, isn’t it?’

  She was right—the rectangular, water-filled hole, with trees growing high around three of its sides, didn’t resemble Henry McKinley’s drawing in the least. Although his creation was more or less an abstract, surely he would’ve suggested the trees and the water. But it was pretty. Megan’s notes said that the quarry had provided ‘building material’ for inland and coastal towns. Now it provided welcome visual relief from a basically sterile landscape.

  We got out of the car and walked down to the edge. The quarry had steep slopes on three sides, but here the gravel slope was gradual to water that looked no more than waist-deep. There were reeds sprouting at the edge and pelicans and ducks moved sedately on the surface. Looking at the quarry, I was suddenly aware of how rare it is these days to see a body of water unfenced, apart from the ocean and the rivers. Margaret must have had a parallel thought.

  ‘I wonder if it’d be OK to swim?’

  ‘Can’t see why not. If it’s on private property there’s no sign against trespassing and the water’s clean. Looks to have a firm bottom.’

  Margaret took her clothes off, folded them neatly, and waded out into the water. She dived, surfaced and struck out in a strong, practised crawl for the deeper water. I did the same and joined her, treading water while the birds moved cautiously away.

  ‘Bloody freezing,’ I said.

  ‘But beautifully clean, just what I needed. Let’s have a look at your scar. Didn’t get a chance the other night.’

  She examined the line running down the centre of my chest, kissed it and then put her hands on my shoulders and ducked me. When I surfaced she was halfway back to the edge. We left the water, both shivering, and I scooted to the car to get my gym towel. We shared it, sweat-smell and all.

  She pointed to the scar as I pulled on my shirt.

  ‘Dr Pierce did a great job. Pity he’s so pompous.’

  ‘Pompous is OK with me in his case.’

  ‘Let’s find a motel,’ Margaret said. ‘I want to fuck you.’

  * * *

  We booked into a motel in Barkley and began making love as soon as the door closed behind us. We didn’t pretend not to be stimulated by the erotica in the Myall cottage. The refreshing swim gave us energy to go with heightened feelings. We tried different positions and prolonged the pleasure.

  ‘I hope you do visit,’ Margaret said when we finished for the first time.

  ‘I will,’ I said.

  I hadn’t told her about finding the glasses. Henry McKinley had been taken from the Myall cottage. It made sense. He couldn’t risk leaving the DVD at his house where either Tarelton or its competitors would surely search, and he’d been right about that. He’d assumed that no one but his lovers knew about the Myall cottage and that if they found the disc they’d do the right thing
with it. He’d been mistaken. His predators knew about the Myall retreat. These days, big money employers know everything.

  After we’d made love again, Margaret fell asleep and I lay thinking. McKinley had been taken and killed but he’d left a crucial piece of evidence behind. In a way, he’d had the last laugh. I’d try to put it that way to Margaret.

  15

  Next day, in Sydney, Margaret went shopping for a gift for her daughter and I reported on our progress to Hank and Megan. I didn’t go into details about the set-up in the cottage, but I told them about the ashes, the glasses and that I thought Myall was where McKinley had been abducted. Then I played the DVD for them.

  ‘This is big,’ Hank said.

  ‘Too big.’ Megan had been scribbling notes. ‘This has to be handled by the police or ICAC or someone.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘If it becomes known what McKinley was doing and the suspicions he had, the three players will shut up shop, run the shredders, call off the dogs. The only way to find out which of them was responsible for McKinley’s death is to keep alive their hopes of getting their hands on his research.’

  ‘That’s assuming he didn’t tell them when they had him,’ Megan said.

  ‘Right. But we may have an insider in this Dr O’Neil. If she’s still working for Tarelton, she’ll know whether they’ve hit pay-dirt or not.’

  ‘Have to find a way to talk to her privately,’ Hank said.

  ‘Maybe not.’

  Megan looked at me. ‘You’d set her up?’

  ‘It’s worth thinking about, but probably not. At least not straight off.’

  Megan closed her notebook. ‘I see now why some people call you a bit of a bastard.’

  ‘Only some people; only a bit of one.’

  When I got to the house I found Margaret agitated and packing.

  ‘I have to go, Cliff,’ she said. ‘It’s not working out with Lucinda and her dad. They’ve had a row and she’s very upset. I’m on a flight in a couple of hours.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll drive you. Is she with someone?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she’s OK. Thanks, Cliff. You’re right, that’s the important thing, she’s OK.’

  I drove her to the airport and we had time for a quick drink before her flight, inevitably delayed, was called. She’d calmed down by this time and was able to think of other things beside her kid.

  ‘I want you and Hank and Megan to keep on with this until you find out what happened.’ She reached for my hand. ‘But don’t do anything dangerous. I want to see you again, Cliff.’

  The flight was called. I walked her to the gate and we kissed and hugged hard and seriously. Then she disappeared into Customs. I didn’t try to watch the take-off. With planes coming in and going out at the rate they do it’s impossible to tell one from another. And what’s the point? Gone is gone. I went back to the bar for another overpriced whisky and as I drank it I could smell a faint trace of her perfume on my jacket. It made me feel lonely, but it made me feel determined to find out who’d beaten or frightened Dr Henry McKinley to death.

  After the drink I walked around the airport for half an hour for the exercise and to metabolise the alcohol. It didn’t help the loneliness, but it didn’t hurt the determination.

  ‘How do you feel about cycling, Cliff?’ Megan asked when I turned up at the office the next day. I’d told her about Margaret. I’d been to the gym and felt fine, but not that fine.

  ‘Here and now? In Sydney? Roughly how I feel about skydiving. Why?’

  Hank and Megan had done their thing on the internet. No one’s safe. They’d tracked Susan Talbot O’Neil from her stellar HSC result, when she was one of three who’d got the highest score in the state, through to her University Medal for Science at Sydney to her Cambridge PhD in geology.

  ‘Guess who examined her thesis?’ Megan said.

  ‘Henry McKinley.’

  ‘Right. He seems to have lured her away from a research post at the ANU to the corporate sector, specifically Tarelton Explorations.’

  ‘More money.’

  ‘Lots more, but also more her kind of thing.’

  ‘Water.’

  ‘And how it got to where it is and how to get it out. But wait, there’s more.’

  Megan was grinning and Hank gave her a high-five sign on the way back to his office.

  ‘Dr O’Neil lives in Darling Point and her main recreation, at which she’s won prizes by the way, is cycling. She’s a member of the Four Bays Cycling Club.’

  ‘Like McKinley.’

  ‘Right. You’re a little late today, but they do an early morning ride every day. We can pick them up at the clubhouse tomorrow around seven-thirty.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘With Margaret gone don’t you think you need a woman’s touch, as it were?’

  She got on with researching the two other companies McKinley had mentioned while I thought about Phil Fitz-william. I hadn’t told anyone about him, thinking that he was my problem. It seemed likely that he had some connection with the business at hand. His threat to Hank’s licence wasn’t just out of personal enmity and spite. I tried to see his approach as an opportunity, and to think of a way to turn it to our advantage. So far, nothing had occurred to me.

  My mobile rang. Horace Greenacre.

  ‘Mr Hardy,’ he said, ‘Ms McKinley paid me a flying visit before she left and she insisted on signing a power of attorney in your favour. I tried to dissuade her but—’

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘I know what a power of attorney is and I’m as surprised as you seem to be, but why did you try to talk her out of it?’

  ‘No offence, Mr Hardy, but there’s a good deal of money involved. Henry McKinley’s townhouse is a valuable property. He had substantial investments and a high level life insurance policy, plus superannuation benefits.’

  I gripped the phone, wanting to throw the thing at the wall, and swore under my breath. Since the publicity surrounding the loss of my licence, I’d faced this sort of suspicion before. It had surfaced most strongly when I inherited half of Lily’s considerable estate, and here it was again in similar circumstances. I fought to keep my voice somewhere near civil.

  ‘Listen, Horace, my only interest in Margaret McKinley’s assets is in making use of them to finance the investigation into her father’s murder.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘You meant a disgraced private enquiry agent is a crook by definition. Well here’s some instructions for you in respect of your late client and his heir. You get in touch with me when there’s something I have to do in Margaret’s interest, and I get in touch with you when I need something. I’m making notes on this conversation and solicitors have been known to lose their tickets, just like PEAs. Are we clear? Good.’

  I cut the call and looked up to see Megan staring at me. ‘Aren’t you supposed to avoid stress?’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be tapping keys? … Shit, sorry, love. That prick got under my guard.’

  ‘Keep your right up, then,’ she said.

  The phone rang again and I picked it up, steeling myself to be polite. It was Greenacre.

  ‘Mr Hardy, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot then. My apologies.’

  ‘Accepted. How can I help you?’

  ‘Well, it’s rather curious. Ms McKinley was in a considerable hurry as she left and she almost knocked over another client of mine who was just arriving. She was polite, of course. He commented on her haste, her accent and good manners and asked who she was. I told him and he suddenly showed great interest. He said he knew her father and was very anxious to meet her. I told him she was leaving the country almost immediately and he was very put out. I asked if it was a business meeting he had in mind and he said it was. I said I might be able to help. That’s why I’m calling you now—to see if you’re willing to meet him.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘His name’s William Holland; he’s the CEO of a company called Glob
al Resources.’

  I drew in a breath that must have sounded odd to Greenacre because his voice was suddenly full of concern.

  ‘Mr Hardy, are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you. Please give Mr Holland my mobile number and ask him to call me in, say, an hour.’

  Greenacre said he would and I put the phone down to find Hank and Megan looking at me. I realised that I had a grin on my face of a kind they probably hadn’t seen for a while. I glanced at my watch.

  ‘What?’ Hank said.

  I explained what had happened and the implications and possibilities were obvious. If Global Resources was responsible for McKinley’s death a meeting with Holland might make that clear. Or perhaps Holland knew who was responsible and had useful information.

  ‘Why didn’t you get him to call you straight away?’ Megan said.

  I looked at my watch. ‘It’s one thirty. Let’s say he calls Holland straight off—said he will. I said an hour. Let’s see how keen the CEO of Global Resources really is. I’m slipping out for a drink. What d’you think?’

  ‘Cute,’ Hank said.

  Megan said, ‘Try not to sound as smug as you look.’

  16

  At two thirty-three the phone rang.

  ‘On the dot,’ I said to Megan.

  I answered. ‘Hardy.’

  ‘Mr Hardy, this is William Holland, I’m—’

  ‘I know who you are, Mr Holland. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’d like for us to meet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To discuss matters arising from the work the late Henry McKinley was engaged on.’

  ‘What work would that be?’

  ‘I think that’s commercially confidential.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know.’

  ‘I mean I only know a certain amount.’