Draper, unrecognisable back then, was the pivotal figure. Full beard, shoulder length black hair, dark coat and dark trousers, open neck shirt with an Eastern symbol medallion glinting in the sun. Very Beatle-esque, circa The Maharishi.
Draper looked up. Rory, hands in pockets, slumped down in the weathered chair opposite him. ‘Were you a guru back then?’ Rory glanced at the photo, then back to Draper. It was something of a ritual, Rory with his irreverent comment, as cheeky as possible, every time he came in.
Draper, though tired of the ritual, joined in the banter. ‘Gurus were taken seriously back then.’
‘When did the flower children stop hanging on your every word?’ Rory grinned widely. ‘When the hair went? Or when you kept smoking cigars in the office after it became illegal.’
Draper snorted. ‘What the landlord doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt him.’ These days he was clean-shaven. The hair, thin and vastly receded, was combed across his head in lonely strands. But his eyes still had their youthful vitality, a piercing messianic stare that had travelled the revolutionary road with him from the student protests of the sixties to the fight for the environment in the twenty first century. ‘The reason I put up with you, McConnell,’ he said, ‘is because I like the ideas you keep coming up with. The latest one has potential.’
‘Which one? I pitched five article ideas to you last week.’
Draper’s hand skimmed across the papers on his desk. Effortlessly, he plucked Rory’s sheet from the mess. ‘This thing on that damned plunderer Kaplan. I like the angle. The mega-yuppie who ravaged the capitalist system that created him, causing one of the most drawn-out corporate crashes the country has seen since the days of Skase and Bond.’
Rory smiled inwardly. He’d known Draper would go for that one. ‘And I’ve got the inside track. My lady’s mother is an old friend and ex-business partner of the Kaplans.’
‘Yeah. You say she was heavily influenced by Kaplan. Turned out hard headed and caring only for business, like him, which caused an estrangement from her daughter.’
‘The human side of the super capitalists, Harlan. Showing just how screwed up their families are.’
‘Juicy. You think you can dig up some dirt on Henry Kaplan?’
‘Sure of it.’
‘Okay, go for it. Usual set-up. Advance plus expenses.’
On his way out, Rory parodied the hippies in the photograph. He gave the V sign to Draper. ‘Peace, brother.’
‘Fuck off, McConnell. Just give me an article that makes sure Henry Kaplan doesn’t get any peace at all.’
Henry Kaplan put down the phone. The news from his lawyers was what he’d been hoping for. He picked up the phone and spoke to his secretary, ‘Jodie. Have Roger and Harold come to my office.’
‘Yes, Mr. Kaplan.’
He reached for the console that brought the radio to life. The news broadcast was seconds away and he expected the radio people already had the latest on his case. The familiar signature tune introducing the report filled the room as Roger entered.
‘News,’ Roger began.
‘We’ve got our breather,’ Kaplan confirmed. ‘Listen.’
‘The Harry Houdini of Australian business, Henry Kaplan, has done it again,’ the male broadcaster announced. ‘Less than a few hours after the receivers moved in, the Kaplan Corporation has been granted an injunction against any immediate liquidation proceedings. An appeal against the bankruptcy finding, handed down earlier, will be heard in ten days. Financial analysts believe the stay of execution is a temporary one, with bankruptcy proceedings to continue as soon as the appeal is overturned. In the meantime, Henry Kaplan has less than two weeks to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat to save his ailing empire.’
Harold Masterton had entered the office during the second half of the broadcast. Like Roger, he beamed at the news.
‘Well done, Henry. Little do the pundits know we do indeed have a rabbit, and his name is Conrad Becker. Provided he signs on the dotted line for Southern Star next week then we have the projected cash flow to win the appeal.’
‘And if he doesn’t then we’ve played our last card,’ Roger surmised.
‘He will,’ Kaplan insisted. ‘But on the practical side, gentlemen, in the event that the appeal is lost then we have two more weeks to ensure we’ve each made all the private preparations, financial and otherwise, to cope with life in the aftermath. Understood?’
Roger and Masterton nodded.
Kaplan gave both of them an intent stare to further drive home the point. There was a hidden meaning to his words, one that only he could know.
The world believed his salvation lay in the result of the court appeal. In fact, financial disaster was the least of his worries.
The real stakes were much, much higher.
TWELVE
It was an early service, 9.45 a.m., squeezed in to fill a gap in Reverend de Castellan’s schedule. De Castellan, mournful eyes, dark robes, was more animated than some people might expect of a reverend. There was a sense of drama to his movements as he took his place at the podium.
He cast his eyes over the small group. Jennifer sat in front, flanked by Meg Tanner and Henry Kaplan. Roger was in the row behind, seated beside Cindy Lawrence, Carly Parkes and Rory McConnell.
‘Eleven years ago I conducted a service for Brian Parkes,’ de Castellan began, ‘which was long overdue even then. And although it is now eighteen years since he was last seen, that passage of time doesn’t discount the importance of today’s service. Today we commit Brian’s body to the earth and his soul to the Lord. This is a proper, holy farewell and a special remembrance of Jennifer’s loving husband, a father young Carly never knew.
‘For today’s service we shall listen to Berlioz’s Requiem. Firstly, though, I shall read from Psalm twenty-three as we pray for a place in heaven for the spirit of Brian Parkes.
‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters …’
There was a timeless comfort to the words of this piece, Jennifer thought. De Castellan had read the psalm at the earlier memorial service, and commencing with the same piece now provided a bridge from that service to this. She allowed herself to be transported back to that earlier time. Carly had been six, elfin smile, head of dark curls. Jennifer pictured the little girl sitting beside her, tiny hands clutching her mother’s fingers, not fully understanding the event but knowing it had something to do with the father she’d never met.
Jennifer tilted her head, eyes cast back to where Carly sat. The dark hair was straight now, like her mother’s, a serene beauty masking a volatile spirit. They exchanged glances, acknowledging the solemnity of the occasion. They had spoken briefly, outside the church, before the service had begun. What must she make of all this? Jennifer wondered.
Rory was beside her, dressed smarter than usual. He had smiled politely at Jennifer a number of times; he seemed different today, more reserved, and it struck Jennifer it didn’t suit him. Was it just because of the funeral, the boyfriend being supportive? He’d never appeared that type to Jennifer. She wasn’t sure why but she’d never trusted Rory McConnell. Something about him didn’t ring true.
‘… He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake …’
Carly, Roger, Henry and Meg had all been at that earlier service. Many others weren’t here today. Jennifer’s and Brian’s parents, since deceased; friends and clients of Brian’s, long since scattered by the winds of time and change.
Brian. Where were you all those years?
‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil …’
Several kilometres away, on a popular bike track, which ran through a section of a national park reserve, Park Ranger Jane Montague reached the bend the young bushwalker had directed her to.
‘Down there, in the scrub along the slope,’ the bushwalker said. He was twentyish, wide-eyed, sc
raggy haired, a large backpack dwarfed his thin frame. Like a tortoise shell, Jane had thought to herself as she’d followed him along the trail. The genuine, concerned type. He’d gone to the ranger’s office to report his sighting. Looks like a body, he’d said. He wasn’t certain; he hadn’t gone too close. Didn’t want any trouble. He was a traveller, he told Jane, originally from Western Australia.
Jane inched down the slope. She was an athletic young woman, short brown hair, lots of freckles.
The backpacker was right. It was a body. At close range she saw it was a teenage girl, slim, fair-haired, dressed in jeans, jacket and boots. Another bushwalker. A canvas shoulder bag lay beside her.
Jane looked back up the slope where the young man watched with inquisitive eyes. ‘A girl,’ Jane called out. ‘I’m afraid she’s dead.’ She watched the backpacker cross himself. Catholic.
She knelt down beside the corpse. The girl’s skin had a ghostly pallor and there was a bluish tint to the lips. An ugly red welt circled her throat. Her eyes were open - and bulging. Jane’s attention returned to that red line. It had a clean, straight look to it, like a ring around the throat. Had she been strangled?
About to spring back to her feet she noticed the bracelet around the girl’s wrist. It had an inscription on the metal plate. Jane remembered she’d had a similar item of jewellery when she’d been a teenager. She felt a twinge of curiosity. She lifted the girl’s arm and read the engraving. ‘Monique. All my love, Craig.’ There was an inscription of a date, eighteen years earlier.
Eighteen years ago? This girl didn’t look old enough to have been born then, let alone have a boyfriend.
Jane pushed herself back up the slope. ‘I need the police,’ she said. ‘Looks like a murder.’ She was surprised at how calm and authoritative she acted. She’d never had to deal with a situation like this before and never would’ve believed she’d handle it so well.
‘Murdered?’ The young man was aghast. ‘God, no.’
They hiked back along the trail, a twenty-minute trip back to the ranger’s office. They were half way there when the word Jane had been searching for popped into her mind. ‘Garrotted,’ she said.
‘What?’ asked the bushwalker.
‘That poor girl’s been garrotted.’ It was a chilling thought and there was a sense of unreality to the whole scene. Murdered teenage girl, here in the midst of a beautiful, peaceful sweep of natural countryside.
The queasiness came suddenly, erupting from the pit of her stomach. ‘I’m sorry. I think I …’’She darted into the surrounding forest, buckled over. The young man watched helplessly as she dry retched again and again, until finally a thin stream of liquid trickled from her mouth.
‘ … For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’
There came a momentary pause as the Reverend de Castellan allowed the weight of the words to settle into the hearts and minds of the gathering.
He turned, nodded to the pianist at the side of the podium. The musician, a middle-aged man, commenced playing a passage from the Requiem. Mournful, lilting, aching with the bittersweet nuance of melody, it filled the church.
Jennifer was inwardly pleased at the skill of the pianist. This recital was full of emotion, an appropriate passage that contained a dramatic element. To Jennifer it signified the high and low dramas of life, as remembered by those left living. She had always believed in recalling the special moments, and was reminded of that philosophy now.
The wishing pool at the house she’d left so long ago, was at the heart of those memories. Jennifer reflected on the wishes, the five-cent coins, the laughter, the romance. She was both surprised and pleased by the positive swell of her feelings - she had no anger towards Brian, no bitterness that he’d been alive all that time. That’s not how it was, she thought. He didn’t walk out on me. Not of his own accord …
The police would find out where he’d been - and why - and unravel the reasons for his sudden return and death. She’d make sure of it. She needed to ascertain that Brian wasn’t responsible for his actions.
For the rest of her life, Jennifer wanted to go on remembering Brian with the same fondness she had these past years - without this blemish, without the inexplicable question mark.
At the conclusion of the musical piece, Reverend de Castellan resumed his eulogy. ‘We are all aware of the mystery surrounding Brian Parkes’ re-appearance and death,’ he said, ‘but I do not wish to dwell on that. Nor should you. He is in the house of the Lord now. He rests. It is Brian’s life - his love of his wife, his good nature, and his value as a friend - that we remember, and which we rejoice in. Those who knew him are better for it.
‘Please bow your heads then, in prayer with me, and rejoice in Brian’s life, the light, not the dark, as I read from The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran, one of Brian’s favourite pieces : “You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl, whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
‘In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond “…’
Detective Sergeant Morris Glenfield, northwest Sydney region, ran his finger down the information listed on the computer printout. The subject’s name was Monique Brayson. She had been officially listed with the Missing Persons Unit almost two decades ago. She was described as 120 centimetres tall, of slim build, blue eyes, blonde hair. Eighteen years of age.
He stopped pacing, placed the printout on his desk and sat down. He cast his eyes for the tenth time over the girl’s personal effects. The bracelet with the inscription. The purse, which contained her library card, still in mint condition, no discolouring, no dog ears. Issued eighteen years before. The lipstick, in the purse, Glenfield had identified as a brand that had ceased manufacture in the early 2000’s.
Only a few minutes ago the bushwalker and the park ranger had given him their statements. The young man had left. Jane Montague had gone to the Ladies. She was back now, standing in the office doorway.
‘I’m on my way, then, Detective Glenfield,’ she said. ‘You will let me know what you find out?’
‘I’ll be in touch. Thanks very much for your help. Will you be all right to see yourself back to the park?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Terrible shock for you. Finding the girl like that.’
‘Yes. I feel that I’d like to … know more about her.’
Glenfield didn’t intend revealing that the girl had been missing for many years. He smiled politely. ‘Of course,’ he said, and the woman left.
The corpse would be at the coroner’s lab by now. Glenfield picked up the photos taken at the crime scene. He was totally mystified. He was looking at the face and the body of a teenager. Monique Brayson should have been thirty-six years old. It can’t be the same girl, he thought. But if not, then who? Some street kid who’d rolled the real Monique and stolen her clothes and possessions?
Glenfield looked up from the pictures as Constable Jeff Hyrose breezed in.
‘The mother died four years ago,’ Hyrose said. ‘But the father is alive, still living in the area.’
Glenfield rose from his desk and sighed. ‘We’d better go see him.’
‘ … “And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the King, whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour” …’
It was amazing, Roger Kaplan thought, as he sat and listened to those words, how clearly he pictured Brian Parkes in his mind’s eye; and how untainted his memories remained.
Roger wondered how differen
t things might have been if Brian were still around. Throughout their Uni days, he and Brian had been a couple of knockabout lads. Brian was a brilliant accountant, a wizard with figures. When Roger had gone to work as a senior executive with his father’s corporation, he’d relied on Brian to formulate financial structures for new business development plans. Those structures worked well and had won praise for Roger.
But Brian had done most of the work. He had a vision. With his father’s blessing, Roger employed Brian’s fledgling accountancy practice to work on specific projects.
After Brian’s disappearance, Roger was on his own. There’d been no more financial coups. Would we be in this mess now, he wondered, if Brian had been here, consulting me, when the times got tough? The long and pronounced recession had called for a financial whizz like Brian. Someone with his nous …
Roger had relied on his father’s right hand man, Harold Masterton, whom he believed had his finger on the financial pulse. But like all the others, Masterton had missed the signs of impending disaster. Roger realised now that Masterton didn’t have the entrepreneurial flair that Brian had shown.
His focus drifted back, through the haze of memories, to the reverend’s words, ‘ … “Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the King? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun” …’
A police officer sees cruelty every day, in a dozen different ways. Morris Glenfield knew it was something you learned to deal with. But how did anyone deal with this? This was cruelty with a timeless quality to it; a rotten, ravaging thing that kept coming back to eat away at everything decent and pure.
The poor man was seventy years old. Frail, shrunken, white haired, suffering from MS. Thomas Brayson had been a widower for four years, after thirty-five years of marriage. Now he was being led into a mortuary to identify the body of his long lost daughter.
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