‘Describe what happened when you arrived.’
‘Bert drove us into the compound. The gate was open. I knew from previous experience that Hiskey locked the gate at night. Hiskey’s truck was there, so I assumed he was there, too. Which I thought was weird because I had kept trying his landline on the way out there and got no response.’
‘Did you notice anything else out of the ordinary?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, so you arrived at the depot with Mr Parker. What did you do then?’
‘I went to the office.’
‘What did Parker do?’
‘He came with me.’
‘What did you see when you approached the office?’
‘I saw the office. Nothing out of the ordinary. It’s an old ATCO transportable. You know, one of those white ones with the yellow trim at the top, the natural habitat of the mining industry. It’s got a door and a window and an air-conditioning unit out the back, if you’re lucky. No frills. The door was shut.’
‘What did you do? Describe everything in as much detail as possible.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes. I apologise again.’
‘It’s alright.’ Tasso took a deep breath. ‘So, okay, the door was locked. I knocked on it and called out. There was no answer. I knocked again, and still no answer. I went to the window and peered in. It had a steel mesh over it, so I couldn’t see inside all that well. The place was messed up. It always was, but it seemed worse than I’d seen it before. And then I saw Hiskey.’ He had been looking directly at Tarrant and occasionally at McGarry, but now he looked away, towards the western window. ‘He was sitting on a chair. He didn’t look good. His head was leaning to one side.’ Tasso looked back at Tarrant. ‘He looked bloody, but I was hoping it was just because I couldn’t see clearly. Bert got the tyre lever from the car and we used it to prise open the door.’ He absently mimed a prising action. ‘It was blood, and it was obviously Hiskey’s.’ Tasso looked at me, his eyes raw. ‘Jesus, Steve, there was a lot of blood. There were spatters on the walls behind him, but mainly it was on him or on the floor. It was almost black. A hard black puddle of blood on the floor. Hiskey was tied to a chair with duct tape. His arms were taped to the armrests of the chair and the fingers on both his hands had been smashed to a pulp. With a hammer or something, I suppose. There was duct tape around his chest, holding him upright in the chair. He was barefooted and his ankles were taped to the legs of the chair. Several of his toes had been smashed. Worst of all, though, was his head. The side of it had been smashed in. I felt for a pulse in his neck but I couldn’t see how he could be alive, not with the side of his head smashed in.’ Tasso looked away again and shook his head. ‘I reckon he’d been hit in the face a few times. Someone had been angry with him. It was terrible, terrible. I’d give anything not to have seen him like that.’
Tasso poured himself a glass of water and offered the jug around. He poured me a glass. The jug must have been heavy because he had to use two hands to keep it steady.
‘What did you do then?’ said Tarrant.
Tasso sipped his water. ‘I called triple zero, and waited in the car until your mob arrived.’
‘With Parker.’
‘Yes, we both waited in the car.’
Tarrant let moments go by. ‘When was the last time you saw Hiskey alive, or spoke to him?’
‘I spoke to him the afternoon before. By phone. He was on the road, returning from a trip up north. I think he was this side of Port Wakefield. We arranged the meeting.’
‘How did he sound?’
‘He sounded alright. But, as I said before, he was not a well man. It was always hard to tell how much of what he said was just bravado. About anything.’
‘Where had he been up north?’
‘Somewhere past Port Augusta.’
‘Anywhere near Parakilla, by any chance?’
Nothing about Tasso’s expression changed, but I sensed his surprise at the question.
‘Possibly,’ he said.
‘Because that’s where you were early last week, wasn’t it?’ said Tarrant.
‘Yes, I took a quick trip to Parakilla,’ said Tasso. ‘I flew up. I have an interest in the area.’
‘And you met Hiskey there?’
Tasso took another sip of his water. ‘Yes, I met him there. As I say, I have an interest in the area. I thought he would be able to help me with it.’
‘How long were you up there?’
‘Three days.’
‘I see.’
‘Parakilla’s an old goldmining town, isn’t it?’ This was the first time McGarry had spoken.
‘That’s right. It’s not much of a town, I’m afraid.’
‘What is your interest there, Mr Tasso?’ said Tarrant.
Tasso smiled for the first time, it seemed, in a long while. He leaned back in his chair. ‘Look, I appreciate that it’s your job to know everything, but you’re starting to go beyond what I would consider pertinent questioning. My interest in the area is commercial, and confidential. I can assure you it has nothing to do with Hiskey’s death.’
‘Okay, let’s leave it,’ said Tarrant, ‘for now. What did you know about Hiskey’s heroin addiction?’
‘Only that he has—had—one, and that he’d had it for a long time. In the last few years he didn’t really try to hide it.’
‘Do you know where he got his supply?’
‘No. He wasn’t quite as open about that.’
‘Any suspicions?’
‘Yeah. A guy called Harlin. He and Hiskey were pretty chummy, and Hiskey told me he was a dealer.’
‘Think Harlin could have killed Hiskey?’
‘I have no idea. It’s possible. Drugs and murder go together, don’t they?’
‘Do you know how Hiskey paid for his drugs?’
‘No, but I expect most of his friends stopped giving him money long ago.’
Tarrant changed tack again. ‘Are you living in Adelaide now, Mr Tasso?’
‘Yes. Moved here about a month ago.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m an old Adelaide boy. I’m fond of the place. I want to invest in it. I’m planning to stay.’
Tarrant looked at his watch. Then he looked at McGarry and raised his eyebrows at her. She gave a short shake of her head. ‘Thank you for your time,’ Tarrant said to Tasso, starting to rise. McGarry closed her notebook and stowed her pen.
‘Hang on,’ said Tasso. ‘I want to know about the autopsy. What was he killed with? It was a hammer, right?’
‘I’m sure you’ll appreciate that we can’t divulge information like that during an ongoing murder investigation.’
‘Do you have any suspects?’
‘Only everyone, at this stage. I’m sorry, Mr Tasso, I really can’t tell you anything about the investigation at the moment.’ He paused. ‘If it’s any consolation, he had a considerable quantity of heroin in his system when he died. It’s possible he wasn’t feeling much pain. Please keep that information confidential.’
‘Sure.’
‘We’ll be in touch,’ said Tarrant. He nodded to me and left with McGarry.
I looked out the window. People were walking on the street below, faceless and nameless and perhaps aimless. We had a fine view of the railway station and Parliament House, the Festival Centre, Adelaide Oval with its new grandstands, the half-built hospital the state couldn’t afford, Saint Peter’s Cathedral, Montefiore Hill. The pleasant inner-north suburbs, beyond which the wealth and beauty ran out of steam and the northern badlands—as they were known unofficially, at least to those in the south, east and west—began. A thin black column of smoke was rising in the distance.
‘I assume your visit to Parakilla was in regard to that matter we were talking about the other day,’ I said. Tasso was still in the one-seater, doing some thinking.
‘Yes.’
‘How can you be sure it has nothing to do with Hiskey’s murder? It seems a strong possibility to me.’
/>
‘Of course it’s possible. Except that nobody knows about it.’
‘As far as you know. Hiskey might have let it slip. The guy was a heroin addict. Maybe he traded the information for a fix.’
‘Maybe.’ Tasso was still thinking his own thoughts. ‘Maybe.’ He tapped the arms of his seat and refocused. ‘But I’m sure about one thing, Steve. We don’t tell Tarrant about it. Or anyone.’
‘What about Goldsworthy?’
‘No, not even Goldsworthy. All he needs to know is that we are preparing a proposal for an exploration licence. His brief is to protect us against espionage. He doesn’t need to know about Hiskey’s find. Which let’s call the honeyhole.’
‘The honeyhole? That’s our code word?’
‘Can you think of something better?’
‘Nah, honeyhole is fine. But there’s something else you need to think about, Tasso.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If Hiskey was killed because of the honeyhole, you better start watching out for hammers yourself.’
Tasso rubbed his face. It was something he did from time to time. Maybe it helped him dispel bad thoughts.
‘We have to consider it,’ I said.
‘You’re right.’
Fern came to the door again. ‘There’s someone else to see you, Tasso,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘Hardcastle. And Sonia Hiskey.’
11
Frank Hardcastle was a handsome man with a fine head of treacle-coloured hair set in a hard formation like Wave Rock. Tasso donned a polite smile and kissed Sonia on the cheek. I shook Hardcastle’s hand and found it soft, and I guessed that if he was a geologist he was the kind who didn’t go round cracking too many rocks. Sonia gave me a pretty widow’s smile and I gave her a peck on the cheek. Tasso directed us to the leather couches.
‘Would you like coffee, tea, Coke?’ he said.
Hardcastle looked at Sonia, who shook her head.
‘I thought it was a good service yesterday,’ said Tasso.
‘Thank you for speaking,’ said Sonia.
‘I hope you didn’t mind when I said he was fighting you.’
‘We were fighting, I guess. But you made me seem like a bitch.’
‘It wasn’t my intention.’
There was a pause. No one believed him.
‘Let me get to the point,’ said Hardcastle, looking at Sonia. ‘We’re upset about Mick, of course.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ said Tasso.
‘But I believe he kept information from us, information he had no right to withhold.’
‘About what?’
‘We believe he made a discovery on one of our exploration leases. A big discovery.’
‘First I’ve heard of it,’ said Tasso.
Sonia had been sitting with her knees together and her back straight, looking demure. She leaned forward in an abrupt movement. ‘That’s crap, Tasso,’ she said. ‘You know exactly what we’re talking about.’
Hardcastle put his hand on her power-suited arm, and she sat back again. ‘We have it from a reliable source that Mick discovered a massive gold deposit near Parakilla,’ said Hardcastle. ‘That discovery belongs to Black Hill.’
Tasso studied them both for a while, his eyes shifting from one to the other. Then he got up and stood with his back to us, looking out the northern window. It was another big, blue day and as hot as hell. From where I sat I could see that the column of black smoke in the badlands had hit the inversion layer and was starting to spread.
‘Someone’s burning tyres,’ said Tasso, almost to himself.
‘No, a waste oil depot caught fire,’ said Hardcastle. ‘Out at Enfield. I heard it on the news.’
‘Is that right?’ said Tasso, still looking at the smoke. ‘Is that right?’ Then he turned back to us. ‘Something here stinks like shit, and it’s not waste oil.’ He started exercising his arms and his voice was loud. ‘The two of you have a nerve, coming in here like this. You, Hardcastle, were Mick’s partner. It wasn’t right what you did to him. It wasn’t right for you to start banging his wife behind his back.’ Sonia gave a sharp intake of breath. Tasso looked at her. ‘And you were his wife. How could you cheat on him like that?’ He didn’t expect an answer, but Sonia wanted to give him one anyway. She stood up, her face reddening.
‘How dare you,’ she said. ‘Have you ever lived with an addict? He lies, he steals, he cheats, he begs. He is the most miserable creature on the planet. Mick was angry at me being with Frank, but only because he didn’t want me to be happy. It was spite, not anger.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Tasso. ‘You were sleeping with his business partner. Of course he was angry with you. You betrayed him.’ Sonia looked as if she had been slapped. ‘You both did.’ Tasso was looking at Hardcastle now. ‘And I don’t know what you’re talking about, this discovery. I don’t even know why you’re talking about it with me. But if there was a find, and if I did know about it, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you because of what the two of you did to Mick.’
Hardcastle was on his feet now, so I thought I’d better stand, too. ‘What Hiskey did was illegal,’ he said. ‘He had a legal obligation, and a moral obligation, to share all his results.’
Tasso laughed, nastily. He held up the index finger of his left hand, its back towards Hardcastle. ‘First of all, don’t talk to me about moral obligations. You had a moral obligation not to bang Mick’s wife. Second,’ he held up his middle finger, ‘if Mick did do something illegal, what are you going to do about it? The poor bastard is dead. Good luck with a law suit.’ He withdrew his fingers.
‘We’ll sue you,’ said Sonia. ‘What you’re doing is fraud.’
Tasso got that knowing look about him. He held up his index finger again, but this time facing it towards Hardcastle and Sonia. He waggled it at them as a kind of caution. His voice was softer now. ‘Be very careful, my friend,’ he said. ‘You are making accusations in front of a witness.’ He gestured at me. ‘You have no evidence.’ He waggled his finger around a little more, just for the hell of it. Sonia was looking as dark as the smoke column outside, and her lips were pressed tight together. Hardcastle was making an effort to calm himself. He smoothed his treacly hair. ‘We know what you’re up to, Tasso.’ He put his hand on Sonia to guide her away. ‘You haven’t heard the last of this.’
Tasso followed them to the door and watched them stride through the office space and past Fern’s desk. Then he looked at me and grinned. ‘See, I told you we’d have some fun,’ he said.
‘I thought no one knew about the honeyhole.’
‘So did I. I don’t think they know any details.’
‘Except that it’s a massive gold deposit near Parakilla. How many more details are there?’
‘Such as it’s exact location—that’s the key—and how massive it is. But I agree it’s a problem.’
‘How did they find out there even is a honeyhole?’
Tasso had strolled to the window and was looking toward the Torrens Island power station in the vague direction of the honeyhole. ‘I don’t know. We did learn something, though.’
‘Which was?’
He turned back to me. ‘The contract I made with Hiskey hasn’t surfaced. If they had the contract they would have been waving it in my face.’
‘So where the hell is it? We should try to find it.’
‘Yes. And there’s something else we need to do.’ Tasso rummaged around on his desk and found a thick wad from a pile of paper. He came back to the couch with it.
‘Spill.’
‘This is the Mining Act,’ he said. ‘It’s new. Came into force a couple of years ago. You might not know the details.’ He leafed through it and found what he was looking for. ‘Black Hill held the exploration licence that covers the find. It expired last week, just before Hiskey was murdered. It was what we had been waiting for before we started to make our move. Hardcastle mustn’t’ve found out about the honeyhole until after his existing li
cence expired or he would have renewed it. He’s missed his chance. But he can still apply for a corresponding licence, just like us. If he thinks there’s something there, he’ll reapply. If there’s more than one application, a panel decides on merit. We need to make sure our application is the one that gets approved, which is your job. But because his company has already been working the area, Hardcastle’s probably got the edge if he plays it smart. We need ammunition to discredit him. The minister can decide to reject his application if he thinks he’s dodgy. We need to dig up dirt on Hardcastle.’
‘Okay. How do we do that?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s discuss it over lunch.’
It was a long lunch and involved beer, but I still managed to put in five productive hours in the afternoon. I read the new Mining Act—or at least skimmed it, because it was very long and boring—and made good progress on the application. As I was leaving the office just before eight, my phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognise. For a moment, there was no sound on the other end. Then there was a voice. A voice I liked.
‘You shouldn’t have done it.’
‘Done what?’
‘Put your phone number in my coat. At the funeral.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘And that’s bad?’
‘It’s hard to see how it can end well.’
‘So why are you calling?’
‘I’d like to see you anyway.’
12
She suggested a place to meet and I was there in twenty minutes. It was a Mexican chain restaurant on the south side of the city. One of its gimmicks was that you had to raise a little flag on your table if you wanted the attention of the waiters. Melody was already there when I arrived and was halfway through a frozen margarita. She was wearing a short-sleeved, V-neck cotton shirt and very little makeup. As soon as she saw me, she raised her Mexican flag. A waitress was there in a jiffy.
‘Two more,’ said Melody. She looked at me as I took my seat. ‘You’ll have a margarita, won’t you?’
‘Sure. I’d better have something to eat, too.’ The waitress went away and Melody and I inspected the menu. There was a box of pencils on the table and I used one to fill out an order form, which was another of the gimmicks. The waitress brought the drinks and took away the form. Melody had finished her drink and held the next one up to me.
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