She gave herself a mental shake. That man would have more baggage than an airport check-in lounge. Dangerous goods; forget him.
There was something about him, though. Had they met somewhere before?
The breeze fluttered the pages of the broadsheet, breaking her reverie. Four weeks she’d set aside for the Battle of the Bay and then she’d have to get back to work again. The BBC commitments were long standing. She was headed back to Africa and the latest basket case of a country with a tin-pot despot unwilling to do anything for his starving people.
Sighing, she stood up. Shadow, true to his name, followed her inside the house. She dropped the paper on the same dining table where she and Nina had done their homework for so many years, then rinsed her cup in the sink. Opposite the kitchen was her father’s bedroom. The wooden door was ajar and she could see the bed was neatly made with its striped bedspread; a sparse room with few personal items apart from a couple of books next to the bedside lamp. Two more bedrooms, and the bathroom and laundry, flanked the central corridor, which led to the back door. The cottage was always smaller than she remembered it.
She stopped in front of the only closed door. Behind lay all the memories of her sister. Hand on the doorknob, she hesitated, her muscles rigid. This was going to hurt. She thought she heard the hinges sigh as the door opened.
The sunlight through the lace curtains patterned the room in filigree. Tiny lines like the creping on old skin traced across the pale bedspread and the polished floor. Nothing had changed. Nina’s backpack was still in the corner, her camera bag on the shelf, her clothes folded away.
Ellie sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing the fabric as she’d done a hundred times over the years. The room didn’t smell of Nina and her exotic perfumes. It smelt of furniture polish and dust. The air was still, claustrophobic. In a rush, Ellie jumped to her feet and unlatched the window, struggling against two years of swollen timber to push it wide. The breeze rushed in and cooled the tears on her cheeks.
She slid open a drawer, running her hands over cashmere and silk, finding the jewellery box tucked in the corner containing their mother’s pearls. ‘Too old for us,’ Nina used to say. Now she’d never be old enough.
Nina’s shoes were still racked in colours, but they’d lost their shine and the suede had grown mould. Her belts and handbags hung off hangers. Her make-up was still in the small bag Ellie had brought back from Kandahar.
When Tom came home they’d have to decide what to do with all this. An old camera rested on the bookshelf and Ellie turned it over in her hands. It was one of Ellie’s back-up cameras that used film. There was nothing worse than finding the perfect shot and realising the batteries in her digital were flat. This one had been inadvertently left with Nina when Ellie headed to London for the fashion shoot. She’d forgotten about it. Ellie frowned at the numbers in the counter window. Twenty-one?
She flicked the release switch and wound the lever. With a crackle it moved as the film rolled back into its canister. She opened the back and dropped it into her hand. The writing on it was Arabic, although Kodak was Kodak in any language. It was black and white. She slipped it into her pocket and closed the camera. She had to drop off some photos to be printed at a lab in Garrison. They could develop this for her as well.
There was no sign of Nina’s computer. She checked under the bed, opened drawers, each time feeling a little easier about digging through her sister’s belongings. The carry bag was there, but not the computer. She’d have to ask Tom if he’d stored it away. Ellie knew she’d brought it home from Afghanistan and left it in this room. A part of her was relieved. Without the computer she had an excuse to continue avoiding Nina’s story. Another part, a smaller voice, insisted she needed to find that computer.
With a soft click she closed the door again. Maybe with Tom’s help she’d track it down. In the meantime the article she’d written for the Weekend Australian’s colour supplement was largely complete. The file was open on her laptop and she scrolled through the story, proofing snatches of it randomly.
Life is uncomplicated in a place like Half Moon Bay with its pristine beaches and golden sand. The coastal hamlet of a couple of dozen streets, population 1800 on a good weekend, remains a last bastion of surfing culture, stalled down the end of a no-through road. Progress hasn’t bothered to take the turning off the highway before. Now it’s coming like a cavalcade of road trains blasting through the main street in the dead of night with horns blaring. The residents are awake and alarmed. They’ve answered the call to arms and there will be no surrender.
She skimmed to the closing paragraph.
Half Moon Bay’s charm is in its undeveloped beauty. A headland pushing pale fingers of sand into the Pacific Ocean, it forces up long, curling waves of unmatched quality. For years surfboard riders have come from around the world to ride the strong, sloping swells. The retirees who surfed here in the ’50s have made this place home and created a mecca for like-minded followers of surf. They are a community united in their rejection of this development but will they win the David-and-Goliath battle against progress? Will they be successful at holding back the very real tsunami of development that is engulfing the coastline right around Australia? Only time and tide will tell.
Ellie saved it and attached it to an email along with her photographs.
There could be no mention in the article of corruption, money laundering and drugs. It irked her that she’d written a feel-good piece rather than the gritty truth. She consoled herself that there was still time for that once she had all the facts. There was no point in going off half-cocked. Both barrels, aimed precisely, would achieve maximum impact. Until then, she would play by the rules.
She moved on down her list. The details for tomorrow’s public rally needed to be finalised and she had to slip in a quick trip to the council chambers to check on the facilities for her presentation next week.
Ellie squirmed. Fronting a public rally. She was a ‘behind the lens’ kind of girl. Nina had been the public face of Wilding Productions. But Ellie had learnt a lot since then so she might as well put it to good use.
The meeting at the Half Moon Bay Bowls Club was just one of the many steps in what could be a long and protracted battle, ugly even. The community realised early on that to overturn the planning board’s approval they’d need to be organised. Their team was hand picked – lawyer, retired mayor, an ex-building inspector, surveyor and now a journalist. All were long-term residents, all well respected and above the gossip and rumour mill. No skeletons in any cupboards.
First hurdle was getting the decision reversed. Next, and this was off the public radar, would be investigating the suspected drug running and associated money laundering. The Port Newel fishing fleet was a closed brethren, so if they believed one of their own was dealing drugs on the side for the newly elected mayor then it was, in all probability, true. Ron at least was convinced. They just had to find the proof without getting anyone hurt.
She reached for the phone.
‘Morning, Ron. How’s it looking down your way?’
‘Ellie.’ Ron’s voice rasped with age. ‘A very good morning to you too. Up early?’
‘And you. Hey, guess who turned up here about an hour ago?’
‘Don’t make me guess.’
Ellie laughed. ‘Okay. Nicholas Lawson. Wish you’d warned me he was a charmer.’
‘Nick Lawson? I don’t think I’m in a position to comment on another man’s charm.’
‘Oh come on, Ron, you’d have been a catch too, when Mavis swept you off your feet fifty years ago.’
‘I was an old-fashioned kind of bloke who fell in love over a hymn book. Looks had nothing to do with it.’
‘Right, and all those ladies who voted for you year after year in the council elections didn’t notice Mayor Ron Whitaker was a bit of all right, hmm?’
‘They didn’t vote for me last election, so my looks must be vanishing.’
‘Ha, they just got outvoted by all t
hose newcomers in Garrison.’
‘Okay, okay. Revisiting my electoral defeat isn’t going to help my indigestion. Anyway, what did Lawson want?’
‘Said he was looking for Dad, but how the hell could they know each other?’
‘Don’t know. Tom’s never mentioned him.’
‘Doesn’t make sense. Dad was gone before the development was even mooted.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. Maybe he got his name out of the phone book?’
‘Possibly . . . Have you and Mavis worked one of your little miracles for the meeting tomorrow?’
‘Should be a good turnout.’
‘Great. You remember Alex Creighton, a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, friend of mine from uni?’
‘Gangly guy with blond hair and a smart mouth? Parents died in a car accident?’
‘See, I knew you paid attention,’ Ellie said. ‘I don’t think he’s so skinny any more and he’s very well connected these days. He’s coming up on the understanding there’ll be a good story in it for him. The bigger the crowd, the better it will look.’
‘Does he know the whole story?’ Ron’s voice pitched lower.
‘No. I think we need to substantiate the rumours first.’ And she didn’t want Alex poking around just yet.
‘Yeah, right. I’m meeting someone else today who reckons they know when the next shipment is due. We’ll see. Mavis is getting pretty worked up over it.’
‘She’s worried about you, Ron. And we both need to be careful what we dig up.’
‘I know, I know. Hasn’t stopped the silly woman putting out feelers at the club, though.’
‘What did you expect?’ Ellie knew all too well that Mavis was as stubborn as her husband.
A formidable woman, she’d hauled the Half Moon Bay Bowls Club kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. She revelled in the prestige the new clubhouse and additional bowling greens had brought to the town. Ensconced in her favourite spot, propping up the corner bar overlooking the immaculate greens, Mavis networked as if her life depended on it.
‘She never has done a darn thing I told her to.’
‘Just so long as you two can rustle up a couple of hundred people for tomorrow’s meeting.’
‘That’s easy. The community is pretty ticked off with the new council. They’ll be there.’
‘Great. I’m going over to the chambers today to check out the room for next week’s presentation. I’ll touch base this afternoon.’
Smiling, Ellie hung up. Ron and Mavis could truly be described as salt of the earth. No chance of a dishonest bone in their bodies, unlike Lord Mayor O’Sullivan.
Now, if they could just catch the mayor with his hand on a shipment of heroin . . .
No point in wishing, she thought. O’Sullivan was greedy enough. Was he also sloppy enough to slip up? Move cautiously around him, she reminded herself. People who imported drugs were playing for high stakes.
And just make sure you don’t underestimate the disturbing Mr Lawson either.
6
Alex Creighton scrolled through the article one more time. The photographs held him. Skinny, undernourished kids in the slums of Jo’burg, with eyes a million years old. Ellie always had magic in her photographs. She didn’t need words to convey the hopeless weariness in these African boys caught up in a life of desperation. Even her happy snaps taken years ago at uni parties were focused and framed, catching the essence of their careless freedom.
He touched the gentlest of fingertips to the tiny image of the photographer herself. It didn’t do her justice. Her unruly hair looked red instead of copper blond and was pulled back tight from her face. Ellie was half turned to the camera, her expression stern, with thick lashes emphasising the vivid blue of her eyes. No make-up hid her smooth skin. She could have been a nun. The photo didn’t capture the humour, the warmth in her. It couldn’t show the size of her heart, the depth of her compassion. She looked austere, aloof. It wasn’t his Ellie.
He hadn’t been the only one in their group at university in love with Ellie Wilding, but he’d come the closest to breaking through that composed exterior. He’d stayed in touch through the years when first Nina and then Ellie spent months at a time overseas chasing stories. Then when Nina died, Ellie came home and he was there for her at the airport, the funeral, right up to the military Board of Inquiry. But instead of sticking around, she’d fled back overseas, cutting everyone off. Alex had kept tabs on her, following her stories as she built her reputation. He was a patient man and Ellie was worth waiting for.
As far as he knew, she’d never had a steady boyfriend; no long-term commitment for her. But she was a very desirable woman with baggage he knew all about and understood. When she’d called out of the blue to say she was heading home his heart had soared. She’d called him first, invited him up to Half Moon Bay. She needed him. He also needed to make sure she never found out the truth about Nina’s story.
‘What’s that?’ The touch on his shoulder made him start.
‘Just some research,’ he replied, closing the browser and turning with a smile.
‘On AIDS in Africa?’ The pretty brunette pouted her glossy lips. ‘Tell me you’re not being sent there?’
‘No, Teisha, I’m heading up to the coast to do a perfectly respectable story on a property development.’
‘So why can’t I come too?’
‘Because I’ll be busy working and there’s no five-star resort.’
She pulled a long face and flicked painted nails in his direction. She had some new crazy design with sparkles. ‘So where are you staying?’
‘The pub. It’s a relic from the 1950s.’
She frowned. ‘So I can come up when you finish and we can go some place else. Like Byron Bay.’
‘We’ll see. I’ll only be gone a couple of days.’ Teisha was precisely the reason he was happy to get out of town.
‘You make sure Daddy Bear doesn’t forget his princess while he’s away.’ She trailed a finger down his shoulder and leant in to leave a wet touch on his ear with her tongue.
‘No danger of that, babe,’ he replied, pushing back on the casters. He stood up, putting distance between them. The journalist in the cubicle next door did nothing more than glance their way. Everyone on the floor was used to Teisha’s antics.
Her mobile phone piped out a cheery tune. ‘Sammie,’ she mouthed. Her best friend, joined by the invisible umbilical cord Telstra provided with free texts and calls. A godsend.
He waved at her, then headed out through the swing doors and down the corridor to the men’s room. He needed a breather.
He sluiced water on his face and peered in the mirror, seeing the first flash of silver at his temples, a few crow’s feet around his eyes, even white teeth, and a clean-cut face. He ran his hand along his jaw. No sag there yet. He stayed fit, played squash, rode his bike with a pack of mates every Saturday morning when he was home, sweating out the alcohol from Friday night. Teisha was never good in the mornings, burying her head under downy pillows until the sun stopped streaming through his sheer curtains. She wanted blinds. He wanted his townhouse back.
A momentary lapse of good sense, and three months later he’d become Daddy Bear. What on earth had he been thinking? His idiot ego had been stroked, along with other things, and now he was having problems disentangling himself. He didn’t want to hurt her and he sure as hell didn’t need the hassle it was going to cause in the office. An editorial assistant could do a lot of damage if she set her mind to it. For all Teisha’s little-girl antics, a shrewd woman loitered behind the Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and lip gloss.
He looked up at his face again and shook his head. ‘You’re a bloody idiot. Just man up and tell her it’s over.’
The door to the outside opened. ‘You alright, hon?’
‘Teisha, it’s a men’s room, for God’s sake!’ He hustled her out the door.
‘I was only worried about you, hon. Sammie’s going to the Asian Laundry tonight. You co
ming?’
‘No.’ He tried not to sound dismissive, but a night in any club watching others snort lines of coke was not his idea of fun. He’d left that scene behind two years ago. ‘I have to sort some stuff out before I head off tomorrow.’
‘I see. Wait up for me?’
‘No, babe. Why don’t you sleep at your place tonight? I’ll need an early start.’
‘Right.’ She drew the word out with her best North Shore accent. ‘Something you’re not telling me?’
‘Just need some time, Teisha. Don’t read anything into it. It’s just another assignment.’
‘Are you sure? Have I done something wrong?’ She was doing haughty now.
‘I’ll call when I get there tomorrow. Okay? It’s not you, it’s me.’ Oh, how he cringed at that corny line.
‘You’ve done something wrong?’ Her voice was sharp.
‘No. I’m just a bit stressed with work. That’s all.’ He bent and kissed her, feeling the tingle in his own mouth from the ridiculous capsicum-infused gloss she wore to make her lips plumper. She opened her mouth and went to deepen the kiss, but he pulled back. ‘Whoa. Not here.’
Voracious wasn’t a wild enough adjective and it was time for her to be someone else’s sex kitten. There was no shortage of admirers and most of them younger and buffer than him. Would probably have more stamina, too . . .
‘So let’s go home now and then I’ll leave you to sleep while I go party.’
‘No, babe, you go and have fun. I’ll see you in a few days.’
She flounced back down the corridor without a backwards glance. All the way downstairs to the car park, he berated himself for his stupidity. He was far too old to be led around by his dick and he had more important things to worry about.
He needed to get to Half Moon Bay and ensure Ellie stayed focused on bringing down a corrupt council. That shouldn’t be too hard. Ellie was always the one with the bleeding-heart causes. A bunch of disaffected retirees would suit her down to the ground. He couldn’t allow her to go poking around in the mess Nina had uncovered. Some stories weren’t worth their high price. Last time it had cost two lives and it still had him waking up in a cold sweat at night when he considered what he’d done.
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