Blood Is a Stranger

by Roland Perry

  The girl had watched him for some time. He was the only person on the beach apart from the hardy surfers.

  ‘I saw you come out of number 53,’ Cardinal said, pointing up to the street. ‘Do you live there’

  The girl looked apprehensive as she stood on rocks only a few metres from Cardinal.

  ‘Could I speak to you,’ Cardinal said. ‘I’m Harry Cardinal’s father.’

  The girl was taken aback. She took a few steps towards him.

  ‘Did you know him?’ he asked.

  ‘I lived at the house. Harry was a good friend.’

  Cardinal frowned. ‘You were his girl?’

  The girl blinked and seemed reluctant to answer. ‘We only lived together for a few months,’ she said.

  Cardinal threw out his hand. ‘I’m Ken Cardinal,’ he said in an effort to relax her.

  ‘I am Kim Lim.’

  ‘You’re Indonesian?’

  ‘Few people guess right.’

  Cardinal frowned. ‘Was it serious?’ he asked, ‘I mean, were you planning to marry?’

  Kim hesitated. ‘We had discussed it.’

  ‘Then you must feel the loss I do,’ Cardinal said, dropping his head.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could I have a look over the house?’ he asked. ‘I just want to see how Harry lived.’

  ‘It’s very messy,’ she said, as they began to walk from the beach. ‘The police went through it.’

  ‘I’ll have to sort out his things,’ Cardinal said.

  ‘I recognise you now,’ she said with more composure. ‘Harry showed me photos. He was very proud of you.’

  ‘In a strange way we were close,’ Cardinal said. He trudged up the steep lane to Gardyne Street, and then on to the house.

  ‘Would you like . . . will I make coffee,’ Kim said as they entered the living room. She disappeared and Cardinal wandered around the room. Several excellent portraits held his attention. Some were of Harry, who was blessed with robust good looks. Others were of a raven-haired Eurasian. Still more showed the two together enjoying themselves in beach shots. Cardinal looked closely at some framed photos. One was a prized snap of Harry with General Pinochet in Chile, which even now filled Cardinal with rage. Another, with Harry’s mother, brought tears to his eyes. He had to remind himself that both were dead.

  Cardinal turned around to see Kim standing behind him. She had put his coffee nearby on a Japanese table without him hearing a sound.

  ‘They’re yours?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘They’re excellent of Harry,’ he said. ‘Could I have some? I could have prints made. And who is that girl?’

  ‘A friend . . . to both of us.’ She sat down and sipped her coffee.

  ‘What’s her name?’ he said, taking a seat.

  ‘Hartina Van der Holland.’

  ‘Do you have her number or address?’

  ‘I think she is on holiday,’ she said, her edginess returning. Cardinal felt uncomfortable.

  ‘Could I see the rest of the place?’ he said, putting down the coffee, which was lukewarm. Kim seemed reluctant.

  ‘I don’t care what state the place is in,’ Cardinal said.

  ‘But the police. They have been through . . .’

  Cardinal stared at her. ‘I’m his father!’ he said.

  She got up. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, leading him to the stair. ‘So many people, so many times.’

  ‘Who was Harry renting this from?’ he asked.

  She turned to him in surprise at the top of the stairs. ‘It’s not rented,’ she said with a frown. ‘Harry bought it.’

  Cardinal looked incredulous.

  ‘Did his work help him out?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ she asked, ushering him into the bedroom.

  ‘Did they get him a low interest loan?’

  ‘He never mentioned that sort of thing to me.’

  ‘What did it cost?’

  ‘Seven hundred and fifty-five thousand.’

  You know that much, Cardinal thought, but said, ‘He must have had a substantial loan. I can’t believe he had that kind of money.’

  Kim made no effort to elaborate, but led him up the stairs to a newly renovated, pine-panelled bedroom. It had a three metre square skylight, and a balcony with a superb view of Bronte beach, shouldered by sheer cliffs either side of it, which looked from that aspect like a golden carpet leading to the awesome, dark blue Tasman Sea.

  Kim waited at the door as Cardinal picked up Harry’s tennis racket and his video camera. Then he ran his hands over a silver neck-chain and medallion, inscribed, H I C. There was a gold cigarette case, a digital watch that carried telephone numbers, and a Gucci leather wallet. Cardinal inspected it and unfolded fifteen credit cards.

  ‘I recognise a lot of these,’ he said. Then he frowned. ‘None of his research books seem to be here.’ He looked sideways at Kim. ‘He always used to bring his work home.’

  ‘Harry liked to read a lot,’ Kim proffered non-committally.

  ‘His diary,’ Cardinal said, ‘where is it?’ Kim looked blank. She stepped into the room.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  His eyes searched hers, and she recoiled under the intensity.

  ‘Perhaps he stopped writing one,’ Cardinal said softly, ‘but he did have one from his late teens.’

  ‘The Americans took books, I think,’ she said.

  ‘What Americans?’

  ‘From the Embassy.’

  ‘They took things?’ Cardinal said. ‘They had no right!’

  His anger upset Kim. She scurried downstairs. Cardinal followed her into the kitchen and apologised.

  ‘Not my fault he’s gone,’ she said, trembling, her cool cracking for the first time. Cardinal softened his manner, and they returned to the living room where he admired her work again. It seemed to calm her.

  ‘Do you live by photography?’

  ‘I try,’ she said, ‘but I work freelance. It is hard to compete. I work at The Pitts restaurant at lunchtime.’

  ‘In the city?’

  ‘Pitt Street.’

  ‘Are you going to stay here?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to move, when I get other accommodation.’

  ‘There’s no hurry.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, with the first hint of warmth since they had met, ‘but I want to leave.’

  Cardinal was sympathetic. He stared at her. ‘Any idea how it happened?’ he asked.

  Kim shook her head. Perhaps too quickly, Cardinal thought. He kept looking at her.

  ‘Didn’t the police tell you?’ she said and seemed near to tears again.

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘They just told me he was . . . dead,’ she said, ‘that it was terrorists. They were not caught. The American said it was a matter of . . .’

  ‘National security,’ Cardinal said, as he got up to leave. ‘National goddamned security!’

  Night had fallen by the time Cardinal wandered down the steps towards the road to meet a taxi. He could hear the surf, now distant and relaxing, because it was the only sound, until he noticed the taxi moving up the winding road. Cardinal was distracted by the flash of a cigarette lighter in the front seat of a van eighty metres away as the taxi passed it.

  Cardinal flicked the end of a cigar into the gutter and got into the taxi. He gave instructions to the driver without taking his eyes off the van, which he could not remember being there earlier. Cardinal kept watching, but it did not seem to follow. After going about a kilometre, Cardinal saw it moving under a street light, its headlights off. It seemed to be tailing him. By the time he reached the Wentworth Hotel in the heart of the city, he was sure of it. Cardinal paid the driver and asked if he could read the van’s registration number, but they both had difficulty. He moved into the lobby, and just caught a glimpse of the van easing down a side street and out of sight.

  Jimmy Goyong settled into his spot high on a ridge overlooking the Bididgee Aborigines’ most revered are
a in Arnhem Land, some 400 kilometres east of Darwin, in the Northern Territory. He was a stooped, wrinkled man in his sixties, and his deep-socketed eyes seemed permanently bloodshot. His hair and wild beard were nearly completely grey.

  Jimmy was the Bididgee’s finest artist. At one time he worked exclusively in oils, but in the last few years he had limited himself to crayon sketches. Jimmy liked to draw just after dawn, when he was sober, and to catch the early morning sunlight.

  He set up a makeshift easel, placed paper, a half-metre square, on it and then spent several minutes lining up a telescope to focus on a group of boulders, standing in front of Mount Brockman. Just as he was ready to start drawing them, he was surprised by the sound of a helicopter coming from the nearby Ginga uranium mine.

  Using the telescope, which he had bought from the sale of his paintings and sketches, he focused on the horizon until he could see the metal beast coming in his direction. It hovered over the Green Ant boulders in front of Mount Brockman – both sacred areas – and then landed close.

  Jimmy kept his eye to the telescope. The rotors sent red dust swirling, which settled as the machine stopped. Two men emerged and Jimmy recognised one of the men as Bull Richardson, the owner of the Ginga mine and an influential businessman in Australia’s north; an enemy of his people. Jimmy could have sketched the man’s portrait blindfolded, so distinctive was Richardson’s granite head and the short basin cut with a centre parting. His neck was the same width as his cranium, and his thick-rimmed glasses added to his look of indestructibility.

  Jimmy turned his attention to the other man and began to sketch his features on a pad. He was a round-faced Asian wearing dark glasses and dressed in a grey safari suit. He listened as his big companion waved his hands. He seemed to be lecturing him. Jimmy drew the sometimes grinning, sometimes poker-faced stranger from several angles, and his attention drifted from Richardson. Jimmy did not see him scouring the ridge with binoculars and only realised he had been spotted when he noticed that the Asian was looking in his direction. Jimmy was startled. He abandoned his telescope and made a run for cover in nearby caves. He looked back once to see the two men hurrying for the chopper.

  It roared to life. Jimmy stopped to look back. Richardson and the Asian were climbing aboard. Jimmy started to run again but tripped and fell flat as the chopper took off. Within seconds it was hovering above him. Jimmy recovered and stumbled into a small cave as the machine hung suspended fifty metres above.

  The rush of wind stirred the bush. The chopper lowered gingerly to a plateau and sent dust swirling into the caves. Richardson jumped out. Head lowered, he marched to the ridge. He smashed the easel to pieces, grabbed the telescope and hurled it into the valley below. Then he trotted towards the caves. Richardson stood in front of them, and hesitated. He glanced at the chopper and finally ambled back to it. Moments later it wavered uncertainly until it was above the caves again, and then accelerated away.

  Jimmy emerged from the cave and returned to the ridge. He was distressed to find his telescope gone and the easel destroyed. He collected the paper that was scattered around but could not find his sketches. Richardson had taken them.

  Cardinal was angry. The grim set of his jaw and determined sway of his big frame said it all to Bob Pa ton, who had to waddle fast to keep up with him as they entered a building in Macquarie Street opposite Sydney’s Botanic Gardens. Paton had been deferential to Cardinal to the point of being unctious, yet he still hadn’t told him any more about Harry.

  In the lobby, Paton examined a notice board and found a company called ‘Horizon Enterprises’ on the tenth floor. They took the lift.

  ‘Why aren’t we at the Consulate?’ Cardinal snapped.

  ‘This is connected to it.’

  They entered Horizon Enterprises – a suite of plush offices – and were ushered into a large boardroom. A tall man was standing with his back to them looking through a window at the dark green gardens running down to Farm Cove. He turned and stepped over to his visitors and was introduced to Cardinal as ‘Don’ Blundell. He was lean, with patrician features that were dominated by a long nose. His eyes were close and small. When he squinted, they disappeared beneath his ragged eyebrows.

  Blundell was about forty-five, and looked fit. His double-breasted reefer jacket and monogrammed tie hinted at a degree of narcissism. But there was an undeniable toughness about his face.

  They shook hands. Blundell offered Cardinal a seat at his polished teak desk, which was spotless and clear, except for a computer and one thin folder.

  Paton hovered, wedged himself into a chair and unwrapped a Wilhem II as if he were there as an observer. He seemed unnerved by Blundell who ordered coffee in an authoritative voice through an intercom connected to his computer.

  ‘We are sorry about your son,’ Blundell said. ‘He was a patriot. He was doing very important work for his country.’

  ‘I want to know how and why he died,’ Cardinal said, sweeping aside the condolences.

  ‘He died in a noble cause, we can assure you of that, Mr Cardinal. The president would declare him a national hero. But his feats, I’m afraid, cannot be made public. His work was sensitive and bound by strictures of national security.’

  Cardinal winced at the phrase. ‘You haven’t told me anything,’ he said.

  Blundell leaned forward on his desk as coffee was served by a trim male assistant.

  ‘You must understand our position,’ Blundell said, opening his hands to Cardinal. ‘What happened to your son is a matter we can’t get into.’

  ‘Can you tell me who killed him?’

  ‘We are not sure. It’s under investigation.’

  ‘But you must know if there was one or two involved. I was told it was terrorism. You must have some ideas!’

  ‘We do. But we can’t discuss them.’

  ‘Not now?’ Cardinal began, his anger rising, ‘not ever?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Cardinal glanced at Paton, who had balanced his coffee cup on his belly, and looked uncomfortable.

  He put his coffee down, leaned back in his chair and cracked the knuckles in each hand. It was disconcerting, even for Blundell.

  ‘I have to know what happened to my son,’ Cardinal said, struggling to keep his voice steady. ‘It is my right.’

  ‘It really isn’t possible at this time.’

  Cardinal sighed. ‘What did you people take from my son’s house?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, we had to make a search,’ Blundell said, reaching for the intercom again. He asked his assistant to bring in Harry’s ‘effects’. The man appeared moments later with a fat envelope. Blundell handed it to Cardinal.

  ‘What is your position at the Embassy?’ Cardinal asked.

  ‘I have a special roving commission in the area.’

  ‘For whom? The state department?’

  ‘The United States federal government, Mr Cardinal.’

  ‘So you’re not attached to the Embassy in Canberra or the city consulates?’

  Blundell shook his head.

  Cardinal turned to Paton. ‘Then I want to speak with the ambassador,’ he said.

  ‘He’s in Canberra,’ Paton said. He offered Cardinal a cigar. He declined and pulled a gold case from an inside jacket pocket. He took out one of his own cigars.

  Paton wriggled in his seat to see the brand. ‘Cuban?’ he said.

  ‘Montecristo No 5,’ Cardinal nodded.

  ‘You can’t get them in the States,’ Paton remarked.

  ‘I buy them from a tobacconist in St James’s in London.’

  ‘I’m afraid the ambassador will refer you to me,’ Blundell said impatiently. ‘It really is better if you leave this investigation to us. You’ll be informed the moment there’s a breakthrough.’

  Cardinal lit the cigar and stared at Blundell, weighing him up. ‘I’m going to find out why this happened to Harry,’ he said with steely conviction, ‘whether you like it or not.’

  The uneasy amb
ience turned chilly as Cardinal stood up. Blundell and Paton rose with him.

  ‘You must stay out of this,’ Blundell warned, ‘for your own good. We’re dealing with vicious animals here.’

  ‘So you say,’ Cardinal said, ‘but this is not Chile. I’ll get the answers I want before I return home. That’s a promise.’

  Cardinal retreated to his hotel room to think things through. At home there were many avenues. He could get hold of congressmen who patronised his gallery. There was the government lobbyist who had fought with him in Korea. There was always the good old New York Times. He didn’t know any investigative reporters, but he was on first-name terms with the art critic. Cardinal had to talk to lawyers. He knew scores; he was, after all, one himself. Perhaps he would end up in a law suit with the state department. Or would it be the CIA?

  Cardinal tipped out the contents of the envelope. There was no diary or passport. There were some letters from Cardinal and one bank statement, which was not illuminating. It showed that Harry had credit of three dollars and forty-eight cents. In the bound bundles were his driver’s licence and a notebook with nothing but formulas in it. Harry’s research books were not there. Cardinal examined a sealed letter. On the front was scrawled just one word: ‘Will’. Cardinal hesitated before opening it. He turned it over and over and put it aside. He looked through other items and then reached for the Will again. He tore open the envelope. Harry had left everything to his father, including the house and all its contents, and his car.

  There was a condition. None of the items in his estate was to be distributed until exactly one year after his death. There was no further elaboration. At first Cardinal did not dwell on it, but as he rummaged through Harry’s things the idea nagged at him. Why a year?

  He strode into the piano bar, where he downed a couple of whiskies. At seven he moved into an adjoining restaurant and sat alone in a sea of empty tables. Cardinal ordered a steak and more whisky. He was feeling aggressive, determined to find out the facts about Harry. On the rare occasion he was fired up like this, he was a big eater. He also like to drink. By the time he had finished the meal, half a dozen other diners had entered the restaurant.