by Roland Perry
When the sweet trolley drifted in sight, Cardinal was tempted. A waiter noticed his interest and proudly pushed the trolley to him.
‘Monsieur?’ he said bowing. Cardinal contemplated the fifteen varieties of cake and waved a hand over the trolley.
‘I’ll have the lot,’ he said.
The waiter stared. He bent forward, inclining his head. ‘Monsieur?’ he asked once more.
‘I’ll have everything.’
‘Are you sure you would not like a selection, Monsieur,’ the waiter said. Cardinal laughed and appealed to the heavens.
‘I want,’ he began in mock Bostonian English, ‘each and every one of them, uh, please.’ He chopped the air for emphasis. All heads turned to see the waiter’s reaction.
‘As you wish, Monsieur,’ he said pleasantly, with a glance towards the heavens. He demonstrated a certain savoir-faire as he prepared fifteen plates. Cardinal’s table was cleared, and the delicacies were laid out in neat lines. He bustled off to the kitchen for more cutlery. The chef was at the swinging door.
‘They’re selling well tonight, Maurice,’ the waiter said o the cook as he spun out of the kitchen. ‘Isn’t it nice to have your handiwork appreciated.’
‘Cochon!’ Maurice grunted and returned to the stove.
The waiter hovered near Cardinal as he ploughed into the cakes.
‘Would you care for anything else, Monsieur?’ the waiter asked, bowing and pushing the replenished dessert trolley to him again.
Cardinal shook his head and asked for a double whisky. He noticed a group of four at the next table. They were bemused by his gluttonous performance.
‘Have some,’ he smiled, and when they looked dubious, he added, ‘I haven’t touched many of them.’
One young woman giggled and accepted a strawberry tart. Another reached over and took a slice of mango pie. Their male companions got adventurous and several dishes ended up at the next table. The waiter hoped he would gain some measure of revenge by slapping the bill for two hundred dollars in front of his customer.
Cardinal retired to a piano bar and sat listening to a band playing melancholic Brazilian numbers made popular about the time of Harry’s birth. It depressed him. Yet his resolution about uncovering the truth was unshakable. There would be no turning back.
‘Dead ends.’
Rhonda expressed her frustration as she and Hewson walked to the tiny inlet beach harbouring Royal Brighton Yacht Club on Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. He smirked.
‘Are you slipping?’ he asked. Rhonda pulled her coat collar up against a howling wind that had yacht riggings groaning.
Hewson smiled but did not respond.
Rhonda tried a sympathy tack. ‘I always wanted to be a TV journalist, badly,’ she said, crestfallen. ‘I’ve realised my ambition. I’ve become a bad TV journalist.’
The joke was not special, but as usual her timing was sharp.
Hewson laughed and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘C’mon, you’re doing okay,’ he said. His expression hardened. ‘The only reason I’m seeing you again so soon on this is because I’ve got a posting early next year.’ He removed his arm.
‘Bill, that’s terrific!’ Rhonda said, sounding effusive. ‘Where?’
Hewson didn’t reply at first, but he seemed pleased with himself. He smiled.
‘It’s a break for me,’ he said, ‘a big one.’
‘C’mon, Bill, I won’t tell anyone.’
‘You had better not,’ he smiled. ‘China.’
Rhonda’s congratulations were sincere, but she felt disappointed at the prospect of losing such an important source. They reached the sand and continued to trudge into the wind.
‘I can give you two leads,’ he said. ‘You could find them yourself, if you had a few years. So it covers me.’
Squawking seagulls protested about the invasion of their private beach as Rhonda waited.
‘I would follow up on the terrorist angle,’ he said, ‘and the way to do it, is to find out how they could have got in and out without detection.’
Rhonda frowned.
He added, ‘It would be best if you tried to discover which foreign group may have been used to slip in and out of Sydney in the past few days – on legitimate business.’
Rhonda’s expression brightened. ‘There was an Indonesian trade delegation here,’ she said in amazement. She kept her eyes on him.
‘Remember what I said about Missing Persons?’ he said, as they stopped walking.
‘What should I try next, the Bureau?’ she said. It was an attempt to humour him.
Hewson looked at his watch.
‘Bill, please!’ she implored.
But he was already walking back to his car in nearby Bay Street.
‘Go away!’ Cardinal moaned. ‘Go away!’ The phone kept ringing until he fumbled for it. It was a police officer informing him that his son’s car had been impounded.
‘What do you want done with it?’ the officer asked, and Cardinal remembered the voice. His head ached. Discordant tunes jangled in his brain.
‘Guess I should pick it up,’ he said. ‘Want to clear up his affairs soon as possible.’ He switched on a light, found a pen and scribbled an address with directions for a drive south of Sydney.
‘Do I know you?’ Cardinal asked, his throat sounding like he had swallowed glass.
‘I had to witness you identifying your son’s body,’ the officer said. ‘See you at around six tonight.’
Cardinal took a taxi on the Princes Highway for Lucas Heights on Heathcote Road, thirty kilometres south-west of Sydney. The reactor was strategically placed in bush-land between a military reserve and Sydney’s National Park, and far enough away from the city to avoid complaints from the larger population.
His head still felt as if an axe had been wedged in it, and he wore dark glasses to hide his bloodshot eyes.
The white dome of the HIFAR nuclear reactor loomed on the horizon as Cardinal found the Lucas Heights Police Station. It had been newly erected to handle the growing number of disturbances from both protesters and local residents who didn’t like the reactor. The locals were worried about radiation leaks and pollution whereas the protesters’ ranks were filled with those who were strictly against reactors. The station’s boundary walls were high and fortified, and the building itself had a reinforced concrete base, which protesters claimed hid a nuclear bunker.
Cardinal was greeted by the plainclothes officer, Senior Detective Ted Maylin. He had taken charge of the handing over of the car – an early model white MGB. He led Cardinal to a garage where he examined the vehicle. Maylin, a tall lean man with a dour expression, stood back saying little.
‘Has it been cleaned?’ Cardinal asked.
Maylin shook his head. ‘That’s the way it was found,’ he said, ‘pretty well spotless.’
‘Was he in it?’
‘The body was found partly buried some fifty metres from the vehicle.’
Despite the depressing nature of the information, Cardinal was encouraged by the fact that Maylin had been this forthcoming. The Embassy people and Blundell between them had not told him this much.
‘Where? I’d like to see the place,’ Cardinal said.
Maylin looked at his watch. It was after six, and light was fading. ‘It might be better to see the area in full light,’ he said.
Cardinal shook his head. ‘I just want to see where it happened.’
Maylin shrugged. ‘We’ll have to drive,’ he said moving towards a police car in the garage.
‘Can we go in this?’ Cardinal asked.
Maylin frowned as he came over and handed him the keys.
‘Could you drive, please?’ Cardinal said, taking off his glasses. ‘I want to take in as much as I can.’
The bulkier Cardinal had some trouble easing into the MG, and Maylin had difficulty in mastering the gear shift on the drive to a clearing five kilometres from the reactor along the road to Sydney. They drove off the road along a dirt track a
nd stopped.
‘The car was found camouflaged under those trees,’ Maylin said, pointing to his right, ‘the body over there.’ He waved his hand to the left. Cardinal insisted on seeing the rough grave. Maylin led the way through the scrub.
‘Were they in a hurry or what?’ Cardinal said, as he walked around a shallow hole.
‘The body was found with most of the torso exposed,’ Maylin said.
They began to walk back to the car. Cardinal stopped and stared at the ground where the body had been.
‘What did you make of his wounds?’ Cardinal asked so quietly that he had to repeat himself for the detective.
‘Like you,’ Maylin said, choosing his words, ‘I was baffled.’
He began to walk to the MG. Cardinal followed, deep in thought.
‘Could you take me to the reactor?’ he said, as they drove away.
Maylin seemed untroubled by the request, and in a few minutes they were near the high front gates of the reactor.
Cardinal had been looking at his watch.
‘I guess you know when my son checked out of here?’ he said.
‘Ten am.’
‘Exactly?’
‘It was in a book all employees had to sign on and off in.’
‘Actually put their initials too?’
‘A full signature was required each time. This is a top security establishment. Has been since 1986.’
Cardinal sat in silence. His eyes fixed on the reactor’s dome.
‘So the official story is that Harry left here at ten and was murdered at . . .’
‘He was found at five the same day.’
‘Seven hours later, but the murder must have occurred soon after he left, because the clearing is only a few minutes away.’
‘No one knows exactly.’
They began to speed back to the station.
‘It’s unlikely he would have toured around for any length of time,’ Cardinal said, glancing at Maylin. ‘The most obvious scenario would be that he was side-tracked into that clearing and killed.’
‘As you say, the most obvious.’
Cardinal remained silent until they pulled up at the station gates. ‘Could I see the guy who actually found him?’
‘Afraid I can’t allow that.’
‘I remember you at the morgue being a little pissed off at something,’ Cardinal said.
Maylin got out of the car and Cardinal followed. The gate opened automatically.
‘I brought you out here to claim the car and sign papers,’ Maylin said. ‘I was told you had power of attorney over your son’s property here.’
‘Yeah. If he had gotten sick, or . . . if he died.’
‘Normally I would need proof of that power. But your Embassy seems to want things expedited.’
‘Is that what irritated you?’ Cardinal said, as he was led into the station.
‘That was part of it,’ Maylin said. ‘I sort of resented the way your people muscled in and gave their version of the events as the official one.’
‘What was the other version?’
Maylin pushed some papers in front of him and asked him to sign them. ‘I can’t answer any more questions, Mr Cardinal.’
Cardinal felt the throbbing in his head returning. ‘I used to be a cop,’ he said as he put down the pen.
‘In New York?’ Maylin said, his expression lighter. He handed over the car keys.
‘Harlem.’
‘That must have been tough.’
‘I didn’t bother much about it then. Now I wouldn’t go near the place.’
‘How long were you a cop?’
‘Six years,’ he said. ‘I must admit it was just a job to get me through night school.’
‘Doing?’
‘Law.’
‘You in practice?’
‘Not any more,’ Cardinal said. ‘You married?’
‘Yeah. And I’ve got two kids,’ Maylin said.
‘Hang on to them,’ Cardinal said. Maylin’s lugubrious expression returned.
The phone rang and the detective answered it. In a one-way conversation, Maylin gave negative responses to a string of questions. He scribbled a name on a pad.
‘Bloody Melbourne reporters,’ he mumbled, ‘they even ignore ‘D’ notices these days.’
Cardinal was standing a few paces from Maylin’s desk. ‘Thank you for all your help,’ Cardinal said, stepping forward to shake Maylin’s hand. He came close enough to Maylin’s desk to make out one word on the pad – Mills.
It was dark when Cardinal drove the MG back at a crawl towards Sydney. He was nervous of driving at night on the ‘wrong’ side of the road and in a right-hand drive car. The gears on the high-revving MG didn’t help either, for Cardinal had been used to automatic vehicles. The battle preoccupied him, and it was several seconds before he realised that the van that had followed him the previous night was behind him again. It’s lights were on high beam, making it impossible to read the number plate. This time the driver wasn’t so shy. And the van was edging close. Cardinal struggled with the gears and shuddered to an increased speed. The van accelerated. It nudged the MG’s rear bumper. Cardinal looked for a chance to slide off the road, but the trees to his left were a blur. As he approached a sharp bend, Cardinal fought the steering wheel and slid his car into the oncoming traffic lane. The move made the van driver cautious. He hesitated a second before deciding to follow, but pulled back to safety as a truck rounded the bend. Cardinal just managed to slip back into the correct lane as the shocked truck driver sounded his horn. Cardinal accelerated into top gear and kept his foot down until he reached the busier outer suburbs. He kept checking the car mirrors, but the van was not in sight.
Cardinal took a nerve-steadying drink in the Wentworth’s piano bar. He couldn’t trust his own Embassy, and he couldn’t be certain of the local police. If he had seen the van’s number, he may have had something to report. But he had just managed to avoid serious injury, if not death.
Cardinal began to wonder why he had become the target for surveillance and an attack. He had, after all, done no more than any other father would faced with a similar situation.
Cardinal wandered to the lift and his room. The door was unlocked. He pushed it open. His belongings were strewn over the floor. Cardinal edged in and checked the bathroom. The culprits had gone. He began to pick up his clothes, but suddenly dropped them, and began rummaging through his briefcase. His son’s photographs, wrist watch, wallet, ring and neck-chain had been stolen. Only his will and bank statements had been left.
Hours later, Cardinal thought the items taken suggested that those responsible were trying to expunge all memory of Harry. Except for evidence of his demise.
2
Darwin Police Chief Neil O’Laughlin, a powerfully built redhead in his mid-forties entered the ante room of his office to greet the small group of elders from the Bididgee tribe who had come to complain about intrusions on their sacred land. They, like everyone else in the Northern Territory, had a healthy respect for this tough, no-nonsense cop who had a reputation for being fair. He had been selected by the local government, after pressure from Canberra, for his intelligence and authority was needed to mediate problems in Australia’s north.
O’Laughlin had made his name by rounding up criminals who had escaped to the north to hide in the remote mining and bush communities, or to leave the country illegally. Despite this he felt he was soon to face the biggest test of his thirty-year career, which stretched back to a police cadetship in Adelaide.
The conflict between the Aborigines and Richardson’s company over uranium mining on sacred sites needed strength and tact, especially when dealing with Burrum Murra – known to everyone simply as ‘Burra’ – who now confronted him. He was a handsome full blood, whose cherubic features made him look younger than his thirty-two years. They also belied a shrewdness and sharpness that O’Laughlin had never encountered in anyone, black or white. They had had too many problems to be friends, but they had oft
en had a beer together, a sign of respect in the Territory.
O’Laughlin greeted the elders by name and showed them into his modest office. His trestle-table desk had ugly grooves and scars. It was cluttered with files, law books, and used coffee cups. Four stiff-backed wooden chairs and steel files made up the rest of the sparse room. Its one noisy ceiling fan was losing the battle against the heat and humidity. He trusted all but one of the visitors, Tom Beena, who was less moderate than the others. He was a tall man approaching fifty who resented the power of his younger rival, Burra.
‘I’ve been trying to speak to Richardson,’ O’Laughlin began, ‘to let him know we have to meet before he takes a new drill to the mine.’
‘We don’t want the drill on the mine,’ Burra said, ‘and we don’t want any uranium ore trucked out either.’
O’Laughlin was used to Burra as a tough negotiator. Burra had dropped out of his last year as a law student to take up the cause for his people a decade earlier.
‘Since the last Supreme Court decision,’ he said, ‘there have been several violations of agreements with Richardson and his company, Digex Corporation. We want you to enforce the law while we present his violations to the court. We shall be seeing our lawyers today.’
‘What are you saying he has done?’
‘Polluted the environment with radioactive waste seepage. It has been found outside Digex’s Ginga mine area, and it has radioactive readings twice the average.’ He handed O’Laughlin a five-page report. He read half the first page before an impatient Burra continued.
‘We also believe Richardson has been on sacred land,’ he said. ‘You’re aware of the rumour that a huge high-grade uranium ore-body runs under Mount Brockman and the Green Ant boulder area?’ Burra added.
The police chief nodded. ‘It’s only talk. Richardson denies it.’