Blood at Yellow Water (23 page)

“Right Anna. I’ll wait for them.”

“Thanks. Jake this is highly confidential.
Please don’t breathe a word to anyone about this and don’t take any
calls from the press.”

“Of course.”

“And Jake, despite everything, I did enjoy
myself at the party.”

“Me too Anna, it was a fun night.” Jake rang
off.

Anna called Allan into her office and gave
him the description of the woman with the green dress.

“O.K., I’ll ask around and see if anyone can
identify her.”

In less than ten minutes he was back in her
office.

“Jenny thinks she knows who it is. It’s
Belinda Rattan, a media advisor in Crichton’s office. She was at
the party in the resort as well as at the party in your suite.
Jenny saw her taking lots of photos with her mobile. ”

“That would make sense. What a bitch! Can
you get hold of a photo of her and send it off to Jake?”

“Will do. The Parliamentary Office will have
one.”

Allan hurried back to his office, opened his
laptop, downloaded Rattan’s photo from a link to the Parliamentary
Office and sent it off to Jake’s phone with a quick text. Jake
texted back a few minutes late confirming it was the same woman. He
walked back into Anna’s office and sat himself down in a chair.

“Jake’s confirmed it’s Rattan alright. What
do we do now?”

Anna thought for a second. “I’m not sure. We
could confront her with it, but she’d probably deny it.”

“What if we managed to grab her phone and
delete the photos?”

“How would we do that - by stealing her
phone? Even if we did delete the photos, Wiley’s still got
copies.”

“Without the originals, we could claim they
were doctored.”

“No, people will believe they’re the real
thing anyhow. I’m afraid we’re stuffed.”

“Let me think about it anyway. It’s worth
chasing up.” Allan got up and left her office and walked over to
Jenny Larkham.

“Jenny, we have confirmed it’s Belinda
Rattan who took those photos. Do you know her well? She’s put Anna
in a very compromising position. I’d like to confront her on it and
see what she says.”

“I don’t know her that well, but I see her
around the Parliamentary Offices from time to time. I’ve seen her
drinking with some friends at the Kingston Hotel after work a
couple of times.

“It’s Friday, do you think she’d be going
there tonight?”

“Quite likely. In fact I’m going there
myself with a couple of people from the office. Do you want to join
us, we’ll be there at around 5.30 p.m.?”

“Thanks Jenny, I’d like that. I’ll see you
then.”

Allan rang his wife and told her he would be
late getting home. He spent the next two hours finishing off the
more urgent paper work, packed his brief case, said good night to
Anna and walked out of the building to the car park. It took less
than ten minutes to drive to the Kingston Hotel. The hotel was a
popular watering-hole for public servants and staffers from
ministerial offices. The car park was full so he parked in a side
street and walked into the main lounge of the hotel. The lounge was
packed and as he looked around he recognised a number of people
from ministerial offices. He nodded to a couple of acquaintances
and spotted Jenny sitting at a corner table with two other people
from the office. He offered to buy them all drinks. He pushed his
way through the crowd at the bar, ordered and paid for the drinks
and carried them back on a tray to the table. They chatted about
the last week’s events, raising their voices so they could be heard
above the din.

Jenny leaned across and spoke to Allan
quietly. She pointed discreetly to a table about ten metres
away.

“See that group three tables up, the woman
in black in the centre of the group is Belinda Grattan.”

Allan turned on his seat slowly and cast his
eyes over the people around the table and let them rest on the
woman in the centre. He realised he had seen her before at the
party in Anna’s suite. He recognised most of the people on the
table as being on the Defence Minister’s staff. They were in a
party mood and looked as though they had been drinking for some
time.

“Thanks Jenny, now all we have to do is
steal her phone.”

Half-jokingly, Jenny said “That should be
easy. All you have to do is spill a drink over her and while she is
cleaning herself up lift her phone out of her handbag.”

“Yeah right, we don’t even know where she
keeps her phone.”

“There’s an easy way to find out. Just ring
her and when she answers, say she’s won a prize from a radio
promotion or just say sorry wrong number and hang up.”

Allan thought for a second. “Hey, that just
might work. I’ve got her mobile number, I can call her now.”

“No, then she’d have your number and might
be able to track it down. Use the public phone at the bar,”
suggested Jenny.

“Good thinking. O.K., I’ve got nothing to
lose, I’ll try it. We’ll both watch her to see where she keeps her
phone.”

Allan stood up and walked over to the public
phone. He picked it up, dialled Belinda’s number and leaned over so
he could see her reaction. He watched her but there was no
reaction. He thought either she hasn’t got her phone with her or
she hasn’t heard it ring. He tried again and sighed with relief
when she shuffled in her handbag and pulled it out.

“Hi, is that Belinda Gray?” Allan asked
disguising his voice.

“My first name is Belinda but my surname is
not Gray. I think you must have the wrong number.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to bother you. Bye.”

He watched as she put her phone on the table
and picked up her drink.

Steeling himself, he waved to Jenny with his
fingers crossed, picked up a half empty glass from the bar and
walked towards Belinda’s table. At the same time two young office
workers, obviously intoxicated, brushed past him, forcing him
sideways. He accentuated the move and crashed into the table with
the contents of his beer glass splashing over Belinda’s dress and
the impact sending glasses flying everywhere. He recovered his
footing, apologised profusely to the startled Belinda and used
serviettes to mop up the beer on her dress. She swore at him.

“You stupid bastard, look what you’ve done?”
she screamed as she pushed his hands away from her sodden blouse.
The others on the table were also trying to recover from the
mayhem.

“I’m so sorry, those guys shoved me as they
walked past.” Allan apologised again as he started to sponge up the
beer on the table.

A large man at the other end of the table
leaned over and glared angrily at Allan.

“Just get out of the way before I hang one
on you,” he said, pushing Allan in the chest.

“O.K., O.K., I’m going, I said I was sorry.”
Allan took the opportunity to leave and walked to the men’s toilet,
winking to a startled Jenny as he walked past.

In the toilet, Allan locked himself in the
cubicle and pulled out Belinda’s mobile from his pocket. He quickly
scanned through her photos and grunted with satisfaction as he
found the photos taken at the party. He deleted the offending
photos, and then went back to have another look at a photo which
caught his attention. He copied the photo onto his own phone, put
Belinda’s phone back in his pocket and let himself out of the
cubicle. At the washbasin, he dabbed at beer stains on his shirt
and walked back to his table where Jenny was looking at him
wide-eyed.

“Did you get it?” she whispered as he sat
down. He nodded and cast his eye around the room. Belinda had
obviously rushed off to the ladies’ room and the rest of the group
were standing around waiting as the table and chairs were being
dried off with a towel by a waitress.

“Give it to me and I’ll slip it back before
she realises her phone is missing. You need to make yourself scarce
in case someone twigs as to what is going on.”

Once the table had been cleaned, Jenny
walked over to the waitress and gave her the phone explaining that
she had picked it up off the floor and assumed that it belonged to
someone involved in the accident at the table. The waitress thanked
her and gave it to one of the group taking their seats.

She returned to her own table and saw Allan
heading towards the exit. She raised her glass of wine to Allan who
smiled and made his way out of the hotel.

Once outside Allan sent a quick text to Anna
telling her he had deleted the offending photos.

SATURDAY /SUNDAY-CANBERRA

Anna spent the weekend doing the normal things that
mothers do. Don played golf every Saturday morning at Royal
Canberra Golf Club so she took the boys to their junior tennis
competitions and enjoyed watching them play so exuberantly. In the
afternoon, the boys played with their friends at home while she
pottered around the garden and did some cooking, two of her
favourite pastimes. In the evening, they all went out to their
favourite Italian restaurant and had pizza.

On Sunday she spent a relaxed day with her
family and had a picnic lunch at Black Mountain Peninsula. She had
been chewing over the decision as to whether she would run for the
leadership and discussed it with Don. By the end of the weekend she
had made up her mind.

She arrived at her office at 8 a.m. on
Monday to see that Allan was already working behind his desk. She
called him over.

“Hi Allan. Thank you so much for going to
the trouble of deleting those photos. It was very daring of you.
But despite that, I’ve decided not to run for the leadership of the
party.”

Allan’s face fell. “But you can still win
the ballot. They can’t prove anything without the original
photos.”

Anna raised her hand to stop him. “No, the
media will have a field day with this even if we deny it. They like
nothing better than a sex scandal. There will be enormous pressure
on Don and the boys. And frankly, I’m not sure I’m ready to take on
the stress of being Prime Minister.”

“So you’re going to let Crichton become
Prime Minister without a fight. You know he’s corrupt.”

“Look the polls are showing the Labor Party
ahead by 58% to 42%. The general election is only six months off.
We’re probably going to lose anyway.”

“Yes, but you could turn it around. The
public love the way you took charge after the P.M.’s assassination.
The next poll could swing back our way.”

“Sorry Allan, my family means more to me
than the leadership. I can’t risk losing my husband and kids.”

As a last desperate attempt Allan pulled out
his phone and showed her the picture he had downloaded from
Belinda’s phone.

“Look, this photo shows Crichton talking
animatedly to Takaya, the Japanese billionaire, at the mine
opening. Takaya is known to be corrupt even if he is a shareholder
in Nippan Resources. Crichton’s in bed with one of the largest
crooks in the business.”

Anna peered at the photo. “That’s
interesting but it doesn’t prove anything Allan. People can talk to
whoever they like. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to run for the
leadership. I’ll tell Crichton that I’m not going to oppose him.
Oh, and could you let Jake know I’m not running for the
leadership?”

Shaking his head in disappointment, Allan
walked back to his office and picked up the phone.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY -DALY WATERS

Jake spent the weekend relaxing at Daly Waters. His
leg was healing up well and he was going on long walks to
strengthen it. The Toyota had been repaired and returned to him
courtesy of a friend of Bill’s. He spent as much time as he could
with Shoni and together they explored the area around Daly Waters
which was mainly semi-arid desert but also contained some gorges
and natural springs. There could not have been a greater contrast
to the hustle and bustle of Tokyo with its twelve million people
living in confined spaces.

Their relationship grew as they talked for
hours about their past and their hopes for the future. They felt
very comfortable together and found they had a lot of things in
common. After her shift at the pub finished each evening, Shoni
rushed back to the cabin where Jake had a glass of wine waiting for
her. After talking for a while they would shower together and make
love on the old bed in the cabin.

MONDAY MORNING-DALY WATERS

Jake had just finished breakfast when his phone
rang. It was Helen.

“Hi Jake. Sarah was able to check out those
companies you sent to us. The companies are all registered in the
Bahamas and all financial transactions have been with the Bank of
Bahamas. Baobab Trustees was set up by none other than Bert O’Shea
who as you probably know is the President of the Kakadu Land
Council. Northern Consulting is jointly owned by its Managing
Director, Tim Burston, Ruby Resources and Baobab Trustees. There is
a complicated network of shell companies but she has tracked down
the holding company to be Ruby Resources. The only address for Ruby
is a post box number in a Canberra suburb. It is Post Office Box
Number 457N at the Manuka Post Office in the Australian Capital
Territory.’’ She paused as Jake copied the number down.

“As far as the Japanese company Mitsustrata
is concerned, she has been able to track down the majority
shareholder as Sidu Takaya, who is also a substantial shareholder
in Nippan Energy, the Japanese partner in the Jabiru Mine. Ruby
Resources also has a minority shareholding.”

Helen continued, “Sarah traced some
transactions and has identified three large payments of $750,000
from Northern Consulting to Baobab Trustees. She hasn’t been able
to find out who are the owners of Ruby Resources. I’m emailing you
a list of the transactions and company structure. Jake does this
information mean anything to you?”

“Thanks to both of you for your help. I’m
not sure what it means but I’ll go through it carefully and see if
I can come up with anything.”