Sensitive New Age Spy (11 page)

‘Did you know he was restoring it for me?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But I know how to keep a secret.’

Gudrun’s dad Morris had spent more than a year working on the bike for her fortieth birthday. Some of the WorldPix guys had brought parts back for him from their overseas assignments. I’d even lugged a gearbox from Holland on one of my trips. Since the Indian Motorcycle Company had been out of business for more than fifty years, original parts were as rare as hen’s teeth.

I’d met Morris Arkell about fifteen years ago when he’d just retired from a career in aircraft maintenance and opened the winery. I was sipping an abrasive young pinot at the cellar door when three dickheads on a winery crawl had started getting stroppy. Just as I was about to go over and give the old pensioner a hand, he deftly dropped the trio on their arses with some moves I hadn’t seen since my days in spy-school self-defence classes. There were multiple bruises, one broken nose and a dislocated wrist. And Morris may have dropped his glasses as I recall. I stuffed the kids back in their car and gave them directions to the closest hospital while Morris opened a rather nice shiraz.

‘Where is the old bastard?’ I asked.

‘In the kitchen,’ Gudrun said. ‘Annoying Mum as usual.’

Morris and Marta had equally fiery personalities. They’d met in post-war Berlin, where Morris was stationed with a British commando unit and Marta was cooking in the military base kitchen. Even after sixty-odd years of married bliss, there were still days when Gudrun reckoned it was like the war in Europe was still going full tilt. The smoked meats
and German dishes that had made the winery’s restaurant famous were from Marta’s traditional family recipes, but Morris couldn’t resist giving her advice. Marta’s opinions on English cookery were well known and not at all complimentary. The restaurant’s kitchen was a famous octogenarian battleground, but the food was always fantastic.

I looked around for Gudrun’s better half. Amy was a Kiwi winemaker who’d taken a job at the winery and fallen head over heels for Gudrun. They made a good couple. I spotted her at a table in a group that included a female senator well known for her outspoken opinions on the sanctity of marriage and family. Amy waved when she saw me, and the family-friendly senator, who had her arm around the shoulder of a brunette in a red bustier, turned white.

Amy came over and gave me a discreet kiss, then slipped her arm around Gudrun’s waist. She was still a bit wary of me, since Gudrun kept telling everyone how we’d once shared a bed for three hot sweaty nights while on assignment. We’d actually been huddled together
under
the bed, in a hotel room in Baghdad with no air-conditioning and shock-and-awe cruise missiles whizzing past the windows. On the positive side, sharing a room with a stunner like Gudrun had been great for my reputation as a stud. I gave up telling people she was gay when I got sick of watching battle-hardened male war correspondents burst into tears.

‘So what brings you to Canberra, Alby?’ Amy asked.

‘Couldn’t miss the old girl’s thirtieth again, could I?’
I said, winking at Gudrun. ‘And I was thinking of stripping back some furniture, so I wanted to pick up a couple of gallons of your latest shiraz.’

‘Get rooted, Alby,’ Amy said.

‘Not round here tonight, I won’t.’

‘Hey, you two, be nice,’ Gudrun said.

Amy was sensitive about her wine but she knew I already had my name on a dozen cases of her shiraz. That particular drop had gold medals in its future, no doubt about it.

‘So, what do you think of my outfit, Alby?’ Gudrun said. ‘Amy had it made specially, to go with the bike.’

‘It’s fantastic, babe,’ I said. ‘You look good enough to eat.’ It was a comment that resulted in a rather awkward silence.

‘I’ll leave you two to catch up,’ Amy said.

As she headed back to the table, I yelled after her, ‘Tell the senator I’m off duty. Her secret’s safe with me.’

The senator gave me a weak smile and then I added, ‘Until I want something.’

‘I get the feeling you might want something from me,’ Gudrun said. ‘Nice and all as it is to see you.’

I nodded. ‘Fancy a moonlit walk through the grapevines with your old Uncle Alby?’

‘I’ve had some seriously creepy offers in my life, Alby, but that one really takes the cake.’

‘Bloody bike dyke,’ I said.

‘Career public servant,’ Gudrun retorted.

She always was better than me when it came to name-calling.

A full moon was lighting up rows of recently pruned vines that cascaded down the gentle slopes of the vineyard.

‘Any idea what’s happening in Defence?’ I said. ‘The Minister seems a bit twitchy.’

‘This wouldn’t have something to do with that little kerfuffle on the harbour yesterday, would it?’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘Can’t help you much, Alby. Something has definitely scared the horses, but I can’t even get a whisper. All my usual sources in the department have clammed up. That prick Pergo has everyone terrified, and not just in the Russell Hill complex.’

With the government’s policy of falling like a ton of bricks on public servants who openly disagreed with it, or whistleblowers who felt a duty to leak stories that the great unwashed might have a vested interest in knowing about, a lot of journalists had given up on sources lately and were just regurgitating what was in the press handouts. Gudrun was old-school, though, and she understood that in politics the lack of a story was probably a story in itself.

‘What I can tell you,’ she continued, ‘is that there’ve been a heap of crewcut, ramrod-straight Yanks in civvies visiting the Minister’s office over the last few weeks. They
spend a lot of time forcing themselves not to salute each other when they pass in the corridors. And young Carter Lonergan has dropped by a few times. He was in there this morning in fact, and didn’t look like a happy camper, I hear.’

Now, that was interesting. There was no way on earth Lonergan would have been able to visit the Minister’s office without bumping into Pergo at least once. So they must have had a relationship going back before their little chat on the tanker and all that ‘pleased to meet you, Mr Lonergan’ bullshit in the D.E.D. office.

Heavy US military traffic in and out of the Minister’s office wasn’t all that unusual, but why in civvies?

‘What do you know about Operation Chester?’ Gudrun said.

‘Never heard of it. What is it?’

‘Buggered if I know. I heard a whisper a while back, then nothing. Now, every time I mention it to anyone in Defence, they clam up tight as a drum. But if it doesn’t mean anything to you it looks like you’ve wasted a trip.’

I smiled and pulled the small package from my pocket. ‘If you’re hinting around for your present…’

Gudrun ripped the paper off the box, opened it and slipped the heavy, polished-silver bracelet onto her wrist. ‘You have incredible taste, Mr Murdoch,’ she said, giving me another of those big kisses.

‘I do try.’

‘No, I meant in having Julie buy your presents for you.
Excellent move.’

‘I probably would have chosen something Dutch and Delftware-ish and more traditional.’

Gudrun gave me a warning look. ‘If you’re heading in the direction of a comment about a ceramic statuette featuring someone putting their finger in a dyke, I’d be very careful.’

‘Don’t worry, Goods, I know better than to punch above my weight. And I’ve got another present for you – you didn’t hear it from me, but keep an eye on Gwenda the Blenda.’

Gwenda had earned her nickname from a jibe in one of Gudrun’s articles. She’d suggested that if the ‘Minister for Cock-ups’ thought there were votes in putting kittens in blenders then you wouldn’t want to be standing between her, a kitchen-appliance store and the local pet shop.

‘I thought old Gwen was permanently out to pasture after that last debacle?’ Gudrun said.

‘It seems that, like the proverbial phoenix, the Honorable Ms Felton is rising from the ashes.’

‘God, Alby, what have they given her to fuck up now?’

‘That would be me. Hall-Smith has just made her the new head of D.E.D.’

‘Jesus, mate, not even you deserve that.’

There was a sudden ruckus from the direction of the restaurant.

‘We should head back inside,’ Gudrun suggested. ‘Sounds like the food’s started hitting the tables. Mum
put together a special sausage platter when I said you were coming. Maybe that’ll cheer you up.’

Marta’s smoked-sausage platter was something to behold. If we were to get snowed in over dinner with no means of escape for a week, I’d think I was in heaven. Like a lot of her generation in Europe, Marta had endured terrible food shortages in the last years of the war. Now she believed in serving plates heaped with food and expecting said plates to be handed back licked clean. Sometimes this was a bit of a challenge, but Marta Arkell was someone who didn’t like to be disappointed.

She had gone all out with her sausage platter, and being well brought up, I tried to do it justice. This might have been possible if the platter had been limited to snags, but along with an assortment of a dozen different sausages, ranging from Bierwurst to Schinkenwurst and Knackwurst and beyond, there was a smoked pork chop, a mountain of German potato salad, winekraut, red cabbage, dill pickles and dark rye bread. Thank God Gudrun, Amy and Morris were nice enough to help me out when Marta wasn’t looking.

Around eleven, I decided to call it a night. Since I’d probably had one beer too many and my rental car had a flat, I took Gudrun up on her offer of a ride back to the hotel on the pillion seat of the Indian. By the time we hit the Hyatt’s driveway, my face was frozen, my testicles were numb, and I was stone cold sober. You could tell by the expression on the doorman’s face that a spectacular six-foot redhead
in white leathers straddling a vintage Indian wasn’t something he saw every day.

Gudrun killed the engine and the silence was deafening. I climbed awkwardly off the bike, removed my helmet and gave it to her, along with a quick goodnight kiss. She hooked the helmet over the handlebars.

I took a business card from my pocket. ‘My new mobile number is on the back. Call me if anything interesting comes up.’

She slipped the card into her jacket pocket, then studied the bracelet on her wrist. ‘Thanks again for this,’ she said. And after a pause, ‘Julie still straight, then?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘Pity,’ she said. ‘She still playing hard to get?’

I stared at her. ‘What?’

Gudrun grinned and slowly shook her head. She kicked the Indian’s engine into life. ‘Jesus, Alby,’ she yelled over the roar, ‘sometimes you can be so fucking thick.’

The doorman let me open the front door all by myself while he watched Gudrun ride away.

The Canberra Park Hyatt was built around the original, 1920s, heritage-listed art deco Hotel Canberra, and they actually did a good job of it – the place oozes style and elegance. The only jarring note is the fact that the doorman and bellboys wear cloth caps, green waistcoats and plus-fours with long socks. They look like they should be out on an Irish golf course somewhere, caddying for leprechauns.

In Canberra, I like to stay at the Hyatt, but only when the government is picking up the tab. In Melbourne my favourite hotels are the Adelphi and the Como. The Como made a name for itself in the 1980s with huge rooms, excellent service, and cute little rubber duckies in the bathtubs. Tonight, however, the Canberra Hyatt had gone one better. When I let myself into my room just after eleven, my bathtub had a naked girl in it.

After Gudrun took off, I passed on the idea of a nice
glass of port and a Monte Christo in the cigar bar, hung a left at the concierge’s desk and headed down the corridor to my suite to warm up. The Scullin suite was elegant and welcoming, and around twice the size of my Bondi apartment. There was no sign of a mint on my pillow in the bedroom, but in the living room Tierney Sutton was on the stereo, gently toying with the Patsy Cline hit ‘Crazy’, and somebody in the bathroom was singing along. I poured myself a glass of Glenfiddich and wandered in to see if my visitor wanted a drink.

The grey marble bathroom had a black marble vanity and a very large bath set atop a row of marble steps. Flickering candles lined the steps and continued around the bath, which was big enough to accommodate two. Right now, though, it had only one occupant. In my tub, with her hair pinned up and immersed in a sea of bubbles, was the lovely Cristobel Priday.

‘Good evening, Ms Priday,’ I said. ‘Can I offer you something to drink?’

She shook her head. ‘No thank you, I never touch alcohol.’

‘Worried you might wind up naked in a strange man’s bathtub?’

‘But you’re not a stranger, Mr Murdoch.’

I took a solid swallow of the whisky.

Cristobel reached for a washcloth and the bubbles covering her chest parted in the most alarming manner.
She smiled up at me and gently used the flat of her hand to coax some bubbles back over her right breast.

‘I was wondering if perhaps you might like to join me in the tub, Mr Murdoch? The bubble bath is excellent.’

‘It’s a tempting offer, Ms Priday, and I could do with warming up, but I’m more of a morning-shower kind of bloke.’

I finished off the whisky. Those damned bubbles were diverging again and now the firm pink nipple on her left breast was poking out of the foam. I was having a lot of trouble taking my eyes off it. Remembering to breathe was also proving a bit of a challenge.

‘Perhaps I could frame my invitation in slightly different terms, then, Mr Murdoch.’ She grasped the edge of the tub firmly and slowly stood up. She was very, very naked. Miss Cristobel Priday was about as naked as a girl could get. And she was very good at it too. Clumps of soap bubbles clung to her firm, full breasts with their upthrust nipples. More bubbles slid down her flat stomach, over her shaven pubic area and down her long, smooth thighs. She reached up with her left hand and casually flicked the bubbles off her right breast.

She was spectacular, no doubt about that, but I’ve got
some
scruples. Well, actually I don’t, but I’ve got a couple of rules I try to live by. One is not to drink supermarket scotch with names like Clan McBudget and the other is not to get into bed with girls under twenty – both will leave you with nothing but regrets.