Sensitive New Age Spy (8 page)

‘That obvious, eh?’

‘And then some. However, Mr Murdoch, I think you should remember what happened last time you got romantically involved with the American military.’

She did have a point. Besides having my heart broken by a gorgeous US Army major named Grace Goodluck, it had been suggested at the secret commission of inquiry into my destruction of the US spy base that I owed the United States government almost half a billion dollars. Julie had worked out that even with overtime and bonuses I wouldn’t be able to retire until I was close to nine hundred years old. Luckily they decided it was in everybody’s best interest to forget the whole thing.

‘What’s so important about my inbox at home,’ I asked, ‘if it’s not a pash note from the lovely Lieutenant Kingston?’

‘When I saw those cars driving onto the pier I smelled trouble, so I emailed our files to your private mailbox. While Pergo was busy shooting his mouth off, all the pertinent data collected so far was winging its way through cyberspace for safekeeping.’

‘You mean, if I want to I can just log on in Bondi and this investigation is back in business?’

‘I know you like to keep your options open, Alby.’

‘Thanks but no thanks, Jules. You saw Pergo’s letter. Someone else can find their missing nukes. I’m going to salvage what I can of this long weekend by doing what I do best. Care to join me?’

We fronted up for a very late lunch, or an extremely early dinner, at the Blue Eye Dragon in Pyrmont. Muriel, the owner, does Taiwanese dining and she does it very well. I ordered the pan-fried dumplings as we walked in the door. Her mum, Jade, makes them by hand and they’re bloody amazing with a dash of chilli sauce.

While we waited for the pork belly slow-cooked in soy, aniseed, garlic and chilli, and prawns in Jade’s ‘bloody’ plum sauce, Julie called Sydney Ports and redirected the list of harbour pilots to the fax at my place. Just in case, she said when I reminded her once again that I was off the investigation, and staying off.

Neither of us spoke while we ate, but I knew Julie was trying to figure out if I was really serious about dropping the investigation. I was trying to figure out if I could snaffle an extra dumpling without her noticing, but she had eyes like a hawk.

Public transport was back up and running and the city was open again, so after lunch I dropped Julie at Circular Quay to catch a ferry to Manly, and headed back to Bondi. It was a warm evening on a public holiday in a beachside suburb, so parking was never going to be easy, especially since my building was right on Campbell Parade, the main drag.

The name Luxor Mansions might conjure up visions of an Egyptian palace overlooking the Nile, but my apartment block was more a 1930s copy of an English seaside hotel. My place was on the top floor, with views stretching from the seawater pool at the Icebergs swimming club right round to the rocks at Ben Buckler Point, but unfortunately no parking.

It took twenty minutes of cruising the streets before a space big enough for my four-wheel drive opened up. I carefully avoided bumping the kerb, since the Bondi salt air had reduced the old Pathfinder’s body to several small areas of metal held together by paint and rust. Even a decent slamming of the driver’s door had the potential to cause the vehicle’s total disintegration.

I stopped in at Nirvana Beach Liquor to grab a couple of bottles of red, and on my way out I caught the tempting aroma of drunk noodles coming from Nina’s Ploy Thai round on Wairoa Avenue, but it was a bit too early for dinner, considering I’d just finished lunch.

Back home, I started rummaging through the kitchen drawer for a corkscrew. Then I remembered the events of the previous night and found it next to my bed. I noticed
my bed had been made, the room straightened up, and my plants watered.

The only reason I still had any living houseplants was my next-door neighbour, Mrs Templeton, who watered them when I was away on assignment, or busy, or just plain forgot. She also collected my mail and popped the odd shepherd’s pie and tub of homemade soup into my freezer for those times when I needed a bit of comfort food. Mrs T was a pretty dammed good cook when it came to comfort food. Every bloke should have a Mrs T next door.

She had moved into Luxor Mansions when she arrived from Scotland with her husband in the early 1950s. Mr Templeton was a marine engineer who’d survived three ships being torpedoed out from under him on the Atlantic convoy runs in World War II. He walked away from the chronic unemployment of post-war Glasgow and into a job at the Garden Island dockyard within a week of arriving in Sydney. Mrs T was widowed and still living in the Mansions when I bought the building in the eighties with the profits from the sale of pictures I’d done for WorldPix, well before the smart set discovered Bondi and sent the prices through the roof.

I kept my ownership quiet and ignored the managing agent when he told me I could turf her out, give the place a splash of paint, whack down some seagrass matting and quadruple the rent. I didn’t need the extra money, and besides, it was nice to drink tea and chat in Mrs T’s sunroom while Dougal, her wheezing and flatulent pug, grunted and
snuffled under my feet like a small black asthmatic vacuum cleaner, sucking up the crumbs of her delicious homemade biscuits.

I poured a glass of wine and wandered into Mrs T’s flat through the front door I could never persuade her to keep closed. ‘Dougal can protect me,’ she’d say, and given the lethal quality of the little bugger’s farts, she may well have been right. When I walked in the ugly mutt was snoozing on a shawl on her lap and he didn’t even bother to look up. So much for a watchdog.

The Cooking Channel was on the box and that Scottish chef Nick Nairn was doing something mouthwatering with a whole salmon. I think Mrs T fancied Mr Nairn, but maybe it was just his accent.

‘You left early this morning, Alby,’ she said, looking up. ‘And Julie not long after.’ She paused. ‘She’s a lovely wee girl, Alby. Just lovely.’

Mrs T had plans for Julie and me, but I couldn’t seem to explain to her that Julie wasn’t interested. I’m not too sure she bought my stories of the platonic sleepovers either.

‘I had to go and take pictures of the tanker that broke down in the harbour,’ I said.

‘Aye,’ she nodded, ‘and all the press photographers were being picked up in police cars this morning, I suppose?’

Mrs T might have been well into her eighties but she was nobody’s fool. Along with kilted soldiers and ship’s engineers, the Scots had produced more than their fair share of
denizens of the secret world. Maybe it was something in the porridge. I figured Mrs T had probably worked out some time back that things in my life weren’t exactly how they seemed, but she appeared to be content to play along.

Nick Nairn had plated up his salmon and Mrs T switched to Sky News as I finished off my glass of red.

‘I thought you only watched the ABC news, Mrs T?’

‘I used to, dear, but now I like getting my news from Jacinta. She’s got such an honest wee face, don’t you think?’

I had to agree, but it was the ashen face of Rupert Hall-Smith, the Defence Minister, that got my attention. He looked like death warmed over. According to the caption on the bottom of the screen, the Minister was speaking at a press conference recorded earlier in the afternoon at Sydney airport. The top brass of the New South Wales Police were lined up behind him, and none of them looked all that happy either.

The press briefing commenced with the Minister putting on a pair of rimless glasses and reading from a prepared statement.

‘As you are no doubt aware, there was some excitement on the harbour this morning. Around three a.m. a ship experiencing mechanical difficulties entered the Heads and dropped anchor off Fort Denison to await repairs. Overreaction by an inexperienced police liaison officer resulted in local police and Defence Department anti-terrorism teams being mobilised, causing major disruption in the city. For this the
New South Wales Police Service apologises unreservedly.’

Some of the top brass shuffled uncomfortably and stared down at their feet.

‘There will be a full inquiry at ministerial level,’ Hall-Smith went on, ‘and I am advised that the police officer in question will be stood down without pay until this investigation is complete.’

Shit. Peter Sturdee’s head was on the chopping block and Hall-Smith was handing the police commissioner the axe.

‘Hmmphh. All sounds a bit fishy to me,’ Mrs T said. ‘Wouldn’t trust those politicians as far as I could throw them.’

‘I’m with you there, Mrs T.’

‘Also this morning,’ the Minister continued, ‘two crewmen from the disabled tanker were injured while trying to effect repairs. They were evacuated for medical treatment by a helicopter from the visiting US warship
Altoona
. We would like to thank the US Navy for its prompt assistance in this operation.’

Well, that explained away the TV footage of the Yank chopper hovering over the tanker. Jesus, these bastards could spin anything.

Hall-Smith finished with a brief mention of an unrelated accident onboard the US cruiser, and sent the government’s condolences to the families of the dead and injured. When Chapman Pergo walked up and stood next to the Minister it was pretty obvious the press conference was over
and there’d be no questions, unless any members of the press corps were sniffing around for cancelled media accreditations and multiple fractures.

The item ended, I said goodnight to Mrs T and reminded her to lock her door. Back at my place I dialled Peter’s home number. The phone was answered after exactly half a ring. ‘You in a lot of trouble, mate?’ I said.

‘Well, I’m suspended without pay pending an inquiry, which could be months away. Pergo’s quoting the new anti-terrorism laws, which no bugger understands and which seem to mean I can’t say anything in my own defence, so yes, I guess you could say I’m in a lot of trouble. I think the scenario involves the well-known creek and that barbed-wire canoe.’

‘You don’t think they’ll make all this go away when things calm down?’ That was the usual government practice when anything embarrassing like this came up.

‘Alby, every cop in this state senior to me was either out on their luxury cabin cruiser, living it up at their holiday home, or shacked up in some five-star hotel in Fiji with their mistress. All of them need a scalp to cover their arse, and right now my head’s up highest.’

‘You okay for money?’

He laughed softly. ‘I’m a straight cop with a wife, four kids under two, a mortgage, six maxed-out credit cards and a leased Tarago. I’m bloody rolling in it, mate.’

I heard a baby start crying in the background and Peter
said, ‘Shit, the twins are awake, gotta go,’ and hung up.

Peter Sturdee was a little fish in whatever was going on here and he was being hung out to dry as part of the cover-up. That really pissed me off.

I called Julie’s new mobile number. ‘Looks like they’re planning to scapegoat Peter,’ I said.

‘I know, I saw the news.’

‘Someone’s got to watch his back.’

I heard a car door slam and Julie said, ‘I’m in the taxi now.’

‘You could be putting your career on the line here, Jules. Officially we’re both off the case.’

‘Why don’t you fire up the espresso machine. I’ll be at your place in twenty.’

My landline rang about five seconds after Julie hung up. I didn’t recognise the number on the caller ID, so I picked it up and said, ‘Alby Murdoch.’

‘Oh,’ said a male voice on the other end, and there was a long silence.

‘This is Constable Whitfield from the Kings Cross Police,’ the voice continued after the pause. ‘I guess you’re not dead, then.’

‘Mate,’ I said, ‘it’s not for the want of a lot of people trying.’

Since I’d had a couple of glasses of wine, I grabbed a cab. Julie’s taxi was halfway over the bridge when I called, so she
had the driver take the Woolloomooloo exit and beat me to the Cowper Wharf Road carpark by five minutes. I’d had more than enough of the ’Loo for one day, but here I was back again, and trying not to stand in more blood.

The Navy’s staff carpark is a grim-looking, five-storey concrete building directly opposite the Navy wharf. They’d tried to hide the functional ugliness behind some scrawny trees, but the prolonged drought had given most of the greenery a severe case of death.

A couple of police paddy wagons were parked on the footpath by the northern entrance, lights flashing, and I was directed up to level three. The dingy grey structure had the usual carpark smell of oil, urine and vomit. Julie was waiting with Constable Whitfield and some crime-scene examiners. She did the introductions.

‘Sorry about that phone call,’ the constable said, ‘but your name and phone number were inside his camera bag so I figured…’ He pointed to an area cordoned off with police tape. It looked like there was a severe case of death inside the carpark too.

From time to time, I get roped in by the Australian Centre for Photography in Paddington to talk about my photography career to photojournalism students, and occasionally I’ll let a promising young talent do some work experience with me. Most recently that was Max Gallagher.

Max was nineteen, enthusiastic, and had a great beginner’s portfolio. Frankly, all his boyish enthusiasm had been
becoming a bit of a pain in the arse, but he was committed and he did have a good eye. We’d had our last meeting a month ago and I’d encouraged him to find a project he could put all his energy into. I’d also given him one of my old camera bags. And now young Max was lying face-down behind a pillar in a dingy carpark with a bullet in the back of his head.

‘Security guard found the body about an hour ago,’ Constable Whitfield said. ‘He took one look and spewed his dinner all over the hood of some poor bastard’s Datsun.’

That explained part of the carpark’s aroma.

‘Guard reckons he didn’t see him on his rounds, but the doc said the kid’s been dead since early this morning. As it’s a public holiday, I figure Mr Rent-a-Cop wasn’t doing his job with a lot of diligence.’

‘Anything stolen?’ I asked.

‘There’s no wallet, which is why I was going on the name in the camera bag. But all this camera gear is still lying about and it looks like pretty expensive stuff, so I’d say it’s not a robbery.’