The Marmalade Files (13 page)

The gentle nod of academia greeted Ben Gordon as he arrived at the Australian National University a shade after 3 p.m. The ANU was home to some of the country's brightest minds and the Crawford School of Economics and Government was a standout among its faculties – a treasure chest of boffins, all experts in their field, and hardly a grey beard among them. Crawford had been lovingly nurtured over the years by university management, always doing well during fierce budgetary debates – even during the dreaded Howard years when the Tories had threatened to cut off funding to any university refusing to bow to their right-wing industrial mantra.

Gordon drove his fashionably black VW Polo into the School's car park, nestling the hatchback next to an ageing Volvo station wagon caked in a thin film of dirt and a clichéd pastiche of left-wing bumper stickers. He'd lined up a meeting with George Tiding, one of the best university historians in the country, a
walking encyclopedia with an amazing capacity to delve into the ANU's vast archives.

Tiding could recite the Head of Faculty list for the past two decades, or detail the ANU alumni starring on the global stage. He could also deliver precious information on just about any student who had trundled through the university's hallowed corridors. He and Gordon had been friends for close to fifteen years, since discovering a Sydney family connection and sharing the odd dark secret that each preferred to keep off the street.

‘Nice to see you, my friend. I have a few notes ready.' Tiding beckoned Gordon into his compact office, cluttered with the trappings of academia and looking as if it was in need of a decent clean-up.

‘Thanks, George, appreciate it muchly. What can you tell me?'

‘Well, she was seconded to the embassy in Beijing – or Peking, as it was known then – for just a few months; it was 1982, in fact. The notes suggest it was a short-term arrangement, probably at her insistence so she could practise her Mandarin.'

‘Do you have the precise dates, George? That is really crucial.'

‘I can get those for you. You wouldn't like to tell me why Ms Bailey's deep dark past is so important to you all of a sudden?'

‘Let's just say she's come into my orbit. I'm chasing a hunch, as they say.'

‘Okay, my friend, but you should know someone else is interested in Ms Bailey's past, someone with a distinct American accent.'

Gordon didn't flinch, instead displaying his best look of indifference. But his mind was ticking fast.

Someone else was trawling the same waters.

Bailey. Paxton. China. What was the connection?

Rarely had Canberra Hospital experienced such a media circus. News that Catriona Bailey had woken, like some modern-day Frankenstein, had sparked a frenzy usually reserved for Kylie or Shane or some shallow celebrity
du jour
.

Every network had sent every spare journo and cameraman to stake out all entrances, in case they missed an important visitor. It was causing mayhem with the routine arrivals of the injured and the sick, not to mention the comings and goings of patients' families and friends.

Once more, the fourth estate was busy disgracing itself, giving new meaning to the phrase ‘a low act'. One enterprising reporter from the Ten Network had borrowed her mum's nursing uniform in an audacious attempt to locate the stricken Bailey. A screaming match had ensued between Ten's chief of staff and the hospital management. ‘See if I fucking care …' had been the journalist's delightful sign-off.

Jill Everingham, the hospital's exasperated CEO, had already dismissed an intensive care nurse for leaking the news of Bailey's condition to the
Herald Sun
. Now she had called a press conference for 10 a.m. in a desperate bid to try and wrest back control of her hospital.

But as she stepped in front of the television lights in one of the hospital's conference rooms, she feared things were about to get worse.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.' (Everingham actually wished them all to hell.) ‘We understand there is considerable public interest in the condition of the Foreign Minister and that is why I have invited her specialist, Dr Amy McCallum, to speak with you today. But before we begin, can I implore you to treat this hospital, and its patients, with the dignity it, and they, deserve.

‘Now I will ask Dr McCallum to say a few words about Ms Bailey's condition and then answer your questions.'

A nervous McCallum stepped up to the podium and squinted through the lights at the packed room. She'd had no idea there would be so many journalists. And there seemed to be a lot more television cameras than she imagined were necessary, a phalanx of them on a riser at the back of the room and others roaming to her right and left, or squatting directly below her. There were also a half-dozen stills photographers rattling off shots.

‘Good morning, I'm Amy McCallum, a Melbourne neurologist,' she said. ‘First, may I say how disappointed I am that the privacy of my patient was violated by a health professional. That is unforgivable.

‘Yet Ms Bailey has made it clear to me that she wants the public to understand her condition and she has only one request, which I will get to in a moment.'

McCallum outlined Bailey's locked-in syndrome and the blinking communication system devised by the French doctors of Jean-Dominique Bauby, who went on to dictate a book,
The Butterfly and the Diving Bell.

‘Unfortunately, the prognosis for Ms Bailey is not good,' she continued. ‘It is rare for people with this condition to survive for long. In 90 per cent of cases people do not live beyond four months following the trauma.'

 

In Parliament House, Martin Toohey and some senior staffers were watching the press conference live. At the words ‘rare for people with this condition to survive for long' Toohey caught Papadakis's eye and lifted his own eyebrows hopefully. It was a brief moment of optimism.

 

‘But there are exceptions,' McCallum continued. ‘Bauby lived fifteen months, long enough to see his book published.'

The media waited impatiently through the description of the disease. McCallum was telling a great yarn but most saw it as background that they could get later. She had lost them early with the words ‘only has one request, which I will get to in a moment'.

The second McCallum paused and Jill Everingham said, ‘Any questions?' the room exploded into a cacophony of: ‘What did she say?'

‘It was an unusual request,' McCallum responded. ‘I checked it with her and then she refused to say anything else.'

‘What was it?' bellowed the room.

‘“I only want to talk to Thommo.”'

Five kilometres away, the blasphemy of the Prime Minister reverberated through the corridors of Parliament.

‘Ease up, turbo.' Harry Dunkley pulled back on the accelerator and cursed. Loudly. He'd been warned about Perth drivers, those foot-to-the-floor hoons who practised death-roll gymnastics on the ribbons of asphalt dissecting their city, ignoring the safety of others.

He'd arrived the night before, late, on a Qantas 737 from Canberra, the jet pitching madly in the cross-wind turbulence that turned the trip across the Nullarbor into a white-knuckle adventure. It had taken two whiskies and a small bottle of G & T to calm the nerves. Jesus, I hope this is worth it, he'd thought as the plane bucked like a frisky nag.

It had been a decade or so since he'd last travelled to the Wild West, ten years in which Australia's mining boom had transformed Perth into a city of millionaires. The capital's suburban wastelands were now teeming with shift workers who regularly took the two-hour flight north to the Pilbara, enticed by the lucrative rewards. An ordinary cleaner could clear $125k
working on a rig, while a barely qualified tradie could ask for more than $175,000 and expect to receive it.

It was close to 11 a.m. and Dunkley, in a rented Corolla, compact and gutless, was trying to follow directions to Osborne Park, a semi-industrial suburb fifteen minutes out of the CBD. One wrong turn – he'd headed left instead of right – and he was shuffling along beside Kings Park, trying to read a street map while keeping a watch on the race track that passed for one of the main arterial roads.

Twenty minutes later, he arrived at Unit 4, 321 Selby Street North, Osborne Park. So this is where public servants come to die, he thought.

His appointment was with Deirdre Patch, whose email signature dubbed her Processing Officer, Consumer Protection Branch, WA Department of Commerce. A brisk-looking woman greeted him then led him to a windowless room with cluttered shelves, a small table and two chairs.

‘Please take a seat, Mr Dunkley. We don't often get personal visits for files, particularly ones this old …'

Patch had already placed the file in question on the table, a dull green folder with a faded white label in the top right-hand corner. Six words stood out in clear font: ‘United Mineworkers Federation – Workplace Reform Association'. Dunkley felt a slight tremble in his stomach.

‘I'll give you some time; be back in ten if that suits.'

‘Yeah, that'd be great. Cheers.'

Inside he found a handful of faded papers, A4 size, several stapled together in a timeline of sorts. The association had been
incorporated in Perth on 15 March 1984 by a Tom Darcey from Slater & Gordon, that well-known Labor law firm. The name meant nothing to Dunkley but he took notes, determined to track down Mr Darcey.

He leafed through the papers until he found what he was looking for, a single sheet of white paper titled ‘Form 1 – Associations Incorporation Act 1977 (Section 5(1)). Application for Incorporation of Association'.

To the average Joe it meant bugger all, but to Dunkley it was pure gold.

The purpose of the association was ‘development of a framework to achieve a safe workplace'. A noble aim, he thought.

And the two signatories to the account? The names were semi-scribbled and had faded with time, but they still stood out like the proverbial: Bruce Paxton and Doug Turner.

Dunkley rocked back in the chair and heaved a deep sigh. The flight across Australia, that five-hour journey into the vast nothingness, had been worth it.

 

The voice on the end of the line grated, a cross between a fishwife and a bikie's moll. Jennifer Turner was a woman who'd clearly lived a hard life, and her voice held no expectation that it was about to get any easier. Dunkley had found her address and phone number with the help of a mate back in Canberra who was able to access even the most private of telephone numbers. Turner's had been listed ‘silent' for some years.

Clearly, she instinctively mistrusted strangers, and Dunkley's introduction was hardly reassuring.

‘Hi, Mrs Turner, I'm a reporter from Canberra. I'm trying to track down your husband.'

‘Ex-husband,' she shot back. ‘What do you want with that useless slimebag?'

‘I'm working on a profile on Bruce Paxton … you know, the Federal Defence —'

‘I know all about Paxton. As I suspect my ex-husband does … but as to his whereabouts, well, the last time I heard, he was somewhere in the wilds of Asia, probably rooting his silly arse off.'

‘Would you know where in Asia?'

‘No, I wouldn't, and even if I did I'm not sure I'd tell you anyway.'

Dunkley quietly sighed and turned to the oldest trick in the book – lay it on, with an extra dash of honey.

‘Look, I really appreciate your time and I'm sorry to have disturbed you, but I've flown across from the east and I'm really hoping to … well, would you know who could help me find your ex?'

A pause. ‘You could try Jimmy.'

‘Jimmy?'

‘Yeah, Jimmy Booth. He and Paxton and that scumbag ex of mine go back a long way … I think he's still working for the union, the Mineworkers or whatever they're called now.'

‘Many thanks, Mrs Turner. Really appreciate it.'

‘Okay. Oh and if you happen to find my former husband, tell him he's a fucking useless moron who owes the kids and me for a lifetime of strife.'

And with that, Jennifer Turner curtly hung up.

 

The building at 82 Royal Street, East Perth, was a pleasant-looking place, tastefully renovated with steel trim and a neat row of plants potted in terracotta placed out the front. It could have been the HQ for a medium-sized accounting or legal firm or some other paragon of corporate virtue. Instead it was home to one of the most notorious groups of union thugs ever to march across Australia's industrial landscape.

Dunkley, himself a keen member of the journo's union, was dressed in his best blue-collar chic, intent on trying to blend in with the bovver boys he was about to meet. He climbed an internal stairwell, passing a blue Eureka flag and a sign that screamed ‘The workers united will never be defeated'. Ah, such magnificent cliché, he thought.

Jimmy Booth, all gruff-and-paunch, was in his mid to late fifties and dressed in a dark T-shirt and sleeveless CFMEU vest. He commanded a small office open to all, barking instructions to fellow organisers and secretarial help. Dunkley knew Booth had been on the union payroll for nearly thirty years, a hired goon who could be relied on to take it up to the bosses and coppers when the CFMEU needed a stink. He was a wild-eyed boy of the west and, in the eyes of Perth's establishment, pure evil.

Right then and there, though, he was Dunkley's best – perhaps only – hope of tracking down Doug Turner. That's if Booth gave a fuck, of course.

‘Which paper did you say you worked for?'

‘The
Australian
, Jimmy.'

‘Ah, the fucking
Oz
, that right-wing shit sheet. They stitched me and the missus up good a few years back, claimed we were raking it in, living the high life on the Swan … Fucking Murdoch pricks.'

‘Well, I … I cover politics out of Canberra, try not to get too involved in what happens over here. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the
Oz
… Can I ask you a few questions perhaps about Doug Turner?'

‘What, like what fucking size his coffin should be?'

‘Do you know where he is? Somewhere in Asia, I'm told.'

‘Don't know, mate, haven't spoken with the prick for years. Last time I heard he was working at a fish-and-chip place down on the coast, Cottesloe maybe … Why're you so interested in Dougie, anyway?'

‘I'm trying to write a feature piece on Bruce Paxton. I thought Doug Turner might be able to help me piece a few things together.'

‘Yeah, well he and Paxton were thick as thieves once, and I do mean thieves, mate. You could try one of those organisations set up by Vietnam Vets: Turner was in 'Nam for a couple of years, never quite got over it, either. Now, if you'll excuse me, mate, we have corporate dogs to take on …'

Jimmy Booth, 120 kilos of pure trouble, was on his feet and preparing to lead his stormtroopers once more into battle. For the benefit of the working man, of course.