White Dog (28 page)

‘When did I say no to you, Jack?’

‘I cannot tell you how singular you are in that respect,’ I said. ‘Something called Barras Holdings.’

A second or two of hearing distant voices, bantering, and music, a laugh, the sounds of a good place to work.

‘That’s B-A-R-R-A-S, is it?’ said Simone, something more in her voice than an inquiry about spelling.

‘Yes.’

‘Not doing any work for the commission, are you?’

‘No.’

She coughed, small Melbourne winter coughs, brought on by cold and damp and melancholy.

‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I shouldn’t say this and it’s obviously pure coincidence but the commission is interested in Barras Holdings. It’s an investment company. On the public record, just in the last three years we can find nearly two hundred properties Barras bought, either off the plan or on completion. Apartments, houses, commercial properties. Barras usually sells them within months. For rather modest gains, as far as we can see.’

‘So counsel thinks Barras is dodgy?’

‘Our job here is research, if you take my meaning.’

‘I do. And who owns the company?’

‘Sole director is K. M. Etzdorf of an address in Monaco. He signs all company documents. The registered address is Marti Partners, Brisbane.’

Monaco, home of Charles Robert Hartfield, late of Melbourne, and Tony Haig’s boating companion. Alexander Marti Partners, accountants to both Mickey Franklin and Haig.

‘One last thing,’ I said. ‘Does Barras deal with MassiBild and a company called Saint Charles?’

I could hear Simone breathe out. ‘Very much so. Directly with Saint Charles. And with companies associated with MassiBild. It’s complicated, to put it mildly.’

‘Far too complicated for me,’ I said. ‘I hope my next call is of a social nature.’

‘Calls of any nature welcome,’ she said.

I said goodbye and checked on the pie, poured some more of the Marqués, an exceptional drop. When I came back, Barry Daly, sad as ever, was speaking against a scene of men in suits entering a building: ‘… sitting in Melbourne today heard an allegation that former federal cabinet minister Michael Londregan used his influence to get planning approval for three sixteen-storey towers to be built in a twelve-storey zone in Melbourne’s CBD. The proposal had been rejected four times by various authorities.’

There was a still of ex-senator Londregan, a tall man in a dark suit, florid, jowly, thinning curly hair. He was shaking hands with someone, it looked like a reception line.

Bradley Davis, an accountant, a former employee of MassiBild, told the inquiry that he attended a meeting of MassiBild executives where the then head of the firm, Mr Vince Massiani, said the Concerto development would go ahead, the government would approve the extra four storeys the next day.

Daly’s eyebrows spoke of his pain at having to relay such information. ‘Four storeys in three towers meant twelve extra storeys,’ he said. ‘Counsel assisting the royal commission, Kevin Carstairs QC, asked Mr Davis what the permission meant in financial terms. Mr Davis said upwards of $40 million.’

There was a shot of the buildings. I knew them by sight, characterless and intrusive constructions, fortunately impermanent, they would be gone within fifty years. I also knew Kevin Carstairs from his golden youth, when he was an earnest Balwyn boy, couldn’t catch a joke in a laundry basket, so eager to answer questions in class that he squirmed in his seat, moved his bum like someone with a terrible itch.

‘What was the date of this meeting, Mr Davis?’

‘December 2, 1994.’

‘And the decision on the building was announced the next day? That would be December 3.’

‘That’s correct, December 3.’

‘Did Mr Massiani say how Michael Londregan influenced the government, Mr Davis?’

‘Well, he said the election was coming up and Londregan could do the government a favour.’

‘A favour. Did he say what kind of favour?’

‘No. I was surprised he said anything. Mr Massiani didn’t often often say anything that wasn’t strictly business. Practical stuff. Housekeeping.’

‘Your impression then was that Mr Londregan had secured this outcome for MassiBild?’

‘Oh yes, definitely. It had been chucked out so many times.’

Pie time. I was in the kitchen taking it out when my mobile rang.

‘Jack? Sophie Longmore.’

‘Good evening.’ I felt awkward.

‘Jack, I know this doesn’t concern you anymore but something odd came by courier today.’

‘Odd how?’

‘It’s a bill and a card and keys from something called Galvin Security Storage in Tullamarine. The bill’s for six months’ advance payment on a storage unit. Whatever that is.’

‘Haven’t rented any storage?’

‘No, never. But the letter’s addressed to me. I had to sign for it. It says that to ensure maximum security the locks have just been changed.’

Something flitted through my mind. ‘I might have a look,’ I said. ‘Can you drop off the keys?’

‘I’ve got them with me,’ she said. ‘I’m in the car, on Punt Road, I’m going to Macedon. My father’s complaining about his health.’

‘You’ll pass close by. I’ll meet you.’

I gave her directions, looking at the pie with lust. I put it back in the switched-off oven, watched sad Barry for a few more minutes. He was interviewing the federal industrial relations minister, until recently a big undisciplined dog easily teased into outbursts of barking. Now he’d been to obedience school, bribed media turncoats had drilled him, and he uttered the same affable low-key bark over and over.

I went downstairs, jacketless, to the corner, stood in the light and shivered. A car came down the street inside thirty seconds, the driver waved, so precise was my estimate of the time it would take to drive from Punt Road to Linda’s corner.

The car pulled up in front of me. I went to the driver’s side.

‘It’s a bit spooky,’ said Sophie. She gave me an envelope. ‘It’s been hired in my name for six months.’

‘I’ll have a look and give you a ring.’

‘Thanks, Jack. I didn’t know who else to tell.’

I went back to Linda’s apartment and opened the envelope. Galvin Security Storage, 112 Rigoni Street, Tullamarine. A swipe card, two keys, and a PIN number for unit 164, entrance J, an account for $300 for six months’ rental.

I put my head back against the sofa, closed my eyes. Tomorrow. In the morning, early.

I was running out of tomorrow mornings. I groaned, rose and found keys, left without thinking about a coat.

Tullamarine was no lovelier by night, high fences, ugly buildings, glaring security lights, oil rainbows lying in the pitted streets.

Galvin’s sign said the premises were guarded by twenty-four-hour video-monitored security. The swipe card got me through the boom gate, into a floodlit compound with a huge, low, windowless single-storeyed building of cinderblocks. Roll-up garage doors A, B and C faced us. I went right, foolishly, had to drive around the building to get to door J.

I got out, cold, moist air, shivered in my shirt, and approached the door. An electronic keypad was under a light to the right. I put in the card, tapped in the PIN and the door rose, a low clanking noise, dark inside except for the glow of a small console with a single fat button. The instruction said:
PRESS FOR
20
MINUTES LIGHT
.
DOOR WILL CLOSE IN TWO MINUTES
.

I pressed. Tube lights flickered, stabilised, showing a corridor, roll-up doors on both sides, big numbers spray-painted on them. I walked down the internal road under the white lights and, before I reached storage unit 164, the entry door behind me clanked down.

J 164 was on the right, halfway to the end. Another light button. A key unlocked the door, you had to raise it by hand.

A cinderblock box, a bit bigger than a single-car garage. In the middle stood a red Maserati, from the 1960s, I thought. Framed artworks leaning against the walls, perhaps a dozen, a few pieces of furniture at the back.

I looked at the works along the nearest wall. All the artists were dead except for one and he was a day-to-day proposition: blue-chip art, investment art. Was this Mickey’s small cashable stash, put here in Sophie’s name in case he went under because of Seaton Square and people wanted to seize his assets?

I walked to the back of the chamber. A glazed colonial bookcase, it would buy two Mercedes. A commode, Egyptian Revival, if genuine worth a bit. A small desk, Georgian.

I looked in the car, opened the glovebox: a manual and a logbook. The boot opened – empty. I checked the bookcase, the desk drawers.

Cabinetmakers of old often amused themselves with their work, Charlie taught me that, and I always groped fancy antique furniture, even in public places.

I removed the four top desk drawers and felt around above them, stuck my arm in and felt the back, looked in a few other places. I studied the commode, touched the ram’s broad head on the right, ran my fingers down its sides, feeling the smooth curled horns, finding the small buttons at their centres.

I pressed one. It didn’t yield. Neither did the other. I pressed them simultaneously and they went in. My pulse quickened. I pulled at the ram’s head.

It slid forward.

A secret drawer, narrow and deep. In it a notebook, long and slim, two videotapes. I flipped the notebook: names, dates, amounts, page upon page. I looked at the tapes. One had no label, the other said
COPY
.

I pushed the ram’s head back and tried the one on the left. No luck. He didn’t repeat himself, your ancient craftsman.

I took the items and left the building, the enclosure, drove back along the tollway-avoidance route. It was busy, the city never seemed to quieten, people’s nightlife now began when it used to end. In Linda’s parking bay, I sat for a moment, feeling the tiredness of too much sitting.

Time to watch a video.

My door opened.

‘Get out, cunt.’

A body, an arm. A knife pointing at my throat, a wide blade, held on its side.

I dropped a video and the notebook between the seats, got out with the other tape.

He was standing back, squat and pale, football head, a leather jacket. ‘Walk,’ he said.

I walked out to the street.

‘Stop.’

A dark vehicle pulled forward, a stationwagon, the man’s hand gripped my belt, pulled me back into the knife. It pressed against me at a point beside my spine where a thrust would penetrate some vital organ quietly pulsing in the body’s inner dark.

‘Hands back or die, cunt.’

I obeyed, felt the handcuffs. The back door opened. He walked me across the pavement, into the car, powerful hands inside dragged me, pushed me down, down, between the seats, my face down, something thrown over me, a foot on my neck, the vehicle moving.

The chicken pie in the cool oven. It would be wasted.

I thought of that, how irrational is the mind.

‘Hear me, Jack?’

We’d been driving for a long time, irregular stops, starts, slowdowns, then acceleration, a feeling of cruising at speed, we had to be on a freeway.

‘Yes,’ I said, eyes closed, thinking about my breathing, about keeping it regular and deep, moving the diaphragm, trying to flex my muscles to fight off cramp in my arms and legs.

‘You’re a stupid cunt, Jack. I don’t understand that, it makes no fucking sense to me.’

Even through the blanket over me, I thought I knew the voice.

‘Get him up, let him sit.’

The foot came off me, the blanket was pulled back. I tried to raise my upper body, couldn’t, you needed hands. I got a hand, it gripped my shirt collar, pulled me up, choking me. I squirmed, got to my knees, got a foot to work, to push, managed to twist and get onto the seat. The pain in my legs as I half straightened them made me close my eyes.

We were on a highway, four of us, men, in a big station-wagon, my arms aching from being behind my back. Something wrong with my eyes, I blinked a few times. Dark tinted windows. You had to get used to them. I looked at the man beside me, he wasn’t looking at me, a big, fat man, no hair. I couldn’t see the people in front because of the headrests, then the driver looked back at me – potato nose, glasses, big lower lip.

I knew him well and the fear I felt dried my mouth and my eye sockets.

You are likely to remember someone who held you by the hair like a trophy, slapped your cheeks repeatedly, jerking your head back and forth. You will certainly remember the intense, stinging pain, the taste of your tears as they ran down into your open mouth. And if the person then ground your head into the floor and pissed on you, full recall is guaranteed.

‘Call me Reece,’ he said. ‘Should make you call me fucking Mister.’

Reece Stedman, formerly of the Victoria Police.

We drove in silence down the Western Highway, the new outer-urban awfulness to the right, we passed Melton, went into the valley of Bacchus Marsh. On the slope going out, the driver spoke.

‘Fucking bang takes out a whole fucking building,’ he said, flat, nasal voice. ‘Got to be the luckiest cunt on earth to come out of that. Like a second fucking life. You’d go and comb fucking beaches, wouldn’t you?’

I felt something close to relief. They didn’t plan to kill me. They could have killed me where I stood on the pavement in Carlton. This was going to be another punishment. I could survive this.

‘But fucking no,’ he said. ‘So I take the fucking trouble. I drive through the fucking traffic to your fucking shithole to give you a personal message. I tell you very nicely to fucking cease and desist in your fucking annoying behaviour.’

Stedman wound down his window, sent his cigarette butt out, raised the glass. He held up his left hand and I saw the rings.

‘Why, Jack?’ he said. ‘The woman’s dead, you don’t owe anybody a shit, you’ve got the money, we gave you a nice present, what the fuck can you hope to achieve by going on with this?’

‘Just curious,’ I said. ‘I wanted to know what happened to the women. And Wayne.’

He looked back at me. ‘That is so fucking smart, I can’t fucking believe it. Listen, I’ll tell you what happened. Then you promise me, you’ll fucking forget everything, never speak of it again, enjoy the money? How’s that?’