Deep Water (7 page)

Hank and I were a little early and we studied the models with interest.

‘Pretty green oriented, this stuff,' Hank said. ‘I'm seeing that everywhere these days.'

‘Hadn't noticed,' I said. ‘Tell you what though, with
these lights and the air conditioning, the building's laying down a fair carbon fingerprint.'

‘Footprint, Cliff, footprint. Time to go.'

We checked in at a high-tech reception desk, were given security passes, and took the lift to the second level. A good-looking woman in a suit and blouse that stopped just short of being a uniform met us and we were escorted down a corridor. Discreet lighting through the tinted glass, framed blueprints on the wall, a rock garden with fountain at a bend.

She opened a door with ‘Personnel' on a nameplate and nodded to the man and the woman working at computer desks. She knocked on a door that carried the name Ashley Guy.

‘Come,' a voice within said.

I glanced at Hank, who was fighting off a grin.

She opened the door and waved us in.

Ashley Guy was sitting behind a big desk studying a printed sheet. He stood when we came in and held out a hand to shake. We shook. He sat down and gestured towards two chairs. The room was spick and span, as if some brain work might go on there, but nothing as mundane as filing or keyboarding or signing things. Guy wore the unbuttoned waistcoat of a three-piece suit with a light blue shirt and dark blue tie. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, with his fair hair thinning and his waistline thickening.

‘I can't give you a lot of time, Mr Bachelor and Mr …?'

‘Clifford,' I said.

‘… Mr Clifford, but I'll do whatever I can to help in the time available. Of course, we're very concerned about Henry.'

‘Likewise his daughter, likewise the police pretty soon,' Hank said. ‘Our enquiries have turned up grounds for more than just concern, but I thought to come to you before bringing in the police with … all guns blazing, as you might say.'

‘These grounds are …?'

Hank shrugged. ‘Kind of circumstantial, but it'd help a whole lot if you could tell us precisely what Henry McKinley was working on.'

Guy shook his head. ‘That's precisely what I
cannot
do. That information falls under the heading of commercial confidentiality. Every research project here involves us in the outlay of a great deal of money, sometimes for no return. Competition in our field is intense. Perhaps you understand, being in the business you're in.'

‘Maybe I do,' Hank said, playing him a little.

Guy hesitated, glancing uncertainly left and right, before taking a slim file from a desk drawer. ‘Anything else—his medical record, qualifications, references, salary, in general terms, contractual provisions, in outline—I'll be happy to give you.'

‘Healthy, was he?' Hank said.

‘Very.'

‘Solvent?'

‘Yes.'

‘With time to run on his contract?'

Guy wasn't stupid. ‘You know this already, don't you?'

‘That's confidential,' Hank said. He nodded to me. I took a folded-up high quality photocopy of McKinley's drawing and put it on the desk.

‘Someone,' Hank said, ‘don't know who just at present but we're working on it, missed this when he bought up a
whole set of McKinley's drawings. This is a copy, naturally. Mean anything to you, Mr Guy?'

Some say watch the eyes, others watch the mouth; some say look for a frown or hand movements. I know you'd be flat out doing all those things at once and a good liar probably didn't show anything. Guy looked closely at the drawing, moved it a little, and then shook his head.

‘It appears to be well-executed to my inexpert eye, but I'm afraid I have no idea what it means.'

‘We're in the same boat,' Hank said, ‘but it certainly means something because someone paid out quite a few hundred dollars to gather up the ones that went with it.'

Guy shrugged. ‘You've got me. Was there anything more?'

Hank stood up and I followed suit. ‘Is there anything more, Mr Clifford?' he said.

I took the drawing and folded it. ‘I'd say there's a good deal more, but that'll do for now.'

Hank executed a courtly half-bow, the way Americans do. ‘Thank you for your time, sir.'

We went out quickly. In the corridor we could see our escort hurrying towards us but Hank held up his hand, shook his head and she stopped.

‘We're fine. Sure you've got better things to do.'

The woman looked nonplussed, but we were on the move and to trot after us wouldn't be her style. We strolled down the corridor, studying the blueprints as if they meant something to us. When we reached the waiting area for the lifts I touched Hank's shoulder.

‘Got your mobile?'

‘Sure.'

‘Snap a picture of that bloke there waiting for the up.'

Hank did it with the speed and secrecy I'd known he'd be capable of. We rode the lift to the lobby, handed in our passes, and left the building.

‘Thirsty work,' I said. ‘Must be a pub around here somewhere.'

We found one in Elizabeth Street and settled down over middies of Old.

‘He wasn't a personnel man,' Hank said. ‘Someone higher up.'

I nodded. We'd both noticed the same things: the ‘Ashley Guy' nameplate had been slid in on top of another but not exactly, so that a centimetre of the previous one still showed, and Guy's uncertainty about which side of the desk the drawers were on when he reached for the file.

‘Means they're worried,' I said.

‘Plus, I never trust a man wearing a three-piece suit.'

Hank took out his mobile and studied the photograph. The man was big, florid, overweight, in an expensive suit and with an expensive haircut. ‘Who is he?'

‘I don't know, but he's familiar. It'll come to me.'

Hank took a long drink and sighed. ‘That's real beer. Are you cool about me and Megan, Cliff?'

‘You've both been around long enough and had enough experience to know what you're doing. I hope you're good for each other. I'd say the chances are better than even.'

‘I should've known not to expect a straight answer.'

‘There aren't any straight answers to real questions.'

Back in the Newtown office, Hank plugged the phone into one of his computers and printed out the photograph. He laid the print on his desk and the three of us gathered round to look at it.

‘Likes his lunch and dinner,' Hank said.

Megan looked at us both. ‘You really don't know, do you?'

I said, ‘I feel I should, but …'

‘That's Hugh Richards,' she said, ‘shadow minister for minerals and energy in the state parliament.'

‘I'm a bit out of touch,' I said. ‘How solid's this state government?'

‘They're on the nose,' Megan said. ‘You must have seen the stuff in the papers—law and order, transport, water …'

‘I thought that was standard state politics—shit on the last lot while they try to shit on you. And nothing gets done except calls and hand-wringing over the things people want to do—like gambling, watching porn, drinking and taking drugs.'

‘Jesus,' Hank said. ‘That's fundamental cynicism.'

‘He's right,' Megan said, ‘but it looks a bit worse for this government. The word is there's a high profile child sex abuse case with a drag component coming up and some DUI matters that could be very embarrassing.'

‘How d'you know all this?' I said.

Hank mimed clattering a keyboard. ‘She reads blogs.'

‘I'll have to try to find out what that means, exactly,' I said. ‘What about this Hugh Richards?'

‘The things that're protecting this government,' Megan said, ‘are four-year terms and the useless opposition. But Richards is thought to be a possible saviour. I'll do some work on him.'

Hank had arranged a Skype hook-up with Margaret McKinley so that we could all see each other on the computer screens. It was late at night for us, early in the morning for her, but that was fine because she was due to start an early shift. She was in her nurse's uniform, looking crisp and competent.

‘Hi, guys,' Margaret said. ‘You've been busy. Don't worry. I know there's no good news. I've adjusted to that.'

She'd had emails from Hank and me. She held the faxed copy of her father's drawing so we could see it. It had lost some of its definition in the transmission but still had a powerful clarity of line and shading.

‘The original's better, Margaret,' I said, ‘and we're keeping it safe for you. What d'you make of it?'

‘Hello, Cliff. I'll be glad to have it. I haven't got a lot of Dad's stuff. He was a perfectionist and he didn't keep what he didn't think was up to scratch. And he sold a bit, so thanks. I've looked at it from every which way, and the only thing I can come up with is—a quarry.'

Hank and I looked at each other.

‘That's a whole lot better than anything we thought of, Ms McKinley,' Hank said. ‘A quarry. Why not? Facing north, or looking north, or something.'

The admiration in Hank's voice brought a smile to Margaret's face, animating it. She was an attractive woman with the attraction usually muted by her concerns and responsibilities. Now it showed through to its best advantage.

‘Will that help?' Margaret said.

I gave her a positive nod, wanting to do more. ‘It could. It really could.'

‘Gotta be lotsa quarries around,' Hank said after the hookup finished.

‘I dunno, probably not that many these days. They tend to be used as landfill or get topped up and turned into parks. I don't like the feel of it though, if Margaret's right.'

‘Holes in the ground, you mean?'

‘Yeah.'

‘She seemed like a pretty together woman. I'd say she could handle whatever comes up.'

I nodded. ‘I think so, too. Hardest thing would be not ever knowing.'

Hank yawned. He was putting in long days working a couple of cases. ‘Suppose it was the Tarelton crew who bought the drawings and the drawings are of a quarry, so what? What d'you find at the bottom of a quarry? Rocks?'

‘Or water,' I said.

‘I'll get Meg onto a quarry search. Ain't nothin' she can't do with Google. She tells me she's digging up all she can on this Hugh Richards.'

Tired as he was, Hank was still on the job. He shuffled through what he had in the McKinley file. ‘Shit!'

‘What?' I said.

‘Margaret says he drove a Toyota SUV. Spare tyres, spare gas, he could go any place.'

‘It wasn't meant to be easy.'

‘Hey, I've heard that. Who said it?'

‘A former prime minister. Used to be a villain, less of a villain these days.'

‘What do you think about the guy you've got in now?'

‘Beyond redemption.'

I drove home and took my medications with water and waited a while before I made myself a nightcap. Hank would be going back to be with Megan. Good luck to them. I made the drink a strong one. Loneliness wrapped around me like a sweaty sheet on a hot night. I thought of Margaret McKinley in her white uniform with her dark hair held back by a red band. I finished the drink and took the image up to bed with me with the Barnes book. The book was still good but the image didn't do me any good. I had a restless night.

Stefan Gunnarson had been a senior officer in the Missing Persons Division for a good part of my career as a PEA. We'd got on well in a rough and ready way, and I was glad when he'd got the top job. We hadn't had any dealings after that but when I learned that his son, Martin, was now in the spot with the rank of inspector, I was encouraged to ring Gunnarson senior, who'd retired, and ask him to put in a word for me with the head man. Stefan Gunnarson was one of those cops who'd still have a drink with me after my
licence was cancelled. He said he'd talk to his son and that was how I came to be sitting in Martin Gunnarson's office in the Surry Hills Police Centre securing a small slice of his time. I'd emailed him a rundown on the case.

He was a duplicate of his dad—short, heavy set, dark, nothing like your stereotypical Scandinavian.

‘This is all highly irregular, Mr Hardy,' he said, fingering a slim file in front of him.

‘It's not only regularity that gets results. Ask any proctologist.'

He winced. ‘Dad warned me about your jokes.'

‘That's the only one, I promise. You'll admit it looks very dodgy—no sign of him or his car, house broken into, strange goings on about his drawings …'

‘Agreed, but the trail's very cold.'

‘The daughter posted him missing weeks back and Hank Bachelor followed up a while later.'

‘We're understaffed and stressed.'

‘So you outsourced it to the private sector?'

Gunnarson didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The defiant set of his heavy features said it all.

‘Look,' I said, ‘I don't want to get on the wrong side of you. I'd like you to do the usual thing—print some flyers, talk to the media.'

‘Why do I have the feeling there's something more?'

‘And bring some pressure to bear on Tarelton Explorations.

They're … involved.'

‘They're also influential.'

‘That right? All the more reason. I'm just suggesting you have someone senior pay a call, ask a few questions.'

‘And you'll do what?'

‘See if feathers fly.'

‘We can't act as your … what d'you call those servants that go out to scare up the pheasants for the nobs to shoot at?'

‘Beaters.'

‘Right, beaters.'

‘Your dad did just that, a couple of times, and he didn't regret it.'

‘Are you saying he owes you and so I owe you?'

‘No. I messed things up once big-time and we're square.'