Detained (33 page)

But a reverse takeover; Avalon buying out Parker? Once he’d have said they’d have to bury him before he’d let that happen. But he’d been buried and he was still alive and so the idea should’ve been a soap bubble, shimmery, glossy, momentarily fascinating; then gone. It was more like a soapbox, something to stand on, an issue to take a position with.

But he wouldn’t even be able to read the various bits of documentation associated with it, so what was the point thinking he should get involved?

He went back into the house, his companion confusion joined by sadness and melancholy. He needed something to do to fill the time till Bo got back. He sat on the sofa and thought about Jiao, so fierce, so definite. Bo, loyal beyond cause, and Peter doing his best with the situation he’d been handed, as much a victim in this as he was.

He got up and got a glass of water. He’d let sadness in, and now he could think about Darcy. She’d been as fierce as Jiao, as loyal as Bo, doing the best she could with what he dished out. She’d reached out to him, and he’d made her a victim too. He had to hope she’d be able to heal.

Jiao had called him “fucking crazy, a dumbass”. He knew it suddenly, the sound of the meaning in his head as clear as the water in the glass.

He was hearing Cantonese swear words in his head and he knew what they meant. How fucking appropriate. His language was coming back one Cantonese swear word at a time.

Now he had to work out what to do to get his business back.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Confucius

Darcy stood with Russ, her cameraman, and Loud, her sound engineer, and five other network crews and about fifty journalists on the driveway outside the Sheraton on the Park.

Last night a Bulldog’s player and a visiting Hollywood starlet had a much photographed fling at a restaurant. The footballer was a married Brownlow Medallist and the starlet was underage. They were inside the hotel together, and they had to come out sometime.

Together or separately it didn’t much matter. It was a walk of shame regardless. There’d be excuses, misunderstandings, a variant of stoic or heartbroken wife, and tears enough for all of them before dinnertime.

When Darcy said she wanted to get back into field reporting this wasn’t what she’d been thinking about. But then, most of the journalists and crew here didn’t spring out of bed in the morning for a story like this either. As Loud said, it was better than being poor people, but after hanging around for two hours in heels that was debatable.

The only amusement was the book that was being run on whether the footballer would eventually end up with a media commentator role. It was hard to get anyone to bet against that happening.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Darcy turned to find Col Furrows on her right. “I’d say the same about you. What on earth are you doing here?”

“Mining and resources conference going on in there. I’m waiting to see what info I can pick up on various industry moves. See which CEOs are holding hands, and smiling at each other. That sort of thing.”

“Oh you mean real reporting.”

Col smiled. “Yeah. Where you buy your own clothes and wear out your own shoe leather.”

“I remember that. Actually, what I remember was being sacked for doing it.”

Col laughed. “Fun times. I don’t suppose you’d give me your contacts at Parker? Ted Barstow is in there. That Avalon Parker is about to get interesting.”

Darcy knew it was. Before she flew home Peter told her he’d decided to fight the deal, even though without Will he thought their chances of success were slim. It was too soon to think about Will without feeling slightly sick, and to never to forgive Col enough to share her insights on the Parker deal.

“I never did understand why you thought I had a special in with Parker.”

He chuckled. “Let me think. I’m not sure if it was you breaking his reputation or breaking him out of jail. Wait on, I remember. It was the card—‘I’m eternally sorry, love Will’. That’s what tipped me off.”

She gave a strangled grunt. “It did not say ‘love Will’.”

Col laughed again. “Might as well have. It was attached to a dress.”

“God, Col.” Darcy spun to face him. “You only think you know what happened. And while I remember it, thanks a lot for squealing to Brian.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Sorry about that.” He managed not to look the least bit contrite.

“Just as sorry as I am, not to remember my Parker contacts.”

“Darce, don’t be like that. Every business journo in the city is on the Parker Avalon story. Half of them are here now. I need an angle.”

She gave Col her best patronising tone. “You’re that good, I’m sure you’ll get one.”

“Is this about the story I wrote on you?”

“No, that story,” she gestured to her tailored pants suit with game show host hands, “helped me get this job. We’re square on that. This is just business.”

Col made a face but gave up the fight when a movement amongst the media pack alerted them to action in the hotel foyer. The ripple stilled as soon as it had stirred, men in suits, not a tail-between-legs, lipstick-on-collar variant of tearful, defiant or mentally incapacitated footballer. Col’s story, not hers.

The doors opened and out came a platoon of corporate suits. They blinked in confusion at the media pack, and a couple of bored photographers played it up for laughs, popping their flashes, to the amusement of everyone but the suits.

“Fucking hell,” said Col. “Second from the left. Is that Will Parker?”

Darcy’s, “No, can’t be,” was out of her mouth before she realised Col was right. Will was standing next to Avalon’s Chairman Ted Barstow, looking freaked out about the media pack.

Ten days ago Will was in a rehab hospital punching out glass doors and fighting memory loss. Now he was standing a car length and a couple of marble clad stairs away, in a charcoal suit with one hand in plaster and a bandage on the other. Darcy felt the ground beneath her shift and her stomach lurch.

Someone standing in front of them took up the cry, “Will Parker, Will Parker.” Will’s head shot up and he took a step backwards, and that was all the confirmation anyone needed. The pack surged forward. The lead story of the day was now the sudden appearance of the notorious billionaire entrepreneur, tyrant, murder suspect, jail riot survivor—Will Parker. Kiss and tell footy boy was so four hours ago.

Russ was on her shoulder. “Get in there, Darce. He’s yours.” Loud was in front of her, smoothing her way to the front of the pack. She moved like an accident victim, unsure what was happening, except that it was all bad.

Questions were being fired at Will. “Why are you here?” “What happened in prison?” “Did you get off on a technicality?” “Did you lead the riot?” “Were you bashed?”

“Fellas, ease off,” said Ted Barstow. “Will’s not here for you.”

“Is Parker for sale?” “Are you selling out, Will?” “Why are you here, Will?”

“I said ease off,” Ted repeated. He had an arm stretched out in front of Will, as though protecting him.

Russ and Loud were in position. Darcy had to do something and since Will didn’t know her anyway it shouldn’t matter. But it did, it did.

“Are you okay, Will?” she called. A lame question, lost in the noise in any case. But Will’s eyes shifted and locked tight onto hers. He put his hand on Ted’s arm and eased it down, he squared his shoulders. The pack went quiet to hear whatever it was he’d say. Darcy tensed. She was going to have to interview him as though they were strangers with fifty people watching and recording their every word. She wanted to scream.

Will said, “Ask your question, Darcy Campbell,” and she reeled back into Russ.

He remembered
.

Loud was in her ear, “Go, go, go.”

“Will, have you recovered from your injuries?” she called.

He smiled, he was looking directly at her. He lifted the hand in plaster. “I’m doing much better, thank you.”

She could do this, if he kept looking at her with recognition in his eyes, she could do this. “I understand your injuries were significant, and you’re only recently out of hospital. Can you tell us about them?”

“You don’t want to know about a few breaks and scratches?”

There was laughter and a ragged chorus of, “Yes we do.”

Will sighed. He broke eye contact and surveyed the pack. Darcy could see he was remembering how they’d torn his reputation apart. How he must hate them. He might have remembered to hate her too.

“Don’t you really want to know if I did it?” he said.

He might as well have said, ‘I’m going to throw money at you’; he wouldn’t have gotten more attention.

Into the stunned silence someone shouted, “Did you kill him, Will?”

Will closed his eyes and shook his head. “Should I tell them, Darcy?”

The pack swivelled to her. She swallowed hard. “It’s traditional for us journalists to ask the questions.”

There was more laughter, and Will’s response was inaudible above the racket.

A voice shouted, “Are you a murderer, Will?” Another said, “Did you get away with murder, Will?”

Will frowned. He folded his arms defensively and dropped his head. Ted said, “Back off, this is over.”

A voice shouted, “Is Will a killer, Darcy?”

“Oh shit,” said Russ, swinging the camera back around to Darcy. Now she was the story.

“Will Parker is innocent. Feng Kee died in a fire,” she said, never taking her eyes off Will. He had his head down still, and the tension in his neck and shoulders was clear to her. She ached to push through the pack and go to him, but there were memories, expectations, fears and worlds, reputations and responsibilities between them.

Another voice shouted, “Will, was there a riot? The Chinese Government denied it.”

Will shifted from foot to foot. He looked up briefly and then dropped his eyes again. He looked panicked.
Oh God, he didn’t remember
.

“He’s going to lose it, push him, Darce,” said Russ.

Before she could think of a way to save him, Will said, “Was there a riot, Darcy?”

The camera swung back around. Maybe she could talk him down. “Yes, Will. There was a riot and you were hurt badly.”

Will’s name rang out from five or six other journalists. Everyone wanted a piece of him while he was slowly obliging by coming apart.

Col Furrow’s voice echoed above the others. “Will Parker, how well do you know Darcy Campbell?”

Will’s head shot up, he locked eyes with her as though she was the only person on the planet who mattered to him. “Well enough to know I’d go to hell and back to protect her.”

There was a collective gasp, and a scrambling for position. Half the pack focused on Will, and the other jostled Darcy.

“Well enough to know I love her.”

“He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful may be called intelligent indeed.” — Confucius

Chaos had a new address. The space between the Sheraton’s front doorstep where Will stood, and the driveway where Darcy was being mobbed, as the media pack split to chase this new angle.

The air rent with cries of, “Will, over here.” “Will, this way.” And, “Darcy, Darcy do you love Will?” “Are you in love with Will?” Above it all Ted Barstow’s baritone, “Enough! Get away. Leave him alone.”

Darcy put her hands up in front of her face to ward off the barrage of cameras and microphones. At her side Russ said, “Shit, Darce.” Someone shoved him and he stumbled. “We’re out of here.”

He pushed a bunch of hands holding digital recorders away from her face and grabbed her arm, moving her backwards out of the melee. Darcy looked for Loud, lost somewhere in the shifting bodies. She looked for Will, caught the glass doors closing as he and Barstow disappeared inside, security stepping in to bar anyone following.

Her heart was thumping and she was shaking all over. Only Russ holding her arm stopped her sliding to her knees. Their car pulled up, Loud in the driver’s seat. Russ shoved her in the back seat and jumped in the front.

“Run over the bastards,” he laughed, as a cameraman stood in front of the car and Loud swerved to go around him.

“Not funny,” said Loud. “He never said that. The Premier, Robert Askin, he said—”

“Yeah like Prime Minister Hawke never said, ‘Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum’,” said Russ. He turned in his seat as Loud moved into the stream of traffic and pinned her with an evil glint. “Did you get it on with Parker?”

“I’m not the story.”

“You’re our story. You better get it straight. Merrit’s going to spew he let us come alone. He’ll have you do a piece to camera, ‘my affair with Australia’s billionaire jailbird’.”

“No. I’m not doing that.”

“Yeah you are,” said Loud. He was fiddling with the car radio, looking for a news broadcast. Everyone else will have it. We have you.”

They were right. Will not only recognised her, he’d outed her to every news organisation in the country. There was no way out of this. She’d be forced to talk about him. She scrabbled on the floor for her handbag, tucked under the seat in front. She needed her phone. She needed to call Peter to get a number for Will. She needed to talk to Will, to see him, to know if he was all right. If he meant what he said.

“Shit Darce, you and Parker. He looked surprised to see you,” said Russ, still facing backwards.

“Shut up, Russ,” she said, dragging her bag onto the seat and palming her mobile.

“Who are you calling?”

“Shut up, Russ.”

An announcer on the radio said, “Billionaire jailbird, Will Parker, surprised journalists in a doorstop today by declaring his love for Channel Five’s
News Tonight
host, Darcy Campbell.”

She groaned and speed-dialled Peter.

“Turn it off,” said Russ to Loud, but not to spare her ears, so he could eavesdrop on her call.

She ignored him and counted the rings.
Pick up, Peter, pick up
. The call connected, Peter’s, brisk, “Peter Parker.”

“Peter, where is Will?”

“Darcy, hey. At a rough guess, at his beloved Confucian temple. But I have a nasty feeling you’re going to tell me something different. Should I be afraid?”