Peter Temple - Black Tide

Maclay: So?

O’Sullivan: CrossTrice also owns a quarter of Consolidated Freight Holdings, TransQuik Australia’s owner.

Maclay: You’re being irresponsible, Dermott. And silly. My understanding is that Steven Levesque no longer has any active involvement with CFH or TransQuik Australia. But even if he did, what has he to do with Fincham Air winning a government contract?

O’Sullivan assumed the look of a person holding four kings.

Are you aware, Minister, that a Brisbane newspaper will tomorrow publish a story saying that a former employee of Fincham says she saw photocopies of the other tenders for the contract before Fincham submitted its bid? And that she heard an executive of the company say, ‘Steven says increase the flight frequency and go in a million under CattonAir.’ She says she understood ‘Steven’ to refer to Steven Levesque.

Maclay’s expression was bland, the look of a person who has dealt himself four aces.

I think you’ll find, Dermott, that the newspaper will not be publishing that allegation tomorrow. I understand the person concerned now says she was misrepresented and the journalist involved has apologised to Fincham. But I don’t want to be drawn into this sort of nonsense. And, Dermott, for your own legal wellbeing, I don’t think you want to propagate defamatory material of this kind.

The ambush had failed: blanks in the magazine. O’Sullivan was unnerved by Maclay’s display of superior knowledge and the interview fizzled out.

I found Barry’s slip of paper, picked up the phone and dialled inquiries. ‘Canberra,’ I said. ‘A Dean Canetti. I don’t have a home address.’

A woman answered the phone, tired voice, young children in the background.

‘Is that the home of Dean Canetti of MarketAsia Consultants?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is Mr Canetti available?’

Silence. In the background, a girl shrieked, ‘Mum, she’s pushing me again.’

‘No,’ said the woman.

‘Go where?’ said Shane DiSanto, former panelbeater, now operator of Veneto Travel.

‘Canberra, Shane. The nation’s capital. Heard of it?’

‘Jack, no. Nothing there. Like a farm. No nightlife, nothing. Brown shoes with big rubber soles, that’s what the men wear. The women all got their hair in buns. Listen, whaddabout a week in Bali? This package you won’t believe, not a cent in it for anyone.’

‘This is business, Shane. Today, this morning, coming back this evening. Is Denise around?’

‘I dunno,’ Shane said. ‘Business, business. Nobody takes a holiday. Business? You want business class?’

‘Economy. I’m paying.’

He dropped his voice. ‘Listen, Jack. Fifty bucks cash I get you an upgrade from economy. Both ways.’

Shane had been a bit rough on Canberra, although his capsule description of the city’s life and people was not without some basis in fact.

Canberra is a nice place to pass over on the way to Sydney. Even on the ground, the massive amounts spent on freeways enable taxpayers to pass through the capital at high speed. And massive spending on itself is what Canberra does best. This one city is the most expensive and longest running job-creation project in human history.

These thoughts came to me as I made my way to the top of the most recent employment-generator, the new Parliament of Australia, formerly a rather nice hilltop. Following the design of American architects, an army of workers removed the hilltop and spent years replacing it with a neo-Aztec pyramid of sacrifice. A pyramid with its top lopped off and replaced by a triangular flagpole.

But I’d underestimated the appeal of the structure. The huge spaces were full of tourists. Coachloads of elderly people, eyes glazed, were being sheepdogged by hard-voiced tour guides when all they wanted to do was sit for a minute, rest the legs, think how nice it would be to be home with a book. Scrums of children moved around, girls bored, whispering to each other, boys yelping, pinching and punching. Japanese were eyeing the place uncertainly, like men who think they may be in the women’s toilet.

It was a relief to get to the top, out into the weak sunshine, the biting little wind. I was tired, furry-mouthed. Opening the second bottle of Heathcote shiraz was now a matter for regret.

I went out on the flat top, on to the mountain meadow on concrete, looked down on the Disneyland lake. Off to the right, trophy buildings represented Art, Justice, Science. But the eye was drawn across the shining water, up another slope to a monumental building, the memorial to Australia’s part in wars for Britain and America. The great place of the killing: honour the dead, believe in the glory, keep sending the children.

I felt for the pulse of patriotism. Two Irish were listed as dying for their country on the slate they were running in the war temple across the water. All I felt was a sense of waste. That and a recidivist desire for a cigarette.

Meryl Canetti was in her mid-thirties, jeans and a jacket, medium-height, thin, pale hair cut close to the head, memories of freckles around her nose. Smoking a cigarette, pressing it to her lips, hissing out smoke, looking around jerkily like a bird. When the cigarette came away from her mouth, her left hand went up to her eyes, nervous eyes, to her ears, to her hair, touching. She’d been a pretty teenager, attractive in her twenties, could be again if the feeling of panic ever went away.

She saw me coming, two quick puffs, dropped the cigarette, ground it, looked pointedly at the copy of the Age I was carrying.

‘Mrs Canetti?’

Sharp nod, sniff.

‘Let’s find somewhere to sit.’

There was a cafeteria, not crowded. I fetched tea, watched her looking around, shifting in her seat like a child.

‘I don’t know a lot,’ I said, sitting down. ‘What’s MarketAsia Consultants?’

‘Import-export,’ she said. Bitten-down nails. Thin lines, cracks, ran down from the corners of her mouth. ‘I thought. Now I don’t know. Believe that? Married for eight years. Two kids.’

‘He went off to work every day?’

‘Yes. Office in Manuka.’

‘You don’t know exactly what kind of work?’

She didn’t answer the question.

‘How can you just be missing?’ she said.

The medication was only just keeping the lid on. She took a sip of tea, choked, coughed. Her eyelashes were short, almost invisible. I waited, drank some of mine.

‘You said men came to tell you. When was that?’

‘Eighteenth of April.’

‘Did they tell you where your husband was when he went missing?’

‘No. But I know where he was. Melbourne.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘The phone. Shows the caller’s number.’

‘He phoned you from Melbourne. When was that?’

‘Charlotte’s birthday. Third of April. She’s the first. Mad about her, couldn’t miss her birthday. Princess Charlotte he called her.’

She hung her head, shivered. ‘Jesus, why can’t you smoke in these places? Never been here. Watched the whole bloody thing go up. Waste of money.’

‘How long had he been away?’

She bit at a nail on her right hand, checked herself, put both hands on the table. On the little finger, she wore a big ring, a greenish stone, oval, set in gold. ‘When he phoned? About a week. Bit more. He went away a lot once, but not recently. Once it was five months, he came home five or six days in all that time. I used to go mad. After I had Lorna, she was, oh, a year old, he was gone for three months. Then we went to Noosa for six weeks. Unit on the beach, hire car, ate in restaurants all the time, three times a day some days. Everything. Lovely. You just forget. Till he goes away again.’

‘But you don’t know what he was doing when he went away?’