Peter Temple - Bad Debts

‘I’d say somebody had the idea for Yarra Cove and quietly bought up the properties through the nominee companies. The companies warehoused them, waiting for Hoagland to be closed and sold to Hexiod Holdings. But before anything could happen, the government lost the election. The nominee companies then one by one sold their waterfront properties to a company called Niemen PL and Niemen consolidated them into one property, a semicircle around Hoagland. Niemen applied for a rezoning for the consolidated property as residential. But the new government blocked them. So nothing happened for nine years. Then Pitman’s mob came back into power and the next day Hexiod sold the Hoagland site to Charis Corporation. Soon after that, Niemen sold the waterfront strip to Charis. Hey presto, the jigsaw’s complete. All is in readiness for a six hundred million dollar development.’

I felt tiredness creeping over me. ‘So Charis might only have come into the picture at the end?’

Linda put her glass on the floor. ‘I’d guess that all parties were in on the deal from the beginning. Hexiod wouldn’t have bought Hoagland if it wasn’t sure it could buy the rest of the land. The people behind the nominee companies wouldn’t have bought up the whole area unless they were part of a deal with Hexiod and Charis.’

‘And nobody,’ I said, ‘would have done anything unless they knew that Hoagland was going to be closed down.’

‘And sold to Hexiod.’

‘But you’re just guessing,’ I said. ‘It’s possible that Pixley was the one who tipped off the first buyers and that Charis is just the innocent last link in the chain.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘But nothing you know says that the whole thing was more than a little scam involving some small-time friends of Kevin Pixley’s.’

‘I don’t know what you’d call a big scam,’ said Linda.

‘Leaving Hoagland aside,’ I said, ‘there’s still no real evidence that Anne Jeppeson was murdered. Or that Danny was framed. In fact, I now think it’s extremely unlikely that Danny was framed.’

She hugged herself. ‘Because Bruce says so? Five minutes with the Minister and you come out in reverse.’

‘What he says makes more sense of the evidence than my conclusions. And no-one’s going to prove any different. Even if Pitman was somehow involved, you won’t nail him. You’d have to demonstrate a connection between him and one of the other parties. A tangible link. A beneficial link.’

Linda took my right hand and put it inside her pyjama top, under her right breast. ‘I love it when you sound lawyerly,’ she said. ‘Cup that. And demonstrate a connection.’

I wanted to cup it. And its twin. And to show a tangible link. But I felt a dread stealing over me and I took my hand away. ‘Linda,’ I said, ‘I think we’ve got to close the book on this thing. I’ve given my word to Bruce.’

She leaned back. ‘Your word? Your word what?’

I found it hard to say it. ‘I’ve told him that neither of us will take this any further. That includes the Hoagland sale.’

Linda stood up. ‘I don’t understand. Why? Why would you do that?’

How do you tell people about your fear that you might lose one of the few things that has given your life any meaning? ‘Bruce offered me a trade,’ I said.

‘A trade?’

‘Back off or be charged with a whole raft of offences over my Daylesford excursion.’

Linda shook her head in disbelief. ‘Bruce didn’t offer me a trade. You can’t speak for me. This whole thing doesn’t belong to you. You can’t suddenly take your ball and go home. This is a huge story. It could bring down a Cabinet Minister. Maybe the whole government. You can’t just switch it off because you’ve got cosy with the Police Minister.’

‘Listen to me,’ I said. ‘I’m not cosy with him. I’m scared. I’m under the gun. They’ll charge me. I’ll get convicted. Even if I don’t go to jail, I’ll get struck off the roll. I’ll never be able to practise again.’

She looked at me for what seemed to be a long time. Then she turned and went into the bedroom. I waited, stomach tense, not knowing what to do, knowing I was losing her. When she came out, she was dressed. She went over to where her jacket was hanging over a chair.

I said, ‘Can we calm this down? I’m-’

She cut me off, voice even. ‘Jack, as far as I can see four people have died over Hoagland. It’s likely that there’s been a spectacular piece of corruption. I was under the impression you cared about that. Now you’re telling me that the nice Police Minister has explained the whole thing to your satisfaction. And to help convince you, he’s threatened you with legal action. So to hell with justice, you’ve agreed to shut up. And you’ve agreed to shut me up. Well, I’m not yours to shut up. I don’t know what made you think I might be.’

I tried to get angry. ‘Hold on. A minute ago you were talking about a huge story. Now you’re campaigning for justice. Which one do you want to sacrifice me for? Justice or the huge story?’

There was something approaching contempt in her eyes. I knew about contempt in people’s eyes. In my life even outback barmen had looked at me with contempt in their eyes.

Linda took her jacket and walked to the door. When she got there, she turned and said, ‘If your new chum the Minister drops you in it because you can’t control me, my view is you should’ve asked me first. That’s about my pride. About your pride, I’d have thought you wouldn’t have given a fuck about getting struck off the roll if you could find out the truth about what happened to Danny McKillop. And if you think the Minister’s going to supply you with the truth, you have been living on some other planet for the last forty years. Goodbye.’

I rang twice before I gave up. She had the answering machine on. Halfway through my second message I felt pathetic and broke off. What was there to say anyhow? I lay down on the sofa and tried to sort out my thoughts.

It hadn’t occurred to me that Linda wouldn’t go along with what I’d done. I’d kept nagging at the thing because I felt I’d let Danny McKillop down. Twice. I didn’t think that anymore. I believed Bruce: Danny had probably intended to confront me over my part in his jailing; he might well have intended to kill me. And if Danny wasn’t framed for killing Anne Jeppeson, then she wasn’t murdered. That left the matter of finding out the truth about Hoagland. But I wasn’t going to give up my attachment to the law in pursuit of the truth about Hoagland. There wasn’t going to be any truth about it. No-one was going to go on trial for what would probably be regarded as a smart piece of property dealing. So it wasn’t a choice between getting justice for Danny or facing serious criminal charges. It was a choice between achieving nothing and getting struck off.

When I finally went to bed, I slept badly, the dream coming back for the first time in years, and, after it woke me, the unbidden and random memories of childhood. The dreams began when I was about nine, when we went to live in the grand house in Toorak with my grandfather, my mother’s father, after my father’s death. My screams would wake my mother in her huge room miles down the corridor. I could never explain the dream or why it was so frightening. It is about surfaces and textures: smooth, cold surfaces like great sheets of iced marble that suddenly become hot and buckle and twist; steel bars that become dense forests of hot, slippery entrails; pale surfaces that feel solid before they turn to blood-red ooze, sucking you down like quicksand. The dream comes with no warning, as if a trapdoor opens and I fall from the safe and known world into a world that is nothing but terrifying sensation in which I am utterly alone.