Hammond Innes - Golden Soak

This was brought against me by Lone Minerals shortly after I was remanded in custody the second time. Their No. 2 drill hole had given more samples showing 0.2 nickel in pentlandite over a band width of 15 feet at a depth of 600 feet. It was this news, confirming the optimism of their annual report, that had caused the shares to rise so dramatically back in January. They had fallen just as fast since, for Freeman had brought in extra equipment and half a dozen holes drilled in quick succession had shown no trace of nickel. Following this announcement the shares hit an all-time low of 12 cents and there was an outcry from both the public and the Sydney and Perth stock exchanges. I was the obvious scapegoat and I suppose I should have realized that proceedings were inevitable once I had agreed to plead guilty to the immigration charges, for if I wasn’t Alec Falls then I had no right to pose as a mining consultant.

By pleading guilty my lawyer had hoped for a shorter sentence and permission to remain in Australia under my second name of Wentworth, which was my mother’s family name. But with a criminal charge pending he had agreed I should change my plea to one of not guilty when the immigration charge came up for hearing again. And then Kadek came to see me.

Ever since my arrest, it had puzzled me how the authorities could have known I could have entered the country on the passport of a man supposedly dead. There was always, of course, the outside chance that a zealous immigration official had been sent a copy of one of the English papers that had reported the Drym fire. But it was really too much of a coincidence, and at that first court appearance no evidence had been given covering this point. It had to be either Kadek or Rosa — they were the only ones who knew. And after Kedak had visited me here in prison I had no doubt who had tipped them off. Not that he admitted it, but it was there all the same, implicitly understood between us.

The date of Kadek’s visit was February 23, just four days after I had been informed of the Lone Minerals action. He was seated when I was brought into the interview room and he got up very abruptly. But he didn’t come forward to greet me, nor did he shake hands. I remember feeling at the time there was something almost guilty about the way he had started to his feet. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said with a gesture that seemed to include, not just the room, or even the prison, but the whole system. He had the same slim briefcase with him and he held on to it through the whole interview. ‘Treating you all right, I hope?’

I nodded. ‘All right.’ The same steel-trap mouth, not the flicker of a smile, and his eyes slitted as though he had brought the sun’s glare in with him. ‘I get bored, that’s all.’ That was before I started writing.

He sat down again and I took the other chair, facing him across the table. The door shut and we were alone. ‘Well?’ I asked. He still seemed hesitant, as though he didn’t know quite how to begin, and I said, ‘Is it about Lone Minerals? Is that why you are here?’

‘Yes.’ And then quickly, as though he wanted to get it over with: ‘You’re in a bit of a spot, Alec. You’ve pleaded guilty, which was sensible in the circumstances, but looking at it from Freeman’s point of view, that means your report on Blackridge was fraudulent.’

‘It was your idea,’ I said. ‘You introduced me as representing Trevis, Parkes amp; Pierce.’

‘Which you weren’t of course. But then I’m not going to admit that I knew that.’

‘Then you’ll be committing perjury.’

‘If I am called — yes.’

‘You will be,’ I told him.

‘But you went along with it. You didn’t deny it. And you wrote that letter. Les included it, every word of it, in his annual report. Signed — Alec Falls, Mining Consultant. It was that letter, more than anything else, that was responsible for the rise in the shares; that and the assay figures based on the surface sampling — ‘

But I wasn’t letting him get away with that. ‘The surface samples were taken by Petersen’s geologist from an area recommended by Culpin. If the dust was planted there it’s nothing to do with me.’ And I added, ‘I think you’ve forgotten something.’

‘What’s that?’

‘If anybody takes the can, it’s Chris. Remember? Culpin salted the area with nickel tailings taken from Western Mining by the aborigine, Gnarlbine. You know it, I know it.’

‘I don’t know anything of the sort.’

‘Nothing to worry about. That’s what you told me.’

I can still see that thin-lipped smile of his, the way he shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t remember.’ And then he was leaning towards me across the table. ‘Now look, Alec, I’m here to help you. But not if you’re going to put words into my mouth. You understand?’

I understood, all right. He would lie. Even under oath he would lie. He was crooked as hell, but it would be my word against his. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t think you’d want to be reminded of what you said.’

He nodded, knowing that he’d made his point. But just to be certain, he added, ‘This case will be before a jury. And they’ll all be Australians.’

‘And you’re an Australian and I’m not.’

‘Right. You haven’t a chance of implicating me, or Chris. In fact, if you try that, I can promise you things will go badly for you, very badly indeed. You had an option, don’t forget. And you took it up — 5,000 shares.’ He was smiling, sure of himself now. ‘Your only hope — and that is what I want you to understand — is to persuade Les Freeman to withdraw the case.’

‘And how do you suggest I do that?’

‘If you were to offer him something in exchange. Information, see. A company like Lone Minerals is dependent entirely on prospects. A really good prospect, something that would put the company on the map — if you could offer him that, then I’m sure he would have his lawyers back down.’ He was watching me now, his face tight-lipped, his eyes slitted, his whole body tense as though willing me to accept.

The brazenness of it! The sheer thick-skinned audacity … ‘You have the bloody nerve to come here — ‘ I stopped, suddenly aware that I was shouting. ‘What do you want?’ I was still trembling, but I had myself under control now. I knew very well what he wanted.

‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re not that dense. You were with Garrety when he died. And we all know why he went into the Gibson.’ He left it at that, his eyes fixed on mine, waiting. And I let him wait, the silence hanging in the stuffy air of that little room. In the end he sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll spell it out for you. Garrety knew the location of McIlroy’s Monster. That right?’

I didn’t say anything, watching fascinated at the sudden gleam that had come into his eyes, the naked greed of the man. I could deny it of course. But if I denied it, then there had to be some other reason why Garrety had gone into the Gibson, and I wasn’t going to admit that. So I kept my mouth shut, the two of us staring at each other in silence. At length he said, ‘We’re pretty certain he never reached the actual location. His Land-Rover had broken down and that’s the reason he stopped where he did. There’s no copper there as far as we know.’ He leaned a little further forward, his eyes searching my face. ‘Or is there? You were with him there when he died. You’re the only man, apart from that black, who knows what’s there in the ground.’ He was staring at me, tense and waiting.

‘It was your plane then that came over us?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. Chris chartered a Cessna on my instructions. He made two flights. On the second flight he flew very low several times over Garrety’s last camp. He could see him working on the Land-Rover’s engine, the black standing beside him. And there was a rock showing through the sand. He says it was some form of conglomerate, and as far as he could see there were no indications of copper. But then Chris isn’t a geologist and he wasn’t on the ground. You were.’