Crooked House

by Peter Menadue

  A television van pulled up against the curb. A cameraman jumped out, dashed up the stairs and filmed the cop talking to Bilson.

  Maureen Hogan, dressed in a bathrobe, stepped out and started berating the cop. Suddenly, she saw the TV camera, shrieked and ducked back inside.

  I put down the Camcorder and muttered: "That’s a wrap."

  Feeling very self-satisfied, I drove back to Parliament House and anonymously mailed a DVD of what I’d filmed to Angelica Bilson at the ABC bureau.

  That evening, I watched the TV news, hoping to see an item on the motel incident. Disappointingly, there wasn’t one. The lovebirds must have persuaded the station to put a lid on it.

  A week later, I met Alan Casey in the Safari Bar in Manuka for a drink. Half-way through our first round, he said: "Have you heard about Bilson and his wife?"

  "What about them?"

  "She discovered he’s been doing the horizontal tango with Maureen Hogan."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. And she didn’t take it lightly. I hear she scratched his face and threw him out of the house. He’s now wandering around with a big bandage on his forehead."

  Angelica Bilson was half-crazy, so her reaction didn’t surprise me.

  "These are distressing tidings - they really are."

  He smiled. "Thought they would be. Yet, that’s not all she did. She went and saw Hogan."

  "You’re kidding?"

  "No. Stormed into Hogan’s office and kept screaming that Hogan was a ‘bitch’ and a ‘slut’. Someone called security and she was led away. There’s even talk about the Speaker getting involved: revoking her media pass."

  "That likely?"

  "No. She’ll probably just get a slap on the wrist."

  "You know, I could understand her reaction if she was married Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. But Bilson’s a dickhead. She should have told Hogan to keep the bastard."

  "I know. But she obviously doesn’t like other people messing with her property."

  "I suppose so."

  Alan emptied his glass. "Guess how she found out about the affair?"

  "How?"

  "Someone filmed the two lovebirds meeting at the Florida Motor Inn and sent her the tape."

  "Really? What sort of sick bastard would do something like that?"

  He smiled. "Don’t know, though if you kept a copy, I’d love to see it."

  "OK. I'm afraid the camera-work’s a bit shaky."

  "I won’t complain."

  A few days later, I bumped into Bilson in the Press Gallery corridor and couldn’t resist a dig. "Hey Thomas, I hear you've been spending some time at the Florida Motor Inn."

  He stopped and scowled. "That was you, was it? You made that film?"

  "Of course it was me, you hypocritical prick."

  "You cunt."

  Recently, a professional killer had tried to ice me. That made Bilson even more insignificant than before. I took a step forward. "Fuck you. I'm ready for round two, if you are."

  He took a step back. "What are you talking about?"

  I took another step forward. "Any time you want to fight, I'm ready, you dickhead."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Of course I am."

  He frowned and took a half-step back. "You’re not worth the trouble."

  "Bullshit. You don’t have the guts, do you?"

  "Fuck off."

  I took another step forward and raised my fists. Boy this was fun. "Come on. I’m ready."

  "I wouldn’t waste my time," he said and scampered away.

  I looked around. No audience. Bummer. Nonetheless, I felt a deep atavistic glow and finally understood the appeal of violence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Every morning I scanned the Canberra Times, looking for stories about the police investigation into the deaths of Yvonne Clarke and Joanna Parker, and saw none. Out of curiosity, I gave Special Agent Gilroy a call and asked him what was happening.

  "Why do you want to know?" he asked suspiciously.

  "Just curious. After all, I found Yvonne’s body and, at one time, was your prime suspect."

  He cleared his throat. "Umm, that’s true. But I’ll only talk off the record."

  "Sure. How’s your investigation going?"

  "Until recently, very badly. Then, a few days ago, we had a big break. In fact, I think we’ve identified the killer."

  "Really? Who?"

  "Guy called Jack Cooper."

  I was tempted to tell him that was old news to me. "You mean, the crook murdered a few weeks ago?"

  "Yes."

  "Why do you think it was him?"

  "In his motel room, we found a map of Canberra. On it, he marked the locations of both Yvonne Clarke and Joanna Parker’s homes. We wondered why he was in Canberra. Looks like he came down here to murder them."

  Gilroy was obviously delighted to pin the murders on a notorious thug now too dead to create any tricky alibis or excuses.

  I feigned ignorance. "Why would he kill them?"

  "Don’t know. In most homicide investigations there are loose ends. You’ve got to accept that."

  Gilroy didn’t seem to know that George Potter sent Cooper to Canberra or that the two women were killed to protect Vincent Martin, and I didn’t plan to tell him. Not without any evidence. The blowback could be considerable.

  I said: "Yeah, I guess so."

  For the rest of the day, I mentally picked over my conversation with Special Agent Gilroy. It bothered me, though I couldn’t work out why.

  That night, as I drove home, I finally realised what troubled me: Gilroy didn’t mentioned that Yvonne Clarke had a hidden camera in her house. Surely, if he knew about the camera, he’d have mentioned it.

  The cops obviously didn’t find the camera when they searched the murder scene because they weren’t looking for it. But their failure made me even more curious to see where she hid it.

  I turned my car around and drove back past Parliament House to Woden, where I parked outside Yvonne’s house. It was almost eight o’clock. Every house had lights on, except hers. I looked around carefully. The street was deserted.

  I opened my glove box, took out a torch and strolled nervously up the flagstone path to Yvonne’s front door. Criss-crossing the doorframe was yellow tape labelled: "Police Crime Scene - Keep Out".

  During my affair with Yvonne I saw her hide a key under a pot-plant near the back door. I scurried around there and picked up the pot-plant. Metal gleamed in the moonlight.

  I unlocked the back door and, using the torch, anxiously padded through the kitchen to the living room. The biggest change to its décor was the absence of Yvonne’s body. But the carpet still had large patches of dried blood and the furniture was spattered with grey fingerprint powder.

  My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the torch. I closed the curtains and turned on the ceiling light.

  Facing the couch was a large wall unit with a television and DVD player. On the top shelf was a radio clock. I looked behind the clock. Two thick wires ran from it, down behind the wall unit, and into the DVD player.

  There was obviously a hidden camera in the radio clock, and the player recorded the picture. Simple, and very effective.

  I looked at the player and idly pushed the eject button. To my surprise, a DVD popped out. No label or writing.

  Excitedly, I turned on the TV, pushed the DVD back into the machine and pressed "play". The TV screen now showed footage of the living room behind me. It was empty. But I only had to wait a few minutes before Yvonne backed into the room, with Barry Graham, Vincent Martin’s political adviser, pursuing her.

  Christ. Barry Graham.

  Yvonne held up her hands, fearfully: "Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. It was a mistake. I’m sorry."

  He yelled: "You silly bitch. You fucking stupid bitch. You could have ruined everything."

  "Look. I won’t say anything. I promise. I promise."

  Graham held what looked like a metal pipe. He raised i
t high and hit her savagely on the head. She collapsed to the floor. He raised the pipe again.

  My stomach heaved. I’d seen enough. I jumped forward and turned off the player. Mercifully, before he struck another blow, the TV screen went black.

  Not for the first time in that room, I felt like throwing up. I stumbled back and sat on the couch, quivering. Bile caressed my tonsils before receding. I took some deep breaths and tried to make sense of what I’d just seen.

  On the night Yvonne died, she turned on the hidden camera. Maybe she wanted to record her chat with me. Or maybe she knew Graham was on his way over to see her.

  In any event, I was totally wrong when I concluded that Jack Cooper killed Yvonne and Joanna. In fact, the real murderer was Barry Graham. Cooper was only called in later, to clean up the mess that Graham had created. I’d unfairly maligned Cooper. He was probably responsible for many murders, but not those ones.

  In a way, Graham’s guilt didn’t surprise me, because he depended on Vincent Martin for his political future. If Martin became Prime Minister, Graham would stand behind the throne and wield enormous power, making even ministers do his bidding; if Martin crashed and burned, so would Graham. Their fates were intertwined.

  So when Yvonne Clarke told Martin that she’d made an incriminating DVD of him, and that Joanna Parker had stolen it, Martin asked Graham to recover it from Joanna.

  Martin probably didn’t ask Graham to kill Joanna. If he wanted her dead, he surely would have given the task to someone else. But Graham killed her anyway: when she wouldn’t turn over the DVD, he got angry and stabbed her.

  I’d never been interested in acquiring power, and therefore had trouble understanding why someone would kill for it. Yet, all the stories I’d heard, all the books I’d read, and everything I knew about history, said many people would.

  Anyway, one murder quickly led to another. Graham realised that Yvonne would soon work out that he killed Joanna, so Yvonne also had to die.

  Only after Graham had left a trail of dead bodies behind him, and still hadn’t found the DVD, did George Potter - at Vincent Martin’s behest - call Jack Cooper into action. But Cooper’s attempts to find the disk were also disastrous. After he made a public spectacle of himself at Canberra Hospital, Potter had him eliminated.

  So Vincent Martin probably didn’t order the deaths of Yvonne and Joanna. They died because his right-hand man, Barry Graham, tried too hard to protect him. Graham sallied out to save the day and ended up killing two women. As I always suspected: no common sense.

  Clutching the DVD, I returned to the back door and peered outside. All was quiet. I scurried around to my car, got behind the wheel, slipped the disk into my briefcase and headed for home.

  What should I do with the disk? I could, of course, give it to the cops. But I didn’t trust them. Richard Reston seemed to know everything the cops did. He even had a copy of the statement I gave to Special Agent Gilroy. So the cops might be working for him. If I gave them the DVD, they might destroy it. Then Barry Graham would get away with murder, and I would end up on a morgue slab.

  So I rejected that option.

  I could, of course, write a story about the DVD and try to get it published in the Herald. But I wasn’t enthusiastic about that option either. First, I’d have to deal with Dirk Tucker and the paper’s defamation lawyers, who’d want to kill the story stone dead. Then, if it was published, I’d have to explain to the cops how the DVD came into my possession and why I with-held it from them. They’d probably charge me with obstruction of justice. I’d quickly go from being a paladin of the fourth estate to a prison inmate.

  That left only one option.

  I parked in my garage and made a beeline for my front door. Anne had moved back into the townhouse a few days earlier. I found her sitting on the couch, watching TV. I slumped down next to her, kissed her behind the ear and whispered a few endearments.

  Because I was a born-again SNAG, I asked about her day and listened attentively while she gave me a 15-minute spiel on office politics: someone spread a nasty rumour; someone was having an affair; someone else got fired. I stifled several yawns and told myself that what does not kill me will only make me stronger. Eventually, she had to take a breathe.

  "Mmm, sounds interesting," I said with practised sincerity. "Just out of curiosity, your computer at work can burn DVDs, right?"

  "Yeah, of course."

  "Can I drop past your office tomorrow morning and copy a disk I’ve been given."

  She said: "What sort of disk?"

  I’d promised Anne - and myself - that I’d stop lying to her. Yet there were some nasty truths it was better she didn’t know. A lie with a big wing-span fluttered from my lips. "Umm, it’s just a movie someone lent me. I want to keep a copy."

  Oh well, I tried to be honest. It just didn’t work out.

  She said: "OK. No problem. You can drop by tomorrow morning."

  "Thanks Babe. And, umm, will you be there?"

  "Why? Don’t you want me there?"

  "I just don’t want to get in your way?"

  She stared at me. "It’s not a dirty movie, is it?"

  "No. Course not."

  "OK then. I’ll be in court from about nine-thirty. Drop in after that. My computer will be on."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The next morning, Anne left the townhouse and drove to work. An hour later, I followed her. On the way, I stopped at a supermarket and bought ten blank DVDs.

  Anne worked for a law firm called Gilson & Lowe, which occupied a large suite on the first floor of a drab office block. The receptionist knew I was Anne’s boyfriend and let me wander into Anne’s empty office. I spent the next hour using her computer to make ten copies of Yvonne’s DVD. Anne didn’t return.

  I drove to Parliament House and caught a lift up to the Press Gallery floor, where I slipped the ten disks into the press boxes of all the major television networks and newspapers, keeping only the original for myself. Then I strolled into my bureau and made myself a cup of coffee. I’d lit the fuse. Now I just had to wait for the explosion.

  I didn't have to wait long.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The police never arrested Barry Graham for murder.

  The following day he was found, slumped in his car, on a dirt road outside Canberra, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.

  The Homicide detectives concluded that, after hearing about the incriminating DVDs circulating around Parliament House, he committed suicide; that was preferable to public ignominy and thirty years in a maximum-security prison.

  However, I’ve always wondered whether he really killed himself. I say that because, according to a Park Ranger who saw Graham drive into the forest, a bald guy sat next to him.

  The same bald guy who worked for Reston? Reston had boasted the guy did "wet work" for an obscure branch of the Government. Maybe the guy faked the "suicide".

  I never found out.

  Of course, our new Prime Minister, Vincent Martin, expressed shock and dismay at Graham’s activities. He said he had no idea Graham was in a relationship with Yvonne Clarke or had murdered her. Indeed, he felt a profound sense of betrayal.

  Certainly, it never came out that Martin was, in fact, the one who slept with Yvonne, or that Graham killed her in a misguided attempt to protect him.

  About a week after Graham’s death, I got a call from the PM’s press secretary, Gary Holden. Did I want to have a one-on-one interview with new PM?

  Prime Ministers rarely give exclusive interviews to reporters, particularly those who work for obscure publications like the Launceston Herald. Certainly, this would be my first. My suspicions were aroused. Was this just a PR exercise? Or did it relate to the deaths of Barry Graham and Yvonne Clarke?

  I said: "What does he want to talk about?"

  "Oh, how he’s settling in as PM, his plans for the future - that sort of stuff."

  "I can probably fit him in."

  "Good."

  The next day, H
olden showed me into the PM’s spacious office. Aboriginal prints festooned the Huon-pine walls. A huge glass wall overlooked the Ministerial Courtyard. I’d spent more than a decade working in Parliament House, but never entered this inner sanctum. I was awe-struck.

  Martin, wearing a white shirt with blue braces, stood looking down into the courtyard. Gary coughed and he spun around.

  On the few occasions I’d chatted with him, he was bursting with vitality: an alpha-male on the make. Today, though, his face looked flaccid and eyes dull. Due to the weight of his office or the burden of his guilt?

  After a flickering smile, he shook my hand. "Ah, Paul. Thank you for coming."

  "Thank you for finding the time."

  He glanced at Holden. "How long do we have?"

  "Half-an-hour."

  "Then let’s get started. Take a seat."

  We sat on a huge leather L-shaped couch, him on one limb and me on the other. Holden sat in a chair behind the PM and turned on a pocket tape-recorder to record our chat.

  I turned on my tape-recorder and put it on the black onyx coffee table in front of the PM.

  For the next half-hour we talked about his new job: the emotional demands of being PM, the new policies he’d announced, the political challenges ahead and his vision for the country. He spoke calmly, yet looked distracted. I soon became convinced the interview was a pretext. He had another agenda.

  Finally, I took a deep breath and asked for his reaction to the death of Barry Graham.

  He shook his head, sorrowfully: "A terrible tragedy. Terrible. But I’ve already spoken publicly about that matter and don’t want to say any more."

  Holden interjected: "Prime Minister, the half-hour is up."

  "Really?"

  "Yes."

  "Mmmm. Then I suppose we’d better stop." He looked at me. "Is that enough?"

  "Of course."

  His hands fluttered about. "Umm, before you go, I want to have a private chat."

  "Really?"

  "Yes." The PM looked at Holden. "Umm, Gary, would you mind leaving Mr Ryder and me alone. There’s something we have to discuss."