Tropic of Death

by Robert Sims

  The porch door opened as she approached. Paul stood in the doorway, looking even more pallid and youthful than he had at the base, dressed now in jeans and a Cambridge T-shirt.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said.

  Rita paused, trying to read the uneasiness in his face. ‘It was hardly an invitation I could ignore.’

  ‘Well, now you’re here, come inside.’

  She walked up the steps, through the double security doors of the porch and into the hall, without turning her back on him, an instinctive reflex.

  He was clearly nervous. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m here for,’ she replied.

  ‘Break the ice?’

  She nodded, ‘Okay,’ and followed him down the hallway. It led to a central living space where the middle of the house had been gutted and remodelled in a style that was part up-market , part cyberpunk.

  ‘Radical conversion,’ observed Rita. The decor was hi-tech and heavy metal, with walls of polished brass. Their metallic shimmer reflected the furnishings - sofa, chairs, table - all in matching chrome. ‘Must have cost a bit.’

  ‘Part of the package,’ explained Paul. ‘The transfer from NATO.’

  The electronics included a games computer, a music deck with recessed quadraphonic speakers and a brow-level television on an articulated metal arm. It was tuned to MTV. Industrial glass shelving was lined with DVDs. A metal-grid stairway led up to a balcony and glass alcoves beyond.

  ‘The Pentagon footed the bill for all this,’ added Paul.

  Strangely, the overall effect was somehow chic - and not masculine. The curtains and upholstery were a soft mauve, with cream rugs on the floor. The lighting was dimmed to highlight the glow of a wood fire, the flames flickering in what must have been an original fitting, a white marble hearth. And one wall was dominated by the shifting colours of a holographic projection - a scene depicting a woman among spring flowers.

  ‘Scotch?’ asked Paul.

  ‘With ice,’ she told him, and watched him pour their drinks from the same bottle, before turning to admire the 3-D image.

  He came over with the glasses.

  ‘It’s the most expensive thing in the house,’ he said, ‘after the research computer.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A laser version of a Pre-Raphaelite painting - Persephone’s Return from the Underworld. ‘

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly got a unique place here,’ Rita commented.

  ‘I don’t know what’s more impressive, the makeover or the location.’

  ‘The house has an interesting history,’ said Paul. ‘It was built a century ago by a German botanist who spent years documenting the species of flora he discovered.’

  ‘Did he name the place Eden?’

  ‘Yes. It’s how he saw the biodiversity of the rainforest - all that primeval creation, parts over a hundred million years old. Mind you, it acquired a certain irony when he died from snakebite.

  When we found the villa, it was unoccupied and dilapidated.’

  ‘Does your partner work at Whitley Sands?’

  ‘That’s right. Everything here, including the interior design, is down to her.’

  Rita missed the significance until he gestured to a framed photo on the mantelpiece. It showed Paul with an older woman.

  She had her arm around him. There were willow trees and a college archway in the background. Rita recognised the woman immediately.

  ‘You live here with Audrey Zillman?’

  ‘That’s the general idea,’ he answered.

  ‘You were recruited together?’

  ‘When she was headhunted, she insisted I was hired too. We were working together in Brussels.’ Paul gave a sour smile. ‘I was her postgrad toy boy at the time, you see.’

  ‘I think I do,’ said Rita. It seemed Audrey habitually indulged in affairs with her brightest students. ‘And now?’

  ‘She doesn’t play anymore. Too busy being system controller.

  Too deeply embedded in Panopticon. I’m her latest reject.’

  He didn’t bother to hide his rancour. The words also cast a new light on the simmering tension in his manner and explained the friction Rita had witnessed during her visit to Paul’s control room earlier in the day. His bitterness could easily be the result of an unhealthy dependence, an Oedipal relationship that had hit the rocks. If so, it meant Paul’s world was unravelling in more ways than one. It also meant he was psychologically unstable.

  ‘Talking of Panopticon,’ said Rita, changing the subject, ‘you got me up here to discuss Maddox and his henchmen, as you put it.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He motioned towards an armchair. ‘I want you to hear my version of events in case they hang me out to dry.’

  Rita sat down, crossed her legs and sipped the Scotch. It was very expensive double malt.

  ‘Your version isn’t good enough,’ she said. ‘I want full disclosure on how you’re involved.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Paul, dropping onto the sofa. ‘It’s in my own interest to be completely upfront with you.’

  ‘Good. Then you can start by explaining what you were doing at the Diamond on the night of Rachel Macarthur’s murder.’

  ‘Okay.’ He took a gulp of whisky and reached for his cigarettes.

  ‘We might as well start with how things got bollocksed up. Not that I feel guilty about it. What we do in private is nobody else’s business. I was a victim of bad timing.’

  It was the sort of self-justification Rita had heard before in her work with Sex Crimes. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The Diamond has a lively reputation. It attracts a certain type of clientele. When things with Audrey went cold I needed - how shall I put it? - distractions.’

  ‘You were there for the prostitutes.’

  Paul narrowed his eyes as he lit up. ‘Just the one, actually.’

  ‘But you’re a regular customer?’

  ‘Not anymore. Not after Maddox interrogated her. Now she won’t have anything to do with me.’

  ‘What’s this girl’s name?’

  ‘Marilyn.’ He winced. ‘Marilyn Eisler. One of those women who makes you addictive.’

  Rita recognised the syndrome - obsession with a prostitute.

  ‘Does she work for Billy Bowers?’

  ‘The club boss, no. She’s an internet hooker with her own website, organises her bookings online. Her professional name is Ice.’

  ‘Was “being familiar” with Ice the trouble Audrey referred to earlier today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what does she think about it?’

  Paul gave a derisive grunt. ‘Audrey is sublimely detached. Like she is about everything.’

  ‘Unusual woman.’ Rita raised her eyebrows. ‘So: Maddox. Why is he on your case?’

  ‘Because I more or less accused him of being involved in the killing of Rachel Macarthur. I told him her death proved he and his cronies were acting like an out-of-control Praetorian Guard.’

  ‘What was his reaction?’

  ‘That’s just it - he wasn’t fazed at all.’ Paul dabbed at an ashtray. ‘He didn’t get angry, just spoke to me quietly, which was even more chilling.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That the jury was out on me. That I was being reassessed.

  That my days could be numbered. He made it sound like a death sentence was hanging over me, not only because going with a vice girl made me a security risk, but because I appeared to be unstable.’ Paul puffed out some smoke. ‘He also warned that my murder allegation could rebound on me and I could find myself a prime suspect. His parting threat was to say it was in his power to throw me to the wolves.’

  ‘Threats come easily to him.’

  ‘What if I’m right and the regime at the base is involved in murder? They could be setting me up as a fall guy. You’ve got to believe I’m an innocent bystander. That’s what I needed to tell you.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m constrained by national security iss
ues. Do you have recourse to any channel within the defence department?’

  ‘Not really. I’m thinking of lodging a formal grievance but I feel trapped. If I could pack up and go back to England tomorrow, I would.’ He raised his glass in a mock toast. ‘ Exitus Australis. ‘

  Rita sat back, cradling her drink. ‘Without revealing the internal details of the police investigation, I can assure you that you’re not a suspect.’

  ‘Thank God. I’m beginning to feel desperate.’

  ‘What else can you tell me about the Diamond? Have you had any contact with Billy Bowers?’

  ‘Not much. Marilyn introduced me to him once. He’s the local hero. Seems to be on first-name terms with everyone around here, including Maddox.’

  ‘You’ve seen them together?’

  ‘Yes. I spotted Maddox coming down the stairs from Billy’s office.’

  ‘Before or after Rachel’s murder?’

  ‘About a week before. It didn’t surprise me, though. I’ve bumped into other people from the base there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That American gorilla, Kurt Demchak. I had a few drinks with him.’ Paul couldn’t help smirking.

  ‘What’s the joke?’

  ‘I told him the US was a modern parallel of the Roman Empire and would suffer the same fate. Demchak wasn’t amused.’

  ‘I’m yet to meet him,’ said Rita.

  ‘He called me a slimy limey when I said Whitley was a frontier outpost of the American Empire, like the forts on Hadrian’s Wall.’

  ‘You seem fond of classical references.’

  ‘That’s my public school background showing. I had Latin drummed into me as a kid.’

  Rita finished her drink.

  ‘Another?’ asked Paul.

  ‘No thanks.’ She put down the empty glass. ‘Did you ever meet Rachel Macarthur?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have any sympathy for the greens?’

  ‘Shouldn’t we all? Something’s got to be done to stop humans destroying the works of nature - the forest, the reef.’

  ‘What about the campaign against Whitley Sands? Do you sympathise with that?’

  ‘No. The protest against Panopticon is misguided and cretinous.

  It’s an example of campaigners behaving like ignorant technophobes.

  And if I’d ever met Rachel Macarthur I would have told her to stick to blocking destruction of the rainforest, like that god-awful resort being built down the road.’

  ‘You’re in favour of total surveillance?’

  ‘I’m blown away by the science. The application’s another matter.’

  ‘I see.’ Rita stood up to leave, but she couldn’t resist the temptation to ask one final question. ‘By any chance, do you remember a fellow student from your time at Cambridge, an Australian called Byron Huxley?’

  ‘Good grief, of course I do,’ said Paul. ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Say hello to him for me. We studied together.’

  Rita smiled and turned to go, thinking, That’s not all you have in common.

  34

  ‘How’s your Guinness?’ asked Luker. His drinking companion gave a sigh of resignation.

  ‘Dark and bitter,’ he answered. ‘Much like the memories it triggers.’

  Rex Horsley was the British representative on the International Risk Assessment Committee. Ostensibly a consular attache, he was the Secret Intelligence Service agent who attended briefings at Whitley Sands.

  ‘I hope there’s a point to dragging me in here,’ he added, glancing around the raucous interior of Rafferty’s. ‘This place makes me twitchy. Reminds me of the Bogside.’

  Luker found the comment amusing, although he wasn’t meant to. The surroundings were designed to be evocative - a counter draped in Irish tricolours, sawdust on the floorboards, wooden walls hung with Sinn Fein pennants and aquatints of the Easter Rising. But a country music band was belting out traditional bush ballads and the bar was full of loud young Australians oblivious to political subtlety. Horsley was alone in his sensitivity to Republican symbolism.

  Perhaps it was understandable. He’d had his share of intelligence nightmares. Lean-faced and unsmiling, there was a permanent air of discontent about him. A product of Sandhurst and the Curzon Street era of MI6, he’d been dispatched to Northern Ireland during the troubles, and had emerged jaded and bound for desk work.

  He bore his fate with a blend of superiority and disenchantment.

  It was a posture, Luker noted, that tended to afflict members of the British officer class.

  ‘It still bothers you?’

  ‘Conditioned reflex,’ answered Horsley. ‘With any luck, Ulster can be consigned to history.’

  ‘Talking of history,’ Luker went on, ‘do you think America’s the new Roman Empire?’

  ‘That, my dear chap, is a loaded question.’

  ‘I only mention it because it’s a view that came up at a briefing with Molloy.’

  ‘Not from Molloy himself, I take it.’

  ‘No.’ Luker shook his head.

  Horsley contemplated his Guinness before asking, ‘So why exactly are we here?’

  ‘Let’s say it’s to check out the scene of the cell’s disappearance.’

  ‘Now you’re being disingenuous.’

  ‘And to take advantage of the noise level.’

  ‘Ah.’ Horsley gave a grunt of acknowledgement. ‘The old question: who spies on the spies? Now we have the answer: Panopticon.’ He leant forward and dropped his voice. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t rock the boat. It can only end one way.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’ll be tossed overboard.’

  They lapsed into silence while the band wound up a version of ‘The Wild Colonial Boy’.

  As the chorus ended, Horsley observed, ‘I sometimes doubt this land ever embraced the notion of being British.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, Stone Age inhabitants aside, it was colonised by thieves, whores and Irish insurgents, all of them hostile to British authority.

  Then, once the gold rush kicked in, it became a telescoped extension of the wild west. Which is the prevailing mind-set driving all of us these days.’ He drained his glass and placed it on the table between them before throwing Luker a cautionary look. ‘A word of warning, old boy. Don’t miss the point of your Roman analogy.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘All roads lead to Washington. Since 9/11 it’s pursued a unilateral foreign policy worthy of Imperial Rome. And while there’s a powerful lobby of neo-conservatives and evangelicals in place, you and I have to put up with self-righteous cowboys like Rhett Molloy.’

  ‘No matter what the consequences?’

  ‘Yes, including an unmitigated disaster in Iraq, and a war on terror that undermines the international legal system. Just because we’re languishing on the tropical coast of Queensland doesn’t mean we’re not locked into it.’

  ‘ E Pluribus Unum.’

  ‘Quite. Out of many, one - how America seals our fate.’ Horsley raised his eyebrows. ‘That means we don’t have the luxury of choice. Pre-emptive action, as you and I both know, means a shoot-to-kill policy. When that applies, there’s only one thing to do. Keep your head down.’

  Luker watched the waiter gliding among the rubber plants and potted yuccas of the piano bar at the Whitsunday Hotel. The scene was hushed. The brass table lamps had been dimmed. The last of the night owls sat drinking and smoking and contemplating the perplexities of life.

  Luker’s conversation with Rita earlier in the day had left him reminiscing about his journalistic past. His life had been loosely structured then, more spontaneous. Now every professional step came with a pitfall, every day was a process of calculation and every meeting reinforced the same lifeless agenda. He felt himself drowning in bureaucracy. Death by a thousand committees.

  The briefing with Rhett Molloy had been more of the same, only more depressing. The shari
ng of intelligence with Molloy - an oxymoron if ever there was one - was as substantial as a mirage.

  It produced a displaced reflection of the truth, shimmering in a false context. Luker had to pick out the bits that were useful and ignore the fanciful projections of Molloy’s dream-world, while revealing only what he wanted Molloy to hear. Then he had to act as a conduit to his masters. The procedure was as tedious as it was serious.

  Too often he sought an escape in late-night drinking. He’d half hoped, on this particular night, that Rita would join him. She wasn’t just a security risk, she was an attractive and interesting woman. He’d called her mobile but got only her voicemail, and when he’d sought out her room he found a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.

  The waiter homed in on him across the expanse of bamboo matting, and Luker ordered another two drinks. One more Scotch for himself, a gin and tonic for the woman who was powdering her nose. He’d met her for the first time a couple of hours ago.

  They’d got chatting about product research and market strategy.

  She was an executive saleswoman for a lingerie firm based in Adelaide, or so she said. Staying at the hotel for one night only.

  She was divorced, talkative, late thirties, fending off the approach of middle age with strategic cosmetics and tasteful clothes. She was also lonely. Like him. They were both fully occupied professionally, but less busy in their private lives. The sort of people who struck up conversations in late-night bars.

  When she returned from the ladies room she sat down, looking neat and freshened, with an over-bright smile on her face. Luker smiled back. He’d played the scene often enough before. When they’d finished their drinks he suggested a coffee.

  She said, ‘Wouldn’t you rather a nightcap in my room?’

  He said, ‘That would be delightful.’

  The polite ritual ran true to course. She ushered him upstairs to her room, selected drinks from the mini-bar, slipped off her shoes and earrings and shook loose her hair. When he kissed her she switched off the light and took him to bed, where she was too strenuous and he was too casual. A mutual disappointment.

  She fell asleep, but he merely dozed and stirred himself an hour or so later. He slipped out of bed, got dressed, tiptoed from her room and closed the door quietly behind him. He wouldn’t see her again.