Flood country

by Robert Maddison

  A few minutes later she called back. ‘We’re ready—Oh god I hope we’re doing the right thing here Jack.’

  Jack put her on speaker phone and Luke joined in, ‘Ange, this is Luke again. I know this can’t be easy for you guys. Hang in there. It may be that she doesn’t recognise anyone—that can happen with trauma cases, so watch her carefully.’

  ‘Alright, thanks. I just need to keep reminding myself of what this is all for. I hope it’s worth the risk.’

  Next they heard through the phone Ange encouraging Jen and explaining what she had to do. Richard’s muffled tones could also be heard in the background, coaxing her. Then they heard Ange say to Jen, ‘Here we go.’

  Jack and Luke waited for some sound to come through the phone—there were just fidgeting sounds until Jen screamed—an ear-splitting shriek. ‘That’s the bad lady who lied to me—she said she was taking me to school and then put me in that taxi with the really evil man, then I went to sleep,’ said Jen, all the words rushing out together.

  ‘It’s ok, Jen. It’s ok, darling,’ said Ange, comforting her. ‘You’ve done a great job.’ A minute or so went by and they heard Jen’s sobbing begin to subside.

  ‘Darling, do you want to go for a canoe on the river with Richard now while I just speak to daddy for a moment,’ they heard Ange say.

  Jack and Luke could tell from the sounds that Jen and Richard were leaving as Ange came back on the line. ‘Not much doubt there,’ she said, ‘but I don’t want to put her through the other one—it sounds like the man terrified her even more.’

  ‘Yes, I agree,’ said Luke. ‘Can you tell me what number is on the face she identified please.’

  ‘Number four,’ replied Ange.

  ‘Thanks. If she’s the one we have in custody it should be enough. My mate in Melbourne said she seemed like the smarter of the two so if we nail her we’ll get him too, I suspect. Thanks again,’ said Luke.

  Jack jumped back in, ‘Is Jen going to be ok, Ange?’

  ‘I can see her from here. She and Richard have just taken off in a kayak—which she loves. I think she’ll be alright. She’s a tough little rooster. Can you please let me know what happens—if this helped? I really want these people caught and dealt with after all they’ve done.’

  ‘And you haven’t heard the rest of it yet. I’ll save that until I come down to see you guys in a week or two. See ya,’ said Jack.

  Chapter 90

  Luke called his mate Harry, the sergeant in Melbourne, with the news.

  ‘Good timing, mate. They’ve just lawyered up and are about to be set free on bail. Tell me we have more, please,’ he said.

  ‘If your lady friend there was number four in the PowerPoint you sent through, then yes we do. Little girl just picked her out with no doubts at all. In fact; more than that, she screamed something about the very evil taxi driver too. We couldn’t push her to look at the men’s PowerPoint though—too traumatic I’m afraid,’ said Luke.

  ‘That’s alright. You’ve made my day anyway. Let me just go and spoil theirs by re-arresting them on the new charge of kidnapping. Leave it with me to see what we can get from her,’ said Harry.

  ‘Before you go, Harry. ICAC’s IT fella has flushed out a name for you. Vincent Simpson or Sutcliffe, either it seems—he’s not a very nice person. Chances are he’s the one pulling the strings of your little dumb and dumber pair down there. We really need them to implicate this guy—that will start the pack of cards collapsing.’

  Sergeant Hildenberger had been doing this job for a long time—30 years in fact—and it was rare to have such information to ambush a suspect. Game, set and match, he thought as he walked into the interview room where Georgia was seated, glaring at him, with her sleazy-looking lawyer beside her.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Georgia fired at him.

  ‘This better be good, Sergeant,’ said the lawyer.

  Oh, it is, he thought, smiling inwardly. ‘I’m wondering what your client might know in relation to the kidnapping of an eight-year-old child called Jennifer Miller last week?’ Harry asked.

  Harry noted a slight twitch in Georgia’s eyes and some colour drain from her face as she turned to look at her lawyer. ‘I assume nothing,’ he said on her behalf.

  Harry looked directly at Georgia. ‘Is that so, Ms Vardos?’

  She didn’t answer due to the firm hand of her lawyer on her arm.

  Harry continued. ‘Because you see, what’s slightly awkward here is that the little girl lives at the same premises you were in the act of setting fire to last night…’

  ‘Allegedly, said her lawyer.’

  ‘Yes indeed, allegedly,’ said Harry very deliberately.

  ‘The good news is that the little girl was returned unharmed, at least physically. The bad news is that about an hour ago the little girl positively identified your client as one of the people who abducted her,’ Harry dropped the virtual hand grenade in Georgia’s lap.

  Georgia slumped forward. It was now her lawyer’s turn to have the colour drain from his face.

  ‘If you’d like I can give you a moment to confer with your client in private,’ Harry offered congenially. ‘When I come back we’ll be charging her with this offence, as well as the intent to commit arson,’ he said, starting to rise off the chair.

  ‘It wasn’t my fucking idea, none of it was,’ Georgia suddenly erupted with her head still bowed. ‘I told him it was too risky and that burning the place down; shit—well that was just unnecessary.’

  ‘And who would “him” be,’ inquired Harry, quietly.

  Georgia sat back upright, her eyes red and moist. She remembered that Vinnie was family. ‘I can’t tell you that—honour among thieves or whatever that fucking expression is.’

  ‘So you’re willing to take the full rap. Do you know how long you might go away for this?’ Aussie Rules football-mad Harry couldn’t resist. ‘I’m guessing you won’t see Carlton play footy again for at least a decade. That young old star—Kreuzer—they’ve just recruited, will be about to retire when you get out.’

  Georgia replied tersely, ‘I don’t give a shit about that, you fucking clown. All I know is that I won’t give you any names.’

  ‘That’s your call, Georgia. I’ve just had a call from one of my colleagues up in a place called Dawson. Ring any bells with you?’ he teased. ‘They’re investigating a murder which is tied up with this kidnapping. You’re in the crosshairs, my dear. So cut the loyalty crap—someone’s gonna let you and your rocket scientist mate in there take the fall.’

  She sat there, unmoved. Her lawyer shifted nervously on his seat.

  ‘Ok, don’t say I didn’t give you the opportunity to make things a bit easier for yourself. The Dawson boys have given me a heads-up on who they think is calling the shots here, one Vincent Simpson, or is it Sutcliffe this week?’

  At that moment Georgia knew it was all over. She again slumped forward and then sat upright and looked Harry straight in the eye. ‘Ok copper, you must think you’re pretty smart, arsehole. Yes, it was all set up by Vinnie. He was the one who asked for the kidnapping and he was also the dickhead who wanted to send a message to Jack the journo guy by torching that house.’

  ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. What do you know about who gives Vinnie his directions—I presume he’s not the fat controller,’ said Harry, loving this now.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t help you there. All I’ve ever heard him say is that “The Man” said this or “The Man” said that. You’ll have to ask Vinnie.’

  A triumphant Harry called Luke back and passed on the news that Georgia had confessed and also confirmed that Vincent, aka Vinnie, was her controller.

  ‘That’s what I needed to hear,’ said Luke, ‘now I’m going to find our friend in the black Land Rover and see if he answers to the name of Vinnie.’

  Chapter 91

  Mike and Charlie were again out patrolling on their quad bikes. Sharon had invited herself along—it would help her understand the ‘real
nitty-gritty’—as she put it—of what this was all about for the big story at the end.

  Despite the arrival of Luke and Mark in Dawson and their investigations, Mike and Charlie suspected that the water thieves would still be at it, especially with an environmental flow coming down the system. It would be too hard to resist, they’d advised Sharon.

  Sharon had received a brief training course in quad bike riding, similar to Jack’s a few days previously, and they were soon working their way along fence lines and through bent and twisted old gates, tracking the water as it attempted to make its way across the cracked and dry landscape.

  Charlie was in the lead and stopped his quad, turning to face his father and Sharon as they approached. ‘Hey Dad, look at this. Old Johno’s lowered the sill on his off-take again, the thieving bastard.’

  ‘Can someone explain for the beginner please?’ said Sharon.

  Charlie replied patiently. ‘Each off-take from the main water supply channel has a carefully set sill height, or base, meaning that water only starts to flow once the level in the supply channel reaches a certain height. This is one way the tap turners use to try to make sure water gets to the end of the line. An old trick is to lower the level of the sill so your off-take starts to flow before it should—and bingo, you get more than your share. A few minutes with an excavator can remove the rocks in the base of the channel, resetting the sill to a lower level. And, in reverse, if the word spreads that someone from Water Resources is on the prowl, the sill can be reinstated back to the legal height in minutes.’

  Mike just stood there shaking his head. ‘You’ve got to admire the audacity of these guys. Either that or they’re dumber than dog shit. You should take some photos for your big story, Sharon.’

  Sharon, as she extracted her camera from its bag, asked, ‘Isn’t some of this water meant for the wetlands down further?’

  Mike said, ‘You’d better take a seat for a minute, Sharon.’

  ‘Under the Water Sharing Plan for this river, as buggered up as it is, there’s an allowance for special releases from Carnaby dam—the so-called Environmental Contingency Allocations—or “greenie flows” as most of the locals call ’em. Down toward the bottom end of this river, from near here and onwards, there used to be close on 100,000 hectares of swamps on this floodplain when I was a boy—they call ’em wetlands now. When it flooded—which used to be quite regularly—we’d get tens of thousands of waterbirds coming here to breed. Huge colonies would spring up, literally overnight. Those floods also supported us graziers who relied on the watering of the floodplains to provide fodder for our stock.’

  ‘So what happened? Why does it look like a camel’s crotch now?’ asked Sharon.

  Mike replied. ‘With land clearing—both legal and illegal—and water diversions upstream—both legal and illegal—and then the drought on top, it’s been over ten years since the birds have come to breed and the swamps have shrunk to less than five per cent of the area they once covered. The ‘greenie flows’ were meant to offer life-support to these areas during hard times.

  Charlie continued, ‘Pete Wellsmore and bloody Robbo made certain the community stakeholder committee that decides on these allocations was stacked with their mates, meaning this option hasn’t been used since the Water Sharing Plan came into force. That was until recently, when the situation became so dire this small environmental flow was approved to avoid any accusations of bias in the process. Of course, everyone involved knew that very little of the enviro-water would actually make it to down to the swamps.’

  ‘This makes my blood boil, I have to tell you guys, and I’m embarrassed that I was also part of covering it up, in a way, by turning a blind eye,’ said Sharon.

  With that Sharon took some photos of the lowered sill and they continued on, reaching a point where the main supply channel divided to service several properties, including Mike and Charlie’s. They stopped again and all three of them stood there staring with utter disbelief.

  Over the years it had become quite common for one of the neighbours to put stop logs in the off-take to Mike and Charlie’s channel so that no water went their way. Not this time—they’d used concrete! It looked like about ten cubic metres of concrete had been poured into the channel behind their stop logs, meaning a massive dam had been created preventing water reaching them. Sitting under a tree was a large excavator with a concrete mixer attachment and lots of empty cement bags were blowing about the place.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ muttered Charlie.

  ‘Got to say I never thought I’d see the day someone did this,’ said Mike.

  ‘Is this for real? Who are they kidding?’ was all Sharon could add.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Take some photos, go back home, call Jack and his copper mates and get them out here, and then come back with the tractor and rip the bloody thing out,’ said Mike seething with anger.

  Chapter 92

  Mark was again seated across from ICAC’s assistant commissioner, Julie Tomkins. They were both reading the latest update emailed through by Luke.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Julie, ‘the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together. Sammie has started to track back further through the filing system so that will give us hard evidence of the corruption at the level of Wellsmore and lead us back to Drummond—who we now know from his suicide note was implicated. We’re assuming Wellsmore was murdered although I suppose death by misadventure or suicide can’t be ruled out until the coroner has examined the case. Putting aside the criminal activities for now—where does that leave us in terms of the corruption aspects, Mark?’

  ‘The minister’s office are maintaining they have no knowledge of that, of course, although I suspect Drummond tampered with the copy of the Ministerial briefing note that he gave us. Either that or they were very careful to always do their dirty work by phone or in face-to-face meetings to avoid any paper or email records. The only line we have to pursue right now—unless Sammie finds something more—is Todd Marchant, who was a regular caller to Wellsmore. I took the liberty of making an appointment with Todd. I’ve asked him to come here at 4.00 pm—I wanted him out of his comfort zone—on our patch.’

  Julie continued. ‘Good thinking. We should arrange to have a warrant here to impound his phone or Blackberry. If we can connect him to this Vinnie fellow then he has lots to explain, especially given the kidnapping and possible role in several other unpleasant things.’

  ‘In relation to Mr Sutcliffe, we’re trying to find him and he may lead us up the line to GrowOz and Goodacres. Robertson is now clearly implicated. He was very cagey when we spoke to him and I suspect he wouldn’t give up anyone above him in the organisation,’ said Mark.

  ‘What do your instincts tell you? Does this extend to the upper echelons of Goodacres or is it the result of some overzealous middle managers chasing a performance bonus?’

  ‘Given what Sammie has found so far this was no tin-pot operation and it’s been underway for at least five years, probably more. I can’t see Robertson being ballsy enough to pull it off from his level and Vinnie’s involvement and history suggests someone higher up. The lengths they’ve been prepared to go to also suggest these are people with a lot to lose if this all comes out. So, I’d guess it goes to the top or very close,’ Mark summed up.

  ‘Yes, I’d reached a similar conclusion so I did some homework on the Board and CEO of Goodacres while you were out at Dawson. The Chairman is Sir Lawrence Patterson, a Brit; and the CEO is Paul Stannard. Goodacres has the usual array of well-connected board members, although it’s hard to see any of them having the opportunity to pull the strings on something like this. Patterson gained a reputation in Europe for being an aggressive operator—not the conservative type at all. Same goes for Stannard—a real hard-arse. The gossip round town is that they were brought in to give Goodacres a serious shake-up—get it out of the doldrums.’

  Thinking aloud, Mark said, ‘Do we now have anything to lose by
confronting one of those two? Earlier on we didn’t want them to have time to sanitise files and computer records. I think what’s emerging is that they’ve been very careful in that regard. Vinnie is the key, once we find him. For now, maybe a little bluff from us might make them push the panic button.’

  ‘Yes, I agree. Let’s pay Mr Stannard a surprise visit after we see Todd,’ said Julie.

  Chapter 93

  Mike, Charlie and Sharon arrived back at Sunset Downs to collect the tractor. To Sharon’s surprise this was no little Massey Ferguson farm tractor for distributing hay or spreading fertiliser. It was a massive D9 Caterpillar—with an intimidating blade standing a metre or more high and close to five metres across—that Mike had picked up cheap at a clearance sale some years before. He told her he used it for special tasks like levelling paddocks to enhance the spreading of precious water, or distributing the spoil when the irrigation channels were cleared of their accumulated silt. Sharon commented sarcastically, ‘Jesus, Mike; why don’t you get a serious tractor, mate.’

  Before heading back to deal with the concrete blockage, Mike rang Jack.

  ‘Guess what, Jacky boy? Charlie, Sharon and I were out patrolling and found where the bastards have dropped a shitload of concrete in our off-take channel. I still can’t believe they’d go to that much trouble—concrete’s bloody expensive. It’s about the size of two of your ‘battery buses’.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Jack, incredulous. ‘You’ve got to admire their balls though. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m taking matters into my own hands. We’re heading back out there now with the tractor to rip it out. Thought you and the coppers might want to come and see it for yourselves.’

  ‘Mark’s gone back to Sydney. I’m sure Luke will though. Pip’s off doing a job with Jimmy so we’ll have to drive. How long till you get back there?’ said Jack.