Slaughter Park

by Barry Maitland

  ‘No really,’ Bernard insists, ‘I bought it at an auction in New York.’

  Harry refuses all the same. Bernard chuckles. ‘Ignore me, I’m just a dilettante. And I take comfort in retreating to the past when faced with today’s barbarisms. Poor Amber. Do the police have any ideas at all?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. I’m persona non grata at the moment.’

  ‘A shame. Amber thought very highly of you. So how can I help you?’

  ‘It’s probably nothing, but I’ve been going through my father’s old papers and I discovered a reference to him meeting with your brother Martin at your then family solicitor’s offices in Sydney. The date was rather significant, the ninth of August 2002.’

  Bernard’s face, usually animated, suddenly becomes still. ‘Indeed significant,’ he says finally. ‘The day my brother died.’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve been wondering what their meeting could have been about.’

  Bernard shrugs. ‘A legal matter, I suppose. Your father was an expert.’

  ‘One of the surviving partners told me that you had lunch that day with Martin and the solicitor Norman Comfrey, who also died, and I wondered if they talked about the meeting with my father.’

  ‘Did I? To tell the truth, the terrible news from Kramfors drove everything else out of mind. I really can’t remember.’

  ‘So, did my father know your family?’

  Another shrug. ‘In those circles, Sydney is a very small town. I’m sure he must have come across members of our family from time to time, along with most other families of significance.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Well, I’m sorry to have interrupted you.’

  ‘Not at all.’ As they go out to the front hall, Bernard says, ‘It sounds as if you too have been looking into the past, Harry. As someone who’s made a career of it, I should warn you that it’s beguiling but dangerous. Better to look to the future. Remember that freedom is the recognition of necessity.’

  ‘Sounds profound. Who said that, Abraham Lincoln?’

  Bernard laughs. ‘Friedrich Engels. I understand your wife has recovered her sight, a wonderful boon. You should concentrate on enjoying it.’

  Harry nods, then says, ‘Oh, by the way, do you remember someone called Joseph Doyle from that time, twelve years ago? He may have been connected with your family.’

  ‘Joseph Doyle?’ Bernard looks vague. ‘I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I just came across a letter he sent to my father. Wondered who he was. Doesn’t matter.’

  Harry returns to Surry Hills and approaches the lane carefully, cap and dark glasses on, head down. When he’s satisfied it’s safe, he goes quickly to the front door and lets himself in.

  ‘Hi.’ He kisses Jenny, still feeling that little moment of surprise that she can now see him. ‘I got some groceries on the way.’ He tells her about his meetings, and the slightly odd, evasive tone of the conversation with Bernard. ‘I asked him if he knew of Joseph Doyle and he said not, but I don’t think he was telling the truth.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Jenny says. ‘Tomorrow we should go back to Kramfors.’

  75

  ‘I know it’s late, Bob.’ Deb hesitates, thinking she may be making a mistake. ‘Just wondered if I could call by and have a yarn.’

  ‘Now?’

  She imagines him in bed, groping for his glasses to see what the time is.

  ‘We could leave it till tomorrow.’

  ‘No, no. Now’s fine.’

  ‘Fifteen minutes?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Long enough for him to wash his face and get dressed. She’s sure now that this is a bad idea.

  She picks up a bottle of wine on the way, and when he opens the front door and sees it he says, ‘Going to be a long night, is it, Deb?’

  ‘A peace offering for disturbing you.’

  As he leads her through to the living room she catches odours from the direction of the kitchen. ‘That smells good. What did you have for dinner?’

  ‘Beef cacciatore. New recipe. I suppose you made do with a burger?’

  ‘Cold pizza.’

  He chuckles. ‘Want to try it? I can heat some up for you.’

  So they go to the kitchen and she sits at the table feeling like a little girl being indulged by a doting uncle. She pulls herself together and pours the wine. He puts a plate down in front of her.

  She picks up a fork and takes a bite. ‘Oh, that’s really good.’

  He beams at her as she wolfs it down. ‘So, how have you been, Deb? How’s things at the pointy end?’

  ‘Bit chaotic.’

  ‘Apropos?’

  ‘Apropos Harry Belltree.’ She wipes her mouth with a napkin and takes a gulp of wine. ‘Ken Fogarty has confessed in interview to murdering Terry Palfreyman.’

  ‘Jeez. I’d have liked to have been at that one.’

  ‘Be my guest.’ Deb calls the video file up on her iPad and hands it over to him.

  When the recording’s finished Bob shakes his head. ‘Why did he confess?’

  ‘I think he’d just had enough. They took him back to his cell and he hanged himself.’

  ‘Dear God.’

  ‘Thing is, we’re inclined to believe what he said. And if that’s the case, Jenny Belltree’s innocent. It’ll have to be cleared through the big bosses, but I think we should tell her she’s off the hook. Trouble is, I can’t. We don’t know where she is, or Harry. For all we know they’re on the run together. Could be anywhere.’

  ‘Maybe that’s the best thing for them.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’d like them at least to know it’s safe to come home if they want to. Their kid’s still here, Bob, with Jenny’s sister. They’re bound to try and get her out.’

  ‘Have you told the sister?’

  ‘No, neither her nor the other person Harry might be in touch with—Kelly Pool at the Times. We’re not making this public yet—maybe never, given the reaction from above. I can’t see the commissioner fronting the cameras on this one, can you? She’s not happy.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I can help you, Deb. Harry hasn’t been in touch with me and I have no means of contacting him. But I could have an informal word with Kelly and the sister, in case he contacts them.’

  ‘Thanks. They wouldn’t believe it from me, anyway. They’d think it was a trick.’

  Bob frowns, points to the iPad. ‘What was that about Fogarty being in a patrol car with Grimshaw?’

  ‘As well as claiming Fogarty was responsible for Palfreyman’s murder, Harry also suggested to me that he was mixed up in the Slater Park killings. He claimed that the only way the killers of the last two victims could have got the bodies into the park, under our noses, was in an authorised vehicle.’

  ‘Smart,’ Bob says.

  ‘Ridiculous, I thought. But I checked anyway, and came up with two unauthorised police patrol cars entering the park—one on the night of the third murder and the other on the night of the fourth. On the most recent occasion we had CCTV working at the gate. The driver was Eden Grimshaw, although that wasn’t the name on the ID he showed. The camera didn’t pick up the face of the man sitting beside him.’

  Deb reaches for her iPad and brings up the image. ‘But…’ She zooms in on the passenger’s hand. ‘He has a ring on his third finger, see? And a Rolex watch. Ken Fogarty had neither.’

  Bob peers at the screen. ‘Interesting. Ken Fogarty had no idea what he was getting himself into. Jeez, Deb, I wish I was back there with you.’

  ‘So do I, Bob. Let me top you up.’

  Later, when they’ve exhausted all the angles they can think of, she says she’ll call a lift. When it arrives he sees her out, watches as the car interior light comes on when she opens the front passenger door. A woman driver. For a moment it almost looks as if Deb gives her a kiss, then the car moves on. Bob frowns, shakes his head. ‘No, can’t be.’

  76

  They decide to drive up to Kramfors, borrowing Jenny’s parents’ Ho
lden. Since her father died, her mother has hardly driven it, complaining that there is too much traffic on the roads these days. ‘Mum won’t notice that it’s gone,’ Jenny says. ‘Though it may not start.’ Friday is her mother’s big bridge day, and by the time the bus delivers them to the end of the street she has already left home. Jenny leads the way down the side of the house, finds the key hidden beneath a pot of coriander. Inside the garage they find the car keys on the hook, start the car and open the garage door.

  Soon they are on the motorway heading north, then bypassing Newcastle and on to the Bucketts Way towards the country town of Gloucester. Harry, driving, notices how absorbed Jenny becomes in the passing scenery, greedy for the sight of it. They discuss what they’ll do when they reach the homestead, how they might talk their way in and find an opportunity to search Amber’s room. It all sounds very implausible.

  From Gloucester it’s not far along Thunderbolt’s Way to the turning for Cackleberry Valley and Kramfors. The road has been improved in places, Harry notices, dramatically so when they come to the section through the Cackleberry Forest. What used to be a narrow dirt road, heavily pot-holed, is now a broad, straight highway cutting through the dense bush.

  They see the timber thinning on the far side of the forest, and a sign that Harry remembers: PRIVATE PROPERTY. But now there is a high chain-link fence and closed gates blocking entry to the road across the paddocks beyond. A small demountable building stands next to the gates like a sentry post, and a man comes out as they approach.

  Harry lowers his window. ‘G’day. Can we get through?’

  The man, wearing a hi-vis orange shirt, bends to look into the car. ‘What’s your business, mate?’

  ‘We want to visit the homestead.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘We’re just tourists.’

  ‘Sorry. There’s no access.’

  ‘Why not?’

  They’re interrupted by a large truck arriving from inside the fence. The man opens the gate, waves to the driver. As it roars through they see the huge tree trunks it’s hauling.

  ‘They’re cutting the timber,’ Jenny says.

  The gate man returns to Harry’s window and tells him he’ll have to turn and go back. Harry does so, slowing when he gets to the mouth of a small side trail into the forest. He turns into it and parks the car in the bush, hidden from the road. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

  They follow the trail into the forest, the ground gradually rising. Sunlight filters down through the tree canopy to pick out rock outcrops, the glistening of dark leaves, the twist of vines and new growth struggling up towards the light. Occasionally they get glimpses out towards the valley, see a column of ochre smoke from a fire smudging the blue of the sky.

  They grow hot, struggling through increasingly rough country, the trail barely visible. Then another path joins them from the valley side and it broadens, climbing more steeply, until they come to the base of a wall of rock rising vertically through the forest.

  ‘I think I remember this,’ Harry says, and in his head he hears Amber’s voice: There are snakes.

  He leads the way along the base of the cliff until they reach a break, a narrow gully. Tumbled rocks form giant steps and they clamber upward, using hands and feet, panting with effort. They arrive at a rock shelf and Harry points to a faded black circle painted on the boulder facing them. ‘That’s the all-seeing eye that guards the approach to an Aboriginal sacred site. Amber brought me up here, to the eagle cave. Nearly there.’

  They climb the final section to a level rock platform partly sheltered by an overhang that forms the entrance to the shallow cave. From here there is a clear view out over the whole of the valley towards the dark egg-shaped hump of Cackleberry Mountain on the far side. Jenny turns towards it, then stops, pointing. ‘Harry, look. What’s happened?’

  Harry sees the familiar dark line of the landing strip for small planes, but the landscape around it has been torn apart. The stands of trees are gone, smoke rising from the razed ground. So too are the horse paddocks and fields of grazing cattle. And most shocking of all, Kramfors Homestead itself has disappeared, a heap of rubble all that remains. Large trucks and earthmovers are roaming over the site like mechanised dinosaurs, ripping the ground, stripping the topsoil, and exposing the first strata of black coal that lie beneath.

  Jenny says, ‘How could Konrad do this, destroy the family home, his grandfather’s heritage?’

  ‘This must have started months ago,’ Harry says. ‘They must have been waiting for Amber to be incapacitated so they could get on with it. She had no idea…’

  ‘I wonder. Do you remember how she was that last time we saw her? Almost as if she knew she was doomed. She told you to come up here, didn’t she?’

  Jenny turns towards the overhang. Beneath its shelter they see the Aboriginal rock art, the large red ochre figure of the eagle, the guardian of the valley, surrounded by the shapes of other animals and handprints. She moves further into the shallow cave, studying the images, most of them old and faded: snake, turtles, goanna, kangaroo. ‘Here’s another of your guardian eyes,’ she says.

  Harry looks at where she’s pointing, low down on one side. He doesn’t remember it from the last time he was here, and it seems oddly placed, almost out of sight. ‘It looks new.’ He crouches and picks up a charcoal stick lying below the symbol among a small pile of stones. He pushes them away to reveal a small black tin box, which he carefully picks up and prises open. Inside is an envelope, grubby and folded. He lifts it carefully out and unfolds it, sees the handwritten address: his father’s chambers. Inside is a letter and a curling piece of paper. A photograph, Polaroid, black and white.

  He takes it out into the light, smoothing it flat, and shows it to Jenny. A white shape lies in a tangle of undergrowth and tree trunks. He peers more closely and makes out the letters painted on its side: VH–MDX.

  Harry unfolds the accompanying letter, written in a careful script.

  Dear Judge Belltree,

  As arranged I will meet you at 2 pm on the 26th of next month at the place we first met up. I enclose the photograph I spoke of and will make a sworn statement.

  Yours faithfully,

  Joseph Doyle

  Harry examines the postmark on the envelope: Moree NSW 24 May 2010.

  ‘It’s like Amber told us. Joseph was planning to meet my father on the twenty-sixth of June, the day he died.’

  ‘To tell him about what happened to flight VH–MDX,’ Jenny says. ‘Terry was right. But how did Konrad get hold of this in the first place?’

  ‘Greg,’ Harry says.

  Jenny frowns, reluctant to believe that her sister’s husband would have done such a thing—despite everything they’ve learned since his death.

  ‘We knew that Greg betrayed Dad,’ Harry went on. ‘We just didn’t know exactly how. He stole this from Dad and sent it to Konrad, who then made sure that Dad never made it to the meeting. This is the reason why they died, Jenny—why you were blinded for three years.’

  77

  ‘Where the hell did you get this, Kelly?’ Roshed drops the flash drive into her palm.

  ‘You got into it?’

  ‘Sure did.’

  ‘So? What’s on it?’

  Roshed looks over his shoulder around the café, then takes out his phone, flicks at the screen until he finds what he’s looking for, and hands it to her.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Kelly stares at the picture, a dog of some kind with its throat torn open, another dog, bloody teeth bared, standing over it.

  ‘There are quite a few of those.’

  ‘I don’t want to look. Any people we can identify?’

  Roshed flicks through the images. A heavily muscled man is holding back a snarling Rottweiler on a chain. Foam is drooling from the dog’s jaws and the man is grinning at the camera, holding up a wad of banknotes in his other hand. ‘This guy.’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘I do. Amal Haddad, remember? You asked me
about Kylie McVea and I told you about Amal and his brother Khalil working for her.’

  ‘Her kennels, yes. So this is what they do out there.’ There’s another figure in the background, a man holding a can of beer. When she looks more closely Kelly recognises him, the black patch over his left eye. ‘I know that bloke. His name’s Craig Schaefer, mechanic, works for the Nordlunds. Is it all about the dogs?’

  ‘There’s pictures of girls, showing their all…Lot of flesh, but not too many faces.’ He finds a picture of a woman ogling the lens.

  ‘No, don’t know her. That all?’

  ‘I’ve saved the best till last.’ He shows her three people lounging in front of a pool, a crisp white modern building in the background, a pandanus tree.

  ‘I know where that is—Maturiki Island in Vanuatu. Owned by Konrad Nordlund. That’s him there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Who’s the Asian guy, any idea?’

  ‘I think his name is Deng Huojin, a Chinese businessman, part of the development consortium for Slater Park. Who’s the woman between them, in the bikini?’

  Roshed doesn’t answer and keeps flicking through the images, looking for another. ‘Aha…here she is again.’

  The woman in a room, lying on a bed, looking off camera. The bikini top has gone. Kelly would put her age at around fifty.

  ‘And number three.’

  A man is lying on top of the woman, both naked. Roshed zooms in. The woman is staring fixedly into the man’s eyes, gripping his black hair. ‘Don’t recognise her?’

  ‘She sort of looks familiar…’ The man looks twenty years younger.

  ‘But you don’t recognise her without her clothes on. Her name’s Susan Aguilar.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘The New South Wales minister for infrastructure and planning. I believe the boyfriend is Konrad Nordlund’s elder son Ryan.’