Black Tide

by Peter Temple

  I closed the front door, put Simone’s envelope into my safe, the hinged false bottom I’d added to the tailor’s table, headed for home. A call to Lyall, soup, then bed.

  An old Volkswagen blocked my driveway, the student from across the road. I cursed him, turned left at the corner, parked in my landlady’s driveway. She was in Queensland, taking the sun with all the other Melbourne landlords and landladies. I took the short cut up her drive and across her dark backyard to the wall.

  Hand on the high wooden gate leading to my stable, I paused, scalp tightening, some atavistic instinct awakened.

  I put my eye to the widest gap between the boards.

  Looking to the left, I could make out my front doorway, a darker shape in the gloomy bluestone facade, see the window to the left of the doorway, to the right, the open-fronted wood shelter with its sentry-box roof.

  Nothing to be seen. I relaxed, took my eye from the crack, grasped the gate handle.

  A light came on upstairs in the double-storeyed house next door.

  I looked up. Opaque glass: a bathroom.

  Something made me put my eye to the crack again.

  I saw him instantly, leaning against the wall beside the wood shelter, faint light from the upstairs window now falling on his face.

  His head was cocked. Listening?

  A bony face. Bony head. Short hair.

  The man in the grey suit outside Parliament in Canberra. The man bringing dark glasses up to his face. And then finding them uncomfortable, stopping to adjust the fit, looking down.

  He was waiting for me, dressed in black. Perhaps someone else nearby.

  Waiting to kill me?

  Dave’s voice in my head.

  The worry is the other side gets nervous about you now, decides to do something.

  I backed away slowly from the gate, turned and walked carefully across the dark courtyard, down the driveway.

  39

  Find Gary. The only way to save my life, according to Dave at our meeting on the windy night.

  Talk to Des.

  Talk to Des about what?

  If we find him, it’ll be because he’s somewhere he feels safe. That’s going to come from way back.

  I drove to Northcote, not taking my usual route, going up St George’s Road, watching the rear-view mirror, eyeing the cars at intersections. I crossed the railway line, parked in High Street, waited, watched, did a U-turn, parked on the other side. Saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  Des showed no surprise at seeing me.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Watchin this nonsense on telly, eatin a bit of chocolate. The girls give it to me. Never buy chocolate. Seen the price of chocolate?’

  We sat down on the brown cut-velvet armchairs with wooden arms in the dim room, photographs on the mantelpiece, wedding pictures, pictures of two couples, two women, each with a baby, two men next to a car, a couple and a fair-haired boy.

  ‘Have some.’ He offered the bar of chocolate.

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘What about a beer? I could use a beer.’

  ‘Beer would be nice.’

  He came back with two open stubbies of Vic Bitter and glasses. We poured.

  Des wiped his lips. ‘Goes down a treat, don’t it. Can’t drink on me own, never got in the habit. Wish I had, too late now.’

  ‘Des, I’ve got to ask you about Gary,’ I said. ‘They may sound like silly questions but I’ve got to ask.’

  ‘Ask,’ he said, waving a big hand. ‘Ask.’

  ‘If Gary changed his name, what would he change it to?’

  Des looked away, gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Changed his name? Why would he do that?’

  ‘If he wanted to hide, he might change his name to make it hard to find him.’

  ‘Oh, right. Get ya. The whole name. I was thinkin somethin different like him callin himself Bruce Connors or Wally Connors.’

  ‘He might use a family name,’ I said. ‘People often do that. Like his mother’s maiden name.’

  ‘Keegan?’

  ‘Perhaps. What about the aunt who left him the place near Warrnambool? What was her surname?’

  ‘Dixon.’

  He had a small sip of beer, chewed it thoughtfully. ‘Funny boy, Gary. Reader he was, great reader, read anythin. Sit here on the floor in front of me, me readin the paper, he’d be readin the front and the back page. Just a little bloke. Ask me questions. Like, what’s nude mean, Dad? Bit embarrassin, I’d say, ask yer mother.’

  His eyes were on the mantelpiece, on the photographs.

  ‘Used to tell other kids we wasn’t really his mum and dad. Any new kid around here, Gary’d tell him he wasn’t really Gary Connors.’

  Something was nagging at me. ‘If he wasn’t Gary Connors, who was he?’

  ‘Had a whole story, name and all. Got it out of a book, probly. How his parents were these rich people in England and people wanted to kidnap him and get all the family’s money, so his mum and dad sent him to live with us. Told em he’d be goin back to England soon as the danger was over. Funny boy, Gary. Could’ve come from bein an only, I don’t know.’

  He took another sip of beer, admired the glass, nodded at it. ‘Good drop this, Bill. Don’t drink by myself, never got…’

  A vehicle stopping. Close by. Further along the street.

  I went to the window and looked out through the crack at the side of the heavy curtain. Two women getting out of a small white car.

  I came back to my seat. ‘The name, what was it?’

  ‘The name?’

  ‘His story about not being Gary Connors. What did he call himself, Des?’

  He looked at me for a second, far away, hadn’t noticed me getting up. ‘The name. What was the name now? Three names. No. No use in sittin here tryin to think of it.’

  ‘Try, Des. It’s important.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘don’t have to try. Just go down the passage to the boy’s room. All his books there. Mum wouldn’t hear a gettin rid of em. Every last one of em there. He used to write the name in his books.’

  He left the room. I sipped beer, listened to cars going by, only two cars. A quiet street. I could bring down a terrible visitation on this street. Men with guns who would shoot anyone. Young and old.

  …kill your friend, kill your wife, kill your child, kill you, it’s all the same.

  Tramping down the passage. Des, with a book.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Boy’s Book of Adventure. Might have a read of this myself. Bloody paper’s got nothin but sorrow in it.’

  He sat down, opened the book, showed me the flyleaf.

  A slanting, childish handwriting, large capitals, upsweeps on the terminal letters of each word.

  Christopher Anthony Armstrong (Kit).

  I read it out.

  Des shook his head. ‘Never could work out why he’d tell that story. Strange. Still, can’t all be the boy’s fault.’

  He looked at his half-empty glass of beer. Losing the taste for it. He was tired.

  ‘Wasn’t much of a dad. Not like me dad was for me. I dunno, never had me heart in it after the first lad. Set in the ways. Never kicked a footy with Gary. Could be that.’

  ‘I doubt it. Kicking the footy is what kids do for their dads, not the other way round,’ I said. ‘This is a good start, Des. Very good. Now this is important. If Gary was thinking about a safe place to go to, what would he think of?’

  Des straightened his shoulders, had a sip of beer. ‘Safe place? Got me there.’

  ‘From long ago, Des. From when he was a boy.’

  He thought, shook his head. ‘Around here, you mean?’

  ‘Anywhere. Anywhere he went when he was little.’

  As I said that, Chrissy Donato-Connors-Sargent’s voice came to me. Something about Gary being kicked out when he was a little kid. Fostered? On a chook farm?

  ‘Des, I talked to Gary’s second wife. She says he told her he was kicked out by his parents, fostered by these people on a chicken farm. L
ike a prison farm, I think she said. Mean anything?’

  Des put his head down like a vulture. ‘Gary? Fostered? Gary? Well, always one for the tall story but that’s a shocker. His mum’ll be spinnin. That’s his mum’s cousins’ place he’s talkin about. Tassie. Went there three, four times. That’s all the Tassie he knows. Loved to go there, always pesterin to go.’

  ‘The prison farm in Tasmania?’

  Des snorted. ‘Prison farm, my foot. Little chook farm. Never went there meself. The wife did. Not keen on them ferries goin across Bass Strait. Don’t mind a decent passenger ship. On em in the war. Didn’t mind em at all. Feel the bugger’s built to take it.’

  ‘Little chook farm. Still there?’

  Des finished his glass, moved his teeth, tasting. Stopped doing that. Nodded a few times.

  I said, ‘Des, the chook farm. Still there?’

  He straightened his back. ‘Chook farm? Dunno. Lost touch there. Not my side. Gary had a thing for the girl, the daughter. Used to get letters from her. Bit like him, I gathered. Come along late in the piece, fat lady pretty much sung. Then she got in the family way, one of the local pointies, the wife said. Had a few of em with me in the army. Good blokes but you wouldn’t breed from em. No. Pretty much a dead-end. Out there. Island.’

  His eyes were closing.

  ‘Where’s the chook farm, Des?’

  ‘Tassie somewhere. Near Hobart.’

  ‘The people’s name, Des? The name?’

  ‘Painter. That’s the name. Painter, the wife’s cousins.’

  I got up. Des jerked awake. I picked up his hand, clasped it gently.

  ‘Off, are you? Give you another beer.’

  ‘Not tonight, Des,’ I said. ‘Other times. Let myself out.’

  ‘Bill,’ he said. ‘Mate, good to see ya. Just sit here, watch a bit of telly. Terrible nonsense…’

  I put the remote control device under his hand. Touched his forehead, brushed my hand over his hair, ruffled it, couldn’t help myself.

  In the Stud. No home to go to. Bring down misery on anyone I touched.

  Christopher Anthony Armstrong. The Painter family. Chicken farmers. A girl.

  I took out the tiny mobile phone, punched the buttons. Instant response.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve got names to run from April 5.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Keegan. Dixon. Painter. Christopher Anthony Armstrong or Kit Armstrong. Someone was waiting for me at home tonight. Out of sight. A man I saw in Canberra the day I talked to Meryl.’

  ‘What’s he look like?’

  ‘Tall. Short hair. Bony head.’

  Dave whistled. ‘So you’re not at home, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stay away. I’ll see what I can arrange.’

  ‘I’ve got something else. A long shot, exceedingly long. Somewhere he might be. In Tasmania.’

  Pause. ‘You’ve been busy. Listen, drive to Tullamarine now. Park in the short-term parking area. Go to the international terminal. Find somewhere you can watch the Qantas check-in and keep a lookout for me. I’ll run these names, be there inside an hour. And Jack…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t contact anyone, don’t tell anyone anything. Got me?’

  I drove around the streets of Northcote for a while, then I took the direct route. Along Brunswick Road to the Tullamarine Freeway. At the airport, I got the old raincoat out of the boot. Dry-mouthed, empty feeling in the stomach, I headed for International.

  The wait was brief. I saw him from a long way away and he jerked his head towards the exit.

  On the way to his car, Dave said, ‘Good name that, Christopher Armstrong. Person of that name flew to Hobart on the day the hire car was dropped at the Hyatt. What’s the place you’ve got?’

  I told him about Gary and his connection with Painter’s chook farm. He unlocked the car as we approached, got in, unlocked the passenger door. When I was seated, he got out again, walked to the front of the vehicle. I could see him take out his mobile, dial with his right thumb, speak, listen, speak, put the phone away.

  ‘Go tonight,’ he said, easing his big body onto the seat. ‘Fly from Essendon, just down the road.’

  There didn’t seem to be any reason to object.

  40

  Two passengers in an eight-seater aircraft. Dave sat across the aisle, dark suit, hands in his lap, eyes closed, closed since before take-off. Outside, flashing lights on the wingtips.

  Flying across Bass Strait at night in a twin-engined aircraft, crew of two. A small car had picked us up at the Essendon terminal, driven us across the tarmac to a far reach.

  No baseball caps worn backwards here. Short-haired men in blue shirts, ties, unhurried, looking at glowing instruments, seldom at each other, sitting back in their seats. Men at work.

  ‘Tell me about Black Tide,’ I said.

  Dave opened his eyes, found his packet of Camels, lit up with the old Ronson.

  Silence for a while.

  ‘Money laundering,’ he said. ‘Looking for the laundrymen. Victorian Police operation, fraud people, not drugs. Six Vics and six of us from Canberra. Small, very tight. We reckoned it was leakproof. That was the mistake.’

  One of the men up front was talking quietly into his throat mike. An atmosphere of peace and calm, of competence and confidence.

  ‘Started with these South Africans,’ Dave said. ‘Two of them. Business migrants. Know what that is?’

  ‘They have to bring in a certain amount of money.’

  ‘Invest it, create jobs, that was the idea,’ he said. ‘These blokes, they’re cousins, they’ve got the money all right. But the money doesn’t come from South Africa. It comes from Hong Kong. The cousins go into the travel business. Not how they made their money in the old country, they’re making a fresh start. Buy a little travel agency in Carlton. Then one in Camberwell. It goes on. All over Melbourne. But also Sydney, Brisbane, Perth. Darwin. All over. About thirty of them. They borrow money from Hong Kong to finance the deals.’

  He looked at me, drew, blew a thin stream of smoke upwards. ‘Now the first interesting part is this. These are all small businesses, two three people. After they get bought, it’s just weeks before the old staff’s gone. New people. People without experience in the travel business. And the cousins don’t link these businesses, form a chain, use the clout of a chain with the airlines. No. They stay small independent businesses.’

  Hissing through the night, pleasantly warm in the cabin.

  ‘Well,’ said Dave, ‘they turn into pretty good businesses. Turnover goes up nicely, not spectacular but up. And everything gets declared for tax.’

  ‘Good business migrants,’ I said. ‘Success story.’

  ‘Excellent migrants. Excellent managers. The cousins do a lot of managing. And they create jobs. For the relatives mainly. We work out after two years, there’s nearly twenty relatives in the businesses. Fly around. The family’s in every agency at least twice a week. In Melbourne, once a day. Hands-on management. This success story only comes to the attention of anyone when a young woman comes in to the cops in Melbourne with a strange story. She works for one of the cousins’ agencies, ends up talking to the frauds. She doesn’t know much but it smells strongly. Then there’s a problem. She vanishes. Gone.’

  Dave put out his cigarette. ‘That was a mistake for the cousins. They could have bluffed their way out of her story. But gone, that’s different.’

  Silence. ‘That’s how Black Tide got started. It’s slow work but the picture comes out after a while. It’s not only the businesses doing well. They are and they’re paying the interest on the loans to Hong Kong. Big interest. The customers are also doing well. When we run the sums, we find the average amount in travellers’ cheques bought by the cousins’ customers is about twice what you’d expect on the national figures. And something else. We find lots of the customers put cash in their credit card accounts before they go overseas. For months before they go travelling, they
regularly stick small amounts into their credit cards, always in cash, turn them into debit cards.’

  I was beginning to see light. Gary’s friend Jellicoe of WorldWind Travel, efficiently bludgeoned to death in his sitting room. Novikov, the travel agent shot dead in his suburban garage.

  ‘And these customers,’ said Dave, ‘they’re not high-income people. Some of them come off the dole or the pension just a month or two before they open a bank account with a modest sum, put more in regularly, apply for a credit card. Modest credit limit. And because they’re not on benefits and they’re not avoiding tax, the sweep doesn’t pick them up.’

  ‘The sweep.’

  ‘Social Security runs a sweep through all the government databases every six weeks or so. Matches the data. About ten million matches tried every time. See what comes up.’

  ‘That’s legal is it?’

  Dave shrugged, lit another cigarette. ‘There’s worse goes on, much fucking worse,’ he said. ‘Back to Black Tide, what we found, these customers all pass through Hong Kong or Manila or Bangkok, usually on the way home, and they cash most of their travellers’ cheques there, take out most of the money in their credit card accounts. Then it’s gone. Average expenditure’s around ten grand. Lots of repeat business for the cousins’ agencies too. This one waitress, she goes six times in two years.’

  ‘Out of the tips,’ I said.

  Dave nodded. ‘That’s the domestic side of the business. The foreign side is even better. Say you’re a young Italian, German, whatever, you’re coming to Australia. Backpacker. You’re a German, you go to the travel agency your friend knows about, you give them, say, 5000 Deutschmarks. They give you an Untergrundbahn ticket, torn in half, something like that.’

  ‘Public transport’s not cheap in Germany,’ I said. I knew what he was talking about.

  He acknowledged the joke with a lip movement. ‘You get to Sydney, Melbourne, somewhere they tell you to go, you meet someone, give him your half ticket, he matches it with his half ticket, gives you an envelope full of dollars, cash, thirty per cent over the exchange rate. Maybe more. Cheapest holiday you’ll ever have. Who needs travellers’ cheques?’