Ash Island

by Barry Maitland

  When they get there Harry points up to his window. ‘That’s my room up there.’ The pub looks busy, music coming out into the street. Harry looks again at his window.

  There’s a crowd around the bar. Harry says, ‘I’ll have a schooner of New, Ross. I’m just going upstairs to check my room.’

  ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Someone closed the curtains since I left.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  They climb the stairs together, along the corridor. When they reach his door they see the splintered frame. Harry pushes the door. It swings open and they step inside.

  ‘Jeez, mate,’ Ross says after a pause. ‘Not very neat, are you?’

  Every drawer has been pulled out and tipped onto the floor, the mattress is half off the stripped bed, the tray from the fridge is lying in a pool of half-melted ice cubes.

  ‘You’ve been done over.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Scum. I’ll call it in.’

  Harry steps through the mess, trying to see what’s missing. The last time he was here was when he left, soon after 1:00 a.m. yesterday, with an overnight bag. He went out to the hire car to follow the bike, then on to Sydney. He didn’t leave much behind. A few bits of clothing ready for the laundry, his two history books—there they are on the floor, ripped apart—a bottle of whisky, two-thirds full. That seems to be gone, along with some loose change in the glass ashtray by the phone.

  He says to Ross, ‘Let’s go downstairs and talk to the manager.’

  It takes a few minutes to get his attention through the throng. ‘Someone’s trashed my room,’ he says.

  ‘What’s that?’

  They move to the quieter end of the bar. ‘Within the last two or three hours, I’d say.’

  ‘Sheesh. Didn’t see anything, mate.’ He speaks to the two barmaids. They shake their heads.

  ‘Okay. We’ve called the cops. We’ll wait outside for them and take them up. Notice any strangers in here tonight?’

  He shrugs. ‘Sorry, it’s been busy.’

  A patrol car arrives with two uniforms and Harry and Ross take them upstairs. Ross gives them a statement and they say they’ll get someone to go over the place for prints. ‘Might take a while though.’ Harry tells them to help themselves.

  When they leave, Ross says, ‘Reckon you need something stronger than a beer now, mate.’

  Harry shakes his head. ‘Next time, Ross. I’m heading off to see Jenny. Should have been there this morning.’

  He has a word to the manager about giving the police access and the man says, ‘I remember a couple of guys here earlier, sitting over there, not drinking much. One guy was short, leather jacket. The other was big, an islander. Never seen them here before.’

  ‘Thanks. If you see them again, can you give me a call?’

  He gets into the car, feeling weary, checks the time. He calls Jenny and asks if it’s too late to come. She says of course not, she’ll wait up.

  She’s standing on the veranda when he pulls to a stop, the dog by her side, and as he mounts the steps he sees that she’s wearing only her thin nightie on this warm night. He wraps his arms around her, filled with relief, feeling that this is all he wants, ever.

  She whispers, ‘Harry, Harry,’ and they make their way inside, still clinging to each other, to her room. He strips off quickly and slides in beside her, wanting her desperately.

  52

  Kelly is eating her muesli when a call comes through from Brad in Port Vila. ‘You’re up bright and early.’

  ‘We’re an hour ahead of you,’ he says. ‘Thought I’d better check before I go any further. It’s not easy. Vanuatu has a fairly secretive financial system. It doesn’t maintain company ownership details in official records, and doesn’t require that company ownership or accounts be publicly accessible. Same for trusts and private foundations. I did find a couple of local press reports on Pandanus Trust, one of a scholarship scheme for disadvantaged students they were funding, and the other a gift of an MRI unit to the hospital on Espiritu Santo.’

  ‘So they’re a charity?’ Kelly is scribbling notes as he speaks.

  ‘Seems so. Question is, where do I go from here? I could fly up to Santo and see if they can tell me more about the people who gave them the MRI. Maybe there was a ceremony or something. Or I could poke around a bit more down here. I know one or two people in the government offices who might be prepared to leak me something for a few dollars. What do you think?’

  It doesn’t sound promising. It’ll cost Brad $360 to fly up to Espiritu Santo. They talk it over and decide against it. They agree instead on an all-in fee for Brad to ‘poke around’ in Port Vila for a bit longer.

  53

  At the same time Harry wakes in the Yarramalong Valley. He gets out of bed and steps out onto the veranda, straight into the smell of coffee, the thrashing tails of dogs, the embrace of the women. He sinks into a chair, relishing the gleam of dew in the sunlight, the sound of birds in the forest, with a tremendous sense of relief. He thinks how idyllic this is compared to the sordid mess in Newcastle, as a huge duck-egg omelette on toast appears in front of him.

  It’s only later, as he and Jenny go for a walk up the hill behind the house, that he realises things aren’t quite so perfect. She walks much more slowly and cautiously than he’s used to, feeling the ground in front of her with her stick. And when he thinks about it he can see why—the way ahead is littered with ruts and protruding rocks, with fallen branches and wire fences. It must be like walking through a minefield, her stick an uncertain guide and the little sonar buzzer in her other hand unable to decipher the hazards. Felecia runs free ahead, picking up trails of rabbits and foxes, and that worries Jenny too. ‘There are snakes.’ She’s echoing Amber’s words on the climb to the sacred cave, but without Amber’s confidence. That’s what it is, he thinks, she’s lost her confidence.

  They sit on a fallen log and he says, ‘Must be difficult for you, out here in the bush.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, hesitating, and then it all comes out. ‘It’s a nightmare, Harry. I mean, literally—I have nightmares of being lost out here. I can’t get my head around it, can’t make a mental picture of it all. One wrong step off the known way and I’m hopelessly lost. I’m thinking I might trip and fall down the hillside or step into a rabbit hole and break an ankle. Yesterday I stumbled and put out my hand and grabbed barbed wire.’

  She shows him the bandaid on the palm of her hand.

  ‘Sorry, this must sound so pathetic. I mean, I suppose it’s very beautiful out here but I can’t see that. I can smell its freshness, but now that just seems like a threat. And…it’s not just that.’

  ‘Go on.’ He gently rubs her back. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Everything’s just so frustrating. Meri tries so hard—too hard. She’s always telling me how amazing I am, doing ordinary things, as if I’m an invalid, and she tries to lead me everywhere. And then I’m humiliated when I can’t do simple things, like eat a meal.’

  He knows what she means. Eating has always been a problem. He’s tried it himself, eating dinner blindfold, the chop ending up on the floor, the mash all over his hands and the peas in his lap.

  ‘We went down to Wyong yesterday for lunch. I should have had a hamburger but I felt like fish and chips. It came all built up into a sort of stack, served on a wooden board. It was a disaster. The waitress had to get a broom to sweep it all up. She was so upset.’

  He chuckles, she smiles, they both laugh.

  ‘I know,’ Jenny says, ‘I’m being feeble. What is it you cops say? “Toughen up, Tiger.” Only I haven’t been feeling very tough lately. I miss you, Harry. I don’t want us to be apart like this. It’s made me realise how much I depend on you. Too much.’

  ‘Maybe it won’t be for too much longer. There have been some arrests in Newcastle.’

  ‘Sammy Lee?’

  ‘No. They don’t think he’s involved.’

  ‘But you do.’

  ‘
It was just a hunch, nothing more really, a bright idea without any real evidence.’

  ‘I did a bit of work on him. He has a Malaysian wife and a little girl, a house in Lambton, nothing fancy, a four-year-old Falcon. His wife has an online account with Western Union. Maybe sending money back to Malaysia?’

  ‘Hmm, well, Ross reckons he’s a good bloke and half the station eats there. They reckon Dee-Dee’s the villain.’

  ‘What, the young tattoo artist?’

  He brings her up to date.

  ‘And McGilvray’s dead?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘So can’t I come back?’

  ‘Not until we know the whole picture, Jen. Sorry.’

  ‘Oh…I did find out something about Jason Tolliver’s background. You remember the big waterfront dispute back in ’98? Tolliver was an organiser for the Maritime Union at Port Botany then, bit of a reputation as a militant. He was in the media—I’ve got pictures of him on the computer you can look at. Come on. I’m getting stiff. Can you see a twisted old red gum next to a gate?’

  He stands up and looks about. ‘Yes, I’ve got it.’

  ‘There’s an easier path back down to the road from there.’

  They set off, Harry half a pace ahead and her hand in the crook of his arm. She says, ‘So that’s why McGilvray’s Facebook entries stopped. Karen and Craig Schaefer’s have stopped too, by the way. No word on them?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I found out a bit about Amber’s friend Luke Santini. He’s spent time in America, relatives in Virginia. Became an environmental activist at college there, a campaign to get universities to disinvest their endowment and pension funds in coalmining companies. Moved to Melbourne two years ago to work with an environmental group called Sustain.’

  ‘That fits.’

  ‘There’s some pictures of him in America. I’ll show you when we get back. And you have to remember to admire Meri’s alpaca yarn. I spun some of it.’

  When they reach the cottage Jenny takes him to the corner where her computer sits and talks to it for a while. Looking over her shoulder, Harry sees photographs appear, groups of young people, some with placards and banners. The slogan Burning Rage appears on a placard and on a bandana across Luke’s forehead. He looks angry, face distorted, fist raised.

  They search Burning Rage, which turns out to be a protest group suspected of arson attacks on mine owners’ property—cars and holiday homes—in the United States.

  Jenny shuts down the computer and they try to relax and pretend that this is an innocent holiday. Harry admires Meri’s fleece, fixes up a sagging gutter that she couldn’t reach, and takes them out for a hamburger.

  This evening they sit on the veranda drinking tea. Harry feels time standing still, and simultaneously running through his fingers like sand. When he goes to sleep he dreams of a burning cabin in a lonely forest.

  He leaves the next day after lunch, heart heavy. There’s a tear in Jenny’s eye as he turns away.

  On the road back he takes a call from Deb.

  ‘Harry, thought I should tell you. They’re releasing Frank Capp tomorrow morning. Charges dropped.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Yeah. We’ll be watching him.’

  When he reaches the Carrington pub the manager offers him a drink.

  ‘Don’t suppose they’ve caught anyone?’ Harry says.

  ‘Nah. We’ve put a new lock on your door and the girls have cleaned the room up, good as new. You’ll be fine.’

  He goes upstairs and looks at the restored room. It’s as if nothing happened. There is nothing of him here, not even a toothbrush.

  54

  Another breakfast call from Brad.

  ‘What have you got?’ Kelly reaches for her pad.

  ‘Had a bit of luck with the National Provident Fund. Anyone who employs Vanuatu citizens has to contribute to the fund for their retirement benefits. I know someone who works there and I got hold of the names of a couple of Pandanus Trust employees with Port Vila addresses. Managed to track one of them down and we had a few beers together yesterday. He was catching a boat back to work on the island the Trust owns, up north near Pentecost, place I’d never heard of called Maturiki Island. He said there’s a big villa up there and staff houses.’

  ‘That’s interesting. Did he say anything about the people who own it?’

  ‘He was vague about that, just said the bosses are Aussies and Chinese. They come and go. Pay’s good, often not much to do, other times people arrive and they’re busy. Sounds a bit like a resort—foreigners come, they eat and drink and talk, sunbathe on the beach, go out to the reef snorkelling.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘You should see the boat he left on to go to work—a hundred-and-twenty-foot super yacht. Million bucks for sure.’

  ‘Called Rashida?’

  ‘Nah, name of Princess Estelle, out of Sydney.’

  After she rings off, Kelly does a search for Maturiki Island. The satellite image shows a small, densely wooded island about twenty kilometres away from the much larger Pentecost Island. There is a white crescent beach on one side facing across a lagoon to an arc of surf marking the reef. It’s just possible to make out some rectangular shapes beneath the canopy of trees—pandanus trees, presumably.

  Kelly thinks about it. Why would a charitable trust own an island? Or a luxury yacht for that matter?

  Before she leaves for court she phones Matthew at the Times office and asks him to find out what he can about the Princess Estelle.

  When she reaches the seventh floor of the Supreme Court building on Queens Square she finds the trial in a state of suspension, the press, jury and officials waiting for the judge and counsel to emerge from discussion. It’s over an hour before they appear and the judge informs them, to Kelly’s great relief, that the fiasco is at an end, the accused having finally accepted reality and changed their plea to guilty.

  Kelly returns to ground level and steps out onto Phillip Street, looking for a cab. As her eye scans the street she sees a woman on the corner of King Street staring at her. For a moment Kelly is paralysed. She recognises the posture, the face. The woman turns and vanishes into the crowd. Kelly runs across the street, dodging between cars, and stands on the corner where Karen Schaefer stood. There is no sign of her now.

  She lets her heart slow down, then catches a cab back to the Times. Everyone is busy, preoccupied, oblivious. She finally pulls herself together and checks through the latest updates. There is a report of arrests in Newcastle and a search for a fourth body on Ash Island. She goes to see Catherine Meiklejohn, explains that she’s now free and asks to go back up there. Catherine agrees.

  When she gets back to her desk she finds a note from Matthew. The Princess Estelle was built in Italy three years ago for its present owner, Konrad Nordlund. So here is another connection, Mansur—Ozdevco—Pandanus Trust—Nordlund. First there was Karen Schaefer, now this. There’s something here, but what exactly? She goes to see Matthew and tells him to keep it to himself.

  He says, ‘Of course. We don’t investigate Konrad Nordlund, do we?’ He’s becoming cynical. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he goes on, ‘and changing the subject completely, I chanced upon this odd little item, deep in our archives.’

  Chanced upon? Kelly smiles at him. ‘What is it?’ She runs her eye over it quickly, then stops and reads it again, an article dated 20 December 2002, from what was then called the Social Editor’s desk. ‘This didn’t actually run, did it?’

  He shakes his head. ‘It was spiked. Who wants to read about that sort of thing at Christmas?’

  55

  Harry finds the corner of a table to perch on as they begin the morning briefing. Fogarty’s mood is mixed. On the one hand, prolonged interviews with Dee-Dee Perry have produced next to nothing. On the other, her premises have continued to provide links to the Ash Island murders. They have confirmation now that a jacket found hanging on a hook in the shed behind the tattoo studio belonged to Marco Ganis
, while his fingerprints have been found on some of the banknotes in the cashbox.

  Fogarty shuffles through his papers and begins on the new schedule of tasks. A large contingent of uniform officers is being brought in to expand the search area for a fourth body; detectives are to interview all of Dee-Dee’s past customers; a further sweep of CCTV cameras in the streets around her studio will try to identify other visitors to her premises, including Cheung Xiuying and any other Chinese.

  They’re running short of ideas, Harry thinks, dreaming up busy-work to keep everyone active until Logan McGilvray’s body turns up. And then what? Despite all the evidence in the studio, they’ve found no links to the Sydney motorcycle gang Capp spoke of. Capp, who’s walking free now, a big smile on at least half his face, thinking of all those mugs chasing their tails up in Newcastle.

  When they break up, Harry gets his job from the case manager and heads off to the seamen’s mission to reinterview people and show them the film clips of Cheung at Marketown.

  The mission is busy. Father McCallum is conducting a service for a group of Filipino sailors and the volunteer is out with the van. Harry waits in the main hall, watching the activity, listening to the chatter of languages, picturing Cheung selecting that checked shirt from the rack. He’s hoping something will strike him.

  The volunteer returns. They find a free office with a computer and Harry plugs in the USB. Father McCallum comes in and they watch the figures moving on the screen, the two men clearly anxious to help. But in the end they can offer nothing new. The volunteer has no recollection of Cheung having a phone, and isn’t convinced that that’s what he was doing with his hand raised to his ear. Harry thanks them and returns to his car.

  He checks his messages; there’s one from Kelly Pool, and he rings her number. She says she’s on her way up to Newcastle and would like to meet. He tells her the car park at Horse Shoe Beach at three.

  Dogs are running up and down the beach, chasing sticks into the little waves. Beyond them four tugs are guiding a bulk carrier into the river mouth. A car drives into the park next to her and Harry gets out, comes to her passenger door. She leans across and opens it for him.