Ash Island

by Barry Maitland

  ‘They stayed last night at the Grand Hotel on Port Vila harbour. Told the travel agent they were meeting a friend to go on a cruise today. My contact in Port Vila has just told me that they’ve got onto a yacht that came into the harbour this morning. Its name is the Princess Estelle, and it’s owned by Konrad Nordlund.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. And I think I know where it’s going. Have you heard of a company or charity called Pandanus Trust?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘It has a stake in Maram Mansur’s company, Ozdevco. I haven’t been able to find out who owns Pandanus Trust, because it’s registered in Vanuatu, where these things are less transparent. However, my contact in Port Vila tells me that the Princess Estelle was used to take a Pandanus Trust employee out to an island they own in north Vanuatu, called Maturiki Island, where the visitors are Australian and Chinese. You got all that?’

  ‘I got it.’

  ‘Karen Schaefer, the Nordlunds, Pandanus Trust, Ozdevco, Maram Mansur. All connected.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘I’m telling you all this to keep you in the picture, Harry. Maybe you would be able to find out more about Pandanus Trust?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll try.’

  ‘Is there anything you can tell me?’

  ‘There was a major crime review of the Ash Island murders yesterday, but basically we’re all just waiting for the results of forensic tests, hoping they’ll tell us something this time.’

  When she hangs up he calls Jenny. She’s just been outside helping Meri with the alpacas and she sounds refreshed and breathless. He asks her to see what she can find out about Pandanus Trust and the other names. She’s happy to have the job.

  Later, he thinks, when he sees Deb Velasco in Newcastle he’ll ask her to do a crime-scene sweep of the Strathfield house to establish a definite forensic link to the occupant of eleven Mortimer Street at Crucifixion Creek. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Kelly. But, like Amber Nordlund, she is way too emotionally involved with what’s going on. He stares at his reflection in the carriage window. Who is he to talk?

  61

  As the train approaches Newcastle Harry decides to pick up his car to take it into work. He gets off at Wickham and walks down to the Throsby Creek bridge and on to his street. In the distance he sees cars and people clustered around the hotel. A tow truck is reversed up to his car and appears to be in the process of hauling it up. He is about to run towards the scene when he notices the uniforms. Up on the first floor someone leans out of his window and calls down to the people below.

  Harry stops dead, moves into a doorway and pulls out his phone. He calls Ross’s number.

  ‘Ross? Harry. What’s up? Cops are all over my pub.’

  ‘Harry! Shit, where are you?’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  A pause. ‘There’s a warrant out for your arrest, mate.’

  ‘You’re joking. What have I done?’

  ‘They know you murdered McGilvray. The DNA results came back.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, someone’s contaminated the samples.’

  ‘Your DNA is all over his throat, his wrists, his ankles.’ Ross sounds sad, resigned. ‘Not only the DNA, Harry. Your prints are on the murder weapon.’

  ‘What murder weapon?’

  ‘They found an empty bottle of scotch in the mud near McGilvray’s body. Fits the fatal wound in his skull.’

  ‘Scotch…? I had a bottle of Scotch in my room. The thieves took it.’

  ‘You mention that to the cops? You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Ross, I…’

  ‘And the tyre print, at the scene, fits your front tyre like a glove. Do yourself a favour, mate. Get a brief and hand yourself in. I know a couple of names in Newcastle I’d recommend…’

  Harry switches his phone off. Up ahead he can see a pair of plain clothes outside the hotel, listening on their phones, looking around, then calling to the uniforms.

  He leaves the doorway and turns into a side street, breaking into a run as he hears the sound of an approaching police siren. It rounds the corner up ahead and comes towards him as he ducks behind the broad girth of one of the big palm trees that line the street, grown, so he’s been told, from seeds brought back by World War I diggers returned from the Middle East. The patrol car rushes past and he runs on, turns down a side street, then another, heading in the direction of the docks. Once he has to jump into cover in a front garden as another car goes by, more slowly, searching.

  The small houses become workshops and warehouses. He turns a corner and hesitates, facing a street in which there’s no cover—no parked cars, no front yards, just long stretches of high brick walls on both sides. He starts to run. Halfway down a car appears at the far end. There’s a gap in the wall ahead, a narrow access laneway, and he plunges into it. It widens into a yard filled with large steel bins. Behind him he hears car doors slamming. He lifts the lid of one of the bins, full of jagged metal scrap, slams the lid down again and races to the chain-link fence on the far side of the yard, vaults up onto a bin, jumps and hauls himself over the fence. He drops to the ground and scrambles into the bushes growing up against the fence on this side.

  Voices now and the squawk of a radio. The clang of bin lids being opened and shut. Then a voice almost on top of him: ‘…dark jacket and trousers, bare head… like he’s gone into the rail yards… dogs, yeah, get the dogs…’

  Other voices join in, growing fainter as the searchers go back out to the street.

  Sucking in deep breaths, Harry looks out across a wide deserted space crisscrossed by the arcs of rail tracks. Ranks of empty black coal wagons stand over to the right; beyond them the dark steel sheds and towers of the coal loaders. None of these will provide shelter when the dogs arrive. He has to move quickly, but where? Beyond the coal loaders are the Dyke Berths and the river, the rail yards on this side surrounded by high security fences.

  The mournful sound of a horn echoes across the yards, the rumble of heavy machinery, and he sees a yellow diesel engine emerge slowly from among the dark buildings. As it crawls out into the yards he sees a second engine behind it, a long trail of coal wagons following. He gets to his feet, watching the long procession make its way across the space, and begins to run towards it, reaching the last wagons as the train picks up speed. Between each pair of wagons there is a steel plate covering the coupling and as the last pair comes past he grabs at a handle and swings himself up onto the plate. He crouches into the concave end of the wagon and hangs on, pressing himself back into the steel as the train passes out through the perimeter fence, then across an even larger rail yard filled with long coal trains and into a tunnel. When they come out he sees houses above the embankments on either side, and streets. Another tunnel, a glimpse of a park, the brick buildings of an institution he doesn’t recognise, and then the track swings to the north.

  The train slows, the wagons clanging as they shunt into each other, a playing field and oval on the left, then an embankment. The train passes under a bridge and Harry jumps, rolling into the shrubs at the foot of the embankment. He picks himself up and sees station buildings ahead. He brushes coal dust and grass from his clothes and walks onto the end of the station platform. The sign says Waratah.

  He can’t place it in his mental map of the city, and when he gets to the ticket office he asks if he can get a train to Sydney from here.

  ‘Sure,’ the man says. ‘There’s a train in five minutes going into Broadmeadow. Change there for the Sydney train.’

  He buys a ticket and waits on the platform, eyeing the roads flanking the station until the train arrives.

  Three hours later he gets off at Central. He moves into the middle of the crowd, hurrying along the platform, keeping his head down, looking for police in the concourse. Makes for the exit and walks down to a branch of his bank in nearby Elizabeth Street, where he withdraws all of the money in his savings account, almost twenty thousand, then crosses over to Broadway
and catches a bus heading west.

  He gets off at Petersham, and walks to the little shoe repair shop tucked into a side street near the park. It’s five o’clock and the sign on the door says closed, but Harry presses the buzzer and gives his name and Ricsi lets him in.

  ‘You need a laundry, not a shoe repairer,’ the old man says, brushing dirt from Harry’s sleeve. ‘You in trouble?’

  ‘I need a bit of help, Ricsi. A drivers licence.’

  ‘Uh huh. What name?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem. Long as you don’t want a passport?’

  ‘No, just the licence. And a set of your bump keys.’

  Ricsi takes his photograph and tells him to come back in the morning.

  ‘Where would I stay around here?’ Harry asks, and Ricsi gives him the name of a ‘half-decent’ pub nearby. Harry thanks him and walks back to Parramatta Road, to a Vinnies op shop he noticed from the bus. There he buys used clothes and shoes and a suitcase and makes his way to the hotel. They have a free room, which they describe as ‘quiet’, upstairs at the back. It is clean, simply furnished. Harry unpacks his new clothes, has a shower and gets changed.

  He calls Jenny on the mobile he uses only for her. It’s good to hear her voice, warm, enthusiastic as she tells him about her researches. She has managed to discover a good deal about Pandanus Trust and Maturiki Island, not through the official records that Kelly tried to access, but from a variety of web sources.

  ‘Pandanus Trust has three directors,’ she tells him, ‘two Australian and one Chinese. The Chinese one is a businessman by the name of Deng Huojin. He’s based in Chongqing and is the chairman and principal shareholder of Chongqing Power and Light. Remember them?’

  Harry doesn’t.

  ‘It was their ship, the Jialing, that the missing seaman Cheung was on.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I got this from a Chinese website—I had to translate it. That was interesting.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’ Harry yawns. He feels tired. Wishes he’d bought a bottle from the bar.

  ‘The other two directors are Konrad Nordlund and—wait for it—Warren Dalkeith, former premier of our beautiful state.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a lovely post from this couple who got into trouble in their yacht in a storm off Vanuatu. They managed to get to Maturiki Island and ended up on the reef. These people came out across the lagoon to rescue them, and they were Konrad’s two sons, Ryan and Hayden. The couple had a great time with them on the island while the mechanic there made some scratch repairs so they could sail back to Australia.’

  It occurs to Harry that he really couldn’t care less about Maturiki Island or Konrad Nordlund or Deng whatever-his-name-was. It all seems very remote and irrelevant now. He has other, more pressing things on his plate.

  He misses what Jenny says next, and she must realise something’s wrong. ‘Harry? What’s happened?’

  He tells her. She listens in silence, then finally says, ‘Well, we’re going to have to do something about this. Where do we start?’

  62

  Kelly, in her hotel room in Newcastle, is itching with frustration. The latest police briefing has added nothing new and there’s been no word from Harry. What about the forensic results he was talking about? Has he done anything about Karen Schaefer in Vanuatu? She’s tried calling him several times, and each time it’s gone to voicemail. She tries again.

  As she does so there’s a knock on the door. She opens it and finds two large men in suits standing outside. She recognises one of them from the briefings. ‘Chief Inspector Fogarty?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He shows his ID and identifies the other man as a detective senior constable. ‘Can we come in?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She steps back and watches them as they circle the room, sniffing, scanning.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘You know Detective Sergeant Belltree, Ms Pool?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you tell us where he is at the moment?’

  ‘Odd question. No, I’ve no idea. Have you lost him?’

  ‘You’ve been in regular contact with him recently. Why is that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say regular…’

  ‘You’ve called his number eight times in the past two weeks, plus another three times today. What’s the nature of your relationship?’

  Kelly flares. ‘You’ve been monitoring his calls? My calls? Our relationship is strictly professional, and entirely correct. I am a newspaper reporter, sent up here to cover the Ash Island murders, and it was natural I would contact Harry, whom I’d known for some time in Sydney.’

  ‘So where do you think he might be now?’

  The man’s belligerence is extremely irritating, but she senses that his hostility is directed as much at Harry as at her. What’s Harry done? Have they found out he helped her to cover up her wounding of Craig Schaefer? But why don’t they know where he is?

  ‘I have absolutely no idea. Look, if he’s in trouble I’d like to help.’

  ‘Do you know his wife?’

  ‘We have met.’

  ‘We’d like her contact details.’

  ‘No, I don’t have those.’ Why don’t they have them? ‘Is this connected with the explosion in the house in Carrington? I’ve heard rumours that a police officer and his wife lived there. Has there been an attempt on his life?’

  Fogarty shakes his head dismissively, and it dawns on Kelly that they aren’t worried about Harry’s health.

  ‘He’s not wanted or anything, is he?’ She sees the look that passes across the other officer’s face just as they turn to go. That’s it, she thinks, they’re hunting for him.

  At the door, Fogarty turns back and gives her a card. ‘If you hear from him, or get any idea at all about where he might be, you must call this number, day or night.’

  Must I?

  She closes the door, feeling very disturbed. What can she do? How can she help him? All she can think of is Amber Nordlund, the unexplained link in all of this.

  She stands at the window, watching the two detectives get into a car and drive away, then she grabs her bag and takes the lift down to the basement car park.

  As she emerges out of the forest and into the open fields of Cackleberry Valley, Kelly remembers Harry’s comment about Kramfors’ isolation and wonders if this is a good idea. She doesn’t even know what Amber Nordlund looks like, and has no clear idea of what she’s going to say.

  She pulls to a halt at the end of the drive and switches off the engine. Ahead of her an elderly woman is ushering a small boy with a limp out of the homestead and into the rear seats of a large black Mercedes sedan. A driver in a dark suit closes their door, lifts a suitcase into the boot and gets behind the wheel.

  As the car sweeps away, Kelly sees someone, a man, standing in the shade of the veranda, smoking. She gets out and walks towards him.

  ‘Hello. I’m looking for Amber.’

  The man comes down the steps to her, eyeing her. In the sunlight she sees that he’s in his twenties and darkly good-looking. His gaze is disconcerting.

  ‘Is she around?’

  He nods towards the paddock beyond the white-railed fence. ‘That’s her.’

  Kelly turns and sees a woman with long fair hair, no helmet, trotting on a large horse. The young man calls out to her and waves when she turns.

  Amber brings the horse to the fence, slips off the saddle and climbs neatly over the rail.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, sorry to interrupt,’ Kelly says, aware she’s gushing. She tells herself to calm down, be cool. ‘My name’s Kelly, Kelly Pool.’

  ‘The Times reporter?’

  ‘You’ve heard of me?’

  ‘We were talking about you the other day, weren’t we, Luke? You’ve been covering the Ash Island murders. What brings you out here for goodness sake?’

  ‘Well…the investigation’s going fairly slowly at t
he moment, and I thought I’d do some research while I’m waiting, on the region.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘I know Harry Belltree. I believe he’s been here?’

  ‘Ah. Yes, he has. How well do you know him?’

  ‘Pretty well. We’ve worked together in Sydney before.’

  ‘I see. And he told you there was a story up here, at Kramfors?’

  Kelly hesitates, not sure how to answer that. Amber looks over at Luke, raises an eyebrow, then says, ‘I think you’d better come inside.’

  She leads the way into the house, across the hall, to a door leading into the kitchen, where she goes to a large fridge and brings out a jug of cold water. Pours three glasses. ‘Take a seat. Harry didn’t mention…’

  ‘No, he’s been hard to get hold of the last day or two. You haven’t heard from him today, have you?’

  Amber shakes her head. ‘But we were hoping he might… Anyway, you’re interested in the coal industry are you?’

  Kelly hides her surprise. ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Harry told you about my Uncle Konrad’s plans for this valley, did he?’

  Kelly catches the contempt when Amber mentions the name, and senses something interesting. ‘Actually I’d really like to hear the whole thing from you.’

  ‘Right. Do you want to record me or something?’ And she starts to tell the story of the fate of the valley that she told Harry at the eagle cave.

  Kelly is disappointed. It sounds like a family feud over their assets. If there were evidence of Konrad Nordlund acting corruptly to obtain the mineral rights, that would be very interesting, but Amber doesn’t seem to have that. As it is, it’s a human affairs story. Not one for the crime desk.

  Then Amber says, ‘And that’s where Harry’s parents came in.’

  ‘Yes, he told me they stayed here the night before the crash.’

  ‘The night before Konrad had them killed, you mean.’

  Kelly wonders if she misheard. ‘I’m sorry?’

  And Amber launches into the story. She is speaking faster and faster, leaning forward as if she might grab Kelly and shake the truth into her. Kelly remembers Harry’s words: highly strung.