by Garry Disher
‘No. Fucking. Comment.’
Sleiman gave Muecke a look: you wasted a trip. Muecke ignored him, leaned over the table. ‘I know all about prison grapevines, Mr Roden. You’ve nothing to fear concerning this little conference. As far as prison staff know, I’ve come here to question you about financial irregularities in the real estate business you were operating before you met Jack Tremayne.’
At the mention of Tremayne’s name, Roden’s eyes slid to the side. Muecke could read the thoughts: dismay to learn that the police knew he’d been talking to Kramer about Tremayne.
Now: what had he told Kramer? ‘I imagine Mr Kramer showed a lot of interest in what you had to say about Jack Tremayne.’
Roden leaned toward Sleiman. An exchange of urgent whispers. The lawyer turned to Muecke. ‘My client neither confirms nor denies talking to this Kramer fellow. If he did talk to him, he didn’t know who he was, and the subject matter was unimportant anyway.’
Muecke had to laugh. ‘Fucking lawyers. But at least we’ve got beyond “no comment”, so that’s nice. Tell me this, Mr Roden: I expect Jack Tremayne was the sort to put a lot of money away for a rainy day?’
‘No comment.’
‘Yeah, yeah. He’s pretty smart, I understand. Quick on his feet. Yeah, I can see him with a nice little nest egg.’
A kind of fury flickered in Roden’s face, as if his own capabilities had been denigrated.
Muecke tightened the screw a little more. ‘According to some of the newspaper reports, Mr Tremayne was dismayed to learn you’d operated a Ponzi scheme behind his back.’
‘Fucking liar!’
‘I think you’re right, I think he’s in it up to his neck. But there’s a very good chance he’ll avoid jail. He might not have his business; might lose all his friends. But he’ll be out there, and you’ll be in here.’
‘If he doesn’t go down it won’t be because he’s got good lawyers,’ Roden said, steaming now. ‘It’ll be because he’s got a big stash of money no one knows about.’
‘To fund his defence.’
‘Aren’t you listening? He’s going to do a runner.’ Roden folded his arms and sat back. Then, as the triumph leaked away, Muecke saw his eyes fill with fear.
‘Mr Roden,’ he said quietly, ‘did you tell Sam Kramer about Tremayne’s stash?’
Roden’s gaze flicked about the room.
‘I’m satisfied that you did,’ Muecke said. ‘It needn’t leave this room. If Mr Kramer presses you, simply act disgusted, it was a fishing expedition regarding financial irregularities in your old real estate firm.’ He paused. ‘I’m sure you know what form Mr Kramer’s displeasure takes?’
Roden’s head moved: barely a nod.
23
WHILE HE WAITED FOR Carmel McQueen to do her research, Mark Impey took a ferry to Taronga Park Zoo. He bought an ice-cream and wandered around feeling curiously liberated. He was allowed to do this. His own master. He was a man with means and leisure time and a vanilla Cornetto.
He should really be at work, though. Correspondence, phone calls, emails. Guilt. It was there in everything he did. A day at the zoo, digging into his friend’s past, lusting after his friend’s wife. Using his friend to make a profit, then pulling out while others less astute lost everything.
When he returned at 4 p.m., Carmel McQueen said, ‘I see that you once invested with this man. I seriously hope you don’t intend to again.’
She held up a hand. ‘That’s opinion, you understand. Don’t mistake it for advice.’ She tapped a thin file. ‘There are no judgments in here, only matters of fact.’
‘I understand, and you don’t need to worry about me.’
She shot him a sceptical look, then shrugged. ‘Some highlights. Mr Tremayne first came to official attention late in 1998, when he faced an ICAC inquiry into alleged property development corruption on the south coast.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing much. To him, at any rate. Other heads rolled. But you might call it symptomatic.’
‘Okay.’
‘After that he kept his head down for a few years, but he’d start a company, and when it began to fail, he’d strip it of cash and assets, then liquidate and start another just like it. It’s called phoenixing.’
‘I’m familiar with the term.’
McQueen straightened the edges of the report with her utilitarian fingertips. ‘Now, his various Newcastle companies. Eighty million invested, in all.’
Impey shook his head. ‘That can’t be right. He told me ten.’
‘Eighty. And at least two hundred investors.’
‘He told me thirty.’
‘He lied. He also doesn’t have a financial services licence.’ She cocked her head at Impey. ‘You’ve gone on record as defending him.’
Impey winced. He supposed it was inevitable she’d find that out. ‘I’ll be blunt. I’d considered him a friend, and I made a profit investing with him in the early stages. But I’ve been hearing conflicting stories lately and I don’t want to leave myself open to being sued.’ He paused, thinking of the chilly Probity Commission investigator. ‘Or audited or cross-examined or—’
‘Wise man,’ McQueen said briskly. ‘Now, there is more in this file, and I suggest you go home and read it closely and think about it with a clear head. The clear head that persuaded you to withdraw your investments with Mr Tremayne eighteen months ago.’
It was almost praise, and he almost basked in it, but he didn’t think she was all that impressed by him. Truth be known, he was a timid investor, always had been. Invest, watch it anxiously, pull out as soon as it made a modest profit. A cautious path to modest wealth. No one would splash his name around in the media.
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ he said.
‘You know what you have to do,’ she said.
But he didn’t. What? he almost wailed.
WYATT WAS AT A drone shop sandwiched between a stonemason and an antenna manufacturer in an industrial park south of the city.
‘We can get you in the air for a hundred bucks,’ the salesman said. His name was Drew; young, twitchy, as if his fingers needed a joystick. He indicated a wall of garish cardboard and cellophane boxes behind the cash register and a small craft, resembling a crouching spider, hanging by a cord from the ceiling.
Air-8, $99.95, according to a placard suspended beneath it.
‘Flying time?’ asked Wyatt. The Air-8 looked insubstantial to his eyes.
‘Ten minutes.’
‘I’m going to need longer than that, I think. Range?’
‘A hundred metres.’
‘And a longer range,’ Wyatt said. ‘Something with a camera, too.’
‘This has a camera. Can I ask what you want it for?’
‘I own some dense bushland,’ Wyatt said, gesturing to the west. ‘Sometimes when stock force their way through a hole in the fence, I have trouble finding them.’
He didn’t say sheep or cattle, in case the kid had some kind of farming background. ‘So, a good range, a longish flying time, and a good camera,’ he said.
Drew brooded on that. ‘Can you go a thousand?’
Wyatt shrugged. His gadgetry budget was growing, but the rewards at the end would make up for it.
‘What have you got?’
Drew took him across the shop floor, a space crammed with more hobby drones in bright packaging and revolving wire stands of brochures, manuals, spare engine parts, cameras, propellers and radio and Wi-Fi transmitters. A large pillar in the centre carried the Civil Aviation Safety Authority drone regulations. Wyatt glanced at it as he passed: no flying higher than 120 metres; no flying within thirty metres of another drone; operate only in daylight…
‘This one here’s a pretty decent quadcopter,’ Drew said. ‘Chinese made, photo and video capabilities, very light, very portable. You download an app to your phone and connect it to the controller for live view.’
‘Flying time?’
‘Half an hour.’
&nbs
p; ‘Range?’
‘Up to seven kilometres. Return-to-base function. Smooth video feed. Good resolution.’ He paused. ‘No good for stunts, though.’
Wyatt smiled thinly. ‘Stunts don’t interest me.’ He thought about the choppy sea this morning, the pitching yachts at anchor. ‘Operate okay in strong winds?’
‘It’s fitted with stabilisers,’ Drew said.
Wyatt nodded, thinking it through. ‘I’ll take it.’ He looked around the shop. They were alone. ‘And thirty minutes of your time, out in the carpark.’
‘Deal.’ Drew’s restless hands clenched. Selling drones was all well and good; flying them was better. ‘Pay me and we can download the app and I’ll put a sign on the door.’
And after the training session with Drew, Wyatt drove back to a strip of shops closer to the city. Boutique coffee joints, bistros, cargo bikes for hipsters—and I-Spy, which sold security systems, alarms, GPS trackers and spy cameras.
Wyatt came out half an hour later with a long-range, long-battery-life tracking device. It was small, sturdy and waterproof, with a powerful mounting magnet. It would work internationally and could be monitored by mobile phone. Wyatt was beginning to think he was watching the world.
By 5 p.m. he was back on the esplanade with only about forty-five minutes of daylight left. The air colder, the wind dropping. Fewer people about and he had a stretch of the foreshore to himself. The marina, three hundred metres away, was a forest of masts.
He launched the drone and navigated it towards the marina section where Mark Impey’s boat was moored, watching the camera feed as grassy sections, then paths, docks, choppy surface water and tossing mast tops slipped by beneath the lens. But from above it was difficult to distinguish one craft from another. They were all just long, broad, well-kitted-out cabin cruisers. He needed to bring the drone down to a couple of metres above deck level and that meant all kinds of extra hazards. Power poles, mast cables. The risk of being seen.
‘Cool.’ A kid’s voice.
A teenage boy, alone. Glasses, a school blazer, grey gabardine pants and a skew-whiff, tightly knotted tie; a backpack dragging down his right shoulder. Wyatt wondered how to play it. Was a kid going to report him? He was more likely to want to see him as a guy playing with a cool toy. But if Wyatt told him to get lost he’d remember the experience. And meanwhile, Wyatt needed to know which was Impey’s boat. He gestured to the kid to come closer and check out the visual feed. ‘One of these boats is mine, if only I could find it. The first time I’ve ever used one of these things,’ he added, playing up the helpless middle age just a little.
‘Oh, yeah. How come you’re looking for your own boat?’
Wyatt made a rapid assessment. The kid looked geekish. Not with friends but alone. Curious, not suspicious. Possibly lonely. He watched the boy’s eyes flick between the screen and the joystick controller; could almost see his mind working.
Wyatt said, ‘You had any experience with one of these?’
‘Sure.’ Offhanded.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. My dad’s like a wedding photographer.’
‘He films weddings with a drone?’
‘I do that part of it, for the DVD. He takes still photos.’
‘Lucky I met you,’ Wyatt said. ‘Mainly what I want a drone for is to spot fish from the air. Marlin and so on, deep-sea fishing. Right now I’m trying to work out how to get a shallow angle shot so I can spot which boat is mine.’
‘Let me have a go,’ the boy said, his hands as tense as Drew’s.
‘She’s called Windward Passage,’ Wyatt said. He passed over the controls and watched as the kid brought the drone down and made a pass along the dock.
Seconds later, the boy said, ‘There it is.’
Wyatt took a look: one hull among several. He needed to know its precise position in relation to the others.
‘Can you give it a bit of elevation? So I can check everything’s secure up top?’ He watched the live feed with the boy. ‘Bit higher, bit higher…’
Great. Seven craft, and Windward Passage was the second from the south-eastern end of that branching arm of the dock area.
‘No point going any higher. You won’t see clearly in this light,’ the boy said.
‘That’s okay, I’ve seen enough. I’ll have another practice at home tomorrow.’
The boy returned the controller reluctantly. Time to head home. Homework. Dinner. More homework.
‘You can fly it back if you like,’ Wyatt said.
The boy almost snatched the controls from him.
24
IMPEY’S FLIGHT GOT IN at 6 p.m. and he drove straight to The Hill. If both cars were there he knew he might chicken out. He couldn’t tackle Jack with Lynx in the room, and he couldn’t enjoy quality time with Lynx with Jack in the room.
And it was wrong anyway. She was married. Maybe if Jack went to jail she’d be free, but what if she stood by him? Impey imagined she was unhappy, but maybe she thought he was a ridiculous clown and her husband was a god. He was still tying himself in knots as he cruised past the Tremayne house.
The BMW was there but not the Audi. Thank God. He pulled up to the kerb, got out, strode up the slope to the front door.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said, when Jack opened the door.
A flicker on Jack’s face, which the old Impey, super sensitive, interpreted as a dismissive eye-roll. But instead of rebuffing him, Jack stepped aside. ‘Come in, then.’
Almost seven in the evening and Jack was unshaven. Tracksuit pants and a hoodie; bare feet with yellowing toenails. Had he even showered that day? He looked both ways along the street before shutting the door.
The new Impey found himself saying, ‘Well might you check the street, Jack—I had an interesting visitor last night.’
‘Well might I what?’ said Tremayne absently. ‘What are you on about?’
‘A Probity Commission fellow wanted a word with me—about you.’
Tremayne gestured as he led the way through the house to the sitting room. Pizza slices in a box, a half-empty bottle of shiraz. He flopped onto a sofa. ‘Sit down. What’s this about the Probity Commission?’
‘As I said, I had a visit.’
‘Yeah, and?’
‘And it was from a Probity Commission investigator!’
Tremayne shrugged. ‘Do you have investments with me? No. Are you employed by me? No. Are you a signatory to anything involving my companies? No. Nothing for you to worry about.’
‘But I’ve been vouching for you and now I think maybe it’s time I stopped doing that. For my protection and yours.’
Tremayne shrugged again. ‘Up to you.’
Really? Was that it? In the face of Jack’s unconcern, Impey began to doubt his ground. ‘I’ve learnt some disturbing things in the last few hours,’ he said, hearing a contemptible little tremor in his voice.
‘Oh? Like what?’
‘You’re supposed to have a licence.’
‘Not if you’re operating on the scale I’m operating on.’
‘That’s just it, they say you’ve got dozens of investors, tens of millions of dollars invested.’
‘Who is “they”?’
Impey looked away. ‘Just things I’ve heard.’
‘I think I might have to ask you to leave, Mark.’ Tremayne stood. ‘It’s unconscionable to me, to know you’ve been checking on me behind my back.’
Impey bit his lip. He always got things wrong somehow. ‘It’s just that I’m worried, Jack.’
Tremayne sat again and stretched his legs out. ‘I understand, Mark. It’s been a stressful time for you. I want you to know that I value our friendship above almost any of my friendships and relationships. You’ve stuck by me through thick and thin. Others deserted me, you didn’t. I admit, I made some mistakes in recent years, judged the market poorly a couple of times, but dishonest? No. Never. It’s not in me. Have I run away and left others to pick up the pieces? No. I’m still here, and I intend to face
the music.’
Impey continued to gnaw at his lip. ‘The Probity fellow said he thinks you’ll run.’
Tremayne’s jaw dropped. ‘Run! How? And if I was going to run, wouldn’t I have done it by now? Fuck you! Fuck the lot of you!’
The rage spat out suddenly—then vanished just as quickly. Tremayne shot Impey a look and said, calmly, ‘It’s not a nice feeling, being doubted by a man you’d considered a friend.’
‘It’s just…’ Impey said, wanting badly to be reassured.
Jack Tremayne spoke with studied dignity. ‘If you feel that you cannot continue vouching for me, I understand.’ He stood, gestured towards the door.
Lynx’s Audi was pulling in as Impey left. He gave her a hunted smile and a choked-down hello and scurried to his car. Felt a surge of guilt as he drove away. But before long he began to rebuke himself. What did he have to feel guilty about? He reached his home, parked the car in the driveway, went inside and sat for a while. He could feel strange forces moving around out there in the darkness: was he being watched, too?
He sat, and a strange clarity came over him. He prepared the house: left the Range Rover in the driveway, turned on a selection of lights and opened the curtains a crack. Then he called a taxi and slipped out the back way onto the next street. The taxi took him to a bistro near the waterfront, where he ate a bowl of pasta before heading across the road to the marina.
He hadn’t looked properly last night. Too rattled by the Probity Commission investigator. Too dark, too late. But this time he turned on all the interior lights. He used a torch, too, to make a detailed examination of the storage bays. He found a large blue tarp, tins of paint, plywood sheets. Also, significant quantities of fuel, water and food—and a rifle. Had that stuff always been there? He didn’t know. He’d simply paid Jack for the boat and left it moored in the marina.
Next, he went around and knocked on all the panels and shone the torch beam on the screwheads, looking for fresh scratches. Below decks he found a panel that might have been tampered with. He unscrewed it, pulled it away. Nothing, only three vertical drain pipes. The head, he thought, gauging where he was in relation to the main stateroom ensuite: toilet and shower. Wait. Three pipes? All three had joins. Two showed the red staining of plumber’s glue solution; the third, larger than the other two, did not.
