The beacon, p.21
The Beacon, page 21
Naughton took an enormous drag on his cigarette, then blew the smoke out slowly. ‘Go on.’
‘I want to know what happened in 1987.’
Naughton took another very deep drag on his cigarette, but after an even slower expiration, didn’t respond.
‘I saw an unflattering newspaper article about you in The Beacon from that time.’
Naughton picked up his beer, chugged a lot of it down, then sat the glass on the table. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Jack Harris.’
‘That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Surname of Harris. Working at The Beacon.’
‘Malcolm Harris is my father.’
The silence stretched on for some time before Naughton said, ‘Will you do me a favour?’
Jack waited as the man took another drag so deep the smoke must have reached his ankles; it seemed to take forever to come back out. But, eventually, Naughton returned his gaze to Jack.
‘Tell your father, from me, that he’s a cunt.’
It wasn’t the first time Jack had heard that description of his father, but it still shocked him.
Naughton became more animated. He leaned forward, his gut bumping the table and spilling their drinks, and he pointed his cigarette at Jack. ‘Your father published a string of slanderous articles about me. Apparently, I was a drink driver, I fraudulently claimed travel allowances from council, and I was involved in tax evasion. But that article suggesting I beat my wife was the worst. I was spat at in the street and almost hounded out of town. It ended up costing me my marriage.’
‘You’re saying my father made it all up?’
The man’s eyes were wide now, and the cigarette shaking so much a pile of ash was growing on the table. ‘That photo was taken years earlier. We had been riding our bikes and were side-swiped by a car. My wife suffered severe bruising down her side where she landed. She was the lucky one. I broke my ankle and spent a week in hospital.’
‘Why would my father do that?’
‘Because he’s a cunt.’
‘Had you pissed him off somehow?’
Naughton shook his head. ‘I’d never met him before.’
‘Then why?’
‘The same reason your father still does it. Only now he does it to prime ministers. It was all to do with the council elections that year. He wanted political influence, wanted his man on council. In order to do that he had to make sure one of the existing councillors wasn’t re-elected, and I was the bunny.’
And there it was again – another reminder of Jack’s increasing discomfort at the immense power his father held, and the abuse of it. The Harris surname was beginning to sit even more uncomfortably with him. He asked, ‘Frank Cameron, was that my father’s man?’
Naughton nodded. ‘Saint Frank. He should have been beatified after the glowing things your father wrote about him.’ He downed more of his pint, then lit another cigarette.
The first song burst from the PA. ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’. Jack hated the song, even when it wasn’t being sung out of key. He stood and shook the other man’s hand. ‘Thanks for your help. I’ll send another pint out for you.’
Naughton took a long pull on his cigarette. Jack was halfway to the bar when Naughton called after him, ‘Don’t forget to tell your father he’s a cunt.’
When Jack arrived back at The Beacon, he found a plain brown envelope slipped under the door. Jack felt the muscles in his neck and jaw tense. He ripped it open and slid out a large colour photo – Jack naked beside the equally naked woman who was not Bob Holmes’ wife. How many photos did he have? It didn’t really matter, only one would be enough if it was leaked. Jack turned the photo over. There was a message stuck to the back, the words cut from different magazines: You have 3 days, or these photos will be going virile.
Even with the typo, or ‘cutto’, the threat was clear. It was time for Jack to make a move.
Ten seconds later, the photo was in the shredder. A minute later Jack was in a surf shop around the corner, where he bought a pair of rubber soled sneakers, black jeans and a black hoodie. He added a pencil torch from an outdoor store, then stashed them in the boot of the Toyota.
He headed to Eddie’s for coffee – he had a long night ahead of him. An enjoyable night, if all went well. He was fond of a little break and enter.
Chapter Forty-eight
Wednesday, 13th November
Jack didn’t hear Caitlin arrive at The Beacon the next morning, his attention completely focused on a laptop in pieces on the table in front of him. He bent the motherboard backwards and forwards until the solder joints popped – he loved that sound. Only when she yelled his name, did he look up.
‘Oh, hi.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Jack?’
He unscrewed the solid-state drive from the motherboard and prized it off with a screwdriver. ‘Making absolutely sure no naked photos of me go into circulation.’
Her eyes widened in horror. ‘How did you get his laptop?’
Jack bent the storage drive until it snapped in two. It felt so good.
She shook her head. ‘For Christ’s sake, Jack, have you forgotten I’m on bail? Don’t make me an accessory to your one-man crime wave.’ Caitlin was still shaking her head when she walked to the kitchenette. She wet some paper towel and started dabbing away at fresh blood oozing from a scrape over her right elbow.
Jack watched her tend her injury. Late last night, after arriving home from his midnight laptop raid, he’d spent hours reading everything he could find about Huntington’s disease. Thanks to Professor Google, Jack knew which chromosome the faulty gene was on (4), what went wrong with it (too many CAG repeats) and even what CAG stood for (cytosine, adenine, guanine). He knew the first name of the Dr Huntington who ‘discovered’ the disease (George) and his wife (Mary). He had even looked up autosomal dominant inheritance, because he and Ricky had paid no attention during science classes at school, or any classes for that matter. Jack also now knew everything about the symptoms of Huntington’s and loss of coordination was an early sign. As he watched Caitlin throw the bloodied towel into the garbage and dab at the wound with a fresh sheet, he wondered whether he was reading too much into grazes on an elbow, grazes on an experienced skateboarder.
Caitlin, her bleeding stopped, sat beside Jack at the table. ‘Begley called. Off the record. He’s been taken off the case. But he said the DNA results are back …’ She stopped, unable to continue.
Jack waited, before filling the gap. ‘The leg is your father’s.’
She nodded, then took a deep, slow breath. ‘It had been cut off with a chainsaw.’
‘Oh, Caitlin.’ Of course, Jack knew the leg had to be hacked off somehow, but it still sounded shocking when she said it. He realised how much more distressing it must have been for her – it would be impossible not to visualise the chainsaw screaming as it hacked through the bone.
She stood and walked back to the towel dispenser and patted her eyes.
‘Did Begley say how the investigation was going?’
She took a big sniff. ‘He said the useless detectives up from Sydney couldn’t solve a sudoku, never mind Dad’s murder.’
‘What the hell? It doesn’t sound like they are ever going to find your father’s killer. So, I guess that means it’s over to us.’
Caitlin nodded. ‘It’s a long time since I studied criminal law, but in order to convict you need to prove means, motive and opportunity. The motive’s on a memory stick we can’t get into. And means is hardly our area of expertise. We don’t exactly move in the circles of hired assassins.’
‘Speak for yourself, although assassins were more Ricky’s father’s line.’ Jack picked up a drill and started making random holes in the motherboard.
‘We do know the planning was meticulous. Which I’d say rules out your nudist boyfriend. It’s more in the line of organised crime, or government. Or zealots like Lars Nielsen’s little army.’
Jack wasn’t so keen to dismiss the doggedly determined naturist, Bob Holmes. And he wasn’t so sure murder by shark was the modus operandi of foreign governments. Russia preferred slow death from exotic radioisotopes, the French limpet mines.
‘Did your father ever mention ASIO?’
She shook her head. ‘But then ASIO doesn’t send email notifications that you are a person of interest.’
‘Okay, so organised crime. Drugs? Byron’s a big market.’
‘No. Drugs are same old, same old. Dad wouldn’t have bothered unless the Minister for Border Security was running a smuggling ring. My vote is corruption.’
‘But corruption must be small fry in Byron, and hardly a shoo-in for a Walkley Award for excellence in journalism.’
‘Then why was Dad combing through council archives, and putting notices in The Beacon looking for old council staff? Then there’s the two Bradshaws, both mayors, one in ’87 and one now. The son’s big residential development was approved when his father was mayor.’
Jack said, ‘I thought the Jetty Hotel was stranger. Nobody seems to know who owned it.’
‘Well, that’s probably the one thing in this shitshow we can answer.’ She slid her mobile from her pocket and dialled. ‘I’ll have my ESO at work do a property search.’
‘Aren’t you suspended?’
‘She’ll do it – we’ve worked together forever.’ When the call answered, she said, ‘Hi, it’s me.’ Caitlin listened for a while before she responded, ‘Thanks. The funeral’s tomorrow. And thanks for the card.’ She listened some more, then asked, ‘Can you do a sneaky search for me? I’m looking for the previous owner of the Jetty Hotel in Byron Bay. The sale was sixteen years ago.’
After a few minutes, Caitlin said, ‘No, nothing in writing, just tell me.’ When the call ended, she said, ‘Metol Partners S.A. It’s based in Luxembourg. What sort of company name is that?’
‘Dodgy, I’d say. Did she know anything about them?’
‘That info’s not in the property records, but I can ask someone I know in our Paris office.’
Jack logged onto his laptop and googled ‘Metol Luxembourg’. All that returned was a list of thrash-metal bands, like ‘Stormthrone of Dripping Blood’. He tried searching the Harris Media archives for ‘Metol Partners S.A.’ but an error message popped up with a stop-sign icon – Search term not available. He tried ‘Jetty Hotel’ and saw the same error message.
Given the Bradshaws had featured so heavily in council affairs, Jack wondered whether they might have been involved in the Jetty Hotel development. He made a mental note to put that question to Mayor Tom Bradshaw himself. Then he recalled that back in the day his father and Tom Bradshaw’s father, Ian, had been friends. A memory came back to him of the elder Bradshaw chain-smoking as he sat on the lounge in their old house – Jack couldn’t remember ever seeing him smile.
Jack’s thoughts were interrupted by the ring of the office phone. He picked it up and heard heavy breathing, then a deep voice said, ‘Have you got my laptop?’
Jack switched the call to speaker. ‘Bob Holmes, and good morning to you too.’
‘You stole it, didn’t you? I’m reporting you to the police.’
Jack smiled at Caitlin. ‘I was thinking of calling them myself. They’d be very interested in some of the other photos you have on your hard drive.’ Jack didn’t think it worth mentioning he’d destroyed the laptop without searching it.
There was a long silence, then, ‘You bucket of scum. I’ll get you, Harris. Consider yourself toast.’
Chapter Forty-nine
After Caitlin left to finalise the next day’s funeral arrangements, Jack wiped his prints off all the computer parts, placed them in a garbage bag, locked up the office, and headed off down the lane. He traversed the rear carpark to avoid any security cameras on Jonson Street, then slid the garbage bag into a bin a few blocks from The Beacon before doubling back towards Zoe’s salon.
Outside the salon, workmen in fluoro jackets were in an animated discussion with Zoe as they collectively stared in through the door. Water gushed out around their wellies. After lots of pointing, the plumbers waded in with torches and ladders.
Zoe rolled her eyes when she saw Jack. ‘The apartment upstairs has sprung a leak. Hopefully it’s just water. Seems you’re destined never to get this haircut.’
‘Can’t we do it out here?’
She nodded. ‘Al fresco. Why not?’ She waded inside and returned with stool, comb and scissors and set up on a dry section of pavement. The queue at Eddie’s turned to watch, glad for the entertainment.
‘Now, no distractions today. Don’t even talk to me until I’m finished. Can’t have you looking scruffy at the funeral.’
She had only made a few cuts when Jack’s phone rang. She gave him a tired look. The ringtone was the warning klaxon assigned to his father. The sound always made his muscles clench. He motioned for Zoe to continue cutting. Jack put the phone to his ear and Zoe started back in.
‘Dad,’ said Jack.
Zoe raised an eyebrow.
‘I expected to hear from you by now, son. Have you found out what Patrick O’Shaughnessy was investigating?’
‘Not yet.’
It was a while before his father spoke, as silent judgement was passed and Jack found guilty of not giving his father what he wanted. ‘And you missed your first edition as editor of The Beacon, the only time it hasn’t been published in forty years. You’ve let me down, son. How can I be confident you won’t fail me on the next edition? You’ve only got a few days.’
Jack didn’t answer.
‘Jack?’
‘I’m on it.’
‘If you don’t have Patrick’s story, what are you working on?’
Jack hesitated. He was never good at spontaneous lying, especially to his father, but he wanted to reassure him he wouldn’t miss another edition of the paper, even though the deadline for publication was impossibly close. ‘I was thinking business as usual for my first issue. Council approved a building in town that’s a metre over height. Endangered frogs.’
‘Then why were you searching for a company in Luxembourg?’
Jesus, would his father ever leave him to do his own thing? Jack hesitated. He needed to be careful – his father would definitely not approve of him investigating a shelf company in Luxembourg if it turned out to belong Ian Bradshaw, one of his old friends.
Eventually, after too long a pause, Jack said, ‘It was nothing. One of our political contributors was thinking of writing a story on tax havens, and so he used my logon to check our archive. I’ve talked him out of the piece.’ The long silence that followed was telling, and Jack could visualise the well-used, disapproving look that would be at the other end of the line as his father realised he was lying.
Zoe tapped him on the head a few times and he looked up. He was so engrossed in the phone call he forgot she was cutting his hair. She mimed swapping the phone to the other ear.
‘I’m very disappointed in you, Jack. You’re my eyes on the ground there. You’re my son. I expect you to tell me the truth. And, for goodness sake, do something useful for once and find out what O’Shaughnessy was up to.’ His father ended the call.
Zoe had stopped cutting, waiting for the debrief, but Jack remained silent. She said, ‘That didn’t sound very warm and fuzzy. Trouble?’
He nodded, but didn’t elaborate, so she resumed cutting.
‘Have you heard how the police are going with the investigation?’ she asked.
‘Badly, apparently.’
She looked disappointed and stopped cutting momentarily.
‘So, Caitlin and I are going to keep digging,’ said Jack. Perhaps you can help.’
‘Of course, if I can. As long as it doesn’t involve client secrets.’ She combed up hair on the top of his head and started thinning.
‘We still haven’t been able to access the memory stick.’
‘Then I’m not sure I can help. Patrick wouldn’t tell me what it was all about. He was scared not only for himself, but also for me.’
‘Did he pump you for information about anything lately?’
She shook her head.
‘Then was there anything he recently stopped talking about?’
‘He became quieter about everything. He was distracted. But he still sometimes spoke about that loopy nudist that was threatening him. And that dentist.’
‘Lars Nielsen?’
‘Especially Nielsen. Nothing irritated him more than conspiracy theorists.’ Zoe stopped cutting and looked at Jack, then seemed to make up her mind. ‘Nielsen is a fake. One of my client’s sisters is a kindergarten teacher in Tamborine Mountain, a small village over the border about two hours away. Nielsen’s family lives there in a palatial house perched on the escarpment with views to the Gold Coast. He goes home for the weekends. Nielsen is a randy one, that’s for sure; he’s got five children – all of them vaccinated. And if he’s ever there for the school run, he ditches that little electric car for a Porsche Cayenne.’
Jack said, ‘But I don’t understand.’
‘This area is the anti-vax capital of Australia. It’s brilliant marketing. He gathers as many disciples around him as he can, then offers them a discount at his holistic dental practice, which charges twice as much as a normal dentist. He’s cornered the anti-5G crowd, anti-fluoride, the anti-vaxxers. He’s their hero.’
Jack relished the thought of having dirt on Nielsen. ‘Now that is some story. Did you tell Patrick?’
She shook her head. ‘But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t on to it some other way.’
‘Would Nielsen kill Patrick for that?’
Zoe shrugged. ‘If word got out, his clients would disappear overnight. There’d be no more private schools for Lars’s kids. He might even have to sell the Porsche. I think Patrick might have visited him recently – I noticed he had some of those dental hygiene packs his practice hands out.’
