Blood Is a Stranger (4 page)

‘I'm afraid the ambassador will refer you to me,' Blundell said impatiently. ‘It really is better if you leave this investigation to us. You'll be informed the moment there's a breakthrough.'

Cardinal lit the cigar and stared at Blundell, weighing him up. ‘I'm going to find out why this happened to Harry,' he said with steely conviction, ‘whether you like it or not.'

The uneasy ambience turned chilly as Cardinal stood up. Blundell and Paton rose with him.

‘You must stay out of this,' Blundell warned, ‘for your own good. We're dealing with vicious animals here.'

‘So you say,' Cardinal said, ‘but this is not Chile. I'll get the answers I want before I return home. That's a promise.'

Cardinal retreated to his hotel room to think things through. At home there were many avenues. He could get hold of congressmen who patronised his gallery. There was the government lobbyist who had fought with him in Korea. There was always the good old New
York Times.
He didn't know any investigative reporters, but he was on first-name terms with the art critic. Cardinal had to talk to lawyers. He knew scores; he was, after all, one himself. Perhaps he would end up in a law suit with the state department. Or would it be the CIA?

Cardinal tipped out the contents of the envelope. There was no diary or passport. There were some letters from Cardinal and one bank statement, which was not illuminating. It showed that Harry had credit of three dollars and forty-eight cents. In the bound bundles were his driver's licence and a notebook with nothing but formulas in it. Harry's research books were not there. Cardinal examined a sealed letter. On the front was scrawled just one word: ‘Will'. Cardinal hesitated before opening it. He turned it over and over and put it aside. He looked through other items and then reached for the Will again. He tore open the envelope. Harry had left everything to his father, including the house and all its contents, and his car.

There was a condition. None of the items in his estate was to be distributed until exactly one year after his death. There was no further elaboration. At first Cardinal did not dwell on it, but as he rummaged through Harry's things the idea nagged at him. Why a year?

He strode into the piano bar, where he downed a couple of whiskies. At seven he moved into an adjoining restaurant and sat alone in a sea of empty tables. Cardinal
ordered a steak and more whisky. He was feeling aggressive, determined to find out the facts about Harry. On the rare occasion he was fired up like this, he was a big eater. He also like to drink. By the time he had finished the meal, half a dozen other diners had entered the restaurant.

When the sweet trolley drifted in sight, Cardinal was tempted. A waiter noticed his interest and proudly pushed the trolley to him.

‘Monsieur?' he said bowing. Cardinal contemplated the fifteen varieties of cake and waved a hand over the trolley.

‘I'll have the lot,' he said.

The waiter stared. He bent forward, inclining his head. ‘Monsieur?' he asked once more.

‘I'll have everything.'

‘Are you sure you would not like a selection, Monsieur,' the waiter said. Cardinal laughed and appealed to the heavens.

‘I want,' he began in mock Bostonian English, ‘each and every one of them, uh, please.' He chopped the air for emphasis. All heads turned to see the waiter's reaction.

‘As you wish, Monsieur,' he said pleasantly, with a glance towards the heavens. He demonstrated a certain savoir-faire as he prepared fifteen plates. Cardinal's table was cleared, and the delicacies were laid out in neat lines. He bustled off to the kitchen for more cutlery. The chef was at the swinging door.

‘They're selling well tonight, Maurice,' the waiter said o the cook as he spun out of the kitchen. ‘Isn't it nice to have your handiwork appreciated.'

‘Cochon!'
Maurice grunted and returned to the stove.

The waiter hovered near Cardinal as he ploughed into the cakes.

‘Would you care for anything else, Monsieur?' the waiter asked, bowing and pushing the replenished dessert trolley to him again.

Cardinal shook his head and asked for a double whisky. He noticed a group of four at the next table. They were
bemused by his gluttonous performance.

‘Have some,' he smiled, and when they looked dubious, he added, ‘I haven't touched many of them.'

One young woman giggled and accepted a strawberry tart. Another reached over and took a slice of mango pie. Their male companions got adventurous and several dishes ended up at the next table. The waiter hoped he would gain some measure of revenge by slapping the bill for two hundred dollars in front of his customer.

Cardinal retired to a piano bar and sat listening to a band playing melancholic Brazilian numbers made popular about the time of Harry's birth. It depressed him. Yet his resolution about uncovering the truth was unshakable. There would be no turning back.

‘Dead ends.'

Rhonda expressed her frustration as she and Hewson walked to the tiny inlet beach harbouring Royal Brighton Yacht Club on Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay. He smirked.

‘Are you slipping?' he asked. Rhonda pulled her coat collar up against a howling wind that had yacht riggings groaning.

Hewson smiled but did not respond.

Rhonda tried a sympathy tack. ‘I always wanted to be a TV journalist, badly,' she said, crestfallen. ‘I've realised my ambition. I've become a bad TV journalist.'

The joke was not special, but as usual her timing was sharp.

Hewson laughed and put his arm around her shoulder. ‘C'mon, you're doing okay,' he said. His expression hardened. ‘The only reason I'm seeing you again so soon on this is because I've got a posting early next year.' He removed his arm.

‘Bill, that's terrific!' Rhonda said, sounding effusive. ‘Where?'

Hewson didn't reply at first, but he seemed pleased with
himself. He smiled.

‘It's a break for me,' he said, ‘a big one.'

‘C'mon, Bill, I won't tell anyone.'

‘You had better not,' he smiled. ‘China.'

Rhonda's congratulations were sincere, but she felt disappointed at the prospect of losing such an important source. They reached the sand and continued to trudge into the wind.

‘I can give you two leads,' he said. ‘You could find them yourself, if you had a few years. So it covers me.'

Squawking seagulls protested about the invasion of their private beach as Rhonda waited.

‘I would follow up on the terrorist angle,' he said, ‘and the way to do it, is to find out how they could have got in and out without detection.'

Rhonda frowned.

He added, ‘It would be best if you tried to discover which foreign group may have been used to slip in and out of Sydney in the past few days – on legitimate business.'

Rhonda's expression brightened. ‘There was an Indonesian trade delegation here,' she said in amazement. She kept her eyes on him.

‘Remember what I said about Missing Persons?' he said, as they stopped walking.

‘What should I try next, the Bureau?' she said. It was an attempt to humour him.

Hewson looked at his watch.

‘Bill, please!' she implored.

But he was already walking back to his car in nearby Bay Street.

‘Go away!' Cardinal moaned. ‘Go away!' The phone kept ringing until he fumbled for it. It was a police officer informing him that his son's car had been impounded.

‘What do you want done with it?' the officer asked, and Cardinal remembered the voice. His head ached. Discordant
tunes jangled in his brain.

‘Guess I should pick it up,' he said. ‘Want to clear up his affairs soon as possible.' He switched on a light, found a pen and scribbled an address with directions for a drive south of Sydney.

‘Do I know you?' Cardinal asked, his throat sounding like he had swallowed glass.

‘I had to witness you identifying your son's body,' the officer said. ‘See you at around six tonight.'

Cardinal took a taxi on the Princes Highway for Lucas Heights on Heathcote Road, thirty kilometres south-west of Sydney. The reactor was strategically placed in bush-land between a military reserve and Sydney's National Park, and far enough away from the city to avoid complaints from the larger population.

His head still felt as if an axe had been wedged in it, and he wore dark glasses to hide his bloodshot eyes.

The white dome of the HIFAR nuclear reactor loomed on the horizon as Cardinal found the Lucas Heights Police Station. It had been newly erected to handle the growing number of disturbances from both protesters and local residents who didn't like the reactor. The locals were worried about radiation leaks and pollution whereas the protesters' ranks were filled with those who were strictly against reactors. The station's boundary walls were high and fortified, and the building itself had a reinforced concrete base, which protesters claimed hid a nuclear bunker.

Cardinal was greeted by the plainclothes officer, Senior Detective Ted Maylin. He had taken charge of the handing over of the car – an early model white MGB. He led Cardinal to a garage where he examined the vehicle. Maylin, a tall lean man with a dour expression, stood back saying little.

‘Has it been cleaned?' Cardinal asked.

Maylin shook his head. ‘That's the way it was found,'
he said, ‘pretty well spotless.'

‘Was he in it?'

‘The body was found partly buried some fifty metres from the vehicle.'

Despite the depressing nature of the information, Cardinal was encouraged by the fact that Maylin had been this forthcoming. The Embassy people and Blundell between them had not told him this much.

‘Where? I'd like to see the place,' Cardinal said.

Maylin looked at his watch. It was after six, and light was fading. ‘It might be better to see the area in full light,' he said.

Cardinal shook his head. ‘I just want to see where it happened.'

Maylin shrugged. ‘We'll have to drive,' he said moving towards a police car in the garage.