Blood Is a Stranger (6 page)

Cardinal was shaken after the ransacking of his hotel room and wanted to get out of Sydney, but nothing was going to stop him from investigating three leads. All concerned women. First there was Kim Lim. She was not answering her phone at home and hadn't been seen at work. Then there was Mills whom the
Sydney Morning Herald
suggested was Rhonda Mills, a Melbourne-based TV reporter seen across Australia. He left a message at her TV station. And there was the mystery woman in the photos, Hartina Van der Holland. She was in the phone book at a Neutral Bay, North Sydney number. It had been disconnected, so he decided to go to the address listed.

Cardinal abandoned the MG for fear it would be tailed again, and instead took the Circular Quay ferry.

The fine weather had encouraged a thousand sails on the Harbour, and there wasn't a jacket in sight on the ferry as it pulled out of the Quay. Cardinal lit a Havana cigar in his seat at the rear of the top deck.

In front of him the city – a property developer's glass and steel dream – slipped gradually away. Apart from this, Cardinal felt that Sydney's rugged and hilly disposition allowed it to challenge San Francisco for the title of World's Most Beautiful City – geographically speaking. On his right, crawling traffic clogged the massive Harbour Bridge; to his left, tourists swarmed over the Opera House.

Only a few people alighted with Cardinal at Neutral Bay. He found Hartina's apartment a short walk from the ferry stop hidden behind a big Cork Oak tree. Beside the building, and running down to the Harbour front, were several Blue Fan palms. Their grey-blue foliage obscured the front entrance. Cardinal found the front bell, but there was no answer.

He cupped his hands over his eyes to see in the windows at the rear. A Siamese cat brushed against Cardinal's legs and made a loud rasping noise in friendly communication. He bent down and stroked its blue-grey coat, which had camouflaged it among the Fan palms.

‘Can I help?' a voice said, and Cardinal looked up at the chubby blonde on the balcony above.

‘I'm looking for Hartina Van der Holland.'

The woman hesitated. ‘May I ask why you wish to see her?'

‘My son is a friend of hers,' Cardinal said, not wishing to explain the truth to a stranger. ‘I'm supposed to look her up for him.'

‘She hasn't been seen for a few days,' the woman said with a measure of indignation. ‘She left that cat.'

Cardinal caressed the cat. ‘What will happen to it?'

‘I'll look after it. I've been feeding it. I do when she goes on holidays.'

‘Have you contacted the police?'

‘They were here before I realised that she had gone. All over the place the last few days.'

‘Did they say anything?'

‘Very hush hush. Wouldn't commit themselves, except to say that they didn't know where she was.'

‘You have no idea where she might be?'

The woman shook her head.

‘Did she have a favourite vacation spot?'

‘As far as I know she always went back to Bandung. She's Dutch-Indonesian.' The woman moved into her apartment and re-appeared down the path of Hartina's place.

‘Perhaps you should see the police,' she said, picking up the cat.

Cardinal nodded.

‘How long had she lived here?' he asked.

‘I arrived after she had moved in. But she did tell me she had been educated in Melbourne – at school and university.
She must be about thirty, so I suppose she has lived in this country approaching twenty years.'

‘Was she naturalised Australian?'

The woman nodded. ‘She was very proud of that. Though I suspect she kept dual nationality.'

Cardinal shook his head absentmindedly.

‘When did she disappear?'

‘Monday.'

‘Has she family in Indonesia?'

‘Yes, and they are rich. Oil, I think, and aluminium. Her father died recently.'

‘You don't know what she does for a living?' he said. ‘I could ring her work.'

‘She was a scientist,' the woman said. ‘I believe she had something to do with the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights.'

He could see Rhonda Mills as the ferry took its time docking on the return trip to Circular Quay. After checking the apartment, he had rung his hotel where there was a message to ring her. They planned to meet at the Quay.

‘I'll be wearing TV star's dark glasses,' Rhonda had said, ‘and a crimson dress filled by an “ample” figure, euphemistically speaking.'

Cardinal had laughed for the first time in days.

‘I'm around six feet two.'

‘That doesn't help. We've been metric here for yonks.'

‘Then I don't know how tall I am. A distinguishing feature is my euphemistically speaking “silver” hair. I too have an ample figure.'

He had easily spotted her in the milling crowd.

‘How about, lunch?' he asked as they shook hands.

‘Okay,' she said, ‘but I've got about an hour. I'm really up from Melbourne for this story. My investigation was
held up because I had to attend a last-minute press conference.'

‘Do you know any restaurants around here?'

They walked along Circular Quay west, and under the Harbour Bridge near its pylons to a footbridge over Hickson Road. This led to Pier One, a restaurant in Walsh Bay.

They chose to sit in the sun and ordered three dozen oysters accompanied by a dry Riesling, which Rhonda selected.

‘Oysters give me an hourglass figure,' Rhonda said, patting her hip. ‘After two dozen it takes an hour to figure out what it is.'

Cardinal smiled.

Sensing she had a good audience Rhonda added, ‘If I'm not careful, I get a High Court figure . . . no appeal.'

Cardinal laughed.

‘Seriously, I'm concerned with my TV look,' she said ruefully. ‘Ample becomes chubby on the box. When you're the wrong side of thirty-five, it doesn't help.'

Cardinal nodded understandingly and offered her another oyster.

‘Forget your figure, remember your libido,' he said.

‘I wish I could,' she replied, poker-faced.

Rhonda had questioned him closely on the phone about Harry's murder, and was excited. She had been a journalist for seventeen years since she left Melbourne's La Trobe University, and she was quick to recognise a big story.

‘I want to know about you,' she said. ‘Your motivation is the key to any investigation.'

‘You ask the questions.'

‘Okay,' she said, pulling a tape recorder from her briefcase. ‘You're a Madison Avenue art dealer. What kind of art?'

‘Mainly European classical. Everything from Rembrandt to Picasso. I'd been working in London as a corporate lawyer . . .'

‘For whom?' Rhonda interrupted.

‘IBM. I got to know a big Dutch art dealer based in London. He asked me to open a Manhattan office. I did. After two years it flopped. I borrowed heavily and took over the New York operation.'

‘Bit of a jump, lawyer to art dealer.'

‘It was easy for me. Art was always my first love. I've been a collector of European art for thirty years.'

‘You haven't spoken to anyone else about your son's death?' she asked.

Cardinal frowned.

‘In the media, I mean,' she added.

He shook his head. ‘It crossed my mind that I might go to a paper,' he said, ‘if this Embassy charade had gone on.'

‘Which paper?'

‘I don't know,
Times,
maybe.' Seeing her expression he added,
‘New York Times.'

‘Oh,' she said, relieved. ‘I can help you, if you'll give me the story exclusively.'

‘I need help.'

‘Then it's a deal?'

Cardinal nodded and they shook hands.

A young man wandered over with a pencil and paper.

‘Would you sign this for my daughter?' he said sheepishly.

‘Sure,' she said, looking round at his table of mates. ‘What's her name? Bruce?'

The man grinned and returned to the table with the prized signature. His mates called a few comments.

‘Do you want to leave?' Cardinal asked.

‘No. It would be the same at any other place, and anyway, deep down, I love it.'

Cardinal was impressed but wondered if such a character could be a competent reporter. She sensed his scepticism.

‘Don't be put off,' she said. ‘It's part of the job. I'm as good as any dogged newspaper journo when it comes to
getting a gutsy story.'

They tossed around what they knew and, as their confidence grew in each other, they began to piece together a possible run of events.

‘How's this?' Rhonda said, taking a notepad from her satchel, ‘Hartina leaves Lucas Heights, say in a car on her own, or in Harry's MG. They are attacked by terrorists. He puts up some resistance and is murdered. She is whisked off to a Garuda plane and taken to Arnhem Land.'

‘Where Land?'

Cardinal poured them both the last of their wine.

‘The Indonesians are involved. Their trade minister goes through Canberra, Sydney, and on to Arnhem Land near Darwin. They meet several businessmen in the north. The flight leaves Darwin at night for Jakarta.'

‘So Hartina was possibly abducted and flown on to Darwin?'

Rhonda nodded.

‘This morning I was at a press conference given by a local representative of the Aboriginal Lands Council who claimed that the Bididgees in Arnhem Land were taking the biggest mine-owner up there – Bull Richardson – to court for breach of contract and agreements. He and an Asian had trespassed on sacred land.'

‘You're suggesting there's a connection?'

‘It's something we'll have to follow through. I have to learn what Harry and Hartina were doing separately or together at Lucas Heights first.'

‘Harry would only have been involved in laser work. That was his specialty. He was quite fanatical about it long before the Strategic Defence Initiative was explained monosyllabically by Reagan.' Cardinal laughed. ‘I remember when he made his famous Star Wars speech in March 1983. Harry thought it was hilarious. He said it was the greatest marketing sting in history. Reagan was doing his best sales pitch ever for the laser weapons industry. I
remember Harry turning to me at the end of the speech and saying that the research generated by this meant he would be rich. He was in his first year at Stanford at the time!'

‘Lucas Heights was doing secret Star Wars stuff when your son was there, and the contract dried up with the recent change of Australian government. At least, that's what I've calculated from the clues given to me by my Intelligence contacts.'

‘That's what I guessed from Harry's letters. But why would they give you that sort of information?'

‘My feeling is that ASIO was very unhappy about what happened at Lucas Heights. They could have wanted me to stir it up a bit.'

‘Did you learn at the press conference where the Asian was from?'

‘No. They're not sure.'

Cardinal picked at the last oyster. ‘Are you going to Darwin?'

‘I can't, right now,' she said, ‘but I'm thinking about a trip to Indonesia in a few days.'

Cardinal looked away and thought hard. He cracked his knuckles absentmindedly.

‘I'll go to Arnhem Land,' Cardinal said forcefully.

‘I can give you introductions there. I made a documentary on the Bididgee a few months ago.'

‘I'm running out of cash,' Cardinal said, thinking aloud, ‘but damn it! I'll sell Harry's MG, even if it means breaking the terms of the Will.'

‘That model must be worth thirty thousand, maybe more.'

Rhonda considered him for a moment. Cardinal was an interesting character, running into his own Embassy's brick walls. She was intrigued by his unflagging will. Cardinal had said he guessed that the CIA had been involved, beginning with Harry's appointment. This fitted the hints from Bill Hewson that harmony between the
CIA and ASIO could have been better. ASIO seemed upset by Harry Cardinal's demise and Hartina's possible abduction.