Crucifixion Creek (16 page)

‘Belltree?' Oldfield says. ‘Interesting name. Any relation to the judge?'

‘Yes, sir. He was my father.'

‘Really? Well, well. I didn't know he had a son. You have big shoes to fill.'

‘Yes. You knew him?'

‘By reputation of course, and we did meet a few times.' He turns to Marshall and
says, ‘I'm afraid I must be getting back to Macquarie Street, Bob. Good to meet you,
Harry, and you too Deb. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help with the
good work,' and he gives them a big smile and walks away.

Several hours later they are packing up for the night when two people arrive from
technical support. Deb welcomes them and everyone clusters around.

‘So what have you got for us?' she asks.

They glance at each other, then the senior one, Yeang, says, ‘Nothing.'

‘Oh. Well, how long is it going to take?'

‘No, I mean there's nothing. Kristich's hard drive is empty.'

‘Empty?' Deb stares at him, incredulous. ‘How can it be? You mean someone's deleted
the files?'

‘No, if they were just deleted we could retrieve them, but the drive has been wiped.'

‘You'll have to explain that, mate.'

‘Well, someone's used a drive-wipe utility on it that overwrites the data with ones
and zeros, so it's hard to read. The utility can make as many passes over the data
as you want, although it takes
time, and each pass makes the data harder and harder
to retrieve. The Department of Defence specifies three passes for most material,
but you can do more.'

‘And this one?'

‘It's had a lot more. It's impossible to retrieve anything.'

There are groans of disbelief.

Deb says, ‘When was this done?'

‘Couldn't say.'

‘I mean, before or after we took possession of it?'

‘We can't tell. I'm sorry.'

The boss is in a meeting at police headquarters in the city. Deb says she has to
speak to him urgently and eventually he comes to the phone. She explains what's happened,
then hands over to Yeang who says it all again.

Harry murmurs to Deb, ‘How did he take it?' and she shrugs.

‘Disbelief. I mean, how is this possible, Harry? What's going on?'

When he gets home he searches out the photograph of Kristich in Vanuatu. The caption
doesn't name the high commissioner, but he looks very similar to Oldfield. He tells
Jenny about it, and she says it shouldn't be hard to check. While she does it, she
says, ‘I think there are pictures among that stuff I printed off yesterday. Though
I couldn't see, of course.' She smiles towards where she supposes he is, although
she's slightly off-target, and he thinks of Nicole's remarks in the car earlier.
Her manner was intimate, almost flirtatious. Or had he imagined that?

He picks up the stack of printouts and begins to leaf through them. If Kristich had
a file of photographs on his computer Jenny hasn't found it yet. But there is one
picture that seems to be part of an email Christmas greeting. The message reads,
‘We three kings… Merry Christmas guys.' The sender is ‘Chocky' and the photograph
is of three men seated in the stern of a yacht, grinning, wearing
dark glasses, stripped
to the waist, raising champagne flutes at the camera. On the left is Kristich, in
the centre the high commissioner figure from the Vanuatu picture, and on the right
someone Harry doesn't recognise.

‘Yes,' Jenny says. ‘Derryn Oldfield was the Australian high commissioner to Vanuatu
between 2004 and 2006. He was elected to the Legislative Council in the 2007 election.'

‘How about Chocky? Have you come across that before?'

‘Oh yes, another nickname I suppose.'

‘Yes. I think he's one of these three guys.' He describes the picture.

Jenny sighs. ‘I wish I could see it. I may have missed so many things.'

‘Don't worry, we'll do it together.'

They work through the material that Jenny has been able to retrieve so far from the
hard drive, Harry making notes, trying to find connections. After a while she says,
‘I've been trying to work out these nicknames. It would be so much easier if we knew
who they were.'

‘Yes.'

‘Pol, for instance. Could that mean a policeman, or a politician? Maybe Rooster
is a rugby league player or fan. I've found another like that—NRL, National Rugby
League? And Crystal? Is that a reference to crystal meth? A drug dealer? Bebchuk?'

‘Could be. What about Kristich himself?'

‘Oh, that's obvious from the correspondence. He signs himself “47”.'

‘Why 47?' Harry ponders. ‘Kristich, Alexander Kristich, AK—AK47! It's cryptic, like
a crossword puzzle. Maybe they're all like that. Maybe we should list the people
we know he knew, and try to match them to a clue. What about his two victims—Greg
and the old couple.'

‘What was their name?'

‘Waterford.'

‘Well, how about Waterford Crystal? And “Chippy”, that could be Greg. He was a carpenter.'

They play it like a game together, coming up with outrageous puns and obscure references.

‘What about Oldfield?' Harry asks, and Jenny stares up at the ceiling for a moment,
then says, ‘Tubular Bells! You remember? Mike Oldfield?'

‘Bells.' Is that possible? Oldfield, not Dad. ‘You could be right. Are there other
references to Bells apart from the offshore bank account?'

‘I think there were a couple of emails…' She asks her computer to find them. ‘Yes,
the latest last month, the thirteenth, from Kristich to Bells.
Thanks for coming
round last night, mate. Got that sorted. All good, 47
.'

So Bells is still around. Definitely not his father. Harry relaxes, relieved and
ashamed. ‘In that case,' he says, ‘I think you should go ahead and take that money
for Nicole. Are you sure you can do it without it being traced back to you?'

‘Yes.' She reaches out to find his hand. ‘I'm sure it's the right thing to do, Harry.
If we find out otherwise, I can always put it back.'

They go on. Rooster might conceivably mean chook, as in Bebchuk. Pol still stumps
them.

‘Now I need to go back through the references to see if they make sense with those
people,' Jenny says.

Harry hears the ring of a mobile, not his usual one, but the one whose number he
gave to Kelly Pool. He gets it out of his jacket pocket and answers. ‘Hello, Kelly.'

‘Harry, have you seen my stuff?'

‘Oh yes, everyone has. You've been stirring things up a bit. What's coming tomorrow?'

‘More about Kristich's former career in Queensland. I've been
getting all kinds of
messages from members of the public, people who knew Kristich, were burnt by him.
Trouble is, it's hard to verify them. Do you have anything for me?'

‘I have a photograph that might interest you. I don't know, it may be quite innocent.
Kristich on a yacht, drinking champagne with two other guys. I think one of them
may be Derryn Oldfield, our police minister. The other one I don't know.'

‘A yacht? That's interesting. Any idea of the date?'

‘I'm guessing it was when Kristich was in Vanuatu. Oldfield was the Australian high
commissioner there.'

‘Shit, I didn't know that.'

‘There was a caption with the picture. It said, “We three kings”.'

‘Oh, lovely. Maybe I can identify the third man. Harry, after what went on in parliament
today, a picture of Kristich with Oldfield would be explosive.'

He wonders if this isn't going too fast, getting out of hand. He doesn't mention
the wiped computer drive.

‘How can I get hold of it, Harry? Can you email it to me?'

‘No. They're bugging you, Kelly, like I said they would. You're not calling from
home, are you?'

‘No, I'm in the mall, getting something to eat.'

‘Okay…' He thinks. ‘There's a litter bin at one end of the concourse in Central Station.'
He describes the location. ‘Go there in forty minutes and you'll find a brown envelope
in the bin. Give me a call afterwards to let me know you got it.'

‘Right. Thanks, 007.'

He changes quickly into his joggers and sets off. As he runs down the hill towards
Central, hood up, he wonders if he's got it all wrong. It may just be coincidence
and wishful thinking. So what if Kristich and Oldfield met in Vanuatu? Of course
they would, expats together. Is he just giving Kelly material to ruin a good man's
reputation? But then he thinks of Tubby Bell and his offshore account. It's got
to be him. Hasn't it?

20

There is a queue at the newspaper stall the next morning, everyone buying the
Bankstown
Chronicle
, and Harry is lucky to get a copy. The yacht photograph is spread across
the front page. Kelly has identified the third man as Maram Mansur, a property developer
with interests in both Sydney and the Gold Coast. A picture of his luxury yacht
Rashida
is featured on page two, along with an apartment block in Surfers Paradise built
by his company Ozdevco Properties, the building from which Kristich's wife had her
fatal fall. Closer to home, Kelly reveals that a quantity of methamphetamine was
seized in the recent raid on the Crow clubhouse, similar in type to drugs found at
Kristich's office.

Bob the Job is in a foul mood. He shakes the rolled-up paper at them like a weapon.
‘We don't need a strike force or a murder squad in this state, we just need Kelly
fuckin' Pool. She knows it all! Where is she getting it from? Aren't we tracking
her?'

‘Yes, boss,' Deb says. ‘We know she paid a visit to Central Station last evening,
then drove straight back to the newspaper office. We think she must have met someone
there who gave her this stuff.'

‘You think? Don't you know?'

‘The guys lost contact with her in the crowd for a few minutes.'

‘Jeez, they're as useless as tits on a bull. The commissioner spat a turd when I
told her about the hard drive last night. Reckons it could cost us all our jobs.'

‘What do you want us to do?'

‘Wait. The commissioner's reviewing the situation. Till then we wait.'

Deb is very pale when they leave his office.

Harry says, ‘It's not your fault, Deb. There's nothing we could have done.'

‘That's not good enough, is it? He's right, we're bloody pathetic.' She grabs her
coat. ‘Come on.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘To interview your girlfriend.'

She sits silent in the passenger seat, coiled tight, while he drives. Collateral
damage, he thinks.

The offices of the
Bankstown Chronicle
are almost deserted when they arrive. The
receptionist explains that Mr Westergard and Ms Pool had a late night on the paper
last night and won't be in till noon. ‘Everybody's been ringing in, wanting to speak
to them. It's just amazing.'

‘Well we're the police,' Deb snaps. ‘So you ring him up and tell him that if he and
Ms Pool don't get their arses down here quick smart we'll go and drag them out of
bed and they can spend an amazing night in the clink.'

The girl jumps to it, and after a few minutes comes back with the information that
Westergard and Pool will be with them in fifteen minutes and would they like to come
to the meeting room and have a cup of coffee while they wait.

She leads them through the office area to a small meeting room. On the way Deb asks
if the desk in the middle of the room
surrounded by a storm of journalistic flotsam
is Kelly Pool's. The girl nods. ‘Yes, the cleaners know to leave her area alone.'
The phone at the front desk starts ringing and she hurries away. Deb waits till she's
gone, then goes over to Kelly's desk and pokes around for a moment. She takes something
from her pocket, strips off a wrapping and reaches her hand beneath the desk. Then
she goes over to a cubicle marked ‘Editor' and does the same thing to his desk before
returning to Harry who has been standing watching her.

It's more like half an hour before they arrive, Deb becoming twitchier with every
passing minute. Her grim mood contrasts with that of the two journalists, who look
buoyant and eager to start a new day.

‘Sophie looked after you? Wonderful.' Bernie Westergard beams at them. ‘How can we
help?'

Kelly is settling herself in a flurry, searching through a large shoulder bag. She
produces a recorder and notepad. She avoids looking at Harry.

Deb introduces herself and Harry, her manner stiff and formal. ‘We are detectives
assigned to Strike Force Gemini which is investigating the deaths of Alexander Kristich
and Benjamin Lavulo at the Gipps Tower last Thursday night. It's clear from your
recent newspaper reports that you have information relating to this matter and we
would like to know what it is.'

‘I see.' Westergard looks vaguely puzzled. ‘Well, I think we've published just about
all we know about the two deaths, haven't we, Kelly? I'm sure you know far more about
it than we do, inspector.'

‘You're saying that you do not intend to publish any further information about those
deaths?'

‘Oh, I couldn't promise that. We're getting information coming in all the time from
concerned members of the public. Who knows what may crop up?'

His geniality is getting to Deb, Harry sees, but the little silver recording machine
is restraining her. He wonders how long it will
be before she explodes. ‘Look,' he
says, ‘we're running a murder investigation. Do you have any information that may
be relevant to our enquiries?'

‘Well, how can I tell?' Bernie beams. ‘I don't know where your enquiries are taking
you.'