Dirty Fracking Business (5 page)

Phillip Bancroft was senior partner of
Bancroft & Coulter,
a second-tier Sydney stockbroking firm. He had convinced his clients to take huge risks and buy shares in CEGL just as Harbrow was implementing his expansion plans. Not a cent of his own money was invested but he had made a personal fortune from the free options that had been issued to him for risking his clients’ money. Those clients had made twenty times their initial investment and thought that Bancroft was an investment guru - had they known what he had done, they may not have held him in such high esteem. He was particularly sensitive about anything that adversely affected the company’s share price and Harbrow knew he would support the actions he had taken to bring the
Advocate
to heel
.

Harbrow had appointed Harold Llewellyn so that he could be introduced to and access heads of business, finance and government, whereas he had appointed the rough-around-the-edges Vic Bezzina so that he could be informed of the weaknesses of those powerful people, their hidden skeletons and what motivated them. Bezzina was an ex-federal policeman who had built a unique business, which provided discreet security itineraries and investigatory services for heads of corporations and government leaders. He employed ex-federal and state police, ex-ASIO operatives, ex-tax office investigators and even had two former CIA spooks on his payroll. Over the years, he had built up dirt files that Edgar Hoover would have been proud of, on senior industry and government figures and those who posed a threat to his exclusive clientele. One of his clients was Newtower Iron & Steel and, when the greenies and other radical groups started picketing CEGL’s annual general meetings, blockading properties and generally making nuisances of themselves, Sir Richard Crichton-Smythe suggested to Harbrow that his problems might be solved if he met with Bezzina. Soon after their meeting, Harbrow had dossiers on all those in positions of power who were opposed to coal seam gas development, but what really impressed him about Bezzina was that he seemed to have the power to influence the Federal Police to hassle and restrain the green radicals who had been causing CEGL trouble. Like the other non-executive directors, Bezzina negotiated a very generous fee and a remuneration and benefits package which Harbrow did not attempt to bargain down, as he liked the idea of his directors being indebted to him.

He gave no thought to contacting the ruthlessly ambitious Moira Raymond, who openly aspired to his job. Unfortunately she had the ear and support of Harold Llewellyn who doted on her, and Harbrow often wondered whether they had been sexually involved. Sir Richard Crichton-Smythe also sang Moira’s praises and, while Harbrow could have used his influence to remove her, he could not run the risk of his chairman and another ‘distinguished’ director resigning or creating a fuss.

Moira had in the past occupied the office next to Harbrow’s and she had mistakenly thought that he had had the hots for her.
He’d wanted to bed her all right but his motivations weren’t sexual but rather to show her who was boss.
She had flirted and led him on many times, only to reject him when things started to get serious and, the more she rejected him, the more determined he became to have her submit. Frustrated at the sight of her every day and wanting to move her on, he came up with the brilliant idea of putting her out in the field into situations that might be physically violent for a man but were unlikely to be for a woman. When she failed, which she surely would when dealing with hardened labourers and facing angry landowners, it would destroy her chance of ever sitting in his chair. He had not envisaged her making an outstanding success of those tough assignments and, when she did, she not only won the plaudits of board members but was seen by them as his successor-in-waiting. He vaguely recollected telling her one night that he would stand aside so that she could become the company’s CEO, but he had only said it because he was trying to get her between the sheets and he promptly forgot the details after she had rejected him yet again.

Much to Steve’s disappointment, Bianca had left by the time he returned home. There wasn’t a trace of
Allure
and it was almost as if she had never been there. Her response to a note that he had left, apologising for leaving early that morning, was that she would be busy at the weekend selling real estate and that she would phone him when she could. She had a healthy sexual appetite and he suspected that she must be wondering what was wrong with him.

The front page of Monday’s
Paisley Chronicle
carried graphic colour photos of CEGL’s gas well in flames. The accompanying article mentioned Billy McGregor and his sighting of a big black wolf but it did not draw any conclusions as to what caused the explosion. No mention was made of Karen. Most who read the article already knew what it contained and thought that it was boring. Many subscribers and advertisers phoned to express their disappointment and spoke to Steve’s receptionist-come-girl Friday, Buffy Preston, letting her know in no uncertain terms that they thought he had wasted a golden opportunity to tip a bucket on CEGL. Steve was close enough to hear what Buffy was saying but he could not understand why she had broken into fits of laughter. She was a big girl who had been with him since she left school, and when she laughed her whole body shook.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, removing her silver, wire-framed glasses as she played with her plaits.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You really don’t want to know.’

‘Jeez, I dunno why I employ you. You can’t type, you can’t make coffee and you won’t give me my messages.’

‘You employ me because no-one looks after your back like I do, and who’d defend you from pissed-off subscribers if I wasn’t here?’

He knew that was true. She was blindly loyal and could be downright intimidating - no-one could collect debts so effectively. ‘Buffy, please tell me what was so funny?’

‘All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Old Mrs Elliot asked me how come your daddy was born with such big gonads but you didn’t get any.’ She burst out into laughter again. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s funny, especially coming from her, when she’s so prim and proper.’

Steve felt himself going red and wondered what they expected him to do. Everyone knew that the well had been sabotaged, but they still wanted him to sink the boots into CEGL - to say that the gas wells were dangerous, poisonous and that they contaminated the air and water. Well, his parents had not brought him up to tell lies but, as he thought about this, he smiled at the irony of them having become such convincing liars themselves.

‘Yeah, real funny, Buffy, I don’t think,’ he said.

The Fisher Valley Protective Alliance was a group of townsfolk and valley people vehemently opposed to the extraction of coal seam gas. It published a weekly newsletter and, unlike Steve Forrest, had no compunction about unleashing a vicious attack on CEGL and the safety of the gas wells dotted around the valley.

Paisley Police Station was a single-level brick building with a main office, a holding cell, a small, tight driveway and three car parks at the rear strictly reserved for police. ‘No parking at any time’ signs ran the length of the driveway. The window in Josh Gibson’s corner of the office looked directly out onto the driveway and he groaned when a silver Porsche pulled up directly in front of him, completely blocking the driveway. He was glad that his two offsiders were out making calls, because he had a feeling that he would not like them to see what was about to occur. A middle-aged woman with sandy hair alighted, wearing a pants suit and silk scarf that would not be out of place in Paris. She quickly checked her perfectly applied make-up in the driver’s door rear-vision mirror, but it failed to disguise the hardness of her features.

Josh had met Moira Raymond three years earlier when she had parked in exactly the same spot and he had told her to move or he would book her. As cool as a cucumber, she had pulled out her mobile, punched in a number and, while he was still shouting at her, she passed it to him. ‘It’s the Chief Commissioner. He’d like a few words with you.’ It was the first and only time he had ever spoken to the state’s top cop and he was told that Moira was a personal friend and that he should do everything he could to help her. Since then, he had watched her take the premier and senior government ministers on tours of the gas wells around Paisley on many occasions and later dine with them. Whenever she was with a politician, she was quick to spruik the benefits to the state and nation of extracting coal seam gas.

She was as comfortable drinking beer and telling crude jokes in the company of labourers she employed on gas wells as she was sipping Dom Perignon with oil barons. Moira was a complex mix of rapier-wit and charm, which she could turn off and on at a whim. In the not too distant future, with the proviso that she did not fall at a hurdle, she would be CEGL’s CEO. She was grimly determined that those opposed to the extraction of coal seam gas in the Fisher Valley would not be that hurdle.

‘Good morning, Josh.’ Moira smiled through perfectly capped teeth. ‘How are you this beautiful day?’

‘I’m fine, Moira. What brings you here?’ He knew that whatever had brought her here could not be good for him.

‘Have you made any arrests yet?’

‘No. We don’t know that it wasn’t an accident.’

‘God, the whole town knows it was sabotage, knows who did it and knows Len Forrest is a liar. You know that, don’t you Josh?’ She rested a perfectly manicured hand on his wrist in the same way a mother restrains her child from straying into danger.

‘No, I don’t.’

Her icy blue, unblinking eyes locked onto him and she slowly shook her head. ‘We plugged the well last night and guess what we found?’

‘I don’t know,’ he muttered.

‘A small melted mass of metal that looks like a petrol drum.’

‘Don’t your maintenance guys carry diesel and oilcans with them?’

‘Are you saying that one of my employees left an oilcan at the well? It’s not possible. They have to account for everything on a report sheet.’

‘People make mistakes and what you’ve found doesn’t prove anything.’

‘My people don’t make mistakes.’ She scowled. ‘I really hoped you’d be more cooperative. If any more of our wells are sabotaged, I’ll hold you responsible.’

‘Moira, there’s three of us to cover the whole valley and we’ve got more to do than worry about your wells. If you’re worried about sabotage, you better bring in your own security guards.’

‘I might do that,’ she said, walking to the door. ‘But you won’t like it Joshy, because, unlike you, they have their own ways of getting results.’

He watched the Porsche’s tyres burn rubber as she reversed out of the driveway and he hoped he wouldn’t see her again any time soon.

Five minutes later Moira entered the premises of the
Paisley Chronicle.
Neither Steve nor Buffy had met her but they both knew who she was - everyone in the valley knew who Moira Raymond was. She looked past Buffy and said, ‘Steve Forrest?’

Before Steve could respond, Buffy smiled cheekily. ‘Who will I say is calling?’

‘That’d be me,’ Steve said, glaring at Buffy.

‘Your article was pretty weak, but I don’t suppose you could call your father a liar when he owns the paper.’

Steve was about to protest, but Moira held her hand up. ‘I’m not here to complain. I think you’ve been even-handed in the way you’ve reported on our industry and I’m guessing you resisted a lot of pressure to bucket us. That’s right isn’t it?’

‘I’m sure you didn’t come here to compliment me on my writing.’

‘You’re right about that. I want to book the centre pages of this Friday’s paper for a community announcement about the benefits CEGL can bring to the town.’

‘We … we can’t,’ Buffy gasped.

‘I take it you’re not the editor of this fine publication,’ Moira said, eying Buffy disdainfully. ‘So I presume it’s not your decision.’

‘Buffy plays a vital part in running this newspaper and she organises and allocates advertising space,’ Steve said. This wasn’t a total lie and at that moment Buffy wanted to hug him. She liked to think that she was tough in a nice way but the woman on the other side of the counter was a bitch: caustic and just plain nasty.

‘I’ve got the copy with me,’ Moira said, opening her
Hermes
handbag. ‘There are twenty points, starting with the employment opportunities we’ll generate and finishing with our undertaking that we haven’t and won’t contaminate the town’s air and water.’

‘You’ve already poisoned the water,’ Buffy said. ‘Look what happened to poor Charlie Paxton.’

Moira ignored Buffy and stared at Steve. ‘You know that’s not true. If it was, there’d be a lot more Charlie Paxtons in the valley. I feel sorry for the kid and his family, but his death had nothing to do with us. Are you going to run our advertisement this Friday, or not?’

‘You’ve been here for nearly three years but you’ve never approached us before. Why now?’

‘We looked at advertising a few years back, but your circulation barely exceeded three thousand then, so there was no point. You’ve done well in building up the readership and I’m going to reward you for your efforts by running weekly community advertisements for the next twelve months.’

‘And it’ll drop back to three thousand if we run your ads,’ Buffy butted in.

Steve was pondering the pros and cons of this surprising offer and knew that he needed more time. The increase in advertising revenue would add significantly to cash flow and profits, which were still small, but, against this, it would be a real fight to hold on to subscribers and small advertisers.

‘Thank you, but I need to think about your proposition and talk to my professional advisers before I can make a decision. I’m sorry, but I can’t place your announcement in this Friday’s paper.’

‘That’s very disappointing. Talk to your advisers, Steve, but don’t think that my offer’s going to remain on the table forever. Phone me.’ She dropped her business card on the counter, turned on her heel and disappeared through the door.

‘You can’t do it, Steve. You’ll destroy everything you’ve worked so hard for,’ Buffy said.

‘We’ll see.’

Steve had only been home a few minutes, flicked the TV on, grabbed a coke from the fridge and put his feet up when the phone rang. ‘Hello.’

‘You can’t do it! You just can’t do it!’

‘Dad, settle down. You’ll do yourself an injury.’

‘Listen to me. You not only won’t have a subscriber left, you’ll be the most hated man in the valley.’

‘How did you find out about CEGL’s proposition?’

‘Word travels.’

‘You mean Buffy phoned you the minute I left the office, don’t you?’

‘I didn’t say it was her.’

‘You didn’t need to. Dad, we can use the additional cash flow and, if we handle it well, we won’t lose many subscribers. I thought I’d do an editorial saying the
Chronicle
has to present both sides of the story.’

‘That’s baloney. I forbid you to accept that woman’s money!’

‘Forbid me? Dad, you put me in charge of the paper; now let me do my job.’ Steve slammed the phone down, something he’d never done to his father before.