Ecstasy Lake (6 page)

‘
Suckers!
'

There was laughter from the back seat. Someone pressed his arse to the window. Tasso snorted.

‘What's he doing?' said Fern.

‘I think he's mooning death.'

‘What an idiot.'

‘What else can we do?' said Tasso. ‘Come on, let's get a drink.'

Harlin and his gang departed, bikes cackling, and Melody went with them. The woman in the dark blue jacket with white trim had lingered for a while at the back, but now I spotted her heading north on foot along the access road. I decided to follow her, for no particular reason other than intrigue at the apparent depth of her grief. I peeled off from Tasso's group.

She wasn't hard to track. She walked fast, but because her legs were short I could keep pace with her at a stroll. She walked with purpose, her head down and her ponytail bobbing behind her, as if the faster she walked the faster she would leave her grief behind. But grief can be a bit like a ponytail, and hard to lose. One of her arms kept a grip on a bag slung over her shoulder, and the other was swinging in a big arc. She didn't look behind her. We left the cemetery and walked north along West Terrace. She crossed over and headed north-east into the city along lanes and minor streets. At one point she paused, put her bag on the ground and dug around in it. I leaned into the brick entrance of a basement car park and watched as she changed into a pair of black low-heeled shoes. She put her sneakers into the bag. Then she took out a compact and dabbed her face while looking in the mirror. When she finished she zipped up the bag, took a couple of deep breaths, and walked on. She turned the corner, and by the time I reached it she had disappeared from view.

8

There was a pub across the road called End of the World, and I went in. The woman was behind the bar drawing a beer, presumably for the lone customer, who was seated on a stool at the far end of the world as if he had been there for a decade and wasn't planning on going anywhere. He had grey hair and glasses and wore a bow tie, and he might have been a professor at the university next door. He had the look of a man with a doctorate in the consumption of alcohol, and his nose was cabernet red. The woman glanced up as I walked in; there was a flicker of recognition and then a practised smile. I folded my suit jacket, put it on a stool and sat next to it. She looked at me again and I ordered a pint of Pale Ale. She drew it for me and took my money.

‘Did you follow me? From the funeral?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's stalking.'

‘I was curious, that's all.'

‘About me?'

‘You knew Mick more than a little, didn't you? It was kind of obvious. He was a friend of mine, too.'

She leaned toward me over the bar, her elbows on it. She spoke in a soft voice so the Professor of Alcohol couldn't hear her. ‘Of
course
he meant a lot to me,' she said. ‘I loved him.' She clenched her eyes and the tears came. They came on the quiet; she fought for control of her face. ‘And
he
loved
me
.'

The professor was watching her. ‘The pain will fade,' he said. ‘Like everything.' He took a good long sip of his beer.

‘Your nose isn't fading,' I said.

She gave a little wet snort of laughter. The professor took it in good humour, too, giving a loud guffaw that died quickly. ‘My nose is eternal,' he said grandly.

The woman grabbed a tissue from a box and dabbed her face. ‘Are you a cop?' she said.

‘No. I told you, Mick was a friend. From university.'

‘I see.'

‘I hadn't seen him for a long time. Where did you meet him?'

She nodded to indicate the bar. ‘Here. When he was in town he came in most nights. Some nights are slow. We started talking. We had things in common. I knew he had problems. But sometimes he sat here for hours, drinking and talking and arguing with people. He was funny; he would argue with anyone and stay until the pub closed. In the last few months, sometimes he would come home with me.' She gave a smile and managed to hold it on her face. ‘Tasso was right, what he said at the service. Mick wasn't well, but he was a fighter. And, yes, he was an addict. Addicts are the worst people in the world when they can't get a fix. But he fought it; he tried to be good to me.'

‘He had a loud laugh,' said the professor, from the end of the bar. He held up his finger to the woman to signal that he wanted another drink. She pulled him a beer.

‘You knew him?'

‘He used to come in here, like she said. We argued a bit.' He tested his beer, and found it to be fine. ‘He was always good for an argument and he almost never knew what he was talking about.' The woman glared at him, but the professor just stared at his beer.

The woman returned to me, a dishcloth in her hand. She started wiping the top of the bar with it. ‘He wasn't around much. It wasn't like we were living together or anything. But we had some good times.' She was wiping hard. There were no rings on her fingers. Her face was showing signs of wear; lines radiated from the corners of her eyes, but they were friendly lines. Hiskey had found a nice woman to mother him a little.

‘What's your name?'

‘Marianne.'

‘I'm Steve. Steve West. Most people call me Westie.'

‘Mick talked about Tasso, but I never met him. He didn't seem to have many friends. He never mentioned you.'

‘As I said, I hadn't seen him for a while. Men can be like that. We don't have to be in close contact to be mates. Years can go by and we can pick up where we left off. Men don't change as much as women.'

She thought about that. ‘But I think Mick
had
changed. He was very angry with Sonia.' She rinsed her cloth under the tap and wrung it out. Hard. ‘And to see that flinty bitch in the church today with tears on her face.'

‘Did he ever talk about his work?'

‘Not really, except the places he visited.' She paused, and I thought she was deciding whether to say more. ‘Mick was a dreamer, like Uncle Walter said. He always said his luck was going to change; he really believed it. That's what drove him—a dream that something big was just around the corner. And then one day he came in as if he was on top of the world. It wasn't just that he was high. He was pumped.'

‘His luck had changed.'

‘Yes.'

‘Did he say how?'

‘No, but he was very excited. And then …' The tears came again, and she turned away. And then his luck had changed again, I thought. I finished my beer and contemplated another. But the bar was starting to populate. Marianne had recomposed herself and was serving a bloke who looked like he was another erudite regular. As I left I caught her eye and nodded, and she watched me go.

9

I crossed the street with the aim of heading back to West Terrace to find Tasso and the remnants of the wake. A couple of police cars were parked in front of a boarded-up shopfront, and a dozen or so bikes were parked on either side of them. Above the plywood boards was a sign proclaiming the Red Ink Tattoo Parlour. I guessed this was the Mad Dogs' shop that had been torched a few nights before. A group of leathered men were standing on the footpath, chatting with the cops. The interchange seemed friendly enough. Among the group was Fang, the man who had fired the shots at White Pointer and who must have been bailed out of the local lockup. As I watched he glanced in my direction, noticed me staring, and stared back until I looked away.

I found Tasso and other mourners at the pub opposite the cemetery. Uncle Walter was there, along with Sonia, Hiskey's old geology professor, various family members and hangers-on whom I never got to know, and a few of our university mates. No Fern. Sonia was perched on a stool with her legs crossed and a glass of white wine in her hand. I kissed her cheek. She was still as pretty as I remembered her, and grief suited her.

‘My condolences,' I said.

‘Thank you, Steve.' She smiled at me as if it took all her strength. Her nails were painted dark purple, but her lipstick was understated.

An overweight woman joined us, holding an elegant drink. ‘Mum, this is Steve,' said Sonia. ‘He was a friend of Michael's. Steve, this is my mother. Jenny.'

Jenny had a face that made me wonder where Sonia had got her prettiness from, although like her daughter she had nicely cut hair and expensive teeth. She was wearing several rings, but not on her wedding finger. Uncle Walter was assessing her now from his place at the bar a few metres away. Sonia had turned away to speak to someone, so I had Jenny to myself.

‘It's a terrible thing, isn't it?' I said.

‘Yes, terrible.'

‘But a good ceremony.'

‘Very nice.' She had a steady gaze and a face held fast by the fat in her cheeks. ‘I thought Tasso was harsh, though.'

‘How so?'

‘He made it sound as if Sonia was ganging up on him, along with the rest of the world. But Michael brought a lot of his problems on himself.'

‘They were separated?'

‘Yes, and he took it hard, it's true. But she tried for a long time to make the marriage work.' Jenny sipped her drink. ‘It's not easy being married to a geologist.'

‘I'm sure you're right. They must always be dirty.'

‘What man isn't dirty?' She leered at me. ‘But geologists are a certain species. I ought to know. My father was one.'

‘Really?' I wasn't that interested in her father, but she didn't need much encouragement.

‘Yes. My mother and I used to go with him on his explorations. I loved it.' I looked around, hoping to see Tasso so I could make a getaway. ‘Daddy had vision,' she said. ‘He could read the geology of a landscape better than most people could read a newspaper. Michael was almost as good. But Sonia wasn't keen on the desert and she rarely went with him on his trips, so they spent a lot of time apart.'

‘I don't suppose that was good for the marriage.' Tasso still hadn't materialised. I began hoping Uncle Walter would make a move.

‘Oh, shocking. He was never at home, always in the outback somewhere, always chasing the big one, never finding it. And then there was his drug addiction. He didn't hide it. It kept them poor. He was always asking people for money, presumably to feed his habit. He even asked me. More than once.'

‘That wasn't nice.'

‘No it wasn't. He ever ask you?'

‘No.'

‘You mustn't have known him very well, then.'

‘We were friends at uni but I hadn't seen him for a long time. I've been away.'

She took another sip of her drink, keeping her eyes on me. ‘Anyway, the marriage couldn't last, not like that. It's not easy being married to an addict.' She laughed suddenly. ‘I'm repeating myself, aren't I? What a combination, eh? A geologist and a drug addict. Sonia sure picked a good one there.'

Tasso appeared at last, with a fresh drink for Jenny. He took my arm. ‘Excuse us, Jenny,' he said. She nodded and smiled and applied herself to her drink. Uncle Walter was pushing himself off the bar as Tasso guided me away. ‘I've taken care of the bar for the night, but I've had just about all I can handle of this crowd. Let's get out of here.' As we left I glanced back and saw Sonia looking at me. I doubled back and took my leave, and she smiled and touched my arm. We kissed cheeks.

Tasso said he was meeting up with Juliana and Caitlin. I went home.

10

Tasso's office was on the thirtieth floor of the city's only thirty-floor building. The entrance was grand enough. It had a large glass door that opened automatically, and on it were the words ‘Goanna Mining' and a logo involving a big lizard astride a bent grid that was probably meant to represent the curving earth and to show the way that mining can get its claws into anything, anywhere. The foyer was spacious, too, made more so by a general lack of furniture, except at the far end, where there was a reception desk, a reception chair and a receptionist. I made the trek across blue-grey carpet. Fern, the receptionist, watched me with the same interest with which she probably watched the carpet when I wasn't there.

‘I must be early,' I said, after the usual greetings. ‘A few weeks early, by the look of it.'

‘It does look a bit bare, doesn't it?'

‘No furniture, no lights.'

‘No action.'

‘No staff?'

‘Just you, me and Tasso.'

‘I like the logo. I guess we're planning to take over the world. You, me and Tasso.'

‘Something like that.' Her hair was tied back in an efficient bun.

‘Where's Tasso?'

She shrugged. ‘You tell me.' It was barely eight, so it wasn't so strange that he wasn't in yet. But it was a little strange she was put out because she didn't know where he was. ‘I'm sure he'll be in soon,' she said. ‘He has several meetings scheduled. No doubt he'll call you when he needs you. In the meantime I can show you your office.' She patted a laptop computer. ‘This is yours.'

Goanna Mining seemed to occupy the entire floor. It was a wasteland of empty offices. There was a meeting room with no furniture and a large kitchen with no food, although it did have an industrial-sized espresso machine. An office had been designated for me with a large window looking out towards the spreadeagled southern suburbs. A chair and a landline phone sat on the floor.

‘Your desk is arriving today,' said Fern. ‘And your laptop is already logged into the network.'

‘We have a network?'

‘Sure. You, me and Tasso.'

She returned to her station and I looked at the view for a while. I had done my share of paperwork in my time, and putting together a proposal for an exploration licence was not so hard. I phoned the Department of Mines and requested an application form. The friendly woman on the other end of the line said that everything I needed was on the website and good luck. So I spent an hour on the website, downloading forms and miscellaneous other materials. I created a file on the laptop, in which I wrote questions I needed to ask Tasso. I wandered into the meeting room and found a large map on the wall showing exploration licence areas and applications in South Australia; virtually the entire state was a mosaic of hundreds or thousands of irregular-shaped licence areas. The map showed the Woomera Prohibited Area, Aboriginal lands, national parks and a number of other types of reserve, and licence areas seemed to straddle them all, goanna-like. I wasted an hour peering at the map and wondering where Hiskey had made his find. Fern poked her head in and told me Tasso had arrived and wanted to see me.

His was a corner office with large windows facing north and west; the western window had a vertical blind that could be closed to ward off the worst of the afternoon sun. In front of it was a large black desk and a leather swivel chair. A three-piece leather lounge suite formed a squared-off U, in the middle of which was a glass-topped coffee table. Tasso was seated on the one-seater, looking relaxed with his legs wide apart. A man was sitting on another of the lounges, dressed in jeans and a light-blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms.

‘Steve, do you know Phil Goldsworthy?' said Tasso.

Goldsworthy stood up. He was a big man; he had a barrel chest you could have gone over Niagara Falls in. His forehead went all the way to the top of his head at an angle of about forty-five degrees. It looked as hard as a rock face, and straw-coloured hair ran up on either side of it towards the summit, like summer grass on Willunga Hill.

‘No,' I said, offering him my hand. ‘I reckon I saw you at Hiskey's funeral yesterday, though.'

‘I knew Mick well,' said Goldsworthy. ‘We worked on a couple of projects together, back in the day.'

Goldsworthy had big, meaty hands and a firm handshake that went on for too long. As he held me close he studied the details of my face as if he would have to repeat them one day in court.

‘Phil is the CEO at Solid Gold Security,' said Tasso. ‘He's going to provide security for our operation. We just agreed on terms.'

Goldsworthy nodded, still memorising my face.

‘I've known Phil for years,' said Tasso. ‘His mob does good work. I've been telling him that the biggest threat to us at the moment is industrial espionage. We can't afford leaks.'

‘So we will sweep the offices for bugs and cameras, and we will do it twice a day,' said Goldsworthy, finally releasing my hand. ‘We will monitor phones, including the mobile phones of all employees.'

‘All three of us,' I said.

‘We will scan all phones twice a day. We will have security staff here twenty-four hours a day to guard against intruders. We will set up a card access system for these offices.'

‘We will fight them on the beaches.'

‘Anywhere they go,' said Goldsworthy, with no change of expression on his rocky outcrop.

‘He can also help us gather information,' said Tasso.

‘Sweet,' I said.

‘Only to the extent it is legal,' said Goldsworthy.

‘Of course.'

‘We don't do illegal.'

‘Of course not.'

Goldsworthy still hadn't smiled. I glanced at Tasso, who winked at me.

Fern came in and announced that the police were here.

‘What are their names?' said Tasso.

Fern looked at a card in her hand. ‘Detective Superintendent Tarrant and …' she looked at a second card, ‘Senior Constable McGarry.'

‘That's right,' I said. ‘Tarrant told me to let you know he'd be round.'

‘Show them in,' said Tasso. ‘You might as well stay for this, for your sins,' he said to me. ‘No need for you to stay,' he said to Goldsworthy, who showed impressive exit speed for such a big man.

Tarrant wandered his way in, followed by a youngish woman in a police uniform. Tasso introduced himself and turned to introduce me.

‘Mr West and I are acquainted,' said Tarrant.

‘We go back a long way,' I said.

Tasso asked Fern to take coffee orders.

‘We're here about Michael Hiskey's murder,' said Tarrant.

‘Of course,' said Tasso. ‘But I spent several hours on Thursday talking to your colleagues at the station. I don't think there's anything new I can tell you.'

‘I know, and I've read the transcript of your interview,' said Tarrant. ‘It's because you've already done a formal interview that I didn't ask you to come in. But I've just been assigned to the case and I want to hear it again, directly from you. Apologies for making you relive the ordeal.'

‘I don't mind,' said Tasso. ‘I want you to find the fuckwit who killed him.'

‘We will do our best, Mr Tasso.'

‘Just call me Tasso. Everyone else does.'

‘But it's your surname, right?'

‘Yes, it's bloody impolite, but that's the way people are.' He laughed, looking at McGarry. She smiled, just a little, out of politeness.

‘So let's talk about last Wednesday morning,' said Tarrant. ‘You said Mr Hiskey was due to meet you in your office. That was here, right?'

‘Yes, we'd just moved in a couple of days before.'

‘What was the meeting about?'

‘He was down on his luck. He wanted work.'

‘Did you give him any?'

‘Yes, I was about to put something his way. It had taken me a while to organise it. He wasn't reliable. I liked Hiskey, but he was flawed.'

‘In what way?'

‘He was a heroin addict. I assume you know that.'

Tarrant didn't give any sign that he knew anything. ‘So on that morning, what time had you arranged to meet with Mr Hiskey?'

‘We were going to meet at nine.'

‘And when he hadn't shown by ten, you decided to go personally to his depot at Buckland Park?'

‘Yes. I tried calling him on the landline at his office and also on his mobile. Both rang out. Well, actually his mobile just went to voice mail. I assumed the battery was flat.'

‘Was it unusual that he didn't answer? You said yourself he was unreliable. What made you so worried?'

Tasso shrugged. ‘I was about to give him a project. He was desperate for it. If ever he was going to show up for something, this was it.'

‘I thought he had his own company.'

‘He did. He was a part-owner of Black Hill Exploration. But it was a lean time for them.'

‘Why is that?'

Tasso shrugged again. ‘That company is not well managed.'

‘You say he was a part-owner. Who are the other owners?'

‘Frank Hardcastle was his business partner.'

‘You know him?'

‘I've met him.'

‘Like him?'

‘No.'

‘Did Hiskey?'

‘Let's just say they hadn't been speaking much lately.'

Tarrant paused as Fern came in, carrying a tray loaded with four coffees, glasses and a jug of water.

‘Why not?' said Tarrant after Fern had left, closing the door behind her. ‘What was the issue between Hiskey and Hardcastle?'

Tasso leaned forward. ‘Hardcastle was fucking his wife.' He started dumping sugar into his coffee.

‘Hiskey's wife?'

‘Yes. Would it be news if he was fucking his
own
wife? Then again, I'm not married.' He smiled and looked at McGarry. I was pretty sure he winked at her.

‘So you were worried you hadn't heard from Hiskey because he was desperate for work. There must be more to it than that. People miss meetings all the time, even important ones.'

‘I was concerned about him.' Tasso leaned back, cup and saucer in his hands. ‘He was not in great shape, he was depressed, his health was poor. He was an addict, for Christ's sake. I was worried he wasn't going to pull through.'

‘Did you think he might have been suicidal?'

‘I don't know about that, but he wasn't a happy man and he wasn't particularly healthy. So considering the importance of this work to him, I was concerned. He was a mate. I wasn't just going to sit around here and wait.'

Tarrant raised his cup to his lips but didn't bother trying to hide his scepticism behind it. He took a sip. ‘Alright, so you decided to go to his depot. Had you been there before?'

‘Yes, once or twice.'

‘Once? Or twice?'

‘Twice, not including that morning.'

‘For what purposes?'

‘Once I picked him up there because we'd arranged to have a drink. That was a couple of months ago, when I was still living in Perth. I'd come over for a couple of days. We were just catching up.'

‘Where did you go?'

‘We went to the St Kilda Beach Hotel. Down there by the mangroves.'

‘And the second time?'

‘The second time was to take a look at his set-up. That was three or four weeks ago, I guess, when I was thinking about giving him work.'

‘Last Wednesday, what time did you arrive at the depot?'

‘About eleven.'

‘You drove yourself?'

‘No, my driver drove.'

‘His name?'

‘Albert Parker. Bert, we call him.'

‘I'd like to speak with him in due course.'

‘Be my guest. Fern can give you his details.'

‘Describe what happened when you arrived.'

‘Bert drove us into the compound. The gate was open. I knew from previous experience that Hiskey locked the gate at night. Hiskey's truck was there, so I assumed
he
was there, too. Which I thought was weird because I had kept trying his landline on the way out there and got no response.'

‘Did you notice anything else out of the ordinary?'

‘No.'

‘Okay, so you arrived at the depot with Mr Parker. What did you do then?'

‘I went to the office.'

‘What did Parker do?'

‘He came with me.'

‘What did you see when you approached the office?'

‘I saw the office. Nothing out of the ordinary. It's an old ATCO transportable. You know, one of those white ones with the yellow trim at the top, the natural habitat of the mining industry. It's got a door and a window and an air-conditioning unit out the back, if you're lucky. No frills. The door was shut.'

‘What did you do? Describe everything in as much detail as possible.'

‘Everything?'

‘Yes. I apologise again.'

‘It's alright.' Tasso took a deep breath. ‘So, okay, the door was locked. I knocked on it and called out. There was no answer. I knocked again, and still no answer. I went to the window and peered in. It had a steel mesh over it, so I couldn't see inside all that well. The place was messed up. It always was, but it seemed worse than I'd seen it before. And then I saw Hiskey.' He had been looking directly at Tarrant and occasionally at McGarry, but now he looked away, towards the western window. ‘He was sitting on a chair. He didn't look good. His head was leaning to one side.' Tasso looked back at Tarrant. ‘He looked bloody, but I was hoping it was just because I couldn't see clearly. Bert got the tyre lever from the car and we used it to prise open the door.' He absently mimed a prising action. ‘It was blood, and it was obviously Hiskey's.' Tasso looked at me, his eyes raw. ‘Jesus, Steve, there was a lot of blood. There were spatters on the walls behind him, but mainly it was on him or on the floor. It was almost black. A hard black puddle of blood on the floor. Hiskey was tied to a chair with duct tape. His arms were taped to the armrests of the chair and the fingers on both his hands had been smashed to a pulp. With a hammer or something, I suppose. There was duct tape around his chest, holding him upright in the chair. He was barefooted and his ankles were taped to the legs of the chair. Several of his toes had been smashed. Worst of all, though, was his head. The side of it had been smashed in. I felt for a pulse in his neck but I couldn't see how he could be alive, not with the side of his head smashed in.' Tasso looked away again and shook his head. ‘I reckon he'd been hit in the face a few times. Someone had been angry with him. It was terrible, terrible. I'd give anything not to have seen him like that.'