Eden (2 page)

Peter and I had been going to stay with a friend of the family, and my particular friend, Detective Sergeant Brook, who'd rented a house at Broulee for two weeks. When I'd told Brook about the changed plans, he'd been annoyed, and had plodded off to the coast on his own.

. . .

By three in the afternoon, the office at the back of the house throbbed with a steady pulse of hot, dry air. It moved across scorched grass, through walls, paying no attention to drawn curtains or the fan on three.

I checked that Fred's bucket had plenty of water, and walked over to Dickson for a swim.

Fred was getting on, not so lively now, especially in the heat. He seemed content to spend his days stretched out on the kitchen floor tiles, occasionally padding down the corridor to say hello, or let me know he wanted to go out.

At Dickson Pool, I pulled a cap over my short hair, tensing the muscles in my legs and pretending for a moment that I was eighteen again. I joined the serious swimmers in their lap lanes, though not the fast one, which had a sign at the end asking swimmers to please be realistic when they chose it. Clouds were massing behind Mt Majura, but the forecast that morning had been the same as always—fine and hot.

Water, and the slosh of my slow but steady freestyle, woke me up. Each down stroke, I studied the blue-tiled bottom of the pool through my goggles. I stopped at the shallow end to rest my forearms on the burning concrete, and felt pleased at the prospect of a long, uninterrupted evening.

Dollimore's phone call had been strange, no doubt about it, too intense for an expression of general curiosity. Canberra was on holiday, absent from itself, but something was beginning. I could feel it. I realised that the mischievous part of me, which came to the surface when I was less than fully occupied, like now, would love the chance to slide a splinter under Ken Dollimore's skin.

I'd been waiting until the sun was almost gone behind O'Connor Ridge before taking Fred for a walk. I liked the moment when the lights came on along the bike path, then in the houses that straggled up the hill. Half an hour or so in the warm dusk seemed enough for him. He didn't stray far from me, and his interest in the high school rubbish bins was in abeyance until the kids went back in February.

I made myself a light meal, then jotted down what I knew about Carmichael. The coroner was expected to find that his death had been caused by heart failure. He'd been well known for his progressive views on prostitution and pornography, and had played, if not the key role then a significant one, in changing the laws in 1992, several years after the ACT gained self-government. It was due largely to his efforts that brothels were legal in Canberra's light industrial zones of Fyshwick, Hume and Mitchell, escort work was city wide, and X-rated videos and magazines could be sold openly to anybody over eighteen. Our small national capital had become a centre for mail-order distribution of pornography to states with stricter laws.

Two

Ivan's reply to my email arrived sooner than I'd hoped. He might have turned up more on
CleanNet
if he'd had the time, but nothing had looked dodgy as far as he could tell. Only someone reading his notes would have seen the mention of Carmichael's name. He hadn't talked to anyone about it, apart from Chris Laskaris at the Internet Industry Group. It had been Laskaris who'd confirmed that Carmichael seemed in favour of the filter package.

When I finally got onto Lucy at Electronic Freedom, she said Ken Dollimore had rung her to ask about Ivan's report. Before that, she'd never heard of him.

‘What did you tell him?' I asked.

‘Where to find the published stuff.'

‘And the notes Ivan sent before he left?'

‘Notes are a euphemism right? I didn't pass them on.'

The anti-censorship group was funded by membership levies. Lucy did a part-time shift in the office, answering phones and correspondence, on top of a better-paying job. When she picked up the phone, she always sounded as though she was in the middle of a crisis, and talking to me was a favour that, any second now, she'd be forced to withdraw. I'd never met her, but I imagined her having a face and body that went with the voice—short hair, loose-fitting shirts and trousers made from materials that never needed ironing. I could identify with that.

‘Dollimore got up your nose?' I said. ‘He got up mine as well.'

‘I asked him what he wanted, but he wouldn't say.'

I told Lucy I'd been surprised to find that Eden Carmichael had been at
CleanNet
's presentation. ‘I wonder if Dollimore persuaded him to go.'

‘He's on the religious right, isn't he? That's what frustrates me about these evangelicals. They don't understand the technology, what it can and can't do, but they're out there making promises to people.'

‘Who saw Ivan's notes?' I asked.

‘No one outside this office.'

‘Someone must have told Dollimore about them.'

‘All
CleanNet
cares about is making money,' Lucy said impatiently. ‘They couldn't give a shit about what the legislation might do to the industry as a whole, or how it's going to stuff up the net.'

‘The Carmichael connection would be what Dollimore is after.'

‘You could be right.'

I enquired about payment for Ivan's report. Lucy said she hoped he might have got a bit further than he had.

There was a short silence, then I said, ‘I wouldn't mind digging round a bit.'

‘I'll run it past the committee. Your rates would be the same as your partner's?'

I confirmed this, then added, ‘If you wouldn't mind paying for services already rendered? Ivan's currently supplying Moscow with about half its foreign currency.'

Lucy agreed to this, then told me she had another call.

I put the phone down, feeling pleased. Here was a job for me and no one else. Ivan was away. Ken Dollimore would certainly have insisted on speaking to him, if he hadn't been on the far side of the world. If there really was a link between Eden Carmichael and
CleanNet
, it was up to me to find it. At the same time, I wondered what I was letting myself in for. I was used to having Ivan to talk to. I was used to noise and children's chatter, not solitary thoughts echoing through hot, still rooms.

. . .

Herman Marcus Limited
was registered with a firm of solicitors called
Benjamin Plant and Partners
. I rang them and asked if I could have a look at some annual reports. Then I rang Chris Laskaris and made an appointment to see him.

I bought
CleanNet
's package from a local computer shop, had a bit of a play round with it, then made myself an early lunch and drove over the lake to the solicitors' suite of offices. I was shown into a small comfortable room, so comfortable that, once I'd been sitting in one of the dark-brown leather chairs for about ten minutes, I started feeling sleepy. I'd been given a stack of annual reports and left alone to read them.

Herman Marcus
was a group of Canberra-based IT firms. I was ­surprised to find the group had chosen to invest in
CleanNet
. Representatives of several of the firms had given evidence to the Senate Select Committee On Information Technologies, and had expressed views that, if not quite at Electronic Freedom's end of the spectrum, were broadly against the legislation, and sceptical about whether filters would do any of the things that their manufacturers claimed.

Business is business? Maybe so. Maybe there was nothing remarkable in that. I'd learnt from
CleanNet
's website that their shares had gone from $12 to $53 in the week they were released. They'd hovered in the $40 to $50 range ever since. I was no expert when it came to the stock market, but it seemed to me that investors looking to make money quickly would have made it and got out by now. I wondered if this meant that those who remained were in for the long haul, that they believed
CleanNet
had a superior product that could beat American imports and survive the impending crash. I pondered the ethics of it—saying one thing publicly, in front of a Senate committee, and putting your money in another.

I also wondered why none of the business journalists had picked up the anomaly. My friend at the
Times
, Gail Trembath, recently back from a year and a half in South-East Asia, wasn't a business journalist, but she might be interested.

I made a list of what was obvious, hoping to clear my mind of this, and allow room for more original thoughts to emerge. I glanced up at the Western Desert dot paintings on the walls, then gave in to my impulse to snoop. I opened desk drawers and scanned the spines of loose-leaf binders lined up in rows on heavy walnut bookshelves.

In the drawers, I found stationery, a hole punch and stapler that looked as though they'd never been used, packets of paperclips, pads of paper with the firm's logo at the top. The young woman who'd shown me into the office had taken down several volumes from a loaded shelf. I hadn't realised that so many computer companies were registered with
Plant and Partners
.

Ivan's report contained nothing that could not be gained from spending an hour going through the public records. It was no wonder that Lucy had been frustrated by how little he'd produced. Again, asked myself what Ken Dollimore was looking for.

. . .

Chris Laskaris's office was on the third floor of Industry House. There was an intercom outside. While waiting to be buzzed in, I peered through double-glass doors at thick green carpet, a curved reception desk, framed small business awards sharing wall space with more dot paintings.

The office was open plan. Chris took me to an alcove with a desk, computer and two chairs. His smile said nice to see you. Chris and Ivan had met as students, though Chris was much younger, and obviously on the fast track even then. He'd started an ISP business with another young Greek guy, in a garage in O'Connor. They'd parted company, and I didn't know what had happened to his ex-partner, but Chris had gone from garage to office to bigger office to industry representative. He'd put himself on the record as opposing Internet censorship, and at the same time had got the best deal he could for the people who now paid his salary.

‘I wanted to ask you about this censorship stuff, how it's panning out,' I said.

Chris was wearing the bottom half of a suit that I didn't think Ivan would ever be able to afford, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and no tie. He pushed his sleeves up further, a gesture that revealed his smooth tanned arms.

‘You're in a difficult position,' I prompted, ‘I mean, with your members having to supply filters when you don't believe they can do the job the politicians have promised Australian families they'll do.'

‘Tell me about it.' Chris smiled, then made a deprecating face, head on one side. He looked as though he swam every evening, three kilometres to my half a one. He looked like he'd been born knowing how to play both sides against the middle.

The On-line Services Bill, Chris explained, which had come into effect on January 1, did two things. It set up a complaints mechanism so that people could object to offensive Internet sites, and the Australian Broadcasting Authority could order them to be taken down—a futile process, critics of the legislation said, since the owners of the sites would simply move offshore. In addition, Australian Internet Service Providers were required to provide filters, or other kinds of blocking software, to their customers. This was where
CleanNet
and their many competitors came in.

‘What about
CleanNet
?' I asked. ‘Is their package any better than the others?'

‘Have you tried it?'

‘It blocked the National Party site. Is that meant to be a joke?'

Chris laughed and said, ‘It's not technically possible to produce a reliable filter.'

‘Will it be, in the near future?'

‘I don't believe so. I'm a programmer, and I know how these things work. The marketing people sell a product, then tell the programmers to make it. When the programmers say it can't be done, their opinions are swept aside as unnecessarily modest.'

‘A compromise is reached?'

‘Usually.'

‘But usually without a political spotlight.'

‘Usually without that, yes. We're between a rock and a hard place on this one. Consumer legislation states that companies must provide products that are fit for the purpose for which they are sold. So the consumers who need protection may end up suing the companies for not providing what we said
couldn't
be provided because it wasn't technically possible.'

Chris shrugged and spread his hands, palms downwards on the desk.

‘The companies supplying the software aren't Australian for the most part,' he went on. ‘Nor are they members of our association. But you can see how our members will be caught.'

‘
CleanNet
's Australian, though,' I pointed out.

‘And the guy heading them up is very patriotic.'

I caught something in Chris's tone. ‘You don't like Richard McFadden?'

‘He was in town for the hearing. Someone set him up with a special presentation for the Minister.'

I made a mental note that Chris hadn't answered my question directly, then said, ‘I've been told Eden Carmichael was impressed by what McFadden had to offer.'

Chris shrugged and said he'd seemed to be.

‘Do you think Carmichael might have been changing sides, throwing in his lot with the pro-censorship lobby?'

‘I wouldn't go that far necessarily. I didn't really know the guy. He didn't discuss his opinions with me.'

Sensing Chris didn't want to be pushed on Carmichael, and would clam up if I tried, I went back a step. ‘So your association is the meat in the sandwich.'

‘Our brief is to serve the interests of our members, not all of whom are going to be of the one political persuasion. That's one big difference between us and EF for instance. You don't join
them
if you're pro-censorship. Unless you're a mole.'

‘But your group can have members who are both pro and anti.'

‘In theory, according to our constitution.'

‘And in practice?'

‘In practice most of our members are anti-censorship, certainly in the form of the present legislation.'

‘But you took part in the debate about it, you succeeded in getting it modified, and now your members are going to have to implement it.'

‘That's right.'

‘I heard a rumour that the Labor Party was about to toughen its ­position.'

Chris looked grim.

‘Forcing ISPs to filter content, isn't that rather a turn-around for Labor?'

‘I'm not sure I follow you.'

‘Labor used to have a less severe position on censorship than the Coalition.'

But Chris refused to be drawn on the rumoured policy change. ‘Strange times we live in,' was all he said.

‘Is
CleanNet
a member of the Internet Industry Group?' I asked.

‘I can't tell you that. You see,' Chris smiled to soften his refusal, ‘if you look at the code of ethics we've been developing, through months and months of consultation and incredibly hard work I might say, there's a lot of emphasis on getting international agreement to ban certain sorts of traffic—child pornography, incitement to racial hatred—these things are covered by the Crimes Act in Australia. We don't need special legislation for them here. But getting international controls to work is another story. It's not that this government isn't aware of the international perspective. They know that controls applied within Australia aren't going to be all that effective.'

‘What about
CleanNet
's competitors? Aren't they going to be pissed off at what appears to be favourable treatment?'

‘Most of them are American.' Chris paused, then added, ‘There's the list, of course.'

‘What list?'

‘Senator Bryant's about to announce a short list of filters that will carry a government recommendation. There's even some talk of the government supplying them for free.'

‘Is
CleanNet
on the list?'

‘No one knows who's on it. Not officially.'

‘Unofficially?'

‘I honestly don't know.'

‘When will it be announced?'

‘The word is any day.'

‘What's McFadden like?' I asked, realising Chris wasn't going to tell me any more about the list just then.

‘Maverick,' Chris said.

‘He runs his own show, you mean?'

‘I mean Maverick with a capital ‘M'. He grew up on American Westerns and people say that he's addicted to them. He used to get around in a black shirt, cowboy boots and stetson. And gambling. He was here to lobby, and he did a fine job there. But he spent most of his time in the casino.'