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‘And a camera, eh?’

‘You never know what can pop up. I hope you’ve got your gun.’

‘Wait and see. You reckon I could need it?’

‘I told you, Ireland has some tough friends. Who knows who he’s hanging out with now?’

I did have the .38, in a shoulder rig under my denim jacket. I had on drill trousers and boots so I was equipped for the country stuff. I’d never thought the Irelands would have their fuck-pad in the CBD.

Tania drove the way she behaved—recklessly, aggressively, with no consideration for others. She gunned the car through the traffic like a rally driver and had just enough experience and skill to avoid diaster. I hated to be a part of it and asked if we could have some music.

‘No, I have to concentrate on my driving.’

‘That’s good; the way you drive, concentration is essential.’

‘Fuck you.’ She lit a cigarette and that was the end of conversation until her destination became clear.

‘Blue Mountains?’ I said.

‘Got it in one.’ She shot me a look, picking up a note in my tone. ‘Something on your mind?’ She broke into a fair Streisand imitation. ‘
Memories . . .
’

In fact I was thinking about Kathy’s wish to see the Blue Mountains and my promise to take her. Going there now under these circumstances wasn’t comfortable, felt like a small betrayal. I pushed the thought aside and tried to provoke Tania because I needed a distraction.

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘How was Damien? Any good?’

She took a bend at speed and avoided an oncoming truck by too small a margin.

‘Not the best, not the worst. What’s the line in that crappy country and western song—“kinda dumb and kinda smart”? That’s Damien. He had his points, liked certain . . . games. Interested in the details, Cliff?’

‘Tania, your great talent is pissing people off. I doubt you’ll ever win a Walkley. What’s the minister likely to say when you front up?’

‘He’ll welcome me with open flies.’

‘Why don’t you just concentrate on your driving and getting us alive to wherever the fuck we’re going.’

We left the Sydney plains behind and began the climb into the lower reaches of the Blue Mountains. The road should have been better than it was, given the traffic, and even Tania slowed down and took some care. The temperature dropped and a mist hung in the air, visible from a distance, not yet encroaching on the road.

I did have memories of times spent in the mountains, particularly a weekend with Cyn at the Hydro Majestic where the fog had rolled in and obscured the valley view that was billed as one of the great attractions of the place. It was very early on in our relationship and such things hadn’t mattered much. We walked in the rain, sat by the fire, spent a lot of hours in bed. It was a long time back: a memory, not a wound.

We reached Wentworth Falls and Tania turned off onto a narrow road that quickly gave way to a roughly graded gravel stretch and then a dirt track where she engaged the four-wheel drive. The mist was thicker here and she had to flick the wipers on and off a few times to clear the windscreen. The track narrowed and trees overhung it. As we
climbed the rain started and the wipers were needed full-time. She had to work to keep the car moving slowly, using the extra traction to avoid slides. She did it pretty well, but the strain showed in her face and she needed both hands. No smoking.

‘Hernando’s hideaway,’ I said, just for something to say.

‘They get a view of the lake on a good day, and some falls and other stuff. It was just a cabin until Ireland spent big money on it.’

‘Jacuzzi? TV mast?’

‘All that.’

‘I hope he’s here. It’s a long way to come up empty.’

‘He’s here. I rang Damien last night.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Both of them here?’

‘Who knows?’

‘I suppose you gave him to understand he might have another crack.’

She smiled as she steered round a puddle. The front right-hand wheel went down into mud and only the extra drive power kept us going. We rounded a bend where the road widened out to allow for safety. The drop on the left looked like a plunge of a thousand feet into a misty void. A sign read ‘Danger—Skinner’s Leap’ and a fence emphasised the fact. Then the track rose steeply for about half a mile before reaching a flat area of four or five acres. It snaked past, climbing higher.

Plenty of trees around the flat spot, some scrub, outcrops of rock. A cottage sat in the middle of the space—timber and glass, smoke drifting up from the chimney. There was no garden to speak of but an area beside the house had been cleared, levelled and closely mown. It had a flag on a six foot pole stuck in the middle of it.

‘He’s a keen golfer,’ Tania said as she steered the car towards a cement slab where another car stood. ‘Do you play, Cliff?’

‘No. Strikes me the ball’s too small and the distances are too big.’

‘That’s the fun of it. Well, here we go.’

She shrugged into her parka, pulled the hood up, opened the door and, tucking her bag under her arm, made a dash through the rain and mud to the front porch. I watched while she took off the parka and did something to her hair. She rang a bell. The door opened and she waltzed in. I zipped up my jacket, turned up the collar and got out. The rain was really just heavy drizzle and I tramped around to the other side of the house to check it out. A Land Rover, fire engine red, newish, gleaming in the pale light, stood under a tree. Wayne was not alone.

I continued my circuit and reached the back of the house, where a covered deck ran the full length. Tania was right about the view, even through mist and drizzle. Some trees had been dealt with to enhance it, and the result was a vista down towards the township with the lake in sight and the mist-clouded hills in the distance. I’m a citizen of the city and the beach, but this view brought me to a halt and I stood looking out over it, scarcely feeling the damp.

‘Hey, Hardy. Come up out of the rain.’

I scraped my boots on the wire mat provided and climbed the steps to the deck, rubbing the water from my hair and unzipping my jacket. The man who met me was too young to be Wayne Ireland but had the same bull-like build I’d seen in photographs of the politician.

‘Damien Ireland,’ he said, holding out his hand.

I brushed my wet hands together. ‘Got a towel?’

He didn’t like my not shaking hands but he didn’t want me to see it. ‘Sure, Cliff,’ he said. ‘Come and I’ll show you to the bathroom. Better wipe your feet again. Better still, take your boots off.’

I braced myself against the rail and removed my boots. Damien had a couple of inches over my six-foot-one and, as he was wearing boots too, he now had a big height advantage. Just for the hell of it, I took my socks off as well.

I went into a room that mirrored the deck, stretching across the whole length of the house—polished floors, rugs, a big fireplace, wood panelling, a bar with stools and a mirror. No hunting trophies. Tania and Wayne Ireland sat across from each other on either side of the fireplace. Both held drinks in one hand and were smoking—Tania a cigarette, Ireland a cigar.

‘Cliff just has to dry off a bit, Dad,’ Damien said.

Ireland senior nodded. ‘Why don’t you fix Cliff a drink.’

If they call me Cliff like that again
, I thought,
we could have a serious problem
.

Ireland Junior pointed the way to the bathroom and I dried myself with a towel warm from a heated rail. When I got back he was standing behind the bar.

‘What’ll it be, Cliff?’

‘Rough red.’

He was confused. ‘Jesus, we haven’t got—’

‘I didn’t think so.’

‘Can’t you see he’s taking the piss?’ Ireland Senior said. ‘Pour him some red and let’s get down to it here.’

I accepted a glass of red wine and went over to a chair between Ireland and Tania, a little back from them. Damien hovered in the background for a minute, then disappeared.

I seemed to remember reading that Wayne Ireland had played football. The frame that would have stood him in good stead then was overlain with fat. His face and neck were flabby and his expensive outdoor clothes didn’t conceal a waistline bulge. He was ‘hog fat’ as the old bare-knuckle fighters used to say. His colour was high and the only healthy-looking thing about him was a crop of still dark, springy hair, growing thickly and worn long. It was carefully tended—about all he had left to be vain about, physically.

‘Tania has put an interesting proposition to me, Hardy,’ Ireland said. ‘Very interesting.’

I sipped some of the very good wine and said nothing.

Tania flipped her cigarette into the fire and dug into her bag for the packet.

‘Yes, she proposes that I give you certain information about an individual in whom you have an interest. In return she guarantees that the way in which I came by this information will remain confidential, and she will write several newspaper articles to help correct the bias against me that’s currently being peddled.’

The pedantic phrasing and careful diction covered an underlying roughness, a legacy of a lower-class upbringing and schooling. Wayne Ireland had taken a long step vocally as well as in other ways.

‘How do you know you can trust her?’ I said. ‘You know she’d sell her mother into white slavery to get what she wants.’

Tania sat up and almost spilled her drink. ‘You bastard, you—’

‘Keep your shirt on, love,’ Ireland said, sounding more like the old unionist. ‘He’s just playing games with us, trying to assert himself.’

Tania delved for her lighter and lit up.

‘Now, I find that proposition fairly attractive,’ Ireland went on. ‘As you know, I have certain legal problems. Not insurmountable, but I certainly don’t need to add to them. I understand, Hardy, that you’re in a position to do just that.’

‘It could happen,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t have to.’

‘Exactly. I admire your dedication to your enquiry. Now, how should I put this? I was able to facilitate an individual . . .’

I could tell this wasn’t going to work the way Tania had planned it. Where was Damien and what was he up to? And Ireland Senior was way too sure of himself for my liking. Time for some more self-assertion. I drained the wine glass and set it on the floor.

‘Listen, Wayne, I don’t give a fuck what names you mention or how you pussyfoot around the details. I only want to know two things—did you provide Justin Hampshire with a passport and, if so, in what name? That’s it as far as I’m concerned. Tania can work out the subtleties with you however she likes.’

Ireland drew deeply on his cigar and tossed the long butt into the fire. ‘Justin Arnold Pettigrew,’ he said.

A bit stagily, Ireland opened a pigskin case, took out a cigar and lit it with a gas lighter. What he was drinking looked like whisky and he emptied his glass and let out a sigh. He looked tired, every day of his age and then some.

‘I also gave him three thousand dollars.’

‘That was . . . considerate,’ Tania said.

‘If it’s true,’ I said. ‘How do I know you didn’t solve your problem by killing him?’

‘There’s one very good reason why I wouldn’t do that. He could’ve been my son.’

I was on my way to the bar but I stopped. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Why don’t you get me some more scotch while you’re at it? Angela said he was. She might’ve been telling the truth. We were rooting like rabbits at the relevant time. Mind you, Angela and Hampshire were cohabiting at that time, not so much later. The girl’s certainly mine. She’s the image of my sister when she was that young.’

‘Ice or water?’

‘Ice, thanks.’

I topped up my glass and made his drink in a fresh one. I handed it to him and he nodded. The events of the last week—the alleged killing of Angela Pettigrew and the political, social and economic fallout from the charge—had taken a severe toll of him. Some yellowing of his eyes and a sagging quality to his flabbiness suggested he wasn’t eating and that his calories were coming mainly in liquid form.

‘How could you just ignore them?’ Tania said. She tossed her cigarette into the fire. ‘Your own children.’

Ireland showed some of the spirit that must have made him a tough union organiser and a ruthless party and parliamentary operator. ‘What would you know about it? What would you know about growing up in a housing department shithole with an alcoholic father and a mother on and off the game? I left school at fourteen barely able to read and write. It took me years to get enough confidence to write a fucking letter. I knocked my wife up at eighteen and it was hand-to-mouth for years.’

‘That doesn’t answer the question,’ Tania said.

‘Fuck you. I supported them. I propped up that stupid business of Angela’s for years while her drongo of a husband went around conning people.’

He took a solid slug of his whisky and when he spoke next his voice was slurred. Like a lot of heavy drinkers, the dividing line between sober and drunk was a matter of millilitres.

‘I’ll tell you something off the fucking record. Some of the money I scammed went straight to Angela and her bloody kids.’

‘That’s enough, Dad.’

Damien had come in quietly. No way to tell how much he’d heard. He moved quickly and took the glass from his
father’s hand. Ireland sank back in his chair and stared into the fire as if he was seeing his past and future playing out in the flames.

Sometimes you have to kick a man when he’s down. ‘So you killed her,’ I said.

Ireland nodded.

‘No he didn’t,’ Damien said.

Ireland looked up, his blotchy face a mask of fear and confusion. ‘Shut up, son.’

Damien was suddenly masterful and in control. He reached around to his back and produced a pistol. He held it in a rock-steady hand pointed directly at Tania’s glossy head.

‘No, Dad. You’ve made a big mistake. This bitch and her minder aren’t here to do a deal. They’re here to bleed you dry.’

‘No!’ Tania’s normally modulated tone disintegrated.

I sat still. Damien had done exactly the right thing—focused the threat on the most vulnerable person. For all her raunchy facade, Tania had never faced a loaded firearm and it terrified her into an almost hypnotic state. Damien Ireland would be able to get her to do anything he wanted.