The Mandarin Code (33 page)

‘Hi. You know . . .'

Dunkley cursed himself.

Hell hath no fury like a woman . . .

Except he hadn't scorned her. He'd simply been engrossed in knocking out a strong front-page yarn for the newspaper that had employed and sustained him for the past twenty-something years. He would make it up to her.

Is there a florist open this time of night?

No. And wilted carnations from the servo wouldn't do the trick. An apology on bended knee and praise for her detective work? Besides, they had work to do. Celia had uncovered material that would lead them – where?

The address was Kingston dress circle: Eastlake Parade. Third floor, views over the lake, tastefully furnished, fridge full of decent plonk, comfy bed. What more did a man need?

He opened the door, gently calling her name.

The lights to the apartment were on and the CD player was pumping out some Gen Y nonentity. And the entire place had been royally trashed.

She was curled up on a lounge, pale and scared. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she barely registered when he leaned down to kiss her cheek.

‘Celia, what happened? Are you okay?'

Harry Dunkley hated coming to her parents' flash Forrest residence on two counts: her father, Roger, was just a decade older than he was, and Harry had touched up the pompous bureaucrat more than once.

But tonight Dunkley had swallowed his pride. A dozen calls to Celia's mobile had gone unanswered, and he'd arrived at Mathieson Manor just after 10pm.

‘A beer, Harry?' Roger Mathieson was trying to be civil for the first time since he'd become aware of Dunkley's relationship with his daughter.

‘Thanks . . . er . . . Roger. That would be great. Much appreciated. Have you called the police?'

‘Yes, they came and went in a half-hour.'

Dunkley knelt by Celia's side. She looked washed out and had barely said a word. She was trembling.

Her brother sat on a facing lounge, glaring through unfashionably long hair. Clearly, the family was pinning the blame on the journalist for whatever had happened.

Suddenly Celia gave off an exaggerated sigh and sat up. She pointed to a brightly coloured canvas covering most of one wall, an opus by one of the Nungurrayi clan.

She whispered, so quietly he nearly missed it, ‘He knew about it.'

Finally it was just the two of them. The rest of the Mathieson family had gone to bed, leaving Harry and Celia alone.

She was still subdued, avoiding his gaze. He was hungry for information but unsure how hard to push her. She reached for the safe grip of his hand.

‘It was cold, Harry, cold and metallic. He placed it on my throat, not hard, more as a warning. I could barely see. I thought . . .'

Her voice trailed off.

‘Go on Cel, tell me what happened.'

‘Well, I stupidly took the lift near the
Age'
s office, down to the basement. I was pissed off with you, didn't want to see anyone.'

He stroked her arm encouragingly.

‘I'm walking along, trying to get my bearings, thinking I was heading the right way. Then, all of a sudden, the lights went out.'

She shuddered. ‘Then he was there. Right beside me in the dark. His voice was . . . so . . . so calm and evil, as if he did this for a living. He told me if I screamed again it would be the last sound I made. I believed him.'

Celia reached for a whisky. It seemed to fortify her a little.

‘He knew about what I'd been doing, Harry. The Cloud. The download. Everything.'

She was looking straight into his eyes.

‘Go on,' he said.

‘I was petrified. I saw an exit light down the hall, but he was blocking my way – he had a calm fury that scared me to pieces. He came right up to my face and that's when he mentioned the Nungurrayi. Oh Harry, I nearly . . . I mean that painting . . . he knew my family . . . I can't . . .'

Celia began a quiet sobbing again. ‘I'm sorry. He knows too much – about me, us, my dad. I can't go on. Not with this. Not with you.'

Canberra

Emily Brooks dropped her head into her hands and ran her manicured nails through her coiffured hair.

‘I hate the fucking National Party.'

She had once said that nothing a politician could do would surprise her, but eighteen months as Opposition leader gave lie to that boast. The astounding news from her press secretary had again recalibrated her tragically low expectations of her colleagues.

‘So he checked himself into hospital. Which hospital?'

‘Canberra Hospital.' Justin Greenwich had taken a call moments earlier. ‘He claims he's suffering nervous exhaustion and won't be able to vote.'

Dallas Bairstow was a New South Wales National Party MP who had spent his tender years as a boarder at Sydney's St Joseph's College. That was two strikes against him before he swung a bat in Brooks's eyes.

Bairstow had all the afflictions that came with both his creeds. He was an agrarian socialist who was deeply suspicious of markets and foreign investment. He never saw a government dollar that couldn't be spent on subsidies for the bush. And he was a bleeding heart. In Brooks's eyes, his only redeeming feature was that his years in a Catholic boarding school had given him a pathological fear of homosexuality and he was vehemently opposed to gay marriage.

‘So, Justin, why is he really in hospital?' Brooks made a note to ensure the Trade portfolio was taken from the Nationals, should she ever become prime minister.

‘The Nats tell me his electorate has the highest rate of mental illness in Australia and that his people love Toohey's bill. He says he can't vote against it.'

Brooks grabbed her mobile, searched its contacts and punched the name of the Nationals' leader.

‘Charles? Emily. Don't talk, just listen. Get your deputy and get a private car. Drive to Canberra Hospital. Find that weasel Bairstow. Bring him back. Then don't let him out of your sight until after the vote.'

Brooks paused as the National leader's protest could be heard through the earpiece of her phone.

‘I really don't give a rat's arse how you do it. Just do it.'

She hung up and threw the mobile down in disgust.

‘Okay, let's assume all our own numbers hold on this vote. Who else have we got?'

Greenwich stared at his dog-eared notebook and chewed the end of his pen.

‘Well, the Manager of Opposition Business assures me that, if pushed, the Speaker will use his casting vote with us on this one. But it won't come to that. Counting Bailey's pair, no matter how you cut it, I reckon we come up one vote short.'

Brooks drummed her nails on the desk.

‘Pull the pair,' she spat.

Greenwich pleaded with her. ‘Boss we can't. We were crucified in the media the last time we did that. You had to make a grovelling apology. And if the vote is tied, the Speaker might still rat on us. So we'd lose twice.'

Brooks shuddered at the memory; she hated having to apologise for anything.

‘Justin, let me make this clear. I am not opposing this bill just to make Martin Toohey's life a misery. I'm doing it because the nation can't afford it. Toohey's racking up the national credit card and the bill will fall due when he's well out of politics. What is proposed is far worse than just an attempt by Labor to buy itself another multibillion-dollar indulgence in luvvie heaven. I would oppose the breathtaking stupidity of ceding Australian territory to China even if the billions it raked in were being used to build the landing pad for the second coming of Christ.'

Greenwich added one to his column.

‘Well boss, if we do that, and if the Speaker holds, we win. But at what cost?'

Canberra

It glistened in the warm evening, this keeper of dark secrets, an artificial waterway neatly dividing the capital.

Canberrans either lived north or south of Burley Griffin, and too many, for Harry's liking, argued pointlessly over the merits of their postcode.

Dunkley played with the volume on the car radio as he gazed out at the troublesome waters. The night was quiet, but far from relaxing. The songbirds had gone silent; a few night creatures rustled in the bushes.

The memory. Two decades ago, he'd watched as an English tourist was hauled from the lake at this very spot. The man had become entangled in wire netting that fenced in the swimming hole used during Canberra's warmer months.

While the lifeless form was being dragged from the enclosure, Dunkley had peppered an irritated constable with questions. He'd just been doing his job, a reporter on the make. But as he'd driven away in a photographer's car, he'd realised that he'd barely paused to think about the poor dead Brit.

That's when it had struck him like a thunderbolt: he had lost his compassion, his empathy. He'd become a hard-nosed scribe, caring only for the story. Callous and selfish. He'd lost his soul.

Here, at this lake. The devil's lake.

NewsRadio punctuated the night air. Parliament had descended into full-throttle chaos as the government and opposition traded kidney punches.

‘Mr Acting Speaker, the Honourable Member is a grub . . .'

‘Order! Order!'

It was closing in on midnight and Dunkley gazed past the pontoon and across the sheet of uninviting water. Having seen the damage to Celia's apartment, he wasn't in a hurry to go home. He needed to make sense of the past few hours, of the violence that had been unleashed. He felt alone, rushing headlong into danger.

His fists pushed against the vehicle's roof, his body tense.

Think mate, think.

He needed to put together the pieces of the puzzle. The ones he could see.

Eighteen months earlier they'd been working on a story about Bruce Paxton. Dunkley had been following leads that pointed to the Chinese. Kimberley had apparently uncovered another strand. Then she was killed.

Now Celia had been threatened after she'd unlocked some of Kimberley's secrets.

This was a story people were willing to kill for.

He needed to delve deeper into this murderous affair. He owed it to Kimberley, Celia, even to the unfortunate Englishman.

He also needed help. He checked the time. It was late, but the fearful never sleep.

He fumbled for his phone, scrolled through his contacts, and punched on a recent addition.

It was a ramshackle apartment on the edge of the Yarralumla shops. Trevor Harris had been forced to downsize when his marriage collapsed. It was still lawyers at ten paces, but she'd kept the house and he'd taken refuge in this man cave.

It was spacious and messy: a trio of surfboards in baggy covers leaned against a wall while some serious-looking hiking equipment was heaped in a corner. Two leather lounges fronted each other and a coffee table was layered in magazines –
Men's Health
,
GQ
,
Esquire
,
FHM
.

Harris selected some tunes on the MP3 as he explained that his oldest son, Drew, was using the apartment as part-home, part-storage shed. ‘I've told him to come and go as he pleases, which he does.'

Dunkley nodded. He only wished Gaby would visit occasionally.

‘Beer, Harry? Oh wait on . . . looks like Drew's taken the last one. Bugger.'

‘No problem. I'll take whatever you've got.'

Dunkley had arrived ten minutes earlier feeling self-conscious. Harris was hardly a best mate.

‘Sorry to barge in at this time of night.'

‘That's okay. I don't sleep that well and, anyway, I'm running behind on a consultancy job.'

‘Look, I appreciated our little chat the other day. In truth, I'm not sure where to go with this, Trev. But before we go any further, can I ask why you contacted me?'

‘I thought long and hard before I did. I didn't know how much I could trust you.'

‘Yeah, I felt the same way.'

‘Well Harry, maybe it's time we both took a risk.'