The Marmalade Files (7 page)

It was like writing a haiku.

Jonathan Robbie pondered his script. Every word had to count, and every word was counted. A small box at the top of the INews template on his computer screen remorselessly ticked off the seconds.

A word had to add something because it stole a fraction of a second. So none could be wasted, inappropriate or out of place. Those print profligates don't really appreciate words, Robbie thought; they have the luxury of too many of them.

Robbie worked in the most punishing place in media, as a senior political reporter for Channel Nine, one of Australia's three commercial TV news stations. The 6 p.m. bulletin was still where most Australians got their news and each night 1.2 million of them tuned to Nine. The competition was fierce; more so now that advertising dollars were hemorrhaging to cable TV, free digital stations and new media. Everyone's profits were down,
nobody knew what the future held and so the pressure for an ever bigger, attention-grabbing splash grew.

‘I don't care what the fuck you write,' Robbie's news director would say. ‘Just don't bore me with pointy-headed policy. Politics is about conflict. Cover the fight. And cover it first.'

Each night, if he made the cut against fatal crashes, crime, fires and heart-rending animal stories, Robbie had just one minute and twenty seconds to make an impression. One minute and twenty seconds to grab the nation by the balls.

It had been a long road to this job and for the first time in his journalistic career he really felt the pressure of the daily demand for something dramatically new.

Robbie was a latecomer to journalism. He didn't fall into it until he was thirty, and was hired by the
Daily Telegraph
as probably the world's oldest cadet. He'd never looked back, and made his name covering lurid crimes on the Sydney tabloid's police beat.

Then came an unusual approach. With the pending retirement of press gallery legend Laurie Oakes, Channel Nine came knocking, even though Robbie had never worked in TV and knew nothing about politics. Desperate to maintain its dominance of the 6 p.m. bulletin on the east coast, Nine had poached Seven's news director, the ageing and irascible Paul Blackmore. He immediately sacked a host of people and reset Nine's news sensibilities to the shock and scandal end of the scale.

But politics still mattered and getting the Canberra bureau right was crucial. Blackmore wanted a presence. He wanted someone with flair, someone who could take the piss and who
knew how to sell stories to punters. And that's what he liked about Robbie. Putting someone who had never written a TV story into such a tough gig was a risk. But Blackmore was a gambler.

It was a challenge Robbie would have found hard to resist at any price. But the price on offer was breathtaking.

Robbie was no Laurie Oakes. All he cared about was making a splash, not accuracy. He found the competition in the press gallery brutal, and making the contacts he needed to break news took time he didn't feel he had. He was prepared to cut corners to make an immediate impression. He was the press gallery version of a radio shock-jock.

Robbie never set out to make anything up – but near enough was always good enough. He would run on the mere sniff of a story, never waiting for a second source to confirm something that sounded good.

And tonight, ironically April Fools' Day, he had a yarn that would put a torpedo hole in the side of Opposition leader, Elizabeth Scott. He was about to break the news that a Canberra bureaucrat was a Liberal Party mole – leaking information to Scott to damage the Toohey Government.

And, for once, he was pretty sure it was true – because he'd received plenty of help from inside her tent.

The soft melody of Neil Young's ‘After the Gold Rush' washed over him with its gentle three-chord arpeggio, a slow rhapsody in blue. Another Canadian songsmith, k.d. lang, had taken it to a higher place, caressed it with her rich chocolate lilt. Harry Dunkley loved the barefoot chanteuse and her ventures into the melancholy, a place he knew well. He was not about feeling sorry for himself but there were moments, quiet times like these, when he would reflect on what life had thrown up, the regrets that gnawed away. Now, with a glass of red in his hand, tired and frustrated after another day doing battle with a government intent on total control, it brought on memories he fought to forget.

Sydney's State Theatre – 1992? '93? They'd held hands tight, just the two of them, in love for the first time, or was it the last? He'd promised a lifetime of happiness as they'd taken the vows, a garden wedding with a celebrant, some distant relative with a trilling voice that had given them the giggles.

But Belle had left the national capital four years ago, for a new life away from politics and the wreckage of their marriage. She'd grown bored with Canberra, bored with him, sick of eating alone in their Red Hill home with its neat brick-and-tile symmetry, much like every other residence in the city's inner south.

After she'd fled he'd gone looking to fill the hole, testing other warm bodies against his own, but casual flings had never really satisfied him. Canberra was a city dedicated to the transient relationship, with its Parliament full of cheating hearts and daily lies. His brief loveless efforts to satisfy a yearning that could not be met had convinced him: he wanted none of it.

Besides, work had always been his deepest passion, his finest affair; the constant calls for ‘the splash' from the news desk, the need to try and stay a step ahead of the competition. The press gallery had once soared with an esprit de corps born of a conviction that they were defending democracy, taking on the bastards, fulfilling an important role in a free country. But these days most of the bureaus resembled bank offices, with diligent tellers churning through work like automatons, counting the bucks, making it all tally, taking orders from the government of the day, waiting for the truck to back up.

Ah, he hated the soulless parade, the battery-hen mentality.

 

Feeling a little dirty for allowing himself to indulge in a silent rant against the decline of the free political press, Harry's melancholic nostalgia took a right-hand turn out of the gallery and up the highway to Sydney.

Gaby had left another message, this one a notch up on last week's. She needed his help with some university assignment and was unimpressed that he'd ignored her pleas, not for the first time. He made a mental note to call her in the morning, began practising an apology he'd learned so well. ‘Sweetheart, sorry, so sorry …'

Why did his interactions with her always make him feel like a lousy dad? He would lay down his life for her, his angel. She knew that. They shared a mutual talent for teasing each other, sensing each other's vulnerabilities and, occasionally, overstepping the mark. The flipside of that edgy intimacy was the joy of their cryptic calls, their secret word games. That intellectual connection with his daughter made him feel special. Protected. Alive. He loved her with all his flawed heart.

 

Dunkley's apartment, if it could be called that, was located at the back of a large blond-brick home in Canberra's inner south, owned by a retired couple, and a convenient drive to Parliament along the twisting maze of back roads.

It was comfortable enough, one decent-sized bedroom and another, smaller, that doubled as storage space, not that he had much of value to store. Belle had done well from the settlement, leaving him with a suitcase of regrets. He treasured an old Olivetti, a gift from his first boss, Peter Shaw, a true legend of old-school journalism. A cigar-chomping womanising free-wheeling rascal who drank himself to death, leaving a legacy of great writing and even grander tales that were still fondly recounted by the old-timers down at the Press Club.

 

The speakers had just finished their cello hum when the BlackBerry heralded a text message from Ben Gordon, snapping Dunkley from his reverie.

Dunkley refreshed his glass and yawned as he settled further into the stained armchair, familiar and comfortable as an old boot. ‘We'll do that, Ben, we'll do that …'

Another day, another sordid chapter of the Bailey media circus. Each small change in her condition, no matter how tiny, was being regurgitated on an endless 24/7 media loop. All of Dunkley's print rivals were devoting copious column centimetres to the Foreign Minister's condition. Which meant that he was trapped into feeding the daily beast. Half-heartedly he put the finishing touches to another tedious fifty-centimetre piece on what it all meant for the future of the government, citing two constitutional experts and a former party hack.

He'd just filed the story when the phone rang, an immediately recognisable number lighting up the screen. Jesus, you again? he thought.

It was Mr DFAT, the same cultured voice from ten days earlier. ‘Afternoon, Mr Dunkley, trust you are well and, ah, no doubt intrigued by my little present?'

Intrigued? That was an understatement. Everything about you, mate, even your phone number, could be a lie, Dunkley reflected.

Gordon had already delivered some solid intel about Zhou Dejiang and Bruce Paxton – dates of their first meeting together in Beijing, records of various times they had met since. On the third man they just had two words: Zheng Wang.

‘Well, nice to hear your voice again, whoever you may be,' Dunkley said in a mocking tone. ‘You wouldn't care to reveal yourself, by chance?'

‘Not yet, Mr Dunkley. Some things are best done behind the cloak of anonymity. But I'm interested to find out if you've made any progress.'

What did Mr DFAT want? To damage the Minister? Destroy the government? Or, as had happened before, to set Dunkley up for a fall? Gordon's warning about the internal jihad against Paxton meant Dunkley needed to be cautious.

‘Well, I was interested to receive a 25-year-old pic of our Defence Minister with a senior official from the Chinese Government … one Zhou Dejiang.'

‘Very good, Mr Dunkley. You no doubt know then that our Mr Zhou is a real charmer.'

‘Yeah, yeah, real nice guy – unless you're a Tibetan monk.'

‘I see you have a good grasp of the region's geopolitics.'

‘Well, I'm a journalist, and we're all bleeding hearts, aren't we?'

‘In the eyes of some, perhaps. And the other face in the photo?'

‘I'm still working on that.' Dunkley wanted to give no hint of Gordon's involvement.

‘The past always points to the future, Mr Dunkley – this case is no exception.'

And with that little homily, Mr DFAT hung up.

Dunkley was puzzled by his mysterious informant. In his long experience he had never come across anything quite like this. He was always careful, but knew he had to proceed more cautiously than usual. He was part of someone's game, but then journalists always are. He just needed a clearer idea of who he was playing with. And what they wanted. He feared it was a deadly game and Dunkley didn't intend to appear on the casualty list.

Dunkley had suspected he would have to delve way back into Paxton's past if he wanted to solve this puzzle, and Mr DFAT had just confirmed it. Happily the looming five-week winter break meant he would have more time to pursue the Defence Minister. He was going to have to wear out some shoe leather – and he would take leave to do it. He would work in the old way, check every detail. This yarn was not grist for the 24/7 mill. He checked his watch: 3.13 p.m. That made it lunchtime in Perth.