Ecstasy Lake (11 page)

‘The brightest youngsters would want to live here. This city has the highest average age in the country. The young can't find good jobs so they go interstate.'

The minister nodded. ‘You're right about that.' He looked down for a moment and then up, his eyes wide open. ‘Hey, I've got a good idea, let's have a mining boom.'

‘Here's another idea,' said Fern. ‘Shut up about the fucken mining boom.' For the first time, the minister was taken aback. ‘What good comes of a mining boom? We get a few obnoxious billionaires? A few politicians stay in power longer than they should? What happens when a boom comes to an end?' The minister looked at her blankly. Gloomy Dick had retreated into his oyster shell. Tasso was looking bored. ‘My bet is we won't have built up our country, we won't have looked after future generations. Look at what happened in Queensland and Western Australia. Big fat wealth was basically handed to them, or to some of them, and it made the whole country complacent. We spent the money on McMansions and holidays overseas. The country isn't any better, it isn't any richer. In fact it's poorer because we traded our heritage for a few sleazy years of greed. You talk about a mining boom as if it's the answer to all our problems. In fact it just makes us lazy; we're not smart enough to use it properly. I sincerely hope we never have a mining boom in this state.'

Fern was burnt out by that speech and barely said a word for the rest of the evening. The minister, on the other hand, gained his second wind and entertained us with stories of dirty parliamentary secrets, of which there seemed an abundant supply. We lingered over dessert, coffee and liqueurs. By the end of the night there was more glaze in the minister's eyes than you'd see in the window of a French bakery. He made an ill-fated attempt to kiss Fern, which was awkward for everyone but did no more damage than had already been done. The last I saw of him, Gloomy Dick was helping him into his ministerial car just outside the hotel. Tasso, who had drunk a considerable volume of wine himself, raised his eyebrows at me as we stood together in the foyer.

‘So that's politics, South Australian style,' I said.

He took my arm and guided me away from potentially listening ears. ‘Seems like every fucker has heard about the honeyhole.'

‘Seems like everyone is
looking
for it, anyway.'

‘Yeah, well, I'm looking for a bit of honeyhole myself.'

‘Aren't you always?'

‘Like every man.'

Fern was lounging in a comfortable chair nearby, looking bored. ‘You'd better take her home,' I said, nodding in her direction.

‘I suppose I'd better. No honeyhole for me tonight, then.'

‘Holding back, is she?' He nodded. ‘She didn't seem to be in a good mood tonight, that's for sure. Or this morning, for that matter.'

His voice became even more conspiratorial than it had been before. ‘She found out about Juliana.'

‘How?'

‘I think the pair of knickers in the bedside drawer gave her a hint. She wasn't happy.'

‘How the hell did they get there?'

‘God knows. I assume there was a reason, but have you ever understood anything a woman does?'

‘What did you tell Fern?'

‘Denied it, of course. Always deny, Steve, always deny. I told her they must've been left by the previous guest.'

‘But she didn't believe you.'

‘Of course she didn't believe me. I've been in that suite for nearly a month. But at least she doesn't know there were two of them.'

‘Two pairs of knickers?'

‘Two girls.'

‘Caitlin as well?'

Tasso just smiled.

‘So Fern's not happy with you.'

‘No, she's not happy at all.'

17

I met Shovel the next morning. He was parked in his van on a back street not far from the Black Hill office.

‘The bug's in place, mate,' he said when I climbed into the passenger side of the van.

‘Any problems?'

‘Nah, all went according to plan.' He gave me a small device with a set of headphones plugged into it. ‘Listen. It's your mate Softcock, or whatever his name is.'

‘Hardcastle.' I donned the headphones and listened. There was no sound. I shook my head at Shovel. ‘Keep listening,' he said. I kept listening. Finally I heard Hardcastle clear his throat.

‘Yeah, it works.' I removed the headphones. ‘Too bloody exciting.'

‘You need to be within two hundred metres of the office.'

‘So I got to sit here all day and listen?'

‘No, not here. In your own car.'

‘Lucky I don't have anything better to do, such as watch rocks wear down.'

Shovel looked disgusted. ‘Weren't you the one who asked me to set this up?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Stop your bitchin' then and suck it up.' He sat for a few moments, and a grin appeared on his face, in stages, until it was very broad. ‘Course, you could always set it to “voice-activated record”. Then you can just leave the thing switched on and listen to it at the end of the day for the edited highlights.' He showed me how to do it.

‘Thanks for telling me.'

‘I took pity on you.'

‘You're a good bloke.' He was still grinning, so I grinned, too. I handed him his second payment. ‘You made me work for it,' I said.

He held the bundle of notes in his lap and looked at them with a discreet but intense eye. ‘Soon I'll be able to afford a lawyer for me fucken divorce.' He rubbed the stubble on his chin.

‘Make it a
good
lawyer. You need to make sure you don't get screwed.' I brought out the extra money Tasso had given me the previous day and handed it to Shovel. It was another ten thousand dollars. ‘That's your bonus. Use it to get a good lawyer.'

‘Who the fuck is bankrolling you? The Russian mafia?'

‘A mate.'

‘Can I be mates with him, too?' He looked at the money again and then at me. ‘I owe you.'

‘Equal access to the kids, Shovel. You owe
them
. Teach them to be honest.'

‘Course I will. See ya, Westie.'

I returned to my car and sat for a while looking at the recorder. I considered leaving it there on voice-activated record and walking into town for a day at the office, but the idea of eavesdropping gave me an unexpected twinge of excitement. I donned the headphones. I listened. I was disappointed. The twinge eased. Hardcastle's office, it seemed, was not a happening place. There were occasional sounds, such as the opening and closing of a drawer, a few taps of a keyboard, the clicking of a mouse and the rustling of paper, and once there was a soft thump that might have been Hardcastle putting his feet up on the desk, but nothing to justify me sitting there listening to it. Hardcastle had a couple of colourless phone conversations, and occasionally a woman—I wondered if it was Dead Fish Girl—came into the room and talked about mundane things such as stationery orders and meetings with auditors, and Hardcastle gave disinterested answers. At about eleven, an orchestra started playing Beethoven's fifth symphony. Hardcastle answered his phone on about the eighth chord.

‘Hi, honey,' he said. There was a pause, presumably while the person at the other end said something. ‘Nothing, just working my arse off,' said Hardcastle. So I had proof the man was a liar. Another pause. ‘No, I haven't forgotten … It's under control … I'm meeting him at one … Yes, of course I will … Yes, sweetheart … Yes … Yes … Yes.' He said ‘yes' several more times, attempted to say something but stopped in mid-stream as if he had been cut off, and finished with ‘Love you'. There was a noise as if he had dropped his phone on the desk. I assumed he had hung up, because he muttered, ‘Yeah, love you like I love gonorrhoea.'

Maybe I had caught Shovel's enthusiasm for espionage because I decided to find out whom Hardcastle was meeting at one. The meeting might have been in Hardcastle's office, but shortly after twelve I heard sounds that could have meant he was getting ready to leave. I drove to where I had a view of the car park at the back of Black Hill's office complex, and a few minutes later a car left and passed me by. There was a flash of treacle-coloured hair in the shape of Wave Rock. Hardcastle was at the wheel, and he was on his own. I didn't think he saw me, and I took off after him.

It turned out to be a long drive. We bypassed the city and made our way through the northern brick-and-tile badlands, places like Enfield, Gilles Plains and Holden Hill, where aspiration had been vying with desperation for decades; judging from the number of McMansions, the former might even have been winning.

Hardcastle took the Port Wakefield Road across Salisbury Highway and turned west into Globe Derby Park. Mostly the land was barren here, although a half-hearted effort had been made to plant an avenue of trees. Globe Derby Park was the main place in Adelaide for harness racing, and the racetrack was surrounded by horse properties with stables and yards. Signs warned drivers to be cautious because there might be stray horses wandering around. Hardcastle drove past the racetrack with its promise of ‘Pokies inside!' and took a right-hand turn. I followed him round and nearly ran into his back-end because he had stopped just past the bend at a high metal gate fronting the road. I swung into the other lane to avoid him and drove past, holding my hand to my face as I did, in case he glanced my way. I drove on about a hundred metres, pulled off the road and parked in the shade of a stunted tree. I wound down the window and power-adjusted the left-hand exterior mirror so I could see Hardcastle's car. There was a strong smell of horseshit. The gate opened and Hardcastle drove through. The gate closed behind him.

The gate was the only break in a fence that ran for about forty metres along the road-front and then at right angles, separating the property from its neighbour. A line of pylons brought huge power cables across the saltpans and mangroves from the Torrens Island power station, past the compound into which Hardcastle had driven and northeast towards Salisbury.

I sat for a while and wondered what to do. The day was hot, and dust moved in a languid zephyr. A horse trotted past, towing a two-wheeled sulky. The rider looked bored and the horse looked hot. I took out my phone and pulled up a satellite view of my location. The property into which Hardcastle had disappeared extended back from the road about ninety metres. One side of it was separated from a saltpan by a dirt access road, and beyond the fence at the back was a weed-infested wasteland. The main structure inside the compound was a large house with a red-tile roof. There were various outbuildings behind it, including a large metal shed and what looked like stables. Next to the house was a swimming pool and a paved outdoor area. I imagined how nice it would be to sunbathe by the pool as you watched the power lines sway in the breeze and sniffed the aroma of horseshit.

I was still looking at the phone screen when I heard the unmistakable deep-throat sound of motorbikes starting up. I watched in the mirror as three bikes emerged from the compound and turned in my direction. They cruised up the road towards me. Then they swung into the curb, jumped it, and drew to a halt alongside my car, dust swirling. I recognised the riders as members of the motorcycle cortege at Hiskey's funeral. The lead rider was wearing an unbuttoned black leather vest and jeans, a bandana around his head, black-framed sunglasses and a goatee beard. There was a steel bracelet on his left wrist that looked as if it was made out of a bike chain. His biceps were bigger than my thighs. He switched off his engine, put the bike on its stand and sauntered up to the driver's side window, which I lowered. He leaned his tattooed forearms on the window frame so his head was close to mine. It was a big head. He grinned.

‘The boss said your nose might be ugly,' he said.

‘The boss? Harlin?'

‘That's right.'

‘So this is Harlin's lair, eh?'

‘The boss don't like sneaks, mate.'

‘I'm not a sneak.'

‘Following a bloke all the way across town, parking down the road from our place and watching us in your rear-view mirror is sneaking, in my book.'

He had a point. I shrugged.

‘How about fucking off?' he said.

‘Sure. Unless Harlin would like to explain why he's associating with the business partner of a bloke who's just been murdered in horrific and mysterious circumstances. Or maybe he'd prefer explaining to the cops.'

‘Harlin doesn't give a rat's dick about explaining anything to anyone.'

‘Why don't you ask him anyway?'

The man stared at me for a moment and walked away. He made a call on his phone. I looked at the other two, who were sitting on their bikes and giving me sunglasses stares, their arms folded. I grinned at them and gave them the thumb's up. They reacted by not moving a muscle. I decided I was an idiot, trying to get myself invited into a gangland den. The leader finished his phone conversation and returned to the car.

‘Get out,' he said.

‘Taking me to see Harlin?'

‘Maybe.'

I got out. He told me to hold out my arms and he frisked me. There was nothing on me except my wallet.

‘Now what?'

‘Now we wait.'

We waited. Sparrows twittered in the branches above my car. A dainty blob of shit landed on the bonnet. The two boys on their bikes were in the full sun but it didn't seem to faze them; they continued glaring. The larger of the two had a tattoo of a dragon on his massive biceps.

‘You must be the girl with the dragon tattoo,' I said.

‘Go fuck yourself.'

Down the street, Harlin's gate opened and Hardcastle's car exited. He'd been in there about twenty minutes.

‘He's come out, Numbat,' said the girl with the dragon tattoo, master of the obvious. They started their bikes.

Numbat motioned to me and I started walking towards the gate. He and his mates passed me on their bikes with a short burst of noise and acceleration. I followed them into the compound, and two dogs that were not much older than pups bounded up to me with tails wagging. They were the ugliest dogs I'd ever seen. The gate was operated electrically, and it closed behind me. I was inside a gangster fortress.

The house didn't look much like a fortress, being unremarkable in all respects except its size, which was very large, and the security cameras that were mounted on it at strategic points. The driveway led towards the back, but the three bikies had parked their machines at the front of the house alongside a Mercedes and a black dual-cab utility. I was frisked again, this time by the girl with the dragon tattoo. He was gentle with me, the way a butcher is gentle with the carcass of a sheep.

‘Harlin's inside,' said Numbat.

‘Why do they call you Numbat?' He stuck out his tongue and waggled it. It was grotesquely long and tapered to a sharp tip; it was so long he could have used it to part his hair. ‘That's disgusting.'

‘The ladies like it.'

‘I bet it makes them spew.'

‘You wouldn't have a clue.' He waggled his tongue again. I followed him through the front door into a wide hallway with terracotta tiles and a high ceiling. There were doors on either side of the entrance, both closed. The air was cool and had a smell I couldn't identify but was not unpleasant. We walked down the hallway past other closed doors to a large, dim room. Several couches were arranged within it around a low table. There was a pool table and a wet bar. On the walls hung framed motorbike paraphernalia and large photographs of bikes and their riders. There was a photo of a younger Harlin and James Barenfanger, current leader of the Mad Dogs, standing by their bikes and looking chummy. Fang had his arm around Harlin, who wore a goatee. Those were the days.

Curtains were drawn over windows, presumably to keep out the heat. Harlin was lazing with a woman on one of the couches. She was leaning against him with her feet up. His face was buried in her hair and one of his hands was resting on her bare stomach. The woman was Melody. She was wearing very short shorts, which showed she had fine legs, and a T-shirt that must have shrunk in the wash. Her eyes were closed and I couldn't tell if she was enjoying herself. I stood there and waited until Harlin bothered to look at me.

‘Steve West,' he said, finally emerging from Melody's hair. ‘I didn't expect to see you again so soon. Your nose looks sore.' Melody opened her eyes. She swung her legs around and put her feet on the floor and her arm around Harlin's shoulder. She looked sleepy.

‘It's fine.' Actually it was throbbing.

‘Sorry about that.'

‘You didn't mean it.'

Harlin noticed that I wasn't looking at him. I was looking at Melody, who only had eyes for Harlin.

‘Have you two met?' he said. Melody glanced at me as if she was glancing at dog shit, and returned her gaze to Harlin. They smooched.

‘We have,' I said. ‘Briefly. As you know.'

Harlin managed to prise his lips off Melody. ‘Why are you here, West?'

‘I have an interest in Hardcastle. He was Hiskey's business partner, and he was also banging Hiskey's wife. I happened to notice that he came out to visit you just now. I thought you might like to explain why perhaps the two men in Adelaide most likely to have murdered Hiskey just had a meeting.'

Harlin stood up; Melody relaxed into the couch. ‘Keep it cool for me, baby,' said Harlin. ‘You've either got very big balls,' he said to me, ‘or you're just stupid.' He looked at Numbat. ‘Which do you reckon it is?'

‘Stupid.'

‘I think you're right.' He looked at Melody. ‘What do you think?'