Ecstasy Lake (12 page)

Melody looked at me again, and this time held the gaze. ‘Definitely stupid.'

‘He's cute, though, isn't he? Apart from his nose, of course.'

‘He might have been once. He's old now.'

Harlin grinned at me. ‘That's got to hurt, eh? She says you're old.'

‘We all get old, mate. Except blokes like Hiskey, who get murdered. Tell me about you and Hardcastle.'

Harlin looked bored. He studied his fingernails. Then he gestured to me. ‘Let me show you something.' He walked past me and I followed him to the front of the house. We entered a large, tidy office with a respectable carpet on the floor. Hot sunlight streamed in through a large pair of French windows. Harlin shut the door and sat at the desk. He shuffled some papers.

‘I don't need to explain anything to you,' he said. ‘But maybe this will stop you bleating to the cops. I don't have time to keep explaining things to cops.' He handed me a letter that bore the letterhead of Spencer and Wicks, a well-known Adelaide law firm. It was brief.

‘Dear Mr. Harlin, Please find attached a copy of the contract between yourself and Mr. Michael Hiskey, transferring the ownership of a portion of Mr. Hiskey's shares in Black Hill Exploration Ltd. to yourself.'

The letter was signed by Terrance Forwell, ‘Partner'.

‘Hiskey offered me shares one time when he couldn't pay a debt,' said Harlin. ‘Stupidly, I agreed. Therefore, I own a stake in Black Hill.'

‘How much of a stake?'

‘None of your business.'

‘What was the debt for?'

‘Don't push it, West. I'm willing to show you this because I want you off my back, but don't fucken push it.'

‘So what's your point?'

‘My point is, in effect me and Hardcastle are business partners. You wanted to know why we met today. It's okay for partners to meet occasionally, isn't it?'

‘Sure.'

‘But, as it happens, we don't usually meet. I don't like Hardcastle, he's a wavy-haired little weasel, and I've never got a cent out of Black Hill. In fact, I avoid Hardcastle, because the only reason he ever contacts me is to tell me—
tell
me, mind you, not
ask
me—to invest money in his useless fucken company.'

‘And have you ever given him money?'

‘Only once. I hate wasting money. Black Hill? Black Hole, I call it.'

‘So today he came out here to ask for money?'

‘Yes.'

‘Is that all?'

‘No. He told me some bullshit story about Hiskey.'

‘Which was?'

‘He said Hiskey had discovered a big gold deposit he hadn't told anyone about. He said if I could just bankroll the place for a few months, soon we'd all be filthy rich.'

‘What did you say?'

‘I told him what I'm about to tell you. I told him I have no interest in his fucken company. I have no interest in some fucken gold deposit nobody can find. All I'm interested in is being left alone by losers and cops.' He stood up and walked to the door. ‘Speaking of which, if you want anything more out of me, ask my lawyer.'

Numbat showed me out and watched me walk to the gate, which had slid open a fraction to allow me to squeeze through.

‘Ciao, Numb Nuts,' I said, once I was safely through. I walked down the road to my car and looked back. He was at the gate, watching. He waggled his tongue at me.

By the time I made it back to the city it was nearly four. I used my phone to find the number for the legal firm that had sent Harlin the letter regarding the transfer of shares.

‘Spencer and Wicks,' said a pleasant female voice.

‘May I speak to Mr Forwell, please,' replied a pleasant male voice, mine.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Forwell is unavailable. Could somebody else help you?'

‘Maybe, maybe not. When will Mr Forwell be back?'

‘May I ask your name?'

‘When will Mr Forwell be back?'

‘Not for some time. Could you give me your name, sir?'

‘An hour?'

‘Longer than that.'

‘A year?'

‘Not quite as long as that.'

‘This is fun.'

‘I'm sorry, sir. If you told me your name … May I put you through to Mr Wicks?'

‘You may not.'

‘Is there anything else I can help you with, then?'

‘You could tell me when Mr Forwell will be back.'

‘As I said, not for some time. He is overseas.'

‘Aha. Thank you.' She disconnected.

18

Neither Tasso nor Fern was in the office that afternoon. I wondered if they were absent together or apart, but it was none of my business and I worked on my own for a few hours. An electronic safe had been installed in my office that, according to Goldsworthy, ‘could not be cracked by anyone except possibly one point three billion Chinese, because they made the damn thing'. I was therefore free to work on the mining lease application, assuming no Chinese spies. The application was coming along nicely, although I was still missing key information. Tasso returned late in the day, but there was no sign of Fern.

‘Show me which lease we're applying for,' I said.

‘Alright.'

He led me into the meeting room and peered at the giant map of exploration leases stuck to the wall. He put his finger next to a small polygon marked with pink cross-hatching.

‘This is the one.' The polygon had a four-digit number, which I wrote down. It wasn't anything special to look at; just one irregularly shaped lease area among hundreds.

We returned to Tasso's office. He pulled out a roll of large-scale maps, leafed through them and extracted one from the roll. He spread it on the coffee table.

‘This shows you the licence area in more detail.'

I studied it for a while. It still didn't look special. It wasn't far from Parakilla. Tasso pointed to the outline of a small water body, shaded light blue and labelled Ecstasy Lake.

‘It's about the only named feature in the licence area,' he said. ‘It's actually not real close to the ore body.'

‘I assume the name is ironic, like Mount Lofty. Or Lake Hope, for that matter, on the Birdsville Track.'

‘Hiskey wanted to make it the name of the mine.'

‘It sounds like the title of a porno movie. It would have been perfect.'

Tasso knocked off for the day, but I stayed another hour. I saved a copy of the application file to an encrypted flash drive—courtesy Goldsworthy—and stowed both the stick and the laptop in the safe.

The sun was setting as I left the building. Peak hour had been and gone and Currie Street was calm. I stood for a moment at the entrance to the building. The occasional car whispered past, lights on. The big westerly sky was strewn with pink, meaningless clouds that were so high and so thin they could have been the remains of a jet trail. It had already been a hell of a summer, the hottest on record, people were saying. Climate change was real, they were saying, and South Australia was in the wrong place at the wrong time, as it had always been, and its climate would just get hotter and drier and the clouds would just get thinner and higher. But for the moment it was beautiful, a peaceful street under a pink-lit sky. In front of me, a young couple crossed the road, hand in hand. As they reached the median strip they paused to let a car go past. She released his hand and grabbed his arm, and for a second or two she rested the side of her head on his shoulder. As they left the median strip he put his arm around her. They reached the kerb and laughed at something. For them, the dusk was just the foreshadowing of the joyous night. For me, it was the opening of wounds that would bleed out later in my melancholic flat.

‘Sometimes this place just takes your breath away, doesn't it?' It was a woman's voice. I turned to see who it belonged to.

‘Hello, Sonia. Yes, it has its moments. Is this a coincidence, or did you want to see me?'

‘A little of both.' In the glow of the dusk she looked very pretty. She had green eyes you could dive into, at least in that light; they were big, green, twilight pools. ‘Your friend Tasso was nasty to me the other day.'

‘It was nasty all round.'

‘I know. It was unfortunate.' She flashed me a quick, surprisingly uncertain smile. ‘Steve, would you like a drink?'

‘Sure.'

There was a small pub a block away and we walked there without speaking. She was dressed in an elegant black dress that hugged her hips, and she wore black high heels that struck a busy beat on the asphalt pavement. The front bar was empty except for a young barman who greeted us with a smile. Sonia ordered a glass of white wine and I ordered a beer, and we sat at a table for two.

‘I wanted to speak to you alone,' she said. ‘I think you're more reasonable than Tasso.'

‘I don't yell as much, I guess.'

‘No.' She sipped her drink. ‘First of all, I want you to know that I really am sorry Michael is dead. In the last year or two we didn't get on, but we were married for nearly fifteen years. He had good qualities.'

‘Sure he did.'

‘But he's dead now. I'm not trampling on his grave. I'm just wanting what is legally mine.'

‘You need a lawyer, Sonia.' I was still enjoying her eyes. ‘I'm an engineer.'

‘We weren't divorced, you know. Only separated. I only want what's mine.' She took another sip of her wine, looking at me over her glass. I waited. I was a little curious.

‘You hadn't seen Michael for a long time, had you?'

‘No. He was a university friend. I didn't see him much at all after graduation.'

‘I met him at a meeting of the university's geological society. He was very funny, quite good-looking. I fell in love with him in an evening. I really
did
fall in love.'

‘You were interested in rocks, too?'

‘Not so much, but rocks are in the family. My grandfather was a geologist.'

‘Ah yes. Your mother said.'

‘We drove all over the country when I was a child, looking at rocks. God, I hated it. Mother was just as obsessed as granddad.'

‘And yet you still married a geologist.'

‘I know. What
was
I thinking?' She rolled her green twilight pools and then held them steady on mine. I suspected she knew their power. ‘But he was fun in those days.' She took another small sip of wine and placed the glass carefully on its mat. She reached forward and put her hand on mine, which was resting on the table. It wasn't far from my beer; it never was.

‘I just want a share, Steve.'

‘Of?'

‘Of what's on offer. Why should I miss out? I want what I'm entitled to. Isn't that fair?'

‘I don't really know what's fair, Sonia. I don't know if anything is fair.' Her hand was still on mine. I didn't withdraw my hand. ‘What about Hardcastle?'

‘Frank doesn't know I'm here.'

‘I see.' I picked up my beer glass, breaking the skin contact, and took a mouthful. ‘Why doesn't he?'

She smiled again and looked deep into my eyes. ‘He doesn't own me.' Not many men seemed to own their women anymore. The world was changing.

‘Nor did Mick, I suppose.'

Her expression wilted. ‘Don't be like that. Don't be nasty.'

‘Was I?'

‘I think you were.' She tried again to look deep into my eyes. ‘I'm not a witch, you know.'

‘I know. I can speak to Tasso.'

‘Thank you, Steve.' She took another sip of her wine.

‘But I already know he will say go to hell.'

I watched as her face changed. It had been soft and delectable and in just a blink it became hard and ugly and her eyes like poisoned waterholes. I had seen that look before, in Tasso's office, but it was even more intense now. She swirled her wine, looked at it as if it were vomit, and threw it at me with a jerk of her arm. She stood up.

‘You can tell Tasso,
he
can go to hell.' She flung her glass and it smashed on the panelling next to the door. ‘And so can you. And so can
Hiskey
.' The last word was little more than a hiss. She stomped out, which was quite a feat in high heels, and not especially elegant.

The bar was quiet again. I looked at the barman, who was standing bemused behind the bar.

‘What just happened?' I said.

He shrugged and offered me a paper napkin, which I used to wipe the wine from my face. He fetched a broom and dustpan and started sweeping up the glass.

‘At least it was white wine,' he said. ‘What did you say to her?' He held up his hand, the one holding the dustpan. ‘Hey, it's none of my business.'

‘It kind of is,' I said, ‘since you have to clean up the mess. She wants to be a billionaire, and she thinks I've dudded her.'

‘Yeah, I want to be a billionaire, too.' He resumed his sweeping. He emptied his dustpan into a bin behind the counter and washed his hands in the sink. ‘But until then I'm sweeping glass and pulling beers.'

I was restless. I didn't want to go back to my flat. I didn't want to drink alone. I phoned Luke to see if he wanted to meet me somewhere for a bite to eat, but he said he was tied up.

‘You're keeping a low profile, pal. What's going on?'

‘I've met someone. I've been wanting to tell you.'

‘You don't have to tell me every time you meet someone. We'd be on the phone every two minutes. It would be tiresome.'

‘Har har. No, I mean
someone
. It's serious. This is not easy.'

‘What's not easy?' I had a sudden thought. ‘Hang on. This someone you've met. Boy or girl?'

There was a pause. ‘Boy.'

‘I see. Wow.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Wow.'

‘Yeah.' There was another pause. ‘Does it matter? To you?'

‘I thought you liked girls.'

‘I do. But I like this boy better.'

‘Wow. It will take some getting used to.'

‘Yeah.'

‘It doesn't matter to me, Luke. Not much. Whatever makes you happy.'

‘Really?'

‘Sure.'

‘Let's have a drink soon.'

‘Yeah. Maybe I can meet this guy of yours. Man that sounds weird.'

‘He wants to meet you.'

‘That's nice.'

‘Talk to you soon, Steve.'

‘Sure.'

‘Steve?'

‘Yeah?'

‘It's okay, it's really okay.'

‘I know.'

‘The country is changing. We can be whoever we want to be. We can be who we
are
.'

‘Sure you can. But Luke?'

‘Yeah?'

‘Be careful anyway. Yes, the country has changed, but I'm not sure it's for the better. There's a lot of anger around.'

‘I know.'

‘Look at Hiskey.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Although I don't think he was gay.'

‘Har har. See you, Steve.'

‘See you, brother.'

He seemed to hiccup, and the line was broken.