The Tattooed Man (32 page)

‘Just Beck?’ Harrigan asked. ‘There’s no indication this operative’s assignment extended to Elena Calvo?’

‘If they did, boss, it was extracurricular. There’s no information about it here.’

‘What happens then?’ he asked.

‘There’s a note on file that says the operative’s last report was removed because it had been requested by the under-secretary to the Ministry of Defence for use at a briefing. That report never made it back to the file. After that, there’s no more information from the operative. The reports stop.’

‘Is that the end of the information?’

‘No. As well the operative’s reports, the surveillance team’s reports are also in the dossier. Now according to them, Beck was still meeting du Plessis regularly. Their reports record that their operative was at the last two meetings these men had. Usually there are photographs of the meetings, but on this occasion those photographs have been removed.’

‘By who?’ Harrigan asked sharply.

‘By the agency. There’s a note to say they can be found on another file. After the final meeting, du Plessis left the country, flying to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s the last piece of information on file. The last page is stamped:
Operation terminated: Archive.
After that, there’s no indication it did anything but go back into the filing cabinet.’

‘What was the date of du Plessis’s departure?’

‘November four years ago,’ Ralph said.

‘Do we know what Beck was doing between then and now?’ Harrigan asked. ‘Do we know if he joined his mate over there?’

‘We do, and we can thank Edwards for that,’ Trevor said. ‘He fast-tracked the information out of the Department of Immigration. It hit our desks by courier yesterday morning. Otherwise, we’d still be scratching our bums for it six months from now. Beck left for Africa two weeks after du Plessis. He said he didn’t go to Kinshasa, he went to Nairobi.’

‘Do we know what either of them was doing over there?’ Harrigan asked.

‘We’ve got no information on du Plessis. But according to the information immigration had from Beck himself, he went to Africa as part of a religious educational aid project.’

Even the federal police contingent laughed.

‘Would I lie to people?’ Trevor said. ‘The project was based in Nairobi. It was called Christian Educational Initiatives, providing education at village level. Supposedly, Beck was their financial manager. Probably he spent most of his time sitting around playing pocket billiards.’

‘Does this charity really exist?’ Harrigan asked.

‘Apparently. There was correspondence between its head office in the UK and the Department of
Immigration. The High Commission sent people out to have a look at its Nairobi office. Obviously, anyone can hang out a shingle and ask a few mates to hang around some rented rooms for a day or two. But you can see the department being able to justify what it did. Beck spends a number of years supposedly as an administrator in a respectable scientific research facility, then goes back to a country he’s had a long association with to work in an aid program. If that’s all the information you’ve got, on paper it doesn’t look so implausible. He came here from Nairobi via Johannesburg a year ago. His visa was handled through the Australian High Commission in Kenya.’

‘Then why pay Edwards to get him into the country?’ Frankie asked.

‘The department did have enough information about Beck’s real past to make them think twice,’ Trevor said. ‘It’s a fraction of what he was involved in but it does make his application questionable. The way he was presented, with testimonials that he was a changed man, he was being whitewashed from the start. Someone really wanted him over here.’

‘Also, paying Edwards implicates him from the start,’ Parkin said. ‘It ties him in to whoever’s paying him. Call it a guarantee. Someone wanted to make sure he was onside.’

‘Is there anything to connect Beck to the Democratic Republic of the Congo?’ Harrigan asked.

‘Nothing in the files,’ Trevor said.

There would have been a means to make the connection if the tape that Harrigan had given du Plessis still existed. Like Marvin, Harrigan had covered Elena Calvo’s tracks for her. But there was
still Grace’s information from Brinsmead if he could find some other facts to substantiate what she had told him.

‘Find out where Beck was really going when he left London four years ago,’ he said. ‘If you can, get hold of the manifest for his flight. I’d like to know who else was on that plane.’ Harrigan was tapping the table with his fingertips. ‘What do we know about World Food and Crop Providers, the organisation that was supposedly receiving seed stocks from this International Agricultural Research Consortium, so called?’

‘Frankie’s people have been looking at it. Frankie?’ Trevor said.

‘The contract gave us their contact details in Johannesburg. Lucky we recorded those details before it got stolen,’ she said. ‘They don’t have a website or an email address. We rang the contact number and it was disconnected. We contacted the local police and asked them to check out the offices for us. According to them, the address we gave them is just vacant rooms. Whatever this company was supposed to be, they’ve wiped themselves out of existence.’

‘You say Tooth said this du Plessis was his handler,’ Parkin said. ‘Is there any information how he got into the country?’

‘Not as yet,’ Trevor said. ‘Immigration are still checking him for us. He’ll be using false papers.’

‘Where does all this information lead us?’ Parkin went on. ‘I can’t see that you’ve actually analysed any of it yet.’

There was a whiteboard beside the screen. Harrigan went over to it and began to write.

‘Possible scenario,’ he said. ‘A connection exists between Beck and Calvo at the north London
facility where they both worked. Whatever there is between them, it doesn’t make her happy. Our secret service agency sends an undercover operative in to watch Beck and they discover this connection. What they made of it, we don’t know. Whatever Beck is up to, this operative goes with him to Africa. Who that operative was, what happened over there, all that information has been expunged from the file. Why? Maybe because it all went badly pear-shaped. Four years later, Calvo comes here, establishes the dream of her life. Beck turns up on the scene out here at the same time, doing something much more undercover. His arrival here is organised by the same people funding Elena Calvo. One way or the other, he goes to work for her. Question: did Calvo have no choice but to take him on?

‘Whatever the answer, everything bumps along the way it’s supposed to for a while. Then three people get shot up at Pittwater. What’s the immediate outcome of these murders? The International Agricultural Research Consortium was due to harvest whatever they were growing. That seed stock was supposed to be sent to the World Food and Crop Providers company for testing somewhere in Africa. None of that happens because all the principals of the IAR Consortium except one have been murdered, and the last man standing is so shit scared, he goes to ground. Next point: whoever the killers are, they splash a photograph of the murder scene all over the web. Jacquie, you told us the main point of that picture. A meal they couldn’t eat. What was the IAR Consortium growing? Food crops mainly. My judgement is, that scene was a comment on exactly what the IAR was growing and the killers threw in their own death figure, the Ice Cream Man, as a final touch. I think we were
looking at genetically modified crops that don’t do what they’re supposed to do.’

‘As far as I know, all those crops were destroyed,’ Parkin said. ‘How do we prove this?’

‘Harold Morrissey was badly injured handling the tobacco. We have documented proof of that.’

‘If it was the tobacco that caused those injuries and not a farming accident. What happens next in this scenario of yours?’

Harrigan almost announced that crop samples did exist, then changed his mind. It was information he would share later with Trevor.

‘Whoever shot those people, after they’re dead the shit hits the fan,’ he replied. ‘Calvo goes into survival mode. She wipes the IAR Consortium off the face of the earth. She tries to shut down this investigation and stop anyone from implicating her and her company in whatever Beck was doing. Which means that whatever Beck was up to, it was dynamite.’

‘Hold it right there,’ Parkin said. ‘You’re telling us she’s behind this sabotage. She hired the man who blew a government minister, his adviser and a police guard to eternity. We know that Elena Calvo was a good friend of Edwards. She’s also the CEO of a cutting-edge scientific institution he helped bring here. Besides which, the senator doesn’t refer to her in his affidavit. Also, he makes no connection between Beck and LPS. Given who he has accused, surely he would have voiced any suspicions he might have had about her? Especially since he knew from the dossier that she did have this connection with Beck.’

‘Given the senator’s friendship with Calvo, he may not have wanted to face up to the possibility that she was implicated in these events,’ Harrigan said. ‘Secondly, he may not have wanted to bring
down a company he’d worked so hard to establish here. That affidavit is almost entirely a personal attack on the man he accuses of bribing him, so much so it undermines what he has to say. I’d like to know what his state of mind was when he wrote it. If we’d had the chance to go through it with him, it might have been a different story.’

‘That can’t happen now.’

‘That’s the point.’

‘This is all conjecture. Do you have any real evidence to back this scenario other than these assertions?’ Parkin asked. ‘Because let me tell you, Commander, even if this was true, you’d have the devil’s own job proving it.’

‘Proof is what we’re looking for,’ Harrigan said. ‘Trev. I asked you to look into Sam Jonas. What did you find out about her?’

‘She’s on the books of the same security firm as du Plessis,’ Trevor said. ‘Griffin Enterprises. She gave their name and number as a reference on her résumé. When we rang, they confirmed that, but as soon as we said who we were they put the phone down and now they won’t take our calls.’

‘Who is this person?’ Parkin asked.

‘One of Elena Calvo’s security people,’ Harrigan said. ‘She’s a wild card. I think it’s worth finding out who she really is.’

‘Do you have any reason to believe she’s involved in any of this?’

‘We’ve just heard she shares an agency with du Plessis. My information is, she was tailing Beck for months before his death. Yes, I think she’ll have something to tell us.’

‘Then we’ll wait to find out what she has to say. But all these things you’ve put forward need proof,’ Parkin said.

‘If we get du Plessis, we have a good chance of getting some of the information we need. This is where your people and mine could cooperate.’

‘Commander, we all know that du Plessis supposedly abducted your son. Are you sure you’re not letting any personal feelings get in the way of your judgement?’

‘I never do. If you knew anything about the way I work, you’d know that was true.’

‘So you say.’ Parkin stood up. ‘In my eyes, we’re already cooperating. Every law enforcement agency in the country is out there searching for this man. But if this scenario is where your antenna is fixed right now, I prefer to follow my own investigation. Is that the full body of information you have for us so far?’

‘Pretty much,’ Trevor said.

‘Then thank you again.’ Parkin’s two colleagues got to their feet as well. ‘We’ll get to work. We’ll certainly be in touch with what we find, and we expect to hear from you too. In the meantime, Commander, if you get any proof of that scenario, you bring it to us. I’m happy to hear facts but I’ve never been interested in fantasies.’

Harrigan didn’t reply. They walked out.

‘Arseholes,’ Frankie muttered.

There was silence.

‘Where do we go from here, boss?’ Trevor asked.

‘Where you’re going now,’ Harrigan replied. ‘Keep looking into Calvo’s background. Check out Sam Jonas. Sit down and work through the information again. In my opinion, you’re on the right track. Meantime, I think everyone here needs a break. Get some fresh air. Trev, your office now.’

At his desk, a change came over Trevor. The public face had gone; he seemed to have trouble looking Harrigan in the eye.

‘I got your wire, boss. I’m guessing that’s why you wanted to talk to me.’ He passed the paraphernalia over to Harrigan. ‘Are you sure you just want to record? You don’t want us to listen in?’

‘No, what you’ve given me is fine.’

‘Boss, your son being snatched like that. What was it really about?’

‘What do you think it’s about?’ Harrigan said.

‘He wanted something from you, didn’t he?’ Trevor asked quietly.

Harrigan shook his head.

‘Come on, boss. Was it what Freeman gave Gracie, maybe? Did you give it to this du Plessis? He didn’t even tell you where your boy was. Gracie found him, thank Christ.’

‘Grace got some information for us,’ Harrigan said, changing the subject. ‘She gave it to me last night. She says there’s a connection between Jonas and Brinsmead.’

‘How can she know that?’

‘To put it simply, she found it out talking to Brinsmead. He’d met her at the LPS launch. He wanted to tell her how he got his burns. He’s got a connection to the DRC with du Plessis and Beck. According to him, all three of them were there together.’

‘Are you telling me Brinsmead is our anonymous operative in the dossier?’ Trevor asked.

‘He’d have all the right qualifications,’ Harrigan said.

‘You didn’t say that to the boys and girls out there.’

‘Grace thinks Brinsmead and Jonas might be legitimate operatives from a secret service agency and their brief is to find out what Beck and LPS are up to. Now that scenario makes sense, but we have
to find out whether it’s actually true. If we advertise this information, we could be sabotaging their investigation. But if they’re rogue, then they’re right in the picture for this. They’re an obvious source for the dossier, for example.’ Harrigan spoke more quietly. ‘I’d also be looking at Sam Jonas for Marvin’s shooting.’