White Dog

37

Linda’s apartment was a nice substitute for a home. It had no food but it had sofas and a flat-screen television and a turbo-charged heating system. And it had drink. I took a bottle of Carlsberg from the pantry shelf and half lay on the sofa in the sitting room, feeling the room warming, my blood movement slowing.

What was the man waiting for me going to do when I walked in the door?

Next time I’ll bring someone round, and, when I’m finished, he’ll fuck you, okay?

I didn’t want to think about that. I was now in serious trouble. I had probably been in serious trouble for a while. Anyway, there wasn’t any going back. The problem was how to go forward.

The man who parked next to me under the bare oaks and gave me Janene Ballich’s name, that person knew about the night at the River Plaza, knew that at some point Mickey was there.

Was he saying that Mickey’s death was related to him being there?

Who could know these things and want to tell me?

Someone unhappy about Mickey’s death. Someone close to Mickey. Someone wanting the truth to come out but afraid to talk to the police. How could this person know about Janene Ballich? Told by Mickey? Why?

I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know how to back off now that I’d shown signs of fight by having the Toyota torched.

I was too tired to go out in search of food, had a look around the kitchen, opened the fridge. Empty. Oh Lord, at the airport Linda had asked me to switch off the fridge and freezer. Just another thing left undone. I looked for the freezer. Where was it? Cleverly concealed in a cupboard.

Paydirt. Thank God I hadn’t switched it off. It held a loaf of bread and a round tin-foil container labelled chicken and mushroom pie. So what if the pie’s use-by date was long passed? Frozen was frozen, frozen was like death, there was no use-by in frozen. We could eat woolly mammoths found in glaciers if we chose to. I took the pie to the stainless steel oven.

Smeg is not a good name for a cooking appliance. The resonances of the word Smeg are not good. I opened a bottle of Spanish red, Marques de Murrieta, 1994. Linda had never got over Spain, she’d been there with her rock star. People should get over Spain, move on.

I took my glass back to the couch, got the television’s remote control to work. Nightcall with Barry Daly, an earnest-looking ABC man, strange hair, eyebrows in a chevron, his whole being oppressed by the news of the day. Barras Holdings. The name kept coming back. The hirers of the penthouse suite, what kind of company was that? I didn’t have to look up Simone Bendsten’s number, my index finger danced over the buttons.

‘We are indeed still active,’ said Simone. ‘A rush job for counsel assisting the building royal commission.’

‘When it comes to totting up the bill,’ I said, ‘do unto counsel what counsel will be doing to the taxpayer. Can you squeeze in a tiny inquiry?’

‘When did I say no to you, Jack?’

‘I cannot tell you how singular you are in that respect,’ I said. ‘Something called Barras Holdings.’

A second or two of hearing distant voices, bantering, and music, a laugh, the sounds of a good place to work.

‘That’s B-A-R-R-A-S, is it?’ said Simone, something more in her voice than an inquiry about spelling.

‘Yes.’

‘Not doing any work for the commission, are you?’

‘No.’

She coughed, small Melbourne winter coughs, brought on by cold and damp and melancholy.

‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I shouldn’t say this and it’s obviously pure coincidence but the commission is interested in Barras Holdings. It’s an investment company. On the public record, just in the last three years we can find nearly two hundred properties Barras bought, either off the plan or on completion. Apartments, houses, commercial properties. Barras usually sells them within months. For rather modest gains, as far as we can see.’

‘So counsel thinks Barras is dodgy?’

‘Our job here is research, if you take my meaning.’

‘I do. And who owns the company?’

‘Sole director is K. M. Etzdorf of an address in Monaco. He signs all company documents. The registered address is Marti Partners, Brisbane.’

Monaco, home of Charles Robert Hartfield, late of Melbourne, and Tony Haig’s boating companion. Alexander Marti Partners, accountants to both Mickey Franklin and Haig.

‘One last thing,’ I said. ‘Does Barras deal with MassiBild and a company called Saint Charles?’

I could hear Simone breathe out. ‘Very much so. Directly with Saint Charles. And with companies associated with MassiBild. It’s complicated, to put it mildly.’

‘Far too complicated for me,’ I said. ‘I hope my next call is of a social nature.’

‘Calls of any nature welcome,’ she said.

I said goodbye and checked on the pie, poured some more of the Marques, an exceptional drop. When I came back, Barry Daly, sad as ever, was speaking against a scene of men in suits entering a building: ‘… sitting in Melbourne today heard an allegation that former federal cabinet minister Michael Londregan used his influence to get planning approval for three sixteen-storey towers to be built in a twelve-storey zone in Melbourne’s CBD. The proposal had been rejected four times by various authorities.’

There was a still of ex-senator Londregan, a tall man in a dark suit, florid, jowly, thinning curly hair. He was shaking hands with someone, it looked like a reception line.

Bradley Davis, an accountant, a former employee of MassiBild, told the inquiry that he attended a meeting of MassiBild executives where the then head of the firm, Mr Vince Massiani, said the Concerto development would go ahead, the government would approve the extra four storeys the next day.

Daly’s eyebrows spoke of his pain at having to relay such information. ‘Four storeys in three towers meant twelve extra storeys,’ he said. ‘Counsel assisting the royal commission, Kevin Carstairs QC, asked Mr Davis what the permission meant in financial terms. Mr Davis said upwards of $40 million.’

There was a shot of the buildings. I knew them by sight, characterless and intrusive constructions, fortunately impermanent, they would be gone within fifty years. I also knew Kevin Carstairs from his golden youth, when he was an earnest Balwyn boy, couldn’t catch a joke in a laundry basket, so eager to answer questions in class that he squirmed in his seat, moved his bum like someone with a terrible itch.

‘What was the date of this meeting, Mr Davis?’

‘December 2, 1994.’

‘And the decision on the building was announced the next day? That would be December 3.’

‘That’s correct, December 3.’

‘Did Mr Massiani say how Michael Londregan influenced the government, Mr Davis?’

‘Well, he said the election was coming up and Londregan could do the government a favour.’

‘A favour. Did he say what kind of favour?’

‘No. I was surprised he said anything. Mr Massiani didn’t often often say anything that wasn’t strictly business. Practical stuff. Housekeeping.’

‘Your impression then was that Mr Londregan had secured this outcome for MassiBild?’

‘Oh yes, definitely. It had been chucked out so many times.’

Pie time. I was in the kitchen taking it out when my mobile rang.

‘Jack? Sophie Longmore.’

‘Good evening.’ I felt awkward.

‘Jack, I know this doesn’t concern you anymore but something odd came by courier today.’

‘Odd how?’

‘It’s a bill and a card and keys from something called Galvin Security Storage in Tullamarine. The bill’s for six months’ advance payment on a storage unit. Whatever that is.’

‘Haven’t rented any storage?’

‘No, never. But the letter’s addressed to me. I had to sign for it. It says that to ensure maximum security the locks have just been changed.’

Something flitted through my mind. ‘I might have a look,’ I said. ‘Can you drop off the keys?’

‘I’ve got them with me,’ she said. ‘I’m in the car, on Punt Road, I’m going to Macedon. My father’s complaining about his health.’

‘You’ll pass close by. I’ll meet you.’

I gave her directions, looking at the pie with lust. I put it back in the switched-off oven, watched sad Barry for a few more minutes. He was interviewing the federal industrial relations minister, until recently a big undisciplined dog easily teased into outbursts of barking. Now he’d been to obedience school, bribed media turncoats had drilled him, and he uttered the same affable low-key bark over and over.

I went downstairs, jacketless, to the corner, stood in the light and shivered. A car came down the street inside thirty seconds, the driver waved, so precise was my estimate of the time it would take to drive from Punt Road to Linda’s corner.

The car pulled up in front of me. I went to the driver’s side.

‘It’s a bit spooky,’ said Sophie. She gave me an envelope. ‘It’s been hired in my name for six months.’

‘I’ll have a look and give you a ring.’

‘Thanks, Jack. I didn’t know who else to tell.’

I went back to Linda’s apartment and opened the envelope. Galvin Security Storage, 112 Rigoni Street, Tullamarine. A swipe card, two keys, and a PIN number for unit 164, entrance J, an account for $300 for six months’ rental.

I put my head back against the sofa, closed my eyes. Tomorrow. In the morning, early.

I was running out of tomorrow mornings. I groaned, rose and found keys, left without thinking about a coat.