Sensitive New Age Spy (9 page)

There was a Canon 5D next to the body with a telephoto lens attached. The memory-card compartment was open and the card was missing. The pockets in the lid of the camera bag, designed to hold spare cards, were also empty.

I stood up and looked over the rail and tried to figure what might be interesting to a photographer with a telephoto lens from this particular vantage point. Maybe it was a window in the hotel on the pier opposite, or maybe it was
Heath or Nicole or some other superstar shacking up in one of the multimillion-dollar apartments. Or perhaps it was the USS
Altoona
which was docked just across the other side of the street.

I glanced down over the wall and said, ‘Looks like a wallet on the ground on the next level. Maybe it belongs to the kid.’

The crime scene bods took off to investigate, and I caught Julie’s eye, indicating the constable with a tilt of my head. Within a couple of seconds he had his back to me and an apparently enraptured Julie was getting his life story. I fumbled around under Max’s body and quickly found what I was looking for in the coin pocket of his jeans. I slipped the memory card into my pocket and stood up.

‘Do you need us for anything else tonight?’ I asked Constable Whitfield.

He shook his head. ‘I’ve got your details, and since you’ve identified the body I think we can leave it at that. The detectives will probably be in touch later this week. Right now they’ve got their hands full with that business on the boat.’

‘Ship,’ Julie said, smiling.

‘Right, ship. Do you want me to get one of the boys to run you somewhere?’

‘That would be nice,’ I said. ‘You got anyone who drives within the speed limit?’

As we walked down the ramp to the waiting police car, Julie said, ‘Sorry about Max.’

‘Yeah, me too. He was a good kid.’

This was all starting to get a bit personal.

Mrs T’s apartment was in darkness when we got back to Bondi, so she was spared having to see me starting and ending my day in a police car.

While Julie made tea I downloaded my images of the helicopter hovering over the tanker to my Imac and moved them to a folder on the desktop. Max’s memory card held about sixty images, and I opened them in preview to have a quick look. Whatever had been on the card taken from his camera was now gone for ever, but maybe we’d get some clues from these shots.

They were happy snaps from a party, and it didn’t take me long to realise that the event was last night’s little shindig at Jindivik.

Julie put a mug of tea on the desk beside me and looked over my shoulder as I scrolled through the images.

‘So Max was at the reception for the choir at Jindivik last night,’ she said. ‘And today he turns up dead, with an empty camera at a perfect vantage point overlooking the scene of the heist.’

‘And what are the odds of that being a coincidence?’ I said.

I scrolled through more images. The Reverend Priday, Mrs Priday and the choirboys featured in several shots, and
Cristobel was chatting to a tall, white-haired woman. None of the other guests rang any bells.

‘The Reverend Priday caters well,’ Julie commented, indicating several shots.

Besides photographing the guests, young Max had snapped elegantly dressed waitresses balancing silver trays laden with tempting snacks. There were several close-ups of the food, which included Vietnamese ricepaper rolls, samo-sas, Peking duck crepes, and skewered chargrilled Tiger prawns with a chilli-flecked mayonnaise. There was also some thinly sliced beef on squares of toasted ciabatta which looked bloody fantastic. I couldn’t fault Max there – photographing delicious-looking canapés was one of my weaknesses. Great finger food is rare and deserves to be immortalised.

‘I think maybe I need to have another chat with the Reverend tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Don’t forget you’ve got that thing in Canberra tomorrow night.’

‘Bugger,’ I said. I had forgotten.

‘I booked you on a one o’clock flight. Want me to cancel it?’

I shook my head. ‘If I can track down the Reverend in the morning I can still make that flight. And a chat with some Canberra insiders might be just what I need right now.’

Suddenly I was very, very tired. It had been one hell of a long day. Jesus, I bloody hate Mondays.

The Video Oz TV production studios were located in an industrial park in inner-city Alexandria. It had taken me close to twenty minutes to track down the Reverend Priday through his church switchboard, which had me chasing through an automated menu with over thirty options, most of which encouraged me to give the First Church of the Lord’s Bounty money in varying amounts, by cash or by credit card. Eventually I got through to a real live person who told me the Reverend was in Alexandria, recording his weekly televised sermon for the God Network.

The receptionist at Video Oz was young and female and gorgeous, which is the way it seems to go in TV, or any media industry for that matter. She directed me to studio four, where the Reverend was recording.

‘He’s definitely not in studio two,’ she called helpfully after me as I headed down the corridor, so naturally I had to
have a peek in through the door, even though the red light was on.

On a fake bathroom set under bright lights, a couple of voluptuous young women were responding to the state government’s plea to conserve water by taking a bubble bath together. Judging from the dialogue, there appeared to be a problem with a blocked drain. Luckily for them, a very buff plumber in Blundstones, stubbies and a tool belt was just passing and offered to help. He dropped his tool belt and shorts and produced a rather spectacular piece of equipment which looked like it could do the job.

Things were much more sedate in studio four and I caught the Reverend, all Max Factor and whitened teeth, mid-sermon. His topic was the story of the prophet Jonah and the lessons to be learned from it. Cristobel had done her homework well and I found myself drawn into the drama of the tale. We were just at the bit where Jonah jacks up about having to pop over to Nineveh for a bit of a chin-wag with the Assyrians regarding God’s wrath and their possible total annihilation, when a deep voice rumbled from somewhere high above. ‘Reverend Priday, we’ve got a slight problem with audio. Can we take five and then go again from the top?’

The audio problem didn’t seem to stop the microphones picking up Priday’s next muttered line. ‘Jesus H. Christ, why can’t you people get your heads out of your fucking arses so we can get this damn thing finished.’

So the good Reverend didn’t buy into that
meek inheriting
the earth
caper, either.

I was standing next to a catering table covered with plates of pastries, pots of tea and coffee, and an esky full of those ubiquitous bottles of Goodie fruit juice. Priday smiled politely when he saw me, and walked over and picked up an almond croissant. A nervous wardrobe girl stuffed a paper napkin into his collar to keep powdered sugar off his Armani suit.

‘Nice sermon, Reverend,’ I said. ‘Cristobel must be a big help to you.’

‘My daughter has a way with words, Inspector Murdoch, and I value her input when it comes to interpreting God’s message.’

Priday studied the selection of juices and chose an apple, beetroot and carrot. Its bright red colour sent the wardrobe girl into a panic, and she draped a smock across his shoulders.

‘And now, what can I help you with today? I only have a moment, you understand.’

‘Max Gallagher was taking photos last night at Jindivik,’ I said. ‘Was that for the church newsletter?’

The Reverend shook his head. ‘Mr Gallagher approached me several weeks ago about doing a photo-essay on a modern evangelical church – some sort of school project. I couldn’t see any harm. He’s a charming young fellow and doesn’t seem to get in the way.’

‘He’s a dead young fellow now, so he must have been in someone’s way.’

All the colour drained from the Reverend’s face. ‘It wasn’t an accident, then?’ he said after a long pause.

‘Nope. He was found in a carpark overlooking that American warship where all the fuss was yesterday. You know, the one your guest choir called home.’

Priday took a sip of his juice and I could see his mind was working at a million miles a minute.

‘I’m very sorry to hear of the young man’s death, Inspector Murdoch. That’s most unfortunate. God bless his soul.’

‘Any idea what Max was doing in the carpark?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

The deep voice from on high announced that they were ready for the Reverend again and he smiled at me, relieved at the interruption.

‘We’re installing our own broadcast facilities in the church, you know, Inspector Murdoch. We’ll have 24-hour web-streaming for my parishioners, and I won’t have this weekly disruption to my schedule.’

‘Yeah, I hate disruptions to my schedule. Bet Max did too. Bit of a major disruption to his schedule.’

‘Indeed. May he rest in peace.’

I was sure Priday knew more than he was saying, but it was obvious I wasn’t going to get any more out of him. He’d composed himself and was back in full Reverend mode.

‘Would you like to stay for the end of my sermon, Inspector? Cristobel has an interesting take on the story
of Jonah. She says it can be interpreted as a satirical attack on prophets and the self-righteousness of the pious. Fascinating.’

Apparently irony was lost on the Reverend Priday.

‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I know how it comes out.’

It was actually the Jonah story that had led to my dramatic expulsion from Sunday School and my early and enduring schism with the Church. That
whale swallows man whole and chucks him up again in one piece three days later
business just hadn’t rung true, and my relentless, week-after-week questioning was too much for the earnest young teacher with the teenage acne and Fletcher Jones blazer. Finally he screamed at me that I was a bloody little heathen and told me to fuck off in front of a class of stunned five-year-olds.

Perhaps he had been wrestling with profound theological questions of his own. I knew for a fact that he’d been wrestling with our minister’s giggling fifteen-year-old daughter, because I’d caught them at it behind the church hall once or twice. I suppose it was at that young age I first became aware that teenage girls were trouble.

‘Please give my regards to Cristobel,’ I said as I turned to leave. ‘And by the way, if you’re looking for content to keep your parishioners entertained on that 24-hour web-streaming, you might want to have a squiz at what they’re shooting in studio two on your way out.’

I flew into Canberra because they’d forgotten to build the high-speed train again. When the Australian colonies joined together to form a Commonwealth in 1900 they needed a permanent national capital, and to stop all the bitching from Melbourne and Sydney about which city should get the job, they settled on a couple of thousand square kilometres of sheep-grazing country located inconveniently halfway between the two. A high-speed rail link connecting the three cities had been on the cards since the advent of high-speed trains, and this being Australia and there being two states and a federal territory involved, the project was proceeding at the normal snail’s pace.

‘Canberra’ is apparently an Aboriginal word meaning a place where one’s tax dollars are pissed away. A self-governing territory and the seat of our federal government, it also has the country’s most liberal liquor laws, a thriving blackmarket trade in sky rockets and double bungers, and is home to the nation’s mail-order dirty-video business. All in all, a combination guaranteed to make a bloke’s chest swell with patriotic pride.

Since large parts of it were designed and built in the 1920s and ’30s, Canberra features excellent examples of late-deco architecture. It also has great public parks and gardens, wide roads, and sections of the city are beautiful in a lethargic, public service kind of way.

Parliament was in recess, so the arrivals lounge was blissfully free of journos, pollies, hangers-on and high-
priced call girls. The only jarring note was the security, as heavy this end as in Sydney, and that was pretty heavy. With a couple of nukes on the loose, this was understandable, but the total cover-up of the theft meant that none of the airport security people knew what they were supposed to be extra vigilant about.

There was actually a second jarring note, which was the sight of a Com Car driver holding up a card reading ‘MISTER Murdoch’. And sure enough, standing next to the driver, smiling, obviously pleased with himself, was my old mate Chapman F. Pergo.

‘Twice in two days,
Mister
Murdoch,’ Pergo said. ‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this.’

‘That would suit me down to the ground, Pergo. I’m not all that particular about the company I keep, but you have to draw the line somewhere. How’d you know I was coming?’

‘There’s very little that I don’t know.’

I didn’t like the sound of that, especially as it was probably true.

‘The Minister wants to see you,’ he said.

‘Okay, I’ll drop by when I’ve checked into my hotel.’

Pergo shook his head. ‘The Minister wants to see you
now
.’

‘I’ve got a rental car booked,’ I said.

‘Give the paperwork and your baggage-claim stubs to the driver here,’ Pergo said. ‘He’ll drop off your bags and arrange for the car rental people to deliver your vehicle to the hotel. The keys will be with the Hyatt’s concierge.’

It looked like he did know everything. I handed over the claim stubs and paperwork to the driver, who seemed very relieved to be getting away from Pergo. We walked outside to a shiny black Holden VE Thunder SS ute parked in one of those
don’t even think about parking here
zones. The vehicle had a hard tonneau cover, black-tinted windows and flashy mag wheels. To finish off the look, great streamers of red and yellow airbrushed flames licked along the side panels.

‘Very subtle,’ I said. ‘Maybe you could get the Minister to give our new second-hand Abrams tanks the same paint job. It would sure scare the crap out of the enemy.’

By the time we reached the exit gate, the G-forces from the ute’s V8 had slammed me back in my bucket seat and I realised that Chapman Pergo, besides being a thug and a pain in the arse, was also a seriously crook driver.