The Fix (15 page)

‘That's not how she played it.'

He laughed. I would probably have done the same. ‘She's smarter than you, then?'

‘She probably is. So, how about the interview messages? Radio interviews. Can you give me a sub-thirtysecond version of the crucial moment in the siege?'

Between us on the table was a bamboo plant growing out of a cup, and he reached for it with both hands. I thought it was about to become another random talking point when he said, ‘Okay. It's still a blur. Is it all right to say that?' He rotated the cup ninety degrees and looked at the bamboo from the new angle.

‘Completely. As long as it's only part of the answer. It's four words. We need another fifty. And you might need to make eye contact. Even on radio. Because that's what normal people do. When did you decide to make the move?'

‘Okay.' He gave me a look that was close to a glare. ‘It's still a blur, but there was this moment when Frank was on the ground. And I just knew . . . Rob Mueller was focused on him, not on me, and that was my chance.' Ben was still leaning forward, which made his look more intense.

‘Okay, not crazy-man eye contact, but thanks for trying it out.' I was going to keep pushing him and he needed to know it. ‘Had you met him before? Rob Mueller? You mention his name as if you knew him. Usually people say “the gunman”, or something like that.'

One of the staff discreetly set our bill on the table, folded on a saucer.

‘I didn't know him. It's a matter of public record. Do I have to forget his name now?' He let go of the bamboo plant and sat back in his seat. ‘This is hard, okay? It happened quickly. I can't see it all, sitting here. It doesn't work, sitting here.' He was closing it down again, making the first move towards the end of the conversation. He picked the bill up and started reading it.

‘You can tell me tomorrow, when we do the walk-through. But you have to tell me then. I'm going to make you tell me then. Once you tell me, I will make you ready. We'll put it together step-by-step. So, I want you to think about it today, and make notes. Notes will help you turn this into something that's easier to tell. How did it feel, when all the others got to leave and you realised you didn't? How did it feel to work out your life was genuinely in danger? How did the gunman treat you? You need to think about those things, and about the moment when you went for him.'

‘Yeah,' he said.

It was over for now. He took his credit card from his wallet. I pulled my wallet out too, but he waved it away.

‘Work meeting.' He put the bill and his credit card on the plate. ‘You've got to get used to how this goes.' He unfolded the bill where it lay, and took another look at it. ‘Anyway, it's nothing.'

My wallet was still in my hand. I could have insisted, but I didn't. ‘We haven't done much of the work yet.'

‘We did enough for me to get homework,' he said. ‘Notes.'

It was the homework for people who couldn't or wouldn't tell their stories, the homework for introverts and liars and people wedded to their secrets.

The credit card slip came back and he signed it. A woman sat down at the next table with an instrument case. She took out a flute and started to clean it. Ben smirked, and didn't try to hide it.

I turned right with him when we walked out the door.

‘I think I can find my way back there,' he said. ‘Don't I just reverse the directions you gave me to get here?'

‘Sure. But I like to walk.'

I let him lead the way, past the two chess games being played at outside tables and the stacked crates of bok choy and choy sum at the front of the Asian grocery store.

‘You so want them to like you in that boho coffee place, don't you?' he said. ‘And they don't even know you exist.'

‘Do you think you'll be a partner soon?' We were going with my plan, not his.

He lined up a bottle top that was on the pavement and he kicked it, sending it skidding across the concrete and into the gutter. ‘Depends. I probably think about that less than you'd expect. How long have all these places been doing breakfast?' He had noticed more tables out in front of cafés on the other side of the street, ahead of us. There were cyclists drinking coffee, families with strollers. ‘Don't you West Enders ever eat at home?'

We turned off Hardgrave Road and Ben picked up the pace on the downhill slope. An old manual mower
whirred in a garden further down the block, pushed by a white-haired man in a singlet and boxer shorts. The wooden house next to his was now high up on metal poles, about to become two storeys. It must have happened the day before, without me noticing.

‘I've got a question,' I said, as if it was nothing. ‘A Randall Hood Beckett question. What happened with the issue a while back about some ex-staff members and Frank? Abusive language. Things like that.'

Ben kept looking at the uneven ground ahead. ‘That was before my time.'

‘No, it wasn't. It wasn't that long ago.'

‘Before my time in that area. Frank's area.' He pulled his CityCat ticket from his pocket, as if he needed to check it. ‘You realise this doesn't get me anywhere near my flat? I have to take a bus as well, from the ferry stop.' I had told him to give up the cabs for once, and take to the water. He waited for me to say something. ‘I was on thirty-seven before,' he said, once the silence had dragged on a while. ‘The thirty-seventh floor. So I don't know what happened. There were some complaints. They didn't go any further . . . I don't see what that's got to do with Monday.'

‘Risk management. I've got to know these things. I've got to get you ready for any questions.'

We crossed the street and, through the shelter at the ferry stop, I could see a few people clustered at the far end of the jetty. In the park nearby, a two-year-old girl ran after a ball, waving her arms in the air.

‘Why didn't you tell me about it the other night? At Terroir?' I wasn't letting it go yet. ‘I asked you about Frank and his abrasiveness. And consequences. That's a pretty big consequence.'

‘It didn't occur to me that way. I didn't think of it. And it got sorted out. It was before my time in that area.'

‘Okay.' People who are telling the truth have one explanation, and they go straight to it. They don't stick pieces together in front of you and hope for the best. ‘It probably won't come up. The journo moved on long ago. No one'll make the link. They haven't so far.'

‘Good.' He was annoyed with me, annoyed that I had trapped him here on this street in my neighbourhood without a cab in sight. ‘I don't know who picked the colours of the carpets either, in case you're wondering. Or the middle names of any of Randall, Hood or Beckett.'

‘What about billing practices? Do you know about any issues with billing practices?'

He stopped. We were metres from the ferry shelter.

He looked at me and said, very clearly, ‘I keep a timesheet. We bill every six minutes, same as everyone else. That's what I know.'

‘There was an allegation that Frank called someone a stupid slut when she questioned his billing practices.'

He turned away from me, as if he had a need to watch the two-year-old catch up with the ball, and then trip over it. She landed on it, and rolled off the side as the ball skidded away. She scrambled to her feet and gave chase again.

‘Are you insane?' he said. ‘What are you doing pursuing this? It's just some accusation. From way back whenever. It's nothing. Allegations. Gone.' The two-year-old's mother looked over our way. Ben tried to let the tension go. His shoulders fell. ‘Let it stay gone.
This is stressful enough without you introducing new stuff.' He said it as if we were just two friends again, and I would understand. ‘My plane was late back from Cairns and I had to take the dawn flight there. Yesterday was a long day. I've got to get some sleep.'

‘They won't go there,' I told him. ‘In the interviews. They probably won't. But it's okay anyway, if it was before your time in that area. If there's anything else you need to tell me . . .'

A CityCat appeared from upstream. Water surged around it as it slowed down to pull in to the jetty.

‘That's my ferry,' he said.

‘Tomorrow then. Ten o'clock. Bring your pass to let us in.'

He was already going. ‘Yeah, yeah,' he said over his shoulder. He jogged a few steps until he was on the jetty, and sure he was going to make it.

* * *

I WENT BACK TO
the siege file and my notes, since they were all I had.

‘Yeah, that sounds like Frank,' Ben should have said about the slut remark. ‘Is it any surprise we've got trouble keeping staff?'

Something like that. But he got all twisted up instead.

There was another shift of emphasis two days after the siege – one I hadn't picked up before. Early on the talk was all about Rob Mueller barricading the three of them in – Max Visser had even used the word ‘trapped'
– but Frank, two days later, was talking differently. In the medal nomination form, he talked about Ben having ‘opportunities to leave'. I went to the DVD and found the press conference at which Frank had talked about Ben's conspicuous courage.

He went on to say, ‘He could have escaped, but he made the choice to stay. He could have got out. He could have got somewhere safe. He made a deliberate choice that increased the danger he was facing to a significant extent in order to save my life. True bravery is about that kind of choice.'

He looked like a dazed man stuck on a theme, with his pale blue eyes fixed in a stare and a bandage around his head. But when could Ben have escaped? When was his opportunity to leave? And why did it matter that he had had one, and not taken it?

I googled ‘“Star of Courage”+opportunity+leave+ bravery', but got nothing. Then ‘“Star of Courage”+ escape+choice+bravery', and got nothing again.

I tried ‘“Star of Courage”+deliberate+choice+ bravery', and got a hit. One hit. It was a pdf with the unremarkable name of AR1997-98.pdf. It was the annual report of the office of the official secretary to the Governor-General for 1997–98.

A paragraph on page twenty-seven lit up with highlighted words: ‘The Committee has recognised that
bravery
is subtly different from fortitude in a predicament in that it requires not only the presence of danger but an option of
choice
– the
choice
either to go from a safe place to a place of peril in order to help, or to remain at a hazardous post carrying out essential duties while others are moved, or after they had been moved, to a safer place.
Bravery
is interpreted by the Committee as having been displayed through a
deliberate
act which would increase the danger to the person to a significant extent.'

Frank had almost quoted the last sentence directly. He hadn't just filled in the forms, he had made Ben's case for a bravery award uncontestable. Two days after the siege and with a head injury, he had found the words he needed to
guarantee
that Ben would receive a bravery award he had never once seemed to want.

* * *

BRETT LOOKED AT THE
BOTTLE
of wine I had brought as if it wouldn't – couldn't – measure up. He turned it around to read the back label and held it at arm's length, squinting down at the small print.

‘Great,' he said, without any conviction. I was still twenty to him, and liable to drink whatever I came across.

‘So your close vision's going, then?' It was the second thing I thought of to say, after editing a question that might have gone: Did I just give you wine or did I shit in your hand?

‘Your turn'll come,' he said, giving up on the label. ‘We've got a few other people round. Just a couple of the more longstanding clients. I thought it'd do no harm if you met a few of them, in case you're interested in any future work.'

‘Thanks,' I said. ‘That's great.' Again second choice, this time to something like: I'd prefer it if you bundled me up in a sack with an anvil as my copilot and dropped me in the river.

He led me down the hall through the house, past their collection of Indigenous dot paintings that he knew by price tag but not by artist. I knew that each one amounted to a good oven plus change.

‘Francesca's just put new curtains up in the family room,' he said as we walked. ‘They're beige. It goes well if people notice.'

‘Thanks. Thanks for trying.' He meant well. He wanted Francesca to dislike me less. I didn't know how often people noticed beige.

‘I haven't seen this one before.' He was giving the wine bottle more attention as we walked. ‘It'll be good to give it a go.'

I could hear music ahead. It sounded like James Blunt. It was probably one of those ‘music for mellow people's parties' compilations. Francesca was tossing a salad as we walked into the large open-plan living area at the end of the hall.

‘Oh, Josh, hi,' she said, without properly looking up. ‘I'd come over but I'm up to my elbows in it.'

She tossed the salad another couple of times. Even now I could picture her in slinky yet outdated lingerie.

Brett went to put the bottle in the fridge but she stopped him and said, ‘What have you got there?' She read the front label. ‘Classic dry white. Ha.' She started to laugh. Brett smirked, but tried not to. ‘Sorry, it's an old joke,' she said. ‘A friend of ours, Ewen, he's a winemaker and he told us once that any old shit that you don't know what to do with, you just put it all together and call it classic dry white. I'm sure this'll be . . . good, though.'

‘Lucky I got change from five bucks then.' It had cost me twenty.

‘You should come downstairs and meet the others,' Brett said. ‘I've told them a bit about you.'