'It's taken years to compile…'
'This man is in Australia.'
'Jesus, if I could talk to him.'
I'd phoned the Kangaroo Valley Tourist Association about the date of its Travellers meeting. 'I know where he's going to be soon. I'm not expecting you to email or fax the bloody thing. Let me have a look at the database on your computer. Be very interesting if there's a match.'
'What if there's not?'
'I'd still want to meet him.'
'You'd put me in touch with him?'
Why not? I thought. 'Yes, although it could be risky. You realise what you could be letting yourself in for?'
'This could be the man who killed your cousin.' 'Right.'
'Hardy, I'm ex-SAS myself and I've been working on this stuff for a long time. I've met some very hard cases in dodgy places.'
Not as hard as this, if he's the man, I thought, but I agreed that we'd go together.
'It'd take a day or two. Can you get the time off?'
'I'd fucking take it!'
He gave me his address in Balmain and I arranged to be there that evening.
Jack Casey had everything a successful academic looks for-a sandstone terrace with a water view, a good- looking wife, two kids-a boy and a girl-and a book-lined study. Briskly, he introduced me to his wife and the children before taking me off to the study with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. Evidently the inside smoking ban extended to the house, because the room didn't smell of tobacco and his snuff box was on a shelf above the computer. He poured two glasses of Merlot and switched on the computer.
I studied the room as the computer booted up. No framed degrees, no military insignia. There was a photograph of his wife and another of the two kids and one of a football team. A younger, still bearded version of Casey was sitting in the middle row holding a football. The captain, apparently. I browsed the bookshelves-orderly, but not obsessively so. A low shelf held a few copies of Diggers for Hire and multiples of two other titles by Casey- The Great Lie and After Vietnam. I pulled a copy of the Vietnam title out and turned around when I heard the keys being tapped. 'You're too young for Vietnam,' I said. 'Gulf one. You?'
'Earlier. What've you got there?'
'A list of all the Australian mercenaries I've been able to trace post the Korean War. This is where I learn the name of your bloke, unless I'm supposed to leave the room.'
I laughed and drank some of the wine. 'I wouldn't abuse your hospitality like that, Jack. Try Sean Cassidy.' He hit the keys. 'No match.' 'Try Seamus Cummings.'
'That name rings a bell. Here we go. Bingo. Yeah, I remember now-Seamus and Liam Cummings.' Casey printed out two short dossiers:
Seamus Kelly Cummings, d.o.b. 2.1.56, Galway, Republic of Ireland, emigrated to Australia 1964; Australian Army (Sgt) 1975, discharged 1978; I.R.A. 1980-4; imprisoned 1984-7; rumoured mercenary Namibia 19xx (see interview 12a/765). Whereabouts unknown.
Liam Kelly Cummings, d.o.b. 1.10.56, Galway, Republic of Ireland, emigrated to Australia, 1964; Australian CMF 1976-?; rumouredl. RA. ?-?; rumouredmercenaryNamibia 19xx (see interview 12a/765). Whereabouts unknown.
'A couple of boyos, to be sure,' Casey said. 'Practically twins. Has to be them.'
He got the photograph of the captured mercenaries on the screen and blew it up. We studied the faces of the two who resembled my photo of Cassidy/Cummings. Making allowance for weight loss and the different conditions under which the photographs were taken, I was reasonably sure that one of the men was a match.
'Which one?' Casey said.
'Take your pick. What's this interview you've cited?'
'It was with a guy who claimed to be a sort of recruiting agent for an English organisation providing mercenaries for Africa.'
'Claimed to be?'
'That's why I labelled his information as rumour. He seemed to be on the level, but I couldn't get confirmation.'
'What did he say about the photograph?'
'No, that came from another source, not the recruiter. This bloke was a camera freak but pretty solid, I thought. I'm ahead of you-he might be able to throw some light on it. We're still in touch. I could probably see him soon.'
'How soon?'
Casey took a pinch of snuff, didn't sneeze and swigged some more of his very good wine. 'You said you know how to locate this Cummings. When are you going to do that?'
As I'd anticipated, we were back to dealing. Fair enough. I told him about the Travellers meeting and suggested that he
Googled it because his web research skills were better than mine. It didn't take him long to find that 'descendants of the Irish Travelling families now living in Australia were invited to gather at the O'Loughlin farm in Kangaroo Valley on the weekend of 2-3 August to celebrate their heritage'.
'A week off,' Casey said.
'Can you get to your informant before then?'
'I'll try.'
'Tell you what, I've got two bottles ofJamesons we brought back, in case he happens to be Irish.'
'That'd help and he is. How'd you know that?'
'I didn't, but there's nothing but the bloody Irish in this thing. Casey, for God's sake.'
He laughed. 'It's an Anglicisation of something Polish and unpronounceable, but I've been known to trade on it. I'll get busy. Jesus, something solid on Olympic Corps, that'd be a coup.'
'A footnote?'
'An article at the very least, maybe an update of the book, and a poke in the eye for those FOI bastards.'
'Don't get carried away. If he's the man who killed Patrick, talking soldiers to him won't be my first priority.'
'I understand. He must have survived that shackling. I wonder what happened to his brother?'
That was one of the questions in my mind, though not the most important. I'd come to trust Sheila and had resolved the concern about Szabo. I was off the hook on the steroids charge and should have been able to concentrate on Cassidy/Cummings and his links with Patrick. But now I had a question about Casey. He seemed to have everything he needed, so why the naked ambition? Wasn't professor as high as you could go before becoming a bean-counting bureaucrat?
23
I replied to Angela Warburton, saying that I'd be glad to see her when she came to Sydney. I said I hadn't been in the surf for fifteen years but was prepared to give it a go if I could find a board long enough. What I didn't say was that I'd have to get in some practice first.
Sheila got back from Melbourne excited by what she'd picked up about criminal matriarchs. We celebrated her return in the usual ways. She gave me an impromptu performance of one of the scenes in the script and was very good. Chilling. She asked me what I'd been doing and I told her just about everything. We were in bed on a cold morning, reluctant to get up for the run to the bathroom.
She drew closer. 'Jesus, Seamus a mercenary and an assassin. It's hard to believe.'
'It's not proven yet.'
'It sounds like something out of Frederick Forsyth.
What're you going to do?'
'I'm going down to Kangaroo Valley with this Jack Casey to hunt him out.'
