go.
‘He was real nice to me. Helped me out a few times.’
I asked him why he was getting into trouble in the first place.
‘I found out one of my grandads was a Maori. I’m confused.’
‘Both my grandmas were Irish,’ I said. ‘Imagine how I feel.’
Scammell had given Wishart his number with an instruction to call him if he needed help. Wishart had done so after the cops came looking for him. He’d been held against his will in Richmond ever since.
‘He was setting you up as the Number One school arsonist. Probably would’ve dumped you in the lake eventually. The fires’d help to close down the schools. Big bucks for the developer- Scammell.’
Wishart stroked the dark down on his upper lip and stared through the windscreen at the empty road. ‘That’s a real downer,’ he said.
I delivered him back to his mother and sat in on a conference between them and Hubbard, the unsympathetic cop, the next day. Hubbard grunted, took notes and went away.
‘What now?’ Mavis Wishart said.
‘With luck,’ I said, ‘nothing.’
I heard from police sources that Mark Scammell went interstate the night his Richmond villa burned down, and overseas shortly after that. No charges were brought in respect of the school fires and last I heard Jason Wishart’s school was still functioning while the SOS group fought the government’s closure plans.
I kept digging a little in my spare time and when Scammell got back to Sydney in December I made an appointment to see him, saying that I was interested in selling my house in Glebe. No real estate agent could ignore that. He was a big, fleshy man with close-set, shrewd eyes.
‘What’s your equity?’ he said.
I leaned back in the leather chair. ‘Bad luck about your place in Richmond,’ I said. ‘Big loss.’
The shrewd eyes went hostile. ‘Insurance’ll cover it. Now…’
‘How about the clause that cancels the insurance if a criminal act is involved.’
‘What?’
‘I was there,’ I said. ‘Brian took a shot at me. I made a statement to the police. I can make one to your insurance company. You won’t get a bean.’
Scammell’s loose, floppy mouth tightened. ‘What do you want?’
‘I thought a cheque made out to SOS.’
‘No way.’
‘I had a little talk with Brian last week. He’s not too happy with you, leaving the country like that.’
Scammell slid open a drawer and took out a chequebook.
‘Make it $10,000,’ I said, ‘and write it big and clear. I’ve got a photographer and a reporter downstairs. They might want a close-up of the cheque.’
‹‹Contents››
Eye Doctor
‘An eye doctor?’ I said. ‘I had some dealings with one once a little while back. Mind you, I didn’t see much of him, especially when he was operating on me.’
‘You always liked your little joke, Cliff,’ Ian Sangster said. ‘But this is important. Could you be serious for a minute?’
‘Sure,’ I said, but I couldn’t help myself, I was in such a good mood. ‘I also knew an undertaker, but he’s dead.’
I burst out laughing. Dr Ian Sangster looked at me the way he might at a victim of brain damage. ‘Am I going to have to give you something to calm you down? What’re you on? I’ve probably got the antidote.’
‘Glen and I are going up to her place on the coast next week. We’re going to catch fish and swim and rub oil all over each other, day and night.’
‘When next week?’
‘Friday.’
‘Good. Ten days away. That’ll give you time to do this job. It’ll pay well, not that you need much money for what you’ve got planned. Mind you, if it comes to rings…’
I held up my hand. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Money wouldn’t hurt, but I couldn’t take any from you.’
Sangster has been my doctor for most of the last twenty years. He’s patched me and other people up at unlikely hours and in unlikely places, and provided other extracurricular services. He hasn’t filed reports or charged the going rates. Now, he pushed aside his scotch and leaned forward-two signs that he really was serious.
‘It’s not for me. It’s for Jonas Buckawa. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?’
I had. Buckawa was a Bougainvillean lawyer and politician who was holding up the works in a big way. A major petroleum strike had been made in the strait between the islands of Buka and Bougainville and financial interests in Papua New Guinea, Australia and Singapore were falling over themselves to get the drills down and the barrels filling. Buckawa had found a dozen different objections to the contracts-in terms of the environment, traditional ownership and usage of the waters, the terms decided between the contracting parties and their governments-as well as doubts about the reliability of the survey work estimate of the reserves. He’d filed his objections in a series of courts, including the International Court, and he’d got the media interested and the locals stirred up so that the prospective field was constantly under surveillance. The PNG government wanted to send in troops. Singapore, it was said, supported that; Australia could not.
‘What’s his problem?’ I said. ‘He seems to have the ball at his feet.’
‘He does, in a sense. He stands a good chance of winning his court battles and bringing a stop to all this oil- drilling bullshit.’
Ian is a conservationist, worried about greenhouse gases, the ozone layer, pollution, everything. I tried to think of when I’d last read anything about Buckawa and realised that it had been some time. I’d assumed it was just a matter of legal wheels turning slowly. Evidently not.
‘Jonas has had severe eye trouble for some time-cataracts and glaucoma. It’s got worse. He needs an operation, a tricky one. It has to be kept secret though. If word got out that he has these problems the campaign’d collapse, it’s all on his shoulders. That’s where Professor Frank Harkness comes in. He’s worked in Bougainville, Jonas knows and trusts him. He can do the job and keep his mouth shut. He’s a bit of a stirrer himself
‘Is that right?’ I was sceptical. I didn’t associate eye surgeons with much except clever hands and big bank accounts. ‘I still don’t see why you need me.’
‘We — I’m on the Buka Strait Committee-need someone to protect Harkness. Jonas is getting into Sydney the day after tomorrow, very much on the quiet, illegally in fact. The PNG government took away his passport. We’ve got people to look after him but the same sort of people can’t be seen to be hanging around Harkness.’
‘Bougainvilleans, you mean?’
Ian nodded. ‘Not everyone up there’s on side, not by a long shot. If someone unsympathetic in Sydney spotted odd comings and goings around Harkness they might put two and two together. Jonas’ eye problems aren’t a total secret, although only a very few people know how bad they are.’
I took a drink and thought about it. Babysit a professor of ophthalmology for a few days. How hard could it be? ‘These unsympathetic people,’ I said, ‘what would they be likely to do to Harkness?’
“There’s a hell of a lot of money and influence involved. They’d be prepared to damage his hands, maybe even kill him. But if everything goes right nothing at all will happen.’
‘Who’s paying?’
‘Funds are available.’
‘Come on, Ian. There’s paperwork to do.’
‘Do it afterwards-wouldn’t be the first time.’
That’s the trouble with being flexible, people know you’ll flex. I told Sangster I’d take the job. ‘The professor, what hospital does he work at?’
