‘I have more questions,’ Martin protests.
‘I’m sure you do,’ says Goffing. ‘And you’ll get your answers. But right now, we need to get going.’
Back in the car, leaving Griff and the handcuffed Turtle in the house, Goffing speaks. ‘He was starting to bullshit you. It was time to get you out of there.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘What he told you about Vandenbruk and the chain of events with Clarity Sparkes is true, as far as we can determine. But not what was coming next.’
‘Can you explain that?’
‘Sweetwater did order the killing of Clarity Sparkes, but we’re pretty sure it was Kenneth who injected her, while she was held down by his two thugs. And it was him and the same two thugs who took the compromising photographs of Clarence O’Toole, working for Sweetwater, maybe for Titus Torbett as well, we’re not sure. He was with Titus Torbett when he killed Max Fuller and Elizabeth Torbett. It was him who trashed your apartment after Henry Livingstone broke in and stole your laptop. It was him who infected your phones with malware. He was at the heart of it.’ ‘So, rotten through.’
‘You don’t know half of it. A sick fuck, with a fetish for women’s underwear. But between what he knows and Molloy’s data dump, the fraud boys and girls, together with the AFP and the ACIC, are going to have a field day. They’ve got everything they need. The FBI are sending a team over, and they won’t be alone. The pollies in Canberra are trying to distance themselves, claiming it’s all state-based, Sydney politics. But they’ll call a royal commission, you can bet on it. Half of Sydney are shitting themselves. Thanks to Wellington Smith and Mandy and yourself, there’s nowhere left to hide.’
Goffing drops him off outside his hotel. Martin desperately wants to sleep. Needs to sleep. But not yet. First he must file the story exposing Claus Vandenbruk as Tarquin Molloy’s killer and make sure Wellington Smith publishes the membership of the Mess, spreading it to the four corners, out where no injunction can stop it. Then maybe he can get a few hours’ kip before getting back to the police station by four o’clock to pick up Mandy.
WEDNESDAY
chapter forty-eight
The wind has come in from the south-east overnight, sweeping the city with showers, leaving the sky clear between cloud bands. The rain comes and goes, squalls chasing each other north, rinsing the city for another day, but this far west the gloss is never quite as shiny. There are stains the heavens alone can’t lift. At least it’s still Sydney; she’s not breaching her bail conditions to be here. She sits in the Subaru, gathering her courage, outside the nondescript house in the nondescript cul-de-sac. The neighbouring homes display the pride of ownership: not number thirty-one. Abandoned bikes litter an uncut lawn, the letterbox tilts at an angle, its interior blackened by some neighbourhood prank. She knows the signs: an untidy exterior disguising an even less tidy interior. She’s still summoning her better self, suppressing her trepidation, when a car passes her and creaks into the drive.
She watches in fascination. It’s an old car, a sedan among the SUVs, one door a mismatched colour, a hubcap missing, a puff of blue smoke from the exhaust as the driver cuts the engine. Two boys bound out of the back seat, running and arguing, another squall like the skittling clouds. They run to the house, not waiting for the driver. She emerges: a woman wearing grey trackie daks, a Harvard sweatshirt, hair in a ponytail beneath a baseball cap. A pretty woman; a harried woman. She lugs grocery bags from the boot, the boys doing nothing to help. Mandy waits for the woman to enter her home, gives her ten minutes to put away the shopping, but eventually there is no avoiding it. She can see another band of rain approaching. She takes the sports bag and leaves the sanctuary of the Subaru.
There is no long wait at the door; the woman opens it almost immediately. ‘You,’ she says through the screen door.
‘You know who I am?’ asks Mandy.
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Why?’
‘I have something for you.’
‘The truth?’
‘If you really want to hear it.’
The woman looks back over her shoulder, as if to reassure herself her children are safe, that Mandy is no threat. ‘Okay. Come in. If you must.’
They sit in a kitchen just big enough to accommodate a small table of peeling veneer. There’s a copy of a women’s magazine, three months out of date, a bowl of fruit. Up close, Mandy can see how beautiful the woman must have been before life had its way with her. Even now, with no make-up and carrying a few extra kilos, she’d be attractive if it weren’t for the anger in her eyes and the grim set of her mouth.
‘I’ve seen you on the news,’ says the woman. ‘You’re Mandalay Blonde.’
‘Yes. And you’re Evelyn Bright. Richard’s widow. Tarquin’s widow.’
‘I am. For all the good it does me.’ A tooth is missing. There is no wedding ring.
‘No pension? No superannuation?’
There is hostility as Evelyn Bright answers. ‘He was sacked. Dishonourable discharge, accused of stealing millions. I was told to keep my mouth shut. They told me that when he disappeared, they told me that when he was found, they’re telling me that now.’
‘You can say whatever you like now, to whomever you like.’
‘Is that why you’re here? Touting for that journalist boyfriend of yours?’ Her voice curls with distaste, with bitterness. ‘Soliciting?’ She imbues the word with contempt.
Mandy blinks away the taunt, barely registering it. ‘Tarquin—Richard—was a hero. His reputation will be restored and your entitlements honoured. The money he stole was just a cover. The information he retrieved will do more to fight corruption in this state than anything in the past two hundred years. He died
