‘Got you, you bastard,’ I said.
Then Mason showed the pair something which I couldn’t see. This was state-of-the-art equipment. I froze the frame and enhanced the picture until I could make out the detail. When the enlarged image came into sharp focus I could see that Mason had a copy of the photograph that had been taken for my security pass. It was a good likeness. Mason indicated my height by holding his hand up at about the level of Lance Lee’s head. Close enough. Lee and the other kid nodded. Lee showed decayed teeth in a grin, took his bandanna from his pocket and tied it around his head. He slammed his right fist into his cupped left palm. I knew how he felt-now it was personal.
I commandeered the tape of the confab between Mason and the two rioters and one showing the fracas in progress. There were several courses of action open to me. I could take the evidence to Braithwaite or to Brian Morgan or Tabitha Miles or all three. It was a fair bet that with Mason out of the picture the trouble would stop, but I couldn’t believe that the slob was running an agenda of his own. What was really important was to find out who was behind him and why.
The security roster told me that Mason’s shift ended at 3 pm. I was about to visit a friend who is a video expert when Tabitha Miles cornered me on my way to the car park.
‘You don’t seem to be making much progress, Mr Hardy,’ she said. ‘That brawl this morning probably drove away thousands of dollars of business.’
I was in no mood to be reproached. I nodded. ‘Could have. That was certainly the intention. That and nothing more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m sorry, Ms Miles. I’ll be reporting to Brian Morgan, not you, but you’re wrong. I am making progress. I expect to have this thing wrapped up soon.’
Her thin-lipped smile was almost winsome. ‘Do you? And where are you off to now?’
‘Home for a rest. I took a nasty bump on the head this morning.’
She nodded unsympathetically and went on her way.
At four fifteen I was sitting in my car outside a house in Five Dock. I’d followed Mason in his red Commodore. He’d stopped for a six-pack of beer and a pizza and was looking pleased with himself as he waddled from the carport to his front door. Beside me I had blown-up stills from the tapes showing Mason in close consultation with the glass-breakers and a few shots of the rumpus in full swing with Lee and the other kid clearly in focus.
I waited until I calculated he’d have fed his face with a few slices of pizza and was into his second can before I knocked on the door. Wearing track pants and a T-shirt, he opened it, chewing, and I barged past him into the hallway and kicked the door shut behind me.
‘What the fuck…’ He spewed crumbs and shaped up to throw the beer can in his hand.
‘You throw that, Mason, and you’ll be spitting teeth instead of crumbs.’
He dropped his arm and I took the can from him. ‘Let’s sit down and look at some pictures.’
The living room was messy, strewn with newspapers, magazines and cardboard. It looked as if he lived on VB and pizza. I’d underestimated him; he’d started on his third can. I steered him to a chair and pushed him into it. Without his uniform and baton he was a nothing. I took a can, opened it and had a drink. He sucked on his own can and found some courage.
‘You’ve just got yourself the sack. You-’
‘Shut up!’ I opened the envelope and spread the pictures out over the cheese and pepperoni. Somehow, they made a more dramatic statement against that background.
‘You’re gone,’ I said. ‘You set up that brawl and told those kids to pay special attention to me. I’d say that was worth a broken nose and a few teeth from me now, the boot from your employers and a police charge. And just look at the way you’ve got your arm around that kid’s shoulders. I’d say his lawyer’d go for a sexual abuse angle as a defence.’
‘Jesus, Hardy. I never done nothing like that.’
‘It’s not what you’ve done, mate, it’s the way it can be made to look. Think about Lance Lee. You got him off a shoplifting charge. I wonder what was between you…’
‘Nothing.’ His hands were shaking. Maybe in all this bluffing I’d hit a nerve.
‘That other kid wouldn’t be sixteen…’
‘Please, Hardy.’
‘Okay. I’m a reasonable man. You tell me who put you up to this and I’ll keep you out of it.’
‘How?’
‘Look. You’re small fry. No one’s interested in you. But someone’s making a big play of some kind. Corporate stuff’s my bet. They play by their own rules. If the player I’m working for gets the upper hand over the other players, he wins the game. That’s all there is to it. They sort it out and I get paid.’
‘I can keep my job?’
Normally, it’s sad to see someone’s dreams come crashing down, but not this time. I shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘I was in your game for a while,’ he said. ‘But I got on the piss and screwed up.’ He drained his can sloppily and pried another one loose. ‘It’s her-that Miles bitch.’
It turned out that Tabitha Miles was in association with a couple of the board members of the company controlling the shopping centres. The plan was for her to replace Morgan as CEO and for them to gain control of the board. Sabotaging the Petersham Plaza was a first step in undermining Morgan and disrupting the board. I took the evidence-the photographs of Mason and his taped statement about his dealings with Miles-to Morgan. The deal had been for Mason to head up a new security firm that would have the contract for all the shopping centres. Morgan moved quickly and quietly. The upshot was that Miles departed and the board was restructured.
I got a hefty bonus on top of my fee, which made for a nice Christmas present. I told Grant all about it in confidence and he could hardly wait to start his TAFE course. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that not all PEA work was like this.
Braithwaite’s sacked Mason. I took pity on him and organised a temporary job. But I had my revenge-the weeks before Christmas were as hot as any on record, and it must have been hell for him inside that red suit with the fake fur trim.
‹‹Contents››
INSIDER
Cliff, how d’you feel about Melbourne and Brisbane?’
‘They’re great,’ I said, ‘compared, say, to Adelaide and Hobart.’
The man putting the question was Stuart Mackenzie of Mackenzie, McLaren and Sinclair, a legal firm I occasionally did some work for. My Irish grandmother said never work for a Scotsman, but my Scots grandfather said never work for an Irishman, so there you are.
‘You’re so parochial,’ Stuart said. ‘Adelaide has beautiful churches and Hobart has all that convict heritage.’
‘We’ve got both in Sydney, plus the harbour and more work for private enquiry agents. What’s up, Stu?’
Stuart Mackenzie is younger than me but likes to pretend he’s older, wiser and more mature. He’s richer, so mostly I let him pretend, but occasionally I like to take the piss. I’ll bet no one else in those plush Martin Place offices calls him Stu. He adjusted his horn-rimmed half glasses and shuffled the papers on his desk.
‘We have a client, one Thomas Whitney, who’s looking to get himself out of a spot of bother.’
‘What’s he done? How much? What’s her name? How old is she, or he?’
‘Stop it, Cliff. This is serious. Whitney’s a partner in a firm of investment advisers based in Melbourne. Naturally they have branches elsewhere.’
‘Like in Sydney and Brisbane?’
Stuart smiled. He’s a bland-looking man with regular features, thinning blond hair and a Scottish chin. What I like about him, apart from the fact that his cheques don’t bounce, is that he likes to take the piss as well. ‘No,’ he said. ‘In Vanuatu and the Cook Islands.’