After the Flood, page 21
‘He’s with Mal. Can I help?’
Lalor flushed. ‘It’s about the Lizard Minerals case. I noticed something I thought might be … it’s probably nothing.’
Five minutes earlier he would have told her he was too busy but now he was feeling like a surfer on a good wave.
‘What is it?’
She came towards him holding a sheet of A4.
‘Lizard Minerals supplied a list of all past and present employees and there’s a name here that you’ll know.’
She pointed and passed over the paper.
The name stuck out like a seagull in a murder of crows.
Lauren Bagot.
She had been an employee at Lizard Minerals from last November to early February. Clement cast his mind back to the interview with her. What had she said? She and Seydoux met a little over a year ago in Hedland then came up here where she did some temp jobs before getting her new job.
‘Well done, this could be important. Just keep going with the rest of the paperwork.’
‘Sure thing.’
Clement got up and found Earle heading back with a phone to his ear.
‘I’ve started on the caravan parks.’
Clement told him about what Lalor had discovered. Earle’s brain made the connection quickly: Lizard Minerals, explosives theft, Seydoux a commando.
‘Shit,’ he said.
23
She felt more relaxed now as they headed south, Eighty Mile Beach somewhere beyond the scrub to their right. It wasn’t like she had no anxiety, there was still a heap lying under the mat like dirt. But Thomas was right, towing a boat made them invisible. Even if the cops were looking for them, the boat was perfect camouflage. The guy had been at the marina waiting and was satisfied with the direct deposit screenshot on her phone. They had made out like the Frenchman’s death had been a total surprise, promised to return the boat on time and driven off with a fully fuelled and equipped boat. They’d had to fudge about where they intended diving and the guy had been overly helpful with his suggestions so she was getting toey about ever getting away but eventually they were done and now here they were barrelling down the highway.
‘This might be our last free day in a long time,’ she said, wondering if he’d been thinking the same thing.
‘Freedom is only an illusion they allow us to have to further the growth of their capitalist philosophies.’
‘Maybe that’s true but right now I feel free.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘You’re right that there are degrees of freedom, or more accurately non-freedom.’
‘You think we can get away?’ She knew he didn’t like talking about that but she pushed. It was too late to pull out of their enterprise now anyway. She expected him to avoid answering.
‘You know I don’t like to talk about it because it might jinx it but the only way they get to us now is through Paul. They will find two phone calls between you and Jean-Claude. You will say that he came to our beach meetings a couple of times, that’s it. They will look into Paul. They will find a couple of calls between him and me. Again, the same explanation.’
‘But if they connect us, and they will, then it all depends on what Paul says.’
‘Paul won’t talk,’ Thomas said with finality.
‘You can’t be sure.’
‘He won’t. I know people.’
Except you don’t know me, she thought. Then she turned her gaze back to the endless road. It was pointless worrying, she decided. What will be, will be.
Lauren Bagot had come to the station as quickly as she could. When Clement had called it sounded like he’d woken her. Understandable; Clement would want to sleep forever too, anything but face reality. All up it was a shade under twenty minutes. Yes, he could have just asked her his questions over the phone but he wanted to check her reactions in the flesh. Graeme Earle sat beside him in the interview room. He had asked Bagot if she wanted a coffee or tea but she had declined. He had provided water and she sipped it now.
‘You’ve been in touch with Jean-Claude’s parents?’ he asked. Though itching to move on, he did not want her to be defensive.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Her eyes were as dull and flat as her answer. He wondered if she had told them about Valentina Gomez.
‘You mentioned to us before that when you first came to Broome you worked a couple of temporary jobs.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Where were they?’
She looked like she was confused as to where this was headed but she played ball.
‘For about a month I got a job at the Mimosa doing basic kitchen duties. The pay wasn’t anything like I was used to with Rio so I looked for a mining job and got one at Halls Creek for about three months.’
‘Lizard Minerals?’
‘That’s right.’ He could see she was anxious to know why he was asking this.
‘What were you doing there? Cooking?’
‘Cooking and cleaning.’
‘Jean-Claude didn’t work there?’
‘No.’
‘Did he visit you there?’
‘Yes, a couple of times. I was working fourteen days on and a week off. It was a pretty small operation. We got permission for him to stay overnight.’
Clement said, ‘Was there blasting going on in the time you worked there?’
‘Yes. What has this got to do with Jean-Claude’s death?’ She appeared to be genuinely lost, and Clement was relieved to see that.
Graeme Earle said, ‘Somebody broke into the magazines and stole boosters. They also broke into the bulk storage shed and grabbed a bag of explosive mix. We think it might have been Jean-Claude.’
Her mouth moved in preparation for words but none were forthcoming.
‘We’re thinking that might be where he got his cash,’ explained Clement. ‘Selling those explosives.’
‘To who?’ she asked in a daze.
The trip south had proven uneventful but long, the 850 kilometres like convalescence, with strength being drawn from what lay ahead. Annika had fallen asleep after a couple of hours, which was sensible because the coming night would be taxing. Careful to attract no undue attention with his driving, the trip that he would normally make in around nine hours had wound up nearer ten. It was close now. For so long he had wanted to slay a dragon so large that it would inspire others to follow and – yes – carve his own name in stone. This is what Bin Laden had achieved with the twin towers and while that was well out of his league, and he did not share the man’s ideology, the point remained that if you showed people a dragon could be slayed, it gave confidence to others that they could do the same, make their own mark. He did not wish to cause anybody’s death. Hopefully that could be avoided but there was no guarantee, and as he had explained to the others, if you choose to suck on the teat of big industry, you can’t complain when you wind up sick. Paul understood. He grasped that while he had not actively caused what had occurred in Brazil leading to the loss of his partner and unborn child, his very employment was a collusion with the powers of evil, and a tacit endorsement of their inhuman actions. Just like those fucking fly-in fly-outs on the mines. All they cared about was making a buck. They didn’t give a stuff about anybody but themselves. The Frenchman’s death did not worry Thomas in the slightest. He’d made noises about being green but there was no commitment. And in the end, he had revealed the fault in his weak personality. Unable to take the final step. And worse, trying to hold Thomas to ransom. There was no greater sin than disloyalty.
But now there was a link through him to them. It could have been so easy. They would have simply driven to the marina, joined the Frenchman on the boat and begun the long trip south to the target. And when it was over and the police were still trying to figure out what had happened, they would be long gone, back to the marina and vanished for the next strike. That target he’d already picked, the Queensland coal mine.
But Seydoux was a snake.
He had taken their money, bought himself a new motorcycle and then turned around and said ‘no’. Thinking he could do that, change his mind midstream. ‘I’m not going to do it. People could be killed.’ Of course, people could be killed. Initially he had fudged that with the Frenchman because he needed him, but finally the rogue – for that’s what he was, a rogue; wasn’t that a French word? – had figured it out. Actually, he likely suspected all along and just wanted the money. Perhaps he had put blinkers on, allowed himself to believe what he wanted to believe. But then to turn around and order Thomas to ‘pull the operation’, to blow up something else instead, something harmless like the abattoir … even now his blood boiled as he recalled that. Just who the fuck did the Frenchman think he was?
He had stayed calm, told the Frenchman that wasn’t going to happen, that everything had been planned and was in readiness. If the Frenchman wanted to pull out, fine, just give him back the money. The Frenchman had refused. He could do that. He still had the bomb that he had built and the spare booster.
‘What are you going to do? Go to the police?’
Cocky, the big tough commando, calling the shots. It wasn’t that hard to lure him out to Meda, not with the arrogance of the man. He just had to pretend that he was cowed by the commando, that he was craven and had seen the error of his ways. Yes, he’d told the Frenchman, he’d thought it over, Jean-Claude was right, but he had another idea that would involve only the loss of some cattle at the worst. But he must bring the bombs, they had to have mutual trust. He knew the Frenchman would go for it. After all, he had been quite prepared to blow up the abattoir.
‘What is it you are planning?’ the stupid Frog had asked.
‘It’s easier to show you when we’re there,’ he had said.
And the fool had driven out there and shown them how the bomb worked with a simple timer, and how you could detonate the booster too with as little as a rock or hammer. The booster was a TNT charge and would be perfect for a localised smaller explosion like a car, say. He sat drinking wine with them. Wine laced with sedatives.
‘I don’t know if you need these,’ he’d said, showing a small box of long spikes. ‘They were in among the explosives. I didn’t realise.’
An idea was already forming in Thomas’ brain about those spikes and how to make use of them on the so-called Sun King. Once the arrogant fool had passed out, he went to work giving the traitor what he deserved.
But attaining justice for himself had created problems. Like having to avoid cameras. Without the Frenchman, there would have been no trail; with him, there was. Despite carrying jerry cans of petrol, they would have run out of petrol before Dampier had they not stopped at Sandfire for a refuel. He had paid cash. Left his sunglasses on, pulled down a worn xxxx cap, done his shirt up over a bunch of those little plastic inflated bags they used now for fragile parcels. Made himself look like a fat redneck. It passed without incident as he was pretty sure it would. The problem that bastard Seydoux created was not so much what was going to happen before they struck, as what would happen afterwards. The police would trawl through videos and they would find the Sahara trailing a boat, and look him up and maybe even connect him to Seydoux. They would have to be pretty thick not to put the pieces together. However, that would take time and time was this friend.
Thomas felt his excitement growing as Dampier drew closer. A few years back when the big energy companies had still been able to silence scientists and green politicians on the growing threat of global warming, Dampier had been booming. There were tankers coming to fill giant gas tanks, there were tugs and oil rigs and all the other ships and maritime business you needed to go with that kind of industry. The dockyard was glowing nine hours a day with rooster tails of welding sparks, there was banging and clanging and the whirr of forklifts. The world’s stove was burning twenty-four seven and those big basins of gas out there under the ocean just off the coast were being sucked and funnelled and bottled to keep the flame going. But finally, there were enough floods and landslides and droughts and weather turning upside down that the arm-wrestle for public opinion started to go the other way. More greenies got elected, hippy techbillionaires got a sizeable bite of the media, and they started running the old jokers out of town, the suits with head offices in Houston and Dubai, pert blondes with low-cut dresses who fronted nightly news with every story but melting icebergs and dwindling species, got bumped aside and in their place came dull experts with no dress sense but a heap of facts and figures. You had Al Gore making it sexy for Establishment people to have a moral conscience about the environment. The Woodstock generation convinced themselves they were young again and seized the chance to absolve themselves of a half-century of profligacy. Some even gave up flying. Carbon footprint became a word as real as Subway. And voila, next thing you know the prices at the petrol bowser have shrunk like a cheap t-shirt and the ships don’t need to come here anywhere near so much because the Houston and Dubai people suddenly want less oil and gas out there, not more. Dampier goes back to being a little coastal town. The parasite FIFOs were now all back in their hometowns eating fat food and guzzling beer while savings from their overblown pay-packets lasted. Yes, it still has big industry all around it. They’re still pumping gas that they already know about but it takes a lot less people to watch a pot on a stove than to find the ingredients for the meal. Dampier wasn’t bust but it was no longer booming, thought Thomas as he cruised through.
It was just after five when he swung into the little yacht and boat club. Being a Monday was a good thing. Nobody firing up a barbecue or kayaking with kids.
‘First thing we do,’ he said to Annika who had been sitting up beside him the last hour listening to podcasts or something, ‘is get the boat in. Then we get the car out of sight as quick as possible.’
24
Scott Risely was reeling like a batsman who had ducked a fraction late.
‘A bomb?’
‘Or bombs plural, that’s what we think.’ Earle had joined Clement in their boss’ office. Clement continued. ‘As a matter of course, we need to consider the abattoir but this could be bigger.’
‘Like what?’
‘They’ve got grievances against everything. Mining … tourism.’
‘Shit.’ Risely’s thoughts were transparent: people being blown apart at the Mimosa.
Risely said, ‘Run me through it. How you think we got here, what’s next.’
Though he was still forming the whole pattern in his own brain, Clement did his best.
‘Seydoux was a French commando. He could handle and rig explosives. He comes into the orbit of Berrymore and Styles. Maybe he’s an activist or maybe he’s just in it for the money but they pay him to make them some bombs.’
Earle took it up. ‘Di Rivi and I were looking into theft of explosives at Lizard Minerals up in Halls Creek about four weeks ago.’
Clement said, ‘Lauren Bagot had a job there early this year for a few months. Seydoux visited. He was familiar with the place.’
Risely shifted in his seat. ‘You think she’s involved?’
Clement said, ‘We don’t think so. Seydoux compartmentalised his life and kept this from her. I think she wants to help, find out who killed him.’
Risely flicked a finger. ‘Go on.’
‘Seydoux and the others have a falling out over something. Maybe money, maybe he got cold feet. They kill him and take the bombs.’
Risely stuck his elbow on his desk and massaged his forehead. He grasped the situation. ‘They’re in the wind and they’re primed. We know if they have any other weapons?’
‘Not that we know of. We have to assume they do.’
Risely concurred. ‘If they killed Seydoux, they’re serious.’
Clement said, ‘They could rig the car full of explosives and drive it into their target. This station even.’
The terrifying abyss that had opened beneath Risely was growing wider by the second. The target or targets could be anywhere.
‘We need to get eyes on all the main roads looking for them,’ he said. ‘I’m going to issue a media alert.’
Clement expected as much. It was too late now for the laying of careful traps. Prevention had to be the uppermost consideration.
Earle said, ‘Mal Gross has contacted all agencies with a description and the rego. So far not a peep.’
‘They could have ditched that vehicle by now,’ said Risely. ‘BHP, Rio. We need to let the miners know.’
Clement said, ‘Mal contacted Pilbara directly and they are alerting all the mine sites. I’ve got di Rivi and Shepherd trying to find the couple’s family and friends. Maybe they let something slip.’ But Clement’s hopes were flimsy.
Risely said he would alert the Federal Police. ‘Maybe they have turned up on their radar. They have to know anyway. Shit, we better make sure the airport is locked away.’
Clement and Earle took their leave and found Shepherd waiting.
‘I located Jennifer Davidson in New South Wales. You want me to call her?’
‘Thanks but I’ll handle that.’
Shepherd passed across a number to Clement.
‘Tracked her through her driver’s licence,’ said Shepherd, who obviously wanted a pat.
‘Good work,’ said Clement, already dialling. Things were moving fast. Too fast. Berryman and Styles had a good lead on them. The call was answered.
‘Jenny speaking.’
‘Jennifer Davidson?’
‘Yes,’ came the voice, suspicious.
Clement introduced himself. ‘I need to speak to you about Thomas Berryman.’
‘Is he alright?’
‘We urgently need to speak to him in relation to some very serious matters. May I ask your relation to him?’
‘I’m his aunt. I’m married to his mum’s brother. What’s going on?’
Clement wished he had a full and complete answer to that.
Paul had resisted the impulse to call Ingrid. For now, it was better that she was an island on an island, cut off from this. He had retrieved his car from the carpark where he had left it and was relieved it had started straight off. Some of the other workers disconnected the battery and he supposed he should probably do that too but then the last year or so he’d really not had much energy for anything. The trip north to Dampier had passed like a day when you were sick in bed as a child. Life seemed to be happening outside but you were in your own cocoon. All you noticed was sunny rays turning to lengthening shadows. He’d never been that much into music. He’d always just gone to see whatever bands his friends wanted and bought the same CDs as them to fit in: Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon. Gabrielly had loved Madonna. She liked Katy Perry too, Lady Gaga, a few others, but for some reason it was Madonna that she loved to sing along with and dance to, swaying her hips suggestively at him, hands in the air as if they held castanets. In his unit on the island, he didn’t bother with CDs. Like everybody else, if he wanted music, he just streamed it or listened to the radio, although in truth he’d gone back to a life without music. The flood had leached all the joy from his life. It had only been the last few days he’d found familiar melodies swimming through his head once more. Ingrid, he supposed. In his car, an old Corolla he’d bought cheap in Onslow, he still had a stash of worn CDs that he had brought back to Australia from Brazil. Driving towards Dampier, he had listened to Madonna and imagined Gabrielly beside him laughing and singing, and in the back a small child, a girl, with black thick hair like her mother, smiling as Gabrielly sang ‘Papa Don’t Preach’, playfully poking him in his shoulder with her finger. He had a pang of deep sadness bordering on panic, as it occurred to him these fancies might vanish as any relationship with Ingrid flourished. He didn’t want to lose them. Guilt swam through his veins. ‘You don’t get nothing unless you give up something,’ Gabrielly used to always say.
