‘They were delivering meth in bags of horse feed?’ James hoots. ‘I’ve never heard that one before. What would happen if one of the bags broke open?’
‘The horse would run really fast?’ Belinda has her back to him, typing as she talks. In front of her, through the windows, clouds are scudding across the sky toward the hills.
‘There’s an idea. You could give it to racehorses.’
‘I think someone has thought of that already.’
‘Really? Do people actually do that? I was just joking.’
‘What do you think the racing industry doping scandals are all about? Horses kicking back smoking a joint and listening to reggae?’
‘Obviously not, no, but meth? You’d have to be some kind of sick bastard to think about giving that shit to a horse.’
‘You just did.’
‘But I’d never actually do it.’
While Belinda and James debate the ethics of doping horses, I’ve resumed my search for the smoking gun. Belinda and I are back in the office after our one-and-a-half days in home purgatory and I haven’t been allocated another inquiry yet, so I log in to the pathology database. Technically, my access has been rescinded but as they say, the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly. I am certain that somewhere in these records, there is proof that Duncan and his allies have systematically accessed the private medical records of public housing tenants. That they have then evicted anyone with a positive test for illicit drugs. They’ve done it to reduce the waiting list, to make themselves look good. To get the minister re-elected. And somehow, for some reason, Graham Griffiths doesn’t want me looking at it, just like he didn’t want Eric looking at it two years ago. I don’t care if public opinion isn’t on my side. Public opinion is not my concern. I’m here to call out public servants who break the law, and the law says you can’t use someone’s private information for anything other than the reason it was given.
‘J A M 3 5. It’s not long enough and it wants a character.’ Belinda exhales behind me. ‘Do emojis count?’
‘Probably not. Change the J to an exclamation mark and add your name to the end.’ I check the date. ‘Has your password expired already?’
‘No, I’m done with all that tenancy stuff. Bigfoot wants me to look at the government tenders board and make sure that the sale of these public housing sites to the private sector comply with procurement policy. It’s going to be boring as batshit.’
Personally, I think it sounds like a great project and I’d offer to do it for her if I wasn’t knee-deep in pathology reports. ‘Which sites?’
‘Harbour Lights in Weymouth, the apartment building where Aaron Abadi lived, and’ – she checks her notes – ‘the one in Northbridge that’s almost finished. Banksia Apartments. I’ll say one thing for Duncan, he’s committed to native plants. Oh crap.’
‘What?’
‘Banksia Apartments. That’s the development where Aaron died.’ She grimaces. ‘Sorry, Frances.’
‘Show me?’
Belinda logs in and brings up the tender records for Banksia Apartments. The block of land was part of a decommissioned primary school, no longer needed in the inner city as post-war family homes gave way to office blocks and apartments. I want to see how much Mike Vargus paid for it – whether the bureaucrats had screwed him over as he claimed. Belinda clicks on the contract details, and we blink. Mike hasn’t used the Zaglossus name to contract for the work. He’s used the trading name Lignum, after the settlement inland from Weymouth, on Yamatji country. And he’s not a sole trader, it’s a four-way partnership: Michael Vargus, Graham Griffiths, and Ian and Helen Stewart.
Belinda turns to me, her fingers suspended over the keyboard. ‘That’s not what I was expecting. Ian Stewart, isn’t he …?’
‘The mining camp chef who killed his mate with a kitchen knife. And I’m guessing Helen is his wife.’ Which makes Ian Stewart the brother-in-law whose murder conviction Graham Griffiths wanted Eric to avenge.
My desk phone rings. It’s the security desk downstairs.
‘Your visitor is here to see you.’
‘My visitor?’
‘She said she has an appointment with you.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘She wouldn’t say, except that she had an appointment. I can’t send her upstairs without ID.’
I glance at Belinda and back at the screen. ‘Fine. I’ll be down in a minute.’
Downstairs, the security guard tips his head toward the furthest and worst-lit corner of the lobby. Reclining on a couch is a thin woman wearing jeans, sneakers and a cheesecloth tunic. She has a fall of long, brown curls and a defiant look. As I cross the lobby, her face softens in the same way Tahnee’s did when she spoke to Shayne. She motions for me to sit, angling her body away from the door.
‘He knew you’d come.’ Helen Stewart’s voice is the accent of the Mid West, Yamatji country, of nasal resonance and the softened T. ‘He knew you couldn’t resist it, not after the story broke last night.’ She pauses to look me in the eye. ‘Even if you wouldn’t do what he told you.’
‘How’s Tahnee?’
‘Keeping out of trouble.’
‘Was she involved?’ I think about her need to leave Shayne after the fire and make her deliveries.
‘No, Tahnee doesn’t get involved in any of that shit. And Graham doesn’t ask her either.’
‘Was Vince supposed to collect them, the bags of feed?’
‘I don’t know. That’s Graham’s business, not mine.’
‘But you’re here on Graham’s business today?’
Her face hardens. ‘He’s not some drama queen, Frances. He warned you off for a reason.’
‘To keep me away from his drugs network.’
‘It’s not about the drugs.’
‘It sure looks like it to me. I suppose Duncan’s taking his cut too, letting him use his place.’
‘Duncan? That scumbag?’ Her face puckers and she all but spits on the floor. ‘He doesn’t get a cent out of Graham. Not when Graham found out what he was doing. Graham doesn’t do business with people like that.’
While I get a tiny prick of satisfaction from realising that Duncan probably doesn’t know his hills property is part of Griffith’s distribution channel, I think Helen’s comment is a bit rich when Griffiths is making money out of other people’s self-destruction. ‘Except he does, doesn’t he? He got Duncan to award him and Mike Vargus government housing contracts and make sure they only get tenants who are clean. Heaven forbid Graham might end up being landlord to one of his own grubby, drug-addicted clients.’
Helen Stewart’s jaw clenches, and I think for a minute she’s going to walk out on me, but like Vince did the night before, she composes herself, makes her decision. ‘You’ve got it wrong.’
‘So why are you here? As far as Graham knows I’ve given up on the police inquiry.’
‘You’re still searching around in that database, though.’
‘How do you know that?’ I look at my watch. It would be two and a half hours, tops, since I logged on.
She looks at me like I’m daft. ‘They’ve got alerts in the system.’
‘And I suppose those alerts get back to Graham.’
‘They do, but they also get back to people who will be a lot less happy than Graham about you looking at those records.’
‘Look, I get it. Private information is private and has to be kept secure. People have a right to know that no-one is going to be trawling through their records for laughs. But that’s the whole point. That’s exactly what the government has been doing. Trawling through medical records to find reasons to evict people. It’s illegal, and it’s unfair. When people become homeless, all sorts of awful things happen.’
To my horror, I feel my eyes swell and a band of heat across my forehead. Behind Helen Stewart’s curls I see a familiar shape step across the foyer and stop at the security desk. I shuffle sideways on the bench seat, but Bigfoot sees the movement and looks up. At the same time, Helen turns around to see what has caught my eye. Bigfoot pauses to take her in, then scowls and looks at her watch. I nod, hoping to communicate my absolute confidence that I am down here on legitimate office business.
Helen puts one skinny brown hand on my arm. ‘I know it’s personal for you, but believe me, Frances, this isn’t about drugs. It’s personal for me too.’ She pulls a folded tissue out of her bra and touches it under my eyes. I feel like a child being comforted by my mother and feel my cheeks redden with the shame of it. When she’s done, Helen lets one hand rest against the other, feather-light on my arm. Together we look down at them and the contrast between her skin and mine. I see my dad’s disappointment at my three percenters quip, and I realise what she’s come here to say.