Anna Rosen woke to the usual traffic noise from Glebe Point Road. Her abhorrence of airless rooms meant she’d left the windows wide open and a strong breeze was blowing sheets of typed paper off the desk. She heard them fluttering up one by one and became fully awake.
‘Shit!’
She jumped out of bed, ran to the desk, thumped a heavy bust of Trotsky on to the pile and then gathered up the loose sheets from the floor, sorting them back into order before also putting them under the commissar’s weighty protection. The bust was a fine-featured bronze with rimmed oval specs, a neat, pointed beard, a mandarin collar, the wild hair swept back from a high, smooth forehead. It was a present from Pierre that Anna had always suspected had been liberated from the bourgeois home of a former believer. She had never asked after its provenance, but she knew that, if pressed, Pierre would explain away the theft as a justifiable act of redistribution.
Meeting Trotsky’s implacable gaze, Anna was suddenly aware of her own nakedness. She turned him to face the bookcase, closed the window and sat in the captain’s chair, feeling the coolness of the black leather against her flesh. When she spun slowly around to face the desk, the chair pitched and rolled on its springs as if she really were at sea.
There was a china cup half-full of cold coffee next to the typewriter. She rolled out the typed page still in the machine and read it, sipping the coffee and stopping from time to time to make corrections with a pencil. She was now working hard to turn her research on Ivo Katich’s eventful life into a book, and it was starting to take shape.
Her radio documentary ten days ago had revealed his role in establishing a terrorist organisation in Australia, and in funding and orchestrating the Bosnian incursion. It had sketched out his wartime past in the Ustasha and implicated him in war crimes, alleging the complicity of various security services in facilitating his immigration to Australia.
Anna thought about the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was where she had first learned of Ivo’s existence. It deserved its own chapter, if she had the courage to put herself into the story.
From deep in the house a phone began to ring. Anna was about to throw on a robe and run to answer it when it stopped.
Pierre’s voice boomed down the hallway. ‘Anna,’ he shouted. ‘It’s for you. Wake up!’
A few moments later he banged on her door.
‘It’s one of your spooky fwiends on the phone,’ he began. But before she could respond, he pushed the door open and stuck his head in, just as she spun the chair around from facing the desk.
‘Oh! Whooops!’
When Pierre started laughing, Anna jumped up and threw a cushion at him. ‘Piss off, you perve!’
‘Kinky!’ he managed to say before ducking back behind the door. ‘Christine Keeler, eat your heart out!’ he cried.
Anna grabbed her kimono, wrapped herself in it and stomped into the corridor. ‘How about knocking?’ she said, pushing past Pierre.
‘I did. I did.’
‘And came straight in.’
Pierre tried to conjure a crestfallen look but quickly gave up. ‘Sorry about that, but I will have that mental picture forever.’
Anna let it go. ‘You can make me a coffee in return.’
In the living room Anna sat at the phone table and picked up the receiver.
‘Hello. Sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘Anna?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Al Sharp, I got your message.’
‘Al, thanks for calling back. Can you talk now?’
‘Not on the phone,’ Sharp said. ‘That café we met at before. Can you be there in half an hour?’
‘I can.’
‘See you there,’ he said and hung up.
Anna dressed quickly and cycled across town. She chained her bike outside the Piccolo, both front and back wheels. It was the Cross, after all. She was early, but Al Sharp was already there, stirring sugar into a cappuccino, his large body crammed into a corner table from which he could see anyone who came into the café.
Anna had known Sharp since his ASIO days, a strangely intimate connection born out of his surveillance of her. It was the secret intimacy of the peeping Tom or the stalker, but she forgave him for it. She was grateful he’d never attempted to translate that intimacy into something real; perhaps she had been saved from embarrassment by his natural reticence.
During the years she had known him, Sharp’s physical shape had changed. He’d gone from athletic to corpulent, the result of a debilitating back injury. She knew him well enough to know when the pain was bothering him. It blunted his mordant wit.
Anna ordered coffee and sat opposite him. He gave her a curt nod.
‘Your radio piece was good, very strong,’ he said in a voice barely above a whisper. ‘Definitely thrown a cat among the pigeons. The government is on the back foot, skittish as hell. Naturally there’s an investigation into how you got hold of the internal memo and the report to the A-G by the Commonwealth Police. How did you get it, by the way? That was a surprise.’
‘You’re not my only source.’
‘No, well … That’s good, I suppose. It spreads the risk. I expected the leak investigation, of course, but it means we have to be extremely careful now.’
‘Thanks, Al. They won’t find out anything from me.’
‘You destroyed any notes which might identify me?’
‘Of course.’ She nodded. ‘Exactly as we agreed.’
Sharp gave her a searching look. ‘Good,’ he said finally. ‘I won’t stay long. Ask your questions.’
‘How’s your back?’
‘It’s fucked.’ He winced. ‘I’m on hydrocodone pills.’
‘That’s a narcotic.’
‘Yeah, so I’m trying not to take them.’
‘Give them to me if you don’t want them.’
Sharp rolled his eyes. ‘I really do know too much about you,’ he said. ‘Next question?’
‘You’re on the bombing investigation?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any leads?’
‘Nothing yet. Watching the usual suspects.’
‘Ivo Katich?’
‘What do you think? He’s had the press camped outside his house all week.’
‘I’ve seen him on camera, lying through his teeth. I was wondering if you got more out of him.’
Sharp laughed at that. ‘He’s clammed up. Refusing to say a thing.’
Anna played the next card cautiously. ‘Do you know where his sons are?’
‘Marin, we suspect, is still out of the country.’ Sharp paused to watch her reaction. ‘We suspect he may have been part of the Bosnian incursion, but we’ve no proof. What about you? What have you heard?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing at all. If he was in Bosnia, would you get confirmation from the Yugoslavians?’
‘Officially the Yugos aren’t saying anything at all. But Marin is an Australian citizen. If they were holding him, they probably wouldn’t tell us.’
‘Would they tell you if he’d been killed?’
‘They’ve passed on the names of eleven dead Australians. He’s not on that list.’
Anna felt a wave of relief that made her legs go weak. She fought to control her face. Vittorio put an espresso in front of her and she was thankful for the distraction. She sipped at it, steadying herself before responding.
‘How reliable was the intelligence that put him in Bosnia?’
‘It came from the Germans,’ Sharp said. ‘But it wasn’t definitive. We’ve asked for confirmation, but nothing so far.’
‘What about his brother, Petar?’
Sharp shook his head. ‘Damaged goods, that one,’ he said ruefully. ‘He definitely didn’t go to Bosnia.’ Sharp delivered a tight summary. ‘Mental issues. Drugs and alcohol. Smack addict, the word is. We had a look at him for the Sydney bombings, but the strong feeling is he’s too fucked up. That job required steady nerves.’
‘You had a look at him?’ Anna repeated. ‘So where is he now?’
‘Seems that old man Ivo sent him to the bush to dry out.’ Sharp opened his notebook and flicked through it. ‘South Coast, near Eden. Place called Khandalah. That’s all I’ve got. We had a surveillance team down there for a while. Pulled out now. No phone there. Pretty basic.’
‘Is he alone?’
‘He was.’
‘Isn’t that odd?’
‘Petar’s not great company, by all accounts. He was interviewed, of course. By Ray Sullivan. Detective sergeant, one of our best. Incoherent, he reckons, a mumbling wreck. You thinking of going down there?’
‘I might,’ she admitted.
Sharp slowly drank his coffee. Tapping out a cigarette, he offered her one, but she declined. He lit up, considerately blowing smoke away from her.
‘Well, he sounds like a fruitcake. You’ll have to handle him with extreme care. I wouldn’t go alone, if I were you. Listen, I’ve got to get going. Send me a message if you pick up anything, will you?’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Anything else on this Khandalah place?’
‘It’s very remote, the property’s on a river that comes out at Twofold Bay. That’s really all I’ve got. I’m sure you’ll find it if you need to. Good luck with that.’
Sharp nodded again, stood up gingerly and left without another word.
*
It took only a few calls for Anna to get a lead on Khandalah. A realtor in Eden knew the place and gave her detailed directions on how to get there. Its exotic name came from an Indian hill station south of Bombay, which struck her as a strange choice for a Croat hideaway.
Marin had talked about spending summers on the South Coast, but she had never imagined anything like a misty, green colonial hill station. He had always been vague, never named it. Of course she knew now that this was only one of his many secrets.
Anna called McHugh to tell him of this breakthrough and he agreed that Petar Katich was the best lead they had, if she could get him to talk. The travel office booked a room for her at the pretentiously named Hotel Australasia in Eden. When she rang the front desk, the manager—‘Call me Dave’—told her that she should factor in seven or eight hours for the journey by car. He recommended she take the inland route via the Monaro Plains, along the foothills of the Snowy Mountains to Cooma, and then down Brown Mountain to the Coast. The restaurant would be closed by the time she got there, but he promised her a late supper.
‘If you’re up for some game fishing, the tuna are running now,’ he offered.
‘I’m afraid I’ll be working, Dave.’
‘ABC, eh?’
‘That’s right.’
Anna cursed herself for letting the travel office do the booking. So much for anonymity.
‘Pretty quiet down here,’ Dave said. ‘We done something wrong?’
‘No, I’m just coming down to interview someone. Nothing to do with Eden.’
‘That’s a relief, love. Make sure to bring your swimmers. Water’s clear and perfect. They didn’t call it Eden for nothin’.’
Anna hung up.
They didn’t call it Eden for nothin’. She fell into a brief reverie. Eden as the paradise you can visit but never leave—Wake in Fright by the sea.
In the end she did pack a swimsuit, her most modest one-piece. She dressed in a faded denim jacket, black T-shirt, old jeans, elastic-sided boots. Checking the outfit in the mirror, she reckoned she looked tough enough. She hid a little stash in her overnight bag, rolled a few joints and put four or five bennies in her change pocket, taking one straightaway for the road.
Along with her Nagra, she’d booked out a new Sony cassette recorder from the techs. She added a shoebox full of tapes dubbed from her record collection. With the speed buzz coming on, she loaded the back of the rented station wagon and put the Sony on the passenger seat, plugging in a cassette of the latest T. Rex album, Electric Warrior. Then at last she took off.
Her cash travelling allowance was in an envelope in her pocket; she was alone and on the road. She loved that feeling. Marc Bolan’s rhythm guitar riffs started at high volume; in came the drums, the piano, the bass, the lead guitar and then his grungy, cool voice. He said she was dirty and sweet. He said he loved her.
‘Love you too, Marc,’ she said, outracing the slow-moving traffic.
Anna was high as a kite when she reached Eden. She had stopped on the coast road at sunset and smoked a joint, miscalculating the strength of the weed Pierre had sold her. For the remainder of the journey she had fought the sensation that the camber of the road would take her plunging off the edge.
Now the comforting ordinariness of the town stilled the paranoia. It was like reaching a fortified settlement after a long trek through hostile Indian country. In the last glimmer of dusk the streetlights flickered on enchantingly. The town’s buildings, clustered on either side of a wide main street, were like an Edward Hopper painting.
The hotel was in the middle of the town, above the harbour. There was no way of missing it. She climbed out, stretched her back and looked up.
HOTEL AUSTRALASIA.
She stared at the building as if it were an epiphany. Someone had plonked a featureless white box on top of what must have once been a turn-of-the-century pub, built to service the prosperous whaling town. She saw that what would have been a wide colonial veranda on the second floor, along with all the original architectural detail, had been replaced by this plain, hard-edged structure. What were they thinking? All of it was done, she imagined, in the cause of modernism. The preposterous name was emblazoned right across the top storey in letters six feet high. So … ugly pretty, or pretty ugly? Best appreciated when stoned.
Anna pulled from the back of the car the equipment case and her overnight bag, into which she stowed the cassette player. Because it was getting dark she took off her sunnies to consider the world for a moment in this new light. Then she put them back on and went inside.
Dave the manager was not at the front desk. In his absence, Anna found herself being scrutinised by a weather-worn and weary drudge of a woman with tobacco-stained fingers, who finally lit a cigarette and offered to show her the room.
It was at the back of the hotel. A pair of tall windows looked out over Twofold Bay. Floodlights around the fishing harbour reflected on the black water. Moonlight delineated the horizon and cast a beam over the ocean. One window was open and a sea breeze flowed in.
‘Wanna keep the winda open?’ the woman asked, tapping ash out of it. ‘I was just airin’ the place out.’
‘Yep, I like fresh air.’
‘Nice view in the daytime, anyways.’ The woman brushed hair from her eyes. ‘Kitchen’s closed, but Dave said you’d be hungry.’
The sea and the clear pure air had a calming effect. Anna took off her sunglasses.
‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘It was a long drive. I’m starving.’
‘I’ve put aside a plate of ham and salad. That do ya?’
‘Thanks, that’s fine.’
‘Well, you go ahead and freshen up. Come down to the bar when you’re ready.’ The woman managed a smile. Not a drudge after all. ‘Here’s your key, love.’
Anna lay on the soft mattress and fell asleep.
She woke, her stomach griping with pangs of hunger. She sat up and checked her watch. Almost 10 pm. She’d slept for two hours.
Closing time, damn it! She jumped up, splashed cold water on her face and rushed downstairs. Far from emptying out, the public bar was loud and full. There was a fug of smoke, of stale beer, of inebriated men and their raging hormonal stench.
The noise bounced off the yellowish tiles, but it dropped when she walked into the room. Anna felt all eyes on her—an unexpected opportunity that had just presented itself to a roomful of boozy males. Then the sound levels rose again as if in embarrassment at their collective animal instincts.
She wove through the herd like a city girl in a cattle yard. The gauntlet of flannelette and sweaty T-shirts yielded a pathway to the crowded bar, where bodies shifted to make space for her.
The barman came over.
‘I’m staying here tonight,’ she told him. ‘Is it too late to get something to eat?’
He grinned. ‘Anna from Aunty ABC, right?’
‘You’re Dave?’
‘Yep, kept yer dinner in the fridge.’
‘I thought I’d be too late. Didn’t realise this was a late-opener.’
Dave smiled. ‘It’s not. Doors are locked, but once you’re in you’re in. The “Snake Pit”, Eden’s best kept secret … But don’t go puttin’ that on your radio show.’
Anna made the connection: a roomful of Adams and a solitary Eve. At the end of the bar she noticed a uniformed police sergeant, tie askew, four sheets to the wind. That’s how you get away with things in a small town—free beers for the constabulary.
‘It’s lively this time of the year,’ Dave explained. ‘Blokes down for the tuna. Boat crews who should know better, tree-cutters and farmers and what not. There’d be a riot if we shut the bar. I’ll get your dinner. There’re some empty tables out back. How about a drink?’
‘I’ll have a schooner of Resch’s, thanks.’
Dave set a beer in front of her and started on orders from the backlog of drinkers.
‘So, ABC is it, then?’ asked the man squeezed in beside her at the bar. His thickly muscled arms pressed against her shoulder. It was like leaning against the flank of a racehorse, hard and twitchy.
She turned towards his weathered face; it was not unpleasant when he smiled, and he was smiling now.
‘Yep, you heard right.’
‘What you havin’ for dinner then—alphabet soup?’
Anna took a sip of her drink. ‘Good one.’
‘Reporter, is it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s a bloody novelty down ’ere.’
‘That’s how I’ve always thought of myself,’ she said. ‘A novelty item.’
‘Wipe off the beer moustache, then, and I’ll take you seriously.’
She quickly found the froth on her upper lip and brushed it off. They both laughed.
‘Got me,’ she said.
‘Do you like fishin’, ABC?’
‘Not in the least. The tuna are running, right? I like eating it. Someone else can do the hard work. Is that what you do?’
‘I’ve got a boat, yeah. Tell Dave if you change your mind, ask for Bob Johnson.’
‘I don’t have time for fishing, Bob. I’ve got work to do.’
‘Pity. Where you headed?’
Anna pulled a face. Too many questions.
‘I’ve got to meet someone.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘Inland, up the Towamba River.’
‘The Towamba, eh? That’s hillbilly territory up there. Take care—a lot of odd folk on the river.’
Dave returned with her dinner tray. ‘Here’s your supper, love,’ he said. ‘Give her a bit of space, Bob.’
Anna loaded her beer on to the tray with the cling-wrapped plate, some cutlery in a paper serviette and a couple of bread rolls.
She found a table away from the bar. The meal was better than she expected: slices of leg ham, homemade potato salad, lettuce and tomatoes that tasted like they should. She ate fast, slapping chunks of hard butter on the bread rolls and washing it all down with beer. She was so engrossed in eating that she didn’t notice the man pull up a chair and sit down beside her.
‘Hello, Anna.’
She looked up, startled. This was no fisherman or forestry worker. He might have walked off a sugar plantation in Jamaica. It was the crumpled linen suit that created that illusion. He was unshaven, with the narrow face and deep-set eyes of a serious drinker. Fading contusions gave one of those eyes a purplish-green shading.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said warily. ‘Do I know you?’
The man raised his eyebrows apologetically, took a sip of his drink. Vodka, by the looks of it, a big one.
‘N-No,’ he stuttered. ‘But I know you. And I know what you’re really d-doing down here.’
‘What are you talking about? Who are you?’
‘That’s not important.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Anna stared at him coldly. She’d been here before. They had something about them, these blokes, all of them. They carried the mark, like a brand on their foreheads. ‘I should have guessed. I don’t talk to strangers, especially not spooky ones.’
‘You can c-call me T-Tom.’
‘Did you follow me here … Tom?’
‘No, Anna.’ Tom’s face radiated irony and secret knowledge, the currency of spies. He leaned in close, ready to confide something. ‘It’s the m-merest coincidence, actually. Happens I came here to see the same f-fellow you’re looking for.’
‘And how exactly do you know why I’m here?’
The man drained his drink, immediately looking around to see where the next one might be coming from. Anna saw that he would need a trip to the bar sooner rather than later.
‘Don’t worry, Tom,’ she said with deep condescension. ‘It’s a while ’til last drinks.’
He winked his good eye. ‘That’s s-sweet of you. Clever thing. How do I know why you’re here? I c-could say that we know everything … But you’ve been around the block a few times, so no b-bullshit. Truth is, I recognised you when you came into the b-bar. Put two and t-two together.’
Anna’s curiosity got the better of her. ‘Recognised me? How?’
‘In my world, let’s just say you’re a familiar f-f-face.’
‘Are your people tapping my phone, Tom?’
‘Most probably, I expect. But I’m n-not aware if they are.’
Anna finished the last of her beer and readied herself to get up. Tom put a hand out, fingers splayed.
‘Hold on, Anna, I’ve been here for t-two days already. Saw our f-friend yesterday. How’s that fit with your own t-timetable for getting here? I’m pretty good, but I’m not c-c-clairvoyant.’
‘Well, Tom—if that really is your name—I’ve known men like you since I was a kid and I don’t need to be a clairvoyant to predict nothing good can come of it.’
‘Nicely put. You’ve got sp-spunk. Actually, you can even see that in the old s-surveillance photos, but they d-don’t do you any j-justice … Now, I need a sharpener. Can I b-buy you a drink?’
‘You can’t be serious …’
‘You might need something stronger before you go see our f-friend Petar. He’s in poor shape, almost c-catatonic. I don’t like your chances of getting anything out of him. But I would be interested to know if you do.’
‘Can you really imagine me reporting back to ASIO?’
‘I’m a b-born optimist.’
‘You’re drunk is what you are.’
‘No need to get p-personal. We have c-common interests here, Anna. I know a lot about the K-Katich family. We could help each other out.’ He got to his feet unsteadily.
Anna paused. A deal with the devil was on the table. It felt like a cold wind had blown into the room. She shivered, looked up at the man and smiled thinly.
‘You know, Tom, it’s kind of appropriate to meet a snake here in Eden, but I’m definitely not tempted.’
Tom reached down and put a card on the table in front of her.
‘You might change your m-mind one day,’ he said and headed for the bar.
Anna looked at the card: Thomas Moriarty, Security Consultant. There was a Canberra number on it. She put it in her pocket and went back to her meal.
But it wasn’t long before she was interrupted again. The culprit was a clean-cut young man with a blandly handsome face. Dressed in moleskins and a pale-blue stockman’s shirt, he could have been a farmer’s son. She had noticed him earlier, drinking with the police sergeant, and taken him for an off-duty cop.
He put two beers on the table and pulled up a chair.
‘Got you a drink,’ he said.
Anna pushed her empty plate aside and stared at him for a moment.
‘I must look lonely,’ she said.
‘No, but your drink was finished.’
She picked up the offered beer. ‘Cheers, then.’
‘Name’s Carl,’ he said. ‘Saw you brush off that pisshead. I didn’t come over to try my luck.’
‘Why then?’
‘Thought you might be wanting something for the night.’ Carl lowered his voice. ‘Something special. I’ve got some top-grade hammer, just in from Sydney.’
Anna looked him over. To operate so brazenly, Carl was obviously kicking back to the police sergeant. So, a protected species—best not get him offside.
‘Thanks for the thought, but I’m working tomorrow,’ she said with a smile. ‘Besides, that particular powder doesn’t do much for me.’
‘I can get you some crank if you want.’ He went into full salesman mode. ‘Pills, Buddha sticks, hash, acid? Name your poison.’
‘Cocaine?’
Carl laughed out loud. ‘Ohh! Not much call for that down here.’
‘I’m just pulling your leg, Carl,’ Anna said mildly. ‘I don’t want anything. Thanks for the beer, though.’
‘No worries.’ He shrugged and got up. ‘Plenty of other customers. Thought I’d give you first dibs.’
Anna glanced at the policeman and realised that he’d been watching the exchange with Carl. Had that been a set-up? Still looking at her, the sergeant sculled the rest of his schooner.
There was some back-slapping with his drinking companions, then he levered himself off the bar stool and headed for the exit. The accommodating Dave reached the doors ahead of him, opened the locks and, after some more back-slapping, the sergeant staggered off into the night.
She noticed that Carl had already found another customer, a sinister-looking man sitting alone at the far end of the bar. This must be Carl’s prime time, she thought as she watched the dealer negotiate his sale. His customer had the look of a gypsy, one who’d done hard prison time. He was a tall man, tough, wiry and tattooed, with long, greasy hair that he kept pushing away from his face. They were chalk and cheese, Carl and his customer.
The two men got up together and adjourned to the gents. When they emerged, the gypsy split away; with a foil of smack now burning a hole in his pocket, he hurried to the exit.
The Snake Pit was reaching peak drunk. Everyone seemed to be yelling now. Time to go.
Anna was about to move when Tom Moriarty, even drunker, came back and threw himself into the seat next to her. Too close.
‘Quite the small-town scene, eh?’ he said. ‘The crooked c-cop, his pet dealer, stoned woodchoppers, a foreign j-junkie …’
‘And a pissed ASIO pants man.’
‘One for the road then?’
‘No, thanks. I’m going to bed.’
Moriarty put a cold hand on her arm. ‘I don’t suppose I could come and t-tuck you in?’
‘Take your fucking hand off me or I’ll scream, and this mob will probably lynch you.’
Moriarty pulled his hand away as if he’d grasped a live wire.