BOWMAN’S STORY OF the arrest had gone online on Sunday afternoon and now, on Monday morning, he updated it to say the accused had been denied a bail application and remanded in custody with court orders to protect his identity.
Riley had texted to say she would give him details on Bishop at ten a.m. He looked at his watch and there was a knock on the door.
Her hair was pulled back damp and he smelt coconut. ‘Coffee?’ he said.
‘Thanks.’ She sat at the table and waited until he brought the mugs.
As she briefed him, he took notes and sipped coffee, caffeine for his racing heart. The story was better than he could have imagined—a federal cabinet minister in bed with the mafia and consorting with prostitutes. Bishop was finished, that was the big news. Preston was bycatch.
‘Take this number down.’ Riley read out a mobile. ‘That’s Paul Madden, the Super at Orange. He’s expecting your call and he’s on the record. You work with him.’
Bowman scrawled the number. ‘This story—is it just a gift?’
‘Or what?’
‘Does publishing it help you? I know you don’t do anything without strategy.’
Her lips tightened—almost a smile. ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘He’s running interference. We need him out of the way.’
She fiddled with her mug. She was holding back, he knew, but something in her face opened and he glimpsed the girl she must have been—brave, bright, curious. Before the years in Homicide.
‘All this’—she waved at his notebook—‘it’s a sideshow, nothing to do with Marguerite, or Gladesville. But these men need to be held to account. Preston, in particular.’
‘Why him in particular?’
‘Zabatino’s mafia, a career criminal running to type. And Bishop—he’s a politician, in it for himself. But Preston …’
‘What about Preston?’ he said.
‘He shouldn’t be near children. At least if you run this, the school won’t be able to press the eject button fast enough.’
‘What happens now?’ he said. ‘With the investigation?’
‘We swing back to Gladesville.’
He looked around the room. ‘How long do we have to stay here?’
‘Dunno.’ She drained her mug. ‘I’ve got to go.’
He watched her leave and leafed through his notes. Then he called Paul Madden and spoke for half an hour. Everything was watertight. Bowman hung up and wrote out a series of questions to put to Preston and Bishop. He was debating which of them to call first when his phone rang. Bishop.
Bowman stared at it before answering. ‘Minister,’ he said.
‘Saw your story on the arrest,’ Bishop said. ‘Wanted to say well done. Bad business.’
Bowman’s mouth was dry. ‘Yeah.’
‘At least that’s the end of it,’ Bishop said. ‘All quiet on the western front.’
‘How’s Queensland?’
‘Perfect one day, full of Victorians the next.’
‘You still gunna fly me up?’
‘Ahh, of course … If there’s any point?’
‘To talk about the school.’
‘There’s a kid in custody,’ Bishop said. ‘Probably best if we all shut the fuck up.’
Bowman braced. ‘We could talk about Preston.’
A longer pause. ‘What about him?’
‘Whether the board still supports him. Does it?’
‘Why wouldn’t they?’
‘You said there was unease, that he was out of his depth.’
‘Ahh—forget that. Fake news. We’re moving forwards. School’s back in a couple of weeks.’
‘Can I quote you?’
‘On what—moving forwards?’
‘Nah. Unease. Preston being out of his depth.’
‘Mate, don’t play games.’ Bishop’s drawl was sharpening. ‘That was off the record.’
‘Really? I don’t recall you saying that. I’ve got my notes—’
‘Fuck your notes. I’m telling you now: it was off the record.’
Bowman was conscious of his breathing.
‘You print that, I sue,’ Bishop said. ‘It’s pretty fucking simple.’
Bowman sat back. ‘I’m writing a story.’
‘Mate.’ Bishop’s voice was quiet. ‘There’s a couple of QCs on the school board who’d love to have a crack. I’m putting a pool in out at Blayney. I don’t think your boss in London wants to pay for my swimming pool.’
‘Gets pretty hot in Blayney,’ Bowman said.
‘Too right. Not this global warming horseshit either. It’s called summer. You can quote me on that.’
‘Not as hot as Orange.’
Bowman’s heart was racing. ‘Hot tubs in Orange,’ he said. ‘That’d make a good headline.’
There was menace in the silence. ‘What are you getting at?’ Bishop said.
‘That I’m writing a story about Preston.’
‘Saying what?’
Bowman’s hands were shaking. ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’ He hung up. He needed to regroup. Speaking truth to power—journalists went on about it, as though it was their daily grind, but in truth it didn’t happen often. In truth, most journos spent their days sucking up to power. Bowman stood, muttered, shook his arms out.
He called Alexander. The editor listened, speechless. ‘You are shitting me,’ he managed at last. ‘Hugh Bishop in a mafia brothel?’
‘It’s good, eh?’
‘Good? Jesus. You know, I’m almost starting to like this BMK.’ Alexander stopped. ‘Don’t tell anyone I said that.’
‘How do you want to play it?’ Bowman said.
‘Have you put it to them?’
‘Not to Preston. I alluded to it with Bishop.’
‘Alluded to it? Fucking how’d you do that?’
‘He just called me. He knows I’ve got something on Preston in Orange.’
‘Alright. Call Preston and then get back to Bishop. Put it to them and write it up. File it to me and get in here. I’ll get it legalled.’
‘He mentioned the old man.’
‘Forget that. A story like this, the old man will sniff the breeze. Bishop’ll be swinging in it.’
The story was up online by two p.m.
Bishop went to ground in the Whitsundays and Brandy Alexander went to town. The editor sent The National’s Far North Queensland correspondent down to flush out the minister. A reporter and photographer were dispatched to Orange to interview the prostitutes and harass Zabatino. The paper’s Canberra bureau was mobilised to stoke the scandal into a full-blown political crisis. The broadsheet’s troika of bearded columnists were prodded from January slumber in their south-coast burrows and press-ganged into service. They didn’t mind. They each knocked out a thousand-word thinkpiece between their lunchtime Pouilly-Fumé and their afternoon nap. The Anglican Archbishop was door-stopped at St Andrew’s Cathedral. Would he sack the whole Prince Albert board? ‘No comment.’
Alexander drove Bowman hard too. The reporter was standing with the editor on the newsfloor, discussing angles, when Diamond walked in and went to his desk.
Alexander motioned to Justine. ‘Call security,’ he said.
Bowman watched as Justine made the call. When she hung up, Alexander said: ‘Call Diamond.’
Down the room, Diamond picked up the phone on his desk. ‘Brandy wants to see you,’ Justine said.
Alexander went to his office and came back with a yellow envelope. They watched Diamond walk over.
‘How long you been here?’ Alexander said. ‘Twenty years?’
Diamond didn’t look at Bowman. ‘Bout that,’ he said.
‘You’d be in line for a nice payout, couple of hundred grand’—Alexander handed Diamond the envelope—‘if you hadn’t been sacked.’
Diamond stared at the envelope as two security guards walked up behind him.
‘Leave your phone and your pass and your laptop. Just take your bag from your desk.’ Alexander pointed at the guards. ‘They’ll escort you.’
Diamond shrugged. ‘See you in court.’
‘You think NeedFeed will back you?’ Alexander smiled. ‘Good luck with that.’
Diamond’s face glowed scarlet between the white shirts of the security guards. The room fell quiet as he was frogmarched out.
Bowman nodded at Justine and went to his desk. He worked at his story, calling teachers and parents from the school to dig for further details and reactions. By seven p.m. he’d had enough. His phone rang.
‘How’s it in there?’ Riley said.
‘Brandy’s off the reservation. Think he’s falling in love with BMK.’
‘That’d be right.’
‘Good for circulation.’
‘Fuck I hate journos.’ She sounded tired. ‘Beer?’
‘Where are you?’ he said.
‘Gladesville room.’
‘Three Weeds? Twenty minutes?’
‘See you there.’
Riley came with Patel, walking through the pub as Bowman arrived through a side door. Patel bought three schooners and they found a table.
‘Alexander sacked Diamond,’ he said.
‘Yeah? Good,’ Riley said. ‘How was Preston when you laid it on him?’
‘Well, he answered the phone, but that was it. I told him what I was going to write, he listened to it all and hung up.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Hiding at the house, I think. He got sacked too. The board gave him two days to clear out.’
‘What about Bishop?’ Patel said.
‘He’s trying to hang on,’ Bowman said. ‘We got a pic of him at a six-star resort on Hamilton Island. A real man of the people.’
‘Madden will haul Bishop in,’ Riley said. ‘Preston too. They’ve opened an investigation in Orange, see what sticks.’
A text pinged on Bowman’s phone. The Prime Minister had removed Bishop from Cabinet and put out a statement saying he believed Bishop’s place in the Parliament was ‘untenable’. Bowman felt the rush. His scoop was making waves. Elation, pride, anticipation, greed—it all laced together and coursed through him. He strutted to the bar for another round.
Back at the table, he put the beers down.
‘Here’s to you,’ Patel said.
Riley raised her glass with weary collegiality. Bowman realised she was back where she started: Marguerite Dunlop had been a cul-de-sac. Bishop and Preston were mere garbage to be taken out. Out of respect, Bowman made the mental adjustment, came back down to earth.
‘So,’ he said. ‘There was never any link between Marguerite and BMK?’
Riley drank and ignored him.
‘We did consider links between them,’ Patel said, ‘but that hasn’t turned out to be the case. Tom tried to tie Marguerite’s death to BMK.’
‘When you say links, does that include the river?’ Bowman said.
‘Of course,’ Patel said. ‘We have a geographic profile. The school doesn’t fit.’
There were other geographic facts, Bowman thought. Sydney sat on sand washed down from Broken Hill a quarter of a billion years ago. It happened still—the wind blew the desert in. And the creek fed the river, and the river flowed through Gladesville.
‘You’re missing the bigger picture,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’d be crazy to write off the river.’