33

LEAFLESS WISTERIA SNAKED in and over the two massive gazebos that ran the length of the Prime Minister’s Courtyard. The clouds had descended during our time inside, and the temperature had dropped to single figures. McHenry turned his back on the metal-and-glass doors, and lifted his hands to indicate the space directly in front of him.

‘So, the cars stopped here,’ he said, puffs of mist coming from his mouth.

‘That’s right,’ said Feathers, buttoning his jacket. ‘Close to the doors, as always. And the PM and Lomax came outside, and, oh … there was something.’

Feathers’ eyes narrowed, then he grimaced and let out a sigh.

‘The PM usually rode up front with Harry,’ he said, picturing the scene. ‘But occasionally he liked to sit in the back. Well, today, he went to the back door, so I opened it for him, and when he got in, he shuffled across the seat so that Lomax could get in after him.’

‘What’s the problem with that?’ said McHenry.

‘A staffer would normally go to the other side of the vehicle to get in,’ said Feathers. ‘You know, to save the boss having to shuffle across like that.’

‘I assume she didn’t have both her hands in her pockets at this stage,’ I said.

‘No. She had her BlackBerry out, but I’m sure her right hand was still in her pocket.’

‘A BlackBerry? Was she using it in any way that you could see? Making a call, or texting or something?

‘No. It was just in her hand.’

‘And her other hand was in her pocket? You’re sure of that?’

‘Yes. And once she got into the car, she sort of swung around in the seat and faced the prime minister. To keep him covered, I guess.’

‘So, once everyone was in their cars and you were ready to go, what happened then?’ said McHenry, nodding at Feathers.

‘Well, the PM’s car moved off,’ he said. ‘And we followed. The guys on the gates opened up. And we drove down the hill towards the bollards.’

‘Let’s follow your route, then,’ said McHenry, tilting his head at the massive wrought-iron gates that dominated the far end of the courtyard.

He led us across the courtyard, through the warm foyer of the ministerial entrance, and out into the cold again. We marched down the hill to where Feathers’ Fairlane sat stranded up on the bollards.

‘So this is where we ended up,’ said Feathers, running his hand over the bonnet of the vehicle. ‘High and dry.’

‘How’d she do it?’ said McHenry, cupping a hand over the top of his tape machine so that the breeze wouldn’t blow holes in his recording.

‘It was all too easy, really,’ said Feathers. ‘The security office usually controls the bollards, but the PM’s car carries a remote. It’s the only one, and it overrides everything else. We were coming down the hill here, behind C1, and we heard a pop. Just one, but it was a firearm, for sure. I tried Ray on the two-way, but he didn’t respond. And they were still moving, so I got bumper-to-bumper with them. And then they stopped, suddenly — about a metre past these bollards. That put us on top of the things. And that’s when they went up.’

‘And while you were being hoisted, what did you do?’

‘Tom tried the immobiliser on C1, and I jumped out, but they’d already taken off.’

‘So the immobiliser failed?’ said McHenry.

‘Correct,’ said Feathers. ‘She must have got at that, too.’

‘And, of course, there was no point putting a few rounds into the tyres,’ I said, knowing that there wasn’t.

‘Nup. The whole fleet’s got run-flat tyres. I could’ve filled ’em with lead, and it wouldn’t have made any difference.’

‘And did you get a good look at the PM?’ I said. ‘As they were driving off?’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Feathers, his voice cracking slightly. ‘He swung round and looked at me just as the car took the corner down there. And, you know, I’ve seen plenty of him up-close over the years, and he’s always been calm and confident. Projecting his aura. Well, there today, he looked completely flummoxed. No surprise in that, though, I suppose.’

‘And you’re sure it was Lomax orchestrating things?’ said McHenry, eyeing Feathers with mild disbelief.

‘Who else could it have been?’ he said. ‘Ray was slumped against the window, covered in blood. And Harry was driving.’

‘Why not Harry?’ I said. ‘What makes you so sure he wasn’t in on it?’

‘Harry? No way. I mean, I didn’t get a good look at him, but as they went around the corner, Lomax was right forward in her seat, screaming at him.’

The late-afternoon sky had greyed out to the horizon, and the moisture in the air had put a sheen on all our faces. I was suddenly hit by the immensity of what had happened here, and I momentarily struggled for a follow-up question.

‘So, the car went down the ramp and off the Hill,’ said McHenry, taking up the slack. ‘And, Officer Feathers, you pursued on foot. Let’s go over there now, and you can tell us what you saw.’

The ramp was a nameless two-lane road that arced off the Hill to an intersection and a set of lights. After the lights it became Melbourne Avenue, with two pairs of double lanes separated by a wide median strip full of mature eucalypts. The overhanging trees obscured the upper reaches of the road, as well as the school where Lomax had abandoned the PM’s car.

‘We had a green-light corridor all the way to the mosque,’ said Feathers, pointing to the traffic lights now flashing amber, ‘so those ones down there were green. And by the time I got here, the car was through them and barreling up the hill. I lost them when they went over the first rise, and only got a glimpse when they came up over the second one, and then the trees got in the way and they were gone.’

‘And how long before someone gave chase?’ I said.

‘We had three cars and half-a-dozen bicycle cops here in a minute,’ said Feathers. ‘And they shot up that road like there was no tomorrow, but it was too late by then.’

McHenry nodded, turned off his tape, and we followed him up a steep flight of stairs and back to the prime minister’s office. Once we were settled in the little lounge room again, he put his machine back on record and turned to Filandia.

‘Lomax would have gone through a security check when she came to work here,’ he said, ‘so I assume your people discovered nothing adverse about her?’

‘That’s right,’ said Filandia. ‘And Senator Chalmers recom-mended her, so that would have carried a lot of weight with whoever did the check. Admin’s digging out her file. We’ll shoot it down to you as soon as we get it, but it’s ancient history, isn’t it?’

‘How would you describe Lomax?’ said McHenry, ignoring his rhetorical question.

Filandia slid forward in his seat, thinking through his reply. As chief of staff, he was ultimately responsible for everyone in the office, so maybe he feared that some of the blame for what had happened would attach to him. Or maybe he knew less about Lomax than he should have, and dreaded looking like a goose when his ignorance was exposed.

‘I came to work for Mr Lansdowne eight years ago,’ he said, measuring every word. ‘When he had Communications. Lomax came in about a year after that. And, you know, she was extremely intelligent, and she had skills that were in demand …’

‘We want to hear about her skills,’ said McHenry. ‘But, first, tell us about Penny Lomax the person.’

‘Well, people who work here are generally judged by what they do. And she was good at her job and generous with her time — no matter who was after it. She wasn’t one for small talk. Or superfluous talk of any sort, really. But she was attractive and easy to have around. So she was liked, and she helped people when they needed it. And she always seemed happy somehow.’

‘And what about her skills?’ said McHenry.

‘Well, she knew computers. Better than most of the IT guys. If you had a problem, she was nearly always the one to fix it. And she had a memory for process, which is a valued talent in an office like ours. Then, three years ago, after Mr Lansdowne became PM, Alan Proctor joined us, and he asked if she could help with his files.’

‘And I assume her work for Proctor allowed Lomax to get close to the PM,’ said Bolton, his pen poised over his notebook.

It was Bolton’s first intervention, and everyone looked at him, as if the question were alive with meaning. Filandia opened his mouth to answer, and then closed it again. He’d had something on the tip of his tongue, but he’d swallowed it like an accused person under pressure.

‘Alan developed the campaign strategy,’ he said, finally. ‘And despite what we know about her now, Penny Lomax was his able assistant in that effort. She was a woman on the rise because Alan Proctor valued her. He paved the way for her to attend key meetings. And whenever the PM had a question at those meetings, she always seemed to have the answer at her fingertips. Alan still kept most of his material to himself, of course, but he regarded Lomax as his disciple, and I’ve no doubt he was grooming her for a seat. So, did her relationship with Alan allow her to get close to the PM? You’d have to say it did. For a start, she picked up most of Alan’s early mornings, after he, ahh, after he passed away.’

‘Early mornings?’ I said. ‘What are they?’

‘When the PM’s in Canberra,’ said Filandia, ‘early mornings are exactly that. It’s a job for the senior people in the office, and when it’s your turn, you get in here at about six, and put together cuttings and cables for the PM, as well as any alerts he should read. And then Harry takes you down to the Lodge. Sometimes you have breakfast with the PM. And when he’s ready, you drive back here with him in C1.’

Before I could ask a follow-up question, there was an urgent knock at the door and Peter Kemp stepped into the room, his face as pale as his disposable overalls.

‘Sorry to interrupt, inspector,’ he said, ‘But there’s something in the staff offices I think you should see.’

McHenry’s eyes narrowed as he assessed Kemp for a moment, then he got to his feet and said that only Bolton and I should accompany him so as to minimise traffic through the crime scene. The three of us followed Kemp through reception and down a corridor to a large room full of work stations. The southern wall of the room was dominated by a bank of windows that looked out onto the Prime Minister’s Courtyard. The other three walls were lined with small private offices. Kemp led us past a crush of desks, and into an office that had a frosted-glass frontage and Penny Lomax’s name on the door.

Two of Kemp’s men were kneeling on the floor beside Lomax’s desk. One of them gently buffed the carpet with a wide brush, forcing fluff and some grit into a dust pan. The other held a small vacuum cleaner, ready to suck up anything that remained in the carpet pile. A line of heavy steel cabinets stood open along the back wall, exposing files and red boxes of various sizes.

‘I profiled some of the material we got from deep in this carpet,’ said Kemp, patting a small machine that he had set up on the desk, ‘And that material reads as a high explosive — TNT, to be precise. We’ll confirm it back at the lab, but I’d say it’s industrial grade. And it’s spotted all around here. But that’s not …’

‘TNT?’ said McHenry, talking over him. ‘Are you sure?’

‘The reading’s about 98 per cent accurate, sir,’ said Kemp, showing a hint of irritation. ‘I could give a more definitive answer, but I don’t have a lighter on me. Anyway, it wasn’t the powder I brought you around here to see. It was these.’

He reached into his kit and carefully removed a couple of evidence bags. One bag contained a length of three-centimetre PVC piping. A few nails rattled around inside the other bag.

‘This stuff was loose on the floor in the middle cabinet,’ he said.

‘So why’s some piping and a few nails of interest?’ said McHenry, transfixed by the bags that Kemp was swinging in front of our eyes.

‘Given the quantity of residue we’ve collected,’ said Kemp. ‘I’d say someone’s been handling a fair amount of explosives in here. This pipe and these nails are presumably part of the same effort. And what do you get if you put explosives, PVC pipe, and a good number of nails together? Pipe bombs are one possibility. But then, how would a pipe bomb or two advance things for Lomax? I don’t think they would. No, I think these components are leftovers from something far more complicated and much more lethal than simple pipe bombs. A step up, in fact.’

‘And that would be?’ I said, dreading the answer.

‘A step up from pipe bombs?’ said Kemp, eyeballing me over the top of the evidence bags. ‘That would be a suicide vest, wouldn’t it?’