Chapter 25

Harry got into work early, set his cup of coffee beside his keyboard and logged in. His morning run was becoming pleasurable, an antidote to the nightmares. He sipped his drink, thinking about Nick Swenson, wondering if he could be trusted. His motives seemed genuine, even if Harry’s were slightly concealed. Nick was right – land developers were an easy target. They were never popular when they moved into inner-city areas and started throwing their weight around. The people who lived in those areas had carved out a niche, in many cases mortgaging themselves up to the hilt to do so, and they didn’t appreciate someone coming in and downgrading their investment.

Harry slotted the memory stick in. He opened the files and copied them onto his hard drive, emailed them to his private account, and uploaded them onto his storage space in the cloud. He didn’t want this evidence to go missing, as had happened at uni. Harry scrolled through pages and pages of spreadsheets, not really looking for anything in particular, just trying to get a sense of the task ahead of him. It was monumental. It was beyond him, to be honest. He wished he’d taken his mum’s advice and done a business major at uni, instead of double journalism.

He looked back over the notes he’d jotted down while going through his Cherry Grove folder. Searched for the names of the front companies he’d located: Bright Wing Holdings, Orange Water Pty Ltd, Circle Diagnostics Inc. Nothing. That made sense. Harry had had to apologise for the story and retract it, but it was still published. Other journalists would have checked out the accusations and Swenson would’ve known he had to shut down those front companies, just in case. Harry searched again, this time breaking down the front companies into their component parts: Bright; Wing; Orange; Water; Circle; Diagnostics. Plenty of hits on those words, but there was no pattern he could see. Harry shook his head.

The one thing that was blatantly obvious, even without a business degree, was the company’s rapid decline in 2008. The company dropped into the red that year, and its condition worsened each year since. Harry didn’t know how much they were hoping to make off The Towers, but it would need to be a lot to turn the company’s fortunes around.

He spun in his chair, saw Christine come through the front door. She looked at her reflection and checked her hair. Harry watched her for a moment, then turned away.

The year 2008. Swenson Constructions heads south. Geoff Lane and John Birmingham killed in Afghanistan. Tim Daniels and Justin Middleton die in a Black Hawk crash off Fiji. Rob Johnson survives – just. Andrew Cardinal wins preselection for the Labor Party after leaving the military. Coincidence? Harry didn’t believe in such a thing any more.

Harry checked his bookmarks and found the conspiracy theory forum. He scrolled to SASmate’s post, then clicked on his name and checked his general stats. He’d last posted on the forum a couple of weeks earlier, on a thread about the continuing troubles in Afghanistan. Harry couldn’t send him a message without joining the forum, so he signed up. He thought about his username. He didn’t want to use his real name. But he didn’t want anything too flippant either. Tainted Scribe. He smiled to himself. He wrote a quick email to SASmate, telling him he was working on a follow-up on the Black Hawk crash – would he be interested in commenting?

He hit ‘Send’ just as Christine sat down next to him.

‘Morning,’ she said.

‘Morning, Chris.’

She sipped her coffee. ‘What’re you working on?’

Harry paused, considering. She was right, he needed to open up to her more. He moved his chair closer to hers.

‘I think Swenson has been up to his old tricks,’ he said.

‘Huh?’

‘Or rather, he hasn’t been up to his old tricks. And the lack of the tricks means the company’s about to go down the gurgler.’

‘What!’

‘Yep. Now, I’ve just got to prove it,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t have enough to go to print yet, so just keep it under your hat, okay?’

‘Sure thing. And, Harry?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Be careful.’

‘Don’t you start.’

Harry got back to work. He opened a stack of text documents, one for each aspect of the story, and wrote down everything he knew, everything he could prove, and everything he suspected. He lost himself in his work. He could see a story, or maybe a couple of stories, coming together. It sounded wanky, so he never told anyone, but sometimes when he wrote he felt like a sculptor. He started with big chunks of marble and then gradually chipped away, following the lines in the stone, bringing the shape out and refining it.

Harry’s phone rang. He picked it up.

‘Harry?’

‘Jess.’

‘I’ve got something exciting to tell you,’ she said. ‘Well, it’s not so much to tell you, as to show you.’

Harry could hear the emotion in her voice.

‘Actually, so have I,’ he said, thinking of the new tattoo. ‘Do you want to come over after work?’

‘Sure thing.’

He gave her his address, and they decided on a time.

‘Great, Harry. I’ll see you then.’