Chapter Forty-five

Caitlin and Jack were stuck behind a battered old Hillman Hunter doing forty kilometres an hour as it wound through the bends towards Bangalow. At least the view soothed some of Jack’s irritation at being late as the car crawled over the range – lush rolling hills, macadamia farms and the distant sweep of the coastline. The election posters along the side of the road had become even more numerous – Mayor Tom Bradshaw’s still outnumbering all the other candidates.

Bangalow hadn’t changed since Jack was last there fifteen years before. It hadn’t changed for the fifty years before that either, which gave the tiny town its charm. Historic terraced buildings lined the steep main street, many with upper-storey covered balconies. The cafés, boutiques and galleries were bustling with tourists.

They pulled up in front of a Queenslander-style house with large wrap-around verandas, its grandeur long lost to peeling paint, a rusty corrugated iron roof and neglected gardens. Marlene, the council archivist, had agreed to another meeting, insisting Jack and Caitlin come to her house.

It was Marlene who greeted them at the door but, rather than inviting them in, she led them along an overgrown path around the side of the house to a stand-alone weatherboard garage. Its windows were covered with black plastic and a rattling old air conditioner protruded through a wall.

After the heat outside, Jack welcomed the blast of cold air as they entered. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw there was barely room to park a scooter in the garage, never mind a car. Shelves lined every wall, stacked high with archive boxes, document trays and piles of newspapers.

In the centre, a man sat at a long desk that was covered in papers and all the paraphernalia of a modern office – printer, scanner, computer and dirty mugs. He rose awkwardly with the aid of a walking stick. Even though he must have been pushing seventy, he had a thick mane of silver hair.

‘This is my husband, Brian,’ said Marlene.

‘Welcome to man-cave central,’ said Brian. ‘I don’t normally let people in, Caitlin, but your father spent a bit of time here recently. I enjoyed his company. I’m sorry about what happened to him.’

Caitlin nodded in acknowledgement, her hands suddenly restless.

Brian motioned them towards a battered lounge chair whose wadding was attempting to escape through splits in the covering. The springs had gone, and Jack’s bum sagged almost to the floor. It was like the Hotel California of lounges and Jack wondered how they were going to get back out.

Jack surveyed the crowded shelves. ‘What is all this stuff?’

‘I’m not very mobile now, so I’m keeping myself busy by writing a book. The definitive history of Byron Bay. A proper history, fully referenced to all the source documents I’ve collected. Marlene tells me you are interested in 1987.’

Before Caitlin could answer, Brian was wracked by a bout of coughing, loud and moist. His face turned red with the effort. Caitlin waited for him to stop.

‘We think Dad was looking at something that happened that year. Did he tell you?’

‘He said it was better I didn’t know. And I’m only up to the seventies so far, but the documents are all here from eighty-seven. You’re welcome to take a look. I have a rough chapter outline somewhere.’ He woke the computer from its slumber.

It took Jack and Caitlin a couple of attempts to get up out of the lounge.

Marlene showed them the relevant shelves. ‘There are some documents you can’t copy. Or quote. Documents that aren’t really here, if you know what I mean?’

Jack smiled. ‘Council documents?’

Her grin was mischievous. ‘They seem to copy themselves and climb into my handbag.’ She handed Caitlin a box. ‘Every issue of The Beacon from 1987.’ She handed Jack another box. ‘Council minutes. Boring as batshit, I’m afraid.’ She grabbed a large folder for herself. ‘I’ll check the planning decisions.’

Brian read from his computer screen. ‘January saw the high school open. In February there was a council election. Believe it or not they had another election later in the year, after the mayor did a Harold Holt.’

Caitlin asked, ‘What do you mean he did a Harold Holt?’

Brian looked at them perplexed. ‘Harold Holt. The Australian Prime Minister. He drowned swimming at a beach, in the late sixties.’

Caitlin said, ‘I know who Harold Holt is. Are you saying the local mayor also drowned?’

‘In April,’ said Brian. He looked back at his spreadsheet. ‘And Crocodile Dundee was released. Actually, I think that that was ’86. But boy, did that change Byron Bay. Paul Hogan moved here, and half the world followed.’

Apart from the constant clatter of the air conditioner, the room was silent as they scoured their documents. It was also freezing cold. Jack’s shorts and T-shirt weren’t providing much insulation and, an hour in, Jack was shivering. ‘It’s bloody arctic in here, Brian.’

‘It’s to preserve the documents, not the people.’ He winked at Jack. ‘I’d have thought you’d be used to the cold, being from Melbourne. Do you want to borrow my dressing gown?’

Jack declined and returned to the task, trying to concentrate, and stop his teeth from chattering. Marlene was right, the council minutes were dreary. They seemed to have been recorded merely to satisfy a mandatory requirement rather than to provide any useful purpose. The agenda items were all listed, sealing gravel roads, a proposed kiosk in a caravan park and the like, but no details were recorded of any of the discussion. Jack laughed to himself the first time he read of a motion to increase the length of a councillor’s speech by two minutes, passed with only one objection. It would have taken longer than two minutes to pass the motion, and yet there was no mention of a single word the councillor had said. Jack wasn’t laughing after he’d read hundreds of similar entries.

Caitlin pushed a copy of The Beacon towards Jack and pointed to a front-page story. ‘Your father must have had a good lawyer. You’d never be able to write stuff like that now. And not an “allegedly” in sight.’

Underneath the headline ‘Would You Vote For This Man?’ was an unflattering photograph of a councillor, next to a photograph of his wife, likely taken without her knowledge as she sat at an outdoor café. Her arm was covered in bruises. Jack read:

Neighbours of Councillor David Naughton and his wife said they have heard noises coming from the house in the evenings. People familiar with the couple have said the marriage has sometimes had difficulties.

And then the kicker – a quotation from a social worker from the University of Melbourne:

Domestic violence is not acceptable at any time in our com­munity and won’t ever be satisfactorily addressed if women aren’t brave enough to make complaints to the police.

At no stage did the newspaper article explicitly state the councillor had hit his wife. Jack could see the foundation stones of Harris Media’s reporting style right there.

Brian referred to his computer. ‘The councillor in that article, David Naughton, wasn’t re-elected. He was replaced by some guy called Frank Cameron.’

That name sounded vaguely familiar to Jack, but he couldn’t place it.

‘Oh, my God,’ said Caitlin, ‘your father was at it again in the next week’s edition.’ She read out loud, ‘“A local veterinarian has reported several cats have been poisoned near where Mayor George Ferris resides in Browning Street. The vet, who declined to be named, suspects Panadol was hidden in cat food, causing a slow and horrible death for these much-loved family pets.”’ Caitlin held up the paper. A picture of a dead cat beside another of the mayor looking shifty. The headline was: ‘Our Mayor: A Cat Killer?’

‘Mayor Ferris was re-elected,’ said Brian, grinning. ‘There must be a lot of people who hate cats. But then he drowned a few months later.’

Caitlin rifled through her pile of newspapers. ‘Here it is.’ She placed it on the table where they could both read it.

MAYOR FERRIS DROWNS. Locals reported seeing the mayor enter the water for his usual evening swim. Later that evening, after his wife reported him missing, his towel, clothes, and car keys were found on the beach.

Brian had another bout of coughing and they waited for him to recover. ‘Like Harold, they never found his body, but nobody accused the Russians of abducting our mayor in a submarine.’

Marlene had been so quiet Jack had forgotten she was there until she suddenly laughed and started reading out loud. ‘“A Mrs Kentish of Suffolk Park successfully appealed her development application when she pointed out a typographical error made by council. She did not wish to enlarge her house to accommodate a brothel, she wished to accommodate a brother.”’ Marlene looked up at them. ‘More seriously, there are a few interesting development applications. A fast-food chain was blocked unanimously after local protests. Rezoning of industrial land for the Jetty Hotel was approved in July. A residential subdivision was approved in Suffolk Park, and the applicant was our current mayor, Tom Bradshaw.’

Jack checked the minutes. ‘The mayor elected to replace George Ferris after he drowned was Ian Bradshaw. Any relation?’

Marlene nodded. ‘Ian Bradshaw was Tom’s father. We had our own little property-development mafia at that time.’

Caitlin said, ‘So the current mayor, Tom Bradshaw, is a property developer. Isn’t that a conflict of interest?’

Marlene said, ‘Bradshaw claims he is no longer an active developer, but of course his wife is still a director of all his old companies. Rumour has it he was one of the brown-paper-bag developers, wads of cash being handed out in return for planning decisions, but of course he was never caught or charged.’ She turned to Jack. ‘And I wouldn’t put that in your paper. He’s very litigious. Not to mention he’s my boss. Hopefully he’ll lose the election in a few weeks’ time.’

‘Isn’t he the one whose election signs say, “Developing a better Byron”?’ Caitlin asked.

‘Yes,’ said Marlene, ‘and there’s a photo of him laughing at us.’

Jack recalled Mark, the barman, saying he didn’t know who owned the Jetty Hotel before him. Jack asked, ‘Who was the applicant for the Jetty Hotel?’

Caitlin scanned her documents. ‘It doesn’t say.’

Brian was coughing again. It sounded like a whole lung was coming up this time.

Jack stood and walked around, flapping his arms, trying to warm up, but it was no good. He’d reached the end of the council minutes and his thermal tolerance. Time to leave before frostbite set in. ‘Thanks for your help, Brian. And Marlene. You’ve given us lots to think about.’

Caitlin snapped a few more photographs of the last of the issues of The Beacon. She asked, ‘Brian, are any of those people still around?’

‘Tom Bradshaw’s father passed away a long time ago. Plane crash in the Maldives. Frank Cameron and David Naughton are hanging in there against all the odds, the smokes and booze should have killed them a long time ago. They both pretty much live in the pub – different ones, of course, as they can’t stand each other. As for Mrs Kentish, I’m not sure if she’s still running her brothel.’ He laughed at his joke and descended into a coughing fit so bad Marlene put her arm around his shoulders.

As Jack left, he worried Brian’s magnum opus might never be finished before his lungs caught up with him.