Chapter Fifty-eight

Caitlin opened the door. ‘Jack, where have you been? You weren’t answering my calls. I was scared something had happened to you.’ He looked terrible, dark shadows under swollen, bloodshot eyes, a nasty graze on his left cheek. ‘Jesus Jack, you look like shit.’

‘Sorry, Caitlin, I had a rough night. And now I’m melting.’

There were only a few small dry patches of light blue on his shirt, between the areas soggy with sweat. More sweat ran down his forehead.

She ushered him into the lounge, then filled a large glass with ice cubes and water and watched him gulp it down. ‘How about you have a cool shower? I’ll throw your clothes in for a quick wash and dry.’

Jack hesitated.

‘So you’d rather whine about the heat and drip sweat all over my apartment. Or are you allergic to taking showers?’

He smiled. ‘Thanks.’

She fetched him a towel and showed him to the bathroom. He passed his clothes out through a narrow gap in the door and she carried them to the laundry where soon they were doing somersaults in the washing machine. Back in the lounge, she turned down the air conditioner a few degrees and cranked up the fan.

Ten minutes later he returned from the bathroom, naked, apart from a towel wrapped around his waist. Caitlin was pleased she’d been able to find such a small one.

He moved over and stood under the cool blast of the air conditioner. His hair was wet and tousled and he looked a little embarrassed to be semi-naked in front of her. Caitlin enjoyed his discomfort. And the view. He was fit. When they’d swum together in the ocean he’d run towards her naked, but she hadn’t paid any attention, hadn’t been interested at the time. But now she was. He had always been kind to her, and thoughtful. And he’d managed to give her hope – had even made her laugh during such a horrible time. Not to mention those moist abs.

She dragged her attention away from him. ‘I went to The Beacon first thing.’

‘Angus Bain?’

‘I almost decked him with my skatie. It wasn’t so much the disrespect for Dad, or being told to piss off, it was the smug look on his face.’

Jack laughed, then turned around so his front faced the arctic wind.

When the washing machine played its cheesy tune to announce it had finished, Caitlin threw his clothes into the dryer. Soon they were clinking around on the rapid-dry setting. On her return to the lounge room, Jack hadn’t moved, and she decided the rear view of him was as equally impressive as the front.

She enjoyed the moment for a few seconds before asking, ‘Bain said you’d been sacked as editor. Was that your father?’

‘Bain told him I wasn’t going to make the deadline for the next issue of The Beacon. And Dad’s not answering my calls.’

‘Like father, like son. I tried to call and warn you about Bain, but you weren’t answering.’

‘Lars Nielsen destroyed my phone last night.’

‘What?’

As Jack recounted his run in with Lars at the water tower, she became increasingly concerned. She’d been right to be worried when he wasn’t returning her calls.

Caitlin sat down on a lounge chair, choosing the one with the best view. Jack glanced over his shoulder at her. She turned her eyes away from him and then remembered the other news she was trying to phone him about. ‘My friend called from Paris.’

Jack turned to face her. ‘And?’

‘You’ll never guess who owns the Luxembourg company, Metol.’

‘Tom Bradshaw.’

‘You knew?’

‘I guessed. I had a meeting with him, and he looked shifty when I mentioned Metol.’

‘Can you believe it? Tom Bradshaw’s father was mayor at the time the Jetty Hotel was approved by council. And all the while his son secretly owned the hotel. I bet he didn’t declare that conflict of interest.’

Jack began pacing. ‘Frank Cameron was a councillor then too, and he has free drinks for life at the Jetty Hotel. That smells like a pay-off.’ Jack stopped pacing, and re-tightened the towel around his waist. ‘Would this be a story your father would go after?’

‘Sure, corruption always got him fired up. But it seems pretty small fry, and a long time ago. Hardly something that would put him in any journalism hall of fame.’

‘I presume it’s not illegal for Bradshaw to own a pub through a shelf company, but surely you’d only go to all that trouble if you wanted to do something shady.’

‘Like hide the money from someone, or avoid tax?’

Jack shivered. ‘Do you think my clothes are dry yet?’

The clothes dryer had gone quiet, so she went and fetched them.

Jack dressed in the bathroom. On his return, he asked, ‘Do you think it’s a bit coincidental George Ferris disappeared about the same time all this was happening?’

She shrugged.

Jack retrieved his phone from the kitchen bench, selected a number and placed the call on speaker. It was answered quickly.

‘Constable Anderson.’

‘It’s Jack Harris. Can you put me through to Inspector Begley?’

There was a long pause. ‘I can’t. He’s on gardening leave.’

‘Likes a bit of gardening, does he?’

‘He hates gardening, so I thought it was strange—’

Jack rolled his eyes at Caitlin and she smiled back. He interrupted Anderson. ‘Can you give me his mobile number?’

The silence may have gone on forever if Jack didn’t end it.

‘I had his number, but lost my phone. Begley and I are friends, we go to the same gardening club.’

Anderson didn’t respond.

‘Why don’t you ask him to call me?’

Anderson seemed relieved to be given a way out. ‘Good idea. I’ll let him know.’

‘By the way,’ said Caitlin when Jack had hung up. ‘Bernstein sacked me.’

‘What?’

‘My boss called. Orders from on high. Basically they say it’s a bad look for them to continue having an accused drug dealer on their staff. And there’s fine print in my contract about not bringing the firm into disrepute, blah, blah, blah.’

Jack looked shocked. ‘That’s appalling. You should sue.’

‘Assuming the charges are dropped, I could. But then I’d never get work again.’

‘What will you do?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll worry about it after we find out what happened with Dad.’

She longed for a time when thoughts of her father, murder, and The Beacon, didn’t occupy most of her waking hours, but there would be no reprieve yet. She grabbed her laptop and the memory stick from the kitchen table and walked towards the door. ‘I need to try some more passwords. And eat.’