‘Mac. I remember. Mac.’
There was a sound like sandpapering behind us and a group of male runners split to pass us, came together, all one physical type, a big pack of brothers sent out to run until supper time.
‘So,’ I said, ‘Carew.’
‘Carew?’
‘Bought off. Carew.’
‘Bought off?’
‘The college.’
‘Oh. That’s right. Bought off. Andrew Stephens, Carews and the Veenes. Bloody Carew family trust gives the college some huge sum every year. Clive Carew and Bob Veene were on the council then. Bob Veene. Bloody rabbit. Pathetic. Rick’s the only son. Four girls. Nice things, bit on the big side mark you, but nice, healthy girls, never heard a bad word about them. One’s married to a carpenter. That’d make the bloody Veenes’ foreskins curl.’
‘Why did they buy off the college?’
‘Business with a girl. Didn’t hear about it till years later. Tony’s mother and the rest of them did the dirty work. Kept me in the dark ’cause they knew me. I’d have let the buggers take the consequences. Jail if necessary. Never been any consequences for Tony and Andrew. Never. Not in their lives. Now Tony’s the bloody attorney-general. Unbelievable. Makes you think even less of politics. Never thought that’d be possible. Not an ounce of respect for anything. Went into politics because he saw it was easy money. All talk and some bloody public servant does the work. Or doesn’t.’
He shook his head. ‘Shocked me that old Andrew’d get involved in something like that. Doted on that bloody boy of his. We had a big blue, not the same after that. Friends for going on thirty years. Still, bribery’s bloody bribery. Can’t brush over it.’
‘So Ian was involved in this Carew business?’
‘Don’t know. Suppose so. Time I found out, it was pretty pointless to ask.’
We had reached a marker that said two kilometres. Dr Crewe said, ‘Turnaround time.’
‘Kinross Hall,’ I said. ‘Why did Ian stop being Kinross Hall’s doctor?’
His shoulders seemed to sag a little at the mention of the place.
‘Don’t know. Gave me the brushoff when I asked him. That Carrier woman, probably. Picked her for a cast-iron bitch moment I laid eyes on her. Another brilliant piece of work by Tony.’
‘Tony?’
‘Chairman of the management committee. Got her appointed instead of Daryl Hopman. He was deputy when old Crosland retired. Good man, sound. Well, he didn’t last long after Carrier arrived. Took early retirement, died. Inside a few years, all the old staff gone.’
‘Did you know about Ian’s pethidine problem?’
He glanced at me. ‘Ian had a lot of problems. Not a well man.’
‘Physically not well?’
‘Mind, body, all the same. Not a well man.’
I had a stab in the dark. ‘Someone said he might have had some sort of sexual aberration.’
He didn’t reply. We walked in silence. At his gate, Dr Crewe said, ‘Big word for a blacksmith, aberration. Well, Mr Blacksmith, I’d like to think that Ian didn’t kill himself. But I can’t. For your man, maybe you’re right. I’ll say good day.’
I said thank you.
He nodded, opened the gate and went down the path without looking back.
On the way home, in minutes, the day darkened and it poured, solid sheets like a monsoon rain. A freezing monsoon rain. Then it stopped, the clouds broke, the sun came out and all along the road the shallow pools were full of sky.
Ken Berglin was in his mid-thirties when I went to work for him, but to me he seemed to be of my father’s generation. He was tall and gaunt, bony-faced, with colourless thinning hair combed straight back, and he always wore a dark suit with a white shirt and dark tie.
On my first day back from training in Chicago, waiting to go undercover, we met at the War Memorial at opening time. It was autumn in Canberra, cold, the flaming leaves changing the colour of the air. We were looking at a World War I biplane in a towering near-empty gallery when he said to me in his hoarse voice, ‘So you seen all the shooting galleries and the crack shops?’
I nodded.
‘They tell you you can’t do this work without a sense of moral superiority?’
‘They mentioned it in passing,’ I said. ‘Few hundred times. I’m shit-scared to tell you the truth.’
‘Always will be. That’s the job. Listen, Mac, this moral superiority, holding the line against the forces of darkness stuff, that’s useful out there. Like a swag full of arseholes. Believe me. I know. I’ve been there. Let’s have a smoke.’
We went out into a courtyard. I offered him a Camel.
‘There’s some good comes from the Yanks,’ he said. The air was still and the blue-grey smoke hung around us like a personal mist.
Berglin studied his cigarette. ‘You live with the scum,’ he said. ‘One of them, in their world, they can buy anything, buy anyone. You forget what you are. Some of them you even like after a while. Then you start to think like them. The whole thing starts to look normal. Like a business, really. Ordinary business. Like being a man buys and sells fucking meat. So the vegetarians don’t like the business. They don’t even like to look in the shop window. Half a chance, they’d put you out of business. You think, what the fuck does that matter? There’s plenty who want a thick, juicy steak. And all these friends of yours are doing is selling it to them. Should that be a fucking crime?’
Berglin paused and looked at me inquiringly. ‘Making sense to you, this?’
‘So far.’
Something caught his eye. He pointed. ‘Eagle,’ he said. We watched it for a while, bird all alone in the vast blue emptiness, dreaming on the high winds.
‘Anyway,’ Berglin said, ‘when you start thinking like the other side, you’re on the way to changing sides. And that will make you a worthless, faithless person. Agree?’
It was hard not to. I nodded.
Berglin took a deep drag and blew a stream of perfect smoke rings, like a cannon firing tiny grey wreaths.
‘Worthless, faithless, that’s bad,’ he said. ‘But there’s worse. Dead is worse.’ He stood on his cigarette butt. ‘Let’s have a look at Gallipoli. My favourite.’
He led the way to a gallery that featured a huge diorama of the disastrous Gallipoli landing. Two young Japanese tourists in expensive ski wear were studying it, faces impassive.
‘Always have a look at this,’ Berglin said. ‘Bloody marvellous, not so?’
We admired the huge scene.
‘You think you’re scared?’ he said. ‘Consider these poor bastards. Boys led to the slaughter.’
It occurred to me that our meeting place was more than a matter of convenience.