I stood on the balcony in a block of flats in Dover Heights. The view back towards the city was spectacular-a swathe of suburbs grading into city high rise with the promise of the Blue Mountains far beyond. The view towards the water was blocked by a double-row stand of lofty trees. Not quite blocked-there was almost a gap where one of the trees appeared to have withered.
Pointing, Joseph Young said, ‘Some criminals are poisoning those trees. Beautiful Norfolk Island pines. I want it stopped.’
He’d phoned me at my office and asked me to come and visit him. He said he’d pay me for my time even if I didn’t take the job. I had nothing much on and a visit to the eastern suburbs is always a pleasure. I’d toyed for years with the notion of selling my Glebe terrace and moving there. Could never seem to do anything about it though.
Young was in a wheelchair, partly paralysed from a car accident. Insurance and compensation had made him comfortable. He was a widower with no dependents and he owned the flat. One of his pleasures was to look out at the stand of trees. He was a Norfolk Islander himself, a Bounty descendant, and the view reminded him of home.
‘I’m sure it’s a crime,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t the council or the police…?’
He waved the point aside. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if a councillor is one of the culprits. As for the police, they’re too busy worrying about imaginary terrorists.’
There was a row of large houses below on more or less flat land. The trees would block their view of the water absolutely. Standing 186 centimetres and on tiptoe, I could just get a glimpse of the far horizon over the top of the trees, or thought I could. Couldn’t have held the pose for long.
Young was a well-preserved seventy, at a guess. Full head of white hair, neat white beard, casual clothes. His olive skin was a legacy of his Polynesian forbears. He saw me craning for the far view and laughed.
‘I suppose you can see the water,’ he said. ‘I could myself before the accident. Stood six foot four and a half. Can’t see it now of course and I don’t give a shit. I want to watch the trees. The water’s overrated in my book. Just sits there. Trees are different-they move.’
‘Not sure I agree,’ I said. ‘The water moves, changes colour.’
‘Have you got a water view, Mr Hardy?’
‘Not really-a glimpse of Blackwattle – Bay between blocks of flats. What would you want me to do, Mr Young?’
‘Keep watch at night. Make a citizen’s arrest and hand them over to the police?’
‘With photos of them in action?’
He nodded. ‘Good idea.’
‘How do they do it-copper nails?’
‘You know about that, do you?’
‘Not really. I remember my father trying it to kill off a rubber tree that got out of hand. Can’t remember if it worked. Most of the things he tried didn’t.’
‘That’s old-fashioned. No, I’m told they drill holes and pour in some poison or other.’
‘Who told you?’
‘I’ve got a mate, Chester Ivens, lives in the flat below this. He went over there and took a look at the dying one. He’s as pissed off about it as me, but he’s another old fart and can’t stay up much beyond nine o’clock.’
Didn’t sound too hard. Young wheeled himself back inside. I’d brought a contract form with me. He signed it and wrote a cheque. I said I’d get on the job straightaway and I did.
I called on Young’s mobile mate. There were quite a few more things I needed to know. He came to the door and seemed pretty spry. A medium-sized bloke, bald, stringy lean, with a cheerful attitude. I introduced myself and he shook my hand enthusiastically.
‘Glad Joe took my advice. About time something got done. Come in.’
‘Thanks, but I thought you might take me over and show me what’s what.’
‘Be glad to take a walk with a bit of company. Gets bloody lonely and boring, this retirement. Hang on while I grab a coat.’
He came back, pulling on a padded jacket, slapped his pants pocket to check that he had his keys and yanked the door shut.
‘Stairs or lift?’ I said.
‘Stairs every time. Gotta keep moving, going to be a long time still.’
He went down the stairs at a pretty good clip, not using the handrail, talking the whole time.
‘Don’t get old, Mr Hardy, and don’t retire. When you’re working you reckon retirement looks great-all the time in the world to read, play golf, watch telly, whatever. Doesn’t work out like that.’
Just to have something to say, I asked him what he did before he retired.
‘I was an accountant. I thought that was boring and it was, but this is worse. Look, we’ll cut across here and get down to the trees and I can show you a few things.’
We walked over a stretch of parkland, through a patch of scrub and reached the trees. A stand of a dozen or more in two rows, they towered over us with a light breeze stirring the fronds. One was bare, as if it had been sandblasted.
‘A couple of things to notice,’ Ivens said. He was enjoying himself. ‘See the holes around the trunk of the sick one? They go pretty deep and are spaced out. These bastards knew what they were doing. See how dark it is here even though the light’s still good? No street lights, nothing. It’d be pitch dark at night. They’d do it with a battery drill. You can muffle the sound of those things easily.’
I examined the tree. All I know about trees is that their roots lift and crack the tiles at my place, they get into the pipes and the leaves clog the guttering. Still, I like them well enough to have sympathised with Young and Ivens.
‘You said bastards-plural. Wouldn’t it be a one-man job?’
‘Don’t think so. Easy enough to drill and pour, but-’
‘Someone has to hold the torch.’
He chuckled. ‘Right.’
‘You reckon they know what they’re doing. Sounds as if you’ve studied up on this.’
‘I have. The internet’s a wonderful thing. That’s why I can tell when the next attack’s likely to happen.’
‘If you can do that, you’ve practically done my job for me.’
He beckoned, ‘Come over here.’
He showed me two trees in the next row close to the dying one. I couldn’t see anything wrong with their trunks, but he scratched with a Swiss Army knife and revealed the drill holes. He caught the material he’d dislodged in his hand.
‘Cunning buggers sort of puttied them up.’
‘More evidence that they know what they’re about.’
‘Yeah, but I’m reminded of a couple of my clients who tried to be too bloody smart.’
Ivens set about carefully repairing the damage, using the blade, the stuff he’d trapped and saliva. I let him have his moment of triumph and looked back towards the line of houses, a cluster really, that would benefit from the enhanced view. Something about them struck me as odd, but I couldn’t pin it down.
Ivens finished his repair work and indicated to me that it was time to go, so we started back through the scrub.
‘As I said, Mr Hardy-’
‘Cliff
‘Cliff, I’m Chester-never liked it but I got stuck with it. As I said, this retirement stuff’s got whiskers and I’m glad to have something interesting to deal with. I’d be pleased if you’d come back to my place, have a drink and I can sort of spell it out for you.’
‘Glad to, Chester,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a feeling you’re going to be even more useful.’
Ivens’s flat was a duplicate of Youngs but it was set up in a very different way-much less neat, many more books and state-of-the-art TV, stereo and computer gear. He said he was having trouble filling in the time, but he was giving it his best shot.
‘I’ve become fond of vodka and tonic,’ he said after he’d shown me around. ‘What would you say?’
‘I’ll be in it. Thanks.’
In the kitchen he took the Smirnoff and Schweppes tonic out of the fridge with a tray of ice cubes. He sliced a lemon. ‘I like to make a good strong one and have it last. I find I drink less that way.’
The drink had a kick all right, welcome at the end of the day. Ivens sat down at his computer and I pulled up a chair, prepared to be bored as his fingers tapped the keys. I’m slow with this stuff, he was fast. He found the webpage he was looking for.
‘This pretends to be conservationist,’ he said, ‘but that’s bullshit. It’s really a manual on how to poison plants. The thing is, these people we’re dealing with are following its prescriptions precisely-where to drill, what to use. It’s not a one-off operation, you understand. Takes time and this site spells out the right intervals.’
He was scrolling down as he spoke, too quickly for me to follow, but I could see where he was heading.
‘I’m beginning to get the drift,’ I said. ‘You know when the last holes were drilled so you know when they’ll be at it again.’
He spun around in his chair with his drink in hand. We clinked glasses.
‘Got it in one,’ he said.
According to Ivens’s calculations, the attack on the trees would take place in two or three days. I thanked Ivens, reluctantly refused another souped-up vodka and tonic and left.
Two or three days gave me time to recruit Hank Bachelor to help me do the job and to hire some equipment that would film the action in the dark. Naturally, Ivens couldn’t tell me whether the poisoners would do their thing late at night or in the early hours. It was mid-June, pretty cold at night, and it wasn’t likely that there’d be anyone around after dark. It looked as though Hank and I would have to stake out the place from about eight o’clock to a bit before dawn.
‘Jesus,’ Hank said when I told him. ‘I came to this country to be warm. Now you’re talking about down jackets, gloves and earmuffs.’
‘You came here because you couldn’t bear to live in the same country as George Bush.’
‘That’s true, but I wasn’t figuring to freeze my butt camping out.’
‘All good experience. I once spent a night in a car with no blanket halfway up Mount Kosciuszko.’
‘You better lay on the coffee and bourbon.’
On the first of the favoured nights we took up our positions, checked our equipment and waited. And waited. We worked our way through two thermoses of coffee and a good bit of Jack Daniels. It was dark and cold and a bit creepy with things rustling in the trees and the scrub. Nothing happened.
We arrived a bit after eight the following night to find what turned out to be four men in two teams. One pair spread out just inside the patch of scrub. Hank’s eyes are sharper than mine; he spotted them first and pulled me down.
‘Two guys up ahead,’ he whispered, ‘and I can see two more-one on the left and one on the right.’
‘What re they doing?’
‘Watching.’
‘Think they’ve seen us?’
‘Can’t tell, but they’ve got weapons. Baseball bats, maybe.’
‘What about down by the trees?’
‘Could be a faint light showing, not sure. What d’we do, Cliff? Call the cops?’
‘They’ll be gone before the police could get here.’
‘Wait up,’ Hank said. ‘I can hear something.’
Oh to be that young. His ears picked up the soft hum of a drill. He demonstrated the action.
‘Shit,’ I said, which wasn’t much help.
After a couple of minutes a voice cut through the night loud and clear: ‘Keep your distance and you won’t get hurt.’
Hank poked his head up. ‘They’re in a group heading off towards the road up thataway. Think I see four. Taking their time. Reckon we should follow?’
I stood, easing stiff muscles and joints. ‘They’ll split up. No point.’
For what it was worth, Hank filmed the departure of the men. Not my finest hour.
The hardest part was telling Young and Ivens.
‘That’s bad, Cliff,’ Ivens said. ‘They’ll only need another couple of treatments and the next one’s not due for a month or so.’
We were in Youngs flat and he was looking pretty deflated. ‘They must’ve been watching,’ he said, ‘and they saw you and Chester sniffing around.’
‘My fault,’ I said. ‘That was careless of me, but I think I’ve got an idea.’
‘What?’ Young said.
‘It’s to do with the number of people they had on the job, and something I spotted the other day just clicked in my head when I arrived this morning.’
‘Care to elaborate?’ Ivens said.
‘I’d rather not in case nothing comes of it and I look silly, again.’
The two men exchanged glances. ‘We have faith in you,’ Young said.
That didn’t make it any easier.
One householder wanting a better water view doesn’t employ four men. Someone had a big stake in the poisoning. The thing that had been niggling me for the past few days was triggered into clarity when I took a closer look at the properties affected by the killing of the trees. I’d thought of them as a cluster, perched up in a series of interlocking cul-de-sacs, and that was accurate. The houses in what might be called the front line were all substantial, well-maintained residences, obviously their owners’ pride and joy. So were most of the places further back, but off to one side in the third street was a row of houses showing wear and tear. I’d noticed them almost subliminally at first, because my house has some of the same signs-shaky guttering, overgrown garden, faded fence. Now I drove up to take a closer look.
There were five houses, freestanding brick and tile bungalows on quarter-acre blocks. They were far from derelict and were obviously occupied, but there was enough neglect in their appearance for them to stand out. I took note of the street name and the numbers of the houses. One displayed a ‘For Lease’ sign and I wrote down the agents name. Any one of them afforded a perfect view down to the parkland, the scrub and the trees. With four or five of the trees dead, the vista of the Pacific Ocean would open up nicely. Perfect development site. Low rise, but you could fit in quite a few townhouses.
Then it was time to visit the council office to check the titles of the properties. Over the past two years a development outfit by the name of Todd Holdings Pty Ltd had acquired the five houses in question. I was beginning to enjoy myself. I kept a discreet watch on the houses for the next few days. Two were occupied by families; one by a gay couple; the other two by men without women, men who wore overalls and went to work at a couple of building sites where Todd Holdings was doing the honours.
I phoned Hank. ‘Tell me you kept the video of the guys on the retreat.’
‘Sure I did.’
‘Any chance you could blow up and identify an individual?’
‘Did it already. Got a reasonable shot of the guy carrying the can.’
Being American, irony and puns aren’t Hank’s strong suit. I suppressed a laugh. ‘Want to do some more filming?’
‘Sure.’
There was a good deal of weed to clear at one of the Todd Holdings building sites and one of the Dover Heights tenants was clearing it. Hank and I parked advantageously and Hank captured him on film-or tape, or disk or whatever it is.
Hank closed off as the poison treatment stopped. He examined his digital result and nodded. ‘It’s him. So it ain’t over?’
‘We never say die,’ I said. After a bit of web research I had what I needed and called a meeting with Young and Ivens.
We met in Young’s flat again. My phone call had bucked them both up.
‘D’you reckon the stuff would be stored at one of those houses?’ Young asked.
I nodded. ‘Probably.’
‘Wish I wasn’t in this bloody chair. I’d like to come on the raid with you and your mate. You’d be in that, wouldn’t you, Chester?’
Ivens smiled. ‘I think Cliff’s got something else in mind.’
I said, ‘We’d have trouble proving that any given poison had been used in any given case. It’s not against the law to own it, or a hand drill or a torch.’
Young looked puzzled. ‘But you’ve got the man on tape.’
‘But not committing the act.’
Ivens grasped it. ‘The thing to do is go to the top, to whoever put them up to it, and that’s this Todd Holdings mob, right, Cliff?’
‘Right. I don’t know the ins and outs of the law, but I imagine that the penalty for causing that kind of environmental damage in the interest of a property development would be severe. I’d guess any development approval would be withdrawn. The company’s name would be mud.’
‘I get it,’ Young said. ‘Who’s the boss?’
Just to look professional I got out my notebook. ‘Guy called Peter Todd.’
‘Hey, I know him,’ Ivens said. ‘State Liberal candidate.’
‘Wannabe,’ I said. ‘He challenged the sitting member. Didn’t quite make it but he might next time.’
‘Vulnerable,’ Ivens said.
I put the notebook away. ‘Very,’ I said. ‘I propose a two-pronged attack. Present the evidence to Todd and to the can-carrying guy. If Todd tries to bluff I’m sure the can-carrier won’t carry the can, if you see what I mean.’
‘You’re a sly bastard,’ Young said.
I nodded. ‘Thank you. I didn’t like them outfoxing me.’
That’s the way it worked out. Royce West admitted that Todd Holdings was letting him live in the house at a peppercorn rent in return for certain services. Peter Todd admitted nothing, but knew he was in a corner and asked for terms. I consulted Joe Young.
He’d already made a list and he ticked the items off as we enjoyed a celebratory glass of merlot. Agreement to pay for a supervised treatment to try to revive the affected trees. Agreement to renovate the houses over there and not to destroy them. Complete confidentiality at our end. Think he’ll come at it, Cliff?’
‘It’s the best of all possible worlds.’ I said. ‘He has no choice.’