My relations with Farrow, damaged after I gave so much of the story to De Witt, mended over time because of his need to get my input on certain things, like where Buckingham’s equipment was stored and the location of the abandoned mines he’d been interested in. Farrow was able to put pressure on Lonsdale by saying that I’d give evidence against him on charges of abduction and attempted murder. Lonsdale gave up Buckingham as the issuer of the order to kill MacPherson and named the policeman who’d killed Purcell. Larry Buckingham was neatly parcelled and stamped ‘to be kept out of circulation for a very long time’. The murder of Aaron De Witt was never sheeted home to anyone but the police and journalists had their suspicions and press treatment of Buckingham was not kind.
Elizabeth Farmer was able to get her life back to normal and to pay me generously for the work I’d done. There was no prosecution for the murder of her father but she had what she called ‘closure’. Ever the academic, Elizabeth. Tania had established some corporate connections between Matilda and Buckingham but there was no point in pressing those buttons.
At first I thought that Sue Holland was going to be a sort of casualty of the affair because, as Buckingham’s business interests were targeted, there were no funds to complete the sale. But it didn’t turn out like that. The contract enabled her to keep the deposit, a handy amount, and she rang me to tell me about it.
‘I didn’t really want to leave,’ she said. ‘And now I’ve got some cash to splash about on improving the place.’
‘Good for you,’ I said. ‘Did you know your mine shaft goes right under the scarp?’
‘Who cares?’
Wendy Jones had disappeared, but not too long later I got an envelope in the mail. It had a Queensland postmark and no return address. There was a crude drawing of a motorcycle on the back of the packet. And a computer disk inside. With some difficulty I got it to open on my computer. The disc contained about thirty images of Buckingham and another man engaged in sexual activity with underage females. The other man was big and blond. Scandinavian. Mostly, the victim was Wendy herself, but there were half a dozen images of a girl tricked out in school uniform. The kid with the blonde plaits and the garish makeup was Kristina Karatsky. I’d never laid eyes on him, but the suspicion leapt into my mind that the other performer was Stefan Parnevik.
A note, smudged and greasy, was attached: ‘It’s all on his hard disk’. Wendy was well and truly pulling the plug on Larry.
I closed the file and sat looking at the screen, pretty much as I had after reading Aaron De Witt’s email that had come to me like a message from the other side. Should I turn the disk over to the cops and put one more nail in Buckingham’s coffin? Was it necessary? Would a police investigation turn up Kristina’s identity? What consequences could that have? But most of all I wondered about Marisha Karatsky and Kristina and Stefan Parnevik and Bucking-ham. And everything that Karen Bach had told me about the Karatsky women. All the old suspicions were back in full strength.
Over the next couple of days I phoned Marisha and listened to her answering machine message until I could recite it in my sleep. After about a week she answered.
‘Yes, who is this?’
‘It’s Cliff Hardy, Marisha.’
‘Ah, the leaver of no message. A no-show.’
‘That’s right. Well, I’m showing now. I’ve been wondering how you were.’
‘Now that your case is over and all the loose ends… tied off?’
‘Yes. Sort of.’
‘You don’t sound very sure. Well, I’m fine. I’ve been to New Zealand, you see. It’s a beautiful country with a very good government.’
‘So they tell me.’
‘You’ve never been there?’
‘No.’
‘That’s strange. In Europe, you visit the neighbouring countries if you can. Why don’t Australians visit New Zealand very much?’
You’re playing with me, I thought. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You should.’
‘Okay.’
‘Well, I met with Kristina and she’s fine. She’s finished with Stefan who has gone somewhere else, and she is studying and working as a ski instructor in Auckland.’
‘Is there snow now in Auckland?’
‘Of course not. This is an indoor training facility. In the season she’ll work at the ski resorts.’
‘That sounds good.’
‘Yes. So how are you?’
The distance between us was ten times greater than between Sydney and Auckland. I told her I was okay and doing routine stuff.
‘I’m moving there. To New Zealand. Perhaps you could visit.’
‘Perhaps.’
The conversation ended there and left me more doubtful than ever. It just sounded too pat. You don’t get rid of a character like Parnevik so easily-that’s if you want to get rid of him. I sent Marisha an invoice but it came back marked ‘not known at this address’. She wasn’t having her mail forwarded to New Zealand, if that’s where she’d gone. I wiped the disk, deciding that I’d never really understood Marisha Karatsky.