I assume Mike Borg made the arrangements from the cockpit. We arrived at Mascot in the late afternoon, just the time when the TV news crews would be screaming for footage. We saw them; the vans were parked outside the arrival gates; the technicians were running around the carpark and the reporters were probably hanging over the rail outside the customs hall. But our view was from inside the car that swept us away from the VIP room, where the immigration and customs formalities had been completed in double quick time.
It was a beautiful spring day. Borg wound down the window and almost hurt himself expanding his chest to suck in the Australian air. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Just great.’
January sat hunched in the corner of the back seat. He hadn’t changed his suit for the Sydney weather and he looked hot and uncomfortable. ‘I wish I could go to Bondi,’ he mumbled.
Borg grinned. ‘My instructions, Minister, are to stay with you to your first port of call. I’d be happy to accompany you to Bondi Beach.’
January managed a thin smile. ‘Thanks. No, I’ve got to go and see some of my bloody colleagues.’
Trudi pulled a face. ‘Hogbin?’
‘And others. I’m not going to be popular.’
‘You’ll be the darling of the media,’ Trudi said. ‘The most successful Australian in America since Crocodile Dundee.’
January flushed. He started to tense up the way he did before he delivered criticism and rebuke, but his shoulders slumped. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’s all theatre. Did you pick up those messages at the airport, Trude? With any luck they’ll have cancelled the meeting.’
Trudi handed him a couple of envelopes which were stamped with the dates and times they’d been received at the airport. He tapped them against the back of his bandaged hand. ‘D’you want to check these for letter bombs, Mr Borg?’
Borg tried another breath of the air but we were getting closer to the city now and it was mostly petrol and industrial fumes. He coughed. ‘I already have,’ he said. ‘They’re clean.’
January opened the envelopes. He crumpled one message, groaned when he read another and then fell silent. There was something in that silence that made me glance around. He was staring out the window and his jaw was set like a bench clamp. We were in Redfern where Sydney’s past, present and future is laid out in the mixture of small, mean buildings and grand, pretentious structures and the shades of colour in the faces of the people on the street. But January wasn’t seeing any of it. Trudi looked at him in alarm; Borg was taking in the scene or maybe keeping an eye out for gunmen.
‘What hotel, Mr Borg?’ January said sharply.
‘Ah, Gazebo at the Cross.’
‘Let’s get there. I’m afraid the rest of us have business to attend to.’
Borg looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m staying with you, sir. To liaise with the American end of things.’
‘I’m over-riding that. I’ll take the responsibility.’
‘Minister, I…’
‘Mr Borg,’ January said coldly. ‘I’m very grateful for all you’ve done, but I have matters to attend to with my private and personal staff. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
We dropped Borg at the hotel. I walked him to the door and barely had time to mutter a denial that I knew anything about what bee was in January’s bonnet. I’d told him how highly I rated Billy Spinoza while we’d played cards and I reminded him of it.
‘Understood,’ he said. ‘I’ll be here the rest of the day if you need me.’
January and Trudi stood in the sun on the footpath. ‘Trudi told the driver where to drop the luggage,’ January said. ‘I need a drink and I have to talk to you two.’
I led the way to the Bourbon Brasserie. The girl who’d been on duty outside when I’d lunched with Tobin was at her post again, but she was smart enough to see that she had nothing to offer the three people with crumpled clothes, jet lag and grim faces.
On the way to the bar we passed a man eating his breakfast-bacon and eggs. He was drinking what looked like a Scotch and soda. In the afternoon dimness the bar had a seedy look, as if the mirrors needed polishing or the people needed a shower. We sat in the darkest corner, 20 feet from two solitary drinkers on stools at the bar and about the same from the only other occupied table. January ordered Scotch for all of us without asking. When the drinks came he took out the airport message envelope, extracted another envelope and took from that a piece of paper. His hand shook as he passed it to me.
‘My brain’s seized,’ he said. ‘I’m right at the top, did what I wanted to do most and now this has to happen.’
The paper was the rough stuff of the previous threatening notes. The crude printing was the same also: ‘I HAVE takeN MRS Weiner. I will kill HEr if you do not DO what I SaY. No POlice. I will Telephone at 7 p.m. today.’
‘Jesus,’ Trudi said. ‘Have you tried to reach her?’
January took a gulp of his drink. ‘I haven’t done anything! You’ve been with me the whole time for God’s sake. What can I do?’
‘Ring her,’ I said.
‘I might get her husband, or what if the police are already involved? I could…’
‘Yeah. Give me the numbers. I’ll ring.’
He clicked a pen and was about to scribble numbers on the envelope the note had been in when I snatched it away. ‘Not on that. Something else.’
Trudi gave him a slip of paper. ‘That’s home, that’s her city apartment and that’s her office number.’
‘What kind of office?’
‘It’s a…sort of travel consultancy. They advise business people on travel deals. Small show, just her and two others.’
I took the paper. ‘You really like to fraternise, don’t you? Back in a minute.’
The phone sat beside a vase of flowers in front of a mirror. The flowers were faded and drooping and I had to brush some petals aside to use the phone. At the home and apartment numbers I got no answer. A woman answered the office number and told me that Mrs Weiner had gone interstate.
‘Are you sure of that?’ I said.
‘Why, yes. She telephoned from the airport.’
‘This wasn’t a scheduled trip, then?’
‘Who is this?’
I hung up and went back to the table thinking that I’d handled something that already looked bad very badly.
‘What?’ January said.
‘They say she’s out of town.’ I picked up the note. ‘I’m sorry, Peter, but it looks like there could be something to it.’
‘So what do we do?’
They looked at me as if I should have the answers. I didn’t. ‘It’s almost 6.30. We don’t have any breathing space. You’d better do as it says.’
‘The women,’ Trudi said. ‘The earlier note said something about the women.’
‘Yeah, he’s been watching.’ I read the note through again. ‘It doesn’t say which telephone.’
‘Christ, that’s right! I’ve got home, office, Canberra…’
‘Ten to one on the office.’ I finished the drink. ‘This is the bomber and the sniper for sure. He’s got local knowledge. Where does she live?’
‘Vaucluse. The apartment’s in the city.’
‘You’ve gone there with her?’
January nodded.
‘You’ve had company. C’mon, we need a taxi.’
We got to the office a few minutes before seven. Trudi bustled a late-working staffer out and pulled a tape recorder from a drawer. She hooked it up to January’s personal phone and got ready to route any incoming call to the number. We sat and waited.
The phone rang and January snatched it up so quickly Trudi hardly had time to activate the tape recorder.
‘January.’
‘I hate you, Mr January.’ The voice was muffled but not faint. ‘I hate you and by the time I am finished with you everybody in this country will hate you.’
‘Where’s Mrs Weiner?’ January’s voice was surprisingly strong and firm. The needle jumped on the recording dial.
The caller laughed. ‘Mrs Weiner? Your whore, your adultress? She’s here with me. If she’d stayed with her husband she wouldn’t be in such terrible danger now. And believe me, January, she is in terrible danger.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want revenge on behalf of all husbands. For all the women you’ve dirtied…’
‘You’re mad!’
‘No, I’m not. I advise you not to say things like that to me. I can destroy you by making one telephone call. I can produce evidence of your adultery with Mrs Weiner. If I was to tell the newspapers about it or the men who come to your office, the Party men, what would happen to you and your January zone then?’
January grimaced at me. I mimed talking to him and moved my hands to suggest drawing out. January nodded. ‘I don’t understand. Are your motives political or…’
‘No! Politics is shit! You are shit! The thought of someone like you as the member for this area makes me sick.’
‘I haven’t dirtied any wives.’ January was using his sincere voice.
‘You have dirtied mine.’
‘I’m sure there’s a misunderstanding.’
Meeting, I mouthed.
‘If we could meet…’
‘No.’
‘Let me talk to Mrs Weiner-Karen.’
‘No!’ There was some hysteria in the voice now and I motioned to January to slow things down.
‘Tell me what you want. Anything reasonable…’
‘I want you to suffer. I’ll call again in 24 hours. No police or I’ll kill her and tell the newspapers and everybody what a piece of shit you are. What a coward, what…’
‘Listen to me!’ January shouted. ‘You are sick! You need help! It’s not too late, don’t do this. I can…’
The line went dead. Trudi stopped the recorder. January sank back in his chair; his body had been rigid and sweat was breaking out under the bandage around his forehead. He put his hand up to wipe it and winced when he touched the injury. ‘Jesus Christ. We’re dealing with a madman. You couldn’t reason with someone like that.’
‘You did fine,’ I said. ‘We got a lot.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Trudi said. ‘He didn’t talk any sort of term or anything.’
‘We’ve got a voice. He let the handkerchief or whatever he was using slip a bit near the end and we got a clearer sound. He’s a local-he talked about “this area”, as if he was a bloody ratepayer or something. He’s watched your office. He knows the comings and goings. It’s something.’
‘For the police, maybe,’ January said. ‘But it cuts the other way-if he can watch us he can see the police.’
‘He has to be the bomber.’ Trudi re-wound the tape. ‘That means he’s got nothing to lose. He killed the kid.’
‘That’s the bad part,’ I admitted.
‘What’s the good part, for Christ sake?’ January had opened his drinks cupboard and taken out a bottle of Scotch.
I put my finger on the Play button of the recorder. ‘That we’ve got 24 hours. Put that stuff away and let’s get some coffee. We’ve got a hell of a lot to do.’