‘Possibly, hard to say.’
8
Henry McKinley’s body had been found near a fire trail in the Royal National Park. An attempt had been made to torch his car but it had been only partly successful, and the condition of the body allowed the pathologist to make several conclusions. McKinley had died of cardiac arrest. There were ligature marks on his wrists and ankles and bruises to his chest and legs.
‘The. . injuries were extensive,’ Dickersen said, ‘but the pathologist said his heart was dodgy-a couple of blockages. It’s possible the beating, or a number of beatings, could have triggered the heart attack. Or just stress from the. . circumstances he was in. He’d been gagged. I’d be stressed, from the sound of it.’
There was an eerie quiet in the room as Dickersen went into the details. When you hear of a thing like that you can’t help mentally putting yourself in the victim’s place and feeling the chill of fear-me particularly, after my recent experience. You don’t say anything; you just wait for the feeling to pass.
Gunnarson broke the silence. ‘Some firemen found the car and got straight onto the police. Luckily, no media came to hear of it and we kept it that way.’
I said, ‘You’re sure it was McKinley?’
‘Everything the pathologist documented about the body fitted the description the daughter gave us and the more detailed one that Mr Bachelor provided.’
Hank said, ‘I didn’t tell you, Cliff. Our client said that her father had broken his right arm and his left shoulder in different falls from his bike.’
‘That checked out,’ Gunnarson said. ‘We found that McKinley was a blood donor. His DNA’s on record and that’s being matched, but I don’t think there’s any doubt.’
Hank took a notebook from his pocket. ‘When was the body found?’
Gunnarson looked at his watch. ‘Close to seventy-two hours ago.’
‘And how long since he was killed?’
‘Not long. That rainstorm we had last Friday probably contributed to dousing the fire.’
I felt the weight of that. McKinley was alive when our investigation began. Another thing that’d be hard to convey to Margaret, but that wasn’t my only problem.
‘I have to ask,’ I said, ‘why are you giving us all this protected information? And, with respect, why is DS Roberts here?’
Dickersen tapped the file in front of him. ‘Mr Bachelor and you have the inside track on this matter. As an apparent case of murder this is particularly serious in its. . execution. We’ve decided that we have an advantage in keeping it under wraps. We assume the perpetrators expect us to find the body and for the media to go to town on it. When that doesn’t happen they may become anxious.’
Hank said, ‘You’re going to keep an eye on the spot in case someone comes to check?’
‘That, too, but we want your cooperation in giving us every scrap of information you have and maintaining the security blanket.’
Hank glanced at me. ‘I’d say we could guarantee that, Chief Super, but, again with respect, as you say, how good is your security?’
‘Very good,’ Dickersen said.
Hank nodded. ‘But not absolute.’
Dickersen shrugged. ‘What is?’
This was new territory for Hank and me-total cooperation with the police. The same question occurred to us both-was this sharing of information mutual? Hank asked for a few minutes for us to confer and we went into a huddle at the far end of the table while the police did the same at their end. We mapped out a strategy.
When we reassembled, I said, ‘You spoke of us informing our client of her father’s death. That’d be a breach of this security, wouldn’t it?’
‘We’d ask you to withhold the information for a time while the investigation proceeds.’
‘That’d be deception on our part and would cost her money,’ Hank said.
‘Some measure of compensation might be possible.’
‘That’s very vague,’ I said. ‘Tell you what, we do have some additional information that could be relevant, and we’ll share it with you.’
‘Good,’ Dickersen said.
‘On the condition that a question we have is answered. That is, that DS Roberts tells us where she fits in and we decide we’re happy with her explanation.’
At a nod from Dickersen, she took a notebook from her pocket and cleared her throat. I gave her an encouraging smile, which she ignored. ‘At Inspector Gunnarson’s direction, I interviewed the assistant to the CEO at Tarelton Explorations-a Ms Barbara Guy. The CEO, Edward Tarelton, AO, is out of the country on business, allegedly. Ms Guy gave me copies of a whole bunch of documents relating to Henry McKinley’s employment, but refused to tell me anything about his area of research or what field investigations he might have done.
‘I asked if Dr McKinley had had a secretary or an assistant I could interview and she said he hadn’t. I asked who was closest to him in the firm and she said he was a very private person who had no close in-house relationships, as far as she knew. I asked to see his office and was told it had been reassigned and that all his files were covered by commercial confidentiality.’
‘A fun interview,’ Hank said.
She relaxed a little-Hank can have that effect. ‘At first, it was like hitting a ball against a brick wall. Then she tried to pump me about what we knew about Dr McKinley’s. .’ she consulted her notes, ‘. . absence, she called it. My turn to play a dead bat.’
Hank said, ‘A dead bat?’
‘Cricket term,’ I said. ‘I’ll explain later.’
‘My report to the inspector suggests that Tarelton Explorations is sensitive and evasive about Henry McKinley. Outwardly cooperative, but actually very obstructionist. I believe they have something to hide and should be regarded as of interest in the investigation of Dr McKinley’s murder.’
Paul Keating said something like, ‘We’ll never get this place set up properly until we find a way to get everything settled with the Aborigines.’ He was right on the grand scale and on the personal level as well. DS Roberts’s statement was a model of clarity and judgement and I wanted to say so and would have normally, but how patronising would that look? We haven’t found that way yet. Everyone around the table nodded.
Gunnarson said, ‘Thank you, Angela. I hope that satisfies you, Hardy.’
‘It does,’ I said. I risked the patronisation trap by adding, ‘And for my money, I hope DS Roberts can stay on the investigation team.’
‘So?’ Dickersen said.
After getting the nod from Hank I told them about Terry Dart’s death and the theft of his briefcase. I had the copy of Henry McKinley’s drawing in my pocket. I unfolded it and filled them in on the attempt to suppress the set.
‘Three thousand dollars isn’t a lot of money,’ I said, ‘but it isn’t chicken feed either. I got the impression from the gallery owner that the buyer would have paid, whatever the asking price.’
‘Find that buyer and you’ve got a fair way into this thing,’ Hank said.
All three had been making notes. Gunnarson looked up. ‘Is there a good description of the buyer?’
I shook my head. ‘Worse than useless.’
‘We’re not in good shape,’ Dickersen said. ‘We can keep the surveillance on the car for a few days but we can’t keep the whole thing under wraps for much longer. McKinley’s daughter has to be told and we’ll have to appeal for witnesses who might have seen activity in the park. The media’ll take a pretty keen interest, at least for a while. As I see it, we don’t have leads, just a suspicion about the Tarelton company. DS Roberts is going to interview the CEO when he gets back and see how he reacts to this news about
one of his employees. Something might come of that.’
‘Like what?’ Hank said.
Dickersen shrugged. ‘Maybe McKinley was caught up in something that went wrong. Who knows? Could be industrial espionage. Maybe Tarelton has a rival, an enemy of some kind. Might give us another line of enquiry. But that’s about it at this stage. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Hank and I exchanged looks and we both nodded.