The Marmalade Files Read online

  Dunkley rose, feeling as if he was floating off the ground. He needed to get a grip. He had spent hours trying to write something meaningful, but still felt a guilty pang of inadequacy.

  ‘I have spent my entire adult life crafting words …’ He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Trying to find exactly the right phrase for exactly the right moment. But there are some places where words run out. I find myself in such a place now. I do not have the skill to find the right words to do justice to the life of my friend Ben Gordon. But I will try.

  ‘Ben and I were friends for nearly thirty years, and from the moment we met, in the Manning Bar at Sydney Uni, we instinctively liked each other. Ben was the sort of friend who stuck with you through thick and thin, who could be counted on to help out if you got into a tussle on the rugby field, or if your life was turning to mud.

  ‘He wrestled his whole life to come to terms with who he was, who he should be. He felt cheated by nature, and I never really realised until now what a heavy load that must have been for him. It would have crushed a lesser man, or woman.

  ‘I do not know what Ben was meant to be. I just hope he was at peace with himself when he died. But I do know this. Ben was my friend and his love was as reliable and constant as starlight. No matter how profound or painful his struggles, he never wavered as a friend. If anything, I failed to be the kind of friend he needed. He had asked me for years to call him Kimberley and, to my shame, I find it hard. Even now.’

  Dunkley paused. ‘His death is hard to understand. The police report says it was another gay bashing in Canberra. That he died simply because he was the wrong kind of person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  ‘But I don’t believe it …’ Dunkley glanced at his notes, composing himself before looking out into the crowd. He noticed that the man in the suit was crying. He continued, turning his gaze to the plain white coffin, draped with a garland of brightly coloured flowers.

  ‘Ben Gordon was taken from us too early, a beautiful, brilliant man who strayed into the path of some evil, twisted mind. But his spirit, his irrepressible spirit, will live on. And I will not rest until I find out the truth …’ He fought back his own tears before uttering a word he had resisted for years: ‘… who killed our friend … Kimberley, and why.’

  Dunkley bowed his head for a moment. Then he looked back from the coffin to the crowd and noticed the man in the dark suit had gone.

  August 25, 2011

  GETCHA!

  It was a cheeky nod to one of the most famous newspaper headlines of all time, the ‘GOTCHA’ announcing the sinking of the General Belgrano by the Brits during the 1982 Falklands War.

  Now another Murdoch tabloid had grabbed it, on the other side of the world. It wasn’t a warship that had copped it, but Jamie Santow, that sanctimonious high priest of online outrage. Oh, and he’d taken it where it really hurt, by the very medium on which he’d built a virtual empire.

  One misdirected tweet from Santow to one of his co-conspirators at GetSet! had been sent to each of his 100,000 followers.

  The cripple crusade has gone off. Maybe we need to get some spastics on board 2. What U think mate?

  In the short history of Twitter, it was perhaps the biggest cock-up of all; well, at least since US congressman Anthony Weiner had sent a picture of his penis to his army of followers.

  Maybe there is a God after all, George Papadakis thought, as he scanned the tabloid that was otherwise full of dire news for the Toohey Government.

  Santow had desperately tried to lay the blame elsewhere, even suggesting his Twitter account had been hacked à la the News of the World. But the twitterati were having none of it, and the calls for his resignation were getting louder by the tweet. In a final act of online irony, one infuriated GetSet! member had kicked off a petition on the group’s website to have Santow replaced – on the grounds he had brought the organisation into serious disrepute. There were already 1400 backers for this, and the numbers were building steadily.

  The online beast of discontent that Santow had helped create was about to devour him.

  August 25, 2011

  Emotionally shattered, physically drained. Harry Dunkley had been working on pure adrenalin for almost a week, trying to keep focused on the biggest political story of his life, while feeling overwhelmed by the loss of his friend and the shadow of guilt it had cast.

  Dunkley closed down his PC, grabbed his keys and quietly slipped out of the parliamentary building. Checking his watch, he calculated it would take him no more than five minutes, ten max, to reach the rendezvous.

  His car was parked in its usual place on level four, deep in the bowels of the Senate. The remnants of a discarded cigarette stained the stairwell, its odour still lingering in the concrete walls. The time had clicked over to 8 p.m., the temperature barely registering above zero.

  The Toyota coughed a few times and began the slow climb out of the Senate car park onto the one-way road that ringed the Parliament. Security on their mountain bikes were rugged up against the cold, still patrolling the precinct, despite the hour and the freeze.

  The drive tonight was so quick that the car’s aged heater barely had time to crank out any warmth. Red Hill was one of the highest points in Canberra, and a favoured meeting place for fitness freaks who would slog up its paths on foot or by bicycle. It was also a trysting place for lovers, particularly those seeking illicit liaisons away from the city’s watching eyes.

  Dunkley had last been to its pinnacle a year ago, dining at Beyond Red with a Shadow Minister whose ambitions clearly outweighed his talent. Tonight food would have to wait. A quarter past eight came and went, and the few vehicles that eased up the hill disgorged only hungry diners heading for the restaurant. A tune played on the CD, Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’ with its soft ode to lovers past. Canberra’s night lights danced and an approaching vehicle flashed its high-beam twice. It was the signal.

  Finally, after two months of intrigue and subterfuge, Dunkley was to meet Mr DFAT, the man who had initiated the downfall of Bruce Paxton.

  A slight man emerged from a late-model Citroën, his face partly obscured by a fur-lined hood. He walked the few metres to Dunkley’s passenger door, nervously checking to make sure no one was close by, and then got in. It was close to 8.30 p.m. The man lowered his hood and looked straight into Dunkley’s eyes. Dunkley was speechless for a few seconds.

  ‘Well, well, the man at the funeral, second-last row, dark suit.’

  ‘Not bad, Mr Dunkley, not bad at all.’

  ‘And you’re Mr DFAT, the one who first rang me more than two months ago. It is you, right?’

  ‘One and the same. Might I say, you delivered a very nice eulogy the other day.’

  Dunkley offered a handshake to his source. ‘Harry Dunkley.’

  It was accepted without hesitation. ‘Charles Dancer.’

  ‘Charles Dancer? I’ve been around this place for a very long time and I’ve never heard of you.’

  ‘I’m flattered, I pride myself on being invisible.’

  How strange then, Dunkley thought, that this nervous-looking man, evidently steeped in Canberra’s bureaucratic ways, was now outing himself as the mother of all Deep Throats.

  ‘I have one trivial question to start with,’ Dunkley said. ‘What was with the diplomatic plates and the Embassy of Taiwan envelope?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mr Dunkley. A man must have some fun; it was a theatrical flourish, nothing more.’

  ‘So why me? What was this all about? And why are you here now? And, not to put too fine a point on it, who the fuck killed my friend?’

  ‘Correction, Mr Dunkley … our friend. Kimberley and I were close, though we had a different kind of relationship to the one you shared. Perhaps a tad more fractious, too. So that answers the question of why I am here. And why I am potentially risking a two-year stint in jail for breaching the Official Secrets Act.’

  ‘You did that when you handed over a picture that came from an ASIS file.’


  ‘I had permission to do that, from serious people – that’s my job.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Bruce Paxton was a real and present danger to the realm. He threatened the alliance with the United States and he was clearly a security risk. And, Mr Dunkley, he was in bed with Chinese intelligence, literally.’

  In the half-light of the car interior, Dunkley’s confusion was apparent.

  ‘Let me make it simple for you. While you chased one face in a thirty-year-old photo, our friend Kimberley was pursuing the other. And that man, Zhou Dejiang, introduced Paxton to one of his best – and most alluring – spies. From the Chinese perspective, it worked a treat,’ Dancer said.

  ‘Paxton had been compromised for thirty years. We would have let it pass … but then he rekindled that relationship earlier this year. That dalliance in the Orient was the tipping point – how could we allow a Defence Minister like that to continue?’

  ‘What do you mean we? Who is we?’ Dunkley was getting annoyed. ‘The Prime Minister? He gets to decide who serves, doesn’t he? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about the people who will be here as a half-dozen Prime Ministers come and go. The patriots who serve this country in silence and who defend its interests, and those of our allies.’

  ‘What, faceless bureaucrats and diplomats? Is that who you’re talking about? And who else? The Yanks?’

  ‘Well, the Americans certainly had an interest in the lustful habits of Paxton. But theirs was a more fundamental concern, as was ours.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The Alliance, Mr Dunkley. Paxton was a risk to this country’s security, pure and simple. He had already triggered major concerns in Washington with his plans to wind back the Joint Strike Fighter program. Added to that, he was sleeping with a skilled Mata Hari. That’s some double act, I would say.’

  ‘And did your employers and their mates kill Ben?’

  ‘No … well, I don’t think so.’ For the first time Dancer seemed genuinely distressed. ‘I’m as confused as you are about that. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not … it’s not our style.’

  ‘What about the Americans? They don’t seem to have an issue with capping inconvenient people.’

  ‘They are capable of it, certainly. But it’s not usual. They’d do it in Pakistan maybe, or Colombia. But here, never, and we would not take it as the act of a friendly nation.’

  ‘Well, who then? And what did Ben have that was so damaging that someone wanted him dead?’

  ‘I want to know as badly as you do.’

  ‘Well, what if he had information that linked the United States and senior Australian bureaucrats to a plot to topple a democratically elected Minister?’ Dunkley asked. ‘I would say that’s pretty damaging, wouldn’t you? People would want to keep him silent, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they would, but believe me, there are other ways to discredit a story. And Kimberley had some certain disadvantages when it came to being a credible source. We could have destroyed her credibility. Worst case scenario, we’d plant kiddie pictures on her computers and have the police raid her house. Game over. That’s also my job.’

  ‘That’s some job, your job.’

  ‘This nation has many enemies, Mr Dunkley. I help guard it. You might not like my methods but you sleep soundly in your bed because people like me stand watch.’

  Dunkley felt rage boiling inside him.

  ‘Even if it kills me, I will find out who killed Ben. Give me a number I can contact you on. This isn’t the end of our conversation. It’s the beginning.’

  August 26, 2011

  It was the end of August, and the day dawned fine and mild in the national capital. The first sprigs of wattle signalled the approach of spring. Canberra had yielded to an uncommon beauty, the kind of day that explained the allure of the bush capital.

  From its lofty perch, the Australian flag that normally flew proud above the Parliament hung limp, seemingly ashamed of unfurling its full banner to the skies. Perhaps it was a silent message to those men and women below who bickered and fought over the laws governing this nation. Because, for the past fortnight, the flag had stood sentinel over one of the most explosive – and tawdry – periods in the history of Australia’s century-old Federation.

  Defence Minister Bruce Paxton had resigned in disgrace, his past finally catching up with him. Elizabeth Scott had rolled the dice and lost, another in the long line of Opposition leaders to have been killed off by an impatient party room. The Toohey Government was reeling as an energised Coalition engaged in bare-knuckle politics, led by Emily Brooks, one of the most effective street fighters the Parliament had seen. ‘A rabid rottweiler on steroids,’ a Liberal colleague had dubbed her.

  The parliamentary pantomime had descended into pure farce as the resurgent Coalition tied the House of Representatives in procedural knots, refusing to grant a pair for stricken Foreign Minister Catriona Bailey.

  ‘It’s a joke. This is now a place where getting stuck in the dunny could see the government fall,’ one long-serving Labor MP was heard to moan.

  Only skilled manoeuvring by the Leader of the House had seen the government survive to week’s end. But the games in the chamber had dashed any chance of getting business done. It was political gridlock and some of the nation’s most experienced commentators were predicting the government would fall by Christmas.

  Martin Toohey’s decision to rip up the accord with the Greens had contributed to the instability. Firm friends had turned into mortal enemies and the Greens’ new leader – emboldened by a recent Newspoll showing the Greens’ primary vote surging to 15 per cent – had launched a campaign targeting Labor’s inner-city base ahead of the next election. That, in turn, had seen a revolt by sections of the Labor Left, who were agitating for some kind of symbolic action to win back the luvvies.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ an exhausted Toohey asked George Papadakis, as the two sat in the prime ministerial suite, attempting to wash away some of the grime from the last fortnight.

  ‘Pray, my friend. It won’t work but nothing else we try does either.’

  August 26, 2011

  It was 3 a.m. and John James Hospital was switched to silent. The night staff went about their work, all quiet efficiency. In dim rooms medical machinery softly hummed as patients dozed between rounds of routine monitoring.

  In Room 43, Catriona Bailey was ignoring the hour, keeping watch as a battery of screens relayed unfolding world events. On CNN, Israel’s Prime Minister was addressing a press conference. Bailey dashed off a Tweet cautioning him against a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

  The Foreign Minister was by herself, but never alone, plugged into the outside world through a phalanx of wires and modules, plotting and scheming while the national capital slept.

  She turned next to finessing the finishing touches on her latest 8000-word piece for The Monthly. In typically overblown prose the essay, ‘Renewing Labor’, mapped out a path for her shattered party. She traced its fall to the malign influence of factional bosses and union warlords and said there was now no choice but to hand it ‘back to the people, where it belongs’.

  What Labor needed most, now more than ever, she argued, was courageous leadership. By the man – or woman – made for the age. As usual, in closing she threw in a religious allusion. ‘A prophet is not someone who can see the future,’ she wrote. ‘It is someone who sees the present, with perfect clarity.’

  She grinned, internally. She was the perfect political prophet for the global 24/7 internet age. Unsleeping, all-seeing and hardwired into the virtual universe. This little effort would set the cat among the pigeons nicely.

  Bailey now saw her life in Messianic terms. She had been crucified by the party, and been laid in the tomb. She had appeared to be dead – but was not.

  The fuel that coursed through her veins and sustained her was revenge.

  And she would rise. Again.

  August 26, 2011
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  The quiet ambience of the Tulip Lounge, a smart boutique bar in Manuka, was the perfect tonic for a spent Harry Dunkley.

  He collapsed into one of the feather-soft couches and thumbed through a generous cocktail menu, searching for something a little more serious than a Fluffy Duck. He finally reached a list of imported ales, most of which he had never heard of.

  But this wasn’t just a social outing. He was waiting for a contact. The contact. In two decades covering the gory spectacle of national politics, there were few people he trusted more.

  He and the contact had an unwritten agreement – Dunkley would call only in times of crisis. The last time the two had talked was a little over a year ago when Dunkley rang to confirm a tip that Labor was preparing to dump Bailey as Prime Minister.

  The journalist glanced at his watch, confirming that his contact was late. He was always late. But Dunkley wasn’t going anywhere. He was searching for answers and suspected this was his best means of getting them. No one was better connected in Canberra, whether it be about the factional plays in Labor, the latest manoeuvrings within Defence or the musings of the US administration.

  Almost an hour after the agreed appointment, the untidy figure of Brendan Ryan shambled up the stairs.

  ‘Sorry, I was held up,’ Ryan said, sweeping up the drinks menu with one hand as his other plunged into a bowl of salted nuts.

  ‘No problems, mate. You’ve had a bit on lately.’

  ‘Yeah, you might say that. You can’t accuse us of making politics boring.’

  ‘Yep, you guys are good for journalism.’

  They shared a small laugh and chased down the waiter.

  The odd thing about Ryan, Dunkley mused, was that he was usually a vault. But once persuaded to talk, he seemed to enjoy it – and was a trove of information.