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  For as long as she could remember she had wanted to stand here, to soak up the history, to be part of this great nation with its flawed, intricately embroidered history. She couldn’t think of a time when she wasn’t attracted to all things Chinese.

  Perhaps the spark had been the tiny Ming vase her mother had treasured. She’d marvelled at its delicate beauty, strictly off-limits to young, inquisitive hands. Much like China itself, a mystery of politics and geography during the long decades of diplomatic isolation until Nixon and Whitlam extended the Western hand of comradeship, just ten years ago.

  China had been at the centre of the world for thousands of years. A civilisation making wonders like gunpowder while the West fumbled in a more brutish age. That was why the recent decades of humiliation at the hands of the West had been so hard for it to bear. She understood that and was angered by the West’s oafishness. She knew that when China woke, nations would shudder. And when it woke she wanted to be part of its journey back to its rightful place: the centre of the world.

  ‘Hey, sweetie!’ An Australian accent, harsh and unpleasant, broke her blissful peace.

  ‘Remember me?’ The man standing beside her was stocky, with thick wavy hair. ‘Dinner last night … all that Chinese tucker and not a decent sweet-and-sour to be seen … Anyways,’ he gestured to her camera, ‘would you mind taking a snap of us?’

  She noticed then the two Chinese men, both in their mid-twenties, and somehow vaguely familiar. Had they been at the embassy as well? There was one other, a beautiful woman standing slightly apart from the others, but clearly attached to the group.

  ‘Okay, smile for the camera.’ She dutifully took the snap of the three men with the Kodak she’d bought in Hong Kong and promised to make a copy for the loud Australian.

  And she did, plus another which she gave to a friend she’d made at the Australian embassy. A man who reminded her that while it was good to be friendly with the locals she should still be wary. That while China would rise, you needed to always remember that your first loyalty remained to your country.

  It was sound advice, words she would heed. Up to a point.

  2007

  The Elbow Room had all the charm of a 1970s brothel, or at least what Elizabeth Scott imagined one would look like. It was not a place she would normally dream of visiting, nor did she think she would ever return.

  The tawdry lace and satin lampshades ensured the dismal glow that escaped them stained the room rouge. The lounges were op-shop chic and so dilapidated she almost sank to the floor when she sat down.

  ‘How in God’s name did you ever discover this small corner of hell?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I like it too.’ Martin Toohey, from habit, surveyed the room for familiar faces. ‘It was owned by a mate I played footy with. But for some unfathomable reason he went broke. I come here because no one else in Parliament does. Also, they don’t play music so loud that you have to yell to be heard. And, frankly, you can barely see your hand in front of your face in here, so being recognised isn’t an issue.’

  He stared at her through the scarlet haze. She looked good in any light but in here the small flaws of age were erased. It struck him, as if for the first time, that she was dangerously attractive: high cheekbones, chestnut hair, haunting grey-blue, deeply intelligent eyes. She was wearing a wraparound dress that clung to her tall, lithe athlete’s frame. Add the magisterial grace of her movements and Toohey began to wonder at the wisdom of his ‘let’s have a drink’ suggestion.

  ‘I have a question.’ He cleared his throat and shuffled deeper into the faux-leather chesterfield. ‘You don’t have to answer but I’m intrigued. Are you only in politics to be Prime Minister?’

  ‘Okay. I’ll tell you if you answer this: why didn’t you push to be leader over Bailey? You had more support. Do you lack the ambition – or the guts – to lead?’

  He bristled. ‘Oh, this is the “Toohey’s a weak bastard” editorial I read in the Australian once a month.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Yes, you did. And yes, I did have more support. But not enough. If we got locked in a stand-off then everyone would lose. I would like to be PM. I think I will be. One day. United we have a shot at winning government. If I’d held out, Labor would be the loser. I put my party first.’

  ‘Sounds noble. Sounds like you have yourself convinced.’

  ‘So you do think I’m weak. You, of course, the famously tough negotiator, would have held out for everything and won nothing. That’s a terrorist’s bargain.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re weak.’ Scott sipped a very ordinary red and shuddered. ‘But I do think we’re very different. Yes, you have to risk it all to win it all. And yes: I came here to be Prime Minister. Why would you be a politician if you didn’t want that?’

  ‘To do something for your country,’ Toohey answered. ‘To make a difference. To try and leave things a little better than you found them.’

  ‘I want to do all those things. And I don’t think you can do them in our system without being Prime Minister. And I wouldn’t have budged with Bailey because I believe I would do a better job than her. Or you. In the end it’s individuals who make a difference, not groups. History is made by the unreasonable man … or woman. I think Bailey understands that; she’s certainly unreasonable.’

  ‘No,’ countered Toohey. ‘Here, the mob counts. Your liberal individualism jars. You’re like the First Fleet jailers: never comfortable in the land, always looking to the horizon and yearning to leave. Labor was made by the jailed. We pitched our tent here. And we understood that only by sticking together could people thrive. We are the unique Australian political project and we built the fairest society on earth, despite you.’

  Scott always enjoyed a contest and Toohey was proving more interesting than she had imagined. She had thought him pleasant but glib. Good with a quick political line but without the depth to imagine the next sentence. Now she sensed another layer and, despite herself, felt a surge of excitement.

  As he spoke, Toohey leaned across the too-small table and locked her in his gaze. He had gentle eyes. Hazel. Just a touch on the green side. Age had weathered him, but he wore it well. The lines around his eyes and mouth suggested he laughed a lot. If it was true that you got the face you deserved by fifty, then he was clearly decent, but sharpened by experience. As he became animated he emphasised points with his strong, finely shaped hands, and a faint hint of aftershave drifted across the table. It was a clean smell, like fresh linen. She was drawn into his eyes and, for almost the first time since she was a teenager, Scott felt her body contract with desire.

  It startled her and she realised he had stopped talking and she had paused a heartbeat too long. In fencing, the error would have been fatal. This game was getting dangerous, and she loved dangerous games.

  ‘Do you lot ever tire of reinventing the past?’ She recovered like a champion. ‘It’s a fine speech for the True Believers, but please don’t delude yourself. This nation is as much a product of my political ancestors as yours. Labor opposed Federation. And the social compact here is Liberal, built on individual rights. A party that genuinely understands that respects everyone, no matter what their race, colour or creed.’

  Toohey was revelling in the contest. He hadn’t had this debate in years. The pub and the argument reminded him of late nights at uni. And there was that other intoxicant of youth he realised he had been missing for a long time – the company of a beautiful woman.

  As his eyes adjusted to the light he began to see the care that had gone into Scott’s make-up. Above her eyes was a subtle mix of two shades of shadow and, below, the finest touch of liner. There was just the hint of blush on her cheeks and her lips glowed an expensive shade of burgundy.

  He cleared his throat, again, and tried to clear his head.

  ‘Australia proved the value of the group. Here the land was hard and settlers had to band together to survive. Here workers had to fight for every single right. We learned
through bitter struggle that solidarity was our most powerful weapon. The group makes the weak powerful. And it makes the powerful tremble.’

  Scott gave up on the red and leaned into the argument, and Toohey.

  ‘You can murder millions in the name of the group, Martin. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, all of them championed the many over the individual. The bedrock of the West is the truly revolutionary idea of a personal, individual relationship with God. Our law is built on it. Erase it and everything is negotiable. Yet demolishing our Christian keystone has been the Left’s great project for over a century. Congratulations! You succeeded. And put nothing tangible in its place. Is it any wonder we are morally adrift?’

  ‘Don’t pull the cheap debating trick of hitching me to the Left’s worst ideas, Elizabeth. Nice sermon but your party uses its precious heritage to justify hoarding the wealth of many in the hands of a few. Mine understands that individual rights have to be balanced with the common good. And I know the Church, I was part of it once. Religion is the best and worst of us. At its worst it has slaughtered legions of innocents across every generation.’

  ‘It wasn’t the Church that was responsible for the mass slaughter of the twentieth century, Martin,’ Scott smiled. ‘It was the Messianic state.’

  Toohey paused. This was too much fun.

  ‘If I might offer one gratuitous piece of political advice,’ he said. ‘Your impatience to lead and determination to dominate will tear your party apart.’

  ‘Clearly I don’t agree with you – again.’

  ‘Or me with you. But if there has to be a Liberal Party and someone has to lead it … then it might as well be you.’

  ‘Thanks … And I think you would have been a much better Labor leader than Bailey. That woman is certifiable, Martin, and I’m afraid you will live to regret not manning up on that one.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m tough enough.’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I think … I think you’re … surprising.’

  Toohey reached across the table and cupped her cheek in his hand. It was an impulse. She could have resisted, but she didn’t. She leaned forward and kissed him gently, her tongue flirting with his lips as she slowly pulled away. The cheap wine tasted intoxicatingly better on him.

  She was breathless. Her entire body tingled, her head felt light and the rouge-tinted room swirled for a moment. She wanted more, but knew she couldn’t have it. She stepped back from the edge and grabbed the lifeline.

  ‘I’m married,’ she said, holding up her left hand in evidence.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘Yep.’

  They stared at each other through the gloom for a few breathless moments.

  ‘It’s late,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  July 11, 2011

  It was just over three hundred paces from the press gallery lair of Harry Dunkley to the office of Terry Burden, the Clerk of the House of Representatives. A quiet and fastidious man who had given thirty years loyal service to the Parliament, Burden carried more secrets than a Catholic priest.

  He was scrupulously non-partisan, a trusted soul whose counselling was frequently sought by politicians of all stripes. He sometimes joked that he was a cross between Lifeline and Legal Aid. He was part historian, part psychologist … and keeper of one of the most sensitive documents in the House, the Register of Members’ Interests.

  The bound volumes, maintained in neat alphabetical order, contained vast reams of information about every member elected to the House of Representatives. No one, not even the Prime Minister or his retinue of Ministers, was exempt. And every MP was required to regularly update her or his pecuniary interests, providing details of hospitality received, family trusts liquidated and shares bought and sold. For any journalist prepared to sift through a mountain of information, it was a potential goldmine. And Dunkley was prepared to do the hard yards.

  It was a Monday morning and Parliament had finally taken its winter break, so things had quietened a fair bit. Even the initial fuss about Catriona Bailey’s collapse had died down now she had been in hospital for some weeks with no change. Finally Harry could focus on the Paxton mystery.

  He had made the requisite appointment to pore over the register. And he’d asked for a specific folio from a specific date – the N-O-P-Q folio from 1996. He had a hunch, but he needed some proof. It was too soon to start making calls that would only set hares running.

  Burden’s assistant, a nosey parker known ironically as Susie the Discreet, carried the bound material out to the Clerk’s anteroom, where Dunkley was waiting. Five minutes was all it should take, he hoped. Leafing through the fifteen-year-old document, he quickly found the entry he was seeking, a few lines that gave some credence to his embryonic theory.

  The property had been sold just after Bruce Paxton had entered Parliament, as Dunkley had expected. Now he needed to find out where the money had come from to buy it. And that would take time even the reduced daily grind of work wouldn’t allow. So, after he knocked off the Newspoll splash for tomorrow’s paper, he was taking four weeks leave.

  July 11, 2011

  As regular as a metronome, Justin Greenwich would wake early every second Monday with a knot deep in the pit of his stomach.

  The Opposition leader’s press secretary knew that, later that day, a short walk from his Parliament House office, the Australian’s political editor, Harry Dunkley, would receive several pages of raw data that could make or break political careers. Eventually, Dunkley would call Greenwich to give him a heads-up on the numbers. Then it was Greenwich’s grim duty to relay them to Scott. And she didn’t take bad news well.

  For two months, Newspoll had been a horror story for Elizabeth Scott and the Coalition she led. The slide had begun after a disastrous overreach by Scott. A Channel Nine story by Jonathan Robbie had shattered her credibility, revealing she had groomed a Finance Department official, Michael Hamilton, to give damaging evidence against the government at parliamentary hearings.

  Hamilton was a Liberal mole who had been funnelling information to the Opposition for years. But, typically, an impatient Scott had pushed him hard and Hamilton grew reckless, handing over highly sensitive material on a financial rescue package for building societies in the wake of the global meltdown.

  An internal investigation flagged Hamilton to the Australian Federal Police. While they watched he continued to shovel out information to Scott. But it got worse when, in his eagerness to please, Hamilton fabricated some facts to implicate the Prime Minister in dubious dealings with a building society based in Toohey’s electorate of Corio.

  In what Greenwich saw as a cruel twist, Robbie broke the Scott–Hamilton link on April Fools’ Day. It caused a sensation.

  Scott wasn’t responsible for the fraud, but it didn’t matter. Perceptions are everything in politics. The media crucified her and the story refused to die. The Coalition had been ahead of the Government in the polls but its primary vote dropped five points after the story aired. That was nothing compared to what happened to Scott’s personal rating – it plummeted twenty points in a fortnight.

  One thing that had surprised Greenwich at the time the story broke was how Scott had insisted on seeing the Prime Minister to personally apologise. Greenwich had gone with her but all staff were banished from the room. He didn’t have to cool his heels in enemy territory long because the meeting was over in less than five minutes. Scott had been visibly upset when she emerged from Toohey’s office.

  Greenwich’s BlackBerry rang.

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘Depends.’ Dunkley’s voice was friendly and Greenwich knew he was trying to soften the blow. ‘The primary vote is basically stable on 39. But of course that still gives Labor a lead on two-party preferred, 52–48.’

  ‘Don’t toy with me, Harry,’ Greenwich’s voice quavered. ‘You know there’s only one thing she cares about. How is she tracking on personal satisfaction?’

  ‘Ummm … satisfied, 21 per cent; dissa
tisfied, 62 per cent.’

  Greenwich’s hands were sweating so much he could barely write and his brain struggled to digest the figures.

  ‘Jesus wept. What? Down four points on last fortnight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Down four points on what you said was the lowest rating of any Opposition leader in Newspoll history?’

  ‘Yes, it’s bad.’

  ‘What’s the splash?’

  ‘Well, the splash is something else. But on Scott we have a breakout reviving the famous Bulletin front page on Howard.’

  ‘What … “Why does this man bother?”.’

  ‘Well, to be accurate: “Why does this woman bother?”.’

  ‘Harry …’

  ‘Yes, Justin?’

  ‘I hope you die a lonely, slow and painful death.’

  ‘You have a good night too, mate. See you about.’

  The sweat from Greenwich’s palms had made a small damp spot on his pad, smudging some of the figures. But he could not erase the horror of what they meant.

  With the right leader the Opposition should be well ahead of the weak Toohey Government. But these numbers held only one message: Elizabeth Scott wasn’t that leader.

  Scott was in the adjoining office, waiting for her press secretary to deliver the numbers. He looked at his pad again and picked up his mobile. His fingers fumbled with the tiny keyboard as he punched out a text message. Then he grabbed his bag, hitting ‘send’ as he scurried for the door.

  He was in the corridor when a familiar voice echoed down the hallway.

  ‘You are JOKING! Justin, get in here. NOW!’

  And for the first time in many years, Greenwich broke into a sprint as he made for the exit.

  June 6, 2011

  The two-car convoy, sleek BMWs with darkened windows and reinforced exteriors, snaked up the steep driveway. It approached the circular drive with military precision, coming to a halt just a few steps from an imposing front entrance. Three men wearing dark suits and even darker don’t-fuck-with-me stares quickly stepped out of the vehicles.