Dragons at the Party - Jon Cleary

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the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, had its Sydney headquarters half a block up the street in another converted waterfront mansion. The Federal Government looked after its representatives here in Kirribilli. Through the trees Malone could see the magnificent nineteenth-century pile that was Admiralty House, built by another of the colony’s early merchants, a more successful one than Mr Feez of Kirribilli House. Yesterday the Governor-General had been in residence, but this morning Malone saw that the tall flagpole in the large gardens was bare. The G-G had folded his flag and fled, turning his back on his neighbours.

      ‘Half the demonstrators outside are ASIO spooks, undercover,’ said Nagler, and Malone and Clements smiled agreement with him.

      The talk was inconsequential, but they all knew they were sitting on a landmine of a type they had never met before.

      ‘The trouble is,’ said Nagler, ‘there are certain people just across the water who’d love to see this whole thing blow up in Phil Norval’s face.’,

      1

      ‘Bugger ’em,’ said The Dutchman, ‘I run the police in this State, not Phil Norval.’

      ‘I shouldn’t let myself be quoted on that,’ said John Leeds.

      Hans Vanderberg grinned. It was a marvellous grin, a mixture of malevolence and friendliness, of cynicism and paternalism: each voter could take what he liked from it. He was a small man, with a foxy face and thick grey hair with a high quiff, a style that Leeds thought had gone out at least fifty years ago. It was Saturday, there were no official functions till this afternoon, so he was casually dressed: the brown slacks of one suit, the blue jacket of another and a shirt that suggested a drunken holiday on the Barrier Reef. He was a living denial of the latterday maxim that the voters voted for the electronic image; on a TV screen he looked like a technical fault. He was the very opposite of his arch-enemy the Prime Minister.

      ‘You know what I mean, John. Phil Norval’s up to something and he ain’t gunna get away with it, my word he’s not. We’ve got to grab the bull by the balls–’

      ‘By the horns,’ said Ladbroke, his political secretary, who was known to the Macquarie Street columnists as the Keeper of the Faux Pas.

      ‘What’s the difference? You ever had a bull by the horns in a china shop, John?’

      ‘Offhand,’ said Leeds, ‘I can’t remember it.’

      ‘What’s Phil Norval’s connection with the Timoris? He’s not doing this for them just because the Yanks asked him. Who’s in charge of the case?’

      ‘Inspector Malone.’

      ‘Scobie Malone. I remember him. Get him to do some digging.’

      ‘I’m sorry, Hans, you know I won’t let any of my men get into political work.’

      Vanderberg grinned again, but this time it was purely malevolent. He swung his chair round and looked out the window, but Leeds knew he wouldn’t be looking at the view. They were in the Premier’s office on the eighth floor of the State office block, with a magnificent view right down the harbour to the Heads. But they were too high up for The Dutchman: if he was out of shouting distance of the voters he was looking on a barren landscape.

      ‘Just my luck to have an honest Commissioner. I oughta been Premier back in the old good days.’

      ‘Good old days,’ murmured Ladbroke; but only to himself.

      ‘You know nothing about those days,’ said Leeds. ‘You’re always saying history doesn’t mean anything.’

      ‘It’s true. A voter, he goes into a voting booth, he doesn’t remember the last election, he’s voting on what his pocket tells him today. He don’t want to know about yesterday, dead kings and prime ministers and Magna Carta, all that stuff. Neither do I.’ He swung his chair back to face Leeds. He might not have a sense of history, which really is only for statesmen; he did, however, have a wonderful memory, which a successful politician needs more than an arm or a leg. ‘Wasn’t Madame Timori, whatever her name was before, Delvina Someone, Delvina O’Reilly, that’s it – wasn’t she a TV dancer before she got her name in the papers with that dance company?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Leeds. ‘Where did you learn that?’

      ‘TV Times.’ He might have, too, Leeds thought. He would read anything, even a bus ticket, if it contained information against an enemy. ‘There’s something going on there, I dunno what. Russell Hickbed’s been to see ’em twice.’

      ‘Was that in TV Times?’ Leeds stood up. It was time to go, before he got into an argument with the Premier. They respected each other’s ability, but they would never be friends. ‘I’ll keep Malone working on the case, then.’

      ‘You want to get this feller Seville, don’t you? Jesus Christ, he might try for me next! Phil Norval would pay him.’ He grinned at the thought, relishing the sensation of his own death.

      ‘I don’t think the bullet’s been made that could put a dent in you.’

      Vanderberg grinned again: with pride this time. Somehow it looked uglier than his malevolence. ‘Maybe I shoulda been a copper.’

      Leeds managed a smile, said goodbye and left. He was going out to the Cricket Ground to watch the Test match for an hour or two and he hoped he wouldn’t run into the Prime Minister again. He had had enough of politicians for the day.

      When the door had closed Vanderberg looked at his political secretary. ‘He’s a good copper. It’s a pity he’s so honest. A little larceny never hurt anyone, right?’

      ‘Right,’ said Ladbroke, who had known all about larceny before he took this job; he had been a political columnist and had seen the State’s best practitioners at work. He was a plump, anonymous-looking man in his late thirties who had no illusions left but didn’t miss them. ‘I’ve got Jack Phillips and Don Clary at work. If there’s any dirt, they’ll dig it up.’

      ‘Oh, there’ll be dirt, I’ll bet your boots on it,’ said Vanderberg, who never bet anything of his own. He stood up, looking pleased. ‘It would make a great Australia Day if I could topple the Prime Minister, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘Great,’ said Ladbroke, and the headlines broke in his head like a blinding light. He was a lapsed Catholic and for a moment he thought he’d had a vision.

      ‘Do the press know about this bloke Seville?’

      ‘Not as far as I know. The police want it kept quiet for the time being.’

      Vanderberg thought for a moment. ‘Well, we’ll see. We might leak it, just to keep things on the boiling.’

      ‘I’ll prepare something, just in case.’

      ‘I’m going home for a coupla hours.’ The Dutchman lived in his electorate on the edge of the inner city. Glebe had once been a middle-class area, then for years it had been home for the working class and had become a Labour stronghold. Now the trendy academics from nearby Sydney University had moved in, bringing their racks of Chardonnay, their taste for foreign films and their narrow view of any world but their own. They voted Labour, but laughed at The Dutchman. But they knew and he knew that none of them would last two rounds with him in the political ring. ‘We might have a good weekend.’

      Avagoodweekend was a TV slogan for a brand of fly-spray. Ladbroke wondered if Phil Norval, the TV hero, knew he was about to be sprayed.

      2

      Malone was greeted at his front door by a four-year-old centurion in a plastic breastplate and wielding a plastic sword. ‘Who goes there? Fred or foe?’

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