Stair into the Abyss

By Ian Jackson

Synopsis

At 30, Alex Kingbridge never knew his parents. He spent his normal day doing electrical work on farm machinery. When he finds that his father had left money to him and a vague list of people across Australia, he is engaged by a law firm to track them down. The clues that link them all come from a string of unique spiral wooden staircases that his father had built in different towns, many years before. Find the missing staircase and he has a chance to find the missing person.

This time, Alex finds himself in Tasmania, unravelling his father’s contribution in the fight to save the Franklin River. Only with his special methods of problem solving and a little luck can Alex put together all of the pieces the puzzle.

First release, April 2020 – Last edit June 2022

ISBN 978-0-9945557-5-5

All persons, businesses, buildings and broken equipment that appear in this story are fictional.

If you happen to share a name with any of the characters that appear in this story, then it’s just a sad coincidence and I apologise in advance.

Chapter 1

Alex braked hard and swore. Two motorcycles had swung wide on a blind corner, directly into his path. The trailing rider was a scant half-length behind the lead. Dark helmets seemingly grazed the side of his car as the pair cut back to their left. A small loss of traction would have rammed the bikes into his grille, propelling the riders into the turbid ocean below the road. He came to a stop and a prickle of sweat crept through his hair. Alex rubbed his eyes and looked to his mirror. Cars were bunching up. The lead car honked. He swore a second time and eased forward. Despite the thrill of the hard curves, riders on this road ought to know better.

The South-eastern coastline of the Australian continent is distinguished by its vast forests. They flow over severe mountains before dropping to an ocean that swelled unbroken to Antarctica. A stones throw above the pounding surf, a hundred kilometres of winding thoroughfare had been carved directly into the face of the range. This breathtaking trail was aptly named ‘The Great Ocean Road’. Hand-built by returned soldiers in the years that followed the First World War, it had become the journey of choice for tourists and surfers to explore the Southern coast. Its mix of winding road and grand vista had become something of a pilgrimage for high power bikes and their riders who all too often disregarded the frequent signs preaching caution. Plenty of international travellers in rental cars also came this way. Such visitors had inspired extra signage to remind drivers that in Australia, it’s safer to keep to the left-hand side of the road. This path was also subject to frequent rock falls and land slip, but it was the only way to reach the tiny costal settlement of Wye River.

Until that moment, Alex had been enjoying himself. Barely a week had passed since he’d gratefully received the car he now drove. To be fair, the automatic door chimes had been infuriating and much of the first day was spent finding how to kill these intrusive sounds without compromising other systems. The vehicle had been an unexpected present from the mining magnate, William Sacheff, a man whose life had literally hung in the balance from a light aircraft crash two months earlier. Alex had been at the scene and intervened with an innovative rescue. His previous vehicle, an austere Toyota utility, was damaged during the recovery operation. The grateful pilot had expressed his appreciation by tracking Alex down and presenting him with a showroom replacement. It was a steel-blue Ford pickup, which provided an unfamiliar level of comfort to his travels.

A steady breeze blew in from the ocean, tainting the salty air with rich seaweed odours. A succession of forested bluffs descended into the ocean. The last of which merged into a flat, blue horizon. The brooding tempo of ‘Everybody want’s to rule the world’ flowed from the sound system. Alex’s anxiety spike from the motorcycle encounter began to subside. It was difficult to stay angry on a sparkling day such as this.

A few days earlier Alex had contemplated the third name on a list of towns penned some fifteen years before by his now deceased father. The list flagged Wye River as the next location for a spiral staircase project. Alex had never heard of this place and had to look it up. It wasn’t really a town in the normal sense, but a collection of holiday homes clustered around the outlet of a mountain stream that had finally reached the ocean. To provide a better feel for what to expect, he’d spent a little time browsing around the settlement with on-line satellite imagery. It revealed a spectacular collection of homes above a narrow beach.

Although many of the homes were intimately concealed within costal scrub, others had used their elevation to advantage. The exposed face of these structures perched on tall stilts, with their rear rooms dug into the rock. An ideal home was one that secured an unbroken view of the ocean from as many rooms as possible. Some homes had achieved this superbly.

Alex had booked two nights at a motel within the settlement. From here he’d hoped to identify which building contained the spiral staircase, and from that learn the identity of more beneficiaries to his father’s estate. Only a few kilometres short of this destination, the music was muted and replaced by the ring-tones from the hands-free phone. He thumbed the ‘answer’ button on the steering wheel and took the call.

Tessa called from her office. She’d toyed with several lame excuses to make contact, but none of them were pressing. In the end she thought ‘To hell with it’ and dialled his number anyway.

“Hi Alex. Are you there yet?”

“Nearly. I’ve only had cell coverage for a few minutes, so there must be civilisation somewhere around here. I haven’t been down this part of the world before. Apart from the occasional crazies on high-powered bikes, it’s still a sensational drive.”

“What do you think of your chances of success?”

“It seems like an odd place for one of Ben’s staircases. These are big structures that take months to build and the last few we’d seen were in large public buildings. I wouldn’t expect to see a lot of public buildings around here.”

”Well, there are plenty of fancy homes in the area. Don’t underestimate the expense that the rich and famous will go to in order to get exactly what they want.”

“True, but there’s also a very big churn rate in holiday home ownership. The place we’re looking for may have changed hands lots of times. It’s a pretty cold trail.” Alex briefly considered his own comments. “While speculation has a place, I think it’s a mistake to over-analyse this just yet. I don’t want to narrow my focus at a time when I need to soak up details from unexpected directions. It’s how I’d do any fault-finding on strange equipment. I begin with a blank mind and spend time sponging up information. Eventually, patterns appear and plans of attack emerge.”

“It sounds like you’ve got a team of private investigators milling about in your head.”

Alex laughed at this. “That’s one way of putting it. Perhaps it’s close to the truth.”

A sign loomed large on the side of the road. It welcomed him to Wye River. A second sign asked him to slow down for beachgoers. Presumably residents must cross the road when making their way from the perched homes that reared high above.

The voice on the dashboard navigator prompted Alex to take a right hand turn up a steep incline. Hearing these final instructions over the phone, Tessa knew he’d be busy and wound up the conversation.

“Well, good luck down there. Let me know if you find something.”

Alex agreed and terminated the call just as he arrived at the small motel where he’d made a reservation. It was an early 70’s cement sheet building with a flat roof, coated with too many layers of a drab lemon colour. The bored man at reception had few questions, unhooked a key from the wall and directed Alex to the last door in a long row of tired looking rooms.

As drab as the exterior appeared, the inside was spacious and some effort had been taken to make the room comfortable. Through the front window, glimpses of blue ocean could be seen between established trees that tantalizingly interfered with the advertised view on the web site.

After an hour of sleep, a shower and a coffee prepared from a jar carried within his luggage (hotel coffee is universally awful), Alex felt sufficiently recharged to explore the area on foot.

The narrow streets were steep and winding. Lots of native trees and wheelie bins punctuated the front of every home, each with an impossible driveway that disappeared under the house or twisted out of sight behind the buildings. Many of the streets had similar sounding names like Bellview or Belvista. He even spied a tautological ‘Vistaview’, all of which would provide difficulties for the local postman. Some houses were old, but plenty were modern edifices that had seen considerable investment. Alex had no idea where to look for a house with his staircase and lacked the stamina to knock on every door. Being a weekday outside of seasonal holidays, probably half of them were vacant anyway.

He trudged up several streets, with most of them abruptly petering out into native scrub after a few hundred metres. At the intersection of two such streets, Alex spotted a small General Store. It was well placed to serve the bread and milk needs of local residents. He pressed open a heavy glass door and entered. The inventory was modest, but a cross-section of many grocery lines were represented. Two women that he guessed to be in their early fifties were present. One was on her knees at a shelf space, pricing packets of potato chips. The other stood at the checkout idly browsing a newspaper at the top of a stack.

Alex nodded in greeting and poked about for some snacks and refreshments before returning to the counter. He pointed at the glass-fronted pie warmer. “I’ll take one of your beef and mushroom pies too please.”

The woman at the checkout armed herself with tongs and a paper bag and set about filling the order. This seemed like a good time to open a dialogue. Generally, Alex had found that an unusual question without notice would be treated with either suspicion or apathy. The same question introduced in the middle of a transaction is normally given greater consideration. “Perhaps you can help me with another issue. I’m looking for a home around here with a wooden staircase. A spiral staircase.”

Both women hesitated in their tasks, issuing blank and suspicious looks simultaneously. He continued. “My father used to build them, many years ago. I was told that he built one around here somewhere.”

There was a contemplative silence. The woman pricing the chip bags struggled from her knees to standing, wiped her hands on her apron and offered: “What about Norma, she’s been complaining about her staircase for the last month.”

Behind the counter, the woman cast a small packet of tomato sauce in with the pie and began adding up the purchases on a primitive cash drawer. “True. Norma has one of those electric stair lift things. It’s been playing up. She has problems with her legs and doesn’t like climbing stairs. I think hers is a spiral stair. Norma complains a lot.” She looked up at Alex. “That’s $12.75 please.”

The real value was much higher and he paid happily. It was a good lead. “Where can I find Norma?”

“At the end of Dolphin Court. A huge place.” The woman gestured at the shelf behind the counter that he took as being in the general direction of Norma’s house.

Alex departed the store and immediately began to ascend another steep rise. It was hard going. He mused that if this Norma woman can successfully navigate between the shop and her home, then her legs couldn’t be all that bad. Two blocks uphill he saw the entrance to Dolphin Court. It wasn’t a long street. A couple of lacklustre holiday homes perched to either side of a narrow, abundantly patched, bitumen road. At the end of the court, facing a turnaround circle was a vast weatherboard structure that rose three levels up the hill. Clearly the building was unique , making it difficult to date by style alone, but its hardwood cladding had faded from a harsh sun over many years. This put the structure within an age range of interest. Its exterior was white with powder blue window frames above an under-floor car park. A small blue hatchback filled this space. He climbed a flaky white switchback stair that lead to the front door. A doorbell button was prominently mounted, but no sounds presented when it was pressed. After a couple more jabs and additional loud door knocking for good measure, Alex decided that there was nobody home or perhaps no one awake.

Giving up for the moment, he retraced his steps down the hill, vowing to return in the morning.

Alex spent a quiet, uneventful evening back at his room. Internet access was slow and television reception was dismal. Those who built their holiday homes here to ‘get away from it all’ were no doubt succeeding quite well, with paperback novels and whale-watching likely to be the biggest pastimes. It had been a long day and sleep came easily.

Chapter 2

The room was dull when he awoke. Peering through cheap lace curtains, now fragile with age, Alex saw that the cloud was low, forbidding and moving fast. Shrubs rattled with vigour and a cold wind blew through the settlement in short bursts. Rain seemed imminent. He didn’t care to return to the steep streets on foot. Alex gingerly stepped into a shower stall lined with ancient laminate of spotty lemon. The shower was surprisingly good with high pressure and lots of hot water. The passage of a few minutes saw Alex back in his car, engine roaring as it slowly hauled itself up to Dolphin Court.

This time a loud knock at the front door produced vibrations of movement within. It took a while, but eventually an elderly woman regarded him cautiously from behind a security door. Features were indistinct as light was behind her, but he received an impression of drab, shoulder-length grey hair and a strong gaze. “Yes?” It’s surprising how one spoken word can convey the stature of the person behind it. There was no sense of irritation or impatience, and yet the inflection was firm and would brook no nonsense from this mysterious caller.

He hesitated while trying to form an approach that wouldn’t trigger a rapid rejection. “Good morning, I’m Alex Kingbridge. I was given this address. Would you be Norma? I was told that you have a spiral staircase here and…”

She cut him off mid-sentence. “Yes, of course. Come in.” The screen door was pressed open without hesitation. “You’re quite early.”

Bewildered, he followed her into a small foyer and could see her more clearly. Norma shuffled slowly, but with dignity, favouring her weight on one leg. Her hair was straight, silver white and held in place with a large opal coloured hair clip. She was dressed in a narrow skirt and dark blue housecoat. She turned, then peered more closely at her visitor. “Where are your tools? You’re going to need them.”

“Sorry, I think you misunderstand. I’m not here to work. About thirty years ago my father built a staircase in this area. I am just calling by to see if it was the one you have here.”

She hesitated. “Oh, so you’re not from Morgan’s Lift Service then?”

He shook his head and decided to try a short version of the truth. “My father was a master carpenter who built staircases. I’m finding information about his work in different parts of the country. I discovered a clue that he’d built one in this area, but I don’t know where. The ladies at the store heard that you were having problems with a staircase which could be the one that I’m trying to find. That’s what led me here today.”

Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out a printed sheet, which unfolded into an image of an earlier staircase his father had created for old movie theatre in outback New South Wales. Introducing an item of proof to show he wasn’t just making it all up was a good move. Norma listened carefully, briefly studied the picture, then turned and shuffled deeper into the house. “Follow me.”

The short hallway opened into a central space with no apparent ceiling. In it, a compact staircase spiralled up to a dizzying height. It was a central core that bound the three levels of the building together. At the top a dome of panelled glass let natural light pour into the space. Like the outside of the house, the staircase was gloss white, but its shape unmistakably the work of Ben Caslow. The treads were carpeted with a broad runner that had been custom made to fit the stair. The hand rail and balustrade work were unquestionably identical in design to the printed image that Norma still held.

One significant addition was a pair of aluminium rails that traversed the balustrade to guide an automated chair lift. The chair was out of sight and apparently inoperative as Norma slowly and painfully ascended the treads without it.

She paused and turned to face Alex. “I think that this is the stair you’ve been looking for.” She gestured to the metal rails nearby.” When my son had the power chair fitted, I thought it was a dammed waste of time. Now I miss it horribly since it stopped a month ago. She continued to climb. “Come up to the kitchen on the next level and we’ll talk about it.”

He followed her up the plush carpet runner central to the stair. The carpet was held in place at the base of each riser with a fashionably tarnished brass rod.

The first landing of the stair revealed a kitchen that merged into an open dining area and the motorised staircase chair was parked at that level. Polished timber floors met feature windows on the far side of the room. A superb blend of sky and ocean dominated the horizon. Just beyond the glass, a pair of Seagulls seemed to hover at eye level, then darted from sight. As magnificent as the panorama was, Alex was distracted and elated to have so readily found the staircase.

In the kitchen area Norma fossicked with a kettle at an island bench.

“The view never gets old. My husband and I brought this land thirty two years ago. He’d made a lot of money in the construction industry. Jack wanted to retire here, but he wanted it to be special. The land here is incredibly steep, so to get the space we wanted, we built over four levels. A special kind of staircase was required to tie everything together, but I remember we struggled to find a builder who would touch the job.” She chatted easily as though they were old friends. “We saw a newspaper clip about a wooden staircase in Maryborough that looked wonderful, but when we tried to locate the builder, we were told that he’d moved on to New South Wales. When we finally found him there, we learned that he’d just been laid off and was keen for work.”

Without asking, she laid out some teacups on saucers. “Yes, I remember Ben Caslow. You say he’s your father.” Norma closely peered at Alex’s face and nodded. The look earned him a smile. “Even now, I can see him in your looks. Probably he was about your age now.” While waiting for the kettle to boil, she continued. “So he comes down here, looked at the big hole where the stair had to go and slowly put a design together on a big sheet of butcher paper. Jack, my husband didn’t take to him. Ben was much too slow and it drove him crazy. We just wanted the house to be finished so we could get in here, but Ben fussed and fiddled something shocking.” She popped the lid from a metal tin on the bench and extracted a pair of tea bags.

“Jack was used to get-in, get-out construction jobs. He had no real patience with craftsmen, even though we were getting what we wanted. You see, the stair had to be completed before we could get our building occupancy approval. I remember a big argument at the end. We had maybe a week to go, then Ben gets a phone call to say that someone he knew had died. He wanted to stop work to attend the funeral. Jack was furious. He’d hoped we’d be moving in for my Birthday and insisted that Ben finished the job. It didn’t make any difference. Ben just dropped tools where he stood and left. Ten days later he returned, finished the job, got paid and took off once more. Never heard from him again.”

Alex returned to the kitchen area and sat on a proffered bar stool. He was impressed. The woman was obviously sharp and focused. Dredging up the details of long ago as though it were only yesterday. Tea and a biscuit were placed before him and he sipped gingerly at the delicate cup... “Do you remember where he went for the funeral?”

At this she stood still and examined her memories for a few moments. “South somewhere. I’m pretty sure he went to Tasmania. That would have been a week before my birthday, August twenty six.” She changed the subject. “We loved it here. We had two young kids at the time. But then Jack’s heart attack changed everything. He’d always enjoyed his beer and smokes. Five years after we moved in, he was gone. When my son grew up, he started a business of his own. Later he and his wife brought this place from me. They come down from Melbourne every two weeks with their children, but I’ve always stayed on to look after things here.”

Alex thought that she was probably a bit starved of visitors and conversation. While being keen to find answers, he was somewhat surprised at how candid she was with a stranger. Feeling a little awkward, he decided to confide in something of his own background.

”I never knew Ben. He died about fifteen years ago. He and my mother were never married. She also died while was I very young. Until a few months ago I’d never heard of him. I found out that he’d build these amazing staircases in different parts of the country. On each staircase he’d left a name engraved at its base. My mothers name was on the first one I saw.”

She listened carefully to this, taking it all on board, so Alex continued. “I was given a list of other towns where he’d worked and Wye River was one of them. This is what brought me here today.”

The woman seemed to enjoy this story of mystery. “How extraordinary. I think you’ve drawn a blank here though. He lived in an old caravan out the front while the place was being built. Jack and I would come up on weekends to check on progress. It suited us to have someone living here for security. There were problems with building materials being stolen back then. I think it’s worse now. Anyway, I’m pretty sure he was on his own. I can’t remember seeing writing or names anywhere on our staircase.”

Alex sipped the remains of the tea and brooded. It sounded like he’d reached another dead end. Still, there was something else he‘d like to do.

“Mrs…”

“It’s Ashmore. Norma Ashmore. You already knew I’m Norma, so you’d better be calling me that.”

“Thanks Norma. I’m not from the lift company, but I have experience with machinery. Maybe I could check out that lift chair for you.”

“Really? It’d be wonderful if you can find what’s wrong. There are the two separate lifts. The chair that goes from here to the bedrooms upstairs works fine. It’s the one you came past that doesn’t go. I love this house. It represents the best times that this family has had. The staircase that your father built ties everything together wonderfully, but it does have a bloody lot of steps.” Alex grinned. The mild profanity suited her.

He returned to the top of the first spiral where the automated chair had risen as far as it would go. On the wall adjacent to the staircase a potted plant concealed a control cabinet. The enclosure cover was painted in the same white as everything else. He saw that the enclosure was plugged into a nearby power outlet. After unplugging this, he returned to the chair. It was suspended between two aluminium rails that followed the balustrade. The underside of the lower rail had a toothed rack that would mesh with a cog on the drive motor. It was a simple setup. The two rails provided low voltage DC to the chair. A compact gearbox reduced the speed at which the chair would climb the rack and locked the chair safely in place while not in motion.

Under the seat, Alex pushed a lever on the gearbox which released the brake from the motor. He was then able to manually push the chair a little way down the stair before locking the brake back in, then he turned the power back on. Norma quietly watched his work.

Alex spoke his thoughts out loud. “It’s a neat system, but quite simple, I don’t think much could be wrong with it.”

By manually operating the buttons, he found it would go up, but not down. At the end of the rack he could see a small limit switch in an open sided box. When the chair travelled as far as it could, he could hear the switch click and the chair stopped. This important contact ensured that it could never travel past the limits of its rails. There should be a similar switch at the bottom.

Alex descended the stair to examine the bottom sensor switch. He pressed the identical lever and there was no click. A closer inspection revealed that the switch was cracked and broken. He’d seen a lot of damaged switches on the farming equipment he’d serviced in the past, so this was not a surprise. With the switch broken the system thought that the chair had already travelled down as far as it could go and wouldn’t drive the motor in that direction.

Norma looked on from the railing above and he raised his voice to be heard. “It’s a faulty switch. It’s a standard type and they fail quite often. I’m going to get some tools from the car. I’m pretty sure I’ll have something similar to replace it with.”

She nodded in understanding. Alex left the house for his car and returned a short time later. He began to pull the switch mechanism apart. While he now had sufficient wealth to no longer require carrying his old work tools around, it was a part of who he was and he’d feel the void if they weren’t nearby. Little things that brought most people to a complete halt were only nuisance value as long as the right tools were available. He’d previously resolved to continue to keep them close.

Back in the house, a replacement lever switch was fitted without difficulty. He raised his voice to the still watching Norma above. “Turn it on and try it out”

Norma followed this instruction and sat on the chair. In one familiar action she drew the safety strap across her waist and pressed the ‘Down’ button. It smoothly began its descent towards the lower level. At the end of the track, it stopped with a satisfying audible ‘click’.

Norma was all smiles. “Thank you so much. This little gadget means a lot to me nowadays. I’d better call the lift company and tell them not to bother coming. They’d told me it was going to be several weeks before their fellow would come out here and they were going to charge a huge amount. You’ll have to let me give you something for it.”

He laughed. “No really, that’s not necessary. But there is something I’d like to do if it’s ok.” He pointed to the bottom of the stair. Can I lift the carpet on the bottom tread? I want to see if there’s something written Underneath.”

Norma nodded happily in acceptance. Alex used a screwdriver to release the rod at the first tread where it held the carpet runner in place. It generated some slack and with the assistance of a small flashlight, he was able to peer behind the carpet.

A single word was revealed, chiselled reverently into the wood. Salina.

Alex held the carpet back for Norma to see and she expressed surprise. “Oh my. Have a look at that. There is a name there. But Salina? I have no idea who that is.”

Alex extracted his phone and activated the camera. “May I?”

“Oh sure. Go ahead.”

He photographed the name. Restored the carpet rod, then stood back and took some further images of the majestic staircase. Most of these were just as a souvenir of his visit.

Norma repeated her previous comment. “Really, the name Salina means nothing to me. I’d not heard it before. Sounds a bit European.”

Alex nodded. “Yes, maybe. I’m not sure. Anyway I thank you for the tea and for sharing your story with me. Really, I should get going.”

“You’ve made my day. I’m so pleased I don’t have to keep fighting these steps. They were killing me just to get to the front door.”

It was an excited Alex that carried his tools back to the car. He couldn’t wait to call Tessa with the news that only two days into his search, he’d found another name to work with. He was on the phone as soon as he’d returned to the motel room.

“So this is all the info we have to work with?” Back in Melbourne Tessa wrote the details down with one hand, while working her mobile with the other. “Fact 1… We have a woman called Salina, written on a staircase. We have no surname, so a search of public records won’t yield much. Still, it’s not a common name. Fact 2… Around the time the staircase was finished, a week before the birthday of the woman you met, we have Ben running off to a funeral somewhere. Maybe he went to Tasmania, maybe somewhere else. Have I missed anything?”

“Nope, that’s it. You now know what I know.”

“Ok. I’ll get some research going straight away. What are you going to do now?

“I have a busy day planned. I’m going to walk down the beach and throw rocks in the surf. Then I’m going to sit on the bed, watch TV, scatter potato chip crumbs all around me and I’m going to wait for you to ring back. It’s a tough job, but I think I’m up to the challenge.”

Chapter 3

Alex only made it part the way through his promised bag of chips before Tessa called back with new information. It resulted in him packing up his kit early and he headed back to Melbourne. On the road, he contemplated what this new development would mean.

Tessa had performed a search of the Tasmanian Births Deaths and Marriages register for around the time that Ben Caslow had dashed off for a funeral. One name did fit the search. A Salina Kempthorne had Died in the town of Strahan in August 1986. There was no additional information to be found from that source. Alex immediately knew he’d have to go there in person if he were ever going to find ties between this mystery woman and his father.

Travel arrangements were in place. Alex had never ventured to Tassie before. He reviewed his meagre knowledge of that part of the world. Tasmania was a long way South of mainland Australia. It was known as the ‘Apple isle’ not just because of its rough apple shape, but also for its apple production that had been a major export until cheap foreign produce had killed the markets. An island twice the size of Singapore, Tasmania boasted a sparse population and a slow pace of life. Much of the state was a dense wilderness where relatively few people had trod. Alex had vague notions that in the past there had been some battles with conservationists who wanted to keep it that way.

As a traveller, there are only two viable ways to reach Tasmania. You either flew to a major airport then hired a car to get around, or you booked a passage on the overnight ferry service which transported your car on a lower deck. Alex preferred the independence of his own wheels, so the second option was the easy choice.

After skirting the expanse of Port Phillip Bay and traversing the immense West Gate Bridge, Alex found himself at Port Melbourne. He joined a queue of vehicles that slowly edged forward into the maw of a waiting ferry ship, the ‘Spirit of Tasmania’. There were two such ships, simultaneously leaving Tasmanian and Melbourne ports, that passed each other during the night on the twelve hour journey.

An orange vested worker with an illuminated stick directed his car to halt in the centre of a string of vehicles. He was now sandwiched between low steel decks of drab green. The pungent smell of industrial diesel fumes and car exhausts was palpable. Casting a travel bag over one shoulder, Alex wove a path in between light trucks, camper vans and other recreational vehicles, in the general direction of a stairwell. In this, he joined a stream of fellow travellers rising from adjacent decks, to emerge in a brightly carpeted lounge. The change in surroundings was total. He could see many travellers were already settling into soft chairs with a drink of choice by their side. The bar was three deep in patrons and trading well. Alex hefted his bag once more and made his way toward the front of the ship, where signs indicated he would find a cabin number that matched the one on his emailed ticket.

Privately flaunting his newfound wealth, Alex had gratuitously selected one of the nicer cabins that overlooked the bow of the ship. The room was tastefully furnished and larger than he’d been expecting. Dumping the travel bag on the bed, he drew the curtains back and admired the spectacle of the forward deck and the expansive view of the bay beyond. Darkness was falling and although the view was unbroken, the recently activated harbour lights were beginning to sparkle. Thoughts were interrupted by deep felt clunks and thunks that echoed through the ship as it was secured for imminent departure.

After locking the room, he joined the press of fellow travellers at one of the bars. He took a squat beer glass to an open deck that faced the city side of the vessel. The city of Melbourne rose before him. Tall buildings flecked with a million jewels of light while the last of the red tinges of sunlight leached from the high clouds above. Behind one of those lights, he mused, would be Tessa. He simply stood there for some minutes, taking in the view. Draining the last of his glass, he succumbed to an impulse, extracted his phone and dialled her number again.

Her voice was recognisable at a single word. “Hey.” He knew she’d seen his name on a screen before speaking. “Did you make the boat?”

Deep below the handrail, thrusters roared and the vessel drifted sideways from the dock. The crew had wasted no time. “Yeah. All good. I’m on board and looking at the city lights. You should poke your hand out of a window and wave.”

“I don’t think you’d see it.”

“Yeah, but I’d know it was there.”

“Another day, another adventure huh?”

“Yup, lookin that way. Still, it’d be nicer if I was sharing it with you again.”

“Believe me when I say that I’d rather be there too, but someone has to keep the wheels turning. Being a big city lawyer comes with responsibilities you know. There’s an awful lot of people out there who aren’t going to sue themselves.”

Alex laughed. Tessa had a turn of phrase that he always enjoyed. The ship was pulling away from the dock and giving the illusion that the city was slowly drifting away from where he stood. Deep vibrations from the engines resonated through the deck and the vessel began to increase speed.

Tessa continued. “There’s one small development. I was having a talk with one of the older partners today and he reminisced that he had worked down in Tassie many years ago. He’d been doing some volunteer legal work to secure bail for protestors during a dam blockade. He thought that he’d still have some contacts down there if you needed some local knowledge.”

“Hmm… Mostly I’m used to working on my own, but I’m coming around to asking for help when I’m out of my depth, so I’ll bear that in mind. I can’t shake a feeling that there’s more to this mission than meets the eye. Perhaps I’ll need all the help I can get. Send me what you’ve got.”

“Sure, check your messages tomorrow, I’ll see if I can put the details through. “You haven’t been there before. While you’ve probably travelled more than most, Tassie is a bit different again. I’ve been there twice on short trips and only scratched the surface. There’s a strange sense that the population has been divided along obscure lines that we’ll never understand. People will try to place you in one or the other of these camps even while they shake your hand. It’s very polarising.”

They chatted for a while, then Alex realised that he had grown quite hungry. His last meal had been some junk food on the road of many hours ago. Farewells were given and at the touch of a screen icon, he was on his own again. He’d observed that the ship had a couple of decent sized restaurants on board and resolved to make his way to one of them.

The crossing that night was kind and the small ship mildly heaved without compromising the gentle stomach’s of mainland travellers. Bass Straight had the reputation of being one of the most treacherous stretches of water in the world. Many sailing ships of earlier times struggled their way from Europe for months, only to tragically end their journey mere hours from landfall.

Alex slept well and arose at first light to witness the mooring process at Devonport. The crew knew their stuff and called the travellers over the PA, one car deck at a time to spread the unloading. Business people and holidaymakers streamed off the vessel and promptly scattered in different directions on different adventures. Alex was one of them.

Setting Strahan as the target in his navigator, he began to follow the prompts from the little speaker on his dashboard that would steer him through this unfamiliar land.

The roads were narrow and wound through some pretty dense forest, only to pop out at intervals to cleared areas around farming and mining communities. With the towns of Rosebery and Zeehan now far behind, he followed the bitumen trail as it sliced through dense eucalypt forests at the bottom of deep valleys.

He knew he was getting close to Queenstown when the vegetation faded away to expose raw, multi-coloured hills devoid of any living thing. Alex had read about this, but the magnitude of the desolation had not been conveyed in the short article he’d found. A far cry from a very different Queenstown he’d visited in New Zealand only two months earlier.

A century had passed since the chimneys of copper mines had spewed thousands of tons of sulphuric acid vapour into the air. In a single generation they had killed all plant life over a vast area. Today, some low shrubbery was creeping back along roadsides, but most of the surrounding hills looked like images taken by a Mars rover. This environmental disaster was an eerie and strangely disturbing sight.

Alex felt some undefined guilt, even though the destruction had taken place long before he was born. Perhaps this was from his general ignorance of such events, or from simply being a citizen of a country that had allowed it to happen. To be caught painting a slogan on a concrete wall with a spray can could mean a stiff fine and possible jail sentence. To destroy an entire eco system in the pursuit of profit seemed to have few consequences. The image of the scarred landscape stayed with him long after the road had returned to the dense forests of the final leg of his trip.

Chapter 4

The road approached Strahan from the East through more rugged bushland. It quickly gave way to fields and scattered housing and Alex cruised up Strahan’s main esplanade that lay between a string of quaint colonial shopfronts and Macquarie Harbour. It was a charming little costal settlement, with its parade of weatherboard buildings facing a blend of both white and gaily painted tourist vessels. The town had a fresh and tidy holiday atmosphere, with a touch of ‘Truman Show’ feel to it, but Alex thought it seemed quiet. Perhaps the peak holiday season had passed

The town was well protected from the direct forces of the ocean as it faced a long, shallow harbour fed by the King and Gordon Rivers. It was the far end of this waterway that eventually flowed over shifting sandbars to the ocean proper. Alex did a lap of the town, which took surprisingly little time, then let the dashboard navigator have its way to take him to the holiday unit he’d booked.

Essentially a small home unit, someone had taken pains to give the place a quaint cottage atmosphere, with hanging plant baskets and too many roses. A woman, probably in her sixties was loitering around the entrance with a basket of cleaning sprays. She was a stern faced woman with a small, shrivelled mouth and tiny eyes. He tried and failed to suppress the thought that her face resembled a cats bum that had been casually circled with lipstick. She identified herself as the owner and let him in to the unit. She chatted incessantly and tried in earnest to extract Alex’s life story and to find out when his ‘partner’ would be joining him. Feeling no need to feed her curiosity, Alex simply said that he was a writer looking for some peace and quiet, then left the sentence hanging as if to imply that this process had already begun. The woman seemed miffed, tapered off and retreated, undoubtedly to tell the world that her latest ‘guest’ was secretive and probably gay. Alex didn’t care. Certainly he was here to gather information, but he wanted it to be on his terms.

After casting his clothes kit on the bed, he located coffee makings and took stock of the rooms. It was a nice enough place. Someone had done a lot of work to eek out maximum rental dollars from the room. Tasteful pictures of the Franklin River hung on the wall, a tray of glass beads submerged in water was the centrepiece of the coffee table, symbolising something that was beyond him, or perhaps, just looking pretty.

Alex focused his attention on the job at hand.

Salina. She was the reason he was here. Ben Caslow had put her name at the base of that staircase. She had been something special to his father and later she had died, probably in this town. This was the starting point. Picking up his keys, he locked the room and left.

The town cemetery was some distance from the town proper, rising on a shallow bluff that overlooked an old rail facility. It was the first stop. He parked under some heavy foliage walked the steep paths among the tombstones. Some had fresh flowers, some were very old, crusted in moss and lichen. Many had messages. ‘Died in a treefelling accident 1910’. ‘Drowned in the Franklin, 1935’. Alex searched for some time, then found what he was looking for. ‘Salina Kempthorne, Died suddenly August 18, 1986’ It was a well tendered grave site, with flowers still erect in a moss spotted vase. The monument was large and must have cost someone a significant amount. Certainly it was more prominent than most of the surrounding headstones.

At the foot of the grave a small brass plaque was bonded to the stonework. It looked somewhat out of place. He stood for a while considering the grave as a whole then crouched down to read the small plaque.

It’s whispered that soon, if we all call the tune

The piper will lead us to reason

A new day will dawn for those who stand long

And the forest will echo with laughter

Alex frowned. The wording of the verse was cryptic, and yet somehow, vaguely familiar. It felt important. He captured a couple of images on his phone and made his way to the car park.

Parking back at the esplanade, Alex decided to explore the town on foot. There were plenty of café’s, a few souvenir shops, a couple of colonial style hotels and a customs house. One café had a ‘Visitor information’ sign hung by the door. A second sign hung beneath the first. ‘Best coffee and scones in town’. He entered on a whim. The door tinkled in the time-honoured fashion and Alex made his way to the counter. After ordering a serving of coffee and fruit scones, he wondered around the display stands while they were being prepared. Several stands were dedicated to boat tours up the Gordon River and a scenic railway service. Also on display were a selection of wooden gifts crafted from Huon Pine. There were plates, bowls and small toys all machined from the same honey coloured timber. He picked up a large fruit bowl. It was smooth, with an injection moulded sheen to it, but much lighter than he’d expected. On impulse, he lifted the bowl to his face and ventured a sniff. It had a unique odour, vaguely turpentine. On the back was a label that said it had been made by ‘Kavanaugh Woodturning’ and a price. It wasn’t cheap. Alex knew from his past experience that his father had used a lot of Huon Pine in his staircases. That wood would have originated from this region. It was another link that he could not ignore.

The middle-aged woman who attended the counter presented the coffee and scones and obliquely watched him fondle her expensive merchandise. He decided to put her mind at rest and took the bowl to the counter. “I’ll be taking this as well please.” Her frown of concern switched to one of satisfaction, as now she was happy to be making a worthwhile sale on an otherwise slow day. He carried his snack to a table while she fussed around with a plain white box and what seemed like reams of coloured tissue paper.

The door tinkled a second time and Alex quietly observed a young Asian couple enter the store. They were talking animatedly in hushed tones. He speculated that they were Japanese. They ordered tea and some fruit. The girl spoke again in earnest to her partner, who made a harsh sound then appealed to the attendant once more. His command of English was quite good.

“Excuse me please, At home I study European history and the European war. I know there was a famous battle that was called D-Day and this is very special to English. In your town I have seen several signs celebrating G-Day. Is this a special event here too? I my wife is worried that we have arrived at a holiday time and perhaps we cannot see a tour boat this week.”

The woman behind the counter shook her head without comprehension. “I don’t know what you’re talkin about luv, but I can tell you all the boats are work’in fine this week.”

Alex took this in from where he was seated, furrowed a brow and looked between the couple and the entrance that they had passed through. He could see in reverse-print that someone had painted a friendly ‘G’day’ on the glass door. He laughed as the significance of this dawned, then leaned back in his chair and caught the eye of the tourist couple then nodded towards the entrance.

“The sign doesn’t say Gee-Day, it says G’day. It’s just a friendly greeting that means ‘good day to you’. It’s not a holiday.”

As the penny dropped, the lady behind the counter laughed, while the tourists, just smiled and looked sheepish. They moved to another table and waited for their tea to arrive. The room became quiet once more.

Alex stood up and investigated the tourism racks more closely. From one of them he took a two page stapled flyer that advertised the merits of a river cruise. The document had some background information on the region.

‘In 1983 Strahan was centre stage to a battle that rocked the nation. The State government lead by Robin Gray and the juggernaut Hydroelectric Commission (HEC) were determined to dam the pristine Franklin river at the heart of a World Heritage Area. The economic benefits touted were elaborate falsehoods. Even so, generous compensation packages from the federal government to abandon the project were scorned by the wealthy power mongers who ran the state.’

Alex mused that this flyer had been put together by someone quite passionate about the topic.

‘The only thing in their way was the Tasmanian Wilderness Society, led by Doctor Bob Brown, who staged rolling protests that exposed the plight of the threatened river to the world. Strahan became a staging area for a massive blockade up the Franklin river, where protesters from all over the country tried valiantly to halt the bulldozers. Over a thousand people were arrested in a conflict that divided a state and polarised a nation. The protests were instrumental in toppling the Federal government, who eventually forced the state to halt the destruction through a High Court challenge.

Today we have the selfless actions of the Wilderness Society to thank for the preservation of this natural wonder. You too can experience this wonder on one of our exciting river cruises that leave daily…’

Alex gave up on the flyer that was rapidly descending into marketing banter. It had however, highlighted his ignorance of what must be an important part of the local history. He ought to know more. Salina, the woman at the cemetery, died in ’86, which would have been long after the dam blocking action by conservationists. He couldn’t see how these protests had any bearing on his present task, still, he recalled Tessa’s words that the people here tended to be polarised in two camps, which could be one of the legacies of the same protest movement.

He paid for his purchases and had to agree that the scones and coffee were every bit as delicious as the sign had suggested. At the counter he noticed a stack of local newspapers. It was the ‘Strahan Star’, with an elaborate headpiece that triumphed ‘Telling the truth since 1895’. The slogan amused him. Perhaps the paper was older than 1895, but before then, they lied. Alex added one of these newspapers to his purchases. He was less interested in the affairs of the week than where the offices of the newspaper were located. Local newspapers always ran obituaries and usually kept archives for public access. Predictably, the address given was just a little further up the Esplanade, not far from his present location.

Chapter 5

The newspaper office building was quite old, but like so many of the façade’s in the main street, it had undergone significant renovations some time in the near past. A young woman sat behind the high counter pecking away at a keyboard at a dismal rate. She was fair-haired, with a long chin and eyes that had been excessively darkened with makeup, giving her a vaguely racoon look, slightly at-odds with her lemon cardigan. Alex estimated that she was in her early twenties. The girl could have been typing a major editorial work, or just a letter to a grandmother. Either way, it must have been dull, as she brightened visibly at the interruption.

Alex opened the dialogue with what he hoped was a friendly smile. “Perhaps you can help me. I’m trying to find out more about a woman who died around 30 years ago. She was buried in the town here and I’m hoping there would be obituaries or something I could look up.”

She arched one eyebrow in interest. “Thirty years? That’s a long time ago. There’s a shitload of old papers in the archive room. We can have a look.” Her guileless use of profanity was somehow endearing. She hadn’t even asked for a name, so he volunteered it.

“I’m Alex. I’ve not been in the town long and I’m researching for a book.”

“Cool.” She didn’t ask what the book was about. “I’m Starbright.” Before he could respond she raised her hands in exasperation. “…Yes, I get it. Starbright-at-the-Star.” She dropped her hands and sighed. “My parent were hippies. It’s what you get.”

Alex smiled and shook his head. “Don’t worry. I like it.”

She visibly brightened. “It could have been worse, they could have called me ‘Rain Dancer’ or something like that. Then I’d have had to get a job as a Weather Girl.”

“Ah… Nominative determinism.” Alex added.

“Nom-wot?

“Nominative determinism. It’s an expression I read somewhere. It describes people who drift into jobs that fit their names. Like if your name is Cash and you become a bank teller, or a soldier whose name is Gunn.”

“You’re shittin me.” He raised both shoulders in a shrug to convey a take-it-or-leave-it response. She changed the subject. “Follow me. We keep our old copies back here.” Alex was beckoned into an adjacent storeroom. Heavy ledgers were stacked high, but light streamed in from a small window making it easy to read the dates on the bindings. “What date are you looking for and what’s this woman’s name?”

“The year is 1986. The date I have for her death is August 18. Her name is Salina Kempthorne.”

“Wow. Kempthorne. That’s a big name around here. One of the local councillors goes by that name. The family has lived here forever I think. Filthy rich too.”

The girl hauled a thick volume from a stack and dropped it into a reading cradle of the same size. The cradle was heavily vee’d to prevent the cover from opening too far and stressing the bindings. She turned pages and quickly located a yellowed edition dated August 25.

There was no need to find the obituary section as the front page featured a photograph and a headline that pronounced ‘Salina Kempthorne dies in boating accident. Her husband Noel Kempthorne, the State Forestry and Mining minister is reported to be devastated.’ A large black and white print of a woman in her mid thirties was shown. Her hair was long, fairly straight and immaculately styled. The file photo showed her to be happy and looking past the photographer.

Below this was a second, more indistinct image of a middle-aged man, Stern faced and climbing into the back of a car that was surrounded by protesters. This evidently, was Noel Kempthorne, the husband. The remaining text was brief. It said that she was survived by two sons, Andrew and Hubert and a daughter, Helena.

Starbright gave Alex a long, lingering look. “Do you have a girlfriend”

Startled by the direct question, he vacillated before answering. “Yeah, there is someone I’m seeing.”

She clicked her tongue and sighed. “Too bad. Most of the local guys around here are assholes. I’m looking to meet someone new.”

Alex was a little stunned by her willingness to vocalise whatever thoughts were passing through her mind. Perhaps she had already taken her toll on all the ‘local guys’. Regardless, his attentions remained focused upon the job at hand and on a certain lady at the far side of Bass Straight. Fresh entanglements with local scary girls were not on the agenda. He took his time to make a good copy of the newspaper article before extricating himself from the clutches of Miss Starbright.

Chapter 6

When Alex left the office of the Star it was raining steadily, mixed with a chill breeze that swept the street. The idyllic weather of the morning had soured and he beat a hasty retreat to where his car was parked.

Starbright had been forthright when he’d asked how to find the Kempthorne family home. “Oh that’s easy, it’s just up the end of Kempthorne Lane.” The answer was implicit, as where else would he possibly look for it?

His dashboard navigator listed the road as starting about two kilometres to the East of where he was now. It seemed to be a single road that disappeared into the forest. With wipers at medium Alex set off in that direction. He reminded himself that although the town looked quaint and comfortable perched on the edge of a quiet harbour, it occupied a narrow band between one of the planet’s wildest oceans and one of its densest forests.

The entry point to the lane proved easy to find. It was a good quality sealed road that directly penetrated into mountainous forest where switchbacks cut deep into the rock. It soon became apparent that there were no other houses or side roads. The lane was rapidly assuming the feel of one long driveway. As he drove, Alex recalled reading of the dwellings of wealthy politicians on the outskirts of early Melbourne, all of which had roads of excellent quality that approached their homes, but would revert to potholed gravel to all other properties beyond that point. This could be one of these situations.

Somewhere along this extended laneway, the rain let up. On level ground the path widened slightly where it met tall pillars of stacked stone placed either side of the road, One pillar held a plaque with the words ‘Private Road’, while the other was simply labelled ‘Kempthorne’. Sufficient space was present to perform a U-turn in front of the pillars. At this he paused, then chose not to be intimidated and continued driving between them.

Around the first bend, the forest widened into a broad clearing of a hundred acres or more. To the left a small stream had been dammed, forming a wedge shaped lake. Both horses and cattle meandered around green fields contained by white railed fencing. Directly ahead the road ended in a turnaround at the front of an immense historic house also in white, with iron lace decorating a verandah that took up the full width of the second level. A series of low, drab looking cottages were partially concealed by the manse. Presumably this was where the lesser folk dwelt, a respectful distance from the main residence.

Alex parked adjacent to a shallow set of stairs that lead to the formal entrance with a broad white door. There was little point in being subtle, as undoubtedly whoever was in the house would be aware of the arrival of a strange vehicle. At the door he exercised a brass knocker that reverberated deep hollow sounds from within.

Scant seconds had passed before the door swung wide and a stern woman regarded him carefully. She had natural good looks, but kept her voice and attitude neutral.

“Yes?” It was both a question and a declaration that nothing was about to be given away.

“Hello, I’m Alex Kingbridge...”

The woman repeated “Yes?”, this time with a hint of impatience.

A surge of directness was in order. “My father was a master carpenter. He built staircases. His name was Ben Caslow. I believe that many years ago he’d visited or worked in this area and may have known Salina Kempthorne.”

There was a hesitation. A frown formed on her face that progressively deepened, as these unexpected words were being processed several different ways. Her face relaxed and returned to its original state as an appropriate answer was selected and wheeled out. Her voice dropped an octave to a more commanding tone. “I’m sure mother would never have known such a person, so I think you have no more business here.”

“But I...” Alex attempted to expand on his introduction, but was cut short.

“I am very busy today, so you’d best be taking your enquiries elsewhere.”

As she moved to close the door, Alex was surprised in two different ways. The woman’s attitude had shifted greatly at the mention of his father’s name. Certainly this signalled that the name meant much more than nothing to her. The second revelation came as his eyes penetrated the gloom of the house beyond and Alex sighted what could only have been part of a spiral staircase. Somehow, it looked different to others he had seen. Regardless, the moment had passed and the door was now closed.

Chapter 7

As he retreated down the steps, Alex tried to make sense of the encounter. he mused that if this were a cartoon, he had reached the point in negotiations where the landlord released the hounds from their kennels. Alex lost no time returning to his car in case the woman had entertained similar thoughts.

Another fact clicked into place. She had said ‘mother’. This means he had just met Helena, Salina’s only daughter. The drive back to Strahan was subdued. Notionally he had reached a dead end and his mission was a washout – all on the first day. Even if there was nothing here to link Ben Caslow to Salina, he still wanted to learn more. His father had spent some time in this area. Someone will remember him.

After retracing his path across the estate, he re-entered the forest and began to make his way back to the town.

His phone chimed. That was an alert for an incoming message, but Alex was driving, so it could wait. A few seconds later a voice call came in. It was Tessa. He took her call on the speaker, and pulled over to the side of the road to devote his full attention to the conversation.

“Hi. Just seeing if you got my message ok.”

“Yes and no. I’ve got something but I haven’t looked at it yet. What’s happening?”

“Remember I mentioned one of the partners here thought he had a contact? Well…He came good. The partners name is Damien Sargans. Back in the 80’s he helped by bailing a lot of protestors out of lockups after dam blockade arrests. He befriended one guy who stayed on in Strahan. Still runs a small business, leasing rafting supplies to local operators. They’ve stayed in touch, so this local guy has been asked to help you out.”

“That’s quite a network your partner has put together.”

“Yeah, just remember its ‘partner’ as in partner of the firm. He’s more like an uncle, so don’t start getting all jealous on me.” She didn’t wait for an answer, but ploughed on. “In the text I sent you’ll see an address and a name. See if he can give you some local help. Damien says he can be trusted with the full story, but doesn’t know what’s going on yet.”

“Well, there’s not much going on anyway. I just hit a dead end of sorts.”

Alex went on to describe his all too brief encounter with the presumed daughter of Salina.

“She sounds like a bit of a bitch. Just take the investigation as far as you can over the next few days and if there are no breaks, we’ll officially call it as a dead end and move on.”

“It may well come to nothing, but she did react to Ben’s name being dropped, so there’s some baggage to the story. I’ll keep stirring things up a little and see what happens.”

“Oh, another thing Alex… I don’t know if you’ve figured it out for yourself yet, but I found where those lines of verse came from. The ones on that tombstone plaque. You know, the piper will lead us to reason and so forth. They’re are song lyrics. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it’s from Led Zeplin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Spooky huh?”

Alex was surprised at this. And yet… the words had struck a chord of familiarity when he’d read them. “Yeah I remember the song. I don’t know what it was about. I suppose I always thought of it as a bunch of meaningless words, but it was a catchy tune.”

“No, not really. A high school girlfriend and I did a joint English essay on it once. It’s deep, but its supposed to be about choices people make in life between material things and spirituality. Anyway, I dug up the audio file and sent it to your phone as well, so you can draw your own conclusions about it.”

“Ok, Thanks. I’ll listen to it, but I can’t see how it can help.”

They agreed to compare notes again at the end of the day. Alex put the car back in drive and continued down the forest trail.

Once back on the Esplanade, he parked and examined the message in more detail. It was brief. ‘Barry Norfolk’, with a company name of Float Some & Jet Some - Rafting and jet ski supplies. An obvious play on words, followed by a phone number. Alex dialled it. A man answered carefully and articulately, but with a strong Scottish accent. “Barry here.” Alex identified himself by name. “I was told to expect ye call. Better come to my office and we can talk.”

Chapter 8

The address given was not far, but that was to be expected. Everything in this town was not far from everything else. Set back from the main drag in a quiet commercial area, he found a warehouse clad in horizontal sheets of corrugated iron. It had a small handwritten sign showing the company name, next to a faded picture of a rubber dinghy. In front of this building, a single car, an old but robust looking four wheel drive, occupied one of several parking spaces. Alex pulled in alongside. If not for a lazy column of smoke rising from a blackened pipe above the roof, the property would have appeared deserted. There was no office entrance as such, but a long sliding door half the width of the warehouse appeared to be the only point of entry. An open padlock hung from a hasp on the leading edge of the door. Another sign of occupancy. Balling his fist, Alex banged on the sliding panel, which reverberated beyond expectation. A voice similar to the one on the phone called out something indistinct. He pulled hard on the door and the immense panel slid open with surprising ease and he had to brake its progress. A series of trailers supporting kayaks, rafts and a pair of jet ski’s were clustered behind the door, To the rear, long racks of equipment penetrated deep in the building.

A crudely partitioned area near the front had a couch, a desk and a glowing cast-iron wood stove. The source of the smoke. A tall flue rose from the stove and disappeared into an array of steel trusses that supported the roof. Beside the flue, battered kettle bubbled away on a round trivet. A man stood next to this, feeding small chips of wood into a firebox. It rang like a bell when its heavy hinged door was driven home.

“So you must be Alex.” In person his Scottish brogue was more pronounced. “I’ve bin asked to look after ye and that’s no small thing. Come and sit here and tell me what’s going on.” He wiped his hands on his jeans in anticipation of a handshake and gestured to the couch.

Alex saw a powerful looking man, well past his prime, Hair was long and a woolly beard streaked with grey concealed much of his face. As the man made his way to the couch he practically dragged a badly twisted leg behind him. With obvious relief, the man dropped to the other end of the seat.

Alex introduced himself as someone working for the Melbourne law firm who was investigating the movements of a man called Ben Caslow, who may have been working in the area around the early 1980’s.

He eyed Alex with some scepticism. “Aye, that was a long time ago. It was also a very busy time in these parts. To be honest, you don’t look much like an investigator. What’s yer interest in all this?”

Not knowing what an investigator should look like, he simply shrugged, then added: “Ben Caslow was also my father.”

“Ahh. That makes more sense. Was he here to stop the dam then?”

“I don’t know about that. So far I only know that he was here to do carpentry work on a staircase. Possibly for the Kempthorne family.”

The mention of that name brought a scowl to his face. “Ah… That makes it complicated. The Kempthorne’s were solid pro-dam people. You’d be knowing all about the dam protests then?”

“Well, no. Not really. I only know there was some kind of stoush where the government wanted a dam on a river around here and some protesters didn’t. Somehow the protesters won.”

He gave a shallow laugh. “Yes, well, that’s true but its about the same as saying you can play a piano just by pressin keys. There was a helluva lot more to it than that, lad.“

The old Scot rose briefly to stir the firebox with a poker before returning to the couch. The dull red glow of the stove produced a lot of heat and made an otherwise cold shed bearable.

“Well, I’d better be filling you in a bit, else a lot of what went on won’t be mak’in much sense.”

Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “It started earlier, with Lake Pedder in the seventies. Pedder was a large, natural lake in the centre of Tassie. The government wanted to dam one edge, making it three times bigger so that they could generate hydro power. There was a branch of government called the Hydro Electric Commission or HEC as it was known. They were large, powerful and answered to no one. Just every now and then they sent a message to Parliament to let them know when they were going to do something new. The catch phrase back then was all about jobs and selling State resources cheap, so that the ‘right’ people could make profits, not the tourist industry.”

“When the damming of the lake was announced, an environmental group showed that unique sandy beaches and animal habitats were going to be lost forever. They presented environmental reports a very large petition to the government - all through the official channels. The government said ‘thanks for your input’, threw the petition in the bin and built the dam anyway. Later, it came out that government ministers who gave approval for this never even bothered to visit the site. Bastards.”

Alex followed this telling with interest. “So the original lake was submerged in spite of the protest movement then.”

“Yep, the original lake was lost and the benefits to the State were small. It was just one more environmental disaster. The important part was that this action set the scene for what came next. In 1981 the HEC was at it again. They wanted to flood large sections of the Gordon and Franklin rivers for more hydro power. Another disaster in the making. More animal species would be lost, aboriginal sacred sites would be drowned, tour companies would go out of business and unique river rapids would cease to exist. The State Premier was a prick. He argued that we couldn’t hold back progress just because some Greenies want to go paddling about. Again, financial return to the State was shown to be bugger all and foreign owned aluminium smelters were to be given cheap power for their operations. But here’s the trick. It also made available thousands of acres of ancient stands of Huon Pine for clear felling. Some people were going to get very rich.”

Steam erupted from kettle. Barry carried it to a narrow table where he filled two chipped enamelled mugs. He cast a tea bag into each and handed one to Alex. That he hadn’t asked if he’d wanted one first didn’t enter the conversation. Alex’s presence was reason enough.

Back on the couch, Barry continued with his account. “This time it was different though. A doctor by the name of Robert Brown went rafting down the Franklin, fell in love with it and decided to make a life mission of protecting the river. Doctor Bob and a few others founded the Tasmanian Wilderness Society. The TWS knew that this was going to be a dirty war from the outset and didn’t wast effort on futile petitions. Bob worked on three fronts at the same time. He created political pressure at both State and Federal levels of government, he launched a clever media campaign, which collected support from all over the world. An e’ helped organise the thousands of protesters who came to Strahan jest to be arrested up river in the most visible possible way.”

Alex hung on every word of the narrative . “Thousands? Sounds like a pretty wild time.”

“Fook yeah. The town was crawling with hippies, greenies, first-time protesters and police. Plus a bunch of union men paid by the HEC to start fights. The HEC tried hard to undermine the movement. They knew that if the TWS went violent, then It would loose mainstream support. Doctor Bob’s crowd were smart and insisted that every protestor first went through three days of training in non-violent action at Greenie Acres before they could go Up-River to the blockade.”

“Greenie Acres? What was that?”

“It’s a place just out of town. Back then, the local camp grounds were exploding with visitors. Half the town was pro-dam for the jobs it would bring and the other half was anti-dam. There was no grey, no fence-sitters. You were either in one camp or the other. The Mayor’s son had some land just out of town that he gave up to the protest movement and it suited everyone to shift operations out there.”

Alex sipped his tea and absorbed this information. This whole dam blockade thing was much bigger than he’d previously thought. “What were the police doing about this?”

“The cops were very much pawns of the government in this mess. Some were a wee bit sympathetic to the movement and looked the other way when they could. As always, there were a few bastards that looked forward to putting the boot into a few greenies when they got the chance.” He chuckled mildly at an old recollection. “A deal was struck with the cops where the TWS promised never to carry weapons if the cops promised not to carry guns. It wouldn’a have gone down like that today. Nowdays Cops have their tasers, guns and mace. They love to use their toys when they can.”

“Still, there was a lot of support. One of the tour operators had a mighty boat that he used to ferry protestors and supplies upriver. Thousands of em. Y’see laddie, it was all a big show. We’d tee up the newspaper and TV guys that somethin was goin down at a certain time and place. The cops would meet us there, we’d wave banners, sing songs, paddle around in our rubber duckies and the cops would round us up and put them in their boat to take back again. Often our guys would just dive off the police boat and disappear into the scrub ready for the next day, all the while the shutters were clicking and the stories were going around the world.”

“What was your involvement in all this?”

He thumped his dodgy leg with a fist. “This slowed me down. Back in 78 I was kayaking rapids in the upper reaches and my leg got smashed bad. I was crushed into a rock at the end of a chute. I had help, but it took a week to get me out. It was too late fer my leg though. A lot of damage was done and my paddlin days were over. I’m hooked to the river for life. I couldn’t leave. I started a supply business for others heading into the wilderness. Later I found it was better to dodge retail and just look after the tour operators. More money for less agro. During the blockade I was deep in the supply chain, feeding the protesters with whatever hardware we could get our hands on. Blankets, tarps, ropes. When the cops began slashing Rubber dinghies, I supplied the repair kits.” He beamed at this memory, like a war veteran recalling mateship in the trenches. “I did get arrested once. I was caught doing a delivery run. It was a make believe obstruction charge. Police thought that blocking supplies was going to slow us down, but it dinna work. It was your man Damien who busted me and many others back out again. He handled hundreds of greenie cases, all for free. I dinna forget that. When I got his message that you needed help, I’m good for it.”

“Anyway, back to the point laddie, I’m not sure what your father was doing in all this. Maybe it was important. I’m going to take you to another fella who knew everyone back then. He’s part of a special group that handled a lot of messages. He was one of the ham radio operators who kept track of where our people were and tried to send warnings when cops and the HEC were moving about.” He leaned forward in the seat resting ebows on knees, making direct eye contact.

But I gotta warn ye, he’s a wee bit odd.”

A warning from a strange character about someone even more strange sounded ominous. Still, his options were few and it seemed like a step in the right direction. “Thanks. I’d be grateful for anything you can do. Where can I meet this man?”

He held up an index finger as if to put Alex on hold with an invisible button and picked up a cordless phone from the couch armrest. Numbers were pressed and Alex duly listened to one side of a conversation.

“Beanie ye bastard. Its Baz. I’ve got something I want you to do for me. No, I don’t give a fook where ye goin. Listen. I’ve a fella here I want ye to look after. He want’in information about the blockade days. I’m sending him to ye. What? How would I know if he can swim? I just met I’m.” Barry briefly held the phone to his chest and looked at Alex. “Well lad d’ye know how to swim?”

“Yes, I can swim, but I don’t see…”

Too late. The Scotsman held up the finger a second time and spoke again to the phone. “Aye, he’s a swimmer. I’ll send him up directly.” A moment of silence ensued, punctuated by grunts of ascent as list of items was penned into a notebook. He have one more ‘Aye’ and the call was disconnected.

“You look strong enough. Help load up my trailer then you can follow me. I’ll take you to him.”

They left the couch, wove a path around the various trailers and entered the long aisles of rack space. As Barry walked his hands trailed along the ends of large waterproof chests. He read the descriptive labels out loud as they moved past them, then stopped. He slapped at two of them loudly. “Put these in the car for me Lad and we’ll be off.”

As it turned out, they wouldn’t all fit in his 4WD and trailer. The overflow was placed in Alex’s own vehicle. He followed Barry into the unknown with some trepidation.

Chapter 9

There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold

And she's buying a stairway to heaven.

When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed

With a word she can get what she came for…

As he drove behind the Scotsman’s four wheel drive through the town and into the forest, Alex cued up the audio file of Stairway to heaven on his phone and directed the track to the vehicle sound system. The song was of course as he had remembered it. It sounded great but what did it mean here? The verse on Salina’s grave appeared in the fourth stanza. It was a four-line quatrain and he cranked up the sound level when it came up.

And it's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune,

Then the piper will lead us to reason.

And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,

And the forests will echo with laughter.

Nope. He had nothing. Obscure lyrics often meant anything that the listener wanted them to mean, like the song American pie or almost anything sung by Crowded House. When the track was finished, the tune continued to play on in his head, but no inspiration accompanied the words that came with it.

Alex was led through the town, out the other side and up a series of obscure roads that had turned to gravel. The path through the bush was narrow and his GPS navigator was telling him that he was presently driving cross-country. They came to a closed gate. Barry left his car briefly to open it and drove through. Alex followed . On the far side of this, he got out to close it.

Presently they entered a clearing where a long, narrow dwelling that looked like it was built from packing crates, lay between a string of low profile sheds open on one side. Tall trees surrounded the space, so that there would only be a handful of hours each day where the sun would reach the ground, even if it did manage to penetrate the cloud. About twenty chickens pecked their way through leaf litter, looking for bugs to consume and at least three cats carefully watched every aspect of their intrusion, while pretending not to. A dog on a running wire between two of the sheds barked in excitement at their approach.

As they moved closer to the centre of the clearing Alex looked up and against the sky could see silhouettes of dark wires that converged at a tall post next to the building.

“Beanie… Where the fook are ye?” Barry called out in what was probably his normal call for attention.

“C’mon in Baz” a faint voice penetrated a door that was ajar on one end of the long shed. They pulled the door wide, which was surprisingly thick and heavy to move and entered into another world. It was a long well-lit tunnel, like a windowless railway carriage, but there was carpet on the floor, tasteful furnishings and superbly lit with LED lighting strips into the distance. The space in front of them had a couch, a long bookcase, and a desk with a PC on it. Next to that a second desk was covered with several HF radio’s, microphones and obscure items of hardware joined by heavy black cables. Beyond that Alex could see a kitchen partition and other as yet undefined living spaces in the distance.

On a swivel chair in front of this sat a thin man in jeans and a chequered shirt, but what caught his attention was The corded dreadlocks of dark hair that hung from an immense rainbow coloured beanie of knitted wool, as though some form of sea creature was trying to escape from its confines. Alex guessed his age to be somewhere approaching late fifties as lines on his face were deep with maturity, but he still managed to produce a wide childish grin. “So here’s my guy then.” He waved his two guests into the empty couch. “Getch’ya bums down there. I’ve just finished up.” He flicked a switch on a transceiver and the crackle of atmospheric static that had been filling the room abruptly ceased. He smiled again guilelessly, as though harbouring a secret.

Alex introduced himself, then added: “You have an amazing place here Beanie.”

“Thanks. We get some friggin cold winters here, so I made this place from two refrigerated containers pushed together. Looks rough from the outside, but it’s warm and secure. When I’m out I know me radio gear won’t get pinched.”

Barry spoke up. “It’s his Ham Radio laddie. I warned ye he was a bit strange.”

But Beanie was indignant. “S’not strange Baz, we just beat Facebook by a hundred years or so. It’s something that keeps me sane on the long cold nights.”

“Ha!” it was a fake laugh. “Yeah right, you jest keep thinkin that lad.”

The host shifted his attention back to Alex. “Hey, did Baz fill you in on the trip?”

“Ah… no. I don’t know about any trip. Barry said you could help me with some information about the Blockade days.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll have plenty of time to chew that over on the river. Tomorrow I’m headin out kayaking with two other guys cept’n one pulled out crook. I need another dude to make up numbers and Baz here is useless as an inflatable dartboard. So, watcha doin for the next four or five days then?”

This spontaneous offer shocked Alex. “I… I don’t know anything about whitewater travel.”

“You said you can swim dint ya?”

Barry intervened with a nod of confirmation. “Aye. Yer did say that laddie. Ye wanted time to ask him some questions about Ben Caslow, so here’s ye big chance.”

With that, it was Beanie’s turn to express surprise. “Ben? Did you know Benny Caslow?”

“I didn’t know him, but Ben was my father.”

“Fuck! you totally gotta come now. Ben’s son huh?” Beanie peered more closely at the man before him. “Christ, you look just like him back then. What happened to him man? He sorta disappeared after the blockade. We was mates when that madness was all goin down in the 80’s.”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Unfortunately Ben died in 2001. I never knew him and he never knew I existed. It’s complicated. Now I’m trying to follow clues to find out what he was doing in Tassie.” He would withhold comments about Ben’s will until there was a reason to go there.

“Man, that’s harsh. We was mates.” He repeated. “Well, if he’s the same Ben I knew, he was a wizard with woodwork. I remember him sayin that he was born down here somewhere. Maybe he had a property. I dunno about that. Anyway, we can catch up about this later an it’ll be easier if you’re comin up-river with us. So’z… How bout it?”

Meeting another person who knew his father was a revelation in itself, but Alex found himself warming to this aging hippy who was obviously no fool despite his casual demeanour. Beanie’s throwaway line that his father had been raised somewhere in this state was fresh news. Who knows what else he could learn. The value was real.

“Yeah, I’m in. Tell me what I need and where I should go.”

Chapter 10

“You’re crazy.” Back in her Melbourne office Tessa had her phone pressed against her ear and could scarcely believe what Alex had been laying out for her. “You’re going off into the wilderness for a week with two old hippies to go rafting in one of the worlds wildest rivers. You’re crazy!” She repeated.

Alex was defensive. “They seen pretty experienced. Beanie said I’d learn as we went along. Besides, We’ll be in kayaks, not rafts. It’s an opportunity to find out more about what Ben had been doing down here.” Secretly, after he’d had a couple of hours to think about it, Alex liked the idea of this challenge.

“What’s the point anyway. Why do they have to go at all?”

It was the inevitable question that he knew Tessa would not like to hear the answer to. “A fortnight ago a team of three rafters were working the Franklin, using equipment that had been hired from Barry through agents. One of them had seriously banged their head on a rock and had been concussed with a broken nose in spite of the safety helmet. A complete raft kit had to be abandoned at the end of a gorge while the injured guy was airlifted out on a stretcher. This trip is to recover all of the hardware that had been left behind. Apparently they were pretty rattled and decided that they couldn’t bring the rest of the gear out, so it was stashed in the gorge.”

Tessa shook her head in dismay and replied in a tone that dripped with sarcasm. “Oh, that’s ok then. What could possibly go wrong? You’re only following the path of another guy who has already bashed his brains out.”

Alex chose to ignore the comment and went on. “So tomorrow morning I’m driving back to Beanie’s place. I’ll leave the car there and join the others. We’ll head up-river on the Franklin. Barry will drop us off and I should be back in about four or five days. We’ll get picked up again on the Gordon river. Beanie says he’ll take some backup radio equipment along.” To this Tessa didn’t even reply, so he kept talking...

There’s something else I’d like you to check out while I’m away. Beanie said he thought that Ben was originally from Tasmania and that maybe he had a property somewhere. Can you do some searches and see if you can expand on those clues? Maybe council records will turn something up.”

“I’ll put together some searches from here and see what can be found. Just tell me that it was worth the risk when it’s all over.”

Back in her office, Tessa sighed into the handset. She obviously wasn’t going to change his mind about this. “…but if you spatter your body parts against giant rocks somewhere, don’t come crying to me.

They cleared the call and Tessa let out a long sigh. Part of her wanted to be down there working with Alex, but she knew it was an indulgence she couldn’t afford. Truly, she had better resources right here in her own office, plus there was other case work that could not be ignored. She sighed a second time, then shifted her attention to a stack of correspondence that had just arrived.

In Strahan Alex sat in his holiday apartment making lists of things that he would need for the next few days. To help organise his own thoughts, he created a second list of questions he wanted to resolve.

What did Ben Caslow have to do with the Kempthorne house?

What was Salina’s daughter, Helena concealing?

Did Salina really die of natural causes?

What did the verse on her grave site mean?

Was Ben involved with the dam blockade movement?

Where did Ben come from? His home town?

No doubt the answers to these issues would result in a fresh round of questions later, but it was a beginning.

For the next few hours Alex went shopping to fill in gaps in his list. Clothing and sleeping bag was fine but there were special waterproof zip bags he had to buy. Also he needed a week’s worth of sealed food packs and a small gas stove that used disposable fuel cells. Boat equipment was being provided. His advice was to dodge the basic freeze-dried meal packs. Maybe they were light and nutritious, but in Barry’s words “They taste like shite.” Instead he was steered towards a small specialty supermarket that carried a range of much more delectable options for the enjoyment of wilderness travellers. No water needed to be carried as they would be operating in pristine waters of a quality that many a restaurant would love to bottle for their tables.

Chapter 11

The following morning, Alex left his holiday apartment with plenty of time to spare. It was another cloudy day, but not cold and rain didn’t seem likely at this stage. He had Beanie’s obscure home location stored in his dashboard navigator and he was largely relying upon this to find his way back to the same place.

He drove along the Esplanade and followed the arc of the shoreline until the retail sector petered out. The road narrowed and meandered inland until both sides of the road were confined by trees. It continued in this way for a few kilometres. He rounded a bend and immediately passed a white sedan parked on the side of the road. There was something odd about this. The front driver side wheel was at an odd angle. Looking in his mirror, he spied a person outside, erect and leaning against the passenger door. Alex pulled over and reversed to a short distance in front of this car. It was a late model Mazda sedan and the front wheel was definitely awry. He flicked on the hazard lamp switch and carefully stepped from the car. Too many people on roadsides had been wiped out by passing traffic and he was determined not to be one of them. Approaching the stricken vehicle, he saw the person leaning on it was a woman in a stylish knee-length over coat and beret cap.

Smiling, he offered; “You seem to be having problems here.”

Simultaneously the two recognised each other. It was Helena. Alex kept his smile passive while hers passed through a range of emotions before settling on a dour expression.

“Yes. The car has a problem. It became unstable and I stopped.” She held up a mobile handset in a fine woollen gloved hand. “This isn’t working here.”

He knelt by the stricken wheel for a closer examination. The deep alloy wheel used bolts rather than the more common studs and nuts. Three were missing and the fourth was very loose. The wheel had partially collapsed within the wheel arch. Defining the problem as ‘unstable’ would be an understatement.

“Have you had any wheel work done to the car recently?”

She nodded. “Yesterday a young man at the tyre centre took the wheels off and checked the brakes. Today will be the last day that he works there.”

It was a statement and Alex had no doubt that before the day was ended, it would become true. He stood up and looked at her directly. “I can get you going if you wish.”

There was a hesitation, then she simply nodded.

Alex returned to his car. With the hazard lights still flashing, he reversed behind the stricken sedan and parked wide from the gravel roadside. It would be inconvenient to passing motorists, but using his car as a shield was better than being than being collected while he worked on the problem. From the rear of his own vehicle he withdrew a hydraulic bottle jack, a cross wheel brace and a flat block of wood. From experience, he knew that most modern sedans only carried fragile scissor jacks and basic spanners. His own kit would be superior and faster.

The car was largely undamaged, but it wasn’t going anywhere. He jacked that corner of the vehicle airborne and examined the wheel more closely. With the last bolt removed, the wheel dropped free. The single remaining bolt was useless, as the thread had been pounded flat by the rim as it had worked its way out. No doubt the three missing bolts – wherever they were, would be in a similar condition.

Alex worked his way around the car, stealing one bolt from each of the other wheels, while ensuring that the remaining three bolts on each were tight. He then used the three liberated bolts to restore the wayward wheel to the hub. It didn’t take long, before the Mazda was ready to use.

Helena had quietly watched this process, without venturing any comment. Alex picked up his equipment and addressed her directly. “That will be fine until you get back to the tyre centre. A car with three tight bolts on each wheel is always much better than a three-wheeled car.

Without smiling, she spoke a single sentence. “Thank you for your help.” She then entered the car and started the engine. Alex took this to be a dismissal, but instead of simply watching her departure, he went to her drivers side window and made ‘unwind’ gestures with his hands.

At this she did activate the button which lowered the glass to about halfway and she just looked at Alex without speaking.

He said what was on his mind since the beginning of this encounter. “Helena, I know that you have no reason to trust me. I’m not trying to make trouble or get you to do anything you don’t want to do. I just want to know about my father. He’s dead now, but I think he had strong feelings for your mother that I don’t understand. I’d like to know anything you can tell me about him.”

She listened and nodded her head imperceptibly, not in agreement but more of ‘I hear what you are saying’.

A few moments of silence ensued, then Helena issued a single sentence. “I’ll think about it.” The window was raised to its closed condition once more and she drove away in the original direction.

Chapter 12

When Alex had told Beanie that he’d had only the most basic of water craft skills and needed training, he’d been waved down, “Don’t worry about it man. This isn’t text book stuff. You have to learn on the water to feel what needs to be done. You look plenty fit enough. We’ll show you what to do once we get in there. Besides, I didn’t want to scare you away by telling you what to expect.”

To this Alex raised an eyebrow of concern, but Beanie just laughed. He’d been winding him up.”

When Alex finally reached Beanie’s compound, Barry was already there with his own vehicle and a loaded trailer of gear. Another car was parked next to his and so Alex was introduced to the third member of the party. “Alex, this here is Woz, my right hand man, who happens to be left handed.”

‘Woz’ just stood with a relaxed expression and a cigarette barely dangling between his lips. Probably in his mid fifties, he looked suitably toughened. The tiniest of nods accompanied the introduction but his leathery face did not change.”

Beanie it seemed was happy enough to speak for both of them. “Woz is a rock. Don’t let his chatty and cavalier attitude put you off, behind that happy mask is a solid man of experience.” Woz stood there unmoving. After a few seconds he blinked once, paused again and said “Yup.” Then returned to his standby state. The cigarette hadn’t even quivered.

With Alex’s kit stowed in Barry’s car all four of them left the compound and set off for a staging point. Alex didn’t know where. He addressed both Beanie and Barry together.

“I don’t know my way around these rivers, where we’re going and what I’ll see when we get there.”

It was Barry who answered. “I’m takin all of ye to the top of the Franklin. It’ll need about 3 hours of drive time to get there, as we have ta travel three sides of a square to make the headwaters. There’d be no roads between here and there, except some closed tracks that those HEC bastards put in, but they’re mostly overgrown now. She’s a dense wilderness out there and conditions can change fast. The weather report shows fine, but ye canna rely on that. The mountains make their own weather.”

“Can you give me a rundown on the river course we’ll be following?”

To this Beanie held up a contour map in a plastic bag. There were lots of handwritten notes and arrows pointing to different parts of the river.

“We’re heading up the Lyell highway to the Collingwood river. This is one of several rivers that combine into the Franklin. That’s our staging spot. We’ll head out immediately and show you how to drive your craft. From this river we get into the Franklin proper and then the fun starts. You’ll see your first big action at a place called Irenabyss. If you don’t crap in your pants, then you weren’t going fast enough.”

Not for the first time in the past day Alex wondered what he had committed to. “If you are trying to scare the piss out of me Beanie, then you’re making progress.” They travelled in silence for some moments, then Alex added: “I don’t think your mother would have called you ‘Beanie’ as a baby. Do you have a real name?”

“Yeah, but I gave up using it a long time ago. My Pa came from a French family and they called me Benneine Darrieux, then gave me a pointed woollen hat with a fluffy ball on the top to wear to my first day at school. It took about a week and even the teachers were calling me Beanie. Ya get what ya get man.”

“Barry, who was driving took this in. “Fookin hell. Benneine? I’ve known ye for close on forty years and ya dinna ever tell me that.”

“Yeah that’s what happens if you never ask Baz. Besides, Benneine was useless for amateur radio work, cos I’d have to spell it out phonetically every bloody time I used it. This way’s better.

The scenery outside his window was stunning. Despite the mission that led him here and the whimsical companions that so easily accepted him, Alex was beginning to enjoy himself. Eventually Barry slowed down at a bend, turned across the road and plunged into an indistinct gap in the foliage. They followed a pair of ruts for half a kilometre or so while bushes clawed at both sides of the car. It opened into a clearing, just round enough for a car and trailer to turn in a single sweep. A circle of stones in the centre marked an old campfire. Beyond the clearing a gap opened onto a deep, slow moving Collingwood river. Doors opened and the group stepped out, stretching arms and legs from the long drive. In unspoken agreement, they walked to the rivers edge. The water moved sluggishly with small swirls on the surface hinting at turbulent currents below. It was clear at the edges but quickly darkened as tea coloured tannins seized control of the depths. A small beach extended from the water, where a row of star pickets had been driven deep into the silt. The tip of each was adorned by a rusty ‘D’ shackle. These were obvious tie points for kayaks and dinghies.

Barry mostly watched as the trio unloaded the vehicle, but then assembled a stack of sandwiches on the tailgate. With the trailer empty, they munched silently on the chicken and lettuce snack, washed down with black coffee from a thermos. They were using short kayaks for this journey. Beanie explained that this was a quick recovery trip and that they’d be travelling lighter and faster than the regular tours. These craft made better time in slow water than the rubber dinghies that some preferred.

Chapter 13

It was shortly before midday when Barry waved them off as they slid the three craft into the water. It had been a long while since Alex had even been in a kayak, and never with a load of camping supplies. These were sealed in watertight bags fore and aft. His paddle had broad plastic scoops, heavily ribbed for strength, bonded to an aluminium shaft that had comfortable non-slip grips. He selected a hard hat from a string bag that seemed like a reasonable fit. It was white with red lightning bolts, which if nothing else, would be distinctive on the water. Beanie showed him how to fit the waterproof skirt to both the kayak opening and his waist. This he explained was annoying in still water, but essential when it got rough. He then drilled Alex until he was able to prove that he could quickly engage and disengage the splash protection without entanglement.

“It’s a safety thing. If you get submerged or pinned against a rock, you have to know how to get yourself out of it. Companions may not be able to reach you in a crisis.”

Once settled inside, the trio eased into the river and followed the downstream flow.

There was no wind and the silence was near total. Walls of foliage and the occasional rocky outcrop slid past.

Beanie was keen to use the quiet water to lay out some additional instruction. Alex noticed that whenever the conversation drifted into areas of expertise that his language became direct and more eloquent. “You have to get a rhythm up. The paddles must become an extension of your arms. Have you ever watched competition swordplay with foils?”

“No. Only pirates in movies.”

Beanie chuckled. “They have what’s called a ‘sense of point’ where they develop a millimetre accurate feel for where the tip is at all times. You have to do the same with your paddle until it becomes an extension of your arms and fingers.”

Alex suppressed a mental image of himself backing up a stone staircase fending off Errol Flynn with only a double-ended paddle and feathered cap.

“Ok, I think I can do that.”

Woz, who was presently leading, broke his usual silence with single word. “Duck.” An impossibly long tree had fallen most of the width of the river and had become suspended a metre above its surface. They all scrunched forwards to clear this as their seats prevented them from leaning back. The tree majestically passed over their heads.

“Hazards are the next thing you need to learn. What you’re doing right now has to be automatic and unthinking. In these calm waters, its easy, but downstream things will get busy real fast. Your attention has to be twenty, fifty and one hundred metres in front at all times. You have to read every swirl, bobbing branch and line of foam like a book, or you’ll be dead before you know it.” He grinned. “You should be alright.”

Alex took it all in. Over the next hour he was drilled mercilessly over observations and paddling techniques, including a counterintuitive backpaddle, which when executed correctly gave a valuable method of control in a tight spot. Beanie had expanded on this too.

“If you’re coming up fast to a danger point and think that regular paddling won’t turn you in time, stop trying. Plant a paddle offside-rear for maximum drag to swing you about. It’s bad because it kills momentum, but still good if it stops you from splattering yourself against a boulder.”

‘Got it. Rocks hard and unforgiving, humans soft and vulnerable. Keep them apart.”

Beanie hesitated mid-stroke to consider this. “Ahh, that’s not quite what I said, but there’s value to that strategy.”

The river opened up into what first appeared to be a small lake, but was really the junction of two rivers. As they entered the Franklin proper, the colour and pace of the water changed a little, as though the river was suddenly in more of a hurry to get somewhere.

It was midafternoon when Woz and Beanie angled their craft to the side of the river. Alex followed and they stepped out onto a grainy beach.

“Time for a leg stretch and a good piss. Can you hear that sound?”

Alex could just make out a faint rumble in the distance.

“That’s Ireneabyss, the first of the rapids. If the river was high, we’d be carrying our craft down this trail and give it a miss, but today it’s quiet, so we’re going to slip through and setup camp on the other side.”

“Ok, how will we handle this?” Alex was a little apprehensive.

“Woz will go first. You follow ten metres behind and do exactly what he does, put your paddle in the same places and follow him as though you were on a rope. I’ll be ten metres behind you, cos if something goes wrong and I’m in front, I can’t help you. The river narrows and flows fast. It’ll be fuckin scary, but keep a cool head and go with it.”

Alex nodded and took the advice by relieving himself on a bush. It sounded like a challenge to avoid with a full bladder. Looking around he could see that it was a regular camp area, but they were going to move on and make the most of the daylight.

Beanie inspected Alex’s kayak, ensuring all items were packed tight and secured by nylon cord, then raised his hands to Alex’s chin and tightened the strap on his hard hat an extra notch. Alex conceded that while Beanie appeared to be a pretty casual guy, he really knew his stuff and took the river seriously. Woz was quiet, but equally methodical in his own way. He extinguished a half consumed cigarette, returned it to the packet and carefully wrapped it in a watertight container.

All too soon, they were back in the water, and Alex had the protective splash skirt tight about his waist. Woz automatically took the lead, with Alex a short distance behind trying to replicate his movements. The riverbank gave way to a polished stone wall on both sides, with forest suddenly looming high above. The roar of the river slowly increased in intensity. In front a string of boulders broke the surface and white water streamed from their sides. Woz broke right to hug the far bank and dodged the worst of the turbulence. The water was now deafening and they flashed through the water at breakneck speed. Woz broke hard left to perform a mirror image of the last manoeuvre. Alex worked hard to follow and fended off a boulder that seemed to appear from nowhere. Beanie must still be behind somewhere, but he wouldn’t dare risk a look.

Water careered off the wall of the chute and dumped in his face and eyes. Through this he saw Woz execute a perfect leap to central line between two tall stones, which Alex struggled to replicate, but succeeded. The river dropped a metre and a half into a deep well, briefly submerging the entire craft, before bobbing up and thrusting him forward like a seed from a squeezed grape.

Obstacles appeared in rapid succession, were tackled and overcome as fresh challenges took their place. Just as Beanie had suggested, there was no time for contemplation. Like riding a wild horse, the focus had to be fully on here and now. Fear was a luxury he could not afford.

Suddenly the river widened into a broad pool, free of turbulence, with wispy spirals of foam playing on the surface. They were through the first challenge. Alex was simultaneously exhilarated and exhausted. Throughout his life, problem solving for Alex had been a methodical exercise. Always the art of careful thought before action. It had served him well, but here it had to be cast aside to let a baser survival instinct seize control of his arms. It had worked, but took its toll. He followed Woz to a distant bank that was an obvious camp area and staging place for those who had to carry their craft around the gorge in wilder times. He shuddered to think of what such times would look like. Woz already had returned his unlit fag to his lips and Beanie pulled his kayak alongside.

“You did good young fella. I like your style. Your old man was a natural at this too.”

Alex couldn’t help grinning like an idiot as he regained his breath. Oddly his first thoughts went to Tessa and how she would be aghast to see what he’d just been through.

Beanie was obviously in his element here. “Y’know that people who do a lot of this stuff voted this little stream to be a world favourite. Don’t get too cocky but, you’ve still got about four more rough sections. That’s tomorrow’s problem. Let’s get the camp setup and into some dry clothes before it gets dark.”

Chapter 14

Darkness at the bottom of the gorge did come early, but the twilight hung on for some time. Because they still had gear to collect, their group was travelling light. Finding firewood was not hard, there was plenty on the ground, but it was damp and this kept the fire small. Woz had produced a small flask of diesel fuel and a few splashes of this before ignition made for an easy start. The fireplace was circled by a ring of large rocks that had been dragged into position by previous travellers. There was no room for folding tables and chairs in this type of travel.

Alex spread out his rations, Beanie cast a critical eye over the selection he’d chosen and nodded in approval. “That’s a good kitchen you’ve packed young’un. I’ve seen people bring all sorts of crap on these trips, even wine glasses for cryin out loud! There’s a time and place for boutique beers, fine cheeses and red wines, but down here is not one of em.”

Setting up camp consisted of rolling out some basic canvas swags on thin self-inflating mattresses. Once the stoppers had been removed, the expanding foam sucked in air until normal thickness had been reached. Beanie explained that these were not so much for comfort as for thermal insulation from the sometimes frozen ground.

With this laid out, Alex watched with interest as Beanie extracted another kit and spread the ingredients on the ground. He held up a flat card of fine wire from a bag and laid it out. To each end he attached an apple sized rock and hurled them into the foliage until the wire was suspended above his head, with a strip of ribbon cable dropping to the ground from its centre. This process had been well rehearsed and took barely four minutes to complete. He had extracted a tiny radio from the same kit, along with a thin blue lithium battery and connected them together. Then a strange switching device was attached to his right leg with Velcro straps. Sounds of HF radio drifted out of a tiny speaker. Beanie rotated the main dial and soon locked onto a steady stream of Morse code. He tilted his head and slowly nodded, taking it in like a living language. No pen and paper needed.

“That’s Greg out of Hobart. I’ll let him know I’m up.” He began to work the switch device on his leg, generating an extraordinarily rapid Morse signal of his own, strangely able to chat while doing it.

“This is a paddle key. Press one side for ‘dits’ and the other for ‘dah’s’. Nobody uses straight keys anymore – not if they’re serious.”

The contact went back and forth a few more times, then he turned off the radio and stood up. “That’s it. Job’s done. He’ll let Baz know we’ve already nailed the first leg.”

Alex was bemused by this performance. “Why don’t you use a microphone and just talk?”

He shrugged. “I can get through faster and with less power this way. CW works better than voice coms when it gets noisy.” He grinned. “Besides, it kinda grows on you after a while.” He thumbed the motif on his chest, which was a tee-shirt that said ‘I (heart) CW’ where the heart shape was actually a cluster of dots and dashes, which presumably made up the word ‘love’. It was a nerdy shirt that Alex had not understood when he’d seen it earlier in the day.

Beanie quickly put away his radio gear and pulled out some of his food packs. “Right’, let’s get this meal going.”

Alex followed suit. Water was added to a billy of condensed ingredients that he’d purchased. Once heated just short of boiling, it formed a hearty meal of stew with crusty biscuits. They were in full darkness now except for the flickering firelight that reflected from the shiny flood-polished rock wall next to the camp. It was mostly quiet but a constant rumble in the distance that sounded like a nearby freeway was a reminder of the treacherous water they had recently traversed. Alex seized the moment to learn more about the blockade days of the Franklin river protests.

“You said that you were caught up in the protest movement in the early eighties. I'd like to know a bit more about what happened.”

Beanie smiled in the gloom at this, his favourite topic. “It was full-on. There were people everywhere. Lots were hiding up-river, but they were cold, harsh months that rotted the clothes on your back. There were layers of shit going down between the government, the police and us greenies coming and going. Supposedly we were all rightfully inside a National Park, but when the government was getting embarrassed daily, they passed fresh laws to make the target catchment area a construction zone. This meant that we were all illegal campers. So we had to go into hiding. We even made fake camps just for the cops to find, while we doubled back into the water with whatever floated, cos the waterways were still in public access.”

Alex could see that this talk and the gorge that surrounded them was taking him back to those times. “What do you mean about layers?“

Beanie stared at the flames for a while, poked at the coals with a stick, then turned to Alex. “Communications was king. We had to know what the cops were doing, what the construction crews were doing, and where we had to be with our banners and news cameras. When they came gunning for us, we had to be somewhere else, unless we wanted to be caught when the press was watching. I was here with radio gear repeating signals up and down river. Both CB and Amateur radio. It helped the cause. We even had a lot of gear donated from Mainland dealers. Your father was an important part of that network.” He cast more driftwood into the flames and again stirred the coals. Sparks rose like tiny skyrockets and the damp wood hissed as the water within turned to steam.

“The hydro guys knew what we were doing, they had the feds listening to our transmissions and kept trying to find our relay sites. They wanted to isolate the up-river crews and we were the key. There were no mobile phones or satellite phones in them days. Just us, with our HF and VHF links.” He chuckled at the memories that came with his words. “We had a few tricks of our own. We’d back up the crotch of a gully and beam our two metre signals against cliff faces a few kilometres away. They would only be tracking our reflections and we’d see them through binoculars, crashing through the scrub in their green vests looking for us in all the wrong places. We’d piss ourselves watching. Silly pricks would have been better off trying to track our laughter, they never had the feel for radio like we did.”

Alex wanted to bring the discussion back to his main topic. “I thought that Ben was just building a staircase.”

“Originally yeah, but Ben was a charmer. After a while Ben and Salina had a thing going. Salina hated her husband, his politics and what he was doing to the country. She knew she was his property. That prick Kempthorne wouldn’t let her go into town without a couple of goons at her side. Said it wasn’t ‘safe’. A lot of government and HEC men came and went. Their home was a meeting house for our enemy. So Salina stuck it out at the farm. She listened carefully, copied notes and passed them to Ben as he worked on the staircase. Ben was coming and going into town every day or so for construction supplies. Goons in town watched him as well, but they never found the dead-drop we used.”

Alex wanted some clarity here. It sounded like spy-stuff, but he had little doubt that it was the most important thing in their lives at the time. “What kind of dead drop? How did that work?”

Beanie shook his head in the darkness. “Dunno about that bit. I was mostly up-river on hilltops, passing messages, freezing my arse off.”

To his right Alex could see the glow at the tip of Woz’s cigarette brighten with an inhale, then fall dull and move to one side. He spoke for the first time since nightfall. “We used a rock.” There was a short silence before Woz continued. “Down the Kempthorne road there was a teardrop shape bluestone rock. If it pointed down the road, there was no news. If it pointed into the scrub, I had to collect notes from a container stashed in between the trees.”

This was a revelation. “You were there too?”

Woz cleared his throat and spat into the fire. “Yup. I did my bit. I wasn’t gonna let them drown….all this.”

The latter was spoken with a passion Alex hadn’t heard from the man before now. “You knew Ben Caslow as well?”

“Not really. I was told to check for messages and pass them on. I met Ben a few times, but didn’t know him.”

“Who knew about this drop point?”

He pondered this for a bit. “Our leaders knew we had a drop goin, but the only ones who knew all ‘bout it was just Ben and me.” He ruminated briefly. “Yeah. I think Salina knew ‘bout it too.”

“What happened at the end?”

“Ben got busted. It was late in the campaign. I was headin to the drop one day and saw Ben’s car coming the other way in a good hurry. He stopped, wound down his window and said something like. ‘It’s over. They’re onto us and I’ve gotta clear out.’ Then he shot through and I din’t see him again. I hung a U-turn and followed ‘im out.”

Beanie added: “Yeah, I remember getting the message up-river that our source was blown. I was pretty pissed off at the time, but the job was mostly done. A few weeks later the nine judges of the High Court in Canberra ruled 5 to 4 that the dam was going to breach the World Heritage listing. This gave the fed’s the leverage needed to shut down state laws and the dam was stopped. Man, did I get wasted that night!”

“So all your work was for nothing?”

“No way man. It was the whole package that worked. The protests the police, the arrests of regular guys, not just the hippies. A lot of the evidence that Ben got was passed on to Canberra and it all came out in court. If just one judge had voted the other way, right now we’d be under fifty metres of water. Your old man was a hero…and so was Salina, but mostly nobody knew it at the time.”

Alex didn’t reply but just stared at the dying fire for a while.

A few minutes later, Beanie added: “Well, I’m buggered and we’ve got a big day tomorrow.” With that, he slid into his swag. There was little more to be said and the others followed.

Chapter 15

The following morning Alex emerged from his swag, shoulders stiff from the effort of the day before. There were a lot of muscles he’d given a hard time that never saw regular use. Woz had re-kindled the fire and was boiling water in a small billy. It was cold, probably only 3-4 degrees and his breath cut a white trail in the air. At the waters edge half a metre of mist hovered above the river to the far side of the gorge. High up, a line of trees at the cliff edge were bathed in sunlight. It would still be a couple of hours before it worked its way down the walls of the gorge to make brief contact with the river itself. The setting was magnificent. The stuff of a fantasy land. Alex never fancied himself as a tourist, but couldn’t stop himself from capturing a couple of images on his phone. He felt a need to share this vista with Tessa at a later time.

After a brief breakfast of some bagged cereal and a capsule of long-life milk. There wasn’t a lot of chatter. What needed to be done was pretty self-evident. Woz looked over Alex’s kit to ensure all was secure, gave a nod of approval to his efforts and returned his attention to his own craft. The kayaks were re-loaded and the trio returned to the water.

They were travelling faster than most of the tour groups who typically used rafts for this journey, but this would slow down when they linked up with the abandoned supplies of the previous expedition.

The swirling mists of the morning had lifted from the water and began to disperse. The river was broad at this point and its surface was like glass, broken only by the ripples of their own paddles. Alex and Beanie’s craft moved side by side a few metres apart. It was absolutely serene.

Once the rhythm of movement had returned, Alex’s thought returned to what he’d learned the night before. Ben had worked on a staircase – but never finished it, he’d had an affair with the now deceased wife of a powerful politician and he’d been a spy to help save the river on which they now paddled.

This was all very interesting, but as far as his mission went, the remaining task would be to determine if the daughter Helena, was the result of Ben’s affair. Still, circumstances were unusual and right now he was in a unique position to find out more about his father’s origins from a source he may not encounter again.

It would be a stern mind indeed not to enjoy these magnificent surroundings. Thick foliage encroached upon both sides of the river. The vast walls of the gorge reared high above the brisk current that conveyed the three of them down this ancient corridor. That Alex was in one of the most remote locations that planet Earth has to offer didn’t seem to matter much.

Around the bend the river widened out. Beanie answered the question not yet asked. Although they were some metres apart, his voice carried easily over the water. “This is the end of the Collingwood River. We’re just entering the Upper-Franklin proper now.”

As the water widened, the current slowed and they had to paddle more actively to make headway. Woz took the lead across this wider expanse, in a direction that was not obvious. They entered a fresh corridor, a little wider than the last. The water took on a slightly different hue as the water from different catchments blended.

Today would be spent in the Upper Franklin. Beanie chattered away at nobody in particular, but as Woz already knew what was happening through past experience, Alex simply assumed it was for his benefit.

“Normally, we’d paddle away slowly and make the next camp this side of the Great Ravine, but if we keep the pace up, we will go through the Ravine today, then camp on the other side. That’s where we’ll find the kit from the last trip that we need to collect.”

“What are the chances that some of the equipment has been pinched?”

“Nah. Possible but not likely. There aren’t many operators and we all recognise our own kit. We may be competitors, but at another level we keep an eye out for each-other’s stuff, cos out here it makes sense.”

Alex could not help but be awed by the scenery. There was no wind, and the only sounds were the distant chatter of birds and the sporadic dip of their own paddles. At intervals the heavy foliage that lined both riverbanks was broken by ancient bluffs that rose vertically from the waters edge. While still cool, the sun was trying to penetrate the valley and a jagged band of sunlight was working its way down any rock walls it could find on the southern side of the river. He couldn’t recall a time in his past that would come close to beating the devastating beauty that surrounded them. He also began to see what a travesty it would have been to submerge this pristine splendour with a hydroelectric dam. Certainly understanding grew for what had galvanised otherwise passive people into what had become a major protest movement. Perhaps, in a different time, he too would have been one of the throng that had defied the government and their police force.

It was a good time to chat. Speaking normally his voice carried many metres over the water with ease. “Beanie, I’ve been told that Tassie is still a polarised state, all these years later.”

“Yep, it is that. There are those who want to keep our island as a wilderness and those who only see trees and minerals as a job source. There’s not many in the middle. Go into a pub bar and the first thing that happens is the room around you tries to guess which camp you’re into.”

Alex mulled this over. “But people need to have jobs, that’s pretty universal.”

“Yeah, but you’re missing the point here. Most people do. Modern logging and mining don’t need much staff. One guy on a loader can cut, strip and stack a tree into a trailer in half a minute. Another guy carts 60 logs at a time to the mill, where a third one turns them into woodchips and pumps them into a bulk loader sailing to Japan.

But with tourism, a couple travelling the countryside spends money on car hire, accommodation, restaurant meals and with an ounce of luck, tour operators.” With the last words, Beanie thumped the top of his kayak with a Paddle. “The thing about tourism is that the attractions aren’t consumed. They’re still here after everyone’s gone home.”

Alex considered this as he followed in his wake. “But if this is true then why bother with logging at all?”

Beanie laughed. “Ah, well that’s just it then isn’t it? It’s not so much about how much money is earned, it’s who earns it that counts.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow you.”

“Look.” Beanie drew a deep breath to vent on a topic obviously dear to him. “If they cut irreplaceable forests for woodchips and ship em to Japan then the winners are the corporations that pay shareholders and their millionaire directors, who in turn get to sip tawny port with politicians willing to push their agenda. They love to suck up to the big companies for spots on the board when they retire from politics. It’s self-perpetuating and keeps money out of the hands of the little guys.

By contrast, if tourism replaces logging, then the big guys, like the ‘Kempthorns’ get very little. The motel owners, gift shops, tour guides and well…us, do ok instead and we employ more people in the process. So cut away the bullshit and fake newspaper stories and you’ll see it’s not about trees or jobs, it’s a war about who gets the real money. If irreplaceable rivers and forests are casualties, then too bad, it can’t be helped.” He spat in disgust at his own assessment of the situation.

Alex decided to stir the pot a little. “Ok, so isn’t this a capitalism versus socialism debate? Aren’t the corporations just going to say that anyone who stands in their way is just against growth and progress?”

He had wondered if he had gone too far in antagonising the man who was still essential for his survival in this wilderness, but the reply was measured and Beanie shook his head.

“I’ve heard all. ‘we need jobs for the people’ and ‘we need more dams for making free power for foreign investors’. No, it’s all spin and the economics just don’t stack up. They never have. Fuck capitalism, fuck communism, I’m talkin pragmatism.” He paused to look directly at Alex. “Look, when you came here you must have passed through Queenstown. Mining companies turned one of the most ancient forests of the world into a barren wasteland from their own acid rain. When they couldn’t screw it up any more, they said, ‘oh well, too bad’ and buggered off. Pragmatism is what’s left after profit dries up.” He trailed off, mumbling mostly to himself. “Fuck em.”

It seemed like a good time to focus on paddling for a while. Alex wasn’t cold in spite of the low temperatures, with the constant exertion threatening to put sweat on his brow. He could certainly feel tension across the shoulders reminding him of yesterday’s efforts. They made excellent time. The shoreline flashed past from the combination of river current and their paddle work.

The morning wore on. There was always something new to see with every new minute, but a lot of territory was covered. Alex’s shoulder muscles began to burn and he wondered, not for the first time, how these older guys could keep up the pace so easily.

The time for contemplation had passed. Woz raised an arm in the air. Alex wondered about the significance of this, but could hear a faint roar, like distant freeway traffic.

Beanie knew exactly what was happening. “Make for the left bank. We’re having a late lunch before heading into the big one.”

The current was increasing noticeably, but they cut across the water and easily made the small staging area between a pair of immense boulders, wedged between the river and the vertical walls of the gorge.

Alex was relieved and every joint protested as he eased his way out of the craft. The first few steps were staggers. Planting the palms of his hands against one of the large boulders, he spent a couple of minutes progressively stretching the worst of his complaining muscles. He noticed that his companions were doing a bit of this too. It somehow made him feel better to know that he was not the only one suffering.

After the workout, he was still sore, but looser and could now move freely. Lunch was a short packaged snack and a good slake of water. It was a quiet time as each knew what preparation had to be done before entering the next phase of the journey.

They eased back into their craft. In Alex’s case he had the added twinge of anxiety, not quite knowing what to expect from the Great Ravine. It must have been written on his face as he noticed that Beanie was now grinning at him.

“Button up your arse sonny boy. Just like last time, I want you to follow Woz’s lead closely. Look out for a big boulder and stay to the right of it, or else… well, let’s just say I don’t want to call in for another chopper. When we get through, cut hard left and aim for the small beach. That’s where our missing gear is supposed to be stashed.

As before, the river narrowed and the rocky shoreline began to rise high above them, but there was more water this time, it was wide and turbulent. The trio bobbed up and down like corks. As long as they paddled hard, they could sill steer and make choices. The exhilaration of the day before had returned and weariness was thrust aside. The broken water roared and foamed around them and invisible fingers clawed at the entire surface of their craft. On and on they worked the forces, loosing and regaining control by the moment. Time here was not measured in minutes and seconds, just a seemingly infinite now. The body feeding the mind with a dozen unnamed chemicals as they were submerged, flung high and submerged again. Alex wiped water from his eyes with the back of a hand and cut hard right across the face of a huge boulder. He pressed reluctant muscles into action to follow their path, but only just. The rear tip of the kayak cracked into the rock and spun him around and his white plastic paddle raked its black and green side, the tough plastic bending sideways, but springing back into shape. Around the rock Woz and Beanie were making hard for a section of beach in the subsiding foam. The craft were pulled ashore and the nose ends tied to a row of steel pickets. They dropped to the gritty sand and laughed at their survival like a couple of schookids. Time gradually retuned to normal. Woz, still grinning, pointed at the rear of Alex’s kayak. The last ten centimetres of the stern were missing and had been replaced with a rugged triangular hole. The absent section was now dangling from a cord that ran the length of the kayak. “Looks like a dog chewed a hunk out of your arse there young fella.”

Chapter 16

They clambered higher up the tiny beach, leaving a wet trail on the bank where they walked, then sat on the remains of a fallen tree and breathed deep for a spell.

Alex finally found his voice. “Can I not do that again? I have a girlfriend back in Melbourne who worries about me sometimes.”

“Ha!” Beanie gestured to the bow of his own craft. “She may yet have the chance to worry about you. Baz gave me a waterproof camera to record some video footage of your fine work. A week from now you’ll be an internet sensation. It’s all good publicity.”

Alex looked sadly at his broken craft. “Sorry about that. It’s not something that I had planned.”

Woz appeared unperturbed. “S’ok. Collateral damage. When it’s dry, we’ll bandage it up thick with some cloth tape and it’ll last out the trip. Baz will glass it up again back at his factory and it’ll be like a new one.” He pointed higher up on the bank, on a rocky shelf, A partially rolled inflatable was stacked. Together they ascended the shelf and rolled out its shrivelled form, The rafts seat and alloy floor still in place. This move exposed a mound of equipment that had been left behind with it. Swag, paddles, helmet and a pack of personal effects belonging to the stricken traveller. A little dried blood was smeared here and there.

Beanie was the first to speak. “Crikey, what a mess. We’ll unload now and work on a plan to get this lot downriver tomorrow.”

The camp was largely a repeat of the previous night. Beanie sent a message off to report that they had found the missing gear ok. Conversation turned to strategy on how to deal with the extra gear.

Woz had an idea. “We can’t carry this big raft deflated and we can’t put a man in it and still bring his kayak back. We’ll have to bring it back fully inflated, but empty cos if it flips, we’ll loose everything on-board. So we divide the rest of the gear between us. Stuff it inside the kayaks where we can and lash the rest to the outsides. Alex, you travel on your own and we’ll tether the raft front and rear to our craft with about six metres of rope. It’ll be tricky, but if we keep the rope tight, we should be able to steer it between us through the next rapids. With no one in it, the raft will sit high and drag easily across the surface.”

Alex queried, “You’ve both done this before then?” but silence was the clear answer.

Beanie picked up the discussion. “We should be fine cos the ravine was the most intense section. The next couple are longer, but not as rough. Once free of rapids we can transfer the kit back to the raft and take turns towing it as a dead load.”

Woz had lit up one of his cigarette stubs. A glowing red dot in the darkness. “Yup. That’ll work.” There’s not much else to do at the bottom of a cold gorge after dark. The warmest place was in the swags. Sleep came easily.

They awoke shortly after first light, the nearby rush of the mighty Franklin still filling the air with sound. They had hit sub-zero overnight and the airborn water spray had frozen into stiff sheets that flaked off the canvas as the trio emerged stiff and very cold. With numbing fingers, they re-packed the three craft and took turns with the footpump to reinflate the raft. At least this activity warmed them up a little.

The raft was secured between two kayaks as planned. It looked cumbersome, but hopefully would work ok on the water. The next big obstacle ‘Propsting Gorge’ was still some hours away. After that would come the ‘Cascades’, but they still had time to rehearse some manoeuvres. Woz had strapped a knife to the front of the two craft, explaining that if their plan failed at a bad time and the raft hung somewhere, they would just have to slash the ropes to survive.

Alex could feel the extra weight attached to his own kayak, making it sit a bit lower in the water and more sluggish to change direction. Still, he didn’t envy what the other guys would have to endure today.

Gingerly, the trio made for the centre of the river and established a new rhythm. In practise it worked surprisingly well, like beads on a string. Woz maintained the lead and as long as they kept both ropes fairly tight, they could place the raft pretty much where it had do be. This time, Alex brought up the rear. It would seem that his training was complete for the time being and he had earned some trust. More importantly, if something nasty did happen to the pair in front, then maybe he could assist or collect a lost object.

The morning wore on and the towing operation became first routine and then somewhat monotonous. The plan worked and they were able to successfully bring the raft through the next two sections with without too much difficulty. While it was still a rough ride, obstructions were further apart and they were able to hold a clear line through the cascading channels. Another night passed on a riverbank, but without much conversation. They were all pretty weary. Alex’s back and shoulders still ached, but the sensation had levelled off. It looked like his body had made some adjustment to the exceptional demands of the journey. Certainly it was exhilarating and visually stunning, but there was an awful lot of it. While the experience was unique and he had no regrets, he hadn’t quite made up his mind whether he would do it again if asked. That was a question which would probably resolve itself somewhere into the future. But they were through all of the rough stuff now, taking it in turns to tow the raft down the broad and now serene river.

Alex decided it he had to talk more with Beanie. Before long the trip would be over and the opportunity to learn more about his personal quest may pass by. Again, his voice carried easily over the water as they paddled in unison.

“Beanie, I’ve been wanting to ask you about a song.” He paused while the question penetrated. “Stairway to Heaven.” He looked to the man for a reaction and got a long stare in return.

Beanie knew exactly what the question meant. “You saw the plaque then. The one on Salina’s grave. I helped Ben do that.” He dipped his paddle twice and continued. “After the funeral, Ben had to head back to the Mainland for some job and didn’t have time to organise it himself.”

This candid revelation surprised Alex, he’d never really expected to meet somebody responsible for the plaque. “Why is it there?”

“It was their special song. It meant lots to both of them.”

“So was it that materialism thing in the song that people talk about. Salina was a rich girl looking for meaning in her life?”

“No man, you’re not getting it. In the eighties Stairway got played everywhere. The Greenies would sing it around their campfires, but for Ben and Salina it had special meaning. Sure there was the stairway thing because he really was building a staircase for her, but that wasn’t it either. The real meaning is in the words on her grave.” He spoke the familiar words from memory. “It's whispered that soon, if we all call the tune, then the piper will lead us to reason. That’s about everyone supporting the river we’re on now man, right where the fuckin government wanted to dam it. It was about Salina passing government secrets to the TWS through Ben. Then we could all follow Bob Brown’s action plan. He was like the Piper. We all did what he said had to be done.”

It sounded like a bit of a reach, but Alex hadn’t lived through a blockade with daily arrests either. “What about the next part? A new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter.”

“That was the anthem man. Hundreds of us were hiding in the forest for months. When we won, we all felt we could hear all the trees and all animals laughing and thanking us for saving them. Maybe it sounds corny, but we all felt the forest sigh in relief.” He paused and stared at an old memory, but time had not diminished the intensity he must have felt.

To Alex, perhaps just a week ago, such thoughts would have seemed irrational and probably childish. Now with firsthand experience of this vast wilderness, these ideas had substance he could at least appreciate.

Beanie continued. “That’s why we were there man. Even Salina played a part in our win. They suspected Ben, but they never found out exactly where the leaks came from. Papers were found to be disturbed. Ben was the obvious culprit and that was fine, so Salina’s role could stay secret. It meant a lot to Ben too. They knew from the beginning that their time together wouldn’t last. After Salina’s funeral Ben didn’t want her effort to be forgotten either. Ben and me worked it out together, then later I snuck into the cemetery and added it to her grave, just the way Ben asked me to.”

So that was it then. Another piece of the puzzle. Alex was fortunate to have linked up with the one person alive who knew the story.

It was a long stretch of river, they quietly paddled and absorbed their surroundings. The mists lifted entirely and the morning chill went with it. Alex paused to remove his jacket while the other two floated nearby, keeping pace in the slow current. Between the fine lines of foam that still swirled on the surface, the sun shone deep into the amber stained water.

“There’s two things I still can’t figure out. Salina’s daughter, Helena. Do you think that Ben is her father?”

He shrugged. “I dunno about that. Maybe the age is right. Ben would never have known either way. After he got busted, he had to leave the state fast. Kempthorne was pretty pissed. He would have got Ben arrested for something, but not for stealing secrets. The guy had powerful contacts. Probably the cops would have ‘found’ a pile of dope in his kit and nailed him for that instead. It was the usual method. I reckon that the very same dope bag got found on people maybe a hundred times.”

Beanie flicked some water in his direction. “So, what else do you wanna know young-un?”

Alex sighed. This was the big one. “Salina died. She was found drowned in her own lake at the estate after boating by herself. Presumably falling overboard and drowning. A newspaper report said it took the police two days to decide that it was just a solo boating accident. There was no other investigation. Do you believe that?”

Beanie violently shook his head. “No way man. No way. Ben said she was an ace swimmer and could’a crossed the lake a hundred times. I recon that bastard Noel Kempthorne did her in for sure. I dunno why, but I recon he did it. Nobody could prove a thing. He was untouchable.”

It was the part of the tragedy that Alex both suspected and feared. The ruthlessness of Noel Kempthorne knew no bounds and his position had effectively placed him above the law.

There was much to contemplate here and Alex paddled quietly for some time, but their time was up and they rounded a bend to find Baz sitting on a rock in the sun. He had brought the car and trailer to the first possible rendezvous point, removing the need to paddle the extra day mostly in open water.

The craft were all dragged free of the water. Equipment stowed in large tubs and the kayaks lashed inverted to the trailer rack. Before long they were bumping along rough tracks and it was as though the experience had never occurred. Alex knew that it wouldn’t be forgotten and he had learned much about the path that his father had tread those many years ago.

At Beanie’s little ranch Alex transferred his belongings to his own car. They shook hands all round. He’d made some new friends here. Baz insisted that if Alex ever wanted to do it again, that there’d be a spot for him.

Chapter 17

He had intended to call Tessa as soon as he’d returned to his accommodation, Alex didn’t get the chance as his phone erupted with sound shortly after coming within range of the first mobile network tower.

“You’re back then? I’ve been calling you off and on today.”

“Hi Tessa. Yep, I’m back. Bones intact. No blood loss, but jeez it’s good to hear your voice.”

“I won’t pretend I wasn’t worried. It’s a wild part of the world and shit happens sometimes. Look. I’m keen to hear your story, but we’ve had a break on the property search for Ben Caslow.”

“Awesome. What did you find?”

“It’s complicated. We found a reference that a Benjamin Caslow had owned a bush block high up on Bruny Island. Access is poor. Council records turned up about ten acres in his name, but he’d disappeared and not paid his rates. A long time passed while he just raked up debt. The process is slow, but eventually automatic procedures kicked in and the council applied for land acquisition from delinquent payment. There was another cooling off period, but finally the council seized control of the title. The intention was for them to re-sell it by auction, but it’s a remote site of low priority and they hadn’t taken that step yet. This info was very hard to find.”

“That’s an amazing bit of news. I think I’ve heard the name Bruny Island, but I don’t know where it is.’”

“Well, start looking it up, cos mister field agent, you’re going there next. I’m sending a bunch of details by email. Look em over and start heading in that direction.”

“Is there anything on this land? Could be a dead end.”

“On the title, there are no buildings listed. But I called up satellite footage on the internet. It’s mostly forested with a few small overgrown paddocks, but there are at least some sheds showing up. It’s a very old title. It was transferred to Ben about forty years ago from someone called Abraham Knowles, who had it for another forty five years before that. I can’t find anything about that name yet.”

“Ok, that’s worth checking out. I’ll be back at my room soon. I’ll call you from there. And Tessa… It’s only been a short week, but hey, I miss you.”

“That’s high praise for a lawyer. The last time someone said they missed me, they vowed to aim better next time.”

Chapter 18

Bruny Island is actually a pair of islands joined together by a narrow spit of land wide enough for a road and not much else. It lies a short distance from the coast, about sixty kilometres South-West of Hobart, Tasmania’s capitol. To get there one had to drive to the costal village of Kettering and access the hourly ferry service which connected to the island after around twenty minutes of sea-travel.

According to the information that Alex had unearthed, it was mostly farmland, holiday homes and long stretches of forest. At the Southern tip an old lighthouse on a lonely bluff had been warning sailors away from its rocky shores for the past hundred and fifty years.

When he eventually reached the island, Alex was going to have to make his way some distance down the lower section, then turn inland before trying to find access to Ben’s property. The satellite image didn’t show any definite path onto the property, but one corner dipped close to an unmade road. This would be a good place to start.

That evening Alex spent some time on the phone with Tessa. He told her of what had been revealed during the river trip, of how Ben and Salina had been pivotal in passing secrets to the wilderness group in the course of the Franklin Dam fiasco. Plus the emotional chapter of how Ben had a plaque made of song lyrics for Salina’s grave. On face value, there was little to add to their quest of finding possible descendents to Ben, but they were finding a strong connection between the man and this southern island state. All that was learned here would be useful in unravelling the cold trail of this elusive man.

The drive from Strahan to Hobart took several hours. The road penetrated dense forest that skirted the region he’d been kayaking through only the day before, but his river experience already felt like a memory from a different life. Alex had decided to maintain the apartment he’d been renting for a few more days, as there was definitely unfinished business in the region.

Like so many of the roads in this remote land, the scenery was astounding. Almost anything could be living in the dense foliage on either side of the road. Unfortunately, he mused, it won’t include the famous ‘Tasmanian Tiger,’ as the last known Thylacine in existence died in captivity in the 1930’s. Such was the conclusion of a deliberate government policy of the day, to eradicate what was regarded as a pest to farmers. He’d heard stories how local farm boys would sometimes paint stripes on a mangy German Shepard and call it across the road when tourists were approaching, hence rare sightings were still sometimes made, but nothing came from them.

Alex had never been one for politics, never looking deep enough to see the underlying differences between the political parties. He’d mostly relied upon the weak supposition that whoever was in power would always have the interests of the people at heart. Still, again and again, this island state had served as an example that successive governments had screwed up badly. Not once, but many, many times. He could see that with men like Kempthorne running the show, that the wishes of the people were always a long way down their list of priorities.

Hobart is a pleasant city to approach from any angle. The harbour area surrounded by rolling hills of single and double level homes, well spaced between plenty of trees. In the distance, the unique arch of the Derwent River bridge framed the estuary and deepwater port that served the city. Above all of this the majestic Mt Wellington overlooked Hobart, with its imitation rocket ship communications tower extending high above a cloud speckled summit. In the distance Alex spied a bright orange ship moored in the harbour, This distinctive vessel had to be the one serving the research station at Antarctica, a few thousand kilometres even further to the south.

But his business today was not with the town itself, so he let his GPS carve a path due West to the Bruny Island access road, where hopefully a ferry would be waiting.

Actually, there were two ferries working the narrow straight to the island, their travel coordinated for passing at the mid point of each journey. When Alex arrived, timing was good and about twenty vehicles were in the process of loading ahead of him. There was time to kill his engine and wander about the vessel while preparations for departure were being made. Huge hydraulic rams on the shore lifted the vehicle ramp. As soon as an attendant had closed and pinned the access gate, the ferry was underway and a long wake extended from its stern.

Alex climbed steel steps to the pedestrian deck for a better view. The vessel was obviously an old one, but well maintained and fit for the purpose. A chill breeze tore at his hair and clothing so he stepped behind a bulkhead for shelter. Phone access was good, so on a whim he decided to give Tessa a call.

“Hey, I’ll be on the island in another fifteen minutes.”

“Great progress. I’m jealous again. I’m stuck in this office and you’re out there having all the fun.”

“You must be mistaking me for one of your other boyfriends. I’m here strictly on business. No fun at all.”

“Yeah, sorry. For a moment there I had you confused with this other crazy guy who likes to navigate impossible rivers in a canoe. You must be the sensible one then.”

“Dammed straight. Don’t you forget it either.”

The small talk had become a part of the daily routine. They had a serious mission to resolve between them, but as they delved deeper into the past lives of Alex’s father, they were drawn closer together and increasingly relied upon each other in important ways.

“I’m glad you called. I picked up another fact this morning. I was looking for a cash trail for the sale of the property you’re heading for and there wasn’t one. It turns out that Ben inherited this place from this Abraham Knowles guy. It doesn’t help us much but it proves that there was a big connection between them.”

“Ok, I may be able to use that. It’d be good to dig up some more on this bloke. Ben was a carpenter. Maybe there is a connection through the trade.”

“Fair point. I’ll start poking around in that direction. One problem is that a good portion of Tasmania’s records have never been digitised and I can’t reach them from here. We may have to do some legwork at records centres to find what we need.”

The ferry gave a long blast. Alex peered around the bulkhead and saw that they were rapidly approaching the island ramps.

“Ok Tess, I have to go now. I’ll call on the way back and we’ll talk about what I find here.”

Alex returned to his car and waited with the rest to get waved ashore. It was an efficient process and a short time later he was on the road and heading further South. Probably the most Southerly road he had ever travelled before.

The road was excellent and traffic light. Most of the other cars and their passengers had peeled off to the settlement at the ferry port.

The main road south took Alex down the two kilometre long spit that connected the two halves of the island together. Ocean lay on both sides of the road, although to the East it appeared choppy and turbid while the other side lay calm.

Before setting out, Alex had set a GPS waypoint for the spot where a corner of this mysterious property lay closest to a supporting road. Following the prompts to this location, he travelled another ten kilometres then left the bitumen for a gravel track. It was in fair condition and probably serviced a few farms in the area. The track gradually rose in elevation and entered a forest where it narrowed to a set of wheel ruts. Every depression held a puddle which fountained as he passed. There were no fresh tyre marks to be seen, so traffic was evidently uncommon in these parts. Certainly, there had been no phone service for some time. Peering at the tiny GPS screen, it advised him that he was now travelling along Knowles Track. That had to be significant. He’d tell Tessa about that.

The target location was rapidly approaching, however, nothing but trees and bushes lined either side of the track. When he did get there, the site seemed unremarkable. Alex left the car and explored on foot. To the right it looked like there was extra daylight behind the trees, so he headed in that direction. The grass was tall hence he made a point of making a lot of noise as he walked. The website he’d visited had indicated that the island was home to a lot of snakes and he didn’t want any close encounters just now.

The trees gave way to a rusting wire fence and a sea of long grass confronted him. Where there are fences there are usually gates. Alex worked his way to the left and followed the fence line for around two hundred metres and it was still just a fence. He then retraced his steps back to the starting point and continued to the right. The gate was barely ten metres from where he’d begun. A rusting, hand-painted ‘private property - no trespassing’ sign still hung at its centre. Below this, in faded text was the single name ‘Caslow’. The gate was secured to the adjoining post by a simple chain and hook arrangement. On a whim, he paused and used his phone to capture an image of the gate and the paddock beyond.

Unhooking the chain was easy, but it took a lot of effort to drag the gate open through the tall grass. Walking directly to the road he could now see that there was an overgrown access path of sorts.

Back at the car, Alex locked the front hubs, engaged four-wheel-drive and crept through the gate in low range. The path was indistinct, with grass on all sides reaching the height of the car bonnet. It was difficult to tell if he was following a trail underneath or not, but he slowly crawled his way to the top of the rise. On nearing the apex he could see a collection of sheds roofed with rust-brown iron that couldn’t be seen from the road, so he turned and made a beeline for them.

As he approached he could see that there was a certain rustic beauty to this setting. In his mirror there were ocean views in the distance. He found three sheds, two large rambling ones with open ends and a third smaller one, with a stone chimney close to its entry. Leaving the vehicle again, he took a couple of images of this tiny settlement, then approached the first long building. The ground around the buildings had been compacted and the grass was shorter. It became easier to move around. The building had a timber floor which was surprisingly sound. A few metres into this he paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom and gain a better understanding of its interior. The first item was a long bench and a circular saw blade that had to be over a metre in diameter. A complex arrangement of steel rails and cables protruded from this and extended into a yard beyond the shed. It would have been a mechanism for drawing large logs past the blade. A nest of four parallel belts on pulleys coupled the giant blade to an electric motor. Heavy three-phase cables ran from the motor to an immense cube further into the building. Evidently a generator set of substantial capacity.

Wooden objects shrouded in dust were scattered about. He found a stack of round rods, each carved to a familiar shape. These were turned stair rail supports. Sure enough, behind this stack was a second machine. A ancient looking wood lathe. Comprehension resolved as Alex looked about the long room. Here is where parts for staircases had been crafted. Dozens of spare vee-belts in various sizes hung from nails in the rafters. Two unused saw blades of the same immense dimensions leaned against a wall. There was another aspect that caught his attention. He’d been in many a dilapidated farm shed in his working past, but this was different. It was actually very well built. Large joins were mortised and pegged with tapered wedges. Apart from the roofing sheets, there was practically no metal to be seen in the structure. It would have to be the work of a master craftsman. It was hard to put a figure on the age of the building. Sixty? Seventy years? The dust told a story but his guess was still speculative.

A beam of light passed through a hole in the ironwork and added colour to one of the heavy posts that held up the roof. Alex went to the post and rubbed the spot firmly. A fine grain of honey coloured timber was revealed. He knew this look from the staircases he’d seen. This was huon pine. He looked around again in wonder. The entire building was made from it, including the floor that he walked upon. This was the unique lair from which his father had spent many years of his life.

He dodged the worst of the cobwebs, passed through the open end of the first shed and moved onto the next. It was smaller and lower, but construction was of the same style. It contained long racks, mostly empty. Perhaps a third of them contained slabs of timber, both rough cut and dressed. Even from where he stood, he could tell that they were several different types of wood. A storehouse of material for construction projects. Behind the racks he could see the distinctive outline of an ancient truck. Patches of green paint still showing the cabin’s original colour. Immense tyres were flattened and misshapen where they touched the ground. They’d seen better days. Alex recognised the outline of a huge chrome grill. It was an old blitz truck. Its flatbed rear would have been used to transport timber in and out of the workshop. On the drivers door he could see the outline of red and white words arranged in a circle. It read simply ‘Abe Knowles’. Alex took several images of the door.

The entire place was like a living museum that hadn’t seen human visitation in a very long time.

There was one more building to check out. The third, smaller building was an obvious residence. It had a tiny window up high, covered with grime. It looked very tired and may have pre-dated the work sheds he’d just visited. The door was closed, but not locked. Still, it took a good shove for it to open inwards. The interior was very dark. Alex activated the illumination lamp on his phone and panned around. He could see a single room that contained a couple of bunk beds, some once comfy chairs that faced a blackened, open fireplace, a ceramic coated kitchen stove, wood-fired from the look of it. A tall kettle was still perched on a round trivet. On the far wall were some mostly empty shelves studded with large bolt heads. High up on one shelf he spied an ornate cubical box made of wood, with an iron crank handle protruding from the top. A closer inspection yielded little information. It looked a little like a primitive coffee grinder, but lacked any openings. He returned the artefact to the shelf. A hurricane lamp dangled from the ceiling on a jack chain, directly above a dining table, which probably doubled for food preparation.

Alex moved to the fireplace at the end of the room. The floor felt a little soft and spongy in places. Next to the fireplace were the remains of a cut woodheap. Something brushed past his leg as he trod on a corded object. There was a squirm underfoot and suddenly a searing pain gripped his leg. Shining the light to the floor, a black snake had sunken its fangs deep into his leg and was squirming uncontrollably from under his foot. Wasting no time he grabbed it behind the head squeezed tight and forced it to release its grip, then bodily hurled it across the room.

Alex staggered out of the room into daylight and rolled up the trousers on his left leg. Two savage puncture wounds were trailing blood and probably venom.

In spite of the pain, a calmness descended upon him. He spoke out loud. “Well, that was bloody stupid then.”

Limping back to the car, Alex sat in the drivers seat and made a quick assessment. Snake bites were bad news and needed immediate treatment. Doing nothing was not an option. He recalled what little he knew of such things. Cutting off circulation with a belt or similar was not the done thing anymore. The best strategy was a pressure bandage and as little movement as possible to limit venom circulation.

A roll of grey duct tape was within reach from a kit behind the passenger seat. Not bothering to remove his trousers, he wrapped the tape firmly around and around his upper leg and then the wound itself . Again he spoke out loud. “Ok. What’s next? Identification. He grabbed one of the printed information sheets he’d been using and marker pen and wrote ‘BLACK SNAKE BITE LEFT LEG’ on it and thrust it in front of the gauges on the dashboard. “Right, now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

The pain of the puncture wounds in his leg were now being eclipsed by a powerful burning sensation. Nobody had been here for years. Nobody was coming to save him. His phone, still lay on the floor of the room where he’d dropped it. It didn’t work here anyway. The only person who knew where he was, Tessa, was more than a thousand kilometres away in a different state. In 20-30 minutes he may be unconscious.

Alex started the engine and planted his right foot on the accelerator. He retraced the flattened grass of the paddock at breakneck speed. Broke free of the gateway and accelerated again down the road. The pain in his leg intensified making him swear loudly and he began to sweat uncontrollably. Through all this, multiple thoughts coursed through his mind. Take it easy, hurry up, don’t hit a tree. How many minutes to the main road? How fast was I going before? How fast am I going now? I feel sleepy. Fuck this hurts! Hazard lights. Where’s the bloody hazard light switch in this bloody car. It’s that triangle isn’t it?

Progress was fast, but his vision began to swim horribly. The large four wheel drive plunged out of the gravel road onto the bitumen. It was all he could do to plant the brake pedal and stall the car broadside across both lanes. Then a cloud of blackness descended and Alex passed out.

Chapter 19

An eternity of delirium came and went. There were loud noises in there somewhere. I’m lying down, but I feel pretty good between these crisp sheets. Why am I lying down? Why are my eyes closed? Alex opened his eyes. The brightness made them tear up, but slowly resolved into a lemon coloured ceiling. A woman in uniform leaned over him. “You’re back with us then?” She was replaced by a man in a white lab coat. Some details swung back into focus and he found his voice. “So I’m not dead then. That’s a good thing.”

The doctor grinned a little. “You know that you’re always supposed to ask ‘where am I?’ Don’t you ever watch TV?”

Alex tried to shrug but only succeeded in blinking. “Nope, don’t care. Someone’s bound to tell me sooner or later.”

The doctor thumbed an aluminium clipboard briefly before dropping it into a mesh bracket at the foot of the bed. “That was a slick move writing down what bit you and where. Probably saved you. Treatment started in the helicopter.”

“I rode in a chopper and missed it? Bugger.”

The doctor must have felt that the best thing now was to engage his patient. “You realise that statistically, you’re much more likely to be fatally thrown off a horse than being bitten by a snake.”

“Mmm… Can’t bear horses. Where does white-water rafting fit in with your statistics?”

“I’m sure they’re up there somewhere. You should rest a little and we’ll talk some more. Recovery ought to be fast.”

Alex balled his fists and rubbed his eyes for a few seconds, then dropped them back to the bed.

“Is there a phone around here? There’s a certain lady who will be keen to give me an ass-kickin about now.”

“No need. There’s an angry woman just outside that door probably strapping on a large boot as we speak. Should I let her in?”

He grinned. “Yeah. Now would be good. I’ll make a harder target while I’m still lying down.”

The doctor left and was replaced a short time later by Tessa. She looked tired and dishevelled. “You silly bastard. What were you thinking?”

“And it’s nice to see you too. Kind of you to call in here. While I’m thinking of it, where is ‘here’? I wanted to ask the doctor, but I told him I didn’t care and after that, it would have been un-cool to bring it up.”

“Hobart hospital. Snake bite wing. It probably has a proper name, but that’s what I’m calling it.”

She dropped heavily into a vinyl padded chair next to the bed.

“Yesterday I was in my office thinking ‘why the hell hadn’t you called back yet?’ and one of the partners wanders past casually and says, ‘Hey, you’ve got a guy down Tassie at the moment don’t you? I heard a news report on how a couple of tourists found a guy with a snake bite blocking the road on Bruny Island? An air ambulance picked him up.’

She grimaced “I figured that it had to be you. I pulled out some stops getting a flight here on short notice.” She shook her head. “You stupid bastard. Don’t scare me like that again.”

“Ok. From now on, I promise never to do another stupid thing. But for the record, don’t enter both my name and ‘Franklin River’ into an internet search, or some video footage may pop up that you won’t want to see.”

This just produced a glare.

“Look, I’m nodding off here. I think they may have slipped me a mickey or two. Give me an hour and call back. But in the mean time, I’ve got an important job for you. Contact the Council office for Bruny Island. Tell them that I want to buy the Caslow property back from them as soon as possible. Price is not important. I’ll explain later.” Alex closed his eyes once more.

The next twenty four hours were a bit of a blur. Two police constables called by wanting some details for their report. They asked where he had been when bitten by the snake and what he had been doing in the area. Alex saw no need to draw undue attention to his father’s old property and told how he wanted to look around, with the eventual aim of visiting the lighthouse, had driven up the gravel road a ways, decided it wouldn’t get him anywhere, but before turning around, got out for a pee against a bush when he’d unwittingly trod on the snake. He made his way back to the main road and that’s the last he remembered. They weren’t looking for much, as no laws had been broken and this description satisfied them. They were there largely as a matter of determining jurisdiction. As the incident had occurred on the roadside and he was extracted from his car, it was determined to come under the umbrella of the Transport Accident Commission, this simple act ensured automatic cover for the air ambulance. Had it been otherwise, he’d receive a hefty aviation bill for his insurer, or failing that, his own pocket.

They did rereveal that his car had been collected by a local tilt-tray service under police direction and had been carted to a compound next to the island ferry terminal, pending the completion of their investigation. After his release, he’d be free to return to the island and collect it.

A couple of journalists called by. One from a newspaper and the other from a networked TV station. They were wanting more on the story of a tourist who’d made a rare escape from a snake bite by air ambulance. To their annoyance, they didn’t get to see Alex. Tessa read a brief statement to them made up of the same sparse details and dull words that had been given to the police. Without any prospect of a picture of the patient, the story was much smaller and they departed with disappointment.

A doctor had spelled out the situation. If a snake bite doesn’t kill you outright and an appropriate antivenin has been dispensed promptly, then recoveries tend to be swift. Medical centres are always keen to turf out survivors without much ceremony. The following morning Tessa accompanied Alex from the hospital to her hire car. Muscles were stiff and he could do with a good feed, but he was feeling otherwise ok.

“We can go and collect your car from the ferry terminal this morning, or put it off a little if you like.”

“No, I want to do it now if we can. There’s another reason. I dropped my phone when that snake did its thing. I have to go back to retrieve it.”

Tessa was indignant. “You really are a thrill seeker aren’t you. Whatever happened to ‘once bitten, twice shy’? If this joe blake gets you again, you’ll go down on national news as the stupidest person alive. Or dead, as the case may be.”

Alex laughed it off. “To be sure, I‘ll be extremely shy. I’ll take my brightest light, a whacking stick and make a lot of noise. I need to return and I hope to do so many times in the future. There’s no real reason to put it off. Plus, you need to see this place for yourself.”

Tessa drove them to the ferry terminal in the tiny 2-door hatchback she’d hired. She chatted absently as they drove. “Once we get back from the island with your car, I want to do some record searches while I’m in town. You’ve dragged me away from my work for a couple of days, we may as well make the most of it. There’s a small law firm here we sometimes have dealings with and they’ll help us out.”

Alex gazed out of the passenger side window. After driving his larger four wheel drive for some time, it felt strange sitting this close to the ground in a passenger seat.

As before, their timing was fortunate and they did not have long to wait for the ferry. The sun was high and it was shaping up to be a pleasant day. They didn’t say much, but stayed close together experiencing the fresh ocean breeze from the bow of the vessel, enjoying the moment. Tessa squeezed his hand briefly. In turn Alex placed an arm around her shoulders. She stared into his eyes. “Please don’t scare me like that again.”

A gull landed on the railing a scant metre away and squawked at nothing in particular. “I’m not much of a risk taker Tess. I avoid stuff that hurts. The thing is that I’m moving around a lot and shit happens. I try to improve the odds, but I won’t hide from life.”

She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Yeah, I know that.”

By unspoken agreement, they both turned back from the railing and returned to the little car. It was not going to be long before the ferry reached its mooring.

Chapter 20

As soon as they reached the bitumen Tessa broke hard right and parked near the gate of the adjacent compound. They could see Alex’s car waiting on the far side. A small portable building faced the entrance to the yard. The outline of a person at a desk was visible through heavily tinted glass. Upon his approach the glass slid open by a mere two centimetres. A voice from within said “Wochyaafta?” having condensed a well rehearsed sentence into a single word. Alex nodded towards the ford and explained his needs. “Ahh. Yer the snake guy. Yer not dead then.” He agreed that this was the case and passed his drivers license through the gap. It was duly passed under a copier and the resulting sheet was stapled to another document out of view. The license and a familiar looking bundle of car keys was passed back. “All yours mate. Have a good-un and don’t muck around with them snakes. S’not good for yer, ya know.” He nodded in agreement and the glass snicked shut. Conversation over.

Alex and car emerged from the compound and followed the road inland. Tessa fell in behind with her rental car.

The return to the Caslow estate was uneventful, but despite his recent mishap he was looking forward to it. Thoughts about this enigmatic property had been prominent since his first visit. He also relished sharing this discovery with Tessa. It felt like an important step in understanding more about this elusive man and the family he never had.

When they reached the property, the gate was still open and his previous path of flattened grass was still partially visible. Fearing that the little rental car would have ground clearance issues, they parked it at the roadside and Tessa joined him in the larger vehicle.

As before, the rustic collection of buildings emerged from the field of tall grass as they approached the summit. Alex parked close to the living quarters, noting that the door was still ajar. A reminder that he had departed in a hurry, not long ago. With some trepidation they entered the room, this time armed with a portable lamp and a defensive stick, but there was no sign of any reptiles.

The phone was still on the floor where it had been dropped. Its light would still have been on, so it was going to need a charge.

They resumed a search of the room. Tessa shone the light on a short bookshelf. Apart from the enigmatic box, There were a few ancient looking hardcover books on carpentry, a cluster of crumbling Louis L’Amor western stories and an unopened can of ‘Ardmona’ peaches with rusty edges. There wasn’t much else to see. A heap of mildewed bedding looking like it was fit for burning was on a slatted bed-base

Alex rubbed his chin in consternation. Stepped outside to look at the building exterior, then stepped in again. “Something’s not right.”

He made his way towards the rear wall one more. “There’s not much in it, but the building is a bit longer on the outside, than the inside.” The wall was patterned with horizontal boards between sturdy shelves. At intervals were large hex bolt heads protruding from the bottom of small square recesses in the wood. Evidently, the bolts held the wall or the shelves together.

Tessa was bemused. “I just see a wall. What are you getting at?”

Instead of replying Alex went back to the first shelf of his previous visit and brought down the box with the mysterious metal crank. It was surprisingly heavy. Turning it over he could see a hexagonal receptacle. When the crank was turned the receptacle moved slowly. Speaking out loud, he ventured. “There must be a reduction gear in here.” He carried it back to the rear wall and tried to place the box over one of the studs, but it wouldn’t fit within the square recess. Alex tried the second stud, which seemed like a closer fit. By rotating the crank through a quarter-turn, the box dropped into place, like it ought to be there. He turned to give Tessa a wide grin and began to rotate the crank.

After three full turns, there was a low creak and one-third of the wall, complete with shelves, began to retract. It sunk by a good three-hundred mil, then began to ease sideways behind the fixed portion of the wall. It took a further twenty turns before the mechanism hit a backstop and the crank would turn no further. Another set of shelves presented itself, almost a metre behind the original ones. These shelves held perhaps twenty cylinders of paper and several small boxes. All were adorned with dust encrusted cobwebs.

Tessa was incredulous. “That’s awesome. How did you know?”

“Back in the hospital I had some thinking time and it occurred to me that something was missing. You don’t run a construction workshop on this scale without a lot of documentation, but I didn’t see any on my last visit. It had to mean I just hadn’t found it yet. This is a remote place, probably unattended for long periods of time. You wouldn’t leave valuable drawings just scattered about. I asked myself what would a master craftsman of wood do?” He gestured expansively to the shelves. “I think that we just had that question answered. Let’s check it out.”

Tessa held up the lantern for illumination while Alex unfurled some of the paper rolls. They were detailed diagrams of staircases. Dust was heavy and rose as motes in the point-source illumination of the lamp. The charts were hand-drawn in pencil with great intricacy. Every element had dimensions and angles in fine hand-written notation. There should be a way to identify each sheet, like a legend box of some kind, but none was in evidence. Then in the top right corner there was a name inside a hastily draw circle. It was April, Alex’s mother.

Alex held up another, smaller chart and looked in the same position. Circled again was a name. This time Salina. Attached to the corner was a single photograph of a smiling woman standing with her arms resting on the handrail of a partially completed stair. He unclipped it from the sheet and examined the face in the print under a stray beam of light. It looked very much like Helena. Wordlessly, he slid the image into his wallet.

“This is an amazing find Alex”

He nodded with enthusiasm and refocused his attention on the plans by pressing the curled sheets flat to the table. “If nothing else, we now have solid view of what the staircases look like. It’s going to help a lot.”

After a few minutes Tessa’s gaze returned to the exposed shelves. “Let’s check out a few of these boxes.”

Each box had a loose-fitting cardboard lid, but it had done the job and preserved the contents well. Mostly they held loose-packed receipts for hardware purchases. It would be difficult to relate them to specific jobs. They did spot a docket headed by a familiar timber yard in West Wyalong.

Next to these boxes sat a dusty red-tartan biscuit tin. Tessa pointed it out and Alex carried it to the table for closer investigation. There were only a few items inside. A folded photocopy of a land title. It was fragile and flaky. Probably a relic from an early thermal copier. There were a couple of paper ten dollar notes, looking a little strange with the now redundant ‘Commonwealth of Australia’ heading on a blue background. Plastic notes had long since replaced such currency. The last item was peculiar. It was a series of notepad sheets that had been stuck together in a long strip with yellowing sticky tape. On this was a rough hand-drawn sketch of a spiral stair that had eight complete turns and no intermediate landings. It made little sense, as who could use such an unlikely construct? Perplexed, they both shrugged. Tessa took an image of the plan an title document with her phone, then returned them to the metal box.

It was a rare cloud-free day and the sun continued to stream through a small window which cast a square of illumination on the table top. Working together, they unrolled each of the scrolls and systematically photographed them under the good light.

All rolls, bar the one titled Salina, were carefully placed back on the shelves. With that done, Alex returned to the drive box and slowly cranked the handle in the reverse direction. Slowly the wall panel returned to its original position.

They withdrew to the outside and Alex guided Tessa through a tour of discovery within the remaining buildings.

As they moved from place to place, Alex pointed out key items that had previously caught his attention. He waved his hands expansively. “On one hand, it’s a load of junk, but it’s also the key to Ben’s past. If you can contact the regional council for me – and they’ll let it go, l want to buy this property.”

“I’ll check it out. The place has been off the radar for a long time. Worth a try.”

Together they examined the old truck and the slabs of stored timber. Alex explained the significance of the find. “The mere fact that it’s all still here says that nobody knows about it, cos if they did, it’d be long gone.”

Tessa nodded. “Ok, so what’s next?”

“Back to Hobart. Do some record checks. See if we can find out anything more about the old guy, Knowles. Then I want to head back to Strahan for a final round.”

“Sure. It’s looking like we’ve reached a pretty cold trail so far. We’ll have to wrap it up soon.”

Alex had been observing Tessa during their short visit. Of the women that he’d met, most would have tread delicately, reeled back from the rustic decay and beat a bored retreat to the car. Tessa was not like that. She’d looked long at the style of the old sheds, the abandoned truck and run her hand through the years of accumulated dust to feel the lustre of the timber below. Like Alex had done on his first, albeit brief, visit she was trying to see into the past to a time when the roar of saw blades and odours of fresh-cut timber filled the air. Looking back to a different era when this tiny settlement had been a living workspace.

The return trip was a quiet one. Both contemplated the significance of this find. Tessa was determined to attempt a purchase of the property on behalf of Alex. Its precise status was unclear but it seemed that the freehold title had eventually devolved to council ownership when Ben Caslow failed to return. Its prior owner, Abraham Knowles, would also be a subject of research, but it was likely to be another cold trail.

They returned to the small motel room in Hobart that Tessa had booked. Access was via a short flight of steps and a heavy sliding glass door that rumbled on chipped rollers as it was dragged open. It had been decorated with ubiquitous shades of white. An old building that had suffered many layers of paint and renovation. The day had been a long one.

With few words spoken, they dropped to the large bed and cast aside the many cushions, towels and mini soaps, then rolled into each-others arms. The room was warm and quickly they slowly divested each other of clothing. She ran her hands over his bandage leg, which drew a sharp intake of breath from this still tender wound. She smiled wryly at his grimace. Her hand didn’t stop there and a short time later the pain of the snake bite was forgotten.

Chapter 21

The return journey to Strahan was uneventful. Cloud dropped low between hilltops and a steady drizzle spattered the windshield between slow wipes.

That morning he’d taken a closer look at the Salina drawing as he’d come to reference it. The staircase was a relatively simple one, compared to the others that he’d seen. It had never been completed by Ben, as he’d been sacked part the way through the job. What the Kempthorne’s had in their country home would be something a little different to this plan. Before departing Hobart, he’d taken the plan to an office supplies shop and made two full-sized copies. Then he’d posted one of them to Helena in a cardboard tube, without a cover letter and only his name as the sender. Despite her reticence, it was important to continue the conversation. Perhaps this would shake things up a little. He felt sure that she would understand its significance.

The room in Strahan was as he’d left it, but now much colder, probably somewhere in single digits. The reverse-cycle air conditioner rapidly restored a workable temperature. The drive had been a long one and after dropping to the two-seater couch, Alex slid into an uncharacteristic afternoon doze.

A lot had been going on in the past weeks, with meeting new people, kayaking a wild river and frightening encounters with wildlife. It was as though a jigsaw puzzle had been dumped on the table from the box and a thousand pieces were there to be put together. A couple of these pieces must have made a connection as he slept. When he awoke an hour later, he knew what he had to do next.

Alex returned to the car and headed for Kempthorne Lane. As before, it took him deep into forest, but this time he drove with the driver-side window lowered, then slowed to a crawl and carefully examined the edges of the road. He recalled what Woz had said while they had been Up River. Somewhere along here there was a dead drop that Woz and Ben Caslow had used to pass messages, but in the end they’d both scattered when Ben looked like being caught. At this crawl it took nearly twenty minutes to reach the twin pillars that signified the Kempthorne Estate, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Dense foliage of native forest came right up to the ridge of stone and soil that marked the edge of the bitumen. Alex executed a U-turn in the open space before the pillars and headed back towards the town. This time he surveyed the opposite side of the road. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was dropping below the hills. Already light levels were suffering.

After about ten minutes of this he stopped and backed up. There was a dark patch that had been churned up on the roadside soil. Alex left the car for a closer look. A black rock, probably three times the size of those around it protruded from the soft soil. Probably churned multiple times by road crews over many years. He picked it up and hefted it in one hand, removing excess soil with the other. It was teardrop shaped and a fair match for the pointer stone that Woz had described.

He returned to the car for a powerful handheld lantern, then entered the adjacent forest. It was solid with vines and moss-covered fallen logs. Lines of dull fungus clung to dark timber deep in the shadows, which flared into bright colours as fleeting torchlight washed over them. His hands were quickly crusted with slime and rotten bark as he found balance clambering over the fallen wood between massive trunks. Anything beyond his projected beam of light was in near darkness.

About ten metres in, he spied the remains of a large stump that had sheared at waste height, perhaps a century before. He shone the light into its core and saw a large, filthy jar, black with mould. He plucked it up and turned it in one hand under lamp light. The lid was still secure and something was inside. This was the last drop. The one which had never been collected. Alex began to retrace his steps back to the car. It would be incredibly easy to get bushed and wonder aimlessly into the forest. He was relieved to step back onto the road only a few metres from where he’d plunged in. It was quite dark by the time the big ford pulled up in front of his apartment.

Before depositing it in the kitchen sink, he took the time to take an image of the relic, then the grime was washed away to reveal a tall jar with a good seal, probably intended to preserve fruit.

It was with some trepidation that Alex slowly worked open the lid. Inside, he knew he’d find a letter that had rested unseen since his father had placed it there around thirty five years before. It was tight, but with steady pressure began to yield. The lid came away clean and a pungent chemical odour was released. Inside was a scrunched cylinder of paper which he tipped onto the table and carefully rolled flat. It was a little crisp, but the sheet was a plain white blank. He turned it over. On the rear were two scrawled, hand-written sentences in pencil. ‘Meeting between Noel Kempthorne and HEC managers. This stuff is gold!’

He stared at it wistfully for a minute and was then interrupted by a familiar two-tone chime from his mobile.

“Hey Tessa, what’s happening?”

“I found some info on Ben’s property, or at least about its original owner, Abe Knowles. The guy whose name’s on that old truck.” She continued without waiting for a reply and began reading from notes. “It seems that he had a reputation of his own. In Hobart there’s a classic building called the ‘Theatre Royal’. It was built in 1837. By the 1940’s it was falling apart and it received funding for major renovations. You probably can guess where this is going. Abraham Knowles shows up as a master craftsman and did restoration work on balustrades and ornate woodwork.”

“That makes sense. If Ben was going to learn the trade from anyone, it had to be from a specialist. Is there anything more?”

“I’m looking through a book here about the theatre and its restoration. It says that Abraham had emigrated from the UK in his late-twenties where he had been doing church construction work. This got him some regular work during the depression years. It also mentions that he also spent some time in Melbourne during the rebuild of the Regent Theatre after a big fire in 1945.”

“There must be a whole back-story somewhere about how Ben Caslow became involved and eventually took over his business.” He thought wistfully about this for a moment. “Probably we’ll never know the details.”

Tessa agreed. “Yeah, we could pick up a link or two yet, but it’s not likely to help us with our problem at hand. Any luck your end?”

Alex launched into details of his successful recovery of the dead-drop jar. He finished with a description of the mostly blank sheet and its enigmatic message. “It must have said something good once, but there’s nothing left now.”

“Blank and crisp, you say. Did you notice any odd odour when the jar was opened?”

He nodded. “Mmm, yes, like a bad vodka smell.”

“Ok it’s thermal paper. We sometimes strike this with old documents from 70’s and 80’ before plain-paper printing was normal. It’s thermal paper. It’s a copy of an original document that has faded.

“So, what can I do with it?”

“Try heating it.” She hesitated briefly. “Somewhere in your room there ought to be a hair dryer. Give it some gentle heat. The paper will react slightly different wherever there was some original print. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make something out, but it won’t last long. Don’t overdo it or the sheet will just turn black. Be ready to photograph it before it fades again.”

“Ok, hold on. I’ll put you on handsfree.”

Tessa could hear the change in room noise and echo as he entered the bathroom.

“I found a drier.” The small speaker roared with the sound of the blower for a full minute. Over the top of this she heard the words “It’s working” and silence followed.

“Come on, don’t keep me in suspense.”

“It’s the minutes of a meeting, or a hasty copy of them. It must have taken place at Kempthorne’s house.”

Alex flattened it out and began to read.

…getting too much sympathetic coverage on the mainland. Passive protests have continued for too long and gained mainstream support.

Police have insufficient legal grounds to shut them down without drawing additional bad publicity. Contractors at dam sites are approximately three months behind schedule”

He paused. “Are you getting this?”

“Don’t you dare stop now.”

N. Kempthorn moved that a cash fund needs to be established to reimburse select police operatives for their additional work. Negotiations are mostly complete for our operatives to infiltrate protest events and initiate a violent attack upon police in-camera.

Primary objective is to provide police with the necessary justification to raid Wilderness Society HQ, initiate arrests and confiscate equipment. Key activists have already been identified and targeted.

Second objective is to demonstrate and record the breakdown of the non-violence pact with TWS, enabling police to carry firearms and respond with greater force at barricade sites

Mole team will be briefed to use key identifying words to police during attacks. Select officers at the receiving end will be informed in advance and be prepared to simulate bloody injuries in-camera. Group arrests will follow. Once arrested, our team members will be separated from other detainees and escorted directly to the mainland by charter flight.

Cash payment to team members will be...

“That’s all of it. If there was more, it was never copied.” He lifted his phone and took an image of the document. “Jeez, these bastards were playing for keeps. If this is the sort of stuff was Ben was smuggling out for the protest movement, no wonder they were loosing it.”

Tessa’s voice continued to stream from the tiny speaker. “But I don’t think it happened. I can’t remember reading about violent police attacks. This message drop was right at the end of the protest movement, so maybe they never got to play this out before federal intervention shut it down. That makes this paper an interesting historical document, but not much else.”

“It reinforces what a violent mongrel Salinas husband was. Unfortunately, none of this helps us right now. Either Helena is related to Ben, or she isn’t. If we can find that out, then we get to wrap this up. And move on”

“Agreed. So, I hope you still want to make this move on Ben’s property.”

Alex was resolute. “Absolutely. As soon as you can. What’s the news from Hobart?”

“Yes. It’s looking good. The council will settle. It looks like they’re on a fundraiser to divest spurious lands for cash. They recognise that it had belonged to your father and will make a settlement deal. A holding deposit has been paid. A title search is underway and a sixty day settlement is scheduled.” Looks like you’re going to be a landowner.” Better start shopping for a lawnmower and a frayed straw hat.”

Chapter 22

In the morning Alex made his way to the café he’d originally patronised.

It felt like matters were drawing to a close in this town. He’d not been successful in proving there were any surviving relatives. While he’d learned much about his fathers origins, none of it was helping Tessa and her law firm. Alex had arranged to meet Tessa later that day back in Hobart where he’d sign some forms regarding Ben’s old property. After that, Tessa would fly back to Melbourne and he’d follow a short time later by ferry.

Café trade was slight and there were many tables to choose from. It was a cool morning and not much warmer inside. Heating it would seem was a luxury not often supported by the vendor. Still, the breakfast menu was extensive and just looking at the range reminded him of how hungry he’d become. They were good for a solid meal of scrambled egg and cooked tomato, with a large froth-topped coffee on the side. Unbidden, one of the young women clearing tables added a jug of water and empty glass. He nodded in appreciation and she continued to work the tables with a damp cloth. Alex picked up a newspaper from a recently vacated seat and began to read. The Tit-for-tat roadshow of American electoral politics dominated the news, proving that even this remote part of the world wasn’t immune to the circus of cheap news feeds.

He looked up as the door bell jangled.

Helena had entered the café. Dressed the same as he had seen her a week before, in longcoat and beret. Her face stern, and tight-lipped under a slightly excessive veneer of makeup. She looked around the room, spied Alex, then carefully lowered herself into the vacant seat opposite his own.

He said nothing, but smiled politely and awaited her opening discourse.

“I recognised your car out the front of the café and wanted to talk to you.” It was stated in a way that left little doubt that he would have no say in this action.

“I take it that you have adequately dealt with the man who had failed to service your car?”

She shrugged dismissively as if it were already old news. “Businesses in these parts that don’t do what I want, don’t stay in business for long.” When he didn’t reply, she continued. “I wanted to thank you for your help at the roadside.”

There had to be more to it than a message of gratitude. Alex grew weary of her sullen attitude and made it known that he too could be direct. “You would be thanking me more if you would tell me what you know about my father.”

She nodded. “When we first spoke, you caught me by surprise. I’m - sorry” It was evident that these were two words which did not come easy. “Ben Caslow’s was present here before I was born. When my mother died, as her only daughter, I inherited most of her effects. Among them I found some letters. Personal letters and notes that my father would not have known about.”

“They made references to my father?”

“Yes. Back when they met, this town was under siege from the largest protest movement Australia had seen. My father was powerful back then. He was a government minister and had close ties to those who ran the Hydro Electric Commission. It would have meant a lot of money to him had the Franklin River project gone ahead.”

Without invitation, she filled the empty glass with water from the complimentary bottle and took a sip. “My parents were getting our house built at the time. Your Ben Caslow was hired to build our staircase. In the letters my mother spoke of him with great affection. It was pretty clear that she had an affair with him.”

“Did your father know about this?”

“No, not initially. I’m not sure. There was a scandal. Before the stair work was finished, Ben was sacked and run off the property. Someone else finished the job later. Somewhat poorly from what I can gather. In Salinas belongings I found some drafts of letters that she’d sent to him. My mother was devastated, but she had been passing information to him. Ministerial secrets and their plans to derail the protest movement. My father must have found out about this. I always new him as a spiteful and angry man. I only have the dimmest of memories about my mother. I grew up being raised by housekeepers and a boarding school in Hobart. My brothers were much older than me. I never saw much of them.”

“I found an old newspaper clipping that said your mother drowned in a boating accident. Do you believe that?”

“I was barely three years old when she died , so I never knew differently and never doubted what I’d been told... That was until I found some of her notes about ten years ago, stashed in a pouch in a music box. It included a letter. An un-sent one, dated a week before she died. It said that she was planning to leave my father, take me as a young child, then go to look for Ben. She was afraid of my father and that it was difficult to leave. It was even difficult for her to visit town without others knowing.” She paused and looked directly at Alex. “My mother wrote that she was going to get some proof of my father’s hatred and put it where Ben would find it. I don’t know what that meant. Apart from letters, every trace of her has been deleted from my family home. I have no photo’s of her. This final letter was dated a week before she was found drowned in our lake. Death through misadventure. I looked it up. There was no investigation.”

“Where is your father now?”

“He is old. He’s in care at a nursing home.” Her voice quietly trailed off.

“Do you think he was responsible for your mother’s death?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Certainly he was capable of it. He is a petty and vindictive man and destroyed a good many people. When he dies, few tears will be shed and none shall come from me. My brothers are not much better. They just bide their time for a slice of inheritance”

Growing up in the Kempthorne family would not have been a lot of fun.

“I have only one more question and it’s an important one. Because of your age and perhaps because of your looks, do you think Ben Caslow could have been your father?”

Helena looked at him carefully before answering. “I don’t know. The situation is complex. I have older brothers all presently vying for their cut of our father’s estate.” She smiled thinly at this. “We are a family fuelled by greed and my father is worth many millions. They would like nothing better than to increase their share of the estate by finding reasons for subvert my claim.” She paused to take another sip from the glass. “So even if it were true, I’m going to say no. Definitely, nothing ever happened between your father and my mother. I would be bound to fight any such assertions. Do you understand what I am saying?”

He nodded slowly. There was a lingering silence and Alex stared at her face, the cheeks and line of her jaw could have matched what he saw daily in a mirror. Finally he said “Wait.” Withdrawing his wallet, he thumbed through the layers, withdrew the small print of Salina and slid it across the table.

She paled and the surprise on her face was tangible. “Where did you…”

“It’s complicated, but now this is yours.”

Clutching the print, Helena looked thoughtfully at the man who could be her half-brother and stood up to leave.

“Helena..” She paused where she stood, one hand resting lightly on the head of the chair, waiting for him to continue. “We may not meet again, but please accept some advice. This place is killing you. Leave. Go somewhere else and enjoy a life outside of your family’s toxic shadow.”

A spectrum of emotions creased her face and she looked close to tears. Her chin dropped in a barely perceptible nod, before she turned away and left the café.

Alex sat there for a long time, thinking about what she’d said. There was a fair likelihood that they shared Ben as a father, but she would have nothing of it. Although Ben’s bequest through the executors could be worth a million dollars to Helena, accepting it could cost her ten times that amount from the Kempthorne estate when he finally died. He could understand why she would not want her lineage scrutinised too closely.

Alex looked at the clear glass from which Helena had taken a sip. He’d heard that for a few hundred dollars one could take such a glass and send it off for DNA analysis, along with a sample of the person’s own blood. They could look for a genetic match. Then he’d know for sure if there really was a blood tie between them.

He thought about it a little more, then finished his breakfast and departed the café with the water tumbler still sitting on the table, exactly where Helena had left it.

Chapter 23

Back at his accommodation he packed the rest of his clothing into a large canvas bag. On the way in he’d caught the eye of the owner doing some garden work. She gave him a sour look until he revealed he’d be leaving a few days early without seeking a refund. Her expression slowly changed into something approaching a smile.

Alex slid behind the wheel and hesitated, ignition key in hand. His thoughts returned to that last conversation with Helena. Something she’d said bothered him and an unresolved comment tugged upon his memory.

He replayed her words in his mind, then stopped. ‘Mother was going to get some proof of my father’s hatred and put it where Ben would find it.’

The letters had been written when Helena was just three, long after Ben had returned to the mainland. Nothing could have been stored within the staircase. It had been completed by another carpenter after Ben had left, meaning that he’d never have seen the finished work.

Salina had been virtually a prisoner in her own home and couldn’t go far, yet where could she have left something that only Ben could find.

He tapped the steering wheel with his index finger for most of a minute.

Then it clicked. There could be only one place that fitted this puzzle. The dead drop in the forest where Ben had been leaving messages for Woz during the time of the protests. According to Woz, Salina was only one of three who’d known where this dead drop was located. He had to go back.

Alex started the engine and headed directly for Kempthorne lane. This time he knew where to stop. Again he took his powerful hand lantern and fought his way into the forest. The stump that held the first message was easy to find in the dim light under the tree canopy, but there was nothing else there. He cast about in circles looking for anything unusual. It was a mess of ferns, creeper and fallen trees. The ground was a soft mat of rotten mulch. There, a few metres to the right of the original drop, his beam of light followed the line of a fallen log that had come to rest on a low angle. Along the trunk where a branch had once sprouted, a brick-sized stone balanced on the stump. This could not have been a natural formation. It was coated in moss and slime. Alex donned some driving gloves from his pocket, then cast the stone to one side and peered into the shallow cavity beneath. A plastic wrapped package, dark with slime and tree rot filled the space. He plucked the filthy package out and cast it to the ground, flipping it with his toe while checking for spiders. He’d had enough encounters with venom this trip and was taking no chances. It was clear. He picked it up again and fought his way back to the car, placing the unopened package on the centre console. Not wanting to stay in Kempthorne Lane any longer than necessary, Alex turned the car around using a series of short reverses and made for the open highway. A good five kilometres down the main road to Hobart, he pulled to a wayside stop and killed the engine. His curiosity could wait no longer.

Tightly wrapped inside the slimy bag was a second bag, inside that was a third bag, this one a vivid red, with the logo of a record shop on the side. From the bag he withdrew a clean and dry plastic cassette case, with a cassette still within. It was a Led Zeplin album with a cover that featured a portrait of an old man bent low, carrying a large bundle of sticks. Inside was a black pre-recorded cassette, with an orange label showing the names of various tracks. He noticed that the last track of Side 1 was ‘Stairway to heaven.’ There was roughly an even amount of tape on each reel, so it hadn’t been rewound.

There was something else. Pre-recorded cassettes always had a shallow hole at each end of the lower edge. Alex knew that cassette players were designed to detect these depressions with a metal finger. This would prevent an owner from accidentally recording over an expensive album. The edge of the cassette before him had a square of sticky tape placed over one of these holes. This was only ever done when someone wanted to re-use a cassette for their own purposes.

Certainly, Alex had no way of playing the tape here. Cassette players had rapidly disappeared from the music scene a couple of decades earlier, when CD’s first arrived. Cassettes had been a cheap way to play pre-recorded music in a car, but the quality was poor and the tapes stretched and slowed the audio after repeated use. Worst of all, you couldn’t skip to the next track without holding a pesky ‘fast forward’ button down for a long time.

Alex returned the tape to its case, safely stored it in the glove compartment and continued on his way to Hobart.

Chapter 24

Time seemed to pass quickly on this return trip to Hobart. Alex had much to think about. There were fine glimpses of Mount Wellington on the approach to the city. As usual, it was ringed by heavy cloud.

Alex followed a narrow arterial road, past a seemingly endless string of single-level strip shops, before finally arriving at Tessa’s motel. His large Ford consuming the narrow parking space beside her compact hire car. Using a gloved hand, he recovered the cassette tape and mounted the concrete steps to her room.

Tessa smiled and held the door open. She was pleased he’d made the trip in good time. They kissed briefly, then Alex slid along a bench seat before a worn 1970’s style, wire-frame table, Tessa ventured into the kitchenette to prepare some coffee. Centred on the table were three small stacks of documents, each with coloured ‘sign here’ tabs protruding from the right-hand edge. Below these lay a waiting pen. He ignored it all for the moment. Instead, spoke of his encounter back in Strahan.

“I met Helena again. She found me in a café.”

Tessa brought two cups to the table, positioned them on a pair of ancient cork coasters and waited for him to continue.

“Essentially, she denies that there was ever any relationship between her mother and Ben. It seems like we’re not going to convince her otherwise.” Alex went on to describe their conversation in greater detail and revealed the apparent desperation of Salina before her untimely death.

For Tessa, the story touched a sore spot. “Kempthorne was a bastard. He ruled his own family with the same selfishness that drove his politics. I despise bullying behaviour wherever I see it. In my work, I’ve seen plenty. Guys like Kempthorn view everyone around them in one of two ways. They either help him to get what he wants, or they are in his way. These guys won’t hesitate to use their power to crush anyone who falls to that second category.” Lifting her coffee cup in both hands, she blew slowly across its surface to cool it, then lowered it carefully back to the table. It was a relaxing action. “You said you found another clue in the forest. What was there?”

“I found this.” Alex produced the music cassette and delicately placed it on the table. “I think there’s something on it apart from the music.”

“Mmm, I haven’t seen one of these in years. We need to get hold of a player and check it out.”

“Can we still buy cassette players anywhere?”

“I doubt we can get a new one easily, but there’s bound to be some at the opp-shops. I’ve spotted a few of these in this area, when we’ve finished up here, we’ll go for a walk and check some out.”

She waved a hand at the paperwork laid out on the table.

“In the mean time, we’ve’ prepared these documents to secure Ben’s property for you. Verbally, we have had the go ahead, but there’s a process. One letter is an application by you, as an heir, to buy back the land. They reply with a letter of offer, then you reply with another document accepting that offer and payment of a token deposit to lock it in. The rest is normal title search and settlement paperwork. If all goes well, it will be all yours in about three weeks.”

“Thanks. That’s great. I’m amazed how you have been able to nail this so quickly. It’s a first for me. I’ve not owned land before.”

“You’re getting a bargain. It is being sold ‘as-is’. I’m sure they don’t appreciate the heritage value of all the stuff left behind. Probably, they don’t want to know. They dislike complex properties. Mind you, although they’ve never done anything to the land, as soon as it’s transferred, they’ll hit you with a standard fuel-reduction notice to get the grass cut.”

“That’s fine, I’ll return next month, get a proper gate and gravel driveway laid. Then I can look at getting a modern relocatable cabin up there. Something with fewer snakes and spiders would be nice.”

He completed the paperwork, then together they left the room, crossed the car park and took to the street on foot. It was a cool afternoon with a fresh breeze. Heavy cloud had settled low over the city. The footpath took them past a string of aging low-rent strip-shops. Soon enough they encountered a charity run secondhand goods store. A garish LED ‘open’ sign adjacent to a heavy glass door. It had the usual array of unsorted books, used furniture and racks of diverse clothing. No sound equipment could be seen. A frail woman with thinning white hair observed their arrival and approached to volunteer assistance.

Tessa smiled. “We’re looking for something to listen to music cassettes. Would you have any old players for that?”

The woman shook her head. “Sorry, nothing like that. We don’t sell electrical goods as they have to be safety tested. The cost for us to get the testing done is more than we get back when we sell them.”

“Oh. Are there any other stores nearby that could have them?”

“There is a church run shop a bit further up the street. They seem to carry some electrical items.”

“Thanks, we’ll check them out.” They left the store and kept walking in the same direction. After a three minute walk, they found an almost identical store and went inside. It was deeper than the previous shop and they immediately recognised a rack with assorted DVD players, amplifiers and speakers. On the floor was an old laundry basket with a tangle of cables and adaptors. Alex crouched down and pawed through the mess of cables. From the chaos he jubilantly extracted a black portable cassette player. It had a missing battery compartment cover and a grubby AC supply cable wrapped around its middle. A white handwritten sticker said $5.

“We have a winner! It looks a bit nineteen-seventies, but it should do the trick.” They took it to the counter and waited for a break in the deep conversation between two middle-aged women clad in floral aprons. Eventually he got a word in and they suspended the chatter long enough to take the payment.

The walk back to the room passed quickly and Alex arranged the player on the table, inserted the tape and pressed play. A guitar riff was in progress. The audio quality was not great, but it worked. He pressed stop, then rewind, but nothing happened. Remembering an old cassette trick, he removed the tape, gave it several good taps on the edge of the table and reinserted it for another try. This time it slowly began to reel backwards, picking up speed as it went.

“Tapes often got grabby if they hadn’t been played for a while. They need to be shaken up a bit.”

It took a full minute for the tape to reach the beginning of the reel where the motor sounds stopped and the rewind button popped up.

“Just a moment.” Tessa picked up her phone, set it up as a sound recorder and propped it up against an empty coffee cup near the player. “I don’t know what’s coming, but I’ll feel a bit more comfortable with a backup recording in our kit.” She made the classic index finger across the lips sign for room silence and pressed Play.

Chapter 25

There were a few clicks and crackles then an extended silence. Eventually there were sounds of light footsteps on a timber floor. Someone was moving about. A female voice whispered close to the microphone. “It’s three thirty in the afternoon on April twelve.” There was movement back and forth for about a minute, then more silence.

New footsteps could be heard. Heavier, longer strides. They stopped.

“What do you want? I’m busy.” It was a deep, cultured and highly distinctive voice.

“Noel, I’ve had enough and I’m going. I’m leaving you. Helena is coming with me.”

There was very little hesitation in the reply. A slap echoed loud in the room punctuated by a gasp of pain. This merged into a protracted wail that descended into sobs. “Ungrateful bitch. You’re going nowhere.” The retort was loud and thick with snarled words. “You know the Party won’t accept a divorce. Look at me. You’re going to stay, smile for the cameras and do your fucking job. Do you understand me?”

There was no reply but the sobs continued. There was another crack as hand met face for a second time. “I said… do you understand me?”

There must have been a nod because the next words were a confirmation. “Right. Forget these fucking stupid ideas about leaving and get yourself cleaned up. We’ve got that function in three hours.” He hesitated for half a minute, but agitated footsteps could be heard.

“Don’t ever think about crossing me. You know exactly what happens to those that try. Ask the skeletons at the bottom of the lake. I put them there and by Christ, I’ll put you there too. Maybe they’ll enjoy the company.”

“I… I want…”

“I don’t give a shit what you want. You, or your whinging daughter. So shut the fuck up, get into that overpriced party dress and be ready to go at five-thirty. Right?” Some heavy footsteps stomped around a little more. “I’ve got work to do and I don’t want to hear any more of your pathetic whining.”

The footsteps tramped into the distance, to the accompaniment of squeaking floorboards. For most of a minute, heavy breathing and sobs could be heard that tapered into silence. Some crackling close by the microphone came next, then the woman’s voice returned, stronger, defiant. “Ben, if you hear this, then something’s happened to me. Be careful who you take it to. He’s got half the state police in his pocket.” There was a long sob and an emphatic: “Noel Kempthorne…fuck you.”

The recording clicked off and was replaced by a heavy guitar solo. The original soundtrack had returned.

Alex pressed the stop button on the playback and Tessa halted the phone recording. Both let out a long breath.

Tessa spoke first. “This happened more than twenty years ago and I’m so angry, I’m still shaking. We’ve got to nail this bastard, but I think Salina was right. If we take it to the police, this evidence will be accidentally lost or wiped and nothing will ever happen.”

“What can we do then?”

She briefly pondered the issue. “If we let a journalist print the story first, one who then hands over the evidence to the police, it can’t be ignored. Wait. I’ll call my office.”

Tessa made the call and spoke to a colleague, scribbled some notes on a pad and returned the phone to the table.

“Right. Kempthorne made a lot of enemies of journalists, but one name stood out. Jamie Litchfield. He’s been in the business for years and operates here out of Hobart. I’ll give him a call.”

The ring tone seemed to go on endlessly, then stopped and was replaced with a restless “Yeah.” The voice sounded breathless and weary, as though the call was interrupting sleep. Tessa introduced herself briefly and referenced the name of her Melbourne colleague.

“Mmm. Yeah, I know the guy. So what’s up?”

“Mister Litchfield, do you know the name Noel Kempthorn?”

The question brought a clearer, more measured reply, tinted with distain. “I’m familiar with this person. I wish I wasn’t. What do you want?”

“I’m just the messenger. I’m in town, not far away. I’ve come into possession of some material that implicates Noel Kempthorn in a major crime. This material has never been revealed before today. Is this something that would be of interest to you?”

There was a slow exhale then… “Yeah. Yes, I’m interested. Can we meet…now?”

Tessa gave directions and ended the call. She turned to Alex who raised eyebrows questioningly. He had only heard one side of the conversation. “He seemed excited.” She offered. “He’s on his way.”

Chapter 26

While waiting for the journalist to arrive, they played the recording again, this time using the digital copy on the phone. It let them test the integrity of the copy without risking the original on the cheap player.

The recording was clear and hearing it a second time was just as chilling. Once completed, Alex went through a folder of notes and retrieved a printed copy of the original Strahan Star clipping about the drowning.

There was a knock at the door. The journalist introduced himself. He was tall, middle aged, with black hair, knotted and streaked with grey patches. A weak chin was partially concealed by a thin beard and moustache, spotted with the same shades of grey. He placed a small case on the table and withdrew a notepad and pen. “First up, confirm your names please.” The two spoke them in turn and the information was carefully noted. “You said on the phone that you had some proof which implicated Noel Kempthorne in a major crime.

With her experience in law, Tessa felt it was appropriate for her to take control of the conversation. “Yes, but please understand that we are not party to the crime and supply all information under condition of anonymity.”

He nodded. “Ok, I can work with that.”

Alex handed a document to Tessa, which she then placed before the journalist. “Here’s a newspaper article from 1986 which describes the accidental drowning of Salina Kempthorne the wife of the then Forest and Mining Minister, Noel Kempthorne.” The journalist skimmed through the article.

Tessa continued. “It was listed as a boating accident. This was despite her drowning close to shore in a small lake. She had a history of having been an excellent swimmer. There was no police investigation.”

“Mmmm…I do vaguely recall this incident. It was well reported. There were lots of photos of him holding up his young daughter. He got a bit of a political boost from the public sympathy. It didn’t come from me. He was a nasty, self-serving hatchet man.” He returned the article to the table. “I know he didn’t like me. He’d had me turfed out of a few press conferences. Apparently I asked too many difficult questions.” The visitor tapped his front teeth absently with his pen. “He retired from politics…maybe fifteen years ago, but was still pretty active behind the scenes for a long while. He never stopped being a prick.”

Tessa nodded. Her recommendation to contact this journo was a good one. “There’s a lot more to it.” She picked up her cup and casually propped her back against the kitchen wall. “He was a violent man at home. His wife, Salina was trying to leave him before she died. This brings me to the point. We’ve come into possession of a recording she made one week before she died.” Tessa nodded and again Alex hit the play button on the phone recording, filling the room with sounds from the past.

When the recording finally reverted to music, Alex stopped the playback and sat back in his chair, waiting for the journalist to react. He was obviously shocked. Picking up his note pad, he didn’t write, but simply doodled some circles. “Who else has heard this? Where did it come from?”

“Apart from the late Salina, only the three of us in this room know about the tape. After Salina made this recording, she carefully wrapped it up and placed it in a log, in the forest near her home. It’d been there undisturbed until Alex found it this morning. That is the extent of our involvement.”

“In the recording she says she left the message for someone called ‘Ben’. Who was that?”

“For the record, we have no idea. Off the record I can say that this person never heard the recording and died some years later without being aware of its existence.”

“Salina’s daughter. She’d be grown up now. How surprised will she be to hear evidence that her father killed her mother?”

“That will be a question for her. Helena was a little over three years old at the time. However, if she knows her father, then she has probably always suspected it.”

“Alright then. I’ve listened to Kempthorne speak for years. The voice on the tape is distinctively his. Make no mistake, there are many people who would like to see this bastard go down. After hearing the tape, I’d have to say that I’m probably one of them.” He looked at Tessa and Alex in turn. “What would you two like to see happen from this point?”

Alex made his position clear. “I don’t care how old he is now. He’s a murderer and has to answer for that. We’d like you to release this tape as a story, but keep our names out of it. As soon as the story breaks, surrender the tape to the State Director of Prosecutions and hopefully justice take its course. They can’t ignore it.”

“Fine then. I can do that, but I’ll have to reveal where the tape was found and its original packaging. That will be essential for me to confirm its authenticity.”

Alex produced a large zip bag containing the nest of filthy plastic layers that had preserved the tape for so many years. “This is all of it. My prints are not on any part of it. I’ll make a sketch for you to show exactly where it was found. From there it’s up to you. Are we good?”

“Yes…we are.” The journalist arose and shook hands. “It’s a sad business for the family, but the truth is going to give some solace to the many who had been screwed over by this guy.” He transferred the evidence to his small case and left the apartment.

Epilogue

For the next two weeks they didn’t see much of each other. Tessa returned to her office to deal with a wall of work that didn’t care where she’d been. Like a lot of law firms, the partners of Bloomfield & Close dealt with clients and cases with a fair level of independence. Even so, there are consultations, rumours and chatter that permeate through a building like ants seeking sugar. Some partners followed the Ben Caslow case as an intriguing contrast to their own dull portfolios. The blossoming relationship between Tessa and her investigator was duly observed and noted. Still, they didn’t pass comment. It was her case and for better or worse, her life.

Following Tessa’s departure, Alex returned to the Bruny Island property for further inspection. He used the time to formulate plans for improvements. He’d have to get that tall grass under control and clean up the site. High on the list would be the purchase of a reliable tractor and a few detachable implements. With most of his mainland travel confined to towns and open highway, there was little need for returning with his larger utility vehicle. He resolved to garage it in Hobart for Tasmanian use and buy a smaller commuter vehicle on the next trip back to Melbourne. This would provide the freedom of air travel and avoid the need for the slower overnight ferry service.

It came as a relief to focus on a personal project for a spell, without the pressing demands of his investigation role. It was also a lonely time. This had never bothered Alex before, but over these past few months he’d been sharing his daily adventures with Tessa. Going it alone left something of a void.

Alex felt good when he stepped out of the domestic terminal at Melbourne airport. He eyed the cloud ridden sky and decided it wasn’t going to rain anytime soon. He swung a large pack over one shoulder and located the shuttle coach that would convey him directly to the city centre.

From Collins Street, he mounted the low steps at the offices of Tessa’s law firm. Once more, he came under close scrutiny from the receptionist at the front desk. The woman took her role seriously as the primary defence for keeping unsavoury riff-raff at bay. As he entered the foyer, the woman inspected Alex from head to toe with the thoroughness of a medical scan. With a disdainful twitch of her pointed nose, she somehow found him to be lacking in one or more undefined traits.

Alex remained unfazed. He swung the pack from his shoulders, propped it between his feet and announced that he had an appointment with Ms. Rathdown.

Without letting her gaze shift from his form, perhaps to ensure that he wouldn’t pocket a drink coaster, or liberate extra mints from the visitor bowl. She brought a phone to one ear, dialled by feel and briskly whispered that there was ‘a person’ waiting in the foyer.

A scant minute passed and Tessa appeared in a doorway. “This way please mister Kingbridge.” She turned and retraced her steps, not pausing to see if he followed.

Alex entered the office and she efficiently closed the door behind him. The pack was discarded on the floor and they swept into each others arms for an epic hug and tender homecoming kiss.

Tessa tilted her head back and smiled. “I missed you.” She pulled the second visitors chair close to the first. “Here, sit.” They filled the two chairs and regaled each other with small talk. “I’ve got to get out of here for a spell. I’m getting buried in work.”

“You have to stop getting so distracted. There’s your problem.”

“Yeah, well… That’s not going to happen.”

Alex held her hand and they just grinned in silence for a moment. Just happy to be together again.

“You reported to the partners that the Tasmanian connection was a dead end?”

She nodded. “Yep, a fairly dry report showed that there were no Caslow descendents to a now deceased Salina and that thread is now closed.”

Tessa reached across the desk and recovered a thick newspaper, still folded. “This mornings edition. Here, I saved it for you.”

Alex unfolded it and took in the lead story.

Retired minister charged with murder

Tasmanian police have charged Noel Kempthorne, now 84, with the murder of his wife Salina Kempthorne in 1986. He had been known for his work in the Tasmanian government for many years, including his controversial involvement with the Franklin River dam protests. Fresh evidence has been revealed to implicate him in the death of his wife by drowning. A lake near his family home is also being searched by divers for remains of other missing persons…

“Wow, that’s… extraordinary. Jamie came good with his news story. I’m glad. Kempthorne had buggered up a lot of lives and deserves this.”

“Yes.” Tessa agreed “Our Ben Caslow enquiries may have hit a wall down there, but It’s satisfying that we played a part in seeing some justice done. He represents the worst of all that I despise in bigotry and politics.”

She released a pent up breath, collected the paper and thrust it back onto the desk. “We’ll talk about that later… after dinner.”

“Ok what’s next?”

In reply, Tessa leaned over her desk once more and recovered a single sheet, which she passed to Alex. “Here’s your next project.”

Alex read out loud the single word on the paper. “Townsville.”

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